The Strategy Page reports that the Syrian security services have been shaken by 20,000 desertions in the military. According to their sources, Damascus is now relying on the hard-core secret police and foreign auxiliaries like the Hezbollah to protect the regime. Yet despite sustaining average losses of 100 per week the opposition still shows no signs of slowing down. The Assads are digging in, replacing provincial officials who show signs of weakness and shooting deserters who try to cross the border.
With the temperature rising, Canada advised its nationals to leave Syria. Britain has threatened to expel Syrian diplomats from the UK unless they desist from harassing anti-Assad activists based there. The US has just pulled out its ambassador from Damascus over fears for his “personal safety”.
Ironically, Ambassador Ford had only recently arrived in Damascus as “Washington, seeking to convince Assad to scale back an alliance with U.S. arch-foe Iran and backing for militant groups, acted to improve relations with Damascus after President Barack Obama took office in 2009. Obama sent Ford to Damascus in January after being appointed to the post temporarily to fill a diplomatic vacuum prevailing since Washington withdrew its ambassador in 2005.”
Lebanon, always sensitive to developments inside Syria, has seen Hezbollah’s popularity decline according to Hanin Ghaddar, as it tries to enforce the Assad writ even on the Lebanese borders with Israel.
“Before 2000, the Israeli army occupied my village. When Hezbollah liberated it, we celebrated and were very thankful. Today, I cannot buy a beer or criticize Assad publically in my village. I do not feel it is liberated. It is still occupied, but now by Iranian arms. Is there a real difference?”
The problem that appears to face Washington is whether the successor regimes to the crumbling dictatorships of the Middle East will be any friendlier to America than their predecessors. In Libya, the anti-Khadaffy rebels are “fighting over plunder and power”. “Western and Moslem nations who supported the NTC are fearful that better organized and more fanatic Islamic radical factions will take over the government, and establish another dictatorship, this time one based just on religion, not one man’s megalomania.”
Because many countries in the region require foreign manpower to keep even the most essential services running, chaos and lawlessness unless curbed, will lead to economic collapse. Unless the State Department figures out a way to work with whoever seizes power things will rapidly go downhill.
For example, in Libya even the wounded remain uncared for without enough foreigners to staff the hospitals. “Now the NTC finds itself with a big shortage of skilled managers and techies. Nothing happens if you give orders and there’s no one able to carry them out. Just getting electricity and water supply working again has been difficult. There’s an even more poignant problem with thousands of wounded NTC fighters, who have not been able to get the medical care they need.” The Washington Post reports that Syria needs American software and hardware to even censor its Internet.
But the need to act in the face of the growing restiveness in the region is driving Washington policymakers to consider strange bedfellows. Doyle McManus at the LA Times recalls attending a conference during which American officials were sizing up Islamist parties as potential allies.
At a conference two years ago, I sat in on a meeting between U.S. officials and young Islamist politicians from Tunisia, Jordan and other countries in the Middle East. The Islamists wanted to know: Would the Americans allow them to run in free elections, even if it meant they might come to power? The Americans turned the question back at them: Would the Islamists, if they won, allow free and democratic elections, even if it might mean losing power? …
At that conference, I sat next to the grand old man of Egypt’s secular democrats, Saad Eddin Ibrahim, a veteran of Cairo politics — and of Hosni Mubarak’s prisons. He favored a clear division between mosque and state, but he had no illusions.
“A lot of [the Islamists] aren’t democrats at heart,” he said. “But you cannot get rid of these people. You have to deal with them.”
And that, in a nutshell, is the dilemma facing the U.S. and anyone else who worries that the Arab world’s Islamists could turn out to be like the Muslim revolutionaries who seized control in Iran 32 years ago — authoritarian, hostile and democratic only in name.
That prospect is no longer hypothetical now that Islamists have claimed a win in Tunisia’s Arab Spring vote. Since Tunisia was among the least Islamized states undergoing upheaval, the results may foreshadow results in Egypt and beyond.
“This is an historic moment,” said Zeinab Omri, a young woman in a hijab, or Islamic head scarf, who was outside the Ennahda headquarters when party officials claimed victory. “No one can doubt this result. This result shows very clearly that the Tunisian people is a people attached to its Islamic identity,” she said.
McManus’ anecdote brings to a point one fundamental facet of the Arab Spring. The uprisings not only spell the end of the old-line dictators, but they bring to a close an era of Western diplomacy with them. Nowhere is the switch plainer than in Syria. No sooner had Ambassador Ford been sent to mend fences with the Assads, in line with President Obama’s vision of grand bargains, then he found himself supporting Assad’s internal enemies. The man sent to Damascus to befriend the Assads now finds himself departing for fear of his “personal safety”. The Arab Spring is common graveyard of both the region’s strongmen and decades of State Department policy. To use a more current practice in mortuary science, both are in the same meat locker.
The arrival at the crossroads comes at a time of great opportunity for the United States. As Ambrose Evans-Pritchard of the Daily Telegraph noted, America has arrived by a twist of fate at what may prove to be an even more dominant role in the world. The European implosion, coming on the heels of the Soviet collapse, is now being succeeded by an American accession to energy dominance coming as a result of new oil extraction technology. The result is that despite the mistakes in Washington DC, America finds itself at the top of a heap of nations which have managed to outblunder it.
The American phoenix is slowly rising again. Within five years or so, the US will be well on its way to self-sufficiency in fuel and energy. Manufacturing will have closed the labour gap with China in a clutch of key industries. The current account might even be in surplus. …
It is almost the only economic power with a fertility rate above 2.0 – and therefore the ability to outgrow debt – in sharp contrast to the demographic decay awaiting Japan, China, Korea, Germany, Italy, and Russia. …
The 21st Century may be American after all, just like the last.
Given that rising power, the United States might in the position to risk of going full speed down the regime change road. If, after all, the Islamists prove recalcitrant, then a newly-muscular America will have the muscle to show them what’s what. Or perhaps it might simply decide that the region is no longer critical after all; that the Palestinian state question has become moot; and that the best policy to buy a very large supply of popcorn and watch unfolding events from a distance.
If Evans-Pritchard is right, then the Obama administration must even now be in a state of mental confusion. It will have been wrong on two of its major 2008 policy assumptions: maybe regime change, not grand bargains lie in the future of the Middle East and second, perhaps America was not in long term decline, but on the contrary, in strategic ascent.
The thrashings of the State Department in the Middle are merely the shudders of its policy being thrown forcibly into reverse. But if the Obama administration is being forced to come to accept the ruin of its foreign policy assumptions, it has still not recognized the collapse of its domestic economic assumptions. It continues to behave as if the European welfare model were the wave of the future instead of a relic of the past. It continues to conduct itself as if America could not develop its energy resources. The Obama administration has not yet shoved the domestic political gearbox into reverse. On the day its representatives meet with Tea Party representatives with the same openness that it has shown Islamists then the about-face will be general.
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1. “Before 2000, the Israeli army occupied my village. When Hezbollah liberated it, we celebrated and were very thankful. Today, I cannot buy a beer or criticize Assad publically in my village. I do not feel it is liberated. It is still occupied, but now by Iranian arms. Is there a real difference?”
No difference between Hezbollah and Israel? If that is how they really feel, there is little hope for them.
2. “Now the NTC finds itself with a big shortage of skilled managers and techies. Nothing happens if you give orders and there’s no one able to carry them out. Just getting electricity and water supply working again has been difficult.”
Yes, sometimes Atlas does shrug.
3. “The result is that despite the mistakes in Washington DC, America finds itself at the top of a heap of nations which have managed to outblunder it. … Given that rising power, the United States might in the position to risk of going full speed down the regime change road. If, after all, the Islamists prove recalcitrant, then a newly-muscular America will have the muscle to show them what’s what.”
We have been a very lucky country. Thus far in our history, whenever we have been at a crucial crossroads we have been able to rally around a leader who can rise to the occasion. This time we may have run out of luck. Neither the current administration nor any of the likely candidates to succeed it seem to possess the vision, courage, and ability to lead that these opportunities offer us.
In 1931, concluding his essay “Civilization and its Discontents,” Freud pondered whether the life forces or the death forces within themselves and within civilization would prevail. His final sentence was, “But who can foresee with what success and with what result?”
As Brutus said to Cassius:
There is a tide in the affairs of men.
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat,
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures.
Because many countries in the region require foreign manpower to keep even the most essential services running, chaos and lawlessness unless curbed, will lead to economic collapse. Even the wounded remain uncared for without enough foreigners to staff the hospitals. “Now the NTC finds itself with a big shortage of skilled managers and techies. Nothing happens if you give orders and there’s no one able to carry them out.
And with new technologies that might make the West self-sufficient in energy the power of the Middle-Eastern nations may fade back into the dust.
I am probably mangling the quote (as I always tend to do) but I am reminded of something I read many years ago about an interview with an oil-rich Arabian sheik. His words may have been prophetic. It goes something like this: When asked about the impact of the new oil wealth and what it would mean to his country he replied:
“My father rode on a camel. I ride in a Mercedes-Benz. My son will ride upon a jet airplane. His son will ride on a camel.”
Many, many years ago, in Basic Training at Lackland Air Force Base, sixty of us 18 year olds were being marched down the company street by our assistant drill instructor, a quiet young man with a weak voice. Calling “Halt!”, his voice did not carry to the first 5 ranks, who continued down the street while the back 10 ranks, including me, came to a snappy halt. Screaming “Halt!”, the DI raced after them, got them stopped, and screamed “About Face!”, whereupon the first 5 ranks about faced and at the order “Forward March!” came striding toward us. The problem was, the back 5 ranks had also about faced, and at the order “Forward March!”, were now marching away from those of us in the middle 5 ranks. We collapsed on the road in laughter, guys were falling out of barracks laughing, and the DI ran screaming down the street after the disappearing back 5 ranks. Such is our policy and policymakers. Weak voices lead to chaos, not all of it a laughing matter.
Unfortunately, the toughest guy
At State is our gal Hillary
Which says a lot and tells you why
We’ve put away the pillory
We stamp our feet and make moues
Grand bargains we attempt to make
Without a clue to Arab ways
Or what it takes to buy a sheikh
O whispers Halt, or Forward March
None hear and no one changes pace
O’s voice needs quite a bit more starch
For only he hears his ‘Bout Face!
“It’s springtime for As-sad and Syr-ia…!”
“Don’t be schtoopid, be a smartie,
Come and join the Ba’athist Party!”
Not to worry…Hezbollah sez everything’s cool now:
http://www.seattlepi.com/news/article/Hezbollah-Syria-largely-out-of-danger-zone-2233920.php
I’m in for a large bucket of popcorn along with frequent airdrops of AK47s and ammo across the region
Steeple…
News is bubbling out that 20,000 soldiers have defected to the rebels….
Perhaps with their weapons?
Priceless:
“The result is that despite the mistakes in Washington DC, America finds itself at the top of a heap of nations which have managed to outblunder it.”
“On the day its representatives meet with Tea Party representatives with the same openness that it has shown Islamists then the about-face will be general.”
Great line.
The Obama administration was in such a hurry to apologize for the Bush administration that they painted themselves in a corner by criticizing it, not giving consideration that they may in the end have to do similar things out of practicality. Additionally, the State Department that had left the reservation and actively worked against the Bush administration set out to try new things, because they could, may not have asked the fundamental question of “should” they. They have made a dog’s breakfast of our foreign policy and it has sown the region with discord and mistrust. The message might be, regardless of who is in power in DC, the next administration is going to undo the efforts of their predecessors and blame all problems on them. Just like a petulant teenager replete with mixed messages.
The State Department and the administration remind me of the liberal neighborhood I moved out of about a year ago. When I drive through it’s hard not to have the sense that, even though people still live there, it’s a ghost town.
There’s not the slightest chance these people will throw the “gearbox into reverse.” No one can discard their entire identity and survive intact.
And I feel the need to mention that the only reason the U.S. is reproducing at replacement rate is thanks to the Red States and the so-called religious right. Whether this will enable us to “outgrow debt” remains to be seen, however.
What is known is that in the Blue States, they don’t have the time and energy to have and raise very many children. They’re too busy fighting for sexual “liberation,” whatever that is, and the necessary correlates like homosexual marriage, abortion on demand, and other such pressing needs.
To me it seems that the administration is achieving extraordinary success in its not so secret goals. It gives me no joy that only a few of the commentators here agree.
The power of the state is its consistency. Take that away and you cannot make any rational case.
Maineman – California has a significant illegal immigrant birth in anchor babies. The libs here are taxing and breeding themselves out of existence.
Winslow – Please elaborate on how backing Islamist parties in the middle east furthers the interests of peach and democracy.
Looks like a slow leak away from Asaad. Can they kill people fast enough to stay in power? Once you can’t scare them or gun them down in large numbers, it’s the end.
This may collapse faster than anyone thought.
W: “Given that rising power, the United States might in the position to risk of going full speed down the regime change road. If, after all, the Islamists prove recalcitrant, then a newly-muscular America will have the muscle to show them what’s what.”
Unfortunately, after expending much blood and treasure in Iraq and Afghanistan, I doubt the US public is going to be supportive of a muscular military policy. I suspect the Islamic world is going to find itself in a race between its unaided internal collapse and the outcome of the “Three Conjectures.”
Blert, I imagine that they took extras. I suspect we all would if we were in that position.
Winslow, I believe it was Chou En Lai (forgive the spelling) who when asked what he thought of the French Revolution replied “It’s too early to know”. You might want to reserve judgement on the success of this administration’s policies.
Uhhh . . .
About that “coming energy boom:”
The current administration seems adamantly opposed to it coming about. As I recall, there is a virtual moratorium on new drilling and exploration, and more and more public land is being closed off from mining. In the Gulf in particular, Obama is defying a court order to lift the moratorium there. The list of obstructionism by everyone from environmentalists to the State Dept. is quite long. The great energy boom most likely will have to wait until Obama is ousted.
There was an anecdote in the blogosphere circulating recently about a top oil man confronting Obama about these issues, and of Obama dismissively telling the gentleman that “oil only has a few years left, etc.” and that’s that, so there.
“The problem that appears to face Washington is whether the successor regimes to the crumbling dictatorships of the Middle East will be any friendlier to America than their predecessors.”
To answer this question, one might ponder what kinds of institutions or semblances are likely to remain within these regimes when the tyrants fall… In most cases, some semblance of military would remain – as is the case in Egypt, but the main institution which bonds these nations together and has fueled these revolutions is the Mosque and their fulminating imams.
These revolutions all gained their momentum after Friday sermons — their imams (who notoriously seem to misunderstand Islam) have inflamed popular hatreds and fueled sectarian insurrection.
Conclusion: we will see more brutal tyranny – more Islam – and more terrorism emanating from the Islamic world in the future. Many comfort themselves at the demographic decline which is apparently going to blunt the Jihad threat. But if we’ve learned one thing, heartless, corrupt, almost completely malfunctioning shit holes like North Korea, Iran, and Pakistan, can ALL produce WMD despite their seemingly faltering systems.
I don’t buy the delusion that demographics or economic dysfunctionality will blunt the menace of Jihad. Muslims are proliferating now, and welcomed in their millions into the West by an insane PC arrogance and moronic ignorance of the nature of Islam. WMD are proliferating within Islam. Jihad is proliferating within Islam. Hatred is proliferating within Islam. And the chaos which Islam engenders creates an environment in which even more millions of Muslims will be forced down the throat of the West. This is a central reason why I argue that Muslims must be quarantined and expelled. The more Muslims present, the more impossible it will become to quarantine them or expel them. We may already be at the point of no return.
The lubricant of a massive de facto colonization in our territories, coupled with feverish pursuit of WMDs, both guarantee that it is only a matter of time before we are shattered by Jihad waged against us on an unprecedented scale.
Wow. First Mubarak, then Qaddafi and now maybe even al-Assad. Longest.springtime.ever. Who knew “global warming” would impact us this way?
The result is that despite the mistakes in Washington DC, America finds itself at the top of a heap of nations which have managed to outblunder it.
So WWII was explained to me once, whoever blunders less, wins.
A tad over-cynical perhaps, real strengths are in the contest too and the trick is not to blunder them away.
The scale of the boost we – and the world, and that gets back to us again – get from fracking *should* be just incredible. Even Obambus will come around on that in the next six months, I suspect.
The thrashings of the State Department in the Middle are merely …
… Ma and Pa Kettle, aka pants suit and jug ears, driving the (clueless, long-time Arabist State Department) Model-T up the wrong road.
One of the many great scenes in the film “Lawrence of Arabia” comes close to the end, when the Arab armies have taken Damascus and Allenby is just standing by, waiting for them to fail. Lawrence, ever the idealist, believes they can set up a functioning government without English help – Allenby knows better, and Lawrence’s dreams crash and burn as he comes face to face with the fact that the Arabs can’t possibly run things like power generators and hospitals on their own. They simply do not have the civilisation and self control to enable them to do that.
That was 1918. Over 90 years have gone by, and nothing’s changed.
That was 1918. Over 90 years have gone by, and nothing’s changed. – WWS
Wait! They’ve got cell phones and Facebook!
Instant messaging!
The Internet!
The old paradigms are falling, man!
It’ll all be different this time…….
Dear Zeinab in Tunisia, I trust that you fully understand what your country’s committing to an “Islamic identity” will mean to you and all Tunisian females…
For a preview, you may want to check out YouTube for video from the days that the Taliban ran Afghanistan.
Enjoy.
And keep it within your own borders.
#14 Idaho Spudboy:
Much of the treasure, and almost all of the blood, expended in Iraq and Afghanistan have been expended *after* the original rulers were deposed. If all you aim for is to get rid of the folks who are annoying you and generally wreck the place, that can actually be done at a remarkably low cost. This may or may not prove to be a more effective path than the current one, but it’s unlikely that it could be *less* effective …
“The American phoenix is slowly rising again.”
And let us not forget that one reason for this revival will be The Won, who showed us the exact wrong way so that we might better determine the right way.
And who also instilled in us an utter contempt for the Left to a degree we have never seen before.
And who also demonstrated the true nature of American Exceptionalism by disavowing it.
But…. imagine what we could do now if we were actually trying….
Put me down for the popcorn plan.
11. winslow While I agree Teh won wants to destroy America, there are over 250 million people who have other ideas. What he is doing is pushing down a spring. When he is forced to let go, it will bounce back. I survived Carter’s “Stagflation”. Things were much worse then they are today.
There is no luck involved here. The current problems in America were created by Congress. Dobbs-Franks, to be precise. Congress can created the solution, it’s just up to the voters to put the heat on. 2010 was a skirmish, 2012 will make 2010 look like little big horn. If the election was today, the Donks would lose the Senate. If the economic trend lines continue, the Donks will lose 20 Senate seats. That makes the White House a tourist attraction.
wws @ 21: That was 1918. Over 90 years have gone by, and nothing’s changed.
Oh, something has changed alrighty.
For one thing, they can also buy an airline ticket and then use box cutters in a creative way to get on our nerves (though that particular trick may not be working again anytime soon).
For another thing, we can now potshot their camels from 20,000 feet and they never even know what hit them. And even our techno-illiterate, nobel peace prize winning on consignment POTUS, enjoys whomping them.
They now have some new mighty motivations to learn to web surf and keep their rag-wrapped heads down. And that will work for them as long as the oil lasts. Which by the grace of Allah, is now counting down in months. Although Obambus may be standing athwart the oil shale, that won’t stop either China or Europe from developing theirs, and our hands and other organs will be forced. Europe has some greens, China just sautees greens with shrimp and serves them for lunch.
16. steeple
in the long run our Revolution universalism still is in the actualities, it’s the people maturation that can’t make theirs like ours, though it took us two centuries to appreciate the benefits of it, a civil democratic society, neither completlely socialist, nor completely capitalist, but a elected “monarchy”, a bit like the Doges were elected in Venice, it also were the glorious times of Venice. Humm China seems to have our kind of society model, a statist capitalism, though, without democracy !
To say, that a model can’t be totally copied, it depends a lot on the populations and their traditions. So expecting that the muslim countries will become like us, is mere chimera, what we expect the least from them, is that they become tolerant . Turkey used to be a tolerant muslim country since Renaissance. Today, it takes a nationalist path.
“Over 90 years have gone by, and nothing’s changed…”
It’s important to understand something called “inshallah fatalism” as central to the reason Arabs are lazy and will remain lazy. To the Muslim mind inculcated in Islam, all things that happen are due to the will of Allah. All successes and all failures happen at Allah’s arbitrary whim. There is little or nothing humans can do to alter his immutable and arbitrary hegemony over them – except surrender utterly to his will, or Islam, and hope he makes things turn out for the devout. There is little advantage to exerting oneself, except to devote oneself further to Islam and hope for Allah’s intercession. So to the most arrogant Muslims of all, those Arabs at the epicenter of Islam, the Saudi Arabs manifest this the most. They exemplify Islam in every way.
The accident of oil is Allah’s blessing for their being especially devout Muslims, The money created by “infidels” which flows into their limitless vaults is also Allah’s blessing – the infidel and his industry simply are tools which Allah devises to serve the pious and superior minions of Islam. This is one reason Obama’s bowing to the Saudi King was such a heinous breach of protocol – it reinforced the absolute worst possible inferences Muslims could make about America and the “infidel” West. Placed on earth ultimately to serve them, it is worth keeping in mind when one reads someone like Michael Ledeen writing approvingly about the Saudis screaming at the USA to do something about Iran. It says more about how we’re supposed to service them than it does about the strategic wisdom of eliminating their main rival in the ME.
Inshallah fatalism also explains why Muslim hearts and minds will never be won by we “infidels” — no matter how many schools or hospitals we build, or millions of tons of food we send, or thousands of us die to bring them the blessings of liberty from Islamic Tyrants – to Muslms, all credit accrues to Allah. This explains why they will betray us in every enterprise – whether we are CIA operatives working with long trusted operatives, reccruits at Ft. hood, or the USA getting the shove-off by Karzai or Maliki.
Steeple, Stoicheon
sofar, every time our culture has bounced back. The difference is that prosperity has softened us. I remember the great depression and the wonderful teachers in the schools that couldn’t find a job anywhere else.
Today, I don’t see that much resistance. Many constitutional governments have failed when the majority loses touch. My business failed in Carter’s stagflation. Carter was misdirected but relatively benign.
He eventually got on board to support the Taliban against Russia. He agreed to Steiner’s capital gains tax cuts and even appointed Paul Volcker.
This seems much worse. I am not anticipating a clean election.
3. Walt
Sounds like an experience I had at NAS Pensacola in 1969, only I was the hapless ‘boot’ in charge of marching the rest of AOC/NAOC Class 3869.
The drill instructor was there, grading me, as I marched my guys into an 8′ chain link fence adjacent to the parade ground. My Drill Instructor, Gunny Litzler…well, I was going to say he “took command” from me because he felt sorry for me – NOT. In his gutteral voice I think he muttered something very insulting designed to estimate your worth just shy of a Sand Flea.
I withstood a lot of abuse and humiliation during those two weeks of Boot and sixteen weeks overall and after commissioning, I think I stared at my new uniform (Working Khaki’s and the Naval Officer’s crest on my piss-cutter) for about two hours before I hit the sack.
I still remember Gunny Litzler the most (we had about three other Drill Instructors)because he was about the meanest looking guy I had ever seen, and a true Marine Professional. He looked about 100 years old and yet, you realized he could break you in two in a fair or dirty fight. At all of 5 feet 7 inches of him, I realized that the Gunny was the kind of man that kept America safe all these years. He may have been lewd, crude, and socially unacceptable, and dispised the ground I walked on, but I loved him for what he taught me – taught all of us – during that very challenging 16 weeks. I never knew how long I could hold an M-14 with outstretched arms, until September 16, 1969, but under Gunny Litzler, it was a lot longer than I’d ever expected. Think of a short Clint Eastwood in Heartbreak Ridge, or Jack Webb in the “DI”. That was Gunny Litzler.
Forty-two years ago…and I can still see his face.
Hand slute…Ready two!
Check out scenes from The DI – say, isn’t that weapon Garand!
http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=jack+web+the+di&mid=042BDC83F927843989B2042BDC83F927843989B2&view=detail&FORM=VIRE6
well Obambus be visiting Lost Angels again and helicopters be swarming the skies, couple of chinooks, something like Marine One, and a bulbous old type familiar from Coast Guard duty, though this one is painted green so must be carrying golf clubs or solar cells.
if I see Obambus in line at Whole Foods buying local lettuce and squash and maybe a hemp t-shirt, I’ll give him the best regards for all BC posters and lurkers.
Morton Doodslag:
Muslims of such a fatalistic bent show their gratefulness by thanking their benefactors with their shoes.
12. Annoy Mouse:
Maineman – California has a significant illegal immigrant birth in anchor babies. The libs here are taxing and breeding themselves out of existence.
And when those anchor babies grow up they and the families they anchor are all good pro-life Roman Catholics, and the bishops are now telling them they can’t vote pro-choice and approach the Blessed Sacrament.
18. Morton Doodslag:
shit holes like North Korea, Iran, and Pakistan, can ALL produce WMD despite their seemingly faltering systems.
Ever notice that it’s the beta males that always end up strapping on the suicide belts, never the alpha Mullahs and sheet? Kim Jong Il saw Qaddafi’s double tap (the second tap was 9mm, the first one was a Predator-delivered Hellfire) and you won’t see him come out of his cave for the next three months. That’s why MAD still works.
20. Josh: The scale of the boost we – and the world, and that gets back to us again – get from fracking *should* be just incredible. Even Obambus will come around on that in the next six months, I suspect.
All these states running red ink which are now cut off from the Federal teat due to a renewed focus on controlling the debt will just look at North Dakota and see that they’re fracking and they’re in the black. Human nature will take it’s course. Libs love to spend money, not slash budgets.
29. Morton Doodslag This is one reason Obama’s bowing to the Saudi King was such a heinous breach of protocol – it reinforced the absolute worst possible inferences Muslims could make about America and the “infidel” West.
Barack Obama bowing to Emperors and Kings bows only for himself, not for me. This is a Republic, every man and woman is on the same level. So if Obama wants to do the equivalent of removing himself to the back of the bus, he can knock himself out.
I think the revolution in energy will be complete when the USA has gotten portable thorium nuclear power plants up to speed.
OK. So, here goes Syria now. I pity the people in countries like Syria, Egypt and Iran, ‘cuz there’s an horrid, money-soaked media industry rushing to tell the world what their various “streets” (not their citizens) ‘think.’
We’re riddled with opportunists in government right now. And in the mind of an Axelrod or an Obama or a “We-came-we-saw-Clinton, the deluge following these “springs,” not constitutional or traditional order, works best for their purposes. They prefer the chaos. Any order that coalesces enough to become evident to the outside eye is not wanted.
It makes it harder for the media to “paint” a face on things if that face already has hardened around a grimace…or a Joker’s smile.
Which, after Global Warming ™, John Kerry’s campaign for President and an infinitude of silly-scary pulp fictions, is what I expect global media will paint on the face of these Arab movements.
I’m hoping for one Jeffersonian Democracy in the bunch, maybe when Saudi Arabia goes, but I’m not going to hold my breath.
“The difference is that prosperity has softened us.”
What do you mean by “us”, Kemosabe?
Tell the Marines they have gotten soft. Tell the 4th ID. Tell the TeaBaggers who used the rules to run a bunch of socialists out of office less then a year ago.
Not sure where you live but where I live America is just as tuff as it has ever been.
The bi-coastals are a little light in the loafer and weak in the knee but out here in the Red States we are as mean and ornery as ever.
#18 and 29 Morton Doodslag: I always enjoy your posts. Keep them coming brother.
I remember in 1980-1 timeframe Tom Wolfe predicting that the US would regain its stature by ’85, mainly due to the relative decline of everyone else. We really are relivIng the 1970s.
Teresita @ 34 And when those anchor babies grow up they and the families they anchor are all good pro-life Roman Catholics, and the bishops are now telling them they can’t vote pro-choice and approach the Blessed Sacrament.
Really? When did the Bishops stop being a bunch of no nukes, unleash the Mexican hordes, welfare without limit, ultra-Liberals? Find me a Catholic Bishop that openly supports a conservative cause other than abortion.
Also, the notion of the “family values” Hispanics is an urban myth, as their 50% out of wedlock birth rates amply show. It’s a myth that Republicans in D.C. love to fool themselves with, but a myth just the same. The border hoppers vote the way every other parasite class votes: with their pocketbooks. Who gives them free schooling, free food, free medical care, free money, free legal assistance and moves heaven and earth to make sure they get to stay here? Yeah, that’s who they vote for.
I’ve noticed that the Obamanation is talking big about using “executive orders” to get what they want since BOTH houses have been denying them goodies and they have problems with law suits in the judiciary. Again they don’t seem to realize there are reasons that Presidents of the past have been reluctant to use that power or have come a cropper when they have over used it in the past. They seem to be remarkably ignorant of political history. Executive Orders can be a cursed sword. The most basic problem is what one Executive can order is that another Executive can take it away. If you sign an Executive Order that offends the majority of voters then you run the risk of not only you losing office but also your party or your party’s seats. Of course this administration is the most childish ever when it comes to insisting on instant gratification and a desire to hear praise from its adolescent peers.
Foreign policy by spoiled adolescents seems to be the order of the day.
” Oh how I wish my country had no oil, them maybe we could have become like Japan.”
#40. peterike writes:
Also, the notion of the “family values” Hispanics is an urban myth, as their 50% out of wedlock birth rates amply show. It’s a myth that Republicans in D.C. love to fool themselves with, but a myth just the same. The border hoppers vote the way every other parasite class votes: with their pocketbooks.
To this I would say both yes and no. The folks who came in before the rise of the American welfare state did as a whole assimilate and do tend to have rather conservative values. Growing up in Texas I went to school and worked with many so-called Hispanics who couldn’t speak a word of Spanish and were no different in attitudes than the local Anglo population. Most of their ancestors came in for the opportunity to succeed on their own, amongst other things because they had to.
But whenever you create a welfare state you become a shit magnet. And when you combine that with a porous border the results are utterly predictable. The very worst rather than the very best of the Third World will come flocking to your shores. The Europeans are beginning to understand that too.
And welfare states cannot thrive unless they have clients, and the more clients (people in need/poverty/whatever you want to call it) the more justification they have for maintaining it. If you can’t generate enough poor people locally to justify the existence of your political party, agency or job then it becomes imperative to import them from elsewhere.
40. peterike Find me a Catholic Bishop that openly supports a conservative cause other than abortion.
“No health care reform is better than the wrong sort of health care reform,” Bishop R. Walker Nickless of Sioux City, Iowa, declared in a recent pastoral letter, urging the faithful to call their members of Congress.
Archbishop Charles J. Chaput of Philadelphia helped defeat legislation that would have legalized civil unions for gay couples in Colorado.
Timothy Dolan, Archbishop of New York, condemned as a miscarriage of proper justice the release of the convicted Lockerbie bomber al-Megrahi and his reception in Libya. On President Bush’s views on the Iraq War and Capital Punishment, Dolan even deviated from the Vatican a bit to say, “I would have to give him the benefit of the doubt to say that those two issues are open to some discussion and are not intrinsically evil…”
Asquith’s son, on visiting Egypt, said he rejoiced to find a country so manifestly incapable of self-government. It seems that many in power in the West now would agree, but are shy about expressing themselves.
America finds itself at the top of a heap of nations which have managed to outblunder it
“There is a special providence for drunkards, fools, and the United States of America.”
- Misattributed to Bismark, according to the Wiki
Is there a single position that Obama took in his 2008 campaign or action he did in his first 24 months in office that has turned out well or with the advertised result?
Still for Dictators and NGOS, Liberators and Oppressors, the demand remains for the Americans to show up and fix things and pay the bills, and then go away again. We are the world’s divorced parent.
37. stoicheion
Please don’t call them “Teabaggers,” that’s what the enemy calls them to denegrate them, their protests, and the values they (me) deeply believe in.
43. Teresita
An absolute cacophony of right wing stances. Perhaps they need their leashes tightened a bit and get them back on the Jim Wallis reservation for ecumenists.
Mark Razak – thanks for the word…
48. Morton Doodslag
Mark Razak – thanks for the word…
Piggy back…Mark is spot on, Morton.
2 for 2.
#34 Terasita “That’s why MAD still works.”
MAD requires an adversary capable of sizing you up rationally and making the correct conclusions. We already know that Muslims serially blunder in this department. The best, most recent example was Saddam Hussein, who never dreamed the USA had the stones to take on the cesspool of Iraq. Pakistan, inventor of the original “Islamic Bomb” keeps blundering in a similar and even more portentous manner – from inventing the nuke, (actually not inventing, stealing the designs) to proliferating the nukes to NoKo, Iran, and Libya, to supporting AQ, harboring UBL, and now pinning the tail on Obama… They clearly are not rational players in the sense required by MAD.
Terasita – you mix a peculiar, naive confidence in our system while also exhibiting profound contempt for it’s conventions. I was similarly perplexed by your assurances yesterday that our 1st amendment somehow stands as magical inviolate talisman against the steady subversion of our rights – I referenced the relentless Islamic infiltration of our government, media, and academia- and their ongoing Jihad through ‘law fare’. This is being hugely assisted at the highest levels of the Obama administration. The FBI is now purging all references to Islam in its training materials in the domestic WoT – this sanitization and whitewashing happened long ago at State, and in the CIA, and Dept. Of Defense. We already have de-facto speech codes which wildly subvert the 1st Amendment. Grievance groups have already successfully imposed a tyranny over the free use of language in America, and now Muslims have joined the fray at the highest levels – there is no guarantee with how ignorant people remain about Islam that we will ever stop the spread of this corrosive cancer.
Unfortunately, after expending much blood and treasure in Iraq and Afghanistan, I doubt the US public is going to be supportive of a muscular military policy. I suspect the Islamic world is going to find itself in a race between its unaided internal collapse and the outcome of the “Three Conjectures.” #14. Idaho Spudboy
I have to confess I tend towards the same attitude, but it is wrong. I absolutely want our troops out of Iraq and out of Afghanistan, but only because there no longer remains any meaningful strategic goal that is worth accomplishing, after the poor leadership of Obama. We should remove our troops to safe bases, and use drones and missiles over Islamabad, Tehran, Damascus, Kabul, etc., as necessary. We’ll establish bases where we have friends, and destroy tyrants and/or our enemies, just like the good ol’ days, without putting our kids into WWI style trenches or bankrupting the country.
Yes, I know this sounds like right-wing-nuttiness and that the liberals would go berserk, but IMAGINE the possibilities of actually supporting 1776, republic-style democracy instead of constitutions based on medieval Sharia law.
True, Americans are tired of putting generations of future Americans into debt for “nation-building” for ungrateful peoples that dream only of killing our kids, as Iraqis once did and are poised to do again. America’s will, however, support peace through strength, a principled foreign policy based on our nation’s traditions, and foreign wars that are WON for America.
Reagan could do this. There are potential new Reagan’s out there. There is not a perfect GOP candidate in the mix, and Reagan was also not perfect, but there are good leaders running for the GOP Presidential nomination. There will never be an adequate conservative for the MSM and progressives, so disregard anything they say about the GOP candidates; it’s yet another lie from the congenital liars. There are also well qualified leaders like Rubio, Jindal, and a few others in the wings. The GOP bench is both deep and wide with proven leaders.
Reagan once said about the old USSR “trust but verify”, and that applies to any men or women elected to lead us. I’m not as worried about the next President as I am the Senators and House members. It’s tougher to find 535 good men and woman (let alone remove the existing riff-raft from office) than it is one good man or woman for the White House.
The right President will lead on foreign and military policy, and all the talk of America’s weakness will disappear as quickly as it did after Carter left disgraced from office.
O.S.
..About that “coming energy boom” – #17. Don Rodrigo
Don’t worry what this failed, one-term disaster for the Democrats, says about energy. Obama is toast.
2010 “happened”, and the Tea Party is bigger and more motivated than ever. Instead of running around on the streets and making love and crime as OWS, they are running families and businesses, and preparing to elect the next generation of political leaders.
All any candidate has to ask is:
“Why not true energy independence? What does any American gain from paying prices set by hostile foreign regimes, from having less energy, fewer jobs, less wealth, and everything that results from a pro-dependency or future-to-nowhere “green” energy policy? Why not the best? Why not drill oil safely, frack natural gas, develop safe nuclear energy? Why not have every house warm and lit for pennies a day? Why not have every local park in America lit all night long? Why not have $1 per gallon gas?”
The only counter argument is “Global Warming”, and that theory is entirely discredited even amongst half it’s former supporters.
It’s the economics of the issue which will drive America’s energy independence. Energy can be so damn dirt cheap that America will be back to 3% unemployment, true opportunity for the first time in ten years, and a future that folks under the age of thirty years old have never even seen. The job market has been actually flat or declining for over 8 years – there are college graduates from 2004/5 who’ve never had a true professional job. It’s been that long since there was any real growth in the building industry in California.
Obama can say “no” to domestic energy development right up until he and half the Senate Democrats leave office in 2012, but it won’t change the trajectory of what 21st Century American technology will do for the energy business.
Good point Stoicheon #37. I live in MA under the thumb of the Boston Globe and NYT.
I used to worry about America’s low fertility rate, until some reporter let slip this datum: one woman in five wasn’t having kids.
Our fertility rate bottomed out at 1.7, long before illegal immigration became an issue. Recalculate the fertility over the remaining 80%, even 1.7 comes out to replacement rate. The Progressives are culling themselves out.
Sorry LarryD. Progressivism is a cultural malady, not a genetic defect.
Idaho Spud is right. One things that the chaos that is following the collapse of these dictators will bring is famine. Spengler points out that Egypt imports half its caloric demand. They are down to a few weeks of foreign currency reserves. I expect that the rest of North Africa is in more or less the same boat. Tourists quit months ago. It going to get ugly and fast. Whos gonna help? Us? China? The Yurps?
I think we’ll see food wars.
Recall this all started over food prices driven by corn going into our gas tanks.
25/RWE (winslow, Steeple, Stoicheon, Morton Doodslag)
The American phoenix is slowly rising again.
Premature Exhilaration is becoming common on many boards, but unlike ‘that other thing’, it is a more insidiously dangerous condition in that it seems to afflict both sexes equally, and its effects, namely the resultant embarrassment and shame when results don’t equal expectations, are greatly delayed and often only acknowledged after much damage and destruction has been done to everything and everyone else around the victim.
That said, Ambrose Evans-Pritchard is one of the few journalists I respect. I had the pleasure of dealing with him personally when he was the Telegraph’s Washington Bureau Chief during his investigations of the Clinton scandals, and have no doubts about his honesty and integrity. I simply believe he’s a bit too optimistic in his assessment. The conditions for an American resurgence are indeed present as he says, but the enemy also gets to move in the game, and as our host has discussed at length in other threads, we have used up our design margin.
I sincerely hope he’s correct, but the outcome is far from clear.
“[T]he best policy is to buy a very large supply of popcorn and watch unfolding events from a distance…”
With adequate indigenous fossil and nuclear energy supplies, just add a strict immigration policy and I agree.
“Quarantine” is our best policy for dealing with the Islamic world.
Isn’t the Islamic culture/society supported entirely by petrodollars? And I guess other forms of welfare? The diminution of this cash flow will be greatly accelerated, if (contrary to the flyovers {insert smiley} amongst us) — oops, that’s a different meme — a greater recession overtakes the West.
#4