ISIL = Worse Than Hitler

It seems that things are about to blow up with regard to ISIS or ISIL or whatever they want to call themselves. So we should probably talk about them. Here are my thoughts.

● Islam Is The Root Cause: It’s funny how liberals love talking about root causes when it comes to crime or domestic violence or poverty, but somehow it’s anathema and racist to talk about it when it comes to Islamic terrorism. ISIL like al Qaeda and the thousands of other Islamic terrorist groups have continued to show that Islam breeds terrorists. There is no denying this. Hundreds of thousands of Islamists have joined these groups with the intention of hurting, killing and maiming innocent and unsuspecting people all in the name of spreading Islam by fear and force.

● Backing Into A Corner: Team Obama is really backing themselves into a corner on this ISIL issue. For years now, they have denied that al Qaeda or Iran or anything else really poses any threat to the United States or her people. Yet, this past week, various Obama team members, including Defense Secretary Hagel, played up ISIL as “something we’ve never seen before” and “more dangerous than al Qaeda.”

This is bizarre. Team Obama are literally backing themselves into a corner where they will have no choice but to start a ground war to eliminate ISIL. Indeed, it’s impossible for Obama to make ISIL out as an existential threat to the United States and the free world and then do nothing about them. And don’t forget, this isn’t a group he can sanction with any credibility.

● Elitist Priorities: It’s funny to me that the left always attacked Bush and Bush and Reagan for not caring about “real” people but instead only acting when the interests of their friends were at stake. So what are we supposed to make of this? Until ISIL decided to kill a journalist, Team Obama completely downplayed the threat from ISIL. Sure, they had taken over 1/3 of Iraq and a good chunk of Syria, but they were nothing but a group of thugs who would soon fail once the Iraqis got their act together. This wasn’t our problem.

Then they killed a journalist... a sacred journalist... and suddenly Team Obama springs into action: “This is an outrage! This is unheard of! They’re worse than Hitler!” What kind of statement is that? “Gee, so sorry all you dead Iraqi Christians and you wrong kind of Muslims, sorry all you girls who lost your human rights, but all of you together do not add up to the worth of the life of a single journalist.” This is what caring about real people is supposed to look like?

● Stop With The Money: One of the things Hagel said was that ISIL is better at fund raising than al Qaeda ever was. He links their funding to their threat level. As I’ve pointed out many times before, I find this to be intensely stupid thinking. It doesn’t take money to be a great terrorist. I can cause more chaos in this country than al Qaeda ever did with just a good set of tools. This idea that it takes money to rain destruction on a country is silly

● Cover-Up: Finally, I don’t think ISIL is any worse than al Qaeda, but I think Team Obama is pushing this line because he doesn’t want to be the president who let Iraq become a failed terrorist state. Hence, he’s planning to send in the troops. And the only way he thinks he can justify that while still pretending that Bush’s invasion was inappropriate it to pretend that something bigger and more dangerous has invaded Iraq than what caused Bush to go to war in Iraq. Ergo, his decision was smart and justified whereas Bush was being stupid.

Thoughts?

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Ignore the Doomsdayists

I've pointed out many times before that the human race is beset by those who want to predict doom. In our country, this tends to take the form of whole groups of people predicting that the US is economically and militarily finished because the ____ will overtake us any day now and that will be the end. Examples include the efficient fascists, the invincible Nazis, the dedicated communists, the workaholic Japanese, the EU, the BRICs, the Asian Tigers, China, etc. It's never been true before and it's not true now. Anyway, two recent events are worth adding to the pile on this issue.

1. The World Class Russian Army: No sooner have the Russians rolled the Ukrainians, who refused to defend themselves, than this hive of retired colonels who pimp for defense contractors began writing articles stating that we were no match for the Russian military. I kid you not. The mightiest military the world has ever seen... a military so mighty that all others have given up trying to go toe to toe with it... is no match for the backwater Russian army? Really?

This claim was based on an examination of the equipment and tactics used by the Russian troops in the Ukraine. What these "experts" concluded was that the troops they saw on the television were very well equipped. They had sophisticated body armor, which may or may not be enough to block the rounds fired by the M4 carbine - the standard American rifle. They wore advanced communications gear which let them coordinate. They used expert tactics too, i.e. these weren't the untrained conscripts we think of as Russian soldiers. Conclusion: Putin's efforts to modernize the Russian military have paid off and his troops are superior to ours. Panic!!!

Of course, this was all horse crap and these chicken hawks knew it. For starters, these weren't Russian "soldiers," they were Russian special forces. This is the equivalent of judging the rest of our military by the SEALS. So forget the part of the conclusion about the Russians being super well trained. Moreover, forget all the talk about superior equipment because the regular army isn't equipped with any of this stuff. Even more to the point, these self-described "experts" are ignoring the fact that American military might doesn't come from an M4 carbine, it comes from total air superiority, our armor dominating the battlefield, and our infantry having an intense punch with a variety of weapons and toys. And in those things, the Russians just can't compete.

2. The Chinese Navy: Before Putin, it was fashionable to worry about the Chinese. Not only was their economy destined to destroy ours (despite all the evidence), but they have been building a powerful military which will put us in our place. They even have a stealth fighter! (Actually, it was a mock up and doesn't work.) But nothing has made the doomsdayers happier than talking about the Chinese "blue water" fleet. On the back of a single aircraft carrier purchased from Russia, the Chinese were supposedly on the verge of overcoming our naval dominance.

Then Flight MH370 happened. This has exposed a massive problem for anyone with wet dreams of Chinese aircraft carriers lurking off American cities. See, it turns out that the Chinese sent 18 minor ships to engage in the search for MH370 and after a few days, they had to go home to repair and refuel because the Chinese have no capability to support ships at sea and they have no bases where they could stop in the region. Putting this into military terms, the Chinese will be hard-pressed to operate a fleet of even two dozen ships much past the Sea of China for more than a couple days. So much for force projection.

Coincidentally, at the same time this was happening, the US Navy announced that it had developed a process which lets it turn sea water in fuel (even jet fuel), which means the Navy can be independent of any oil producers and its ships can stay at sea for years if they so choose. China's looking at about a week at sea tops.

Forget these doomsdayist folks. Our country is strong, despite Obama's best efforts. Our military remains in a class by itself and no one is even trying to challenge it on that basis. Our economy is solid. The spirit of our people is as it always has been. Nothing to see here.

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The End of the Military? Hardly

No doubt, you’ve all heard about the end of American dominance because of the upcoming military spending cuts. Forget it. That’s bull. Yes, the defense cuts will certainly mean some loss of capabilities, but that’s a meaningless point. What matters is whether or not we still have enough men and material to maintain our dominance over other countries and our superiority on the battlefield. And that we do.

● Top of the World Ma!: First, let’s debunk this idea that somehow our budget is being gutted. Even after the cuts being proposed right now, the US will spend more on its military than all of the top militaries in the world combined. Notice the chart below, which is accurate.

But the raw numbers only tell part of the story. Running a military is expensive and you can’t do it in parts. For example, you can’t put to sea with only 10% of an aircraft carrier and buying one plane is not as effective as buying ten. In fact, the military needs to work as a single, complete machine to achieve its full capability. The less of that machine you own, the less capability you get, and it’s not a straight line drop-off.

Said differently, not every dollar spent projects the same value. Ergo, if a nation spends 10% of our budget, that doesn’t mean they get 10% of our capability. It more likely means they get 1% of our capability. So even if all the foreign military budgets combined equal ours, their capabilities don’t.

To give you a concrete example, consider this: the United States is the only country in the world that is capable of projecting force beyond its immediate neighbors. In other words, we are the only country that can transport troops overseas, send hardware, and reach anywhere in the world with our bombers and missiles. Even our big threats Russia and China are incapable of going anywhere their troops can’t drive to or walk to. In fact, even if you took the transport capabilities of every other country and combined them, you still couldn't do what we do. Ditto on navies and air forces and ground troops. Hence, even if everyone else in the world ganged up on us, their total military capabilities simply don’t compete with ours, even if their overall budgets combine to be about the same.

● Not As Deep As You Think: Next, realize that the cuts are not as deep as you are being led to believe.

For example, the Army is going to be reduced to 450,000 soldiers: “That’s the lowest it’s been since before World War II!!” Yes, it is, but we were fighting an aggressive foe of equal size at the time – first the Nazis and then the Soviets. There's nothing like that now. Also, there is an apples and oranges number here. In 1940, the entire military (Army, Navy, Marines) was only 458,000. Today, the Army alone will be 450,000 before you add in the Navy, Marines and Air Force. Indeed, even after the cuts, we’ll still have more active duty personnel than any country except China and India.

FYI, the number of aircraft carriers will remain the same at around 11 (depends on how you count them). Russia and China combine for 2.

To give you a perspective, the Army is being cut about 14%. At its current size, our military has been able to fight a 13 year war in Afghanistan and fight a war in Iraq, while defending Korea and Europe and projecting US power all over the globe. A 14% reduction should not be a problem, given the wind down in Afghanistan.

Further, contrary to popular belief, less than half of the “troops” in the army aren't what you think of as soldiers. Most are clerks or support, and DoD seems intent on reducing their numbers first. In fact, DOD is looking to expand the special forces.

● Not The Same Weapons: A lot of the screaming is about scaled back programs. But it's important to realize that we don’t always need new weapons. For example, American aircraft are generations ahead of the competition and no one can compete with us. We dominate the skies and no one has the budget to catch up to us. Thus, there is no significant pressure to keep buying newer and newer planes. Also, there is a massive shift underway from manned aircraft to drones. Drones are much cheaper to build and operate, don’t endanger the lives of pilots, and are proving to have excellent capabilities. The future is drones, missiles and missile defense, not snazzier fighters. So we shouldn’t be rushing out to buy hundreds of billion dollar aircraft until we’re sure they will be the most effective use of those dollars.

Other equipment is similar. The M1-Abrams tank was first put into service in 1980, but it’s still the world class... no one comes close. So why replace it? Instead, you do what we’ve been doing, which is improving the model with each generation. The modern engine, for example, uses 40% fewer parts than the original engine. There are electronic systems on this tank that weren’t even conceived of when it was made. And there have been dozens of other upgrades. Our aircraft are the same – more advanced radar systems, better missiles, better defenses. Our ships are much more capable than they’ve ever been in history. The point is, you don’t always need a new program to stay ahead of the world. So when you hear screaming about cancelled programs or reduced buys, the real question is whether or not we really needed those to stay ahead. Nothing I’ve seen getting cancelled has been needed.

● A “Safer” World: Also, keep in mind that there are fewer military threats today, which means we need less to guarantee our security. From the 1960s through the 1980s, we needed to fend off communists in South America, Southeast Asia and Africa, defend Europe from a possible Warsaw Pact invasion, defend South Korean from North Korea, contain China, India, Pakistan, Iran, and Iraq. Today, most of that is gone. Our threats today are Iran, North Korea, China and Russian bullying... if we care. That’s a short list that allows us to reduce our capabilities some because we no longer need to watch everything on the planet. Indeed, the real enemy today is Muslim fundamentalism, and as we’re learning, that can’t be fought militarily.

So what is my point with this article? Well, it’s this: don’t panic.

Everyone wants to scare you with "the end of America!" these days, but these cuts aren’t that. Even after these cuts, we will still have the men and material needed to maintain our dominance over other countries and our superiority on the battlefield. No one compares to us, and no one will because they aren’t trying. And as more of the world integrates economically and moves into the realm of middle class countries, the dangers of the world recede. So while it is true that these cuts will eliminate some capabilities, they won’t ultimately make the nation any less safe or secure. That’s not to say we shouldn’t monitor them carefully to make sure, but let’s not panic and tell the world we’re weak when we aren’t.

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Syria-ously?

Let’s interrupt today’s article about Obamacare and instead talk about Syria, rather briefly. Here are my impressions. Please share yours in the comments:

For those who haven’t been paying attention... like pretty much everyone... Obama is preparing to go to war with Syria. They probably won’t call it war. They’ll call it something like “intervention,” but it will be war. My guess is they’ll drop a bunch of cruise missiles on government buildings and military bases. They’ll bomb some rocket sites and some tanks and blow up some MIG something or others. Then it’s likely they will set up a no fly zone.

Economically the stock market dropped, which is a load of el toro kaka because Syria has no connection to the world economy at all. They make nothing. They dig up nothing. They transport nothing. The only thing they export are Syrians.

This has been an interesting build up to non-war-war because Obama drew a very clear line in the sand for the Syrians to avoid war. He told them, “Don’t use chemical weapons or my own rhetoric will force me to act.” This was a well chosen line too because Syria had no need to use chemical weapons, i.e. they have more than enough conventional power to slaughter their enemies. So using chemical weapons suggests they wanted to pull Obama into this.

For his part, Obama now has no choice but to act. But here’s the problem:

(1) This is again a Western country attacking an Arab country. In the past, the left has screamed that this is what inspires Islamic terrorism. So why has Obama attacked Syria and Libya and illegally bombed the crap out of people in Pakistan and Yemen and Somalia? Secret Muslim my Ramadanadingdong.

(2) There is no endgame here. The rebels are even worse than the regime. The ideal solution would be for a Syrian-sized asteroid to crash gently on the country. Guess we shouldn’t have cut NASA’s budget, should we Mr. Obama?

(3) The Europeans are spent when it comes to war. Their ten soldiers are too tired after Afghanistan and won’t be out of therapy for decades. So we’re going this one alone except for possibly Turkey, and letting Turkey in raises questions of a larger regional struggle.

(4) The public hates the idea of getting involved. That last good poll I saw on this showed 9% support for intervention... about the same number of people who think Superman is real.

(5) There is a chance that any violence will spark a larger war with Israel. Iran is talking about using Syria as a pretext to attack Israel, though I highly doubt this. Cojones is a Spanish word and they don’t speak Spanish in Iran, which means they ain’t got no cojones in Iran.

Finally, I should point out that the Magic Syrian never appeared... just as I told you it won't: LINK.

Thoughts?

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Drones And Our Warlord In Chief

When Bush was in office, the left screamed that Bush’s use of drones was a “war crime.” When Obama took over, the left became strangely silent on this issue, as well as all the other issues that they considered “war crimes” when Bush did them. Let’s talk about Obama’s foreign policy generally and why there is good reason to be upset at Obama’s use of drones.

Let me start by pointing out the hypocrisy here. When Obama first ran for office, he ran on opposition to the invasion of Iraq. He also opposed Bush’s use of secret C.I.A. prisons and the warrantless surveillance of the Patriot Act. He attacked Bush for denying Guantanamo Bay detainees civil rights, and he promised to close the facility. He said he would ban “harsh interrogation techniques.” And many on the left, though I don’t recall Obama saying this specifically, really hated the use of drones and wanted it stopped. And he spoke of having a humbler foreign policy.

Well, Obama took over and lo and behold, he did none of this – except ban waterboarding. To the contrary, Obama became uber-Bush. His Justice Department tried to strip the Gitmo detainees of person status, in violation of the Constitution and international law. His Justice Department decided that military tribunals rather than civilian courts were just fine. And now, his Justice Department has not only decided that drones are cool, but they’re way cool and they should be used with reckless abandon.

The left has remained completely silent on these points, just as they cheered when he tried to bully Honduras (after saying we needed to stop interfering in Central America), just as they cheered when he sent troops to kill pirates, to fight rebels in Africa, to bomb terrorists in Somalia and Yemen, and to basically fight a Laos-type war in Pakistan, just as they pounded their chests when he bombed Libya, just as they are now screaming for him to bomb Syria. This is all the things the left hated about Bush, only on steroids. As an aside, they also used to fight things like land mines and the use of depleted uranium in shells... until Obama took over, now they’re cool.

Now get this, this is rich. When the Justice Department issued their memo on drones the other day, the left finally decided they need to say something. Said some ACLU hack:

“That memo coming out, I think, was a wake-up call. These last few days, it was like being back in the Bush days. It’s causing a lot of cognitive dissonance for a lot of people. It’s not the President Obama they thought they knew.”

Cognitive dissonance my smoking rear end... try willful collaboration. You’d have to be willfully blind to somehow fail to see what Obama has been doing for four years and to only now understand that Obama=Bush.

Anyway, here’s the deal with drones.

First, the problem I’ve had with the left on this issue is that there is no logic to their reasoning. Leftists have opposed drones on principle, and the reason seems to be that they don’t like the idea of the American military killing someone without those people getting a chance to kill American soldiers. This is what they are saying when they whine about wars being fought by “remote control.” This is bull. There is no logic to this whatsoever, nor is there any morality to this. The idea that it’s only acceptable to kill someone if you endanger yourself in the process is, frankly, retarded thinking. And I think it comes from their anti-American sentiment in that they don’t want the American military to be able to fight without suffering casualties. This is as stupid as arguing that soldiers shouldn’t be allowed to use guns because it’s too easy to kill someone with a gun before they have a chance to try to knife you, and it’s immoral to argue that if we are going to go to war, then we need to take proportional causalities.

Over time, they’ve added a new strain to the anti-drone argument. This one holds that the problem with drones is that they are “indiscriminate.” This is, of course, nonsense. The US is not flying drones that are out there picking their own targets and fighting a war without human input. That’s the science fiction view, not the reality. And it doesn’t take a human pilot to be able to identify the targets that will be hit. So again, this is stupid.

Then they came up with the idea that drone strikes are evil because they are depriving terrorists of their constitutional rights. Only, they have no such rights. So the left hunted around until they found some dead terrorist with American citizenship and they claimed, “see, Bush is killing Americans with drones without due process.” The counter to this is, of course, that when you engage in armed combat against America, you really have no rights. Sadly for the left, however, before this issue caught on, Obama took over and they had to shut up for fear of hurting the image of their Warrior in Chief. So the issue went away.

BUT... now we come to what Obama is doing, and this is where the problem arises. Not only has Obama’s Justice Department decided that killing Americans is fine, but they went further. They decided that something called “signature strikes” are fine. Signature strikes are the racial profiling of the terrorism world. Basically, the CIA is allowed to blow you up if you engage in conduct that appears to be terrorism related even if it doesn’t have a clue who you are. In other words, Obama is letting the CIA blow people up because they are doing things that fit the profile of terrorist without any idea of who these people are or what they are doing. That actually is a violation of international law which doesn’t let you target non-combatants.

So the question now is, will the left stand by their supposed principles (fat chance) or will they continue their deafening silence to support Obama? To give you a sense, feminists haven’t said word one about the massive gender-based pay disparities in the White House, gays stayed silent for four years about Obama’s lack of support for gay marriage, environmentalists still won’t admit that Obama sold them out in Copenhagen, etc. etc.

I think conservatives need to turn up the heat here. Rand Paul is doing this and I’d like to see others do it too. Obama gets away with talking self-righteously but acting the opposite. It’s time to put an end to that. Make him choose... expose his left flank. Don’t think that by remaining silent, you will leave the door open for the next Republican president to do the same... the left doesn’t work that way.

Finally, there’s an interesting point someone made the other day which is worth tossing into the discussion. The thinking is that the reason Obama is using massive numbers of drone attacks is purely political: he wants to avoid capturing terrorists because he doesn’t want to deal with the headaches created by his rhetoric. Basically, he doesn’t know what to do with them, where to put them, or how to keep them without trying them, because his rhetoric wiped out all the options. Nor does he want to deal with the possibility of being in charge when a terrorist attack happens and people find out it could have been prevented if his administration had actually questioned the people they caught. Thus, he thinks it’s safer to kill them all. Interesting. Maybe they should have waited on that Nobel Peace Prize?

Thoughts?

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Oh, By The Way...

There are some things you might not have known before the election. We meant to tell you about those, but you know. . . we got busy. Sorry. Anyway, America, here is what you might have missed.

● Why Obamacare May Fail: Boy is my face red. See, it turns out there might be a problem with Obamacare actually working, which NO ONE foresaw. See, the nation faces a doctor shortage. And we all know shortages just happen, they have nothing to do with supply and demand signals which redirect people to different professions.

Anyhoo, it turns out that the nation will need another 52,000 family doctors than we are expected to have by 2025. Unfortunately, we won’t have that because doctors are greedy. They are choosing to go into specialties rather than work for long hours for low pay which can’t pay back their massive student loans by becoming family doctors. //sigh What will those evil rich do to us next?

Oh, and part of the problem is that Medicare won’t pay enough for people to want to be doctors. . . rotten, evil Medicare. Someone really should fix that.

Anyway, just some sidenotes from the study: Obamacare won’t make this worse when it brings 38 million new people into the system (hey, wasn’t that 43 million a couple years ago?) because these numbers already include that. . . unless you think the study is lying (hint hint: it is, prior studies pinned this number above 100,000). And this MAY change your ability to actually see your doctor, but don’t sweat that because you will have guaranteed coverage (subject to doctor availability). Also, if there should somehow happen to be an access problem, like in Massachusetts, which has tons of family doctors (second highest ratio of family docs to other docs in the country) and still can’t keep up with demand, then maybe we need to drop this idea that people should be seeing doctors and should instead see nurses. . . or talk to an online doctor? (translation: learn to be happy with less, folks). And/Or maybe we should force doctors to work in “patient-centered homes, where everyone works on a team in effort to increase the number of patients per provider.” (translation: work harder you f*cking doctors. . . arbeit mach frei, my friends). Yep, smooth sailing ahead!

And remember, socialism only failed because no one ever tried it right.

● And About Those Human Rights: Hey, did you hear about this? Drone strikes. Kill lists. Renditions to secret CIA prisons. Attacks on countries we have not declared war against. Undeclared wars in Sudan, Libya, Pakistan, Yemen, etc. Secret military tribunals for our Arab guests. Bush is evil. . . Obama is evilER. Fortunately, human rights only matter when the wrong people violate them!

● Remember When You Worked Full Time? Ok, a history lesson. Europe is a basket case. If you’re old and got your job in the 1960s-1980s or if you work for the government or if you’re a professional, then things are fine. If you’re anybody else, well, you’re f*ed and not in a good way! See France and Spain offer the classic examples. They imposed all these laws to help “workers.” And despite everyone being absolutely sure that business wouldn’t try to get around these. . . somehow, they did. What they did, was they started hiring people only as part-timers so the laws wouldn't apply. Hence, those benefits you normally would have gotten, you no longer got those, and forget the new ones the government “gave” you too.

Well, if there’s one thing the Democrats have learned, it’s to never pay attention to history. So they’ve been busy passing all kinds of laws forcing companies to give benefits to workers, like Obamacare. Yep. And we KNOW that business will happily give such benefits, just as they did(n’t) in Spain and France!

Along comes Olive Garden. . . and Papa Johns. And they have announced they will cut worker’s hours below 30 hours so they all qualify as “part time” and they aren’t required to provide healthcare to any of their employees. Sooo sorry if your wages suck ass now, but hey, NO ONE could have seen this coming. These are just the first, too. Olive Garden is owned by Darden, which owns dozens of other franchises. And other companies are saying the same thing. Expect this to spread throughout the service industry. So basically, the gay waiter, single mother and youth demographic who depend on these jobs (all core Obama supporters) is about to discover that life will be a lot harder under their Messiah. Whoops. Maybe we can raise the minimum wage to help them? That always creates jobs, doesn't it?

● We Didn’t Really Mean It? Do you remember how Obama promised to make those evil rich suffer to placate the spite of his followers? And do you remember all those corporate loopholes Obama wanted to close to put a worker’s boot up the ass of our rich cousins? Uh... not so much. The Democrats have signaled that they want to raise the limit on who will be taxed to maybe $500,000 or even a million, and they aren’t really interested in going too high with the rates either. Moreover, they don’t want to close any loopholes, like the Republicans want. I guess the rich found a friend in Comrade Obama.

So basically, gays, youths, single mothers and people who need government-provided healthcare will suffer because of Obama. . . and the rich get off unscathed. I wonder if Obama's moronic followers will see the irony in any of this? Probably not.

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Romney Blasts Obama’s Foreign Policy

President-pending Mitt Romney spoke at the Veterans of Foreign Wars National Convention in Nevada this week, and he gave a rather devastating critique of Obama’s foreign policy. Stop me if any of this sounds familiar.

Romney began by laying out his standard for what our foreign policy should be, and he did this by ripping into Obama. Consider this the “Romney Doctrine”:

Has the American economy recovered?

Has our ability to shape world events been enhanced, or diminished?

Have we gained greater confidence among our allies, and greater respect from our adversaries?

And, perhaps most importantly, has the most severe security threat facing America and our friends, a nuclear-armed Iran, become more or less likely?

Bingo! That’s perfect foreign policy! That is exactly the test any President should apply to all foreign policy decision. Not coincidentally, this test also proves to be a devastating takedown of Obama’s failures because Obama cannot answer yes to any of these points.

Romney then got specific. He noted that Obama’s policies have strangled the recovery, which weakens America’s ability to project its power. He claimed Obama exposed the military to unjustifiable cuts which threaten the military. He attacked Obama for mishandling national secrets, which endangers our policies and our people. And he pointed out that Obama has “given trust where it is not earned, insult where it is not deserved, and apology where it is not due.” All true.

When our economy is weak, we stop being the shining beacon to the rest of the world. Our enemies see us as in decline and decide the opportunity to strike is at hand. Countries like China have used Obama’s term to bury us in debt, to push for the elimination of the dollar as the world’s reserve currency, to become much more aggressive in Asia, to build up and modernize their military, to hoard resources, and to begin the unchecked economic colonization of Africa.

Our military has been stretched to the limit since 2001 and not only has Obama done little to help them, he used their budget as a bargaining chip. To get a budget deal, which the Democrats now refuse to perform, he proposed ripping a trillion dollars in cuts from the military. I don’t believe the military budget is inviolate, but that is obscene. Moreover, he’s politicized the military at all turns, from don’t ask don’t tell, to using the military as a campaign prop, to ignoring abuses by our frenemies like Karzai in Afghanistan while punishing and neglecting the Americans who risk their lives to prop up these failed policies. There is even a report out today that the Army stopped an investigation into a corrupt and horrific hospital in Afghanistan (the Dawood National Military Hospital) in 2010 because the report would have been issued too close to the election for Obama’s comfort.

This administration has been horrible about protecting secrets as well, which is ironic as they ruthlessly go after whistleblowers. They fed classified information to Hollywood so they could make films that are mere propaganda for Obama’s campaign. And now they’ve been leaking classified documents to the New York Times, e.g. documents about US cyber attacks against Iran and “kill lists” Obama has authorized. Even the Democrats admit these leaks are coming from the White House. Said Sen. Diane Feinstein, Chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee on Monday, “I think the White House has to understand that some of this is coming from their ranks.” Democrat Pat Caddell has actually accused Obama National Security Adviser Tom Donilon of being the primary leaker.

Frankly, this has all been done to make Obama look tougher. And of this, Romney told the VFW: “[the administration] betrays our national interest [and] compromises our men and women in the field.” Again, all true.

Finally, Obama has been harsh to our friends and weak to our enemies. As Romney put it, he “abandoned our friends in Poland and the Czech Republic” and he kowtowed to Russia and China. And Romney said this about Israel:

The people of Israel deserve better than what they have received from the leader of the free world. And the chorus of accusations, threats, and insults at the United Nations should never again include the voice of the President of the United States.

And don’t forget, Obama tried to support a coup in Honduras against our friends in favor of a Chavez-like dictator wannabe. He’s been rude to Britain and India. He flooded Mexico with illegal guns. He stopped a needed Canadian pipeline. He’s been useless on the Euro crisis and useless in the Middle East. Heck, he didn’t even placate the world’s sensibilities by closing Gitmo. And he lost control over environmental issues to the BRICS and he managed to make pirating super profitable.

Obama’s record is a disaster. He’s made everything worse and achieved nothing. Is the US better off than it was four years ago? Hardly. But let’s let Romney sum this all up:

This is very simple: if you do not want America to be the strongest nation on earth, I am not your President. You have that President today.

Damn straight!

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Law of the Sea Treaty Dead Again

We’ve spoken before about Big Business not being conservative. Here’s more proof, along with some very good news. The Law of the Sea Treaty is dead. Good for America.

Why This Is A Dangerous Treaty

I first became aware of the Law of the Sea Treaty when it was conceived during the Reagan years in 1982, and it seemed like a horrible idea at the time. The idea was that the world’s oceans contain a vast amount of mineral wealth, but because only the rich world has the resources to exploit it, a treaty should be passed to divide this wealth equally among all countries.

The way the treaty works is it divides the ocean floor into zones. Internal waters (like a bay) and up to 12 miles from shore are considered territorial water and are treated as if they are dry land. A country’s sovereignty is complete within that zone (the old zone was three miles). The next 12 miles are considered a continuous zone. Within that zone, countries may impose laws related to customs, taxation, immigration and pollution, but cannot stop navigation. The next 200 miles are considered an exclusive economic zone. Here the state has some rights, but foreign countries may lay pipe or cable and navigate freely. Beyond that are international waters.

This may sound harmless, but that’s not all the treaty does. The treaty includes 320 articles and is over 200 pages long. It establishes a complex regulatory regime that applies to almost every commercial and government activity related to the oceans. This includes the regulation of shipping, the regulation of drug interdiction, and even the regulation of manufacturing conducted in coastal waterways. Moreover, it gives the U.N. unprecedented taxing and permitting authority over international waters. Essentially, this is a U.N. takeover of oceans.

Through these regulatory schemes, the U.N. could impose things like the Kyoto Protocol (on global warming) through the back door, could forced U.S. citizens to pay energy taxes to other nations, and the U.N. could claim the power to regulate U.S. military actions.

Ronald Reagan refused to sign this treaty for similar reasons. The extension of the territorial limit from 3 miles to 12 miles meant U.S. submarines and intelligence ships could be put in danger. He felt the regulatory scheme would stop undersea mining as permits to mine require an application fee of $250,000 ($500,000 at the time), plus the corporation must pay an annual fee of $1 millions to the U.N.’s International Seabed Authority, plus they would need to pay up to 7% of profits, plus they would need to share mining and navigational technology. Moreover, the decision on whether or not to grant such a license would belong to the Seabed Authority, which is controlled by Third World countries. This would give them veto power over all such activities. Reagan believed this was set up to discourage deep sea mining to protect the mining industries on land, which tend to operate in Third World countries. He also objected that the mandatory dispute resolution procedures bound Americans to the decisions of foreign judges and harmed American sovereignty.

Clinton tried to pass this treaty and essentially failed, as did Bush II and Obama. John Kerry has been pushing this in the Senate.

Why It’s Dead

Since two-thirds of the Senate must support a treaty before it can become law, it only takes 24 Senators to stop a treaty. Thirty-four Republicans have now come out in opposition to the Law of the Sea Treaty, which means it’s effectively dead. The charge was led by Tea Party conservative Jim DeMint, who was joined by GOP liberal Rob Portman of Ohio, conservative Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, cow-tipper Mike Johanns of Nebraska, Johnny Isakson of Georgia, and 29 other Republicans. John “my friends” McCain was on the wrong side, as always. Since the treaty cannot get the two-thirds vote it needs, it’s dead, Jim. . . for now.

Who Supports It And Why

Naturally, only Democrats (and McCain) supported this thing, right? Actually, no. The American Petroleum Institute and the US Chamber of Commerce both supported it. API is Big Oil’s lobbying arm and the Chamber of Commerce is Big Business’s lobbying arm. How could they possibly support this, you ask? Doesn’t the loss of sovereignty, the risk to the US Military, the imposition of international taxes mean anything them?

Well. . . no. Their only concern is profit. And by getting all these minerals safely regulated by an international tribunal, they can then go about making money by extracting them. What about the taxes and fees? Well, that’s really your problem, not theirs, because corporations don’t pay taxes. . . their customers pay taxes.

If you ever needed a more clear example of how little the United States of America and you mean to these companies, this is it. They will happily sell you and your rights to a United Nations tribunal dominated by corrupt Third-World governments just so they can make sure they get the monopoly rights on these minerals. Think about that the next time some oil company or some mineral company or any other multinational company comes to you and says they need some law to help them.

These people are not our friends.


P.S. Don't forget, it's Star Trek Tuesday at the film site.

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Are We About To Bomb Iran? Yep.

I mentioned the other day that Obama seems to be getting ready to bomb Iran before the election. Not only do I stand by that, but I think the evidence for it is growing. If I’m reading the signs right, look for three weeks of bombing at the end of August.

Before we hit the evidence, let me dispel a few conservative myths. Contrary to what people with Obama Derangement Syndrome will tell you, Obama’s foreign policy is remarkably similar to Bush’s foreign policy. His rhetoric is weaker, but his actual policies are the same. Indeed, he’s almost been trigger-happy by comparison. He’s authorized thousands of drone strikes in countries like Pakistan, Yemen and throughout Africa (things Bush was afraid to do), he’s authorized the bombing of Libya, and he’s sent US troops into a half-dozen conflicts. He’s authorized the killing of American citizens who are suspected terrorists, he hasn’t renounced “enhanced interrogation,” and he even tried to erase the legal existence of the people they are holding at Gitmo. All in all, he’s been more than willing to fight.

Moreover, his latest chest thumping about killing Osama bin Laden, tells us that he thinks it will be vital to his re-election to appear tough. What this means is that Obama is willing and able to strike and most likely sees it as being in his interests to strike before the election.

But how do we know he will strike Iran? Well, for starters, he’s been laying the groundwork for some time. For two years, Obama spoke incessantly about sanctions while promising carrot after carrot if Iran would just play nice. They didn’t. And he can now tell his supporters he tried. Then last year, things began to change. The IAEA issued a stinging report saying that not only was Iran cheating, but that they would soon have a bomb. Meanwhile, Obama’s people created this bizarre story of Iran working with Mexican narco-gangs to assassinate people in the US. That story didn’t wash (except Rick Santorum believed it) but it signified a rhetorical shift toward getting the public ready for a possible attack. And with each of the Republican candidates buying into the need for an attack (except Ron Paul), Obama now has a green light to act.

At the same time, Obama apparently authorized the assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists and authorized the use of sophisticated computer virus attacks against Iran’s nuclear capabilities. These are acts you take before an attack, not when you are just passing time.

Now we’re suddenly getting a slew of clues that something is imminent:

● A few weeks ago, Obama moved a second aircraft carrier into the region. American attacks in the modern era always use two carriers. And they are rarely together otherwise.

● The troops in Iraq, who would have been a major target for Iranian counter-attacks, have been removed to safer Arab countries.

● A few months ago, Obama approved the sale of a sophisticated anti-missile system to the United Arab Emirates for $3.6 billion. Why would something like that be needed? To make them less nervous about hosting US troops should hostilities break out and to protect US troops in the country.

● Then last week, we learned that the Air Force positioned F-22 Raptors (the latest generation stealth fighter/penetrator) in those very same UAE. The F-22 is the perfect plane to get through Iran’s defensive grid. The Air Force claims this is all just a normal deployment, except that’s not true. The Air Force does not send F-22 Raptors to just anywhere.

● Yesterday, Obama signed an Executive Order allowing the US to boycott anyone who still does business with Iran. Notice the lack of fanfare. That’s key here because when countries aren’t ready to fight, they bang the table and make threats. When they are preparing to fight, they go silent and don’t trumpet their actions. And my guess is this Order will allow the seizure of assets at a critical time.

● Also yesterday, Prime Minister Netanyahu for the first time mentioned moving elections up from November to August. Why? Because you can’t start an attack if you’re going to go before the voters right after it begins. This suggests the timeline is a late-August attack.

● And then this came out last night. The Pentagon has leaked that it is revising its defense strategy in accordance with current threats. Mentioned in the assessment is that U.S. Central Command is conducting “war planning” for Iran, with the belief that we can destroy Iran’s conventional armed forces in about three weeks “using air and sea strikes.” Further, the Pentagon is “now conducting a step-by-step surge of forces in the Gulf.” Specifically mentioned were “maintaining two aircraft carriers in the region and increasing the number of mine-detection ships and helicopters” as well as the deployment of the F-22. In other words, everything I mentioned above.

All this tells me that the Pentagon is getting ready to strike. It’s building the military capability and it has already assured the neighbors, who no doubt already gave a green light or we would be hearing screaming. Politically, Obama has clearly coordinated with Israel and is factoring this attack into his election plan. He’s also set the Treasury up to seize Iranian assets once the shooting starts.

Based on Israel and how unlikely it is that the Air Force would leave the F-22’s sitting over there too long or the Navy would leave two carriers floating in the gulf longer than necessary, I would expect an attack no later than the end of August, with the current plan being three weeks of bombing.

So the next question is will this help Obama's re-election chances? I doubt it. Weak- appearing leaders tend to get hurt when they start wars because people see it as a desperate attempt to look tough. Libya gave Obama his standard three point bounce which faded almost before it was recorded. I would expect this will give him a 10% bounce, which will fade in week two of the bombing and go negative if bombing goes on beyond three weeks. . . which it will. Plus, as he's shown with his Afghanistan garbage, he will quickly try to politicize it, and that will truly anger average Americans.

Thoughts?

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Our Overseas Military Presence

To give you a quick update on the 2012 election, Perry now claims he wants a flat tax at some unknown rate. Perry's supporters seem really blind to how poorly he’s coming across. Cain says he will go on the attack in the next debate because the other candidates “are getting on my last nerve.” Palin thinks Newt won the other night. And Politico wants to convince us that the race is between Perry and Romney. But the guy I want to talk about today is Paul.

In the last two debates, Paul has said the US has 900 military bases overseas in 130 countries. This struck me as likely true, but also highly misleading, as I will explain.

Looking this up, I found the US actually has military personnel in 148 different countries. That doesn’t surprise me. We also have 662 installations outside the country. That doesn’t surprise me either. And I’m not going to quibble about 900 versus 662: either number is huge and within the same order of magnitude.

So Paul is correct, right? Sort of. He is technically correct about the numbers. But I think he is implying something much bigger than the reality. When Paul says the military has bases in these countries, it sounds a lot like we have an active military presence sitting on self-contained “bases” in almost every country. In effect, it sounds like we have occupied every country in the world.

But that’s not really what is going on. The truth is that only 13 countries host more than 1,000 troops: Belgium, Germany, Italy, Spain, Turkey, the United Kingdom, Japan, Bahrain, Djibouti, South Korea, Iraq, Afghanistan and Kuwait. Most of the rest have only a handful of troops, typically in single digits.

So what are they doing? That’s impossible to determine for sure, but most likely they are guarding embassies. There are about 30 Marines at the embassy in Moscow, plus some other officers from the other services. So let’s exclude any country with fewer than 40 military personnel from this list on the assumption they are just embassy staff.

Suddenly we are only in 19 countries, 13 of which are in Europe. . . where we are part of NATO.

The 662 bases is misleading too. All but 32 of those bases are either small sites or owned on paper only. For example, some of these sites are apparently nothing more than unmanned radio towers. One site listed in Canada is only 144 square feet -- a 12x12 room, just like our “base” in North Korea is just a room with two guards assigned.

Thus, when Paul says we have 900 military bases overseas in 130 countries, he is technically correct (give or take). But what he’s really should be saying to not be misleading is: we have 32 military bases overseas in 19 countries. That doesn’t quite have the same punch.

I don’t subscribe to isolationism at all. Isolationism is a horrible policy because it eliminates your ability to control your destiny and it turns you into a victim of circumstance. And ignoring a bully never works.

But I do agree with Paul to this extent -- I would like to see a stronger analysis on why we are in each region. I get Asia, for example. If we pulled out of Asia, China would dominate the region, Japan would re-arm and go nuclear, and war would probably break out in the Koreas, between China and Taiwan, and between China and Vietnam. That would be very bad for the US. And I understand we’re in Europe mainly to keep bases needed to transport troops. But why are we in Africa, South America or throughout the Middle East?

I think those are valid questions.

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"The (Stupid) People's Budget"

Obama loves channeling the past. He does a particularly good Nixon. Now other Democrats are getting into the act. In this case, a group of weirdoes known as the Congressional Progressive Caucus are channeling East Germany as they release “The People’s Budget.” This budget is a response to Ryan’s budget and the budget Obama is expected to release, and like all things “People’s” this one is a disaster.

The Congressional Progressive Caucus is a collection of weirdoes who spend their time sniffing each other’s seats and feeling smug about their desires to enslave the human race. This group of pathetics includes male-prostitute enthusiast Barney Frank, crooks like Maxine Waters, Charlie Rangel, and Sheila Jackson Leigh, socialist Bernie Sanders, misogynistic anti-Semite Pete Stark, extra-terrestrial anal-probing enthusiast Dennis Kucinich, Hitlerian-lunatic Nancy Pelosi, and 68 more assorted creeps and freaks.

These fools claim their budget would eliminate the deficit in 10 years, even as they waste massive amounts of money. Of course, their numbers are fake and their budget would destroy the economy, millions of jobs, and the country, but reality does not deter them.

First, they propose tax increases. . . lots of them. Their budget:

● Raises the social security tax to cover 90% of income, no matter how high.
● Raises the social security tax on employers.
● Creates three new tax brackets, with the highest at 47%.
● Raises the capital gains tax.
● Raises the estate tax.
● Raises corporate taxes.
● Creates a “financial speculation tax.”
● Imposes a “financial crisis responsibility” fee.
● Repeals the Bush tax cuts.

This is guaranteed to slash employment and investment to levels not seen since the Great Depression. Ah... nostalgia!

Of course, this alone won’t eliminate the deficit or destroy the country, so they also propose all-but eliminating the military. Indeed, the plan calls for “reducing strategic capabilities, conventional forces, procurement and research and development.” In other words, they want to stop military spending almost entirely. Thus, should we decide to defend ourselves in the future, it will be BOYB on hardware.

And what kind of progressive budget would be complete without wasting an obscene amount of money? In that regard, they are planning a $1.45 trillion splurge on "stimulus" (i.e. K-12 education, special education, broadband infrastructure, and housing). Of course, none of that is actual stimulus unless special ed kids are better at creating jobs than I realize. Also, let's not forget that you can't be a true progressive unless your plan includes enslaving the public. Hence, they also plan to turn the health care system into a government run single-payer plan, which will quickly devolve into a government-run non-payer, health indifference system. Krankheit macht frei! (Sickness brings freedom.)

Clearly, this budget is a joke. And what makes it all the more laughable are people like Jeffrey Sachs, a drooling idiot from Huffpo who licks his socks clean at night, who claims this is actually a “centrist budget.” Jeff. . . man. . . stay off the drugs.

In any event, we should remember this budget and remind people that this is what the Democratic Party has become, a collection of weirdoes who want to destroy the economy and the military. A vote for any Democrat is a vote for despair.

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WikiWrap-Up On WikiLeaks

Over the past couple of months, WikiLeaks has been dripping out classified US government documents by the hundreds of thousands. Now that we have a good idea of what they reveal, let’s address the issues.

Point 1: What the heck was the government thinking?

Lost in this whole affair is the first question we should all be asking: how did a nobody Army Specialist, Bradley Manning, download several hundred thousand sensitive documents about two separate wars and 250,000 diplomatic cables (11,000 of which were marked secret or “nofo” meaning they could not be shared with foreign government) to a personal computer so he could hand them over to WikiLeaks? Who designs a system for storing classified documents that allows such wide-ranging access? Moreover, they apparently only caught Manning because he went online and bragged about being the source. How can that be?

This is the real issue that needs to be solved and the total focus on WikiLeaks' founder is a distraction from the real scandal.

Point 2: What revelations?

Perhaps the most fascinating aspect of this affair has been the utter lack of revelations. The media claims to have found some, but not a single piece of information produced wasn’t already widely known. Consider these:

● Many governments are run by sexual predators, incompetents or criminals.

● Putin and Berlusconi like to party, as does Gaddafi, who also likes to pout.

● Medvedev is a puppet of Putin, and Russia’s bureaucracy really runs the country.

● Yemen let US troops kill al Qaeda terrorists within their border and tried to pass this sophisticated attack off as having been done by its own primitive security forces with a few US advisors involved.

● Obama used promises and threats to win support for his Copenhagen non-deal deal.

● Mexico’s drug war is not well-focused and is not going well.

● Various Arab states hate and fear Iran, and a couple pleaded with the US to bomb Iran to keep it from getting an atomic bomb.

● Venezuela is not well-liked in the region.

● Iran heavily supported the insurgency in Iraq.

● China is slowly turning against North Korea.

● China authorized cyber attacks against American companies, including Google, and the US Embassy.

● The British royals are inbred idiots who say stupid things.

● Karzai is an erratic jerk who believes in conspiracies and plots but knows little about governing, and his brother is a drug lord.

Anything shocking there? Anything you didn’t already know? I thought not. In fact, the only real revelation of which I am aware is that North Korea managed to send a number of sophisticated missiles to Iran, missiles that are capable of carrying a nuclear payload.

So why is the lack of revelations so interesting? Because it shows us that our government actually is very good at being open and honest with us. And since that is a necessary cornerstone of democracy, this bodes well for our system.

Point 3: Is this disclosure good for democracy?

WikiLeaks founder Julia Assange claims that he leaked this information because secrecy is anathema to good government. To a degree, I agree with that. I am a firm believer in requiring “full disclosure” by government because our government acts in our names and we can only judge our government if we know what it is doing. But the key word there is “doing.”

“Doing” does not include advice given to leaders by their advisors. When you make such advice public, the advisors stop providing complete and honest advice and instead become concerned with how they will appear to the public when their advice is disclosed. That cripples the government because it can no longer get a full picture of its options or the likely consequences of its actions.

“Doing” also does not include information that was provided to the government in a confidential manner. Whether this is corporations sharing trade secrets with the government or individuals turning in neighbors who may be terrorists, allowing the disclosure of such information will prevent people from coming forward with similar information in the future. That prevents the government from getting the information it needs to do its job.

WikiLeaks failed to protect either of these types of information. By turning over private assessments of foreign leaders, WikiLeaks makes it harder for future diplomats to share their private opinions about foreign leaders, which makes it that much harder to spot the potential Hitlers or Ahmadinejads -- which means the US is more likely to work with budding dictators in the future. Likewise, soldiers will now censor their reports, which means the likelihood of casualties (civilian and military) goes up.

WikiLeaks also turned over information that has endangered individual informants. Said a former British military intelligence officer: “Assange has seriously endangered the lives of Afghan civilians. . . the logs contain detailed personal information regarding Afghan civilians who have approached NATO soldiers with information.” This release will prevent future informants from coming forward, and will thereby help terrorists and dictators suppress their people.

Even some of the leading opponents of government censorship have strongly denounced WikiLeaks. Steven Aftergood, editor of Secrecy News, says: “WikiLeaks routinely tramples on the privacy of non-governmental, non-corporate groups for no valid public policy reason. . . this is not whistleblowing and it is not journalism. It is a kind of information vandalism.” Aftergood notes, for example, that WikiLeaks has also published the “secret rituals” of a women’s sorority, “the private rites of Masons, Mormons and other groups that cultivate confidential relations among their members.”

So how can it be good for democracy to have a group of information peeping Toms releasing information that (1) prevents government advisors, diplomats and soldiers from being honest with their bosses, (2) prevents non-government people from sharing information with the government, (3) gets people killed for getting involved with the government, and (4) will make the government much more obsessed with hiding information in the future? If WikiLeaks’ purpose was to open government and make it more responsive, then this is called a “backfire.”

Point 4: What if this had been Bush?

Finally, it is amazing to see the difference between how these leaks are being treated now that they are affecting Obama, rather than Bush. Under Bush, the left was demanding that Bush release the very type of information just released -- they even sued him to get some of it. And they poo-poo’d the Bush Administration’s claims that the release of this type of information would be dangerous.

So they should be happy that this information is finally coming out, right? Wrong. They are treating Assange like a war criminal. They want him hunted down, they don’t even object when people talk about putting him on the terrorist “kill on sight” list. They are happy to believe the rather ridiculous rape charges as true and include that in every mention of his name. They raise no complaints about various governments (possibly including our own) using cyber attacks to keep WikiLeaks offline, nor do they complain when the government leans on and threatens ISPs that host him. It’s amazing how right and wrong changes for the left depending on who is getting hurt.

And let me add another interesting piece to this puzzle. Remember how Obama promised to run the most open government in history and how the left relentlessly pounded Bush for his supposed secrecy? Well get this: last year, the Obama administration marked 54.7 million documents as secret, that’s 10 times the number marked “secret” in 1996 and more than double the maximum amount marked “secret” in any year under Bush. Yet the left says nothing.

I guess “open government” only matter when it’s a Republican president?

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Am I Seriously Defending Obama? Yep.

As I’ve said before, when Obama does something right, I will point that out. Well, it’s happened. According to a New York Times article this weekend, the US has been fighting a “shadow war against al Qaeda and its allies.” And the Times doesn’t like this one bit. But Obama deserves praise for this decision.

This shadow war began under Bush and has been intensified under Obama. At this point, this shadow war has taken place in a dozen countries, from North Africa to Pakistan to former Soviet republics, and has involved the use of robotic drones, commando teams, missile and air strikes, and the hiring of “local contractors” to find and kill these terrorists. Also, this war is apparently being shifted to the CIA from the military.

This is absolutely the right way to fight terrorism and Obama deserves credit for his decision.

History has proven time and time again (without exception), and is proving once more in Afghanistan, that you just can’t fight terrorism with traditional military action. Terrorists disappear too easily into civilian populations and don’t require the types of infrastructure that ground forces are designed to combat. Indeed, trying to fight terrorists with large scale military operations merely results in getting soldiers killed and driving civilians to the terrorists’ cause; the only way to fight terrorists is exactly what is apparently being done as part of this shadow war.

Good for Obama, good for our country.

But of course, that’s not the end of this issue. Indeed, Obama’s left flank is upset to learn about this shadow war. Here are their arguments and why they are garbage:

1. These efforts are intended to kill the terrorists, not arrest them.

Yes, and that’s the point. When someone declares war against the United States and sets out to kill American civilians, they have lost any right to demand that they be arrested and treated according to criminal law. They have made themselves into military targets, just as if they were a battleship parked off an American port, and we are within our rights under any reading of law or international law to kill them. Indeed, even under the Geneva Convention, terrorists deserve less protection than even enemy soldiers. Thus, this argument is simply wrong on all counts.

2. The potential for botched operations might fuel anti-American rage.

This is a sucker argument because it applies to any action by the US. Even if we sent in unarmed police with warrants and provided trial attorneys on the spot to hand out teddy bears, there is still the potential for botched operations. What you need to look at are the alternatives. Under this policy, the worst that happens is that the US hits the wrong target and kills a few innocent civilians. That’s regrettable and will outrage people in those countries, but the outrage will be nothing compared to the outrage caused by the United States Army occupying the country and going house to house trying to find the proverbial terrorist needle in the stack of needles.

3. Blurring the line between soldiers and spies “could put troops at risk of being denied Geneva Convention protections.”

This is the most disingenuous argument on the list because al Qaeda does not act in accordance with the Geneva Convention and does not extend such protections to US soldiers or civilians.

4. Reliance on authoritarian foreign leaders could lead to murky loyalties.

The world is an ugly place full of bad people. Some can be helpful and others harmful. The idea that we should only deal with good people is a utopian delusion that limits our allies to a handful of useless countries. And if the left really believed this argument, then why do they advocate the US dealing with Hamas, Iran, Venezuela, Russia, China and a dozen more.

5. The use of “private contractors” worries the left that the US “has outsourced some of its most important missions to a sometimes unaccountable private army.”

This is more utopian doublespeak. It’s also bad policy. In many instances, there is simply no way for Americans to get intelligence on what is going on in remote places unless they deal with these “private contractors.” Moreover, why should we risk the lives of American men and women when we can hire local mercenaries to do the job for us? Now, to the extent this complaint is about effectiveness, I would agree that we need to be careful not to waste valuable opportunities on bad bets. But the military is unlikely to use “contractors” who are not effective. Finally, this idea of unaccountability is simply wrong. The “contractors” may not be subject to US law or Congressional oversight, but the American officers who hire them would be.

6. This is leading to weakened Congressional oversight, which is undoing “safeguards introduced after Congressional investigations into clandestine wars of the past.”

As you may recall from way back, I am a firm believer in Congressional oversight of everything the military or intelligence communities do in our name. But I don’t see how the waging of such a war, which will be overseen by Congressional intelligence committees, will weaken that oversight. And if it does, then we should strengthen the oversight, not stop the operation.


This policy makes a world of sense. It is, in fact, one of the first things we’ve done about terrorism that actually has a chance to stop terrorism. Compared with Afghanistan, where we’re fighting on the losing side of a civil war, or Somalia, where we’re playing catch and release with modern-day pirates, or Europe, where we’re playing legalistic footsie with people who want to kill us, this is finally a policy that should lead to the eventual destruction of these terrorist organizations. And the phony arguments of the left to keep us from undertaking this policy should be treated with the contempt they deserve. Thus, I must say quite firmly, that in this, I do support Obama.

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What Passes For "Conservative" At HuffPo

Leftists are interesting creatures. They are immune to reality. Logic and truth are foreign concepts to them. They are seething with hate. They love to put their ignorance on display. And sometimes, they pretend to be conservatives. Take, for example, Eric Margolis, who rants at Huffpo on occasion. Eric claims to be moderately conservative, defining himself as an “Eisenhower Republican.” You can tell me in the comments if you buy into that laugher.

To properly get a sense of who Eric is, let’s look at two pieces that he ran over at Huffpo about Afghanistan and Iraq. But first, some background: Eric is a fool with no understanding of history, no grasp on reality and an indifference to facts. He believes that “America has become addicted to debt and war,” and he seems to despise the American military, which he describes derisively as “professional soldiers” (in the Roman context) and “mercenaries.” He also thinks that using modern weapons in a place like Afghanistan is “cowardly”:

“In my view, as an old soldier and war correspondent, using heavy bombers to attack tribal levies or employing gunships and drones against tribal compounds is cowardly.”

Note the assertion that “America’s professional soldiers” are waging a war against civilians.

You may also note that Eric mentions that he is a former solider. In fact, he reminds us of this over and over because he thinks this means something. Perhaps he’s forgetting that Lee Harvey Oswald, Hitler and Alan Alda also were soldiers, and they were all less paranoid than Eric.

And speaking of soldiers, Eric has no love for “fire-breathing Gen. Stanley McChrystal” or our “Special Forces ‘mafia’.” He also hates Fox News, Republicans and the American people, as he was just sure that those morons would make McChrystal into a hero, and thereby the Republicans would “again sadly demonstrate they have become the party of America's dim and ignorant.” He also hates the Tea Party because it appeals to the “fears and prejudices” of its followers, and he rejects the Republican Party because it is influenced by the evil Tea Party.

Oh, and speaking of evil, in a 2009 essay titled “Don’t Blame Hitler Alone for World War II,” Eric claims that it was wrong to give Hitler full blame for World War II, because this was a “preventive war” forced on Hitler by the Soviets.

Ok, so that’s conservative Eric. Now let’s take a quick look at what he just wrote about Iraq and Afghanistan. Here are some highlights.

The Taliban are resisting “western occupation” of Afghanistan. . . forget that the Taliban were there long before the West arrived.

And why would we occupy Afghanistan you ask? Well, first he rants something about the US wanting to control the biggest exporter of heroin. But then he changes his mind mid-rant to alert us that the US wants Afghanistan to control its “oil”. . . which doesn’t exist.

But his real hatred is aimed at our being in Iraq. See if you can follow this:

He starts by saying that we only went into Iraq because the “Seven Sisters” have been squeezed out of their oil fields in places like Iran, and they needed Iraq’s oil wealth to get back into the game. The “Seven Sisters,” by the way, was the name given to the big seven American oil firms in the 1950s. Only four still exist and only two remain American.

But then he suddenly realizes that people might not buy the idea that we need Iraq’s oil because. . . well, we don’t. So he says that the real reason we wanted their oil fields was to gain influence over people like Japan who need the oil. Apparently, occupying Japan doesn’t give us enough influence. His proof? Well, “as the old saying goes, America’s trinity is ‘God, guns and gasoline.’” Wow, now that’s definitive!

Then he gets a little crazy. . . er:

1. He notes that “American ‘liberation’ left Iraq politically, economically and socially shattered, ‘killed’ in the words of former foreign minister, Tariq Aziz.” To back this up, he claims that “reputable studies estimate Iraq’s death toll at mid-hundreds of thousands to one million, not counting claims by UN observers that 500,000 Iraqi children died of disease as a result of the US-led embargo before 2003.” Of course, there are no reputable studies that say this, there are only a couple of far left guesses. Even the AP only puts the death toll at 100,000.

2. He goes on: “four million Sunni Iraqis remain refugees.” FYI, that’s more Sunnis than exist.

3. He says the “surge” only worked because Iran ordered the Shia Mahdi Army militia “to temporarily end resistance” and because of “deft bribery” by the Americans who spent “untold millions bribing Sunni fighters.”

4. Then he takes a quick side trip to warn us that Washington is building new “fortified embassies” in Kabul, Islamabad and Baghdad? These “may hold 1,000 ‘diplomats.’ Osama bin Laden calls them, ‘Crusader Fortresses.’” You see people. . . it’s all there in black and white!

5. And what about the “50,000 US troops left until 2011 . . . to ‘advise and assist”? Well, “to this old war correspondent and military historian, that sounds an awful lot like the British Empires employment of native troops under white officers.” Military historian? Yeah, sure.

6. Of course, he couldn’t leave the Jews out of this because no paranoid rant is complete without a little anti-Semitism. So, did you know that “Large numbers of Iraqis doctors and scientists have been murdered”? And guess who did it? Well, Eric doesn’t want to say definitively because there’s no “hard evidence,” but he lets us know that a lot of people are saying they were killed “by Israel’s Mossad.”

That’s probably enough for you to get the point. Eric is an anti-Semitic, anti-American nutjob with paranoid delusions of American schemes to conquer the world. He fits right in at Huffpo. And he is anything but a “conservative.”

I guess it’s become the vogue thing for leftists to masquerade as “conservatives.”


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Afghanistan Failure

At the beginning of June, Afghanistan became our longest war -- longer than even Vietnam. We have spent hundreds of billions of dollars and sent hundreds of thousands of soldiers. Yet, we are losing. The Taliban are running rampant and control huge swaths of the country. What’s worse, our current strategy won’t change that. We need to rethink this war. Let’s start this by going through the reasons that are routinely given for staying in Afghanistan and showing why those are bad. Then I’ll talk about a better plan.

Reason One: “Having invaded Afghanistan, the West has a duty to return a half-decent state to the Afghan people.”

I hear this a lot and it’s total bull. We owe these people nothing. Afghanistan is a primitive cesspool because its own people made it that way. It was like that when we got there, and it’s not our responsibility to change that. And frankly, claiming this is our responsibility with one hand while claiming that we need to respect their culture and religion with the other is a sucker's game.

Reason Two: “We need to deny al-Qaeda a haven.”

This is the primary reason given for being in Afghanistan. But we’ve already lost this one. Al-Qaeda has a haven in Pakistan, in Yemen, and in Somalia. The CIA has even noted that they are starting to use operatives from all over the world now, making “havens” almost irrelevant. Moreover, if the goal is just to deny them Afghanistan, a rather silly goal given their other havens, then there are better ways. Indeed, cutting a deal with the Taliban to toss al-Qaeda out would be more effective.

Reason Three: “If we leave, a civil war might start, which could suck in local powers like Iran, Pakistan, India and Russia.”

This one shows how little our policy people understand what is going on. This IS a civil war. The Taliban are not foreign invaders. They do not lack popular support. Indeed, recent polls show that one-third of Afghans openly support them, compared to only 25% who support the government. No matter how much we call them “insurgents,” we are participating in a civil war.

Our real target, al-Qaeda, has smartly piggybacked on the Taliban. Without the Taliban, al-Qaeda has no support in Afghanistan. Yet, we’ve lumped them together and, in so doing, we’ve chosen to fight tens of thousands of Taliban fighters who can draw upon local populations for support, when we should be fighting the 1,000 or so al-Qaeda members that the CIA claims are there and in Pakistan. In fact, once again, our best strategy would be to cut a deal with the Taliban to toss out al-Qaeda and we walk away.

Indeed, the military is starting to get this. Said one U.S. civil affairs officer: “We need to reevaluate who the enemy really is. . . Based on the evaluations and interviews in the report, we're not sure we're fighting the right war or fighting the war the right way."

And as for those other powers, who cares? Afghanistan is a worthless piece of rock populated by a few million goat-herders. It has no strategic value. And if Pakistan or Iran want it, let them have it. Where is the harm? Indeed, it might show the world that there are negative consequences to fighting with the United States. . . mess with us, lose your country.

Further, the idea that Pakistan and India or Iran would go to war over this is simply scare mongering. Those countries are ready to fight over any number of things already, tossing in the rocks and goats of Afghanistan won’t change a thing. Not to mention, we could partition the country before we leave to avoid any such conflicts entirely.

Reason Four: “A defeat would mark a humiliation for the West, that would encourage our enemies around the world.”

Finally, we come to the real reason we stay. It is absolutely true that the rest of the world follows the maxim -- “might makes right.” Thus, if we appear weak, then we will be weakened in the eyes of our enemies everywhere. And running away would make us appear weak. But so would losing. And make no mistake, we are losing and everybody knows it.

At the beginning of the year, the military put together an assessment called “The State of the Taliban.” This document paints a grim picture:

• U.S. and NATO leaders do not adequately understand the Afghan people, and our communication skills are poor.

• Our support for Karzai’s corrupt government has made it easy for the Taliban to recruit insurgents and prevents locals from working with NATO.

• The Afghan army and police forces are years away from providing security for the nation -- even though we’ve been training them for nine years.

• There are not enough civilian workers to complete construction projects, and fear prevents local workers from taking coalition jobs.

• Local governments steal project funding.

• Violence is up 87% since March and bombing is up 94% this year.

Said one official with knowledge of the report:

“We are getting beat up. The Taliban know their own people -- they are culturally accurate. We know the facts but we are culturally inaccurate. The main message in the report is that we don’t fully understand our enemy and we are not clearly communicating our message to the people.”

Indeed, the military admits that the Taliban are better propagandists than we are. They have persuaded the Afghan people that (1) 9/11 was a response to the planned invasion of Afghanistan by United States, (2) America does not allow Muslim women to cover themselves, and (3) mosques are not permitted in American cities. These are big recruiting points.

All of this leads to a quagmire. In fact, the situation is so bad, that the report recommends that US commanders mediate cease-fire negotiations with local Taliban commanders. But that’s not possible because the Taliban don’t respect our side. Said Lt. Col. Tadd Sholtis: “The bulk of insurgents clearly do not see foreign forces as a credible negotiating partner.”

What was supposed to change all of this was the “surge” that Obama and McChrystal promised. But that’s proven to be a failure. It started in Marja, a farming district in Helmand province. Thirty thousand troops moved into the city to push out 400 Taliban fighters. Along with the troops came government people and truck-loads of money. The idea was to establish Afghan government control and thereby gain the trust of the locals, who would then reject the Taliban. That didn’t happen. The Afghan government proved ineffective and the locals were less than impressed with the temporary nature of our military plans. Indeed, the Taliban put out posters telling people the date they would return, right after our withdrawal date. McChrystal now calls this test case for our surge plan “a bleeding ulcer.”

And because of this failure, they have postponed the next step, which was the invasion of Kandahar, a city under the control of drug traffickers and the Taliban. According to the military, the local people in Kandahar “are not ready to back” the invasion yet. Ominously, McChrystal implied, before he was replaced, that if we don’t make significant, irreversible progress soon, Christmas would be the end of NATO operations, i.e. the date we quit.

So What Do We Do?

Actual victory is an illusion. What we need is a genuine exit strategy. Obama’s "wait one year and then run for our lives" plan is about the worst thing we can do, apart from staying without any plan except waiting to be driven out. Here are our options as I see them:

Option One: Our first option would be to totally replace the government and impose a modern state on these people. I doubt we have the stomach to do this, but this is the only way we can win over the people who oppose Karzai’s corrupt regime and also eliminate the handicaps that keep us from creating a stable state. This one would require a longer military stay and a realization that we can’t “respect” a defective culture.

Option Two: Our second option would be to carve the country up and hand it to the neighbors along ethnic lines. This strategy actually makes a lot of sense as the neighbors would then become responsible their new territories, and none of the neighbors like al-Qaeda or the Taliban. The weak link here would be Pakistan, which is already a problem in and of itself. BUT, the force in Pakistan that props up the Taliban is Pakistan’s intelligence service (the “ISI”). The ISI use the Taliban as a way to destabilize Afghanistan and fight off Iranian and Indian influence in Afghanistan. If Afghanistan were broken up, then the ISI would no longer need the Taliban. Indeed, their concerns then would turn to maintaining the stability of Pakistan, which would mean ending the Taliban.

Option Three: Our final option would be to negotiate a settlement with the Taliban. In exchange for the Taliban kicking out al-Qaeda, we would either (1) cut the country in half, leaving them with the part they already hold, (2) walk away and let the locals sort it out, or (3) force some sort of power-sharing arrangement on Karzai that included the Taliban.

The advantage to this would be that we could somewhat-credibly declare victory, al-Qaeda would be denied the Afghan haven, and this would likely prevent foreign powers from getting involved. And if the Taliban don’t want to agree, then we use Option Two and their whole country disappears right out from underneath them.

As I read the tea leaves, we are giving up at the end of December. If we don’t come up with a better plan than "keep doing what isn’t working," we will leave Afghanistan in disgrace and we will face a much broader mess. But if we act now, and we stop thinking about winning this war in the traditional sense, then we can salvage a real victory. If we don’t, then this will be a defeat we will regret.

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