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

Category: Politics

  • How to disengage in the Middle East

    Russia is tapping into it’s vast reserves of oil buried under the Arctic tundra in Siberia. Cuba has hired an Indian oil company to begin supplying it’s meager petrol needs from reserves in the Gulf of Mexico. Meanwhile we’re still enforcing the decades old Carter Doctrine demanding the free-flow of oil from the Persian Gulf states while we own some vast reserves of our own buried beneath our own Arctic tundra and off our own shores in the Gulf of Mexico.

    While the third world is winning the race to energy self-sufficiency, we’re mired in empty platitudes from the Democrat Party about “saving the earth” and “alternate fuels”, despite the fact that in 1979, Jimmy Carter, in his now famous “Malaise Speech“ promised that

    I will urge Congress to create an energy mobilization board which, like the War Production Board in World War II, will have the responsibility and authority to cut through the red tape, the delays, and the endless roadblocks to completing key energy projects. 

    We will protect our environment. But when this nation critically needs a refinery or a pipeline, we will build it.

    But the Luddite environmentalists stand in the way of our self sufficience, with the Democrats in tow. That’s not all that surprising, really. What is surprising is that the Democrats are turning their backs on the poor and the unions. The less wealthy Americans are stuck paying higher energy costs like some kind of tax hike. The unions want the added jobs created by exploration and development of energy reserves and the increased manufacturing production that would result in cheaper domestic energy.

    The Democrats are happiest when we’re miserable – that would mean the perception that government (ie. the Democrats) would save us (most of Jimmy Carter’s Malaise Speech was the announcement of new government programs and agencies). They don’t particularly care that we would be able to ignore the petty bickering and power struggles in the Middle East (like we ignore the same from non-oil countries in Africa), nor would Chavez’ words have much weight if we developed our own oil and gas sources and we weren’t so dependent on the whims of country who aren’t afraid to exploit their oil and gas reserves.

    So even though we hold the key to our own energy dependence, we are also our own worse enemy.

     

  • Kerry headed to Iraq?

    I just read over on Little Green Footballs and Flopping Aces that Kerry is shooting off his mouth about the US foreign policy while in Egypt. The man with no plan is criticizing everyone else. Funny how he says that “the Middle East peace process is the critical issue of the region, and it has not been focused on for the past 6-7 years adequately” yet he’s not specific about what we should have done instead. Just another dorky ivy-leaguer running off at the mouth.

    I noticed in the story that Kerry plans to go Iraq, too. I guess the commanders there had better start planning his pinning ceremonies in advance – for his new Purple Hearts, I mean. I’m sure he’ll demand Purple hearts if he gets a zit or sand in his eyes while he’s there. Or sand in his Pampers.

    They probably ought to keep the 203s away from him, too, so he doesn’t get his own shrapnel on him. I’m sure the troops will be overjoyed to see the traitorous sissy.

  • The Curse of the ISG report

    Now, every knucklehead with a plane ticket is going to the Mideast. John Kerry even feels safe enough to stick his head out of the sand to tell us to talk to Syria and Iran – as if it would actually accomplish something besides ridding us of those pesky taxpayer dollars laying around Washington.

    From Flopping Aces we get to see Bill Nelson talking with perennial Iranian bootlicker Syrian President Bashar Assad in Damascus, with a photo of Nelson that Allah dug up.

    And now it seems fashionable for Democrats to talk to the irrational maniacs that want us all dead – after they strip us of our cash and i-Pods. Just like it was fashionable for Kerry to chat with the North Vietnamese in Paris in the 70s, and Kerry and fellow faux-Vietnam vet Tom Harkin to visit Commie Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua.

    Both of those events took place during Republican Administrations – so that’s how Democrats see their oversight responsibilities. Going over the head of our country’s official foreign policy and undermining our executive branch. I don’t remember any Republicans talking with Aidid in Somalia or any Serbs during the 90s. But I remember the McDermott mission to Iraq in 2002 when he (McDerrmott) announced that Hussein was a more trustworthy person than our own President.

    Is there anything in the Constitution that tells us that Congress should conduct it’s own foreign policy? Or was our government designed to operate as a single unit?

    The only time the Constitution refers to Congress and foreign policy is in Article II, Section 2 when it says “[The President] shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur….” In Article I, Section 8, the Constitution enummerates Congress powers, and no where does it mention conducting foreign policy. 

    Of course, these idiots are received warmly by our enemies. I wonder why that is?

  • Corrosive unilateralism?

    Senator Pat Leahy accused President Bush of corrosive unilateralism. What the Hell is that? According to Leahy;

    Leahy plans to rein in President Bush’s program of wiretapping without warrants, rewrite the policy for handling terrorism detainees and more closely scrutinize nominees to the federal courts.

    So Leahy wants to just strip our country of any useful tools that we might have to combat the cancer that has infected the planet. If these programs are as damaging and illegal as Leahy claims, why doesn’t he just start bringing up charges instead of flapping his gums with empty platitudes.

    It’s strange that on the same day Leahy makes this bonehead statement, a federal judge upholds the President’s new terrorism law;

    A federal judge upheld the Bush administration’s new terrorism law Wednesday, agreeing that Guantanamo Bay detainees don’t have the right to challenge their imprisonment in U.S. courts.

    The ruling by U.S. District Judge James Robertson is the first to address the new Military Commissions Act and is a legal victory for the Bush administration at a time when it has been fending off criticism of the law from Democrats and libertarians.

    Judge Robertson rejected a legal challenge by Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a former driver for Osama bin Laden whose case prompted the Supreme Court to strike down the Bush administration’s policy on detainees last year.

    Makes Leahy look just a little bit ignorant of the law, doesn’t it?

    I’ve never hoped for another man’s misfortune, but it would be a sweet day if Tim Johnson needed to be replaced by the Republican governor of South Dakota just to see Senator Leaky denied access to our justice system and our weapons against the terrorists.

    However, in the interim, I wish the best for Senator Johnson and his family.

  • Thank you, Captain Obvious

    Robert Tracinski had a really spot-on piece in the WSJ’s Opinion Journal called Captain Obvious to the Rescue yesterday and since no one has picked up on it yet, I thought I’d just add a link and a teaser;

    In my student days back at the University of Chicago, there was a campus comedy troupe modeled on Second City, their more well-known uptown uncle. The U of C group was pretty funny, if in a somewhat bookish way. (Who else does a comedy routine based on “Oedipus Rex”?) One of their funniest bits was a recurring skit about a superhero named Captain Obvious. In each scene, a character would face a mundane problem, only to be “saved” by the banal and utterly unhelpful advice offered by Captain Obvious. “I’ve locked my keys in my car. What am I going to do?” “Well then,” replies Captain Obvious, “all you have to do is open the door to your car, and then you can get your keys.” Each scene ended the same way, with Captain Obvious proclaiming, “No, don’t thank me. It’s all in a day’s work for Captain Obvious.

    I’ve been reminded of this skit many times since, because I frequently hear the same kind of advice being given in Washington. Take, for example, the recommendations offered, to much fanfare, by the Iraq Study Group.

     

  • But they support the troops

    For some reason, the Democrats got it in their empty heads that their puny win in last month’s election has given them some sort of mandate for immediate withdrawal from Iraq. Dennis Kuchinich, the man-child of the Democrat Party has announced his run for President in 2008  by declaring that he’s the only peace candidate.

    Mr. Kucinich said the Democratic takeover of Congress in last month’s elections suggests the American people want serious change in Iraq.
        “They voted for the Democrats because they expected us to … bring our troops home,” he said. “What kind of credibility will our party have if we say we are opposed to the war but continue to fund it?”

    First of all, mentioning credibility and the Democrat party in the same sentence shows how Little Denny is out-of-touch. But, besides that, does Kucinich realize that a vast number of Americans voted for Republicans and that the average American would prefer to fight Islamic extremism in Iraq than in our country?

    But Kucinich isn’t the only one. Iowa’s Tom Vilsack is also running for President on a peace platform. His website declares that the President needs to adopt the ISG’s recommendations immediately in a press release last week;

    The President’s reaction will send a loud and clear message on whether he’s listening to the American people’s call for a change in policy for Iraq.

    Where was this call? How could the American voter choose to vote against the war when the Democrats never told us what their strategy was before the election?

    Are these guys listening to the American troops? Check out Flopping Aces for the video of Sean Hannity’s interview with the troops who love their country and want to protect us from Islamofacists.

    Someone please tell Vilsack and Kuscinich that Americans apparently understand the threat better than what they want to give us credit for. And our troops are apparently willing to give it all for us. As long as those two events happen simultaneously, we’re golden.

  • McCaffery gets it wrong, too

    1 First let me say, I have immense respect for retired general Barry McCaffery having served under him a few times. What he did with the 24th Division at Rumailia after Desert Storm was amazing – since I was riding to their rescue while they were wiping out a rogue division of Republican Guards. Turns out they didn’t me.

    However, his piece in the Washington Post this morning illustrates why he should remain retired and he was a better commander than a politician.

    Within the first 12 months we should draw down the U.S. military presence from 15 Brigade Combat Teams (BCTs), of 5,000 troops each, to 10. Within the next 12 months, Centcom forces should further draw down to seven BCTs and withdraw from urban areas to isolated U.S. operating bases — where we could continue to provide oversight and intervention when required to rescue our embedded U.S. training teams, protect the population from violence or save the legal government.

    Finally, we have to design and empower a regional diplomatic peace dialogue in which the Iraqis can take the lead, engaging their regional neighbors as well as their own alienated and fractured internal population.

    Again, like the Baker Commission, McCaffery is calling for a force stationed outside of Iraq to protect military trainers inside Iraq – once again recalling the Mobile Training Team strategy of Viet Nam days. And he calls for a diplomatic solution involving Iran – who doesn’t want diplomacy. If that’s not clear after this week’s Halocaust denial fest in Tehran, I don’t what clear means.

    In fact, as Captain’s Quarters reports this morning, quoting from a New York Times article, even Saudi Arabia warned Dick Cheney that the US pullout in Iraq might trigger a bloodbath there. They also warned against talks with Iran. It looks like the Saudis are afraid of a proxy war between Iran (Shi’ite) and the Saudis (Sunni) in Iraq. The Saudis state that the only reason they haven’t supported Sunnis in Iraq yet is because al Qaeda is mainly Sunni and opposed to the House of Saud. (Congressman Reyes; are you taking notes?)

    There is only one solution, as distasteful and extreme as it seems, and that is to remove the terror support system that resides in Iran. A system that has operated out of Iran for two-and-a-half decades in full view of the rest of the world. There’s no pussy-footing around any more. Iran has shown that it doesn’t want to be in the community of nations by ignoring calls to stop their nuclear program. The government isn’t acting in the interest of their people any longer – they are acting in the interest of a few extremists.

    Yeah, Syria’s a problem, too, but they’d collapse once they lost the support of Iran.

    There’s only one way to defeat an irrational player who has praised Hitler and his extermination of Jews (while denying it ever happened) and that’s with extreme measures. Not playing paddy-cake.

  • Gore has his priorities straight

    Finally recognizing that he’s a complete and utter disaster as a politician, Gore has decided to compete for something he can win without having to connect with real people;

    Al Gore is waging a fierce campaign for recognition and an Oscar statuette for his global warming documentary, while reviving talk that he’s pursuing a bigger prize: the presidency.
        His recent itinerary has been the ultimate in high profile. The former vice president made self-deprecating jokes on “The Tonight Show With Jay Leno,” offered ideas on preserving the environment to Oprah Winfrey and parried questions on Iraq from Matt Lauer on the “Today” show.
        On Saturday, Mr. Gore is hosting a network of 1,600 house parties across the country to watch and discuss his documentary, “An Inconvenient Truth,” with the Democrat planning to address the gatherings by satellite hookup. The movie is on the short list of feature-length documentaries being considered for Oscar nominations.

    So let Hollywood put up with the manbearpig campaigning against them for a while – so they can see how big a bullet they dodged in 2000 like the rest of us already know.