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

 

We Need Heroes!

We Need Heroes!

By J. D. Longstreet

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

In my youth heroes did abound. There were, first and foremost, the military heroes, then the sports heroes, even the guy down the block who saved the neighbor’s cat by climbing the tree to retrieve the cat, he, too, was a hero. But it is not so, anymore.

Humans need heroes. Heroes remind us that there is a better side to us. Heroes remind us that we DO have it in us to be better than we are… to accomplish what was thought to be the impossible, and that we do have it in us to defend those things most precious to us, like our families and our homes and even our country. But today you would think there are no heroes.

There are the quiet heroes who live among us, even in our very homes, every day. The parents striving to make a living and see that their kids get what they need to create, for themselves, a better life than that of their parents. Rarely are they ever mentioned among the phalanx of everyday heroes.

Military heroes went out of style during the Vietnam War. Although many, many, Vietnam veterans came home as a heroes, they were not accorded that status by their fellow Americans. Many were reviled and even spat upon. Men who had answered their country’s call and gone to war, and had every right to be accorded the status of heroes were, instead, shunned by American society.

When I was a boy, there actually were sports heroes. Oh yes. Joe De Maggio, Ted Williams, and the list goes on and on. No any longer. Professional athletes tell us they have no desire to be a ROLE MODEL, A HERO, if you will. And they aren’t. Many we would silently think of as heroes turn out to be abusing drugs, which brings into questions their athletic triumphs. So, we no longer have sports heroes.

Well, you may ask, what about the neighborhood guy who climbs trees and rescues felines for the neighbors children? What about him, huh? Well, that cat is stranded now, for good and all, except in the rare case where the local fire department will agree to come rescue the critter. Why? Well the neighborhood guy is concerned that if he should climb that tree and break a limb, some enviro- nut group will sue him. If he should accidentally harm the kitty, while in the attempt to rescue her, then the animal welfare groups might sue him, and if the kitty scratches the kids he returns it to, he might well be sued for allowing those children to play with a dangerous animal.

See the direction America has taken… and why, there are no heroes today? It is, indeed, far too risky to be a hero today.

And then there is the “Moral Relativity” problem. Here in America, the Moral Relativity adherents rule the day. Now known as “political correctness”, we are indoctrinated, from day one, that all men are created equal. Well, one can easily put the lie to that… if one wanders into the shower room of any military barracks in the world, or walk down a crowded beach in July. All men are NOT created equal. All men are guaranteed an equal shot at life, and it’s abundance, here in America by the constitution, but that is as far as it goes… or at least, that is as far as it SHOULD go.

Now, if you believe that all men are equal then you cannot have heroes. Because the very nature of heroism means that one person has exceeded the level playing field of equality and has become better than his fellow man in some way.

We used to understand that, in this country, and we celebrated our heroes. Look back at Audey Murphy, the most decorated soldier of the Second World War. A tiny little fellow, unimposing, but the man had the heart of a lion. He was a true hero.

And there was The Duke. Yep, John Wayne. So far as I know Duke never served his country in uniform. Except that, actually, he did. He portrayed such heroes, so often, and so convincingly on the American movie screen, that he became one. He played role after role of a hero in different uniforms of our military service. Those western characters he portrayed paid homage to the early days of America on the frontier. He became a hero. The thing with Wayne was that “what you saw was what you got”. Off screen, he was the same man he played on screen. And that came through, clear as a bell, in the characters he portrayed.

Say what you will about the Duke, but he taught, at least one generation of American men, what it meant to be a man… and even more importantly what it meant to be an American man.

Heroes provide us with role models. “We don’t need role models”, you may argue. Oh, but we do, I would argue back. Role models teach our children important lessons about who they are and of what they are capable.

When I first reported for military training at Fort Jackson, South Carolina, back on July 5th, 1959, I had no idea what I was capable of. None. I thought I did. But, boy, how wrong I was.

I weighed approximately 126 pounds. And that was soaking wet! And then they took us up to a place known then as “Tank Hill”. That’s where you went, in those days, when you reported to Ft. Jackson to be whipped into shape as an American soldier. Eight weeks later, having survived pure hell, I left that Army post a brand new American soldier, believing I could lick the world, if necessary, single handed.

How did it happen? One important factor of that training was that there were genuine heroes training us. The Instructor cadres were men who were veterans of the Second World War and the Korean War. Men who had seen the worst the enemy could throw at them and they rose above it… and won!

We had a First Sergeant, with an Irish name, and all the accoutrements, including the blue eyes and red hair. Never saw him that he didn’t have a bayonet scabbard hanging from his web belt. Never. He was a sergeant in the manner of old first sergeants. That guy was something to behold. When he walked into a room, or onto a training field, all the noise became muted and all eyes were on him. He commanded respect. For those of us un-initiated, at the time, there was one huge question we all wanted ask and that was… “Why”? After a few weeks, I screwed up enough courage to ask one of the lowly buck sergeants what it was about the Top Kick that brought all that respect.

The sergeant pointed to the Top Kick’s bayonet. “You see that”, he asked? I assured him I couldn’t miss it. The sergeant went on to say there was a story behind that bayonet. He told me that even though he didn’t know all the details he knew that the Top Kick had saved his squad, in Korea, by charging an enemy machine gun nest with nothing but that bayonet in his hand. He over ran that enemy gun emplacement and put the machine gun out of action and saved the lives of his men. For his actions the Army had award him a medal. His fellow soldiers had awarded him something far more precious… their respect.

As I listened in awe, I came to understand the awe, in which his men held him, that day. And… I had something of an epiphany, and that was… that… even heroes need heroes. The men training me were genuine war heroes, and yet… they looked up to the Top Kick as THEIR hero.

It is the nature of the human beast. We need “markers” to show us what we can achieve. Those who rise above the rest ARE those “markers” and we call them heroes.

America has become a nation in limbo. Having no markers, no heroes, to look to we are wandering about in a sea of disillusionment, not knowing who we are. Oft times we are discouraged from accomplishments, which exceed the norm. We are told it is better to remain a non-entity than to accomplish more than one’s neighbors, and rise above them, for in so doing we make those who seek to remain equal feel ashamed, or less important that we.

To that I say… “Tough!” It is that kind of thought that is killing the American spirit. It is that kind of thought that is killing America… period! It is that kind of thought that is ushering in socialism in America with Mr. Obama at the point of the socialist spear.

America used to be a “can do” nation. Now we are a “can you do it for me?” nation. We have not yet recognized that those who willingly “do it” for us will soon reign over us. Why, the naysayers have us believing we can actually lose the war in Iraq! They have us believing we can’t fight two wars, on two fronts, and win! We’ve already put the lie to that argument. We fought the Germans, the Italians, and the Japanese, all at the same time, and came away victorious over all of them. And we fought, not just in two relatively small countries in the same region, but all over the GLOBE!

Regardless of what you may think, or you may have been taught, there are persons among us who are heroes. These are persons who have risen above and simply not been recognized by a society that has chosen to hide itself in the mire of equal aspirations based upon our society’s lowest common denominator.

We desperately need a hero to lead this nation through the dark decades ahead. We are facing an enemy, which wants us dead and will stop at nothing to wipe us out. We need a leader who is not afraid of taking the tough stands, and making the hard decisions, which may lead to the deaths of countless numbers of our enemies, but, in the end, save the USA.

But can a man, such as that, be elected in America anymore? Probably not. Can a man, such as that, be found among us? Oh yes! But I must warn you… they are few and far between. You see… some say America stopped producing “real men” in the 1960’s. And those of the male persuasion, who survived the ‘60’s, are now teaching our male children what THEIR definition of a real man is and, dear reader, it is far from what nature created the human male to be.

So what are America’s options? Frankly, I don’t see any. We, as a nation, are destined to ride this train to the end of the line. You see, when a people, voluntarily, choose to emasculate themselves, they must pay the price. America has only begun to pay that price.

J. D. Longstreet

 

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 

 

 

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

Americans Arm Themselves At A Record Pace

 

 Americans are arming themselves to the teeth, after the election, because they fear what they feel is coming from an Obama Administration and from the underlying fear that something very bad is about to happen that will affect the whole world.

First, take a look at this AP article by Dena Potter entitled: “Fears of Democrat crackdown lead to gun sales boom.”  You’ll find it at:

 

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gHIVt7MERGIbR6SEMaTMPoeCiuiwD94AGFIO0  This was as predictable as sunrise. We told you a number of times to expect this. But, as with so many things, the Mainstream Media is blindsided by it.

 

Here’s another report on Americans rushing to arm themselves in advance of the Obama Administration. It’s from CNSNEWS.COM.  It’s titled:

 

“Gun-Shop Business Booms in Advance of New Administration”

 

Here is a brief excerpt:  “……..Gun shops and gun shows are running out of inventory as Second Amendment enthusiasts prepare for Barack Obama to become the new president.”  You’ll find the full story here: 

 

http://www.cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=39115

 

Here in “Gun Territory”, just minutes from my home, folks are hurrying to purchase a gun. The gun stores are forced to add new salespeople to handle the increase in customers.  You can read the story titled: “Gun Sales Booming After Election,” by John Ramsey, at the Fayetteville Observer site at:

 

http://www.fayobserver.com/article?id=310283

 

You may ask why American individuals are buying so many firearms per person.  Simple.  Some will be used, others will be hidden… concealed. If anyone asks about them they will have been lost, stolen, or destroyed in some kind of catastrophe such as a fire, etc.

 

Americans are scared witless that the democrats, under the Obama leadership, will make a determined effort to seize their guns.  The democrats, including Obama, say they are for “Common sense” gun control.  The definition of “Common sense” is what scares gun owners. I mean, when a Congress, so devoid of knowledge about firearms, outlaws an entire type of rifle because it LOOKS scary,” that tells you all you ever need to know about their “common sense.” 

 

Remember those scary weapons?  No amount of talking or demonstrating could convince the Congress that the weapons they outlawed were simply weapons designed merely to look militaristic, to look scary.  Many hunting rifles carry the same ammunition as those “scary” weapons.  The only difference is in the appearance of the weapons. But the “girlie” men in the Congress, and some of the “girlie” girls in the Congress were frightened by the appearance of those weapons… thus… they outlawed them.  Talk about “common sense.”

 

There is a very real concern they will go after concealed weapon laws in the various states that have concealed carry permit laws such as my state, North Carolina. Here in the Tar Heel state one can obtain a concealed carry permit after you have completed a course in handling your firearm and in firearm safety.  However, you don’t need a permit of any kind if you carry the weapon in plain sight.  Yes, dear reader, you can carry your pistol in a holster, on your belt, in plain sight, and be legal in this state.

 

We gun owners are not relying on the Supreme Court to preserve our 2^nd amendment rights.  True, they did just rule that the 2^nd amendment means what it says… but… and this is a big BUT… Obama is going to have the opportunity to replace at least two of those justices and, frankly, I cannot see him, or the Senate, approving anyone for the court who is a solid believer in the 2^nd amendment.  Thus, the fear that soon, our right to guns will be curtailed.

 

Another thing they have apparently not considered is… a cottage industry springing up in the manufacture of firearms.  They are relatively easy to produce in most home workshops.

 

The majority of Americans now understand, at some level, that America now has a socialist government in power in Washington, DC. They also understand that socialism resembles a whited sepulcher.  It may be beautiful on the outside but inside it is filled with the corpses of the dead.  Socialism’s outside is layered with promises of all things beautiful but inside there resides the dead bodies of truth. Most Americans know that our new leaders cannot be trusted. That means that the American citizen is vulnerable. That vulnerability is the key to the insecurity that is driving the purchase of weapons.

 

We are entering a perilous time IN America and FOR America.  Already our traditional enemies are moving and positioning their armed forces to areas and positions strategic to their plans for expansion.  They know America’s new government will not have the will or the fortitude to stop them and they will have a free hand, especially in Eastern Europe.  In the Middle East the Arabs are positioning troops for another onslaught against our only real friend in the area, Israel. Without America’s assistance, Israel will rely on her nuclear arsenal to defeat those age-old enemies.  Israel has stated, unabashedly, she will employ her nukes to preserve her freedom, indeed her continued survival.

 

As US troops begin leaving through Iraq’s front door Iranian troops will likely begin entering the back door.  Soon after all US troops are out of Iraq, Iran will, most likely, invade and easily conquer Iraq before another strongman regime can be instituted by the Iraqi people themselves.

 

Afghanistan will bleed our treasury dry while we have another try at “Nation Building” in a country with a people who have no concept of a nation, only tribes. The Afghanis will simply wait for us to give up and go home before they resume their centuries old way of life groveling in the dirt before the meanest man with the biggest gun.

 

And these are just the bright spots. 

 

Yes, Americans are arming themselves because they fear what is coming… and with good reason.

 

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

 

I Overestimated My fellow Americans … by J. D. Longstreet

Some of us have been screaming from the rooftops, for nearly 2 years now, that Mr. Obama is a socialist. Only now, just days before the election, are people beginning to take notice. Why? It is there for everyone but the deaf, dumb, and bind to see.

 

America has been slowly but surely headed toward a socialist government since FDR’s “New Deal.” In the 1960’s it was Lyndon Baines Johnson and the “Great Society”, and now, the crowning touch, Barack Hussein Obama and the… what…”Spread the Wealth Around” government?

 

The Left in America knows they have not succeeded in convincing us all to buy into their “Demand whatever the country can do for you” approach to government. You see, there are a heck of a lot of folks, like me, still roaming around, out here in the hinterlands of America, who see them for what they are, who recognize their scheme to lock down a democratic majority, forever, in Washington by making every single American dependent on the government for their very existence. Folks like me are a threat to them and their plans.

 

That is why Obama has run a stealth campaign. Think back. Obama has not told us a single thing, in concrete terms, he will do for you. Oh sure, he has given us great oratorical flourishes that spellbind those who wish to be spellbound. Watching an Obama event is much the same as watching the old medicine shows of the 1800’s. His snake oil is his promise of change, of hope, of (—–) whatever you wish to place in the blank.

 

People, like me, pay attention to what is going on about them. We are aware of what our government is doing. We feel that the government is answerable to us, as the voter, and, equally important, we also feel we have a responsibility to watch the government and make sure they stay within the guidelines of the constitution. That is the way a free people stay free. Never, ever, trust your government.

 

It is we the left is afraid of. The fact that we continue to agitate and call attention to Obama’s obvious socialism grinds on them every second of every day. They fear that our collective voices may eventually cut through their carefully constructed façade and actually draw your attention to every thing that is wrong with the fine print in the Obama promise. First and foremost where is the money going to come from to finance Obama’s expanded government? Secondly, who is going to protect us from all this nations enemies now salivating at the expectation that such a weakling as Obama will assume the office of Commander-in-Chief of the US military? Apparently, everyone already knows that no amount of talking, and jawboning, with the Islamofacists, with Russia, with North Korea, with Iraq, with Iran, with Afghanistan, with Venezuela, and the host of nameless enemies we face daily will do any good, at all. Everyone, that is, but Obama. They look on, as Americans flock after this empty suit, in disbelief at their good fortune. They are ecstatic that America is about to be handed to them on a silver platter.

 

Our forefathers must be spinning in their graves. The blood, sweat, tears, and providential intervention they, and those who followed them, spent in building a nation unlike any on the earth is all for naught. For if the people have no more love of their country, no more pride in who they are as Americans, no more belief in themselves than those who follow Obama, then, I must tell you, we don’t deserve the country they gave us.

 

It would seem that I have overestimated the intelligence of the American people. It would seem that I have overestimated my fellow Americans’ love for freedom. My error, apparently, was in believing that a people grown from the stock of patriots who fought kings and world superpowers for their freedom, and created a country in which the citizens were limited only by their own imaginations and ambitions would naturally want to preserve this precious land and all the freedom if offers. My mistake. It is a mistake I will not make again.

 

J. D. Longstreet

 

 

 

 

America Does Not Need A Weak, Timid, President… by J. D. Longstreet

I came across something President Dwight Eisenhower said a few decades back. He said: “History does not entrust the care of freedom to the weak or timid.” When Ike said it… it was profound. It is even more profound, if that is possible, today. 

 

Ike was, of course, correct. If history teaches us anything it is that if a nation is to remain free that nation must remain strong and, equally important, that nation cannot be timid about using it’s strength in defense of freedom, it’s own as well as the freedom of others.

 

Today we find ourselves on the brink of the election of a new President. A man, who will, under our law, become the Commander in Chief of all the US military forces. Already those forces are at war, openly, overtly, in two nations in the Middle East and in sundry other nations, around the globe, that only those in positions of high authority in our military and our government know about.

 

Someone once said: “Freedom is not free.” No truer statement has ever been made. We don’t know whom to credit for those words of wisdom, but whoever said it was absolutely correct. There is a cost. Usually, the cost is paid in blood.

 

These are the words of one of the men running for the high office of President of the US and Commander in Chief of our military forces: “I will cut tens of billions of dollars in wasteful spending. I will cut investments in unproven missile defense systems. I will not weaponize space. I will slow our development of future combat systems. I will institute an independent Defense Priorities Board to ensure that the Quadrennial Defense Review is not used to justify unnecessary defense spending … I will set a goal for a world without nuclear weapons. To seek that goal: I will not develop nuclear weapons.” Those are the words of Mr. Barrack Obama, democratic Candidate for President. You can watch the video here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fU4sVQV3Lhk 

Before proceeding I would refer you all the way back to the quote by President Eisenhower: “History does not entrust the care of freedom to the weak or timid.” What immediately leaps off the page when reading Mr. Obama’s words are timidity and weakness.

 

It is frightening for those of us who were born before the Second World War and have lived the history of this nation through all the wars we have been involved in since. We know the danger, we know the cost, and we know the lengths to which a nation must sometimes go to insure the safety of its citizens. We know the horror of killing hundreds of thousands of our enemy in a single hour with a single blow. It is a measure of the price we pay for our freedom. We also know that had we been timid, had we been weak of fortitude or military might, we would not be free people today.

 

Allow me, please, to pass on the words of John Stewart Mill: “War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.” 

 

I would remind you that TWO wars are raging even as you read this. Not only is Mr. Obama assuring us he will order our troops off the battlefield and cede the war to the enemy, he is said to be considering reducing the military budget by 25%. If anything the size of the US military should be doubled and billions more spent in new equipment, new weapons, and new weapons systems. Just a few days ago Mr. Obama’s own vice presidential candidate assured us we could expect to be hit by our enemies within six months of Mr. Obama’s taking office. I believe him. Except, I think we will be hit sooner, much sooner.

 

Mr. Obama has missed making a connection with what the people of America want with our military in Iraq and in Afghanistan. Yes, Americans want their sons and daughters home. But they want them to come home victorious, having won the war; with their heads held high as the heroes we know them to be. 

 

Mr. Obama should heed the words of Earnest Hemmingway: “Once we have a war there is only one thing to do. It must be won. For defeat brings worse things than any that can ever happen in war.”

 

As we are mere days from Election Day, I fear for my country. I fear that Mr. Obama may indeed win and become my President. I will not rest easy a single night he occupies the Oval Office.

 

J. D. Longstreet

 

 

 

 

 

    

  

Sarah Palin For President in 2012

Sarah Palin for President 2012.

 

There is a movement “aborning” to support Sarah Palin for President in 2012.

 

At first glance it would seem too early to consider supporting anyone this far out from the election in 2012.  But, since the Clintons introduced America to the “Never-Ending Campaign for President”, some feel conservatives had better go ahead, right now, and get the ball rolling.

 

There is already a website for the Sarah Palin for President campaign at:

 

http://voteforsarah2012.blogspot.com/

 

Go over and take a look.  Leave a comment, if you like, and if you have a blogsite of your own, you are invited to link to the Vote for Sarah site and alert others to its existence.

 

It is said that small increments of time (such as weeks or months) in politics, is a lifetime. That may be, and, certainly, much can, and does, happen in the world of politics… even in hours.

 

With the current election “seemingly” already decided in favor of Obama, and, taking into consideration the dastardly way conservatives have been treated by the GOP in this election cycle, more and more conservatives are looking for a future candidate they can get behind early and, in doing so, serve notice on the GOP that their support (conservative support) is going to THAT candidate… and if… IF… the GOP wishes to have any support from Conservative voters… then the GOP will have to follow the conservative lead, or… just get out of the way.

 

Now, as a conservative, myself, I am not deceiving myself by believing the GOP will actually wake-up and see the error(s) of their way(s).  See, I don’t think the GOP, in their minds, made an error!  I think the GOP set out, from the very beginning in this election, to discard the conservative wing of their party and push McCain through with the belief, the conviction, if you will, that they could win this election with the support of only liberal and moderate republicans, plus the independent voters. That move was doomed to failure right from the start.  But, the oh, so intelligent elite, in the Republican Party, wanted their party back, and now… they have it… for what it is worth.

 

For 46 years I have voted a conservative ballot.  My belief in conservative values has not changed one iota in all that time. I have seen the GOP win when they placed those conservative values first and foremost in their candidate and their campaigns.

 

But it is clear that since 1994 the elite in the GOP have been gnashing their teeth at the mention of “conservatives” in what they truly believe is THEIR party.  No matter that their liberal and moderate values had kept the republicans on the backbenches in both houses of the Congress for decades. Apparently, they liked it there… for they sure as heck seem to be bound and determined to return to those same backbenches ASAP.

 

Rejection is a difficult thing for the human animal to deal with.  Some are just overwhelmed by it.  Others become depressed and wallow in that depression, while others accept it for what it is, choose not to dwell upon it, and move on continuing to strive for bigger and better things.  I sincerely hope the bulk of conservatives will accept the GOP rejection of our values and move on to form our own political party, separate from the Republicans, into which we can pour our energies and our collective talents in an effort to build a better America.

 

J. D. Longstreet   

A House Divided Against Itself Cannot Stand.

A House Divided Against Itself Cannot Stand.

By J. D. Longstreet

 

“And Jesus knew their thoughts, and said unto them, Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand”.  From the Bible, Matthew 12:25.

 

The schism that slices through America today has been widening since the 19^th century.  Little by little, decade-by-decade, year-by-year it has continued to get ever wider and ever deeper.  It has nothing to do with geography.  It has nothing to do with slavery… and, yet, it has everything to do with slavery.

 

What, you say?  Didn’t we put the slavery issue to rest with a war in the 1860’s?  The truthful answer is NO, we did not. We put to rest the issue of whether or not a man could hold another man in bondage in this country. What we did not put to rest, however, is the question of whether this country’s government could hold its citizens in bondage.

 

The founders of this country intended to set up a government with very little power. They intended the government to have only the power the citizens allowed it to have. Almost instantly the power struggle began between those who wanted a strong central government and those who wanted strong states and a weak central government.  After all, it was The States that created the Federal Government… as a utility of the states.  Not the other way around.  Look it up.

 

In 1860 there were 33 states in the so-called United States of America.  I do mean “so-called” because they were anything but UNITED.  By the spring of 1861 thirteen of those states had had enough of being dictated to by a dictatorial federal government wielding powers the constitution did not grant it, so they waved goodbye and took their leave of the United States. They created a country of their own with a constitution (mostly copied from the original constitution of the US) and they became a separate country. 

 

A few Americans today actually know what caused that split. A handful of Americans understand what the ensuing war was fought about

 

A few million Americans still feel the sting of being forced, at the point of a government bayonet, to be a part of a country their ancestors had forsaken in order to set up a government in the image of the government the Founding Fathers of America had given the United States. 

 

A few million Americans who either live in, or hail from, the only portion of this country to ever be invaded, conquered, and occupied by a foreign power, understand what is happening in America today, not because we learned it in school, no… because we learned it from the stories our families have handed down from generation to generation and from our own research into what happened to a country which had, less than a hundred years before, won it’s Independence from the Mother Country.   We are scattered all over America today.  We see where America is headed… and we fear for our fellow Americans because they/we are not ready for the cost of what is about to happen to her.  None of us are.  What America is facing, in the next few years, will make the American Civil War seem like a Sunday School picnic.

 

Yes, I am referring to SLAVERY. Voluntary slavery to begin with… then involuntary slavery… when it is then too late. The socially accepted word for it these days is… SOCIALISM.

 

In just a few days Americans will go to the polls to exercise a right granted them by their states… not the federal government. The issue we will be voting for, or against, is slavery.  Whether America should stay free, or whether America should give up the freedom so many have fought, bled, and died for, and assume the yoke and chains of slavery under socialism. 

 

Make no mistake.  SOCIALISM IS SLAVERY.  Under socialism you will give up all your rights… all your freedom for security guaranteed by the Central Government.  Believe me, if you think democracy is expensive; wait ‘til you have to pay for all those FREE programs.

 

All my instincts tell me that Americans are willing to give up everything for the promise of security.  Of all things “un-American”… that is the MOST un-American. But, that is what I expect to happen on Election Day.

 

Do not expect the half of the country who stands solidly against socialism to go along, quietly, into the self inflicted slavery of this hell-spawned form of government we call socialism. 

 

If the country votes in favor of socialism, on November 4^th, all bets are off. The word “United” can be dropped from the country’s name.  The country will be torn in two.   And there will be no compromise. It cannot be healed, ever, again. Two peoples, this diametrically opposed, cannot share the same space. Only the most naive among us cannot understand where this argument over how we are to be governed will eventually wind up. Americans have been there before. More Americans died in the first American Civil War than in all the wars in which America has fought since her founding.  And today, at least half of this country is deadly in earnest about their love of freedom and are willing to sacrifice, as their forefathers did, to preserve it.

 

Yes, we are in dangerous times. Extremely dangerous. If you have not taken the time to consider, seriously, how you will vote then may we suggest you do so, and do so prayerfully.

 

J. D. Longstreet