This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Category: Politics

  • The surge against the surge is failing, or not

    Carl Levin and Dick Durbin concede that the surge has had spectacular results against al Qaeda – as if they could even begin to believe their lyin’ eyes. But they add the proviso that the Iraqi government is failing the progress our troops are making for them. The Washington Post, in the meantime, chooses to follow the leader of Congress’ “Out of Iraq Caucus” Jan Schakowsky; adament, unbendable intentionally ignorant of the realities of the world;

    …the outspoken antiwar liberal resolved to keep her opinions to herself. “I would listen and learn,” she decided.

    At times that proved a challenge, as when Deputy Prime Minister Barham Salih told her congressional delegation, “There’s not going to be political reconciliation by this September; there’s not going to be political reconciliation by next September.” Schakowsky gulped — wasn’t that the whole idea of President Bush’s troop increase, to buy time for that political progress?
     
    But the real test came over a lunch with Gen. David H. Petraeus, who used charts and a laser pointer to show how security conditions were gradually improving — evidence, he argued, that the troop increase is doing some good.

    Still, the U.S. commander cautioned, it could take another decade before real stability is at hand. Schakowsky gasped. “I come from an environment where people talk nine to 10 months,” she said, referring to the time frame for withdrawal that many Democrats are advocating. “And there he was, talking nine to 10 years.”

    Imagine that! A part of the world that has been steeped in turmoil for more than five decades won’t be tamed in the next few months – it may take another decade to make 6th Century throwbacks stop bombing schools and marketplaces. Of course, this realization only reinforces Schakowsky’s knee-jerk, emotive calls to pull the troops out of Iraq and condemn the region to another several decades of horror and injustice.

    The lack of political progress among Iraq’s rival factions and Petraeus’s estimate of the time needed to stabilize the nation left Schakowsky all the more convinced that Democrats must force Bush to begin bringing troops home.

    Insuring that in another 15 years we’ll be forced to go back and finish the job AGAIN. The Democrats and the media forced us to abandon the attack on Hussein in 1991 – before there was al Qaeda, before the cowardly actions over Mogadishu made the world less fearful of American resolve. Before our response to agression became a few cruise missiles fired at empty tents, empty buildings and asprin factories – before we merely put terrorists in jail for their attacks on the World Trade Center.

    But Democrats aren’t happy to undermine our own security, they especially enjoy deriding the Iraqis – causing our allies to lash out;

    Nouri al-Maliki, who is fighting to hold his government together, issued a series of stinging ripostes against a variety of foreign officials who recently have spoken negatively about his leadership. But those directed at Democrats Clinton, of New York, and Levin, of Michigan, were the most strident.

    “There are American officials who consider Iraq as if it were one of their villages, for example Hillary Clinton and Carl Levin. They should come to their senses,” al-Maliki said at a news conference.

    The New York Times decides that what the Vietnamese went through wasn’t so bad, so maybe we should let the Iraqis suffer for a few decades under the boot of radical Islamism;

    Vietnam today is a unified and stable nation whose Communist government poses little threat to its neighbors and is developing healthy ties with the United States. Mr. Bush visited Vietnam last November; a return visit to the White House this summer by Nguyen Minh Triet was the first visit by a Vietnamese head of state since the war.

    “The Vietnam comparison should invite us to think harder about how to minimize the consequences of our military failure,” Mr. Bacevich added. “If one is really concerned about the Iraqi people, and the fate that may be awaiting them as this war winds down, then we ought to get serious about opening our doors, and to welcoming to the United States those Iraqis who have supported us and have put themselves and their families in danger.”

    I love how the Left likes to point out the “military failures” in Vietnam, yet they can’t point to a single military defeat. The only failure in Vietnam was the anti-war crowd’s failure to admit that we should have shut down the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Cambodia in the early years – that would have cut the time we fought the war in half and South Vietnam would be a democracy today. Just like we should seal off Syria and Iran from Iraq today – but like Nixon’s actions in Cambodia, the Left would call it an “expansion of the war” – instead of an attempt to actually win the war.

    On August 5th the Washington Post started a series on Congressmembers in their districts during their summer recess and explained the dilema facing them;

    With Congress beginning its summer recess, supporters of the war are expecting attacks and protests from war opponents, and many lawmakers are looking for bipartisan consensus on a new war strategy that has so far eluded them.

    Maybe they’re having such trouble because instead of finding a “bipartisan consensus” they should be looking for a working military solution – or they should sit down and stfu.

    I wonder why Tzun Tsu and vonClauswitz never mentioned that wars should be fought by committees and consensus? Maybe because it doesn’t work – have the Democrats never heard of “unity of command”?

    Of course, in a last desparate attempt to save the surge against the surge, the Left turns to Huffington Post to undermine the good order and discipline of the military  (hat tip to COBDanny) and urges General Pace to fire President Bush. Ya know, like the militaries in third world countries do all of the time. And HuffPo commenters heartily agree;

    Unfortunately, the fact remains that there are serious reasons to consider any and all scenarios, or remedies because of GWB, the worst President ever. Why should anyone else care about the rule of law when he hasn’t concerned himself with it for the 6 long years while he has crapped all over the Constitution and ignored law after law?

    I think that the creative thinking by Mr. Lewis should be commended and that if General Pace is the patriot he claims to be, he should consider the suggestion. My God, our nation as we know it is at stake. 

     I’d like to know, just for my own reference, what laws the President has ignored and when he “crapped on the Constitution”. Fortunately for me, I won’t be waiting with bated breath.

    But the anti-war Left loves this country and the Constitution, don’t they?

    I BELIEVE IT IS NOW TIME TO DEMAND AND SCHEDULE THE SECOND CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION.

    We have GOT to get this little problem of hubris and ‘reinterpretation’ by the Whiggy ones settled once and for all, so U.S. can move forward.

    They love the Constitution so much, they want to rewrite it – as if I’d just stand aside and let them. Maybe they should put it to a national referendum – but they couldn’t do that, actually. Then they’d find out how many Americans oppose them in an undeniable actual vote count instead of one of those vacuous polls to which they cling so dearly. Or a lopsided Electoral College vote that favors the people who drain the country’s coffers over those who fill it. I doubt it’d even be close.

    CoBDanny reads my mind, and even pirates my legal research into the Smith Act to explain to the little worm why his idea just won’t work and why he should probably do some jail time for good measure.

    The death throes of the surge against the surge will be played out on September 15th in Washington – and I’ll be there to chronicle the last desparate gasp. So, too, will the Gathering of Eagles. Anyone else going?

  • Saturday links

    There’s just so many good writers out there saying all of the things I wish I’d written, I’m just putting up their links today.

    COBDanny reminds me to take my meds before reading that he agrees with Dean on at least one thing.

    Dadmanly puts President Bush’s speech last week into historical context and disputes NY Times interpretation.

    At Flopping Aces, Curt blows a New York Times article about suicide rates in the military out of the water, while Todd Anthony reports that a Democrat turns the tables and calls for continued US presence in Iraq.

    Republicanpundit at Hang Right Politics, twice, here and then here, disputes the history revision we’re experiencing now as the media takes up the torch for the Democrats to dispute their shameful participation in the murder, imprisonment and dislocation of millions in Southeast Asia.

    Shiro-Korshid Forever (hat tip to Dreams Into Lightening) writes the most heart-swelling and heart-breaking post describing his journey into the final moments of the life of a recent victim of Iran’s Islamic Revolution.

    Gateway Pundit reports that Iraqis in the US protested terrorism yesterday at the Saudi embassy – wonder why they chose the Saudis? Well, GP’ll tell you.

    Noel Sheppard at Newsbusters warns “AP Spins Record Low Unemployment as Problem That Could Get Worse“.

    Marc Masferrer at Uncommon Sense reminds us that while we’re waiting for word on Castro’s death (or the lack thereof) there are still living Cubans wasting away in his prisons.

    Daniel at Venezuela News and Views explains Chavez’ plan to move the Venezuelan clock 30 minutes and his plan to rename the city of Caracas.

    Kate at A Columbo-Americana’s Perspective reports that Chavez is dumping $6 million into Bolivia’s military and buying Russian transport planes despite food shortages and stunning poverty in Caracas.

  • Revolt in the Senate, or common sense?

    Today’s lesson in media bias – two very different takes on Senator Warner’s revelation yesterday after returning from Iraq. The first from the Washington Post entitled “Warner calls for pullouts by Christmas“;

    Sen. John W. Warner, one of the most influential Republican voices in Congress on national security, called on President Bush yesterday to begin withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq in time for Christmas as a new intelligence report concluded that political leaders in Baghdad are “unable to govern effectively.” Warner’s declaration — after the Virginia senator’s recent four-day trip to the Middle East — roiled the political environment ahead of a much-anticipated progress report to be delivered Sept. 11 by Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq. Although Warner had already broken with Bush’s strategy, this was the first time he endorsed pulling troops out by a specific date.

    Hmm, no direct quotes, just a reporter’s interpretation of what Warner said – and it sounds like he was pretty firm about withdrawing troops doesn’t it? Now from the Washington Examiner, a story entitled US General Wary of Withdrawal;

    Warner, R-Va., former chairman of the Armed Services Committee and Navy secretary during the Vietnam War, said Thursday that Bush would be sending a powerful message to Iraq’s government that the U.S. commitment there is not open-ended. Warner says the president should get to decide when and how many troops should leave. He also did not mention any places where he thought reductions were possible in Iraq, where some regions are worse than others.

    Sounds like two different speeches doesn’t it? And an even more different approach from the Washington Times;

    The updated National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), a consensus view of the CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency and other services, says “measurable” security improvements were made in war-torn Iraq since January and will expand modestly in the next 12 months with continued military pressure on insurgents.

    Within hours of the report”s release, Sen. John W. Warner of Virginia called on President Bush to bring some U.S. troops home by Christmas, and Army Secretary Pete Geren ruled out extending troop deployments beyond the current 15 months.

    So despite the fact that the Post wants us to believe there’s a revolt against the President in the Senate led by Senator Warner, the real truth is that Warner actually concurs with the anticipated proposal by General Petareus that we begin drawing down the troops – and the President.

  • Hillary; Terror helps Republicans

    According to the NY Post this morning, Hillary told supporters that a terrorist attack on the US would help Republicans in the 2008 election;

    Discussing the possibility of a new nightmare assault while campaigning in New Hampshire, Clinton also insisted she is the Democratic candidate best equipped to deal with it.

    “It’s a horrible prospect to ask yourself, ‘What if? What if?’ But if certain things happen between now and the election, particularly with respect to terrorism, that will automatically give the Republicans an advantage again, no matter how badly they have mishandled it, no matter how much more dangerous they have made the world,” Clinton told supporters in Concord.

    “So I think I’m the best of the Democrats to deal with that,” she added.

    Of course she’s correct that it would indeed help Republicans – but she sidesteps the entire issue of “why” it helps Republicans. Maybe Democrats know the answer and don’t need to discuss it – but they need to face the issue regardless. Democrats are HORRIBLE on national defense. The whole damned world knows it, and now Hillary says that she admits it, too. Not that she’ll do anything about it, though.

    Democrats have been terrible on National Defense since Korea. The last good thing Democrats did for our national defense without having a political reason for doing it was sending troops to Greece to turn back the communists there in 1948 – every move since has been a political calculation.

    The only reason Johnson sent troops to Vietnam was to overcome the Republican charge that Democrats had been soft on China. Kennedy started out well supporting the Bay of Pigs invasion, then collapsed for political reasons. Carter forgot he had a military, and Clinton, well, Clinton used military operations to distract the public from his domestic lies and scandals.

    So instead of being better on National Defense, Democrats concocted the “bumper sticker slogan” defense – that Republicans manufactured a needless, illegal war for political reasons in order to minimize the importance of the war against terror. But the only people who really believe that are the head-in-the-sand internet freakazoids who engage in discussions from behind the safety of their computer screens.

    Seems to me that a Democrat candidate that was truly concerned about this nation would try and convince their party to be better on National Defense – instead of caving in to the squeaky wheels.

  • $12,000 per student for what?

    I keep saying that living in DC is like living in a third world country, and I have more proof today. The Washington Examiner reports that DC schools are reporting that they need another $120 million to finish repairs to the schools for this year. The totally clueless mayor, Adrian Fenty says of the situation;

    The $120 million will finance essential and long-neglected repairs at roughly 70 schools including fixing roofs and bathrooms and clearing health- and fire-code violations. It will also be used to ensure heat and air conditioning systems are installed and working in every classroom. “Why these things haven’t been addressed in years past is unexplainable and inexcusable”, Mayor Adrian Fenty said during a news conference outside Coolidge Senior High School, home to a freshly turfed and painted football field. “So we’re going to address them, and it’s going to cost probably about that much”.

    Well, I know you can start looking at the former school adminstrators for answer into “why” – from another Examiner article;

    Last year, Examiner reporter Bill Myers investigated Brenda Belton, who recently pleaded guilty to making $649,000 in illegal payments and sweetheart contracts to enrich herself and her friends while serving as executive director of D.C.’s Office of Charter School Oversight. Instead of making sure that every available dime was going to help special education students attending the 17 charter schools she was hired to oversee, Belton was brazenly stealing from them by forging signatures, handing out illegal kickbacks like Halloween candy, and depositing public funds into phony businesses and her own private accounts. Children in special ed already face an uphill academic climb and an uncertain future. Despicable doesn’t even begin to cover such behavior. Now, Myers reports that a teacher’s aide was also being paid two salaries for the past four years, one from the special ed department and another from outside contractors. Other special ed employees apparently collected full paychecks even after leaving the system, while their asleep-at-the-switch supervisors continued signing off on phony time sheets.

    Hmm, pretty disturbing that this sort of waste of taxpayer dollars can go undetected by the people who think that children’s education is the most important thing in their lives, huh? From Jonetta Rose Barras, also of the Examiner;

    During a news conference Monday, schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee announced there were 70 teachers who did not have assignments; their skills and subject area did not match current DCPS instructional needs. These individuals are called “excess teachers.” They are some of the folks about whom I wrote last week. They are destined, because of their seniority and rights inscribed in labor union agreements, to bump other teachers who may have more to offer the DCPS at this time in its history and, thus, could have a greater impact on children. […] Rhee, the reformer, says those 70 excess teachers with no place to go will continue to be paid. She couldn’t say how much. (Didn’t Rhee just a few weeks ago lambaste workers who couldn’t describe their jobs? Now we understand how the practice of employing adults without a portfolio is perpetuated: They want the paychecks; the government wants to placate the unions.) “I’m contractually obligated to keep those folks,” the reformer tells me. “There is a possibility we might do some kind of layoff, but nothing can happen until October.”

    Well, there are enough lawyers on the payroll to find a way out of those “contractual obligations”, I’m sure – if the city was really concerned about the money they waste. The hard-earned money that taxpayers send them every payday. See, that’s the problem – everyone forgets that those millions, billions that are wasted come out of our paychecks. Yeah, yeah, I’ve heard the arguments about repairing roads and educating children and all of things that Leftists claim are essential – but that’s not what tax money is doing anymore. It’s lining pockets. That’s why bridges collapse, That’s why DC streets are lined with illiterate morons – GOVERMENT CAN’T DO WHAT THEY COLLECT OUR MONEY TO DO!!! When are the American taxpayers going to get that through our thick heads?

  • So now Fox is the enemy?

    Now we discover that it was Rupert Murdoch who is pulling the strings for the war against terrorism, thanks to brilliant Bernie Sanders and Michael Moore wannabe Robert Greenwald, according to Breitbart;

    Condemning the Fox News Channel as a warmonger that’s agitating for a U.S. attack on Iran, documentary filmmaker Robert Greenwald and independent U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders announced an “online viral video campaign” Wednesday calling on television news organizations “not to follow Fox down the road to war again.”
    Greenwald, the director behind “Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch’s War on Journalism” and “Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price,” has compiled a new three-minute video that mashes clips from Fox’s coverage of the 2003 invasion of Iraq and its aftermath with recent coverage of possible U.S. military action against Iran.

    The video and an accompanying “open letter” to ABC, NBC, CBS, MSNBC and CNN—viewable at http://www.FoxAttacks.com—urge news organizations to ask tough questions about administration policy on Iran and say citizens should pressure them to do so.

    I guess it never occured to either of them to investigate something like Hussein’s ties to al Qaeda or the failures of the Clinton Administration to defend us against terrorists, or even the repressive government of Iran. It’s just a lot easier to justify an attack against a news agency than it is to justify an attack against people who are actually killing other people.

    But that’s the kind of people the new flatlanders who’ve invaded Vermont send to the Senate to represent them – other idiot flatlanders.

    According to the Washington Examiner, fingers are flying on Capitol Hill about who’s to blame for 9-11 intelligence failures;

    P.J. Crowley, a Clinton aide on the National Security Council staff and now an analyst at the Center for American Progress, said the elder Bush started the decline.

    The CIA’s release this week of an internal report critical of the agency’s pre-Sept. 11 intelligence work has sparked a new debate on who is to blame — Democrats or Republicans.

    Sen. Christopher Bond, R-Mo., vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, issued a statement Wednesday charging that “drastic cuts in funding to intelligence agencies during the 1990s made it difficult for the CIA to do its job.”

    He said renewed attempts to blame Bush are “an unwarranted cheap shot.”

    Experts estimate that the intelligence budget was about $40 billion in 1990. By 1998, the sixth year of Bill Clinton’s presidency, it had dropped to $26.7 billion. In the next two years it rose above $30 billion, then took a quantum leap after Sept. 11 to about $45 billion today.

    Um, fellas, let’s not lose sight of who’s really to blame here – the Islamists and Syria and Iran. Instead of fighting over decades old funding cuts, lets pull together and beat these clowns.

  • The Liberty Alliance

    You’ll notice at the top of my blogroll in the right column are several blogs under the heading Liberty Alliance. It was started by my new friends Mike from Lamplighter (in Arizona) and Lady Vorzheva from Spanish Pundit (um, from Spain). I’ve been reading their blogs for months when they very kindly asked me to join this group of bloggers from around the world. I guess they needed a Homer Simpson-type to round out their otherwise brilliant and urbane bunch – even brain surgeons keep a hammer in the operating room.

    Regardless, of their reasons, I’m grateful and I urge my readers to drink deeply from their intellectual well.

    The group is loosely formed and generally dedicated to writing as often as possible about real human rights issues (as opposed to those fake human rights issues that usually turn out to be a way for some power mad lout to usurp people’s rights) that are really the core of western democracy.

    There’s Kate from A Columbo-Americana’s Perspective who lives here in the Metro DC area, but she pops up from all over the world. A couple of weeks ago she made comments here from Managua. Her perspective on Latin America is unique and valuable.

    And one of the most facinating blogs I’ve ever read is Kamangir. He’s an Iranian student in Canada and translates news reports from behind the Iranian curtain and shows us the real Islamic Revolution. I can spend hours just reading his archives.

    I’d write an introduction to Fausta’s Blog, but anyone who has been on the internet more than a minute knows the Puerto Rican firecracker. I almost lost control of all of my body functions when I found out I’d be associated with Fausta.

    In Partibus Infididelium is a Spaniard in Saudi Arabia – he really tests my Spanish skills, but he’s worth the work. Martha Colmenares blogs in Spanish, too, from Venezuela – a great perspective that we don’t get here from the pro-Chavez media. Another Venezuelan in the group is Julia from The End of Venzuela as I know It. She is on the inside of the White Hands (Hands of Freedom) movement and writes in English – she claims it’s not her first language, but you’d hardly know it.

    jcdurbant blogs from France – now, I can read a bit of French sometimes (don’t make me write or talk, though – my wife and I lived on crousants and coffee the three days we were in Paris because that’s all I could say) and what I’ve translated for myself at this blog is a unique view of the world from France.

    Pastorius, from Southern California, at Cuanas is just a pleasure to read – the words just melt into my brain. I envy people to whom writing comes so easily.

    Reading Molten Thought‘s Teflon is like reading my own thoughts – only more coherent and much funnier.

    But the most intriguing is Incognito of Confessions of a Closet Republican. She admits she’s a Hollywood actress who’s crossed over from the darkside, but since she wants to continue working, she has to remain…well, incognito. I love a mystery. She’s commented here a few times and besides being the mysterious lady behind the curtain (who, in my stuck-in-the-thirties-Bogart-movies mind, is tall, blonde and always wearing a black evening gown and a glass of red wine in one hand and an unlit cigarette in the other), she’s much brighter than my personal stereotype of a Hollywood actress.

    Please take the tour and I hope you enjoy these new friends of mine as much as I enjoy them.

  • I don’t need you to fight for me

    If you want to see the real difference between the Democrats and Republican presidential candidates, I guess you can find it in one phrase that Mike from Flopping Aces reports from Hillary Clinton;

    In another of those interminable Democrat debates, Hillary was asked at a Sunday Iowa debate how she intended to counter the Republicans: ” I have been fighting against these people for longer than anybody else up here.” So apparently, “fighting” is a better way to address the concerns of the “invisible” than working with Republicans?

    I remember Bill Clinton, Al Gore and John Kerry all offering to “fight for” me. Against Whom? Against the people that want me to have more money in my pocket from my own earnings? Why is it that Democrats are always so ready to “fight” a political opponent but they can’t summon the gumption or the wherewithall to challenge and fight actual enemies? They weren’t willing to fight the communists, they weren’t willing, even, to fight Saddam Hussein in 1991. And now, of course, they refuse to fight an even greater threat – radical Islam.

    But who will they fight? “These people”. The people who stood in the way of her Stalinist healthcare plan, the people who beat her party by legitimate votes from the people to blunt her ambitions. I wish, for once, just one of them would fight for my right to defend myself. Fight the bureaucracy that stands in the way of our children’s education. Fight the wasteful spending of government agencies BESIDES the Pentagon for a change. Fight for my right to solve my own problems. Fight for my right to have an opinion different from theirs without have to endure the venomous and profane response I usually get.

    The Republicans don’t offer to “fight for” me – they offer me the opportunity to exist peacefully and to enjoy the fruits of my labor. In fact, I can’t remember any Republican declaring that he’d fight for me – except against our country’s enemies. I guess I’d fall over dead if a Democrat ever offered to fight our enemies.