Elan Journo
Elan Journo is a junior fellow at the Ayn Rand Institute in Irvine, Calif. The Institute promotes the ideas of Ayn Rand--best-selling author of Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead and originator of the philosophy of Objectivism.
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Articles by Elan Journo
September 11, 2009
Watching video of the Twin Towers imploding, we all felt horror and outrage. We expected our government to fight back--to protect us from the enemy that attacked us on 9/11. We knew it must, and could, be done. Fighting all-out after Pearl Harbor, we had defeated the colossal naval and air forces of...
July 15, 2008
Imagine that your neighborhood is overrun by a gang. These brutes are wielding crowbars, knives, and pistols in a frenzied spree of home break-ins and mugging and murder. Now suppose the police reveal that their grand strategy for dealing with this gang is to block them from getting submachine guns-...
June 18, 2008
It's staggering to think that as we march toward a seventh year at war, Iraq (let alone Afghanistan) is hardly an issue on the campaign trail. Of course, nobody has forgotten about the war. But there's been no substantive debate on it, either.
John McCain, echoing many conservatives, regularly t...
December 29, 2007
The assassination of Benazir Bhutto has, we’re told, upended Washington’s foreign policy. “Our foreign policy has relied on her presence as a stabilizing force. . . . Without her, we will have to regroup,” explained Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) in the Washington Post. “It complicates life for the Amer...
December 05, 2007
Few reports about the Islamist threat are more alarming than the situation right now in Pakistan--a nuclear-armed country that Washington hails as a "major non-NATO ally."
Having supported Musharraf's regime, Washington is now scrambling--pressing Musharraf to share power with opponent Benazir B...
October 29, 2007
Ever since President Bush's you're-either-with-us-or-with-the-terrorists speech in 2001, his administration has been regarded as shaping its defense policy according to black-and-white moral judgments. If you haven't already been convinced that that speech was empty rhetoric, last week offered anoth...
October 25, 2007
Western "diplomacy" has strengthened North Korea.
Thanks to a new diplomatic deal, the nuclear stand-off with North Korea will allegedly end bloodlessly. In exchange for 950,000 tons of fuel oil, or its equivalent in economic aid and diplomatic concessions from the West, North Korea has promised...
September 11, 2007
As Iran continues to expand its nuclear development program, and moves ever closer to acquiring nuclear weapons, many agree that something must be done. But what? Bush's disastrous foreign policy--especially the Iraq fiasco--has led many to conclude that diplomatic "engagement" is our best hope for ...
September 06, 2007
On the anniversary of 9/11, we are reminded that the forces of Islamic totalitarianism continue to threaten our lives. What should we do to protect ourselves? Depressingly, today's prevailing answer is to urge some form of "diplomacy"--and rule out as inconceivable the one option our self-defense de...
August 22, 2007
Back to school nowadays means back to classrooms, lessons and textbooks permeated by multiculturalism and its championing of "diversity." Many parents and teachers regard multiculturalism as an indispensable educational supplement, a salutary influence that "enriches" the curriculum. But is it?
...
July 07, 2007
Americans rightly admire our troops for their bravery, dedication and integrity. The Marines, for instance, are renowned for abiding by an honorable code--as warriors and as individuals in civilian life. They epitomize the rectitude of America's soldiers. But a recently disclosed Pentagon study--lit...
July 03, 2007
Americans rightly admire our troops for their bravery, dedication and integrity. The Marines, for instance, are renowned for abiding by an honorable code--as warriors and as individuals in civilian life. They epitomize the rectitude of America's soldiers. But a recently disclosed Pentagon study--lit...
June 23, 2007
Bush's disastrous foreign policy--especially the Iraq fiasco--has led many to conclude that diplomatic "engagement" is our best hope for stopping Iran's nuclear program. But while Bush's policy is a failure, engagement is not the solution.
Bush's "moralistic" approach, we're told, entails denounc...
April 04, 2007
Washington's policy of bringing elections to the Middle East, we were assured, would lead the region's people to embrace America. But in fact many have flocked to support Islamic totalitarians--members of the ideological movement behind 9/11.
In Lebanon's U.S.-backed election, Hezbollah won posi...
March 11, 2007
Western "diplomacy" has strengthened North Korea.
Thanks to a new diplomatic deal, the nuclear stand-off with North Korea will allegedly end bloodlessly. In exchange for $400 million worth of aid and diplomatic concessions from the West, North Korea has promised to start disabling its nuclear fa...
February 16, 2007
The Bush administration claims to have a way to deter the militant theocracy of Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons--and thwart its ambition to bring "death to America." Washington's plan aims to pressure Teheran, financially and psychologically. The idea is to cut off Iran's nuclear program from ba...
January 02, 2007
Western "diplomacy" has strengthened North Korea.
When North Korea detonated a nuclear bomb in October, it erased all doubts about the threat it poses to not only South Korea and Japan, but also to the United States. To end this nuclear stand-off without bloodshed, many people are urging t...
December 15, 2006
The UN's vaunted neutrality props up evil regimes.
The appointment of a new Secretary General of the United Nations, Korean diplomat Ban Ki-moon, has inspired hopeful talk of "reforming" the organization. Detractors and proponents of the UN agree that institutional changes are needed, and indee...
December 07, 2006
The Iraq Study Group has issued many specific recommendations, but the options boil down to a maddeningly limited range: pull out or send more troops to do democracy-building and, either way, "engage" the hostile regimes in Iran and Syria. Missing from the list is the one option our self-defense dem...
November 06, 2006
America's campaign in Afghanistan was once widely hailed as a success in the "war on terror." We have nothing more to fear from Afghanistan, our policy makers told us, because the war had accomplished its two main goals: al Qaeda and its sponsoring regime, the Taliban, were supposedly long gone, and...
July 20, 2006
The Iran-Hamas-Hezbollah axis is fully responsible for initiating the war on Israel, but the Islamists' aggression is the logical product of U.S.-Israeli policy. The longstanding commitment of Israel and America to "diplomatic engagement" with Palestinians and Islamists--a euphemism for appeasement-...
July 03, 2006
Western "diplomacy" has strengthened North Korea.
After decades of chasing nuclear weapons, North Korea is on the brink of success. Worse yet, it may already have the means of mounting an attack against us. According to news reports, North Korea is about to test-fire a powerful long-range missi...
June 07, 2006
Unlike the seemingly endless war in Iraq, America's campaign in Afghanistan is widely considered a success in the "war on terror." We have nothing more to fear from Afghanistan, our policy makers tell us, because the war accomplished its two main goals: al Qaeda and its sponsoring regime, the Taliba...
May 11, 2006
America's appeasing foreign policy encouraged Hamas.
America's policy of backing "land for peace" deals in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was supposed to stop Palestinian terrorism and culminate in a Palestinian state coexisting with Israel "side by side in peace and security." But after years...
May 02, 2006
Successful CEOs are indispensable to their companies and deserve their high salaries.
During his final year as chairman of Exxon, Lee Raymond received one of the largest compensation and retirement packages in history--worth nearly $400 million. Such disclosures fuel the rampant suspicion that d...
April 10, 2006
Successful CEOs are indispensable to their companies and deserve their high salaries.
The Coca Cola Co. has instituted a significant new plan for compensating its directors: they will not receive payment unless the company meets its financial targets. But even if other corporations adopted simil...
January 26, 2006
By granting Hussein a trial, justice is perverted.
The American-endorsed trial of Saddam Hussein is touted as an opportunity to render justice and lay the groundwork for an Iraqi transition from the arbitrary courts of a dictatorship to a proper legal system. But the trial will accomplish neither...
January 11, 2006
European "diplomacy" with Iran--supported by Washington--necessarily strengthened Iran.
European diplomats, who courted Iran in an attempt to halt its suspected nuclear weapons program, regret that "diplomacy" did not dissuade Iran from its plans. But this failure was foreseeable.
Europe's dipl...
October 27, 2005
European "diplomacy" with Iran--now supported by Washington--is self-destructive.
The president of Iran--a country believed to be building nuclear weapons--recently demanded that "Israel must be wiped off the map." But European diplomats, who are courting Iran in an attempt to halt its suspected ...
October 20, 2005
The United Nations, according to many, is a crucial institution nobly working to foster peace. Even the UN's critics, believing that its manifold flaws can be papered over with "reforms," agree that it is indispensable. But such adulation of the United Nations--which was officially born on Oct. 24 s...
September 21, 2005
The UN's vaunted neutrality props up evil regimes.
More than 170 political leaders from around the world recently met at the United Nations to consider what the New York Times called "the most sweeping institutional changes" in the organization's history. But this exercise was, predictably, hopel...
September 20, 2005
Far from disarming North Korea, "diplomacy" strengthens it.
The draft agreement to end the nuclear standoff with North Korea is already being celebrated as a triumph for "diplomacy." President Bush has cautiously lauded the new deal as "a step forward in making this world a more secure place." Un...