Rethinking the Middle East … by Alan Caruba

Rethinking the Middle East

By Alan Caruba

 

After 9/11 much of my thinking reflected the general view that Al Qaeda had to be found and destroyed. I thought, too, that Saddam Hussein had to be removed as an obstacle to stability in the Middle East given his invasion of Kuwait and general belligerence.

 

Since those days I have had plenty of time to reassess my views of U.S. policies and to educate myself regarding the Middle East. A lot of my thinking had been based on the inescapable fact that the U.S. and the West needs access to Middle Eastern oil.

 

U.S. policy since the days of Franklin Delano Roosevelt has been support for Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States, providing protection of the sea lanes that transport oil and, in the case of Iraq, protecting the Saudi kingdom against attack. This was the reason for the original U.S. effort to remove Saddam’s Iraq from Kuwait and the subsequent invasion that was based on less than accurate intelligence reports of an Iraqi buildup of weapons of mass destruction.

 

For a long time, there has been a general consensus that a “clash of civilizations” between the West and Islam was inevitable, but it is more of a clash between civilization and nihilism. The global war on terror influenced U.S. actions as the rationale for the second invasion of Iraq was, in part, to introduce democracy to the Middle East.

 

There have been two factors that have complicated U.S. policy toward the Middle East. One was the establishment in 1948 of the state of Israel, a response to the horrors of the Nazi Holocaust that combined with the Zionist movement that began in the late 1800s as a response to the anti-Semitism of Europe and Russia. It received support from the newly-established United Nations, but nations in the Middle East reacted unanimously against the return of Jews to their former, ancient homeland. No surprise here; the Koran demonizes both Jews and Christians.

 

The other factor was the Islamic Revolution that erupted in Iran in 1979, a defeat of the American influence in that nation’s affairs linked in no small measure to its oil. The later defeat of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan led many in the Middle East to believe that Islam could defeat Western efforts to control the region. Western hegemony in the region had begun in earnest following World War I and the end of the Ottoman Empire.

 

The weapon of choice of the new Islamic Revolution was terror and, if invaded, a slow, grinding insurgency. This is why Iraq and future theatres of war will take a long time to play out.

 

What most policy makers in the U.S. and the West tend to ignore is the fact that the nations of the Middle East differed considerably in they way they are governed and, most importantly, in the near total lack of cohesion or cooperation among them.

 

In a recent commentary from the Middle East Forum, Michael Rubin noted that, “For more than a millennium, Damascus, Baghdad and Cairo have competed for leadership of the Arab world.” The establishment of Israel “became a useful template around which they could posture and against whom they could act as each sought to outdo its rivals in a claim to Arab leadership.”

 

Following World War II, a number of Middle East nations adopted the worst of Western concepts of governance, namely fascism and socialism. Baathism rose in Syria and Iraq, but only served to increase their rivalry. As Rubin points out, “Unity is not an Arab virtue,” adding that Baghdad, Cairo and Damascus “will never coexist as partners.”

 

This is not unique to the region because anyone paying any attention knows that all nations act in what they perceive as their own best interests. Some that share common historical and cultural views are more prone toward cooperation while others such as Russia measure their success against U.S. and European strength or weakness. In the Middle East, however, its culture prevents any useful, long term cooperation.

 

In an excellent analysis published in the November edition of Energy Tribune, Leon Hadar, a research fellow at the Cato Institute, demolishes many of the “intellectual constructs that reflect the imaginations of their promoters, not necessarily reality,” adding that “reality tends to bite.” The neocons of the outgoing Bush administration and the Republican Party learned this to their regret.

 

“The time has come,” wrote Hadar, “to challenge the grand idea that the Muslim world (or the Middle East, or the Arab world—terms that seem interchangeable in the American media) has a unique and monolithic political and economic culture that makes it resistant to the West’s modernizing effects.”  The analysis can be read in full at

http://www.energytribune.com/articles.cfm?aid=1009

 

If Middle Eastern Arabs decide to become “more like us”, it will be at a time of their own choosing. Iranians, being Persian, share Islam, but have their own agenda in the region, giving rise to Arab fears concerning their apparent intent to achieve hegemony there. If and when Iran gets nuclear weapons and starts throwing its weight around, a lot of Arabs are going to begin to think of America as their best friend in the whole world.

 

It should be obvious, too, that the deep schisms within Islam, Shiite and Sunni, will continue to divide the region between the majority Sunnis and what is widely perceived within Islam as a breakaway sect of Shiites who are a majority only in Iraq and Iran. Hadar correctly points out that the Middle East “is a mosaic of nation-states, ethnic groups, religious sects, and tribal groups, and a mishmash of political ideologies, economic systems, and cultural orientations.”

 

All of which suggests to me that the same policy of “containment” that worked for nearly forty-five years regarding the former Soviet communist regime would be a wiser approach to the Middle East than an endless number of military engagements that even our European allies are reluctant to pursue.

 

After World War II, the U.S. occupied the defeated nations of Germany and Japan for about seven years to ensure they would create their own democratic governments and economic systems. After that, the U.S. extended its military protection to them and everywhere else Soviet ambitions threatened.

 

The result was a stalemate in Korea that yielded a successful South Korean state, and a defeat in Vietnam that continues to influence American policy. We still do not recognize communist Cuba, but we have entered into an economic co-dependence with Red China. Go figure?

 

Just as the declining price of oil and gas brought down a Soviet government dependent on these exports, the Russian Federation will face the same contingency. Meanwhile, a decline in the price of a barrel of oil and the price of natural gas may, if long term, require Middle Eastern nations to review their policies as well.

 

The best thing America can do right now is to open up its own vast reserves of oil and natural gas that remain unexplored and untapped off of 85% of our continental shelf and to do the same in ANWR. We need to stop demonizing coal and we need to build more nuclear plants.

 

These actions would put the U.S. back in a position to improve our economy and protect us against pressures from the Middle East, Russia, and elsewhere. I have serious doubts the Obama administration will do this.

 

Things change. U.S. policies will change. Not every policy, but gradually events, some of which we have set in motion in Iraq as part of the global war on terror, will bring about change if we are smart enough, strong enough, and patient enough to watch and wait.

 

Alan Caruba writes a daily blog at http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com. Every week, he posts a column on the website of The National Anxiety Center, www.anxietycenter.com.

 

© Alan Caruba, December 2008

 

Time For Obama To Pay Up! Clinton To Become Sec. State

By J. D. Longstreet

The Clintons are like a bad rash that no medicine you swallow, or ointment you rub on it, can make go away.  The Clintons have that sort of staying power.  Completely oblivious to the depth of low estate in which so much of the public holds them, they hang on to power.  Like an addict lusting after the next fix they seem to be willing to go to any lengths to maintain a place for themselves near the center of power. Like old, tired, comic book characters they plod through the pages of our history long after their embarrassing antics have lost their power to amuse.

 

I remember the euphoria that sped through the bloodstream of much of America when the Clintons were ushered out of the White House the first time around. The battle cry of conservatives, the country over, was: “Take out the trash!”  And we THOUGHT we had.  Turns out we were mistaken.  We underestimated the willingness of the Clintons to do whatever it takes to stay connected to the center of power in Washington, DC.

 

So… we learned over the weekend that Obama would make public, actually CONFIRM, something we have all known for many weeks now, his choice for Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton.   If Obama had wanted to find some way to tell us all (in no uncertain words) that a deal was struck with Hillary and Bill during the primaries he couldn’t have found a better way to do it.  I wonder if he understands how weak this makes him appear in the eyes of… not only the American voters but of the armies of diplomats the world over?

Editor’s note: For another interesting take on the appointment of Hillary Clinton to the office of US Secretary of State visit the blog of my friend Alan Caruba at:
http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com/2008/11/improbable-events.html)

I cannot believe the man understands what he will be doing by nominating Hillary. Does he understand he will get Bill, too?  Does he understand the danger for embarrassment the Clintons bring to his administration? Apparently not.  Or, is he so puffed up by his own ego, and the Obama Battalions in the Mainstream Media, that he actually believes he can muzzle the Clintons or keep them on a leash? 

 

Does Obama understand the administration he, or his minions, is/are constructing is actually the Third Clinton Administration?  Does he understand the Clinton’s fingerprints are all over the people he has chosen, or been forced to choose, to fill the slots in the next administration so far?  I don’t think he does.  It is beginning to look more and more like an Obama figurehead government. So far, there is no Obama imprint on the next presidential administration… at all.  Well, look at it for yourself… and you cannot help but be convinced that Obama is being run by someone, certainly not himself.

 

We are more convinced, than ever, that Obama was chosen for the presidential candidate’s slot precisely because of his inexperience and his naiveté and his inability to stand up to the master politicians… the Clintons.  Obama was their ticket, all along, to a return to the center of power. 

 

The Obama boosters in the Mainstream Media, and that includes darned near all members of the media, are busy propping up that façade so carefully placed around the group of Clintonites Obama has been directed to choose.  (What, you don’t think he chose those people himself, do you?)  They’re being referred to, already as the “best and the brightest.”  Well us old mossbacks, who have been around for more than two decades, and have the scars to prove it, have heard and seen all this before. The JFK administration was referred to that way.  Right off the bat, Kennedy’s “Best and the Brightest” gave us the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba and began the escalation of the US Military in Vietnam from advisors to combat troops.  The stories of the days of the  “Kennedy Camelot,” with which the Media loves to regale us, never happened.  The term, itself, was not even used, in reference to the Kennedy Administration, until after the death of JFK. Yes, facts are sometimes inconvenient … as in, oh, say, history.

 

So far Obama has done absolutely nothing but underscore our belief that he is an empty suit, a puppet being manipulated by someone else pulling his strings.

 

All this time I was hoping Obama wasn’t as weak as I thought he was. Yet he persists in doing exactly what we had expected, exactly what we had warned Obama supporters of, with the full support of an adoring press who will not miss a single opportunity to prop him up dare he fail.

 

One question continues to go ‘round in my head. Who is pulling Obama’s strings?  Who IS the REAL President?

 

J. D. Longstreet

Rid The Sea Lanes Of Piracy.

Rid The Sea Lanes Of Piracy.

 

I reside just minutes from the Atlantic Ocean and the coast of North Carolina and those barrier Islands along our coast which made for wonderful hiding places for the pirates of yesteryear.  The Coast of North Carolina is drenched in folklore about pirates.  The infamous Blackbeard was captured here and decapitated. The sports teams of at least one noted university here are named “The Pirates.”  So, we Tar Heels have a colorful history of interaction with pirates as does our sister state to the south. .

 

That was then.  This is now.

 

Again the high seas are infested with pirates.  Their aim is the same… to rob and steal. But now, they have added ransom. 

 

Recently we heard of an Ocean Liner being attacked, but managing to speed away.  A few days later, in the same waters, a freighter was attacked.  It, too, managed to get away.  As I write, at least one of the largest vessels afloat, an oil tanker, is being held for ransom by a handful of modern day blackhearts in full view of the world, and the world’s navies, including warships of the US Navy.

 

Our own Caribbean is littered with modern day pirates.  Yachts disappear to show up at some other location, with a different registration, and different name. Sometimes passengers disappear, too.

 

On at least two different occasions in our history, under two Presidents, Thomas Jefferson and Teddy Roosevelt, the US Navy, and Marines, had to rid the coast of Africa of pirates.  The Barbary Coast Pirates.

 

I bring up these particular pirates because they were based along the African coast, mainly the North African coast.  The pirates we seem to be having the most trouble with today are also on the African coast, but the east African coast…the coast of Somalia to be more exact.  So far this year, alone, those pirates have attacked over 90 ships.  They have managed to hijack 39 freighters, tankers, and fishing vessels. At least 14 of them are currently anchored, under heavy guard, off pirate villages along the coast of Somalia.  Estimates run as high as 30 million dollars paid in ransom money. 

 

Turns out it is not as easy today as it used to be to take on the pirates.  All sorts of national and international laws tie the hands of governments and makes them less than eager to take on a couple of dozen men with small arms and two or three rubber boats. But there is an outfit, based here in North Carolina, eager to do what the governments of the world sea powers are reluctant to do.  I speak, of course, of Blackwater Worldwide.

 

Equipped with their own warship, the McArthur, Blackwater is looking to provide a new service to the merchant navies of the world.  Blackwater offers to escort paying customer’s ships through the pirate infested waters, safely.  Their plan is simple:  Issue verbal warnings to approaching vessels which appear to have piracy in mind, followed by a few shots in the air, and if that fails… then the sharpshooters aboard a couple of helicopters, flown from the deck of the McArthur, will do their job by taking out as many barefooted pirates as it takes to discourage the attack.

 

Already Blackwater is receiving inquiries from dozens of shipping companies and shipping insurance companies concerning Backwater’s services in escorting their ships through the world’s most dangerous waters. 

 

There is an excellent article on all of this at:

 

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,592433,00.html 

 

The country of Somalia still has no functioning government and it is a breeding ground for this type of activity.

 

Teddy Roosevelt, the last President of the United States to deal with Barbary Pirates, had the opportunity to use the big stick he carried and, he did just that.  He sent seven battleships from the Atlantic Fleet to the North African Coast. It worked and the pirates backed down.

 

This blight on the oceans will not go away if we turn a blind eye.  It will get worse.  Eventually they will manage to stop and board a passenger liner and death and destruction will be the result.  Or, terrorists will seize an oil tanker, sail her into the harbor of one of the world’s great cities, and blow it up with unbelievable death and devastation as the result.

 

Now is the time to hunt them down and destroy them… even if that means following them to their center of operations in the seacoast villages of the country, or countries, providing them safe haven.

 

J. D. Longstreet

 

The UN Celebrates “Palestinians”, Hates Jews … by Alan Caruba

The UN Celebrates “Palestinians”, Hates Jews

By Alan Caruba

 

On Monday, November 24, the United Nations will commemorate its annual “International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People”, a hate-filled day that ignores its own role in the establishment of Israel.

 

An international institution that trumpets its Universal Declaration of Human Rights while openly seeking the destruction of the population of one of its member nations is so inherently debased that it should cease to exist.

 

The notion that the United States of America should continue to participate in the UN on the grounds that it is the only forum or means to resolve conflicts is absurd.

 

Monday’s observance marks November 29, 1947, the day that the United Nations voted to establish a Jewish and an Arab state in what was formerly the Palestinian Mandate whose administration had been ceded to Great Britain following the end of World War One.

 

The State of Israel was not created out of “Palestinian” lands. It was part of the Ottoman Empire that had ruled much of the Middle East for four hundred years and which, at the Versailles conference following the end of WWI, was divided into nations conjured up by England and France. Among the newly designated nations were Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq.

 

There were no “Palestinian” people claiming a land called Palestine. Most of the Arabs regarded themselves as living in the southern portion of Syria.

 

The 1947 UN partition plan mandated the creation of two states on the remaining twenty percent of the Palestine Mandate. There was to be the State of Israel for the Jews and a new state for the Arabs.

 

What happened, however, was that the Arabs rejected a state of their own and launched a genocidal war against Israel. The war was the primary cause of the Arab refugee problem that exists today because none of the Arab nations in the region would accept the refugees and the UN facilitated their permanent status and continues to do so today.

 

There were, however, Jewish refugees. Between 1949 and 1954, an estimated 800,000 Jews were forced to flee the Arab and Muslims lands where they had lived for hundreds of years. In addition, many European Jews who had survived the Nazi Holocaust migrated to Israel. Later they would be followed by the persecuted Jews of Russia and other lands.

 

On Monday afternoon, the UN General Assembly will convene to discuss the “Question of Palestine” and if this is redolent of the Nazi “Final Solution” the comparison is accurate. The General Assembly is scheduled to adopt six resolutions condemning only Israel for violations of human rights. This will bring the total thus far this year to twenty such resolutions as opposed to four resolutions critical of any of the remaining 191 UN member nations.

 

Israel is not “occupying” land that belongs to a Palestinian state because no such state exists. It has occupied land won repeatedly in combat for its very existence. In recent years it ceded the Gaza strip to the Palestinian Liberation Authority, Fatah, but the result has been that Hamas drove Fatah from Gaza at gunpoint and now uses it to launch rockets against Israel on a daily basis. The West Bank, by any international standard, is a legitimate part of Israel.

 

The Arabs who did not flee Israel in 1947 were the lucky ones. They were able to remain in the only functioning, true democracy in the Middle East and today their children and grandchildren number more than a million Israel citizens, some of whom serve in the Israeli Knesset or parliament, on the Israeli Supreme Court benches, and as tenured professors in Israeli colleges and universities.

 

The United Nations continues to promulgate the most offensive anti-Semitism found anywhere in the world and Monday’s observance is just one aspect of it. Its “Durban II” conference on racism to be held in Geneva in April 2009 will be a repeat of the hateful first conference that was boycotted by several nations, including the United States. It should be condemned and avoided by all nations that take the professed UN Human Rights declaration at its word.

 

Those attending Monday’s International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People should be hosed down and driven from the chambers where it is held. The General Assembly should be seen for what it is, a place of shame, duplicity, and genocidal hatred in which no civilized nation should take its seat.

 

November 24, 2008

Alan Caruba

 

 

 

 

America’s Group Hug About To End

BY J. D. Longstreet

As I watch, read, and listen to the MsM report the news of Obama’s selection of those people he wants to serve in his administration, it occurred to me that the change he had promised was simply a change… back to the Clinton Administration. 

 

Remember how it is when you begin watching a TV show that is a rerun, but you are not aware of it in the opening moments?  As the characters begin to flash onto the screen and the plot becomes more and more familiar it slowly dawns on you that you have seen this show before.  As I watch Obama gather his merry band together, that is exactly the feeling I get.  I have seen this show before.  Eight years ago.  So… it IS “Change BACK”!

 

Well, what about HOPE?  Remember… Bill Clinton was “The Man From HOPE!”

 

Look, the dems are nothing if they are not persistent.  They don’t seem to have had a NEW idea in decades.  They are still running elections with the same promises and pledges and even the same phraseology in their speeches that FDR used in his. So it should not be surprising that the Obama Administration looks so very much like the Clinton Administration because, for all intents and purposes, it IS the same.  All Democratic Party Presidential Administrations are the same. 

 

As soon as Americans stop slapping themselves on the back and congratulating themselves for making history, and overcoming “White Guilt”, and ending racism, and all that baloney, it will dawn on them that they have been had… again.

 

Soon, it will become clear that Americans, well, SOME Americans, are expecting entirely too much of Obama. Too much was promised and too little will be delivered.

 

Lowering expectations is the order of the day on the democratic side of the aisle.  Very serious democrats, in and out of the Mainstream Media, and in and out of the Democratic Party apparatus, are telling us to not expect so much from Obama.  Of course, that is exactly the opposite of what they were telling us just a few weeks ago.  Way back then they were promising miracles, hinting that Obama could heal the sick, make the lame to walk, the blind to see, the mute to speak, and there was a better than 50/50 chance that Obama could walk all the way across the Potomac… on his bare feet!  And yet, today, we are told that we should lower our expectations. This is all a bit much.  But this is what you get when the candidate is a blank slate upon which the voters can write their own expectations, their own desires, and, yes, their own fantasies. 

 

That American group hug, we mentioned at the beginning of this article, is slowly breaking apart as Americans begin to look up and cast their eyes in the direction of Obama’s selectees for his cabinet.  There’s some anxiety about its reflection of the Clinton Administration.  Then, too, the confirmation that among Obama’s foreign policy plans is one to lean on Israel to retreat back to it’s borders as they were before they were attacked by their Arab neighbors in 1967 and had to fight for their very existence.  In the war that ensued, Israel recaptured the old city of Jerusalem thereby reuniting it.  Now, apparently, the US is going to insist Israel turn it back over to the people who call themselves Palestinians. This has caused a stir in Israel and there is now some strain between Jews in Israel and those Jews in America who supported the Obama campaign.  They are NOT a happy bunch, at the moment. Neither are the Evangelical Christians in America and around the world.  But, then, Evangelical Christians did not support Obama and won’t.

 

And there is more, much, more to come. 

 

Too much is being expected of Obama by the Germans, the Iraqis, the Afghanis, the Georgians, most of eastern Europe, and all of Africa.  Here at home, in America, too much is being expected of Obama by the African-Americans, the White Americans, the Spanish-Americans, the Gay Americans, the unborn Americans, the poor Americans, the sick Americans, the old Americans, the young Americans, even those busy breaking into America across our wide open southern border in hopes of change with Obama.

 

Disappointment comes first.  Then comes dissatisfaction. Then comes disaster. After all, Obama is but a man. How he handles these three “D” words will define him for history.

 

Unlike George Bush, or any Republican President, Obama will have the added luxury of a Mainstream Media to justify his mistakes, his shortcomings, his disgraces, etc, to the nation and the world. After all, he is THEIR man and they will not allow him to fail. 

 

Clear thinking Americans, both republican and democrats, know whom America elected and they are worried.  They have reason to worry. America is as vulnerable as it was before World War Two… and every bit as naive.  In a country like America, vulnerability and naiveté can bring on disaster.  Anything can happen. Like a blind man negotiating a minefield, America must tread softly, and carefully, over the next few years.  Inexperienced leadership was not what the country needed, but that is what we have. Americans are now trusting in blind luck to get us through.

 

Me?  I pray a lot.

 

J. D. Longstreet 

 

 

Planet Wide Anxiety Bubbling To The Surface.

Planet Wide Anxiety Bubbling To The Surface.

By J. D. Longstreet

******************************

 

The human brain has this tiny little part called the amygdale. It’s in that tiny part of the brain where fear is generated and the fight or flee order is given to the rest of the human body. It is where fear is born.  As silly as it may seem, it is the reason we humans have survived on this planet so far and, if we are to survive much longer, we are going to have to begin listening to it again.

 

If you are honest with yourself, you will have to admit that for sometime now that amygdale of yours has been elbowing you to get your attention.  It is saying, “Hey, something is wrong!  Something is about to happen, prepare, prepare.”  OK, so it is a chemical thing and the amygdale doesn’t speak.  Well, if it did, I’d bet it would say something like that, though.

 

If you have been paying close attention to the news lately, and I don’t mean election news, I mean the news that, for the most part never even made the “A” section of your newspaper, you have noticed that certain world leaders have been hinting strongly about a coming event, or events, that is/are imminent and will cause great distress on the people of the planet.  Even the US VP-Elect has hinted at it when he mentioned something bad happening within six months of Obama’s inaugurating.  Other world leaders have alluded to it as well.

 

Remember Biden’s cryptic warning a few weeks ago, at the Sheraton in Seattle, Washington:  ““I can give you at least four or five scenarios from where it might originate, And he’s (Obama) gonna need help. And the kind of help he’s gonna need is, he’s gonna need you – not financially to help him – we’re gonna need you to use your influence, your influence within the community, to stand with him. Because it’s not gonna be apparent initially, it’s not gonna be apparent that we’re right.”

 

Well, whether Obama’s reaction to WHATEVER IT IS is right, or not, remains to be seen.  But that is not what is troubling me at the moment.  No. I am more concerned with what the “THING”, the “event”, the “occurrence”, that is going to happen is! 

 

Seems to me the first worry should be the chances of a terrorist nuclear attack on the continental United States. As a matter of fact, we don’t even know if one has already been attempted or not.  Such is the power of the Homeland Security agency.  A spokesman for Al Qaida has said their goal is:  “to kill 4 million Americans—2 million of them children—and to exile twice as many and wound and cripple hundreds of thousands.”  He went on to explain that this is what justice requires to balance the scales for casualties supposedly inflicted on Muslims by the United States and Israel.

 

It would take over thirtenn hundred terrorist attacks equal to the attack on 9-11  to reach that figure.  Or,  the terrorists could do it with just one nuclear attack.  See?

 

There is an excellent article on this very thing  titled: “How Likely is a Nuclear Terrorist Attack on the United States?” at:

 

http://www.cfr.org/publication/13097/how_likely_is_a_nuclear_terrorist_attack_on_the_united_states.html

 

But, this concern would only affect the people of the United States. The anxiety we are speaking of is felt around the world.  There must be something else.

 

May I tell you what I think it is?  I think our friends in the Green Movement have succeeded in scaring the wits out of people with their ever-present chant that the world is ending… right now!  It isn’t, of course.  It isn’t even getting warmer. In fact, it is getting cooler.  Yet, millions upon millions of people, the world over, have bought into the propaganda and as a result, they fear for their lives, and the lives of their children and grandchildren, from a threat of something that doesn’t even exist.  Talk about a Bogy Man!

 

I think this explains how a man as inexperienced and as devoid of substance as Barack Obama won an election to be the next President of the United States.  We have a populace so used to accepting the spin of the world’s Mainstream Media that they readily bought into the spin on Obama. They have been conditioned to do that, you see.

 

My generation is not as easily fooled.  My mother used to say:  “J.D., you won’t believe ox horns will hook until you’ve been gored!”  She was right. I still don’t. So what is my generation afraid of?  We’re afraid of what is going to happen if the younger generation continues blindly following the leadership of those nefarious characters who have molded them and conditioned them to accept the results of sloppy science as fact, and accepting that they must live out their days with the Damocles Sword of their self-imposed destruction of the world hanging over their heads. Remember the fairy tale of the King Who Had No Clothes?  The Green Movement has no clothes, but as in the fairy tale, everyone is afraid to speak up and question where the facts are.  I suspect you will find them in the closet alongside the King’s clothes.

 

If this were a movie this is the point in the story where the protagonist would grab his sidekick by the shoulders and shake him violently for a second or two and proclaim: “Get hold of yourself man! Start thinking!”  But it is difficult to do the entire world that way.

 

Now, I have just scratched the surface of the underlying cause(s) of the thread of fear running through the psyche of the human race these days.  There is more, much more.

 

Another thing comes to mind.  The new President-Elect apparently is set to offer a divided city of Jerusalem on the alter of Middle East peace and, to sweeten the deal, we are hearing rumours that there is also a possibility that he will be willing to offer up Israel’s nuclear arsenal, as well.  Our friends at The Liberty Sphere have an article you should read on this very thing at:

 

http://thelibertysphere.blogspot.com/2008/11/confirmed-obama-supports-dividing.html 

 

And there’s another excellent piece by Caroline Glick at www.CarolineGlick.com .  The article is entitled: “The Perils Ahead.”  You’ll find it at:

 

http://www.carolineglick.com/e/2008/11/the_perils_ahead.asp

 

Yes, these are perilous times.  I have no solace to offer. It is well to note, I suppose, that Nature has a way of warning us, even when we are not listening, that trouble is brewing.  These days, a little paranoia, I think, is a good thing!

 

J. D. Longstreet 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Controlling A Nations Economy Means Controlling That Nation’s People.

Controlling A Nations Economy Means Controlling That Nation’s People.

 

The title to this article was taken from one of Ronald Reagan’s speeches. It is as true as truth gets. Ronald Reagan, the icon of the conservative movement in America, understood the fundamental truth of the Founding Fathers of America.

 

 The Founding Fathers of America understood that a strong central government would never work in a republican form of government, the form of government they gave the American people.  They knew that.  They had just declared the independence of Americans from the  “strong central government” of King George of Great Britain. They understood that for Americans to thrive and become a great nation of great people the government should provide one thing… freedom.  They knew the American government should provide security from any and all enemies that presented a threat to the freedom of the American people so the American people could make the seeds of liberty grow and flourish. 

 

Meeting in Philadelphia in 1776 they labored to create a constitution, the bedrock foundation of this nation, dedicated to the idea that the people would control their own destiny, not the government, that the people would make or break this experiment in democracy, not the government, that the labors of the people, known as business, would be free to create and manufacture, to sell, and to create wealth and keep that wealth or distribute it as they chose, not the government.

 

The constitution is as simple a governing document as has ever been written. It was drawn up to protect the people of this country from its government.  Our Founding Fathers had just turned their backs on government which had  insinuated itself into the lives and businesses of its colonists to the point that those colonists rebelled and said: “No more!”  With the constitution, the Founding Fathers put in writing the limits of the new American government.

 

For the past 232 years the constitution has been a fly in the ointment to the political left everywhere on earth.  When a people yearning to breath free, anywhere on the globe, look for a way, for a pattern, for directions on how to set up a non-repressive government, they turn to the US Constitution.  There must be a reason.  There is.  Because it works! 

 

Today, however, Americans themselves are ready to toss the constitution overboard and cling to a government, drunk on power and ready to do exactly the same thing King George did , insinuate itself into every aspect of the American people’s life. So bent on desecration of the constitution are they, that 52 % of the American voters cast their ballots for a man who has declared his allegiance to creating a strong central government, which will take away the freedoms, the liberty,  our forefathers fought, bled, and died to give us.  They have declared their overwhelming willingness to toss the democratic form of government in favor of a socialist form of government, which will guarantee cradle to the grave security.  They voted “yes” to exchanging liberty for security. They voted to turn their backs on all the heroes of American history to follow in the footsteps of the Pied Piper of Socialism the now President-Elect of the United States of America.

 

Again, let’s turn to Ronald Reagan for clarity.  In 1964 Reagan said the following:

 

“It’s time we asked ourselves if we still know the freedoms intended for us by the Founding Fathers. James Madison said, “We base all our experiments on the capacity of mankind for self government.”

This idea? That government was beholden to the people, that it had no other source of power is still the newest, most unique idea in all the long history of man’s relation to man. This is the issue of this election: Whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American Revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves. “

Reagan went on to say: “The Founding Fathers knew a government can’t control the economy without controlling people. And they knew when a government sets out to do that, it must use force and coercion to achieve its purpose. So we have come to a time for choosing.

…….. Regardless of their sincerity, their humanitarian motives, those who would sacrifice freedom for security have embarked on this downward path. Plutarch warned, “The real destroyer of the liberties of the people is he who spreads among them bounties, donations and benefits.”

“Public servants say, always with the best of intentions, “What greater service we could render if only we had a little more money and a little more power.” But the truth is that outside of its legitimate function, government does nothing as well or as economically as the private sector.”

On taxation, Reagan said this: “We need true tax reform that will at least make a start toward restoring for our children the American Dream that wealth is denied to no one, that each individual has the right to fly as high as his strength and ability will take him…. But we cannot have such reform while our tax policy is engineered by people who view the tax as a means of achieving changes in our social structure….”

Reagan asked these essential questions: Will you resist the temptation to get a government handout for your community? Realize that the doctor’s fight against socialized medicine is your fight. We can’t socialize the doctors without socializing the patients. Recognize that government invasion of public power is eventually an assault upon your own business. If some among you fear taking a stand because you are afraid of reprisals from customers, clients, or even government, recognize that you are just feeding the crocodile hoping he’ll eat you last.”

About financial security, Reagan had this to say: “There can be no security anywhere in the free world if there is no fiscal and economic stability within the United States. Those who ask us to trade our freedom for the soup kitchen of the welfare state are architects of a policy of accommodation.”

Reagan wound up this jewel of a speech by saying the following: “You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we will sentence them to take the first step into a thousand years of darkness. If we fail, at least let our children and our children’s children say of us we justified our brief moment here. We did all that could be done.”

As I view the America the voters of this nation created on November fourth, I am inclined to say that, indeed, we have, just as Reagan warned, sentenced our children to a thousand years of darkness.

J. D. Longstreet

Conservative Leaders Meet to Draw Up Battle Plans

Conservative Leaders Meet to Draw Up Battle Plans.

 By J. D. Longstreet

 

A few days after the election, Conservative leaders met, quietly, in Virginia to draw up battle plans for the fight against Obama and the leftward sprint of Congress.  This meeting is said to be the first of many such confabs over the next few weeks.  It there was just one topic of discussion I would suggest for them it would be whether conservatives should remain in the GOP or break free and form their own party. You can find the story here:

 

http://www.cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=38961

 

I’m not privy to what was actually talked about, or discussed, but my fervent hope is that they talked of creating a new conservative political party and pulling all conservatives out of the Republican Party.

 

Yes, once again, the conservatives are the scapegoats of the GOP for their bungling of the 2008 presidential election.  From the viewpoint of someone on the outside looking in, the McCain campaign was, perhaps the worse run campaign I have ever seen in my nearly 7 decades on this planet.  It was truly awful.  The bluebloods and country club set, the liberals and moderates, made the decision to put John McCain on the ticket as a conservative candidate.  See, the first thing you have to understand is… conservatives recognize one another.  NONE of us recognized John McCain as a conservative, simply because he is not!  So, we conservatives balked. The few conservatives who DID vote for McCain held their noses as they did so.

 

How many times have you read my scribbling in which I have stated, flat out, that it is impossible for a republican candidate to win a presidential election without the conservative vote?  Back in the days of my broadcast commentaries it was a constant theme.  It remains today as a thread running throughout all my writings. And yet… McCain tried it… and failed.  When conservatives pour their time, talent, money, and most importantly, their zeal and fervor, into a campaign that campaign has the forward momentum of a racecar and the strength of a bulldozer. McCain’s campaign had none of this.  Observing the McCain Campaign was akin to watching a car rust!

 

So, if the so called leaders of the conservative movement want to do something worthwhile they can lead us (the conservatives) out of the GOP and into our own party.  I am tired of being the whipping boy for the upper crust within the Grand Old Party.  I have had it.  They don’t know conservatives until they want our vote or our money.

 

Understand this, my friends on the left, the conservative movement did not lose on November 4^th, the moderates and liberal republicans lost.  Harry Truman once said:  “Give the voters a choice between a fake republican and a real republican and they’ll choose the real republican every time.”  Of course, the same thing can be said of democrats.  That’s what happened on November 4^th.  The only conservative near the campaign was Sarah Palin… and by many accounts… she was not welcomed by the McCain Camp. 

 

If conservatives ever hope to climb to the top of a political party, and really control that party, they/we are going to have to have our own party.  It’s a simple as that.

 

I know it’s tough.  I know it will take a long time to organize and get candidates on the ballots in all 50 states, but I see no other alternative short of remaining where we are, in the GOP, serving as a doormat for the elite upper crust of blue bloods and those who frequent the country club.

 

I had rather put my time and talents toward a party with a platform I believe in, and candidates I believe in, and lose every time than continuing to do that for the GOP only to be sneered at, and told to go to the back of the bus.

 

Conservatives need national leadership at the top.  We haven’t a declared leader, at all.  There is no single conservative we can rally around and declare the “Top Dog” today.  At the moment the conservative movement is like a ship’s crew without a captain/navigator.  We can sail the ship but we can’t plot the course.  

 

One thing is crystal clear, however, conservatives cannot remain in the Republican Party and ever expect to have the respect of the party, nor the chance to lead the party on a conservative course.  Our only hope to effect conservative change on the US Government is with our own party.

 

J. D. Longstreet

 

 

Will Israel Strike Iran If Obama Objects? … By J. D. Longstreet

Yes!  I believe she will.

 

Forgive me, but I cannot SEE Israel sitting around waiting on the Europeans, the Americans and the UN and the IAEA to do something about Iran… much longer.

 

The Israelis see all this “jaw-jawing” as just what it is… putting off an impending event. Israel cannot afford to wait.  Their very lives depend on the nuclear facilities of Iran being taken out.

 

Any morning now, I expect to awaken to news reports that unmarked aircraft conducted massive bombing raids over Iran and immense damage was done to Iran’s nuclear factories and research plants.  Of course, there will be a slew of reports of collateral damage. The Mainstream Media, in order to be sure we all understand, will report the deaths of uncounted women and children by these dastardly phantoms of the air!

 

Now… this is going to happen!  I see no way of preventing it now, at all.  The US has only two choices … they are… to be ahead of the curve… or behind it.  With, or without US help, Israel is going to defend itself and if that means pre-emptive air attacks on Iran and the use of Israeli nuclear weapons, then so be it.

 

There is now concern that an Obama Administration will not allow Israel to fly through Iraqi airspace, a route the IAF needs to get to Iran, drop their payloads, and get back to Israel.

 

Some time ago, I read an unconfirmed report concerning an Israeli plan to force their way through Iraqi airspace by taking on US air forces in air to air combat in order to allow enough of their bomb laden aircraft to get through to Iraq and bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities.  It is understood by the Israeli airmen that if such a mission is undertaken by the IAF it will be considered a suicide mission. 

 

The tiny country of Israel is sort of like Fort Apache.  It’s surrounded by hostiles and it cannot survive a first strike.  It has no choice but to strike first and continue the strikes as long as it takes to remove the threat.  They cannot consider what the US wants, nor Great Britain, no the Europeans, nor the UN.  This is THEIR LIVES they will be defending.

 

Within 24 hours of the nation of Israel being created by the United Nations she was attacked by hordes of Muslims.  She fought them off and has continued to fight them off throughout their history. 

 

Israel has stated publicly that she will not hesitate to use nuclear weapons IF she believes her chances of survival are slim to none otherwise. 

 

The remainder of the world had best prepare.  All the negotiations, underway now, and all the posturing by the diplomats of the world, are accomplishing absolutely nothing.  As soon as Israel feels the time is right, they will strike.

 

We wish them every success.  We pray God that He will, once again, come to the aid of His people and extend His arm of protection over the brave pilots who will participate in the raid.

 

Godspeed IAF!

 

J. D. Longstreet

What Media Objectivity?

Media Objectivity is Dead!  But Most Americans Just Noticed.

 By J. D. Longstreet

Pardon me if I stand and cheer when I read and hear reports of newspaper organizations crumbling and going under, some out of business.  Forgive me if I applaud loudly as the “unbiased” media gets it’s due.

 

It is always good to see the arrogant ones get what’s coming to them and of all the arrogant businesses on the face of the planet; the news media is certainly the most arrogant.

 

This past election cycle in the United States the News Media dropped all pretence of being unbiased.  They decided early on that Obama was their candidate and they did everything possible to promote him and his campaign… and they succeeded.  To hell with what the readers and viewers wanted! To hell with being fair!  The media knew Obama was the best thing for America and they went about making absolutely sure he was elected. 

 

It was the sorriest, must dishonest, most dishonorable thing I have ever seen done by the news media.

 

The have been losing subscribers and listeners and viewers by the droves and yet, they hang on to the overt liberalism in their biased reporting — all the while insisting that they are not the least bit biased and that all their reporting is “right down the middle”. Why, even a blind man can see their claims to no bias are a falsity.

 

Have you ever wondered how blogging suddenly came out of nowhere and became such an overnight success?  Well, the bias of the Mainstream Media is your answer.  People have grown tired of their false claims and their “in the tank” reporting for all causes liberal and many decided they could do a better job of it by simply telling readers right at the banner head of their website that yes, this site is biased in favor of conservatism, or even liberalism. Surfers on the Internet like that honesty.  They surf to a site, see the declaration of it’s biases right on the front page and, Walla, they like it!  The Web Log business took off like a rocket and shows no sign of losing strength or popularity among users of the Internet.

 

Cal Thomas has an excellent piece on this very thing over at:

http://townhall.com/columnists/CalThomas/2008/11/04/media_meltdown?page=full&comments=true We recommend you drop by and read it.  He is right on the money.

 

Thomas mentions an article titled: “The Death of Objectivity” in the Colorado Springs Gazette.  That, too, is a must read and you’ll find it here:

 

http://www.nachi.org/forum/f13/death-objectivity-journalists-work-elect-obama-33863/ 

 

For years now, I have been relying on what I refer to as “off shore” media to access news of current events in America.  I simply do not trust my own country’s media to supply a straight forward report on what happened, who was involved and when… basically, the fundamentals of a news story, and allow me to draw my own conclusions.  I have grown weary of being told what I should think about a news story, how I will be expected to react to that story, and why I should react in a certain way.  I’m a big boy.  I’m fairly well educated and I have nearly seven decades of experience in a whole lot of things including the broadcast news business.

 

Will the Mainstream Media recover?  Possibly.  But I doubt they will survive in the same configuration.  Already, many have established a presence on the Internet, experimenting with the “New Media,” if you will.  But it will take many decades to recover, even if they are successful.  I expect their turf has been lost to the New Media, the Internet. If one could point to any single show of bias from the media as the “coup de grace,” it would have be their almost total and blatant bias for Obama the democratic candidate for President of the US. (Now President-Elect)  It will take at least a generation for Americans to finally “get over it” as they say.  Me? I will never forgive them for it.

 

On the other hand, it just might be that the News business has reverted to it’s past when all the news outlets were overtly biased.  In which case the newspaper business, as a hard copy, on paper, delivered to your door each morning, is dead.  It’s as dead as their objectivity.

 

J. D. Longstreet