We won’t win the war on terror simply by killing, capturing, and imprisoning al-Qaeda terrorists and Taliban fighters; but neither can we afford to let up on them. If we pull out of Iraq or Afghanistan before those countries have governments that are stable enough to keep a tight lid on our enemies, we’ll soon be right back where we started. We can use missile and drone attacks and covert forces to kill our enemies in Yemen and Pakistan; but what do you think will happen when the next Umar Abdulmutallab or Faisal Shahzad succeeds in killing hundreds or thousands of Americans? Will we not again retaliate?
The negative effects of permanent war on the U.S. armed forces, on the American people, and on America’s diminishing financial resources are obvious. When compared to the effects of a chemical, biological, or nuclear terrorist weapon going off in an American city, however, those effects become secondary considerations.
No matter how much President Obama or his successor may want to end the permanent war, there is no exit strategy in a war with an enemy that relentlessly attacks the U.S. homeland. We can’t negotiate our way out, like we did in Korea; nor can we simply decide it’s costing too much in lives and treasure and walk away from it, as we did from Vietnam. This time the enemy will come after us.
Whatever your views on America’s ongoing multi-front war, it is not going to end anytime soon. We’ll be fighting this war “for the rest of our lives and probably our kids’ lives.” The Pentagon, the White House, and the American people must come together on a strategy for sustaining that fight until we ultimately defeat our enemy.
Tag: World Politics
The G.O.P’s “Pledge to America” is nothing more retread Neo-Conservative, Theocracy nonsense
This is pretty rich; The Republican Party is trotting out the same old George W. Bush style of Governence, with some new promises. Promises that the Republican Party actually expect the American people to believe that they will actually keep.
Let us go through this thing, shall we?
This comes Via CBS NEWS:
CBS News has obtained a final draft of House Republicans’ legislative agenda for the next Congress, a 21-page "Pledge to America" that they will formally unveil Thursday morning at a Virginia hardware store.
"The need for urgent action to repair our economy and reclaim our government for the people cannot be overstated," the introduction says.
It continues: "With this document, we pledge to dedicate ourselves to the task of reconnecting our highest aspirations to the permanent truths of our founding by keeping faith with the values our nation was founded on, the principles we stand for, and the priorities of our people. This is our Pledge to America."
Let look at this thing shall we? I mean, I need a good laugh! I will spare you the hum drum, "Patriot" sounding nonsense and puffery, and I will get to the meat and point out the crap.
We pledge to honor families, traditional marriage, life, and the private and faith-based organizations that form the core of our American values.
We pledge to make government more transparent in its actions, careful in its stewardship, and honest in its dealings.
We pledge to uphold the purpose and promise of a better America, knowing that to whom much is given, much is expected and that the blessings of our liberty buoy the hopes of mankind.
We make this pledge bearing true faith and allegiance to the people we represent, and we invite fellow citizens and patriots to join us in forming a new governing agenda for America.
Hmmm, Sounds like they want to turn America into a theocracy.
Continuing:
Permanently Stop All Job-Killing Tax Hikes: We will help the economy by permanently stopping all tax increases, currently scheduled to take effect January 1, 2011. That means protecting middle-class families, seniors worried about their retirement, and the entrepreneurs and family-owned small businesses on which we depend to create jobs in America.
• Give Small Businesses a Tax Deduction: We will allow small business owners to take a tax deduction equal to 20 percent of their business income. This will provide entrepreneurs with a much-needed infusion of capital for investment and new hiring.
• Rein In the Red Tape Factory in Washington, DC: Excessive federal regulation is a de facto tax on employers and consumers that stifles job creation, hampers innovation and postpones investment in the economy. When the game is always changing, small businesses cannot properly plan for the future. To provide stability, we will require congressional approval of any new federal regulation that has an annual cost to our economy of $100 million or more. This is the threshold at which the government deems a regulation “economically significant.” If a regulation is so “significant” and costly that it may harm job creation, Congress should vote on it first.
• Repeal Job-Killing Small Business Mandates: One of the most controversial mandates of the Democrats’ government takeover of health care requires small businesses to report to the Internal Revenue Service any purchases that run more than $600. This 1099 reporting mandate is so overbearing that the IRS ombudsman has determined that the agency is ill-equipped to handle all the resulting paperwork.. We will repeal this job-killing small business mandate.
This was all promised before and never was enacted.
Act Immediately to Reduce Spending: There is no reason to wait to reduce wasteful and unnecessary spending. Congress should move immediately to cancel unspent “stimulus” funds, and block any attempts to extend the timeline for spending “stimulus” funds. Throwing more money at a stimulus plan that is not working only wastes taxpayer money and puts us further in debt.
• Cut Government Spending to Pre-Stimulus, Pre-Bailout Levels: With common-sense exceptions for seniors, veterans, and our troops, we will roll back government spending to pre-stimulus, pre-bailout levels, saving us at least $100 billion in the first year alone and putting us on a path to begin paying down the debt, balancing the budget, and ending the spending spree in Washington that threatens our children’s future.
• Establish a Hard Cap on New Discretionary Spending: We must put common-sense limits on the growth of government and stop the endless increases. Only in Washington is there an expectation that whatever your budget was last year, it will be more this year and even more the next. We will set strict budget caps to limit federal spending on an annual basis. Budget caps were used in the 1990s, when a Republican Congress was able to bring the budget into balance and eventual surplus. By cutting discretionary spending from current levels and imposing a hard cap on future growth, we will save taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars.
• Cut Congress’ Budget: This year, Congress increased its own budget by 5.8 percent at a time when families and small businesses across the country are cutting back. We will make Congress do more with less by significantly reducing its budget.
• Hold Weekly Votes on Spending Cuts: Earlier this year, House Republicans launched the YouCut initiative to combat the permissive culture of runaway spending in Congress. Over the course of nine weeks, YouCut produced proposals to save taxpayers more than $120 billion. We will continue to hold weekly votes on spending cuts.
• End TARP Once And For All: Americans are rightly outraged at the bailouts of businesses and entities that force responsible taxpayers to subsidize irresponsible behavior. We will cancel the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), a move that would save taxpayers roughly $16 billion.
• End Government Control of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac: Since taking over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the mortgage companies that triggered the financial meltdown by giving too many high risk loans to people who couldn’t afford them, taxpayers were billed more than $145 billion to save the two companies. We will reform Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac by ending their government takeover, shrinking their portfolios, and establishing minimum capital standards. This will save taxpayers as much as $30 billion.
• Impose a Net Federal Hiring Freeze of Non-Security Employees: Small businesses and entrepreneurs are the engine of our economy and should not be crowded out by unchecked government growth. We will impose a net hiring freeze on non-security federal employees and ensure that the public sector no longer grows at the expense of the private sector.
• Root Out Government Waste and Duplication: Once created, federal programs almost never go away, even if the problem they were created to address is no longer relevant. More than 20 states have addressed this problem by requiring that programs end – or “sunset” – by a date certain. We will adopt this requirement at the federal level to force Congress to determine if a program is worthy of continued taxpayer support.
• Reform the Budget Process to Focus on Long-Term Challenges: We will make the decisions that are necessary to protect our entitlement programs for today’s seniors and future generations. That means requiring a full accounting of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, setting benchmarks for these programs and reviewing them regularly, and preventing the expansion of unfunded liabilities.
Again, this was all promised before in the past; and was never done. In fact, spending increased under the previous President.
My favorite so far…:
There is literally no aspect of our economy or our society that the federal government doesn’t tax, regulate or subsidize, and often it does all three at the same time. The most recent edition of the Catalogue of Federal Domestic Assistance listed 2,050 different assistance programs available to states, local governments, for-profit and non-profit organizations, groups, and individuals. Taxpayers are literally funding programs from cradle to grave…
Yes, let’s defund programs for the actual needy, and the Handicapped — like my aunt. Let’s allow them starve. What idiots. 🙄
Here’s the REAL knee slapper!
• Read The Bill: We will ensure that bills are debated and discussed in the public square by publishing the text online for at least three days before coming up for a vote in the House of Representatives. No more hiding legislative language from the minority party, opponents, and the public. Legislation should be understood by all interested parties before it is voted on.
• Adhere To The Constitution: For too long, Congress has ignored the proper limits imposed by the Constitution on the federal government. Further, it has too often drafted unclear and muddled laws, leaving to an unelected judiciary the power to interpret what the law means and by what authority the law stands. This lack of respect for the clear Constitutional limits and authorities has allowed Congress to create ineffective and costly programs that add to the massive deficit year after year. We will require each bill moving through Congress to include a clause citing the specific constitutional authority upon which the bill is justified.
• Make It Easier to Cut Spending: By forbidding amendments on spending bills, Democrats have denied lawmakers the opportunity to tighten Washington’s belt and slash wasteful and duplicative programs. Structure dictates behavior, so we will let any lawmaker — Democrat or Republican — offer amendments to reduce spending.
• Advance Legislative Issues One at a Time: We will end the practice of packaging unpopular bills with “must-pass” legislation to circumvent the will of the American people. Instead, we will advance major legislation one issue at a time.
However, they wish to do this too:
* Pass Clean Troop Funding Bills: When asked to provide our troops with the resources they need, we will do so without delay. That means no more troop funding bills held up by unrelated policy changes, or extraneous domestic spending and pork-barrel projects.
• Keep Terrorists Out of America: We will prevent the government from importing terrorists onto American soil. We will hold President Obama and his administration responsible for any Guantanamo Bay detainees they release who return to fight against our troops or who have become involved in any terrorist plots or activities.
• Demand an Overarching Detention Policy: Foreign terrorists do not have the same rights as American citizens, nor do they have more rights than U.S. military personnel. We will work to ensure foreign terrorists, such as the 9/11 conspirators, are tried in military, not civilian, court. We will oppose all efforts to force our military, intelligence, and law enforcement personnel operating overseas to extend “Miranda Rights” to foreign terrorists.
• Fully Fund Missile Defense: There is real concern that while the threat from Iranian intercontinental ballistic missiles could materialize as early as 2015, the government’s missile defense policy is not projected to cover the U.S. homeland until 2020. We will work to ensure critical funding is restored to protect the U.S. homeland and our allies from missile threats from rogue states such as Iran and North Korea.
• Require Tough Enforcement of Sanctions Against Iran: The Iranian regime is a state-sponsor of terrorism, has actively worked to harm our deployed troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, and violates the rights and will of its own people. It has declared its determination to acquire a nuclear capability, which threatens its neighbors and the security of the United States. We will work to ensure the government aggressively and effectively implements the sanctions tools Congress has provided.
• Establish Operational Control of the Border: We must take action to secure our borders, and that action starts with enforcing our laws. We will ensure that the Border Patrol has the tools and authorities to establish operational control at the border and prohibit the Secretaries of the Interior and Agriculture from interfering with Border Patrol enforcement activities on federal lands.
• Work with State and Local Officials to Enforce Our Immigration Laws: The problem of illegal immigration and Mexican drug cartels engaged in an increasingly violent conflict means we need all hands on deck to address this challenge. We will reaffirm the authority of state and local law enforcement to assist in the enforcement of all federal immigration laws.
• Strengthen Visa Security: To stop terrorists like Omar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Christmas Day bomber, we will require the Department of Homeland Security to review all visa applications at high-risk consular posts and prevent aliens from attempting to avoid deportation after having their visas revoked.
As for immigration; how about we try this novel idea? END ALL IMMIGRATION FOR AT LEAST 10 YEARS! Then, using the Government’s already vast resources, we round up, and DEPORT ALL Illegal immigrants in this damn country and BAR THEM from returned to the United States, FOREVER!
Yes, we want to stick to the constitution; but we also want to keep funding the Military industrial complex! This one was really one that makes me ill:
Require Tough Enforcement of Sanctions Against Iran: The Iranian regime is a state-sponsor of terrorism, has actively worked to harm our deployed troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, and violates the rights and will of its own people. It has declared its determination to acquire a nuclear capability, which threatens its neighbors and the security of the United States. We will work to ensure the government aggressively and effectively implements the sanctions tools Congress has provided.
Oh yes, let’s antagonize the hell out of Iran, until they strike one of our interests overseas; like Iraq and we end up having to go into that Country or some other one, with our interests in it. Which would lead to more War…….again!
Here is a novel idea. How about ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan now? Because Iraq is done; let them people deal with their own Country. Afghanistan is basically lost. The Russians tried rebuilding that god-forsaken wilderness and failed. Why do we think that we can do it any better? Al-Qaeda is basically in Pakistan and so damned well protected; that we will never get them, unless we keep hitting civilian targets. Which only inspires more terrorists. Why not just use CIA Drones and bring out troops home? That or just admit that the United States purposefully let down it’s guard; and end the lie, in the first damned place! That way, we can usually save some money for defending America from Terrorism here; seeing that we have created this situation of possible blow back from those wanting to hurt America, because of our stupid invasion of Iraq, which had zero to do with 9/11. How is that for a novel idea?
However, no, we would rather continue with the same old Neo-Conservative, Israel-appeasing, polices that caused 9/11 in the first damned place. In the process, we want to bankrupt the Country, by continuing to fund crap like that. Plus, we continue to fund other Countries, like Israel and their healthcare plan, which includes a public option; which America does not even have. Until this stops. America will continue to be in debt for a long time to come.
For what it is worth, I am not the only person that thinks this is crap. Even the folks at RedState hate it.
UPDATED: On the Bob Woodward Book
I am poking my head back in again — to comment on the big Bob Woodward story, that is the top story on Memeorandum.
I am referring to this:
President Obama urgently looked for a way out of the war in Afghanistan last year, repeatedly pressing his top military advisers for an exit plan that they never gave him, according to secret meeting notes and documents cited in a new book by journalist Bob Woodward.
Frustrated with his military commanders for consistently offering only options that required significantly more troops, Obama finally crafted his own strategy, dictating a classified six-page “terms sheet” that sought to limit U.S. involvement, Woodward reports in “Obama’s Wars,” to be released on Monday.
According to Woodward’s meeting-by-meeting, memo-by-memo account of the 2009 Afghan strategy review, the president avoided talk of victory as he described his objectives.
“This needs to be a plan about how we’re going to hand it off and get out of Afghanistan,” Obama is quoted as telling White House aides as he laid out his reasons for adding 30,000 troops in a short-term escalation. “Everything we’re doing has to be focused on how we’re going to get to the point where we can reduce our footprint. It’s in our national security interest. There cannot be any wiggle room.”
Obama rejected the military’s request for 40,000 troops as part of an expansive mission that had no foreseeable end. “I’m not doing 10 years,” he told Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton at a meeting on Oct. 26, 2009. “I’m not doing long-term nation-building. I am not spending a trillion dollars.”
Woodward’s book portrays Obama and the White House as barraged by warnings about the threat of terrorist attacks on U.S. soil and confronted with the difficulty in preventing them. During an interview with Woodward in July, the president said, “We can absorb a terrorist attack. We’ll do everything we can to prevent it, but even a 9/11, even the biggest attack ever . . . we absorbed it and we are stronger.”
But most of the book centers on the strategy review, and the dissension, distrust and infighting that consumed Obama’s national security team as it was locked in a fierce and emotional struggle over the direction, goals, timetable, troop levels and the chances of success for a war that is almost certain to be one of the defining events of this presidency.
Obama is shown at odds with his uniformed military commanders, particularly Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Gen. David H. Petraeus, head of U.S. Central Command during the 2009 strategy review and now the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan.
Woodward reveals their conflicts through detailed accounts of two dozen closed-door secret strategy sessions and nearly 40 private conversations between Obama and Cabinet officers, key aides and intelligence officials.
Tensions often turned personal. National security adviser James L. Jones privately referred to Obama’s political aides as “the water bugs,” the “Politburo,” the “Mafia,” or the “campaign set.” Petraeus, who felt shut out by the new administration, told an aide that he considered the president’s senior adviser David Axelrod to be “a complete spin doctor.”
During a flight in May, after a glass of wine, Petraeus told his own staffers that the administration was “[expletive] with the wrong guy.” Gates was tempted to walk out of an Oval Office meeting after being offended by comments made by deputy national security adviser Thomas E. Donilon about a general not named in the book.
Suspicion lingered among some from the 2008 presidential campaign as well. When Obama floated the idea of naming Clinton to a high-profile post, Axelrod asked him, “How could you trust Hillary?”
Okay, first off, has everyone forgotten that 90% of what Bob Woodward writes is just straight up, sensationalized Bullshit? The Neo-Cons sure did say that, when Bob Woodward wrote his book about Bush. However, now the Neo-Cons are treating this book like the Gospel truth; because it is about a Democratic Party President. Of course, the warmongering Neo-Cons are eating the whole bit about the terrorist attack up and basically saying that President Obama wants another attack on America. Which is, of course, straight up bullshit.
Some of the other highlights are:
— Obama told Woodward in the July interview that he didn’t think about the Afghan war in the “classic” terms of the United States winning or losing. “I think about it more in terms of: Do you successfully prosecute a strategy that results in the country being stronger rather than weaker at the end?” he said.
— The CIA created, controls and pays for a clandestine 3,000-man paramilitary army of local Afghans, known as Counterterrorism Pursuit Teams. Woodward describes these teams as elite, well-trained units that conduct highly sensitive covert operations into Pakistan as part of a stepped-up campaign against al-Qaeda and Afghan Taliban havens there.
— Obama has kept in place or expanded 14 intelligence orders, known as findings, issued by his predecessor, George W. Bush. The orders provide the legal basis for the CIA’s worldwide covert operations.
— A new capability developed by the National Security Agency has dramatically increased the speed at which intercepted communications can be turned around into useful information for intelligence analysts and covert operators. “They talk, we listen. They move, we observe. Given the opportunity, we react operationally,” then-Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell explained to Obama at a briefing two days after he was elected president.
— A classified exercise in May showed that the government was woefully unprepared to deal with a nuclear terrorist attack in the United States. The scenario involved the detonation of a small, crude nuclear weapon in Indianapolis and the simultaneous threat of a second blast in Los Angeles. Obama, in the interview with Woodward, called a nuclear attack here “a potential game changer.” He said: “When I go down the list of things I have to worry about all the time, that is at the top, because that’s one where you can’t afford any mistakes.”
— Afghan President Hamid Karzai was diagnosed as manic depressive, according to U.S. intelligence reports. “He’s on his meds, he’s off his meds,” Woodward quotes U.S. Ambassador Karl W. Eikenberry as saying.
Again, I have to ask; how much of this is actual truth and how much of it is sensationalized bullshit?
Liberal Blogger No more Mister Nice Blog puts it correctly:
“It’s in our national security interest” “I am not spending a trillion dollars.” At least he understand that endless war is bad for America.
And the reason that’s important is that, if we’re still deeply mired in Afghanistan as of January 20, 2013, we’ll still be just as deeply mired four years later, because President Palin/Pence/Daniels/Thune/Huckabee/Barbour/Christie sure as hell ain’t gonna withdraw. But this semi-rationality on Obama’s part is going to be lost, and the bullet-point version of this entire book is going to be “Obama plans to surrender in Afghanistan to appease the evil traitorous voters in his party.”
I hate to say it; but he is absolutely correct. Because you all know that the Neo-Conservatives are all about perpetual war. But they call me a Neo-Nazi for pointing that out; and because I refuse to do the “Identity politics” for that particular warmongering class of people. I despise identity politics on the left and the right. That, according to the protected class, is being a Neo-Nazi. Which, like most of Bob Woodward’s writings, is just straight up bullshit.
Update: But of course. That is the same idiot that said that Iraq was an imminent danger to America and the rest of the free world back in 2003. Which of course, like Bob Woodward’s books; was straight up bullshit. 🙄
One of the sad side effects of 9/11 and War, Military Crimes
This is one of the saddest things that you would ever want to read.
Via the Washington Post:
AT JOINT BASE LEWIS-MCCHORD, WASH. The U.S. soldiers hatched a plan as simple as it was savage: to randomly target and kill an Afghan civilian, and to get away with it.
For weeks, according to Army charging documents, rogue members of a platoon from the 5th Stryker Combat Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, floated the idea. Then, one day last winter, a solitary Afghan man approached them in the village of La Mohammed Kalay. The “kill team” activated the plan.
One soldier created a ruse that they were under attack, tossing a fragmentary grenade on the ground. Then others opened fire.
According to charging documents, the unprovoked, fatal attack on Jan. 15 was the start of a months-long shooting spree against Afghan civilians that resulted in some of the grisliest allegations against American soldiers since the U.S. invasion in 2001. Members of the platoon have been charged with dismembering and photographing corpses, as well as hoarding a skull and other human bones.
The subsequent investigation has raised accusations about whether the military ignored warnings that the out-of-control soldiers were committing atrocities. The father of one soldier said he repeatedly tried to alert the Army after his son told him about the first killing, only to be rebuffed.
Two more slayings would follow. Military documents allege that five members of the unit staged a total of three murders in Kandahar province between January and May. Seven other soldiers have been charged with crimes related to the case, including hashish use, attempts to impede the investigation and a retaliatory gang assault on a private who blew the whistle.
Army officials have not disclosed a motive for the killings and macabre behavior. Nor have they explained how the attacks could have persisted without attracting scrutiny. They declined to comment on the case beyond the charges that have been filed, citing the ongoing investigation.
But a review of military court documents and interviews with people familiar with the investigation suggest the killings were committed essentially for sport by soldiers who had a fondness for hashish and alcohol.
The accused soldiers, through attorneys and family members, deny wrongdoing. But the case has already been marked by a cycle of accusations and counter-accusations among the defendants as they seek to pin the blame on each other, according to documents and interviews.
The Army has scheduled pre-trial hearings in the case this fall at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, home of the Stryker brigade. (The unit was renamed the 2nd Stryker Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, when it returned from Afghanistan in July.) Military officials say privately that they worry the hearings will draw further attention to the case, with photos and other evidence prompting anger among the Afghan civilians whose support is critical to the fight against the Taliban.
This article is a seriously interesting read; so I will ask you, please head on over at read the rest of it.
Now, if I were a committed Neo-Conservative; like many of the Bloggers on the right, I would say something to the effect of, “Oh, this is just liberal, anti-war propaganda!” If I were a committed Paleo-Conservative, I would say something to the effect of, “See? This is what happens when you go to war! See? See? See?”
Fortunately, I am not committed to either of those positions really.
One of the worst assumptions, that a person can make about the Military, is that every person that volunteers for service; is going to be an honest, upstanding person. There are people out there, which are just hell bent on breaking rules. Only difference is, these people were wearing our Military uniforms when doing so. Could this crime cause problems for us down the road? Maybe. There could be blowback later on. I hope that not — but it does happen.
I do not claim to know the motives for this crime; all I can really do is speculate. One could blame the euphoria after 9/11; one could blame the kids for their desire to kill people. All of that really does not matter; all that matters now is, that there are dead afghans, who really had nothing to do with 9/11, and officers from our Military killed them, for sport. That is a real problem, when it comes to trying to get Afghans to trust us, so that we can make gains with Taliban and ultimately kill or capture the members of Al-Qaeda.
War is a game, a game of strategy; like chess. The problem is the pieces of that game are real human lives on the line. The bad part is this, these idiots, in their moronic desire to kill —- just kicked the damn chess game over. Now, the Military leaders have to upright the game, and hopefully no pieces — or lives — get lost in the process. It is a job and a responsibility that can make even the most steel-nerved person into a bumbling, pill-popping wreck. Another thing is this is not 24 hours news cycle, news sound bite, work. It is long, tedious work, and it can wear the strongest of them down quick.
My thoughts and prayers go out to those who are involved in this situation, at all levels. My Prayers go out to the Soldiers who are in the Afghan Theater fighting what the liberals used to call, “The good war.” God be with them.
Video: REALITY REPORT #61 – DHS Creates Citizenship Database
Disclaimer: It should not be assumed that I agree with all the opinions expressed in this video. I present it for your viewing pleasure and for information purposes only.
Thank you,
-Pat
————
Synopsis:
In this edition of the Reality Report, Gary Franchi discloses how the Department of Homeland Security is maneuvering around the 1974 Privacy act to set up a new centralized database for citizens. He also travels to New York to find out what the media neglected to cover regarding 9/11 memorials planned for the 9 year anniversary of the World Trade Center attacks. He interviews Richard Gage about Building 7’s collapse and 9/11 family member Manny Badillo recounts his confrontation with DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano while at the reflecting pool. John Uhlich is interviewed about why he traveled from Chicago to mourn his cousins murder at Ground Zero. Nina breaks down the headlines including DHS new Iris scanners and reveals the news about settlement connecting Autism to Vaccines. She also plays Candidate Marg Bakers inflammatory remarks about rounding up people for Concentration Camps and provides the truth behind the mysterious third beam of light that pierced the night sky in New York on 9/11. The viewers brand a new “Enemy of the State” and the mailbag is sifted.
Video: REALITY REPORT #60 – Obama’s Iraq Bushism
In this edition of the Reality Report:
Gary Franchi points out Obama’s latest Iraq War Bushism and welcomes We Are Change Founder Luke Rudkowski to the show.
Nina breaks down the headlines including Homeowners Associations restricting Gadsden Flags, the Blogger Shakedown of Righthaven LLC, the recent Emergency Declaration in North Carolina that suspended the 2nd Amendment and how Blackwater Security used shell corporations to acquire tax payer money.
The viewers answer whether or not the World Trade Center was a Controlled demolition in the mailbag and keep watching to see the viewer pick for this week’s Enemy of the State.
Two Sites to check out: http://RealityReport.TV | http://RestoreTheRepublic.com |
…and now the video:
UPDATED: I hate to say it: Nicholas Kristof makes a very good point
Rarely do I ever concede a point to a liberal. However, in this case; it is fair to do so.
This morning Nicholas Kristof writes in the New York Times, about the Mosque Controversy:
For a glimpse of how venomous and debased the discourse about Islam has become, consider a blog post in The New Republic this month. Written by Martin Peretz, the magazine’s editor in chief, it asserted: “Frankly, Muslim life is cheap, most notably to Muslims.”
Mr. Peretz added: “I wonder whether I need honor these people and pretend that they are worthy of the privileges of the First Amendment, which I have in my gut the sense that they will abuse.”
Thus a prominent American commentator, in a magazine long associated with tolerance, ponders whether Muslims should be afforded constitutional freedoms. Is it possible to imagine the same kind of casual slur tossed off about blacks or Jews? How do America’s nearly seven million American Muslims feel when their faith is denounced as barbaric?
This is one of those times that test our values, a bit like the shameful interning of Japanese-Americans during World War II, or the disgraceful refusal to accept Jewish refugees from Nazi Europe.
It would have been natural for this test to have come right after 9/11, but it was forestalled because President George W. Bush pushed back at his conservative ranks and repeatedly warned Americans not to confuse Al Qaeda with Islam.
As much as I hate to say it; Mr. Kristof is absolutely right. It should noted that Martin Peretz is, in fact Jewish and is, in fact, a rabid Zionist. In fact, Martin Peretz is known for the following comments:
Frankly, I couldn’t quite imagine any venture like [the Iraq War] in the Arab World turning out especially well. This is, you will say, my prejudice. But some prejudices are built on real facts, and history generally proves me right. Go ahead, prove me wrong. — Source
and:
But, frankly, Muslim life is cheap, most notably to Muslims. And among those Muslims led by the Imam Rauf there is hardly one who has raised a fuss about the routine and random bloodshed that defines their brotherhood. So, yes, I wonder whether I need honor these people and pretend that they are worthy of the privileges [sic] of the First Amendment which I have in my gut the sense that they will abuse. — Source
Like Kristof said; could you imagine if the above were uttered about the Jews or about the black race? There would a media frenzy about it. Believe me, I know; I have been attacked by those who are of the protected class and all for speaking my mind about them and how they attack those of whom they disagree.
The fact is, that this whole Mosque situation boils down to this; Islam versus Christian Nativists and Jews, Arabs versus Americans, whites versus non-whites. Am I calling those who oppose this mosque racists? Well, my question for you is this; do you feel that burning pages of the Koran normal acceptable practice? Would you feel the same way, if some Muslim took a page out of the Christian Bible and began burning it? How about the Tanakh, the Torah, or The ?umash, the Siddur, the Piyutim or even the Zohar?
The point I am trying to make here is this; I realize that radicalized Muslims attacked the World Trade Center, The Pentagon and Flight 93. However, when you punish an entire religion for the actions of a few, you are practicing a forum of collectivism. That is not anything remotely Conservative, nor is it anything remotely American. Being vigilant against terrorism is one thing; but being idiotic is another, this situation with this Mosque is well beyond that — on both sides.
Update: On the Other hand… these are videos from 9/11:
There are two sides to every argument; one would suppose. There is also this here.
Video: Is this is the future of America in 5 or 10 years?
(H/T to Richard Spencer of Alternative Right)
I think it’s time we got real; before we lose everything.
The Obligatory Obama will not extend Bush Tax Cuts Posting
Well, duh, he is a liberal and a Democrat. He does believe in class warfare. Remember you Republicans and Libertarians that voted for him. (You know who you are…)
Via the NYT:
WASHINGTON — President Obama on Wednesday will make clear that he opposes any compromise that would extend the Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthy beyond this year, officials said, adding a populist twist to an election-season economic package that is otherwise designed to entice support from big businesses and their Republican allies.
Mr. Obama’s opposition to allowing the high-end tax cuts to remain in place for even another year or two would be the signal many Congressional Democrats have been awaiting as they prepare for a showdown with Republicans on the issue and ends speculation that the White House might be open to an extension. Democrats say only the president can rally wavering lawmakers who, amid the party’s weakened poll numbers, feel increasingly vulnerable to Republican attacks if they let the top rates lapse at the end of this year as scheduled.
It is not clear that Mr. Obama can prevail given his own diminished popularity, the tepid economic recovery and the divisions within his party. But by proposing to extend the rates for the 98 percent of households with income below $250,000 for couples and $200,000 for individuals — and insisting that federal income tax rates in 2011 go back to their pre-2001 levels for income above those cutoffs — he intends to cast the issue as a choice between supporting the middle class or giving breaks to the wealthy.
In a speech in Cleveland on Wednesday, Mr. Obama will also make a case for the package of roughly $180 billion in expanded business tax cuts and infrastructure spending disclosed by the White House in bits and pieces over the past few days. He would offset the cost by closing other tax breaks for multinational corporations, oil and gas companies and others.
While the speech will be centrist in its policy prescriptions other than the Bush tax cuts, Mr. Obama’s language will be partisan as he seeks to sharpen the contrasts between Republicans’ record and efforts by Democrats to create more jobs, aides said.
As much as I would like to jump up, holler and raise a fuss about this; I cannot. We all knew that this was coming. This should be a lesson to the Republican Party. That is, do not run weak or moderate Conservatives during elections. Because when you do; Conservatives, and I mean hardcore Conservatives will not vote — and this is what you get. I know that I, personally, will not be affected by this; neither will my family.
However, I am sure that there will be some families affected by this — not to mention a myriad of business owners out there. This will, I am sure, cause a downtown in hiring by businesses; which will add to the huge downturn in the economy. It is all a domino effect, starts at the top and goes to the bottom.
Another thing to think about; we do have to eventually pay for these two wars. I believe that those who profited off of both of these wars ought to be targeted for taxing. I believe that a special “War Tax”, ought to be appended to anyone making over $500.000 or more a year. I would target multinational companies, like oil companies and so forth. Especially those in Iraq. Perhaps next time, the warmongering class will not be so eager to start a war next time. This taxing would reinforce the idea that those wanting said war, should they actually have to pay for it. Foreign Policy has a price tag; and those who want follow Woodrow Wilson’s steps, should be required to pay that price tag.
Want Living Proof that Nation-Building does not work?
Here you go, a video of New York Times reporter John Burns, who, by the way, was the best person covering the Iraq War.
The Video: (H/T HotAir.com)
Ed Morrissey makes a very important point:
On Iraq, it’s hard to see how Obama could have improved the situation. He followed the SOFA pact that George W. Bush negotiated with Nouri al-Maliki, and the Iraqi government made it clear they wanted us to stick to that schedule. If the Iraqis want us out entirely by the end of next year, we have little choice but to comply; to do otherwise would be a de facto reoccupation that will not fly well here at home or abroad. However, I’d say it’s entirely likely that Baghdad will rethink that final phase and ask us to remain for logistics, training, and air and sea protection for the next several years, and then the question will be whether Obama will agree to it or insist on a full withdrawal, even if it means the collapse of the nascent democracy in Iraq.
Afghanistan is a different problem, but one with potentially the same result. Obama owns Afghanistan more than he does Iraq, having made the decision himself to add more troops and get more aggressive, which means a failure there can’t be left on the doorstep of his predecessor. If Obama starts withdrawing from both fronts as they deteriorate, he will at least be the man who lost Afghanistan, if not Iraq as well, just as he has to prepare to convince Americans to give him another four years as Commander-in-Chief. For that reason, I doubt we’ll see a significant drawdown in either theater, and Obama will just have to remind the Left that they have nowhere else to go in 2012.
Ever notice how Neo-Conservatives will never say Bush screwed up with Iraq, at all? They will never admit, that there was an intelligence error — never. That is what Party loyalty does to a person.
Anyhow, some good reading about Nation-Building over at The American Conservative:
“Nation-building is the most prominent — and most important — part of the neocon doctrine,” wrote Jed Babbin in the American Spectator. “And the decision to pursue it is the principal reason that we are losing in Afghanistan, Iraq is falling apart, and the real enemy — the terror-sponsoring nations — have grown stronger.”
None of these writers can accurately be described as a budding noninterventionist. But most conservatives who opposed the Iraq War from the beginning and favored no more than a limited mission in Afghanistan can agree with them on the following: neither Islam nor foreign lands can easily be reformed by either bureaucrats or the force or the force of arms; our interventions have produced something closer to sharia states than Switzerland’s; Iran is now more powerful in the region rather than less.
There have l0ng been three main foreign-policy tendencies on the American Right: old-style conservatives who agree with Randolph Bourne that war is the health of the state and therefore favor less military intervention abroad; neoconservatives who want to preserve the United States’ global hegemony and engage in armed proselytizing for democracy; and defense-minded conservatives who believe the U.S. should strike forcefully at its enemies whenever it perceives itself, its interests, or its allies to be threatened.
Roughly speaking, these groups can be described as the Jeffersonians, the Wilsonians, and the Jacksonians. Among rank-and-file conservatives, the Jacksonians are by far the largest group. In the postwar era, the Jacksonians have tended to align with the Wilsonians. But there is no reason why that conjunction is inevitable.
With the exception of Ron Paul and some Ron Paul Republicans, the Jeffersonians have no major political figure to speak for them. Yet the popularity of the Wilsonians was always greatly exaggerated. The invasion of Iraq and the mass conservative acceptance of the Bush Doctrine were made possible by al-Qaeda’s act of mass murder on 9/11.
Throughout the 1990s, Wilsonian neoconservatives called for regime change in Iraq, but they did not succeed in rallying the grassroots Right to the cause. The conservative base tuned out the PNAC crowd. Millions of conservatives voted for Pat Buchanan, who opposed even the first war with Iraq, in the 1992 and 1996 Republican presidential primaries—even as neoconservative commentators were writing essays attempting to purge Buchanan from conservative movement.
Grassroots conservatives were repulsed by American bloodshed during our humanitarian intervention in Somalia. They opposed using our armed forces to deliver groceries to Third World countries and restoring a dubious left-wing character to power in Haiti. They objected to the bombing of Serbia and canceled their subscriptions to the Weekly Standard when that magazine sided with the Clinton administration on military action in the Balkans.
The years after 9/11 were a Jacksonian moment hijacked by neoconservatives. While most American conservatives liked the idea that the we could increase others’ freedom by defending our own against despots overseas, very few of them wanted to go to war to build schools in Iraq or promote democracy. They wanted to pay back the people who murdered their countrymen and make sure that such an attack never happened again.
They trusted that George W. Bush was the man for the job and were patient when he talked about lighting a fire in the minds of men. But ordinary conservatives nevertheless agreed with the following sentiment expressed by John Derbyshire: “What matters most is not the fire in the minds of men, which will burn at some level for as long as there are men, but the fire that results when fissionable material undergoes a fast chain reaction.”
You see the problem is that the very same people that stood behind George W. Bush and cheered him, as he charged off to war in Iraq and Afghanistan; are the same one who stand and in unison blame President Obama for any failures for the war in both Countries. The truth is that President Obama DID inherit BOTH of these wars for President Bush and it is because of utter incompetence of the Pentagon and State Department under President Bush, not to mention the entire intelligence community, is why we are in this mess in the first place!
So, instead of being noble and honest men, and admitting that they actually made mistakes, one being electing a President that was about as Conservative, as I am damned atheist; they would rather navel graze the whole thing and try and deflect the blame onto the Democrats, as much as they possibly can. The problem is with that little idiotic plan is this; thinking Americans, like this writer are just smarter than that, we know what happened and we know who was responsible for the actions of the President. I am fully aware of who goaded the President into declaring war with Iraq. I have no forgotten and neither have the American people. This is, one of a myriad of reasons, why John McCain lost the election. Because the American people did not want someone, who would take marching orders from the Neo-Conservatives.
So far, Obama has been showing his independence of the warmongering class in the Republican Party. Thankfully, under Michael Steele the warmongering class have been pushed aside; which is why people like William Kristol want him to resign so badly, that being because Michael Steele will not march to their orders and is expressing his own views, and not those who wish the United States to fight a perpetual war. I commend Michael Steele for that.
Another thing I think I need to be clear on; as you know, I did post a video, that was a warning to America. Some would look at that and say, “Are you not talking about of both sides of your mouth?” to that I would say no. That is because that video essentially validates what I have believed all along; that the notion of, “We must fight the terrorists there, so we do not have to fight them here” is idiotic at best. That is because there are radical Islamic terrorists that are already here now! That video proves as much. My personal issue with George W. Bush was not with fighting terrorism, which he began in Afghanistan. He however, was goaded by the warmongering class in the Republican Party to go to war with Iraq, which, for what it is worth, is what this class of people wanted to do during the Clinton years, but was rebuffed repeatedly. This caused, I feel, a distraction, as those who planned had this strange idea, that the invasion would be a cakewalk. I believe it would be understood that we all know now that this was a very flawed idea.
Much of what I said above, would be considered, what I like to call, “rearview mirror quarterbacking.” We all know this now, the problem is, where do he go from here? The best thing that can happen is Obama follow through with his promises to follow Bush’s pull out timetable in Iraq. We cannot continue to be the World’s police officer. If Iraq has an upheaval over there, let them. We did our part over there; we rooted the major player in the insurgency. We toppled Saddam. What happens after we have left is not our concern. As for Afghanistan, if we can catch or kill Osama Bin Laden, fine do so. However, if the Afghan Government and the Pakistani Government is that corrupt and does not want to be partner against the war on terror. I say cut our losses and pull out the troops and leave. Then send in specialized CIA assassins in there to hunt Osama Bin Laden down and kill him that way. I just do not see the justification for our Military personnel dying for a Government that is corrupt to its core. It just does not make any sort of sense to me at all.
Bottom Line: President Obama should not be blame for any of the failures of any of these wars. The President who started them should be blamed. President Obama should continue the turnkey plan given him by Bush, and should implement a better strategy in the Afghan theater. If the Governments of Afghanistan and Pakistan will not work with the United States on the capture or killing of Osama Bin Laden, then President should use the CIA to kill him.
The obligatory President Barack Obama flings 50 billion out the window to save America posting
Can you tell that I am tired of writing about this stuff, I’m getting there…:
MILWAUKEE, Wisconsin (AFP) – US President Barack Obama Monday promised more than 50 billion dollars to create jobs rebuilding roads, railways and airports, targeting huge unemployment and ripping resurgent Republicans.
Obama, under intense pressure due to the sputtering economy ahead of November’s mid-term congressional elections, announced the new funding spree at a Labor Day rally with union workers in Wisconsin where the crisis has hit hard.
“This will not only create jobs immediately, but will make our economy run better over the long haul,” Obama said on a public holiday two months before congressional polls which Democrats fear could bring heavy losses.
“It’s a plan that says even in the aftermath of the worst recession in our lifetimes, America can still shape our own destiny.”
The White House called on Republicans to support quick passage of the measure, which would “front-load” 50 billion dollars of money as the first part of a broader effort to reauthorize transportation funding over six years.
“We’d like to pass this as quickly as possible,” a senior administration official said. The size of the total package, over and above the initial 50 billion dollar infusion of funding, was unclear.
via As Democrats fear rout, Obama launches new jobs push – Yahoo! News.
Of course, the Republicans are the ones being the evil white racists the grown up realists here:
Opposition Republicans, seeking to wrest control of both chambers in Congress from Democrats, immediately condemned Obama’s plan, signaling no let up to obstruction tactics which have slowed his presidency.
“A last-minute, cobbled-together stimulus bill with more than 50 billion dollars in new tax hikes will not reverse the complete lack of confidence Americans have in Washington Democrats’ ability to help this economy,” said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.
John Boehner, the top Republican in the House of Representatives, sought to link the new plan to Obama’s previous stimulus package worth around 800 billion dollars, which critics say has failed to revive the economy.
“If we’ve learned anything from the past 18 months, it’s that we can’t spend our way to prosperity,” said Boehner.
This is why I do like two party politics. Because one party does equalize out the other party. What gets me is the fact that Obama accuses the Republicans of wrecking the car and that Americans should not “Give them back the keys.” The problem with that is this; and Yes, I have written this before, the Republicans seem to have learned the error of their ways. Where, the Democrats have not. They have taken that same car and driven it over a cliff and are not still trying to drive that mangled car. The sick part is, everyone else knows that car is wrecked and no longer drivable. But the Democrats are willfully blind of that fact and keep on trying to drive that same wrecked car. I know, it is a bit of a weird analogy, but it works in this case.
The Bottom Line: Obama and Democrats are in trouble, grave trouble and they are trying every trick in the book. They pushed healthcare, when America needed Economic recovery, and yes, Jobs. Now, they are trying to save face. Will it work? Doubtful. Many are angry and feel that Obama lied to them or told them anything to get elected. This angry will come out in the polls. Personally, I see a shift, but I do not believe it will be a huge sweep as some do. However, it will be interesting to blog about. I cannot wait. 😀
Well, You know, if Muslims do not like it, they can always leave
This blog posting is most likely going to get me into trouble with some on the left… and maybe the right. However, at this point, I could honestly give two flips less. Yes, I am a moderate, when it comes to things like religion and social issues. I also tend to shy away from those who fight against the Muslims and where they want to build their houses of worship, because I happen to believe in freedom of Religion and in personal freedom, to build whatever one wants within the accordance of the law.
However, I feel that the following stories that are being ginned up by the liberal mainstream media are borderline libel towards those of us; who feel that radical Islam is a threat to the security of our Nation and a threat to the America way of life.
First, an idiotic report by ABC NEWS on how the Anti-Islamic rhetoric is heating up:
Today, a Christian pastor will hold the second service in a series bashing the planned Muslim community center in downtown New York City in a sign of increasing vocal anti-Islam rhetoric ahead of the ninth anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
“When they decided to build a mosque and decided to preach what I consider a 1,400-year-old lie from Hell, I decided that somebody should be down there preaching the truth of God’s word,” Florida pastor Bill Keller said over the weekend.
Although his first service was sparsely attended, Keller is not alone.
Another preacher, Terry Jones from the Dove World Outreach Center in Florida, is planning what he called “International Burn a Koran Day” which encourages people to set fire to the Islamic holy book “in remembrance of the fallen victims of 9/11 and to stand against the evil of Islam,” according to a Facebook page dedicated to the event.
[….]
Critics said the rhetoric is fueling anti-Islam violence. Late last month a Manhattan cab driver was allegedly stabbed by a passenger who reportedly asked him immediately before the attack if he was Muslim. Days later, a fire tore through the construction site of a planned Mosque in Tennessee. Investigators announced last week the cause of the fire was arson.
In response, leaders of Mosques from around the world are reaching out to other faiths for help.
“We are asking people to take into account security concerns… given the almost hysterical atmosphere we’re in right now,” said Ibrahim Hooper, national communications director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
First, whatever happened to freedom of speech? Since when did it become illegal to express ones feelings about another Religion? The man is a Christian; this Pastor is denouncing Islam as a false religion, and is protesting against those who practice radical Islam; by burning a copy of the Holy Koran; he is protected by the first amendment of the United States Constitution. Secondly, why is CAIR even being quoted in this article? This group, CAIR, which stands for the Council of American Islamic Relations, is a terrorist front organization, which has been tied to various terrorist organizations abroad. This proves to this writer, beyond a shadow of an ounce of doubt, that the liberal mainstream media is in alliance with or at least sympathetic to the cause of those who engage in the practice of radical Islam and who wish to wage jihad against this Country.
Oh, it gets better trust me.
If that is not enough to cause your blood pressure to skyrocket; how about this lovely report from the Wall Street Journal of how Gen. David Petraeus is now coming out against the Koran burning service planned by this Pastor:
KABUL—The top U.S. commander in Afghanistan said the planned burning of Qurans on Sept. 11 by a Florida church could put the lives of American troops in danger and damage the war effort.
Gen. David Petraeus said the Taliban would exploit the demonstration for propaganda purposes, drumming up anger toward the U.S. and making it harder for allied troops to carry out their mission of protecting Afghan civilians.
“It could endanger troops and it could endanger the overall effort,” Gen. Petraeus said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal. “It is precisely the kind of action the Taliban uses and could cause significant problems. Not just here, but everywhere in the world we are engaged with the Islamic community.”
Hundreds of Afghans attended a demonstration in Kabul on Monday to protest the plans of Florida pastor Terry Jones, who has said he will burn the Quran on Sept. 11.
Gen. David Petraeus said the planned burning of Qurans on Sept. 11 by a Florida church could put the lives of American troops in danger.
Afghan protesters chanted “death to America” and speakers called on the U.S. to withdraw its military convoy. Some of the protesters threw rocks at a passing military convoy, although officials told the rock-throwers to stop.
Military officials fear the protests are likely to spread beyond Kabul to other Afghan cities. In interviews with various media outlets, Mr. Jones has denied his protest will put troops in danger. Mr. Jones has been denied a permit for the demonstration but has said he plans to go forward with the his protest anyway.
Mr. Jones leads a tiny church of just 50 people, but his threat to burn the Muslim holy book has been condemned around the world and has garnered him international attention.
Well, it is certainly nice to know that our Military has our back. I guess the anti-war MoveOn.Org was right on that one. As Petraeus did end up betraying us all right; the American people, who believe that radical Islam is on the rise and that freedom of Religion is a constitutional right. I always thought that Petraeus was nothing more than a “Yes Man” for the Government and he has proven that here.
Finally, another little news article on CNN about idiots overseas protesting that Koran burning:
Jakarta, Indonesia — Thousands of Indonesians gathered Sunday outside the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta to protest a Florida church’s plan to burn copies of the Quran.
The Dove World Outreach Center in Gainsville, Florida, plans to mark the ninth anniversary of the September 11 attacks by burning copies of the Muslim holy text. The center describes itself as a “New Testament church based on the Bible.” It made headlines last year when it distributed a T-shirt that said, “Islam is the devil.”
Protesters in Jakarta carried signs saying, “Jihad to protect Koran” and “You burn qu’ran you burn in hell.” The protesters included members of the hard-line Muslim group Hizb ut-Tahrir Indonesia and the pluralism care movement, a multi-faith group.
“We hope that the U.S. government to stop this plan. We represent Muslim, Christians and other religions who all wants to avoid any clashes as a result,” Damien Dematra, the coordinator for the pluralism care movement, said in a news statement.
I have two words for these people — Boo Hoo, cry me a river. Let me remind those who read this blog, whom it was which attacked this Country on 9/11. First, it was not Radical Christians, Radical Hindus, or Radical Buddhists. In case anyone has forgotten, radical Islamists attacked the United States on September 11, 2001. Furthermore, I do not recall any of the Muslim community trying to stop Osama bin Laden from carrying out these attacks either from within the Middle Eastern Islamic World. Also, please, do not try to tell me, that no one else in the Middle Eastern Islam world knew that these attacks were going to happen. Believe me, they knew and they did not care or they wanted them to happen, just as much as radical Islamic jihadists did.
I said all that to say this here. To the American Muslim community, if there is anyone to blame for the rise of the American resentment towards Muslims; it is yourselves that you need to blame. You are blame for not rising up against these radical elements within your own Religion! Therefore, to the American Muslim Community, I have one simple thing to say about the rise in Anti-Islam rhetoric and feeling in this Country —- Deal with it or leave. For years, we Christians have been the victims of Anti-Christian rhetoric by liberals and various other sundry groups with missions to discredit us. Furthermore, every time some mentally unstable buffoon out there did something idiotic in the name of Christianity, we have had to contend with morons disrespecting our Religion. Now, it is your turn. Either you deal with it or you can always pack your bags and return to the country of your origin, because frankly, no one is keeping you here. You came here to live in freedom, and not under the oppressive Governments of your Countries of origin. Part of that freedom, is the freedom to disrespect other Religions; that is the part of the American experience. Either you learn to ignore that sort of a thing, or you leave. Please make your choice quickly, and please, stop the whining; you look like children when you do such things.
May the our Constitutional rights to freedom of speech and Religion never be revoked.
Update: Now a Memeornadum Thread
UPDATED: Memo to Fareed Zakaria: Overreact this you jackwad twit
Speaking of stupidity….
Via this Nimrod:
I do not minimize Al Qaeda’s intentions, which are barbaric. I question its capabilities. In every recent conflict, the United States has been right about the evil intentions of its adversaries but massively exaggerated their strength. In the 1980s, we thought the Soviet Union was expanding its power and influence when it was on the verge of economic and political bankruptcy. In the 1990s, we were certain that Saddam Hussein had a nuclear arsenal. In fact, his factories could barely make soap…
Some 30,000 people are now employed exclusively to listen in on phone conversations and other communications in the United States. And yet no one in Army intelligence noticed that Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan had been making a series of strange threats at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center, where he trained. The father of the Nigerian “Christmas bomber” reported his son’s radicalism to the U.S. Embassy. But that message never made its way to the right people in this vast security apparatus. The plot was foiled only by the bomber’s own incompetence and some alert passengers.
Such mistakes might be excusable. But the rise of this national-security state has entailed a vast expansion in the government’s powers that now touches every aspect of American life, even when seemingly unrelated to terrorism.
No, you nimrod, terrorist-supporting, idiot. We did not overreact. We had information that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. We acted on it. Yes, the intelligence was bad. So what? It happens. The truth is, once we weeded out the jack-wads, who did not know shit from shinola about running a fucking war; (Hello Rummy!) we were able to stabilize that Country and put leadership in there, that did not terrorize it’s own people.
So, yes, Iraq WAS worth it; and no we did NOT overreact.
Further more, once we break the back of Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, it too will be worth it as well! People will die; that is the price you pay, when you fight a god-damned war. But in the end, when Afghanistan is free and clear of Al-Qaeda and their radical Muslim idiotic nonsense, it will be worth it.
I apologize in advance for the harsh tone of this posting. But I am about god-damned tired of these terrorist-appeasing, asshole, liberal retards telling me, that going to war against terrorists is not worth the god-damned hassle. Anytime, that the United States of America goes on the defensive, and also on the offensive, in the name of liberty and freedom, it is ALWAYS worth it! It was worth it in Germany, It was worth it in Japan, It was worth it in Korea, it was worth it in Grenada AND it was worth it in Iraq too, both god-damned times — and once the job is done in Afghanistan, it will be worth it there too.
So, on the behalf of all the Soldiers —- American and Coalition; both who died and especially those who came back in one piece and even those who did not — to Mr. Fareed Zakaria I say:
SHUT THE HELL UP!
That is all…..
Update: I suppose that I should explain something here. The reason why this article provoked such a strong reaction out of me is this; I watched 9/11 unfold on TV. At the time I was a CNN watcher. All of it played out in front of me. I remember being paralyzed with fear, when the report came out, that there was a plane headed to the White House. Watching those buildings fall and seeing those images over and over and over; drove me into one of the worst depressions, that I have ever experienced. It, honestly, took me about 2 good years to get over that stuff. It took much prayer and some good old fashioned Bible reading to pull me out of that mess. Al-Qaeda caused that; and for that, I want them to pay, and pay dearly. Now you understand why it is, that I feel the way that I do.
Update #2: ….and of course, some terrorist supporting asshole links here; talking out his ass, as always. 🙄
Snort Worthy Story of the WEEK!: Jesse Jackson’s SUV Stolen in Detroit – Jackson in town promoting Green Jobs
I were to file this one under anything. It would be under, “Blaaaahahahahahahahahahahahahaw!”
The Video via WXYZ-TV in Detroit:
and the Story, Via the Michigan View at the Detroit News:
Add Jesse Jackson’s ride to prominent vehicles being stripped in Detroit.
Following the embarrassing news that Mayor Dave Bing’s GMC Yukon was hijacked by criminals this week, Detroit’s Channel 7 reports that the Reverend’s Caddy Escalade SUV was stolen and stripped of its wheels while he was in town last weekend with the UAW’s militant President Bob King leading the “Jobs, Justice, and Peace” march promoting government-funded green jobs.
Read that again: Jackson’s Caddy SUV was stripped while he was in town promoting green jobs.
Add Jesse to the Al Gore-Tom Friedman-Barack Obama School of Environmental Hypocrisy. While preaching to Americans that they need to cram their families into hybrid Priuses to go shopping for compact fluorescent light bulbs to save the planet, they themselves continue to live large.
“We need an economy that creates employment that can’t be shipped overseas,” the Green Rev wrote for CNN about the march. “Home-grown American labor will be installing windmills and solar panels. A green economy is not an abstract concept.”
Well, its certainly abstract to Jesse, but I digress.
Yeah, the labor would be; Jesse Jackson has not done a day of honest hard work in his entire life. Hell, I’ve worked harder than he will ever work. Oh, wait, Jesse Jackson has worked hard, yes, very hard. That is, if you consider running one’s mouth continually about how oppressed the black man is; and doing the continual race hustle that he is very much known for. Then, yes, he is a very, very hard working man.
Others giggling about this very funny story: AmSpecBlog, Red Dog Report and Weasel Zippers
This is one of those times, when you could not pay me to work in the White House
That’s right folks, the President and his Administration are in one hell of a huge bind. If they do not do something fast; they are going to be sunk come the midterms and possibly come 2012.
Here’s your video:
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
Now, for the Stories….
Via the New York Times:
American businesses added more jobs in the last three months than originally estimated, but the wheels of the economic recovery are still spinning in place.
The private sector added 67,000 jobs in August, according to the Department of Labor, higher than consensus forecasts, and the government upwardly revised its numbers for June and July, suggesting that job creation was slightly stronger over the summer than originally reported.
But the continuing wind-down of the 2010 Census, as well as state and local government layoffs, led to an overall loss of 54,000 jobs in August.
With businesses adding about half the number of positions needed simply to accommodate population growth — much less dent the ranks of the jobless — the unemployment rate ticked up to 9.6 percent, from 9.5 percent.
“The overall picture is one where the labor market is still kind of treading water,” said Joshua Shapiro, chief United States economist at MFR Inc. “It’s better than sinking, but it’s certainly not surging ahead.”
Given the continuing addition of private jobs — albeit at a tepid pace — Friday’s monthly snapshot of the labor market seemed to calm fears of a double-dip recession. But the numbers are likely to do little to assuage political pressure on the Obama administration in the run-up to the midterm elections.
Speaking from the White House Rose Garden on Friday morning, Mr. Obama called the latest job report “positive news,” but said he would be unveiling “a broader package of ideas next week,” to shore up the flagging economy, although he declined to give specifics. The president once again urged Congress to pass a stalled bill that would offer tax breaks to small businesses and create a $30 billion program to encourage community banks to lend.
“There’s no quick fix for this recession,” he said. “The hard truth is that it took years to create our current economic problems, and it will take more time than any of us would like to repair the damage.”
Responding to the higher-than-expected private sector numbers and revisions, investors pushed up the major stock gauges. By early afternoon, the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index was up 1 percent. Market reaction to the jobs data was tempered somewhat by a report that said growth in the services sector had slowed in August.
The Labor Department revised its private sector number for July, raising the number of jobs added to 107,000 from the 71,000 originally reported. And private sector hiring in June, originally reported at 83,000 and lowered to 31,000, was raised again to 61,000.
This is not making Democrats happy at all… Jack Tapper Reports:
Flanked by members of his economic team – including outgoing Council of Economic Advisers Dr. Christina Romer, whose replacement has yet to be named – President Obama chose to look at the silver lining in the economic clouds of today’s jobs report – not even mentioning that August saw a net job loss of 54,000 jobs.
“In the month I took office, we were losing 750,000 jobs a month,” the president said. “This morning, new figures show the economy produced 67,000 private sector jobs in August, the eighth consecutive month of private job growth. Additionally, the numbers for July were revised upward to 107,000. Now that’s positive news, and it reflects the steps we’ve already taken to break the back of this recession.”
The net job loss for August is largely because of the layoffs of 114,000 Census temporary workers.
….and from David Corn:
Democrats are spooked by recent polls and predictions indicating the GOP may slam the Dems so badly that the D’s lose the House and possibly the Senate. The Republicans need to gain 39 seats to seize the House, and it’s not difficult these days to find nonpartisan handicappers who predict the R’s could gain 40 to 50 seats. The conventional wisdom in D.C.: A tsunami is heading toward the Democrats. A Democratic strategist toiling on the party’s House efforts refers to working on the “Titanic” (though he claims there may be some hidden life rafts). “The president keeps saying it’s a tough environment,” says a Democratic House staffer. “We know that. We want to know what he’s going to do about it.”…
“He still wants to be seen as post-partisan and bipartisan,” says a House Democratic leadership aide. “But we’re in a fight here.” Democrats expect Obama to come out swinging nonstop — bashing the R’s repeatedly and proposing economic initiatives that actually register with voters. At the same time, members of the House Democratic leadership are worried that Obama will cave and yield to GOP demands that George W. Bush’s expiring tax cuts for the wealthy be extended. “If he doesn’t do something immediately, our members will be livid,” says a House Democratic aide. “And when there’s fear of a bloodbath, it’s never too early to start the blame game.”
I just blogged about how the Democrats can fix this mess. However, knowing them like they do; they would rather let the Nation suffer and blame the Republicans for the entire mess, while living large on the taxpayers dime —- than to actually do something to fix the problem. FDR did this, to a certain extent as have many other Democrat Party Presidents; I mean, it is not like Obama is going to be affected by any of this economic downturn.
One there is very certain, the tide is turning, Democrats had the chance to actually fix things and they have failed at it miserably. The Tea Party has now crystallized into a political force to be reckoned with — even among Republicans. RINO’s are being flushed out and true-blue Conservatives are being brought to the battle. It is so bad that the liberal media is gone to terrible spinning facts, an example:
It is possible that coming at the end of the summer an uptick in people looking for work is not as positive as it appears. This is the time of year, after two hot months, when recent graduates start to actually think about their future and send out resumes. And you can image many other out of work people deciding to take off looking for a job in the summer. In August, with the summer ending, some of those people started looking again in earnest. But you would expect the big uptick in post-summer people searching for work to come in September. So the fact that it is coming early is a good sign.
Oh Yes, it is that bad on that that side of the political aisle. When you start reading that sort of idiotic spin in a liberal publication, you know that things are horrifically bad right now for the Democrats. This midterm election and possibly in the general election; will most likely go down as the worst ever failure of the Democrat Party ever. The Democratic Party roared into power in 2006 to take the keys away from the Bush Administration, then they won the General election in 2008. They then got the entire key chain of the Country —- and proceeded to drive the Country as a whole over a cliff! Because of that and because of this economic that we are in, which was, in fact, created by the Carter and Clinton Administrations; whom were, Democratic Party Administrations — we are about to see a major collapse of a party’s authority in the political realm. I have written here, time and time again; that the Democratic Party has horribly overreached…..again. This happens just about every time the Democrats get into power. To be fair and as non-partisan as I can be; Republicans have done it too — Nixon did it, Bush did it and some others. However, this administration took it to another more frightening level. Because of this; they are about to do what many call, “Paying the Piper.”
The ship is sinking and the rats are jumping. It should be very interesting to watch. 2010 looms and they have no answers.
Welcome to the meltdown. Get popcorn. Hold on tight and enjoy the show.
(H/T to HotAir on the story leads for this posting. Good show AP! 😀 )
It is amazing what terrible economy will do to a Democrat President
If there is any truth to this; it can turn the most rabid Democrat into a Republican, real quick:
Administration officials have struggled to develop new economic policies and an effective message to blunt expected Republican gains in Congress and defuse complaints from Democrats that President Obama is fumbling the issue most important to voters. Following Obama’s vacation and focus on foreign policy in recent weeks, White House advisers have arranged a series of economic events for the president next week, including two trips to swing states and a news conference.
“We’ll continue to do everything we can, understanding that recovery will require persistent effort. There are no silver bullets,” senior Obama adviser David Axelrod said in an interview Thursday. “At the same time, we have to make clear our ideas and theirs, and the fact that the Washington Republicans, having helped create this recession, have attempted to block our every effort to deal with it.”
But with the unemployment rate expected to rise again in jobs numbers due out Friday, panic is setting in among many Democratic candidates who fear it is too late for Obama to convince voters that he understands the depth of the nation’s economic woes and can fix them.
[….]
Last November, Obama announced that he would turn his attention to unemployment, calling it “one of the great challenges that remains in our economy.” He declared the same intent two months later, telling House Democrats he would focus relentlessly on job creation “over the next several months.” Senior aides went on television pledging that the mantra would become “jobs, jobs, jobs.”
But other matters – health care, the BP oil spill – continually stole the limelight, creating the impression, some Democrats complain, that the president was barely focused on the economy at all.
His advisers described his attentiveness – noting, for example, that he discussed the economy with New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg (I) for 15 minutes before golfing – but got little traction.
“Obviously it’s going to be hard to get anything done before the election, but it’s really important for him to try, and to make the case to the American people that he’s trying to do something and the Republicans aren’t letting him,” said Steve Elmendorf, a Democratic strategist. “We are at the final moments here.”
Obama has another incentive to act: Tax cuts enacted during the George W. Bush administration are scheduled to expire in January, and Democrats – accused by Republicans of plotting to let them vanish – feel compelled to do something before the midterms.
Obama campaigned on a pledge to let cuts expire for the richest 2 percent of households, but some Democrats say the economy is too weak to raise anyone’s taxes right now. And they fear a backlash from small-business owners who could be hit with higher taxes.
Pairing targeted business tax breaks with an extension of middle-class tax cuts could help alleviate those problems.
This article alone, ought to be a lesson for any Democrat thinking about running for office. That raising Taxes in a recession, just does not work. Only tax breaks for the wealthy and making the business climate more healthy will help. Also cutting spending is another way to bring down inflation. This article alone, should be a text book example of why Keynesian Economics does not work in a recession, at all. If you tax businesses to death, you spur growth, if you spur growth, jobs disappear — it is a vicious cycle. Democrats have been making these same stupid mistakes for years.
Which is why we need to vote them out, come November of 2010. Especially here in Michigan, where job growth is desperately needed.
Hey, that speech was not so bad says William Kristol?!?!
Calling all cars, Calling all cars, be on the lookout for a Neo-Conservative William Kristol; he has wandered off of the reservation again:
President Obama opposed the war in Iraq. He still thinks it was a mistake. It’s therefore unrealistic for supporters of the war to expect the president to give the speech John McCain would have given, or to expect President Obama to put the war in the context we would put it in. He simply doesn’t believe the war in Iraq was a necessary part of a broader effort to fight terror, to change the Middle East, etc. Given that (erroneous) view of his, I thought his speech was on the whole commendable, and even at times impressive.
[…..]
The close, was, I thought, well done. The president located those who fought in Iraq in the unbroken line of those who, from Lexington to Kandahar, “gave their lives for the values that have lived in the hearts of our people for over two centuries” and who “have fought to see that the lives of our children are better than our own.” There was a welcome implicit repudiation of Neville Chamberlain and appeasement, as President Obama praised our troops for having “fought in a faraway place for people they never knew.”
And at the end: “Our troops are the steel in our ship of state. And though our nation may be traveling through rough waters, they give us confidence that our course is true, and that beyond the pre-dawn darkness, better days lie ahead.” Not a bad tribute to the troops, and not a bad statement of the importance and indispensability of hard power.
And, on the whole, not a bad speech by the president.
First of all, I highly recommend that you go read the rest of that entry. It is a very fairly well written piece by someone of whom, I disagree with highly on foreign policy. The reason why I say this is because, quite frankly, last night, I watched Fox News channel, I listened to Steven Hayes and Monica Crowley tear President Obama’s speech to pieces. Plus, I sat and read the far-right wing blogs; and I actually sat and wondered, “Do these people actually get an order from somewhere to criticize everything that President Obama says and does?” Frankly, I find that to be absolutely ridiculous. But, I guess that is partisan politics anymore; criticize your opponent no matter what he does. That is why I am a bit different than the rest of these Bloggers who identify with the right. I only criticize Obama when he actually does something that I feel is wrong. Not because he is a Democrat and I am not and not because it happens to be the sporting thing to do among Bloggers and pundits on the right.
In closing: Kudos to Kristol for at least giving the President a little credit and not going along with the swine pack and doing what comes naturally to Conservatives of his stripe.
The President’s Address: Ending Iraq
I offer this without commentary.
Transcript Via The White House:
Remarks by the President in Address to the Nation on the End of Combat Operations in Iraq
Oval Office
8:00 P.M. EDT
THE PRESIDENT: Good evening. Tonight, I’d like to talk to you about the end of our combat mission in Iraq, the ongoing security challenges we face, and the need to rebuild our nation here at home.
I know this historic moment comes at a time of great uncertainty for many Americans. We’ve now been through nearly a decade of war. We’ve endured a long and painful recession. And sometimes in the midst of these storms, the future that we’re trying to build for our nation — a future of lasting peace and long-term prosperity — may seem beyond our reach.
But this milestone should serve as a reminder to all Americans that the future is ours to shape if we move forward with confidence and commitment. It should also serve as a message to the world that the United States of America intends to sustain and strengthen our leadership in this young century.
From this desk, seven and a half years ago, President Bush announced the beginning of military operations in Iraq. Much has changed since that night. A war to disarm a state became a fight against an insurgency. Terrorism and sectarian warfare threatened to tear Iraq apart. Thousands of Americans gave their lives; tens of thousands have been wounded. Our relations abroad were strained. Our unity at home was tested.
These are the rough waters encountered during the course of one of America’s longest wars. Yet there has been one constant amidst these shifting tides. At every turn, America’s men and women in uniform have served with courage and resolve. As Commander-in-Chief, I am incredibly proud of their service. And like all Americans, I’m awed by their sacrifice, and by the sacrifices of their families.
The Americans who have served in Iraq completed every mission they were given. They defeated a regime that had terrorized its people. Together with Iraqis and coalition partners who made huge sacrifices of their own, our troops fought block by block to help Iraq seize the chance for a better future. They shifted tactics to protect the Iraqi people, trained Iraqi Security Forces, and took out terrorist leaders. Because of our troops and civilians — and because of the resilience of the Iraqi people — Iraq has the opportunity to embrace a new destiny, even though many challenges remain.
So tonight, I am announcing that the American combat mission in Iraq has ended. Operation Iraqi Freedom is over, and the Iraqi people now have lead responsibility for the security of their country.
Judging Iraq, in the rearview mirror
I am not much one for armchair quarter backing. However, I am speaking the non-partisan truth about a subject.
This one happens to be one, that was central to my foray in to the world of blogging.
The Iraq War.
It seems that there are some, that are really trying to put a “Tire Shine” on the Iraq War. In that process, they are basically trying to rewrite facts and basically distort realities. Which is quite common for the Neo-Right. They have been doing that since Buckley arrived on the scene many years ago.
Here is David Brooks basically either trying to recover any Conservative credentials that he might actually still have, either that or trying to suck up to President Obama….. again:
The U.S. venture into Iraq was a war, but it was also a nation-building exercise. America has spent $53 billion trying to reconstruct Iraq, the largest development effort since the Marshall Plan.
So how’s it working out?
On the economic front, there are signs of progress. It’s hard to know what role the scattershot American development projects have played, but this year Iraq will have the 12th-fastest-growing economy in the world, and it is expected to grow at a 7 percent annual clip for the next several years.
“Iraq has made substantial progress since 2003,” the International Monetary Fund reports. Inflation is reasonably stable. A budget surplus is expected by 2012. Unemployment, though still 15 percent, is down from stratospheric levels.
Oil production is back around prewar levels, and there are some who say Iraq may be able to rival Saudi production. That’s probably unrealistic, but Iraq will have a healthy oil economy, for better and for worse.
Living standards are also improving. According to the Brookings Institution’s Iraq Index, the authoritative compendium of data on this subject, 833,000 Iraqis had phones before the invasion. Now more than 1.3 million have landlines and some 20 million have cellphones. Before the invasion, 4,500 Iraqis had Internet service. Now, more than 1.7 million do.
In the most recent Gallup poll, 69 percent of Iraqis rated their personal finances positively, up from 36 percent in March 2007. Baghdad residents say the markets are vibrant again, with new electronics, clothing and even liquor stores.
[…..]
Of course, to be honest, he’ll also have to say how fragile and incomplete this success is. Iraqi material conditions are better, but the Iraqi mind has not caught up with the Iraqi opportunity.
There is still very little social trust. Iraq is the fourth-most-corrupt nation on earth, according to Transparency International’s rating system. The role of women remains surprisingly circumscribed. Iraqi politicians clearly find it very hard to compromise (though they may be no worse than American politicians in this regard).
Human capital is lagging. Most doctors left Iraq after the invasion, and it is hard to staff health clinics. The engineers left too, so American-built plants lie dormant because there is no one with the skills to run them. Schools are suffering because of a lack of teachers.
Ryan Crocker, the former ambassador, recently wrote an article in The National Interest noting that fear still pervades Iraq. Ethnic animosities are in abeyance, but they are not gone. Guns have been put in closets, but not destroyed.
If he is honest, Obama will have to balance pride with caution. He’ll have to acknowledge that the gains the U.S. is enabling may vanish if the U.S. military withdraws entirely next year. He’ll have to acknowledge that bottom-up social change requires time and patience. He’ll have to heed the advice of serious Iraq hands like Crocker, Michael O’Hanlon of Brookings and Stephen Biddle of the Council on Foreign Relations, and shelve plans to withdraw completely.
Such a move may rob him of a campaign talking point. But it will safeguard an American accomplishment that has been too hard won.
Okay, that is fine. But what about the Billions of dollars that were lost in Iraq, that cannot be accounted for? Plus, since when is nation building something that is a cool thing to do? I know, as a Tax Payer, that I am not too happy about my tax dollars going to build a Country that will most likely turn against us again in the future. What brooks also fails to mention is the person that was responsible for the entire Iraq debacle, and that is President Bush.
On the subject of Nation building; Some are trying to make the comparison to to Japan and Germany. That is ludicrous on its very face. The difference is, that the war on Japan and Germany were constitutionally declared wars, after the Empire of Japan attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. On the other hand, Iraq never attacked us directly, and there was not a constitutionally declared war on Iraq. Just a decision by congress to authorize Bush to use Military action on Iraq, based upon a few pieces of what is now known as faulty information. Oh, the Neo-Right will trot out some letter written to the second in command of Al-Qaeda about wanting to move against Kuwait. But there is no proof that Al-Qaeda even received the letter. Further more, Osama Bin Laden could not stand Saddam. Besides, that letter was written back in the 1990’s, after the first gulf war. So, that so-called evidence linking Saddam to 9/11 is weak, very weak.
Ed Morrissey also flirts with the subject as well, and also gets it wrong:
When the story of this war gets written, most will lay the responsibility on the President who fought it the longest, George W. Bush, and we will see a slew of analysis over the next week that insist he paid too high a price for his neoconservative adventure. However, perhaps later, cooler minds will prevail and put this in proper perspective. We had two choices in 2003: either remove Saddam Hussein or abandon Iraq to him. The coalition that imposed military limits on Saddam was falling away, and the sanctions regime had become so corrupt that it made Saddam a multibillionaire in his personal fortunes. His sons were poised to succeed him in this reign of terror. Our twelve-year truce had been repeatedly violated by Saddam, who also attempted to assassinate a former President, and we had done nothing to address any of it.
The follow-up nation building in which we engaged can also be debated, but again, we had little choice in the matter. We either needed to stay in Iraq to raise up a new government and army, or watch as Iran seized control through the Mahdi Army or Iraq became a Somalia in Southwest Asia. Either of those outcomes would have been orders of magnitude worse than our occupation over the last several years. The management of the occupation was certainly debatable, but once we invaded, we had no other choice but to see it all the way through.
In fact, the die was cast in this case twenty years ago when the George H. W. Bush administration stood up to Saddam Hussein and demanded his withdrawal from Kuwait. The decision to leave Saddam in place created the twelve-year Phoney War that followed, and left the choice of either surrender or victory to one of Bush’s eventual successors. In the end, the war removed a brutal dictator who was murdering his own people at a far faster rate than the war did and over a much longer period of time and who, left to his own devices, would have beaten the Iranians to a nuclear weapon with equally disastrous implications. The freely-elected but still dysfunctional government in Baghdad is at least a bright spot of hope in a dismal region, if we can remain committed enough to nurture it through friendship. That is what our men and women fought and bled to create, and it’s to their honor that it exists today.
Where he gets it wrong is here:
The coalition that imposed military limits on Saddam was falling away, and the sanctions regime had become so corrupt that it made Saddam a multibillionaire in his personal fortunes. His sons were poised to succeed him in this reign of terror.
…..
We either needed to stay in Iraq to raise up a new government and army, or watch as Iran seized control through the Mahdi Army or Iraq became a Somalia in Southwest Asia.
See the problem with all that is this here. We overthrew a dictator, and broke up that Ba’ath Party leadership. However, we created a quasi-unity Government over there, which is very fragile. We also installed, or as the Neo-Right likes to call it; voted in, another basic dictator, who is friendly to the United States. The Iraqi Government, I personally predict, will collapse once all of the American military units, of all sorts, are out of Iraq come 2011. What will happen then, is this, there will be an all out civil war in that Country. The faction there that is loyal to Iran will win, and Iraq will align itself with Iran and will then begin the process to harboring terrorists to mount attacks on Israel and ultimately the United States.
So, in closing, we did not stop Iran from invading Iraq and creating havoc in the region. We just made it a little more difficult to carry out. But know this, it will happen and someday, someone is going to say, “Why didn’t we just leave that Country alone?” and when the next huge terrorist attack happens here in America, and we discover that the terrorists trained in Iraq. We will have no one to blame — but ourselves.
BREAKING NEWS: Two Men on United Flight from Chicago Arrested on ‘Preparation of a Terrorist Attack’ charges in Amsterdam
The system worked again, is what they will say….
Via ABC’s Brian Ross, the most awesome damned reporter on the planet:
Two men taken off a Chicago-to-Amsterdam United Airlines flight in the Netherlands have been charged by Dutch police with “preparation of a terrorist attack,” U.S. law enforcement officials tell ABC News.
U.S. officials said the two appeared to be travelling with what were termed “mock bombs” in their luggage. “This was almost certainly a dry run, a test,” said one senior law enforcement official.
Ahmed Mohamed Nasser al Soofi, left, and Hezem al Murisi
A spokesman for the Dutch public prosecutor, Ernst Koelman, confirmed the two men were arrested this morning and said “the investigation is ongoing.” He said the arrests were made “at the request of American authorities.”
[….]
In addition, officials said, al Soofi was found to be carrying $7,000 in cash and a check of his luggage found a cell phone taped to a Pepto-Bismol bottle, three cell phones taped together, several watches taped together, a box cutter and three large knives. Officials said there was no indication of explosives and he and his luggage were cleared for the flight from Birmingham to Chicago O’Hare.
Instead, officials say, al Soofi was joined by the second man, Al Murisi, and boarded the United flight from Chicago to Amsterdam.
When Customs and Border officials learned al Soofi was not on the flight from Dulles to Dubai, the plane was ordered to return to the gate so his luggage could be removed. Officials said additional screening found no evidence of explosives.
The two men were detained by Dutch authorities when the United flight landed in Amsterdam, according to the officials.
AllahPundit Opines:
Basically, it sounds like this guy wanted to see just how many red flags he could send up and still be allowed to board an intercontinental flight. Answer: Quite a few, as it turns out. Which was also true of Flight 253, of course, another attempted terror attack that involved a bomber trained in … Yemen, the new number-one hot spot of international terrorism
That sounds about right; so to my readers who read this blog and travel abroad. (as opposed to traveling with broads. 😉 ) —- anyhow, seriously folks. Be careful. If you see something, anything — SAY SOMETHING! If they do not listen, demand to see their boss and keep raising hell, until someone does something! The only way that we can prevent terrorism, is to be on the look out.
There has been a lull in the activity and people are beginning to forget about the Christmas Day Terrorist attempt. That, my friends, is what terrorists do. They wait for people to do lulled back into complacency and that is when they strike. We must ALWAYS be on our guard for these bastards to strike. We are now in the global war on terror; and they want to come here to finish the job.
I may be a Moderate between Paleo-Conservative and Neo-Conservative; I may not be as far to the right as some might think that I should be. However, one thing CAN NEVER be said about this blogger —- and that is that I have my head up my arse about the global war on terrorism. I know the risks, and I am more than willing to take the hard knocks to stand against those who wish to commit Jihad against America. Further more, I am more than willing to be called a “Neo-Conservative” blogger, if that is what it means to be one, who feels that Terrorism, and terrorist activity is more than just some lowly criminal activity —- as Democrats believe it to be. It is an act of war and should be treated as such.
In Closing: Terrorism is a real thing. If you are traveling, be aware of what is going on around you and be careful. If you see anything suspect; tell someone!
Others: CBS News, Politics Daily, New York Times, The Jawa Report, Hot Air, AMERICAN DIGEST, New York Magazine, Sister Toldjah, Gateway Pundit, Weasel Zippers, msnbc.com, NPR Topics and National Review
My Follow Conservatives: We must help this man
My Fellow Conservatives, if we are the people that we claim to be; a group of people that does distinguish between moderate Muslims and radical Muslims who wish to destroy America. It is time to put our money, where our mouths are.
This man was a victim; A victim of someone who, although intoxicated, was caught up in the euphoria surrounding the Mosque that the backers of park51 want to build. While I feel that the backers of park51 project ought to be covering this man’s bills. I also feel that we, as Conservatives, ought to take the higher plane and ought to at least contribute to this man’s cause and help him cover his bills until he can get back to work. Because, whether we want to admit it or not; there are some on our ranks, that actually created this mess. We ought to be the honorable ones, and help this man. He is an innocent bystander in a war, between those who want to destroy America and those who wish to preserve it.
From CNN:
(CNN) — New York cab driver Ahmed Sharif cannot bring himself to talk about the young man who allegedly cut his throat and nearly killed him last week, a taxi union representative said Sunday.
“Ahmed is a strong man, but mentally he has limits,” said Bhairavi Desai of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance. “The trauma he’s experienced will last for a long time.”
Desai spent time this weekend with Sharif. She said his most pressing worry is how he’ll provide for his wife and four children — including a 10-month-old –without a job. Sharif is receiving 2/3 of his salary, about $30,000 a year, in workers’ compensation. Union members do not get health insurance or disability payments, Desai said.
“My guess is that he’ll be unable to work for at least four months,” Desai said. “He can’t even pick up his baby because of the wounds to his arms. He can’t turn his neck.”
There’s been so little money raised over the past few days for Sharif that it would “barely cover baby formula,” said Desai who, along with Sharif, held a widely publicized press conference Friday announcing the union was creating a fund for the family. The union’s website indicates how to mail a donation or give online.
There is also an address that you can send your checks and money orders to, it is:
Ahmed Sharif
c/o New York Taxi Workers Alliance
250 Fifth Avenue, Suite 310
NY, NY 10001
Further more, I do not want to hear any idiotic griping about how this place is some sort of a union or progressive organization. Who cares? They are helping this man, and that my friends is all that matters. In fact, when this posting goes live. I will be sending a small donation, along with the link to this posting. Because I do want to show, that unlike some people out there, calling themselves Conservatives, I am not ate up with hatred of those of another race. I want to show, that my battle is not against those of the Islamic Faith or those of Arab decent; but that my battle is against radical Islam and Jihad — against those who have hijacked a religion to further an agenda of hate. Sort of like these guys here.
I encourage my fellow Conservatives to for once, to put aside our feelings of mistrust; and help someone, who was quite honestly, caught in the crossfire. If we do this, we can rebuild an image that was tarnished the day this man was stabbed. Do it now; go, give and give abundantly.
Other Great Americans, who feel this is just the right thing to do: Alan Colmes’ Liberaland, New York Magazine, Suburban Guerrilla and Gawker
Quote of the Day
The future of Iraq will hinge on its security forces after the Americans officially hand them control on September 1st. The forces are much better than they were a few years ago; buckling under pressure is no longer a certainty. Yet even their own generals say they are not really ready. The Iraqi army chief of staff wants American help until 2020. Privately, American officers agree their job is not done. Iraqi intelligence work is poor, extremist infiltrators are common, the air force is in its infancy, some commanders follow nakedly political agendas and initiative in the lower ranks is lacking, as is equipment. Prisoners are widely abused.
It is clear that Iraqis will for many years be plagued by corruption, insurgents, meddling neighbours, and their own stubborn politicians. Ending America’s “combat mission” is a gamble—and gambles can be lost.