Rethinking the Middle East … by Alan Caruba

Rethinking the Middle East

By Alan Caruba

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

© Alan Caruba, December 2008

 

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

The UN Celebrates “Palestinians”, Hates Jews

By Alan Caruba

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

November 24, 2008

Alan Caruba

 

 

 

 

America’s Group Hug About To End

BY J. D. Longstreet

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

And there is more, much, more to come. 

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

Me?  I pray a lot.

 

J. D. Longstreet 

 

 

Planet Wide Anxiety Bubbling To The Surface.

Planet Wide Anxiety Bubbling To The Surface.

By J. D. Longstreet

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

J. D. Longstreet 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

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

 

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

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

    

  

Israel and the Obama Administration. Forget About It!

Israel and the Obama Administration.  Forget About It!

 

Should Obama win the election here in America next month, the doors and windows to Israel will slam shut for members of the Obama Administration. See, Israel already knows they cannot trust an Obama administration and they will shut off all avenues of approach for the US… except for those absolutely necessary to maintain a tenuous connection to the American government. 

 

Israel knows it cannot share intelligence with an Obama Administration.  Perhaps our most valuable source of intelligence on Iran and the other rogue states in the Middle East will suddenly and completely dry up.  Israel is not about to risk valuable Intel gathered by Mossad, and other Israeli intelligence agencies, being, shall we say… “shared” with the… uh… opposition.  Israel cannot risk that and they won’t. 

 

I do not mean to imply that Obama is a Muslim.  I know I’m going to be accused of that.  Let me just say, that it seems the Israelis have made up their minds on that matter.  Let me also say…I trust Israel. 

 

Jesse Jackson is out there saying that “decades of putting Israel’s interests first” will be over under an Obama Administration. Jackson made those remarks at a World Policy Forum in Evian, France last week.  You’ll find an article on that here:

http://www.nypost.com/seven/10142008/postopinion/opedcolumnists/the_o_jesse_knows_133450.htm?page=0

 

How do you suppose that made Israel feel?  Not charitable toward Obama, I suspect.  (Of course, this is the same Jackson who made the remark about altering Obama’s anatomy near what he (Jackson) thought was a dead microphone. As a long time veteran of the broadcast industry, I offer a bit of advice to everyone.  When you see a microphone… always assume it is “live”.  ALWAYS!)

 

Now, I have been accused, just a few days ago, of being a “nut job” supporting Israel and waiting for the Rapture.   First let me say that I am an old Lutheran.  My support of Israel has nothing to do with the Rapture.  It has to do with common sense and my parents raising me to look out for the little guy, the underdog, especially if that underdog is on my side. Add to that the fact that I don’t hate Jews and well, I suppose that makes me some sort of thoroughbred bigot.  I’ll leave it to those of you who feel you must have someone to hate in order to feel some sense of self-worth to decide what pigeonhole to put me in. Frankly, I don’t care.

 

There is an excellent article at the American Thinker titled:  “Barack Obama and Israel”.  The article is by Ed Lasky.  We recommend you read it.  You’ll find it at:

 

http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/01/barack_obama_and_israel.html

 

 

 

As one who does not favor a Palestinian state… at all, I tend to look with disfavor on those in the US government who do.  I never supported the current administration’s aims toward establishing a Palestinian state and I certainly will not support any future President’s attempts to do the same thing whether republican or democrat.

 

Obama’s insistence that he will “talk” with Iran about abandoning their drive toward development of an Atomic Bomb is chilling to say the least.  It will accomplish nothing good, and, at the same time, any “official” talks with Iran will only elevate Iran in the eyes of it’s supporters and encourage other rogue states to follow the same route Iran is following today.

 

Israel would be well advised, it seems to me, to go ahead, at the earliest possible moment (certainly before Obama takes office should he win the election) and bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities with a time window for follow-up raids as necessary.  Make no mistake about it…the destruction of Iran’s nuclear facilities is a must.  It now appears that Israel is the only country with the “stones” to take on the task, and they must be prepared to do it alone and survive the diplomatic hailstorm that will follow.

 

Look, if Iran is not stopped we are looking at a nuclear holocaust in the Middle East.  Israel has it’s own nuclear arsenal, which it is absolutely prepared to use to ensure it’s survival.  The moment Iran fires a nuclear tipped missile in Israel’s direction Iran will be the country that will cease to exist…whether we have an Obama Administration or not. 

 

There is good reason to suspect there will be little if any cooperation between Israel and an Obama Administration. We can only hope Israel has leaders who will dig in their heels and refuse to bow to pressure from a likely Obama Administration to accommodate the demands of the Islamic states surrounding her.

 

J. D. Longstreet 

 

 

Preparing for America with Socialist Leadership!

Preparing for America with Socialist Leadership!
By: J. D. Longstreet

***********************
If you are a resident of America, and you happen to live in a home constructed in the 1950’s and 1960’s, we suggest you begin searching your back yards for what might appear as a ventilation shaft, protruding from the ground, for no apparent reason. If you find one of those, you’ll want to get out the old shovel and start digging. You may be fortunate enough to have one of the thousands of underground bomb shelters built in America during that era.We suggest you dig down to it, open it, air it out, clean it out, and begin re-stocking it as soon as possible.

If you are one of the unfortunate ones, like me, and you don’t have one of those soon to be needed life saving shelters, you are going to need to go to the search engine of your choice and begin a search for plans for a family, or personal, bomb shelter, or fallout shelter.

You think I’m kidding, right? Not by a long shot! Have you been watching the news lately?

I mean, the Mainstream Media is already telling us the Democrat Party is going to win back the Presidency in a month’s time, and if they do… you and I are going to need those bomb shelters! Putting the Democrats in charge of the US government is the equivalent of running up the white flag for the Islamofacists! They are just waiting for the Democrats to take over. They know that the Democrats have no earthly idea of what national security means and no hint as to what is required to protect the citizens of the United States, or, the Socialsist States of America, soon to be followed by the Islamic States of America!

Nearly 80% of foreign policy experts say they are convinced the US is going to be hit again within the next few years. Do you want to take the chance that the hit will be non-nuclear, or nuclear? Ok, then, start digging!

I’m sitting just 50 miles from a busy East Coast seaport, just 30 miles from the largest US Military Ammo Dump on the East Coast, just 35 miles from a Nuclear Power Plant, and you think I’m not worried??? Each morning as the eastern horizon brightens at sunrise, I do a double take just to be sure it IS the sun!

It’s time to get on the ‘net and find those bomb shelter plans, and check the yellow pages for the dealer nearest you with backhoe rentals, and get to work. There’s not a minute to lose. In a few months, after the Democrats win, a free America will be only a beautiful memory. That shining city on a hill will be darkened and will vanish. Man’s last, best, hope will be gone. The candle of freedom will be outed and the American Dark Ages will descend upon us under the much-anticipated Islamic Global Dominion. The only nation standing between freedom and utter chaos, will be gone… undone from within by a political party bent on power for itself and unwilling to admit it is completely incapable of leading, and protecting, the nation it claims to love.

Prepare, fellow Americans! The edge of night approaches.

J. D. Longstreet