THIS is why Conservatives fear BIG GOVERNMENT

THIS is WHY Conservatives Fear BIG GOVERNMENT
By J. D. Longstreet

 

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Recently it was reported that the Pentagon plans by 2011 to station 20,000 active-duty troops within the United States to respond to large-scale catastrophes or terrorist attacks. These troops would be specially trained to handle chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, or high-yield explosive attacks. Reports say this force has been in planning stages for several years. Read more on this at:
www.dcexaminer.com/opinion/Beware_of_using_the_military_for_law_enforcement_121408.html )“We cannot continue to rely on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives we’ve set. We’ve got to have a civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded.”

Now comes this: “New rules published in the Federal Register would allow certain civilians to call American soldiers into action inside the U.S. to prevent environmental damage or respond to “special events” and “other domestic activities.”

In a speech he made in July in Colorado Springs, Colorado, presumed President-Elect Obama said:

 

The alarming warning is contained in proposed rules published last week for the Department of Defense’s “Defense Support of Civil Authorities” plan.

 

But the new rules go far beyond that, essentially establishing a plan to activate the U.S. military inside the country to deal with social issues under provisions that appear to be devoid of any connection to the Constitution…”

 

Read the entire story at:
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=83477

Worried yet?

What about the Posse Comitatus Act, you ask? Well, if these foks get their way Posse Comitatus is dead, and, frankly, so is our constitution!

Some of you may be wondering what the dickens the Posse Comitatus Act is. Ok, let’s take a look, shall we: “The Posse Comitatus Act and the Insurrection Act substantially limit the powers of the federal government to use the military for law enforcement.

The Posse Comitatus Act is a United States federal law (18 U.S.C. § 1385) passed on June 16, 1878 after the end of Reconstruction. The Act prohibits most members of the federal uniformed services (the Army, Air Force, and State National Guard forces when such are called into federal service) from exercising nominally state law enforcement, police, or peace officer powers that maintain”Law and Order” on non-federal property (states and their counties and municipal divisions) in the former Confederate States.

The statute generally prohibits federal military personnel and units of the National Guard under federal authority from acting in a law enforcement capacity within the United States, except where expressly authorized by the Constitution or Congress. The Coast Guard is exempt from the Act.” (From Wikipedia at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posse_Comitatus_Act )

In an article in the Washington Post dated December 1st and titled: “Pentagon to Detail Troops to Bolster Domestic Security” it is pointed out: “There are critics of the change, in the military and among civil liberties groups and libertarians who express concern that the new homeland emphasis threatens to strain the military and possibly undermine the Posse Comitatus Act, a 130-year-old federal law restricting the military’s role in domestic law enforcement.” You can read the entire article at:
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/30/AR2008113002217_2.html?hpid=topnews

Ok, so we have 20,000 US combat troops to be to do, uh, what… exactly, in the US… plus, Obama’s civilian national security force of, how many? Who knows! Now, I don’t know about you, but this is beginning to be worrisome. Are we about to become an armed camp? It certainly seems so.

I know it is not popular these days to speak of it, but the fact is… I am a product of the only part of the US to be invaded, conquered, and occupied by armed forces of the US. My section of the US underwent ten years of the worst form of occupation by armed troops. Even today stories handed down within families, from generation to generation, and a number of books have been written about the atrocities committed by those troops while here in the former Confederate States of America. If you care to read an excellent account of some of those war crimes, I recommend a book by Walter Brian Cisco titled: “ War Crimes Against Southern Civilians.” Some of the crimes he writes about in the book took place in my hometown.

It seems to me that what we have is a Federal Government out of control. That means the constitution is being trampled, shredded, and maybe, as some claim, it is already dead!

For decades we have warned that a federal government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take everything you have… including your freedom. And now it is happening.

I repeat my question asked above: Are you worried yet?

 

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

 

 

 

 

How America Has Changed … by Alan Caruba

How America Has Changed

By Alan Caruba

 

Many of those who helped elect Barack Obama as the next President represent a very different generation of Americans from earlier ones. They have passed through the politically correct indoctrination of government/union controlled schools and have little accurate knowledge of history, geography, or civics with which to make informed judgments. They are more the product of popular media and culture than any previous generation.

 

The struggle for civil rights dominated the 1960s. The Watergate scandal marked the 1970s and the nation experienced its first serious military defeat after a protracted war in Vietnam. The rise of the Islamic Revolution began in 1979 and continued through the 1980s and 1990s, until it led to the 9/11 attack in 2001. The nation has been engaged militarily in the Middle East ever since. Events alter perceptions.

 

Here are some of the ways that America has changed since the 1960s:

 

The nuclear family—mother, father and children—is no longer the most common household type. It was in 1960, but today the nuclear family ranks third among alternative types of households behind married couples without children at home (mostly older, empty-nesters) and people living alone (also among the growing demographic of older Americans.) Divorce and out-of-wedlock births have caused the number of single parents to increase dramatically. Abortion ends 24% of pregnancies these days.

 

Most children have working mothers. In America today, 69% of married mothers work. The result is that most pre-school children are in daycare programs being raised and cared for by people other than their parents.

 

Only 16% of Americans think that our nation’s schools are doing a good job. To put it another way, 84% think schools are failing in their mission to educate today’s children. There are ample statistics to demonstrate this. For example, only 39% of white students in fourth grade were reading at or above their grade level in 2005. Among black students, it was only 12%. Asian American students, however, scored at 40%. Educators tell me that today’s schools are virtual zoos requiring all manner of monitoring of disruptive students. Fear rules the halls of too many schools, both inner city and suburban.

 

The median household income peaked in 1999 after some forty years of rising incomes. Between 1967 and 2006 the median household income grow by 32%, after adjusting for inflation, to $48,201. The average American household makes $1,000 less than it did a few years ago. The earning power of men peaked in 1989. Between 1967 and 2006, the median earnings of women who worked full-time grew by 53%. Together, those incomes allowed families to buy houses, SUVs, and other top dollar items. Americans have been on a credit spree, however. The median debt of average American households is $55,300!

 

The Social Security Trust Fund will exhaust its surplus in 2041. Nine out of ten people aged 65 years or older receive a Social Security check each month. It accounts for 40% of their income.

 

In a recent issue of Budget & Tax News, published by The Heartland Institute, an article noted that “Federal regulations cost Americans almost as much as the income tax and more than 40 percent of all federal spending…Federal environmental, safety, health, and economic regulations cost more than $1 trillion a year in addition to the costs of official federal spending.” These costs are passed along to consumers.

 

Fully 63% of Americans believe in God and have no doubts about it, but 57% believe that it is not necessary to believe in God to be a moral person with good values.

 

According to the 2000 Census, America was home to 63 distinct racial groups, but it was the first census in which individuals could identify themselves as belonging to more than one such group, i.e., were multiracial. Whites constituted 211 million people. Blacks were 14% of the population and represented 25% of those living in poverty, but non-Hispanic whites represented 44%. Blacks constitute 41 million Americans and are outnumbered five to one by whites.

 

Despite the failure of some sub-prime mortgages, fully 68% of households own a home. The Great Depression caused such losses that the government created the Federal Housing Administration and a new system of financing, the 30-year, fixed rate mortgage. By 1950 home ownership rate had climbed to 55%. Allowing people to buy homes with no money down and a reasonable expectation of paying their monthly mortgage has proven to be a very bad idea.

 

If you were born in 1901 life expectancy was 47 years. By 2006, average life expectancy was 78! The leading cause of death in America is heart disease. More than two million Americans die of this cause every year.

 

Antonio Gramsci, a dedicated communist, wrote a book setting out a strategy for taking over strong Western democracies by infiltrating their churches and educational system, as well as a nation’s media. Communism could be imposed by turning churches into ideologically-driven political clubs. Educational systems had to be dumbed down and offer a politically correct curriculum. Mass media had to discredit traditional institutions such as marriage and commonly shared moral values.

 

If any of this looks like America today, consider yourself warned.

 

Alan Caruba writes a weekly column posted on the Internet site of The National Anxiety Center, www.anxietycenter.com. He blogs daily at http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com.

 

© Alan Caruba, November 2008

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We Mourn For a Lost America Today!… by J. D. Longstreet

 

We mourn the loss of Freedom, Democracy, and America’s position in the world as a Leader. In place of all these, America has chosen SOCIALISM the “Destroyer of Nations”.

I am ashamed of my fellow Americans for giving up their freedom, their constitution, their liberty, everything the Founding Fathers gave us, for so cheap a price.

The disunity of America is now complete. There is nothing left of that which bound us together. The descent of America, into the ash heap of history, has officially begun. The decline will be relatively swift and excruciatingly painful.

 

May God have Mercy on America, on those who warned “the other people who live in this country”. I cannot use “fellow Americans” as that phrase no longer applies. It has been shredded by the Obama Machine and by the Democratic Party.

 

It is now time to prepare for the descent into anarchy. Providence, it seems, has decided punishment is required for those who have defaced and destroyed this land, formerly under His protection, and done so from within.

 

Please consider the following from the Bible… Revelation 6: 1 – 8

(Rev 6:1-8 NIV) I watched as the Lamb opened the first of the seven seals. Then I heard one of the four living creatures say in a voice like thunder, “Come!” {2} I looked, and there before me was a white horse! Its rider held a bow, and he was given a crown, and he rode out as a conqueror bent on conquest.

{3} When the Lamb opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, “Come!” {4} Then another horse came out, a fiery red one. Its rider was given power to take peace from the earth and to make men slay each other. To him was given a large sword.

{5} When the Lamb opened the third seal, I heard the third living creature say, “Come!” I looked, and there before me was a black horse! Its rider was holding a pair of scales in his hand. {6} Then I heard what sounded like a voice among the four living creatures, saying, “A quart of wheat for a day’s wages, and three quarts of barley for a day’s wages, and do not damage the oil and the wine!”

{7} When the Lamb opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature say, “Come!” {8} I looked, and there before me was a pale horse! Its rider was named Death, and Hades was following close behind him. They were given power over a fourth of the earth to kill by sword, famine and plague, and by the wild beasts of the earth.

Today we mourn the passing of America. Today America is the democrat Socialist States of America. Today the “pale horse” is loosed on the land.

…. by J. D. Longstreet

 

The Pivot Point in American History.

By J. D. Longstreet

 

When you cut through all the smoke and mirrors and hot air this election is about whether the US will continue to exist as a proud, free, nation, or drop into socialist slavery. When historians look back on this day, they will say it was the day, the point in history, which changed America.  Will America remain free, or will America retreat and surrender to the forces of socialism?  The choice is ours, America. 

 

When the great warrior leader of the Israelites, Joshua, had control handed to him upon Moses’ death, the tribes were bickering among themselves as they approached the very doorstep of the Promised Land.  Finally, Joshua had had enough!  He called them together and challenged them:  “Choose you, this day, whom you will serve!  As for me, and my house, we will serve the Lord!”

 

And so it is that today, Americans are called to choose whom they will serve.  We will choose to commission certain, from among us, to have power over us. This is an awesome thing.  It is voluntary submission. But, it is how a representative republic operates. We must be certain that those we elect are not shallow, empty suits, interested in power for power’s sake.  That will defeat the purpose of our republic.  It will also place this republic in immense danger.

 

Our enemies gather today… and watch.   They pray for Americans to turn the power of this government over to those who will appease them.   Their intention is to conquer the US and they will be happy if the electorate of the US makes it much easier for them to accomplish that mission by electing weak spined, naïve, people to fill the seats of power in our government.

 

If we choose today to turn this government over to those who cannot, for whatever reason, understand this nation is at war for it’s life, then there will be a heavy price to pay.  Just as 9-11, and the two wars which followed, in my opinion, was the price we paid for electing the last democratic administration, we can expect an even heavier price for returning that element to power in the government of the US.

 

As I cast my ballot one week ago today, I thought of my family, of my wife, of my children and my grandchildren.  I was reminded that I have a responsibility to ensure, as far as it is within my power, that they have a guaranteed future as a free people. I could not do that by voting for the Democratic Party.  To vote for the freedom and security of my family I had no choice but to vote for the Republican candidates.

 

You see, I believe Americans have forgotten that for a free nation, national security comes first, above all things. Without the security of our nation, nothing else is possible. Without national security even that which has already been accomplished is in danger.  An unsecure nation can only exist at the mercy of it’s enemies. And that mercy, once extended, and accepted, becomes the chain and the shackles that enslave entire nations.    

 

I believe it was the Apostle Paul who once said:  “It is a terrible thing to fall into the hands of God!”  He was, of course, correct.  I am convinced this nation was created, by God, as a beacon for the people of this world.  As such we Americans are answerable to God for our actions as a nation. We are also told, by the scriptures, that God punishes those he loves.   When we act as a God fearing nation, this nation does well.  When we fail, we pay the price.  When we make the right decisions we prosper.  When we make the wrong decisions we suffer.

 

We stand at the precipice of a decision today.  Two choices are presented for us from which to choose. As agents of free will WE must make that decision. Paraphrasing the words of the ancient Israelite warrior prophet Joshua, “America, choose you, this day, whom you will serve”!  Choose wisely, America, choose wisely.

 

J. D. Longstreet

Afghanistan Will Be Another Vietnam … by Alan Caruba

Afghanistan Will Be Another Vietnam

By Alan Caruba

 

The next President of the United States of America must decide whether to withdraw our troops from Afghanistan or expand our involvement there. Having lived through the long years of the war in Vietnam, I can tell you that Afghanistan looks and smells like Vietnam. It is the classic wrong war in the wrong place.

 

In late October, I read a small news item about Parwiz Kambakhsh, 24, an Afghan journalism student who had downloaded and circulated an article about women’s rights under Islam. The news was that his sentence of death had been overturned by an appellate court that reduced it to a mere twenty years in prison on the charge of blasphemy. He can still appeal to the Supreme Court of Afghanistan. This is the state of freedom of speech, press, and thought in Afghanistan.

 

If you want to know what life was like in the seventh century, Afghanistan is the place to go. It is largely devoid of anything passing for modernity, by which we mean medical facilities, schools, roads, and such. Never mind the telephones and other detritus of modern life, the conversations have not changed in centuries.

 

Afghanistan shares a long border with Pakistan and Iran. Also bordering it is Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Turkistan, and Tajikistan. None of these places is a tourist destination. All are Islamic.

 

The only reliable element of Afghanistan’s economy is poppy cultivation for the opium trade which the CIA estimates generates “roughly $4 billion in illicit economic activity.” This is another way of saying that none of this money reaches what passes for a central government except in the form of bribes. It is a major source of funding for the Taliban.

 

Few Americans were interested in Afghanistan until September 11, 2001. We have had a military presence there for seven years, along with NATO nation components. Much like the “military advisors” that initiated our involvement in Vietnam, today’s generals are calling for more troops.

 

Afghanistan has been conquered and occupied since the days of Alexander the Great. Nothing much comes of it. It remains a mystery why they bothered. Putting too few or too many troops into Afghanistan does little except to demonstrate the futility of trying to impose one’s will on people who have resisted every such effort for centuries.

 

Founded as a nation in 1747 when Ahmad Shah Durrani unified the Pashtun tribes, Afghanistan was primarily seen as a buffer between the British and Russian empires. Democracy, as in most Middle Eastern nations, has never taken root there.

 

It became the graveyard of the Soviet empire after they intervened militarily in 1979 to support a tottering Afghan Communist regime. After they withdrew in 1989, the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. It is now known as the Russian Federation. It is still run by the former KGB. And one wonders why anyone in the U.S. government thinks any good can come of being there?

 

The Taliban took control after the Russians left and Osama bin Laden found a congenial place in which to plan 9/11. That’s why the first U.S. response to the attack occurred in Afghanistan as U.S., allied, and an anti-Taliban Northern Alliance of tribes were able to drive the Taliban across the border into the frontier provinces of Pakistan and elsewhere.

 

The U.S. effort to create a democratic government there began with a new constitution and, in December 2004, the election of Hamid Karzai as president. He barely controls Kabul, the capitol. The southern and eastern regions are still beyond control.

 

In essence, the rule of law barely exists in Afghanistan, if at all, unless you factor in Sharia law which reflects a seventh century approach to justice. The government and all aspects of official life in Afghanistan are so corrupt that even President Karzai’s brother is allegedly on the take.

 

I am not a military strategist, an expert in foreign affairs, or can lay claim to much more than common sense, so I confess it defies my understanding why the United States and our NATO allies are in Afghanistan. Expecting democracy to succeed in such a primitive and hostile place seems more a justification for military occupation than anything else. The whole place is tribal.

 

Other than his distaste for our invasion of Iraq and disposal of Saddam Hussein, it is baffling that Barack Obama says that Afghanistan is the “central front” against al Qaeda. The CIA says it has no bases there. The Taliban—outsiders just like us–have their own agenda as seen in their effort to render the place a complete and total Islamic hellhole.

 

Little wonder, therefore, that word keeps getting out that both English and French military leaders regard Afghanistan as virtually beyond any hope without putting a far greater number of troops there. Millions are being spent as it is. Between 2002 and 2007, Germany spent $80 million to reform its police corps. The U.S. has budgeted $800 million for 2008 to assist its security forces.

 

In early October, General Jean-Louis Geogelin, France’s military chief, confirmed that British Brigadier Mark Carleton-Smith remarks that “there is no military solution to the Afghan crisis” reflected his own views. The Brigadier recommended that NATO lower its expectations regarding a happy outcome to the conflict. It was, he said, “unrealistic and probably incredible” to think that the multinational forces in Afghanistan could rid the country of armed bands.

 

There are two occupations available to the Afghans. One can either be a farmer raising poppies or one can join an armed band, be it either the government’s, one’s tribe, or the Taliban’s.

 

In an October 1, 2008 Christian Science Monitor article, it was reported that “The U.S. military is working to put a new strategy in place for Afghanistan and Pakistan that could allow it to expand airfields, preposition military forces and equipment, and prepare for a more robust effort soon against Islamist extremists in the region.” Four more U.S. brigades are poised to be sent to Afghanistan, including one that will deploy in January. 

 

I have my own military strategy. Let’s pull our troops out of Afghanistan and, with their permission, let’s keep enough troops in Iraq to ensure that its government can maintain its security and as a deterrent for any conflict Iran might initiate in the region.

 

The United States of America has a full plate of problems right now. Expending troops and treasure in Afghanistan strikes me as a bad investment in a very nasty place. It is an invitation to repeat the all the errors of Vietnam.

 

Alan Caruba writes a weekly column posted on the Internet site of The National Anxiety Center, www.anxietycenter.com. He blogs daily at http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com.

 

© Alan Caruba, November 2008

 

After America… Who Will Lead The World?

By J. D. Longstreet

 

November 4^th, 2008, will likely go down in the history books as the day America gave up her world leadership role and became another “has been” nation.

 

About two years ago when I first began to look seriously at this fellow named Obama, I recognized his overt socialism immediately.  It wasn’t difficult.  It was right there for everyone to see… if one wished to see it.  But it now seems that millions of Americans are perfectly fine with assisting in the suicide of America by accepting his message of socialism, the destroyer of nations.

 

I’m an old codger, in my late sixties, and I have seen socialism as an enemy of the United States and what, back in my day, we called Americanism. Americanism is simply defined as democratic capitalism.

 

When I was in the US military we were taught to fight socialism. We trained to meet the socialists on the field of battle. There was no question that Americanism and socialism could not exist on the same globe without conflict, and, we rightly assumed, armed conflict.

 

Months ago, as I began to write about the dangers of socialism to America, (and how the Democratic Party has become a sort of Socialist/Democratic party) I was stunned when they, the democrats, did not refute it. I had expected democrats to deny any connection to socialism.  But they didn’t.  It was then that it struck me… they don’t deny it because they can’t.  They have become socialist! They have embraced socialism.

 

Back in 1935, or so, FDR, a democrat, introduced Socialism to America with his New Deal. America has never been able to extricate itself from the New Deal.  It is still with us today.

 

As hard as it is to fathom, there are millions of Americans today educated in America’s public schools who have no idea what socialism is.  As the democrat party controls our public school system, the courses taught are favorable to socialism. American “scholars” are not taught that socialism is a cancer, which will eat away the core of a capitalist nation by simply removing any desire of the citizens to advance their station in life.  It squashes all ambition to live better, to make more money, to manufacture better goods, to offer better services, to do/say/produce anything in which one could exhibit pride either in themselves or their country. 

 

How can this be?  Well, socialism demands the end of private enterprise. Under socialism there would be no small businesses, no Mom and Pop stores, no entrepreneurs. Socialism demands the redistribution of wealth.  That means taking the money you earned and giving it to those who did not earn it. Socialism demands that all wealth in a nation, and that includes yours, will be controlled by the government. In other words, you will own nothing — not even your own money.  The government owns everything and everyone is given only what it takes for that person to survive.  Socialism celebrates the lack of an upper class and a lower class.  Under socialism there is only one class.  And in THAT class all people suffer equally.

 

It would seem that America has made the decision to turn it’s back on everything good the forbearers made and sacrificed to give us… an America, unique in all the world and in all the world’s history.  What, then, is America about to do?  America is about to join the mediocrity of the remainder of the world.   No longer desirous of the leadership role, no longer willing to do the heavy lifting required by freedom, America has decided to join the pack of “has been” nations now embarrassed by their past glory years.

 

If I am right, and I am convinced that I am, tomorrow will begin the” Post-America” period in world history. Which leads to the burning question, at least for me.  That question is:  after America, who will lead the world?    

 

J. D. Longstreet

 

 

    

The Obama Commercial … by Alan Caruba

The Obama Commercial

By Alan Caruba

 

The Wednesday evening half-hour, $4 million dollar television commercial for the candidacy of Sen. Barack Obama was a masterpiece of imagery.

 

It was also entirely devoted to class warfare, class envy, and most of all to fear.

 

This has been the Democrat message since Franklin D. Roosevelt took over the White House in the midst of the Great Depression—the real one, not the Recession the economy has encountered today. We don’t have 15% percent unemployment as was the case in the 1930s, but we do have a vast matrix of costly government programs left over from those times.

 

Obama’s message and the theme of his campaign are those the Democrat Party has always used to acquire political power. They are the promises about tax cuts that mysteriously never occur once they are in office.

 

They are about protecting people from every kind of change that could harm them and they promise “change” as a government that will come to their aid in sickness, in their old age, to help their children attend better schools, to help them go to college, and on, and on, and on.

 

The Obama commercial focused entirely on people struggling against changes in their lives over which they had no control. For example there was a Ford Motor Company couple laid off from their jobs, but no mention is made of the endless federal mandates imposed on all auto companies that drove up the cost of every automobile for everyone, nor the massive union pension and health programs those companies had to agree to in order to stay in business. These and other factors have killed the auto industry in America.

 

The Obama commercial talked of more teachers and better schools, but ever since the 1960s, the creation of the Department of Education, and the rise of the control over all schools by teachers unions, education in America has declined so sharply that we rank behind many other nations and produce students programmed to believe government is the answer but it has been federal government that has destroyed local community control over schools and their curriculum.

 

At one point, Obama said, “I will always be honest with you” and I recalled Jimmy Carter’s promise that “I will never lie to you.” Both candidates arrived out of the political wilderness with very thin resumes to suggest they had the knowledge or ability to run a nation. Carter’s one term in office was a failure in so many ways, but worse, we continue to pay for those failures in foreign and domestic policy.

 

And wasn’t it Obama who promised to accept public funding for his campaign only to renege on that promise?

 

At the end of the Obama commercial the scene shifted to the now familiar large crowd of adoring supporters. How long will that last if Obama cannot make the Recession go away? How long will his popularity last if the homeland comes under attack again and we see a weak response? It was the decade of the 1990s during which a two-term, Democrat Clinton administration failed to respond with strength against al Qaeda’s bombing of our embassies and other targets. By 2001, the targets were the Twin Towers and the Pentagon.

 

 It is the unanticipated problems that test a presidency, not ones that have been around for decades. And, if Americans think that government is the answer, they need to remind themselves of Hurricane Katrina.

 

On so many levels, the commercial will have appealed to lots of people, young and old, struggling to pay bills, but the American government works best when it gets out of the way of Americans and let’s them begin new businesses, expand existing ones, and conduct business with the least amount of paperwork and other distractions.

 

That’s not how the government functions these days and, under Obama, the effort to “change” America will continue to add thousands of new laws and regulations to the Federal Register, but the class warfare and class envy will not end, nor will the fear.

 

Alan Caruba writes a weekly column posted on the Internet site of The National Anxiety Center, www.anxietycenter.com. He blogs daily at http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com.