It’s the Foreign Policy, and We Are Stupid
During his late, lamented campaign, Mitt Romney opined:
It’s the economy, and we’re not stupid.
Well, maybe. But the economy is a lot of people, millions of them actually, from the assembly line worker to the CEO, and has a surprising way of righting itself despite a plethora of bad policies. Capitalism is a mighty motor; economies rebound when you least expect them to.
Not so with foreign policy. It’s in the hands of one man — the president.
Yes, Congress has the right to declare war, blah blah. History has shown us again and again who is really running the show on global matters. The president is dictating foreign policy usually before anybody outside his inner circle knows what is happening, and long before his adversaries can do much about it.
So while Republicans, conservatives, and libertarians are all revved-up about gun control, social issues, and even the economy, the real permanent damage is being done elsewhere.
Good-bye, Pax Americana. Hello to the era of Kerry, Hagel, and Brennan.
And when I say permanent damage, I mean it. You can always change gun laws (we have several times already). The social issues are largely determined by the culture, and as I noted above, the economy is only partially in the hands of the government.
What you can’t simply change is the nature of global forces, the power configuration of our planet. Since World War II, the world has survived and prospered to a remarkable degree under U.S. leadership. Nazism was defeated, followed by the downfall or reformation of equally murderous communist regimes.
Barack Obama’s deepest intention — emotionally and ideologically — is to change all that.
Forget objective reality. As Dinesh D’Souza demonstrated in his book and film, Obama’s psychological makeup — his heart — is influenced to a significant degree by a belief that America is a dangerous colonial power, that world leadership must be shared.
Yet “leading from behind” is a euphemism. There is no such leading.
I urge people on the right to give the nominees’ positions a fair hearing, then, let the Senate decide.
The confirmations of the SecState, SecDef and DCIA are cakewalks. Justifiably so. A president, any president, has the right to install the team of his choosing.
I might add that Obama’s ‘on the job training’ actually worked on FP (woefully for us, not the economy). Taking into account Obama’s left of center ideological roots, he could have done much worse than Kerry, Hagel, Brennan.
The right should count its blessings after the trouncing received in the election. And the rabid wingnuts should stop alienating mainstream Republicans if they aspire to ever regaining the presidency.
journalstar.com/news/national/govt-and-politics/exclusive-hagel-says-critics-distort-his-views-on-israel-iran/article_c4f3da0a-af78-5496-b62f-a89ca28c4bac.html
Have a nice day.
400,000 votes in a nation of 200 million some-odd voters is not a “trouncing”, and do you honestly not see the idiocy in asking for a fair hearing just a few sentences before calling your opponents “rabid wing nuts”?
Our senators are elected officials too, and it’s their job to refuse confirmation of anybody who is incompetent, corrupt, or serves an agenda that the voters in their state would disapprove of.
Considering the amount of vote fraud in the last election, it’s pretty hard to argue that Obama won office legitimately.
The right should count its blessings after the trouncing received in the election.
Said “trouncing” was 47.2% popular vote for Romney 51.0% popular vote for Barack.
The real trouncing was in the November 2010 elections, a “shellacking” per the community organizer in chief, despite his plea to Hispanics a week before that election to get out and vote to “punish their enemies”
Yeah, how short those Lefty memories are… President George H. W. Bush’s choice for Secretary of Defense, Sen. John Tower, was blocked despite his 53.4% win over Massachusettes Gov. Dukakis.
53 is bigger than 51. (For Obama and his fans, math is hard.)
Your tone sound like one of those ridiculous, preachy op-eds in the dead tree media, “urging” us to do this or that. Sorry, but you libs have lost your right to preach to others about what is “the right thing to do” a long time ago.
If no one is supposed to oppose Presidential cabinet nominees, then why does the confirmation process even exist? Or maybe its just one of those anachronistic, quaint customs that needs to be jettisoned like that pesky constitution that you libs hold in such disregard? BTW, the Sec of State is 4th in the line of presidential succession and the Sec of Defense is 6th. So yes, I would like to have a spirited debate about proposed nominee’s fitness for office — both the one they are nominated for and any others that make befall them in case of a catastrophe.
For those who are not aware of the stats on the election you might want to explain the over 100% voter turnout for Obama in all areas with no voter ID law. The election was stolen by the democratic party as usual, and the gutless rinos are to stupid to fight these liars and thieves.
I am waiting for the gun grabbing demos to overstep their position…
Be ready, for trouble is on its way to your neighborhood.
45 000 Somalis* went to the poll in OH and voted for you know who, of course they were ALL citizen. FIFTY NINE precincts in Philly voted 100% for the liar in chief!!
Voter fraud?? naaaaaah.
PS. These folks* did not know running water and door knobs when they got here, who let all these well fare queens in??, and all the muslims in Dearborn???
In discussions with friends over the last couple of years I have tried to make this point too only to hear again and again that the economy must come first.
I agree with you that Obama’s bizarre foreign policy is potentially much more destructive than his very destructive economic policy.
Obama’s hatred of all things European or Judeo-Christian is something he really doesn’t even try to hide. The reason for his disdain for European colonialism in Africa is very likely because it slowed the Islamization of Africa. Colonialism, for all its faults, is probably one of the best things to have happened to Africa if for no other reason than it stopped the expansion of Islam in Africa.
Virtually everything Obama has done appears to be designed to undermine the interests of America and Israel and promote the interests of Islam whose stated goal is our destruction. What ever happened to a foreign policy based on treating your friends better than your enemies?
I have thought for a while now that every Presidential candidate as well every official involved in foreign policy should be asked this question: “Do you support Israel with Jerusalem as its eternal and undivided capital? Yes or no.”
Only an unequivocal yes should be acceptable.
Your Jerusalem question would be totally ineffective, Obama would simply lie (plus, you depend on the media to ask difficult questions of a democrat – you might as well forget it).
A far better guide to Obama’s true orientation and plan is his longstanding record of statements and associations before he realized a dumbed-down and race-obsessed America might be gullible enough to elect him, provided the dying legacy media covered up who he really is (his radical upbringing, associations, race-hatred and plans). He was right, and, let’s be honest here, this country, in its irreversible decline, is not worth saving. Let it burn.
America 1776 – 2008. RIP.
Maybe you are not aware that this is the only home we have as freedom loving people.
If we do not take care of our Nation, then there is no other place for us to exist.
‘Let is burn’? Are you completely out of your mind? Think about what you write! Are you under the impession that there is another place on the planet where we can start a new Nation modeled off of our old one?
It is time to join the fight for our survival against these Liberal Socialist Communists. This is not the time to quit and become a spectator to history.
Get involved with the TPP and create a Civil Militia in your county. Join the County Sheriff’s Reserve Posse and train for a Concealed Carry. Some day soon you will be glad that you are involved with your countrymen of a like mind.
Trouble is coming from the clown in charge and it is not going to be funny.
Re:
“……this country, in its irreversible decline, is not worth saving. Let it burn.”…
……provokes me to say that it’s a shame that you and your ilk cannot be summarily stripped of all of the protections and rights which you so smugly take for granted…literally left stripped, and out in some lunar-cold, lawless landscape. You must be very young in mind, if not in body.
A madrassa has a short rug waiting for you.
Do you think that the economic policy isn’t also foreign policy?
“…stopped the Islamization of Africa.”
And the ancient slave trade that traveled along with it. Remember Saudi Arabia only outlawed slavery in 1965, sort of.
“I repeat: foreign policy is the place where we must make our stand. Everything else pales by comparison.”
Well everything else after a few “little items” like what’s left of the First, Second and Fourth Amendments.
What is at stake is whether or not America is the light to the nations, or whether it is submerged in some international superstate, devoted to redistribution of wealth and Green politics. Neo-isolationism is evident in some of these comments, including FeralCat’s. I suspect a Ron Paul supporter. For more on the coalescence of communist internationalism and US foreign policy under Obama see http://clarespark.com/2012/12/08/hobsbawm-obama-israel/.
1. The United States should not commit its forces to military action overseas unless the cause is vital to our national interest.
2. If the decision is made to commit our forces to combat abroad, it must be done with the clear intent and support needed to win. It should not be a halfway or tentative commitment, and there must be clearly defined and realistic objectives.
3. Before we commit our troops to combat, there must be reasonable assurance that the cause we are fighting for and the actions we take will have the support of the American people and Congress.
4. Even after all these other tests are met, our troops should be committed to combat abroad only as a last resort, when no other choice is available.
- RONALD REAGAN!!!
“Good-bye, Pax Americana.”
Given that “Pax America” seems to have become Pax Afghanistan/Iraq/Libya/Syria/”insert next muslim crap hole here”, I say don’t let the door hit you on the way out.
The day Al Quaeda gets nukes you will stop saying this. In the interim, please don’t vote.
If you think the Afcrapistan debacle is going to make that any less likely, please go over there yourself … and don’t forget to write.
About the debacle, well that is what happens when you elect someone who is in the bad guys’s side but last time America didn’t care about what happenned in “Afcrapistan” it brought 9/11.
PS: Please, ask for adult supervision when you need to do anything more aduous than breathing.
Put your left hand on your left ear. Your right hand on your right ear.
Tug vigorously and see if you can manage to get your cranium out of your
rectum.
The choice is Pax Americana or (at best) a repeat of 1914-18
or (at worst) something closely resembling a global State of
Nature.
Final answer.
Unfortunately, the whole Pax Americana thing pretty much died when the Iraq war dragged out for years and years and years, and the Afghanistan war being essentially a loss. The current government there, our supposed “friends”, are a hair better than the Taliban, and the whole thing will likely collapse the moment we leave because they are so massively corrupt.
To make a historical parallel, it’s sort of like how the Romans invaded Britain, but never conquered the Picts/Scots, so put up a wall. And then eventually had to withdraw the legions because they needed them at home. Not an exact parallel, since Rome actually managed to Romanize a good chuck of Britain. But we can’t win in Afghanistan because we need to be fighting Pakistan, too. But we can’t, because they are more of our “friends”, even though they hid Bin Laden from us (and are imprisoning the doctor that helped us find Bin Laden).
So we’re engaged in a never ending war we simply cannot win. And you can’t like that on Obama, Bush started the war and had the same hands off strategy towards Pakistan.
As much as it’s a cliche, Bush really does deserve most of the blame here. His so-called Bush Doctrine was a noble thing, but it simply backfired. You can’t free people that don’t want to be free. They want Islamism, not freedom. It’s their culture – it’s based around submission to God, not how Judeo-Christianity is based on Free Will given by God (the whole Garden of Eden bit).
You want people to take you seriously, you need to win wars. If you don’t, well, they won’t.
You have a point when it comes to perceptions but on the pure power side we still have the navy out keeping the sea lines open and such. Of course; that will change too due to the fiscal crunch….
Kerry was a Sailor….
Look at what outrageous lies he made up about his “shipmates” to launch his political career….
Nuf said
War is hell. We should have gone in and fought those wars like that. The whole hearts and minds thing was our first and biggest mistake. If it was really worth going there and taking them out, we should have been prepared to level both countries and put the populace into complete and bloody submission without caring what anyone else anywhere in the world thought. That we worried about it and were soft set us up to lose before we even started.
Exactly.
The “model” should habe been “japan”
The Press insisted we immitate “viet nam”
Try pleasing commie press people, and guess which we we ended up with?
Bush had to work with severe restricions:
First: Afghanistan is enclaved and the only way to reach the Talibans was through Pakistan or Iran.
Second: The magnitude of 9/11 required a swift reply and he had to use a carrot and stick approach to Pakistan, that is the country who put the Talibans in power (time and again after having being crushed by the northren alliance Pakistan rearmed them) and who has a strong interest in making it a failed state.
Third: Thanks to Clinton Pakistan has nukes.
Now Bush made two important errors:
1) Apparently he really believed Islam is a religion of peace. While it was necessary to say this in order to avoid the whole Muslim countries uniting around the Talibans and against America US policy should have aimed at weakening Islam in occupied countries and at dividing Muslims by playing local nationalism agisnt Islam by portraying it as an instrument of Arab domination. Al Quaeda members’s arrogance and the kidnapping of Afghan women should have been played to the hilt. Instead America handled the contract for building the cell phone network to an Arab company, ie it helped to mend bridges between Afghans and Arabs.
2) He picked Karzai. Karzai was a Pashtun but that was about his only quality. He was close to the Talibans, ineffectual and corrupt. Everytime there is collateral damage from the Allies he protests at the top of his lungs but he never says anything when the Taliban bomb a market or a school.
Our first mistake was invading Afghanistan with our troops. Same story in Vietnam.
We should have done the whole deal the same way it was done to us. They took down our towers and killed all the people, 3000, in the towers.
Our reply should have been the flattening of all of the major cities in the country by airial combat. Drop leaflets saying when it is going to happen and then do it. Let them spend ten years rebuilding the cities.
Same with Vietnam, we should have flattened Saigon completely and then supported South Vietnam in their march to freedom instead of playing the political game for years on end while the pols got rich with the defense contracting.
One day we will learn that freedom is not free and sometimes dictators in other countries need to pay for their mistakes. Tough love is not nice…
Uh, Saigon, which you say we ought to have flattened, was the capital of our ally, South Vietnam. The capital of our enemy, North Vietnam, is Hanoi. Little details like that are important in war, you know.
Saigon???????? If you meant Hanoi I remind you that President Johnson had to work with the possibility of a war with China in case America went too far against Noth Vietnam.
About flattening Afhanistan pleaaaase.
First of all: Afghanistan is not America: only 10 or 20% of its population live in cities, meaning that even if you destroy them all you have barely scratched Afghanistan’s skin. And cities concentrate a large part of those who opposed the Talibans (I even found a guy who was pro-Israel and ended converting to christianism).
Second: Your planes should have to go through Pakistan. You can’t flatten anything when you are restricted to carrier planes, these need inflight refuelling and you spend hours flying between the carrier and the objective instead of actually bombing
Third: Your planes should have to go through Pakistan, ie your campaign ends as soon as Pakistan denies you its airspace or more exactly denies its airspace to these slow and vulnerable tanker aircrafts. And by bombing cities you ensure Pakistan’s governement would be forced to deny it to you or be toppled by the hardliners.
Fourth: WOT is a guerrilla war. Guerrilla wars are ultimately won by cutting the link between the populace and the guerrilla movement. That requires:
a) being able to protect the populace. Otherwise the guerrilla can get supplies and manpower through threatening the locals with unspeakable atrocities. If you don’t protect the locals you end losing.
b) Getting the population to loathe the guerrillas and despise their objectives. Bombing cities does not advance your cause. And Afghanistan was only a a battle in the WOT. “Winning” in Afghanistan at the cost of pushing millions everywhere else in the arms of Al Quaeda is just what is needeed to ensure America loses.
Considering we haven’t won a war since WWII, because the Disloyal Opposition is siding with our enemies to prevent us from fighting them, Bush was doomed to fail when he didn’t clean out the Islamic sympathizers in the government, all three branches. Of course, to do that, he would have had to become the dictator Obama has shown he will in wrecking the country.
You seem to be forgetting the cold war, which Reagan won in spite of all our internal enemies.
Not really, they just moved here.
PS- the Revolution already happened, in 1913.
1917 saw it’s colonization of greater Europe.
Its hard to win a war that you don’t want to win. Its all in the rules of engagement. We really haven’t wanted to win a war since 1945. Starve a few of the enemy nations and the rest will follow.
How many Iftar Dinners at the White House does Obama have to host before Harvard Professor Dershowitz figures it out? Obama is probably OK with the destruction of Israel. Oh wait a minute, Obama said “the bond between our two nations(U.S. and Israel) is unshakable”. And Obama never lies. Everything is cool.
Obama wasn’t lying there.
He hates American citizens just as much as he hates Israeli citizens.
He thinks both should have to fear for their very lives day-to-day.
Obama’s foreign policy and his interpretation of America(na) stems from his years in Indonesia/his Kenyan father- in toto Publica Bandunga (The Bandung- communists conferences0 Kenya,Indonesia,China etc.)- their views of that time match Obama’s more than any American Third World manifestos. Obama;s foreign policy according to him is looking towards Pacific (Ocean)nations. One thought the American Century actually over 100 yrs ago was centered in the Pacific (China,Philippines etc) Now China and Japan are escalating East/South China Seas spheres of interest/international borders. What is Obama’s policy there? Arctic Sea exploration- Russia already drilling- China using a new searoute that way- where’s Obama.Obama’s handling of Iran policies (lets talk/one on one/5+1= letters- not a word in defense of Iranian Bahais- not one signle statement of Ian’s threats to Israel’s annihiliation) not a word to Egypt’s MB/Nour attacking US Emb/Cairo w/o apology from Morsy- Hamas and Fajr 5s-tunnels. Obama’s foreign policy is not a democrats policy nor a republican po0licy -as a matter of fact it is not an American policy at all.
Politically, the President is a “Christian.” In his heart, he is a Muslim and has been since birth.
No, not Muslim, just evil.
Talk about splitting hairs.
BHO is a Muslim. You are not allowed to attend a madrassah without providing documentation attesting to your having accepted Mohammed as the prophet of Allah.
We are witnessing the greatest example of Taqiyya ever perpetrated.
Sorry. He is purely an Obamist on both counts.
He is carried away by a romanticized view of the “mystical, enlightened East”, which has little or nothing to do with Islam, being more influenced by Rousseau and the Beatles than anything else.
His hatred of the West is partly anti-colonialist, but more directly a deep resentment of the fact that since the Persians got trounced by the Greeks, the world has had no practical place for “philosopher-kings” who decide everyone else’s fates based on “feelings”. Facts are anathema to this mindset, and to him.
His hatred of our civilization is based on a delusional deep-eco dream of primitivism. Unfortunately, he’s not the only one who has it, as it is common coin on the left today. They all dream of Bronze Age feudalism, with themselves as the nobility, but somehow think rice paddies and peasant labor will still provide them with cappuccinos and iPods.
As for Israel, to him it is a beachhead of the Evil West in the Enlightened East. And Islam must triumph, not because it is Islam (he doesn’t care one way or another about that), but because it is “local” and “primitive” and therefore “authentic”.
He believes that he has the power to do all that, now. And that once it is done, everyone else will worship him for doing it. Meaning, they will regard him as he does himself, and finally acknowledge his “true” (i.e., self-perceived) superiority.
This is the heart of his behavior. Muslims pray to Allah. Christians pray to Jesus, and his Father. Traditional Jews pray to Jehovah.
Obama prays to a mirror. Every time he looks at himself in it.
Misinterpreting this can be hazardous. Because if you do not understand his mentality and motivations, you will forever be caught off-guard by what he does.
clear ether
eon
To those put off by the title ‘Space Viking’:
Violence and vengeance are the surface themes, but the core concept
is the choice of weary warriors to resurrect a fallen civilization.
Another book by Piper with an even more misleading title ‘Junkyard Planet’
reveals that TPTB saw the Fall coming, and kept silent, because going public
would only accelerate it.
Strange how life imitates. >:)
Yes. But note that “Junkyard Planet” was the title chosen by Cele Goldsmith, then-editor of Astounding (later Analog) for the original magazine serial publication. It was later used on the Houghton-Mifflin hardback publication of the novel, which I have in my collection along with their hardback of Four-Day Planet. Both, strangely enough, were published in their “young adult” series, probably because of the age of the protagonist/ narrators in the stories.
Piper’s own title for “Junkyard Planet”, by the way, was the one Ace used on their paperback publication of it; The Cosmic Computer, which is more to the point as to what the story is actually about. (And no, he didn’t appreciate Goldsmith’s re-titling one bit.)
Hail Merlin.
cheers
eon
Have you noticed that when Obama refers to the Old or New Testament he refers to “scripture” but when he refers to the Quran it is ALWAYS, in the tradition of a good Muslim, “The Holy Quran”.
Any good confidence trickster tailors his script to the notions of those he seeks to con.
Another characteristic of a successful con is that the trickster must appear to believe in it, without ever buying into it himself.
On both counts, Obama makes Henry Gondorff and Johnny Hooker in The Sting look like rank amateurs.
clear ether
eon
I don’t see Obama as a trickster at all.
He has from the beginning told us he wants to “fundamentally transform” America, he called the Constitution a flawed document, and has made no pretense about his love of Islam and his contempt for Christians and Jews, at least those who support Israel. Not to mention his contempt for America and Israel.
His supporters don’t care about any of it; they’re just glad we have the Messiah and most of the rest can’t believe what they are hearing and seeing so they just don’t process it.
The Islamists will find out at the last minute that The Self-Exalted One was lying to them, as well. And that he demands their worship of his Messiahness, along with everybody elses’.
He, on the other hand, will find out that the Islamists have always been dead serious about what they say. And aren’t in the mood for anyone “disrespecting the Prophet”.
It is likely to end in mutual assured destruction. Of course, by that point most of the rest of us will be in no condition to do anything about it. In fact, we won’t be in any condition to give much of a damn, as we’ll probably already be dead, gone, and (as far as they’re concerned) good riddance.
Not that that’s a lot of comfort.
clear ether
eon
Obama also refers to Mohammed as “the prophet”, not “the so-called prophet”, nor “the false prophet”.
“Good-bye, Pax Americana. Hello to the era of Kerry, Hagel, and Brennan.”
And short-sighted isolationists like Obama and Hagel never quite tell you who will fill that void once we leave. You could have regional powers, like Iran in the Persian Gulf or China in the Far East, taking over when we’re gone. I don’t think a world like that will either be safer or more conducive to free trade. And let’s not even talk about what that will do to weaker minorities in those regions, like Israel in the Middle East or Taiwan in the Far East, to name just a few hot spots.
No, the world just lucked out that after the British Empire fell apart after World War II the United States was there to not only pick up the pieces, but to guarantee people’s freedom. But what would have happened if there was no United States after World War II and the British Empire fell? Would the world have been taken over by people who were not afraid to use blunt power to enforce their political will, like the communists in China and the Soviet Union? Had America gone back into its isolationist shell in 1945 after the end of World War II, would we even HAVE NATO, a free Europe, a free Japan, or a free South Korea?
The world would have been a very different place had we just picked up our toys and gone home in 1945. So what will the world look like if we do that today and let everyone else fend for themselves? Oh, wait, I know what would happen. There was another madman who thought we were leaving the Middle East and were a soft paper tiger that would never enforce its will again. His name was Osama bin Laden and, after out shameful retreat from Somalia under Bill Clinton, he thought we would never fight again. And what was the result of that deduction? 9/11/2001. Leaving a major power vacuum in the world never ends well. The first 9/11 proved that and the second 9/11 in Benghazi only reinforces that idea. I never can understand why liberals never bother to learn the lessons of history, especially when it’s right there in front of them.
Hello, Libertyship46…..what you say here is valid, but is only part of the story. Here’s a paste I made nearby To Barry Rubin’s, “After the Fall” ….
Paste:
“24. Charlie Griffith
Mr Rubin is joined by many in his concern for the “decline” of America. The key word in the discussion is “decline”, and it has many, many gradations and variations.
Look at it this way…..what exactly has our humungous amounts of dollars fire-hosed just about everywhere actually gained for America, to our advantage? What has been our literal….gain?
Rubin’s excellent points are all gloomy/negative in the accustomed manner. But,let’s instead turn the argument around 180 degrees and, again, ask what benefits have accrued to America other than a generalized disdain, and worldwide anti-American attitude, except for our Dollars?
Taken together, each of these Dollar recipients’ concern is not to be too disdainful lest we cut off our accustomed Dollar Hydrant. Forget our “leadership” in the World. Our “leadership” has ….lets face it….assumed a dollar value only. No African nation , nor Asian….taking in all of Asia from Constantinople to the Kurile Islands N.E. and the vast Indonesian archipelago S.E.have the slightest interest in our “leadership” other than what can America provide to each of them on an annual basis so that they don’t have to spend their own resources. Airplanes, rockets, electronic gear…that’s all they want. All the world wants from America is materiel-goods and a stable United States dollar.
Same goes for the area south of the Rio Grande River.
Socialistic Europe might like to trade with us, they certainly don’t want the least bit of our “leadership”. [As an aside I like to mention at every opportunity the chutzpah of the British Foreign Secy asking for American "leadership", his word,..in the Middle East after the maturing developments since 1916 of that Sykes-Picot Agreement. And, where are the coy French?] Anyone remember deGaulle wanting all Americans out of France?…and Dean Rusk asking wryly, “..also out of the American cemeteries in France?”
We’ve been maintaining the defense of South Korea, Japan and Taiwan since about 1945….to a lesser degree annually as they got somewhat back on their feet after all of that wartime devastation. Then, Japan launched a massive attack against our Auto and electronics industries during the 1980′s…anyone remember? Their industries enabled by our supplying their defense need.
So……ask yourselves what exactly has American “leadership” gained for us Americans? “The World’s idea of American “Leadership” is for them to evade responsibilities which they should bear.
Lastly, ask, what has our disdained “leadership” cost us in regard to our young blood sacrificed?
January 8, 2013 – 12:02 am” …end paste.
This is another legacy of George Bush. It is one thing to punish your enemies and it is another thing entirely to squander American lives and treasure on futile nation-building fantasies. While Obama made the same mistake initially in Afghanistan, the overall thrust of his foreign policy is to withdraw from the world leadership, distance ourselves from natural allies and cozy up to this nation’s rivals and enemies. The American people, tired of neo-conservative adventurism, are content to disengage. They are oblivious to the price we will pay for this new foolishness.
What is wrong with a little disengagement for a while. We cannot afford imperial adventures anymore. Frack away and let the middle easterners drink their oil.
You were right; Isolationism was a viable policy for the US.
You are wrong; We now live in a very small global village and
we cannot allow our nutty next door neighbors to build and _use_
weapons of mass destruction – Nukes are bad, germs are far worse.
Disengagement isn’t the issue. It is the “cozy[ing] up to this nation’s rivals and enemies” that is the problem. As for “fracking away” — yes, disengagement means American must be more self-sufficient. We have the basic resources, but not the will to use them. Perhaps the locking away of huge swaths of the US as “national parks” was precisely so that we would be forced into globalization and away from relative isolationism, independence, and self-reliance.
I’m tired of conservative nation building and the new round of lefty throwing allies under the bus in favor of anti-US nuts.
The left has this crazy meme from the 60s that the US likes its more unsavory allies (which shows we are some kind of right wing menace) .. and if we only got out of the way better leaders would rise up. It was BS then, it is BS now, it is going to cause us more problems down the line now that we are trying it.
Iran was an earlier attempt at it. That turned out great…..
Four more years of relative—and in some aspects absolute—decline may not fatally undermine the Pax Americana that has kept the world at peace for an unprecedented eight decades. But it will severely erode all the margins of security.
In the past the U.S. has shown its capacity to reinvent its gifts for leadership. During the 1970s, in the aftermath of the Nixon abdication and the Ford and Carter presidencies, the whole nation peered into the abyss, was horrified by what it saw and elected Ronald Reagan as President, which began a national resurgence.
We must pray this happens again. The alternatives are too dreadful to contemplate.
Sorry Paul…
The….er…”demographics” of 1979-1980 to 2012 are like night and day.
There will be no “new Reagan” because there are no “old Americans” seeking one anymore.
The only “abyss” an Obama voters sees, is that endlessly deep well of “public funding” and they LIKE it.
With Foreign Policy, (if they can even read a map, most cant) as long as they feel the US and Israel is getting kicked in the shins, thats cool because we “deserve” it.
They outnumber us today, and have higher birth rates.
Its over.
When I was in exile from the Executive Branch in the mid-’90s, I decided to go back to school – it’s the modern equivalent of going to the monastery when you got crossthreaded with the King. I discovered that a General Requirement that I hadn’t had was a Geography course. Back in the dark ages they didn’t teach general geography in college because they figured you’d had it pretty well down by the 7th or 8th Grade. So, I wind up in a class of true freshment, right out of high school. I’ll guarantee you that not 5 of the thirty or so could have given definitions and distinctions between a city, a county, a country, and a continent. We might as well have been studying the geography of Uranus for all they knew about the World. The professor didn’t have a TA for the class so we did it the old-fashioned way, all lecture and textbook, a mid-term, and a final. The two tests were all objective either fill in the blank, multiple choice, or place things on a map; 100 questions. A young girl that I had sorta’ befriended was crying outside the classroom after we got our mid-term back. She’d made a score of 14, quite an effort considering the prof would give you a 10 just for putting your name on the paper. I’ll never forget what she said, “I’ve never had a teacher who wouldn’t give you ANY credit for an answer.” So much for the “good trying” school of teaching.
The class should have been about 7th Grade and the only thing different from the 7th Grade Geography class I had in ’62-’63 was the names of some countries had changed and a few lines on the maps had moved but mostly in places nobody cared about anyway.
The globe is engulfed in THE ISLAMIC WORLD WAR.
Ask the Catholics in the Philippines, the Hindus in Bali, the Ahmadiyya and non-Muslims in Indonesia and Malaysia, women in Australia, the Buddhists in Thailand, schoolchildren in Beslan Russia, the atheist Han Chinese in Xinjiang, non-Muslims in Burma, the Hindus and Sikhs in India, gays and non-Muslims in Iran, modern civilization in Afghanistan, Hindus and non-Muslims in Pakistan, the Chaldeans in Iraq, the Jews in Israel/Mumbai/Toronto/Seattle/Caracas/Buenos Aries/Paris, the Christians and animists in Sudan/Somalia/Mali/Uganda /Kenya, the Christians in Nigeria, embassy workers in Tanzania/Kenya/Cairo/Libya, the formerly Christian atheists in France/Sweden/Belgium/Germany, train commuters in Spain, tube commuters in London, soldiers on a bus in Frankfurt, the politicians and atists in Amsterdam, Danish cartoonists and French satirists, the airport and Pan Am 103 in Scotland, the office workers in New York, the defense workers in the Pentagon, the recruiters in Little Rock, the soldiers at Ft. Hood, the pedestrians at Times Square, journalists like Daniel Pearl, and on and on and on……
Islam is the ONLY polity actively engaged in global warfare against every non-Islamic people and civilization in every continent. Islam is the only polity that has a religious canon demanding unending war against all non-Islamic people and civilization with the express goal of global dominion through the use of terror.
Barack Hussein Obama knows this. Barack Hussein Obama aids and abets this enemy. Barack Hussein Obama has actively allowed this enemy to infiltrate our political, military and security institutions. Barack Hussein Obama has enlisted the support of traitorous toadies and like minded sycophants like Hillary Clinton and John Brennan in his support of the Islamic totalitarian supremecists in consolidating their power base and facilitating them in their ISLAMIC WORLD WAR.
Barack Hussein Obama is a traitor, guilty of the highest treason, a Benedict Arnold in the ISLAMIC WORLD WAR. Traitor.
~ The Infidel Alliance
….and of course the Coptic Christians in Egypt.
Barack Hussein Obama – TRAITOR!
THE ISLAMIC WORLD WAR is not with al-Qaeda, or al-Shabab, or Boko Haram, or Hamas, or Abu Sayyaf, or Hezbollah…..
THE ISLAMIC WORLD WAR is with Mecca, the Masjid al-Haram (Grand Mosque of Mecca) is the Reichstag of the Islamic empire where the enemy philosophy is propogated, where the Islamic soldiers are inspired and motivated, and where the ISLAMIC WORLD WAR is funded.
THE ISLAMIC WORLD WAR. With Mecca. With traitors like Barack Hussein Obama.
Invicta veritate. Cave paratus.
~ The Infidel Alliance
Islam has been at war with the world since Muhammad died in 634. Somehow the diplomat/politicians have never been able to grasp that reality.
You are so right in all you say, Infidel Alliance. But you forgot the biggest heartbreak of all. The American people re-elected this turd. Get ready for the muslim war in America.
Dear ‘RDG’,
THE ISLAMIC WORLD WAR is already here on our shores, but because we have the 2nd Amendment and Europe does not, Europe will fall first.
Pakistan is the first Islamic nuclear powered threat. Iran is poised to be the second. The soon to be renamed Islamic Republic of France will be next.
~The Infidel Alliance
I fear you are correct. They are using the propaganda front now. CAIR is promoting ads saying “jihad” is simply a way of thinking; Al Jazeera will be on air thanks to the greedy traitor and hypocrite Al Gore. Obama has muslim brotherhood and their ilk advising him in the WH.
I don’t think he is an Islamist. He is viruantly anti-American and the Muslims happen to be that way also. So its more of a “The enemy of my enemy is my friend” sort of thing
There is a simpler way of putting it. Obama believes that appeasement works. Unfortunately for the rest of the world, it is their lives that will be ruined as a consequence. Ask seventy million dead Chinese what American pressure can do.
BO is not appeasing the enemy, he is the enemy.
This really isn’t hard.
The race card has allowed Obama to win more often than he should have, and so he will again with Hagel. To be realistic there aren’t enough semi-competent leftists within a mile of Obama ideologically. At least Kerry and Hagel aren’t in kind with the far left types he has in other parts of his administration.
Obama intended from the beginning to harm the US, but not enough to where he would get himself into serious reelection trouble—the race card works up to a point. But the gloves are off for his second term. He may moderate enough to where his party isn’t slam dunked next year, but with his track record dems shouldn’t count on him doing anything right by them.
The simplest part of it is that Obama wants us to feel like we will be savagely culled at any time, and that we’ll never know when it’s coming, just that it’s definitely coming.
He wants the American people in constant fear of death. It’s so much easier for him to grab lifelong totalitarian power that way.
The cozying up to Islam is because he knows they’re the people with absolutely no compunction towards killing Americans in cold blood without needing any other motivation but Allah.
I must disagree.
A nation’s stature among the other nations arises from two things:
– Its economic vitality;
– Its military strength.
Without ample amounts of both, a nation is not internationally relevant. Consider the position occupied by Britain in 1914, and the position it occupies today.
But a nation’s military strength is underpinned by its economic vitality! Herman Kahn made that point in On Thermonuclear War, when he observed that what Stalin feared most was American innovation and productivity (“Detroit, not SAC!”). Therefore, if Obama is successful at pauperizing America, he will automatically render America impotent internationally — and he knows it.
Granted that Obama’s overt moves in the international sphere are reasons for plenty of concern. But that cannot be separated from his moves in the domestic economy. We have to win on both fronts if we’re to maintain American pre-eminence in world affairs, with all that comes with it.
In short, I don’t think we’re all that stupid, Roger.
The economy, and our internal defense industry, determines what we CAN do overseas. I agree that where the SHTF is likely overseas – or when a smuggled nuke goes off in a shipping container here at home. But look right now, the sequester is going to gut DoD and that’s economic.
If there were no Web, and the USA had to depend on the MSM for news,
the Progressive propaganda would work; In reality it beclowns itself.
If there were no micro-bot revolution about to render armies obsolete,
and the USA had to depend on the DOD/Military for force projection,
the Progressive plan to abandon our allies to our enemies would work;
In reality, it will defeat itself by creating a demand for militarized
microbots, and then trying to prevent their development, sale, and use.
The Progressive plan would have worked back in the Day when it was made;
Thanks to whatever Powers that Be, The Progs remain unaware that we are all
going to spent the rest of our lives riding the shock-wave of 21st century Hi-Tech innovation into the future.
When the Iranians are celebrating Obama’s pick for Defense Chief I think that about says it all. I feel ashamed for us.
I agree with Mr. Simon. But sadly, the fools who voted in the last election couldn’t even see that the economy and Obama’s trillion dollar deficits are major problems, when those issues will hit them right in the pocketbook. So how will they care about what is happening 4,000 miles away, when half of them probably couldn’t even locate Iran on a map?
My favorite web site is pretty much unanimous that the US has a mporal obligation to serve as the worlds policeman, for free forever.
…..john….
Here’s a timely on-topic paste of a News Item headline from that “Yellow Journalistic” paragon, The Washington Post:
“Afghan President Hamid Karzai heads to Washington, complaints in hand
By Kevin Sieff, Published: January 6″….this is so symbolic, so tersely summing up our futile efforts at “helping out” over there.
In my own humble mind, there’s no sicker example than this character Karzai, or perhaps that Maliki, of the folly of continuing our USAID in Asia.
We simply cannot change this barbaric Muslim “culture” which is centuries’ along in it’s development, by sending over our NGO’s shouldering bales upon bales of our American cash. It simply won’t work.
Not to mention all of our American young blood shed there.
The known corrupt guy Karzai shows up in DC to complain and make demands for the future.
What do you want to bet, those demands involve billions and billions of US dollars, the main reason dissembling guys like Karzai and Morsi even want anything at all to do with the US.
‘Liberals, of all people, should be ashamed. Chuck Schumer, are you listening?’
Simon,
I thought you knew, the Libs/commies have neither shame nor courage. They are bunch of self serving cowards who enjoy bulling the weakest among us. As for Hussein O, he is a self hating American, with chip on his shoulder, who despises
the nation that gave him incredible opportunities, no one else would.
…nation that gave him incredible opportunities, no one else would.
So many of these people wouldn’t be close to the positions they hold were it not for Affirmative Action.
Including many law professors at “esteemed” universities.
Affirmative action has brought some real marginal thinkers to the forefront of American power, individuals whose small minds can’t think beyond personal idiotology and biting the hand that fed them.
Thanks for posting that, I couldn’t agree more.
Love the “idiotology”!
Occam’s Razor: the simplest answer is likely the correct answer. Obama’s policies are destructive to the US, Obama’s policies are supportive of Islamist control of the Middle East. Islamists desire the destruction of the US. Obama is an Islamist.
Hello to the era of Kerry, Hagel, and Brennan.
I don’t know much about Hagel, don’t like his remarks on Israel. They match Barack’s.
Genghis John and Brennan are pieces of work. Dominant trait of each, arrogance.
I’ve held Brennan in contempt ever since he called Jerusalem “al quds” (Arabic name) in a speech to Palestinians.
A frickin’ sycophantic wuss.
When it comes to appointing people to high profile positions, including the Supreme Court, you see just how shallow the democrat bench is.
We are not that stupid.
Everything this administration does is part of a plan to weaken America: they create problems to the economy, they attack the Constitution, they help the islamists, etc. etc. … but they think only about the final result, the demise of America as the champion of Freedom.
It’s the evil empire that is up again and striking back, a ghost from the past that can actually destroy the future of Freedom.
Apparently we are that stupid. We re-elected this idiot in chief and he’s got a real head on thinking he can get away with anything!
It doesn’t matter that he spends millions on his vacations and we can’t buy the gas for ours, it doesn’t matter that he can fly wherever on our dime, “he’s so cool!” “He understands us!”
Like #$))!
Obama’s silence in the face of Iraqi protesters certainly TIES for “most reprehensible Presidential foreign-policy act (or non-act),” but I must include Bush the Elder’s twin all-but-silences: his cowardice in the face of the Tiananmen Square protests, and his almost palpably disappointed mutism during the fall of the Iron Curtain.
And his pulling back and not pursuing/deposing Saddam after the “first” Gulf War.
The mission in the 1st Gulf War was to remove the Iraqis from Kuwait and stop them from menacing Saudi Arabia. That mission was authorized by a UN resolution and a coalition of many nations assembled to carry out the mission; it was NOT a US mission nor was there any authorization for a US mission. It is extremely doubtful that President Bush could have gotten authorization from a Democrat Congress for such a mission. The US and the Coalition did what the UN authorized them to do; they freed Kuwait and chastened the Iraqis.
I can certainly wish that Bush I had gotten Congressional authorization to go ahead and depose Saddam Hussein; it would have been one Helluva lot easier and cheaper in ’91 than it turned out to be a decade later, but the UN resolution and the authorization was only to liberate Kuwait.
To paraphrase Sidney Berstein, is there something I could put in your right hand so that you would not notice what is in my left hand?
jgets,
Some friendly unsolicited advice:
If you want to appear reasonable, suave, debonair, and sophisticated, don’t include assertions like this one in a post:
“And the rabid wingnuts should stop alienating mainstream Republicans if they aspire to ever regaining the presidency.”
Why? Because statements like the one above merely bury the needle in our Bulls*** Detectors and cast doubt on the veracity of your entire missive.
Whether you consider my comment bull**** is irrelevant.
Here’s some advice for you.
1. Actually inform yourself on Hagel’s voting record on gun control, civil rights, abortion, and foreign affairs. Unless that’s of no concern to you and your only criteria is if he tows the Likud line on the ME.
2. As long as the “lunatic right” excessively caters to the interests of the 1% (or gives that perception to over 50% of the voting population), you can forget about ever having a Republican president again.
PS
My apologizes if I have unintentionally offended any readers (to the right of the political center), that make up the sane majority of the nation’s conservative movement.
For Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Muslim Brotherhood the Obama, Brennan, Hagel troika is a gift from Allah. The spineless Kerry is just a mouthpiece.
You can’t really argue with the bulk of people here for the same reason you couldn’t have had much of an argument with folks who believed in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. For the most part, yours is simply a shared delusional system based on fantasies about how a deeply divided and militarily weak bunch of Middle Eastern states are going to take over the world and how secularist European and American liberals are mysteriously in favor of theocracy. These aren’t thoughts; they’re symptoms. So much for you.
Meanwhile one has to look at those who rile up the nuts and ask whether they have a foreign policy program which, though cynical, might be rational. Well, maybe they do; but Simon surely doesn’t lay it out. Aside from the usual right-wing insistence on subordinating American national interests to Likud’s idea of what’s good for Israel, Simon doesn’t have many ideas. I guess he’s in favor of random interventions in murky situations, the kind of spasmodic activism that landed us in the Iraqi quagmire and so materially benefited Iran back in Bush’s era. A sensible foreign policy always involves a lot of backing and filling and toing and froing because its a matter of calculating probabilities, not waving flags. Compare Clinton’s intervention in Kosovo and Obama’s handling of Libya with the the mess the two Bushes made of Iraq. The former cases were less noisy and unambiguous and also far less costly in lives and money than the later. Somebody should explain to the Neocons that we aren’t playing a game of Risk where the rules are simple and the object of the game can be defined in a few words.
One note about D’Souza: doesn’t it strike somebody as peculiar that a guy who was originally from India is upset that anybody might be hostile to imperialism? D’Souza is just about the only Indian I ever heard of who didn’t think Churchill was an awful person–I once had a cat I named Winston Churchill because he had a broad, Churchillian head. My Indian friends insisted on calling him Christopher Columbus instead because they so despised Churchill. Why should an Indian have any use for a defender of the British Empire? And why is anti-imperialism supposed to be a bad thing in an American politician? I could have sworn that our early history had something to do with fighting somebody’s empire. What empire do you suppose that might have been?
If we here can’t be argued with, why are you here argueing, you arrogant lefty ass?
You mean the leftist interventions in Kosovo and Libya on the side of the jihahi? It wasn’t that long ago that the civilized World was trying to push Moslems out of the Balkans. Libya once fed the Western Roman Empire until the Moslems trashed it just like they’ve trashed everything else they’ve ever touched. Yet lefty fools in the West try to make them into something other than barbarians because they managed to enslave enough Byzantines to build a few nice things, a very few. Most of what they’re credited with, they simply took from the Byzantines and managed miraculously to not have it fall down around their barbarous ears.
You may be a liberal, the people pulling Comrade Obama’s strings aren’t. They’re hardcore communists who’ve made common cause with some unscrupulous financiers and Middle Eastern sovereign wealth to eliminate the United States as a World Power capable of acting unilaterally, and they’ve pretty much accomplished that. The secular left is willing to make common cause with the “theocrats” of the ME because they have a common enemy, the US as it was constituted before the Soros-led coup d’etat in 2008.
No doubt the US communists will find themselves at odds with the ME’s barbarians, but they’re counting on preserving enough US power to fend them off; we’ll see. I think the thinking is that soon the barbarians will destroy Israel thus eliminating that little piece of “imperialism” in the former Byzantine Empire. Turkey will again move agressively towards a destitute Greece and the Balkanized Balkans will fall into place with no troubling Western intervention and once again the Moslems will be looking towards Austria and Spain – they never forgive nor forget, something they and the lefties have in common. We’ll see if the Europeans have it in them again to stand up to them all on their own with no US support. I suspect that by 2050, the latest fashion in Paris, London, and Berlin will be a burkha. But maybe the Germans have it in them to resist, the British and French certainly don’t. Then the Moslems can turn to us.
A deriviative is that rather than nuking Israel immediately upon becoming able to do so and enduring the certain Israeli nuclear retaliation, that the Iranians convert a couple of tankers or container ships to be able to launch two of their already capable short to medium range missles. Slip one in off each US coast and launch two nuclear air bursts over the US. The EMP will return the US to the early 19th Century. So long as the left remains in charge here, there is zero possibility of US retaliation, so taking us out first is actually the safer move for the Iranians. Then without the US, Israel can be dealt with conventionally, though Israel would go nuclear to try to stave off defeat but it would be futile. Thus the Caliphate will be restored and its primary adversary eliminated. Russia and China can quarrel over the mortal remains of the US. You lefties should be proud; you’ve destroyed the greatest civilization ever conceived.
For the most part, yours is simply a shared delusional system based on fantasies…
Harrison continues to live in the world of pure projection as to what and how “conservatives” and republicans think. And what they want.
Despite several bouts of him being boxed about the ears at PJM, Harrison isn’t slowing down in the nature and tenor of his arguments.
A classic modern liberal between the ears, unaware that his university conditioning was pure brainwashing.
Currently ineducable.
A case could be made that the Bush wars in Iraq were waged in America’s interest, even if they were for oil. And the Bush wars in Iraq were waged with the consent of Congress. Were America’s wars in Kosovo and Libya in America’s interest? I don’t see how, maybe you could instruct us. Were they waged with Congressional consent? Libya not, I don’t recall in the case of Kosovo.
Everybody, please take Jim Hitlerson with a grain of salt. He has an opinion on every topic, thinks he knows everything about everything and thinks he has the solution to all of the world’s problems.
The guy is what Thomas Sowell might call a self-anointed messiah. He’s also an ignorant anti-Semite.
I find it rather amusing that a neo-Nazi like Jim Hitlerson would talk about the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Hitlerson sympathizes with people, countries and ideologies that believe the Protocols are true.
One of the least remarked but most dangerous of Obama’s foreign policy initiatives is “Global Zero” – the insane idea that we should get rid of all nuclear weapons. He already has plans to reduce our stockpile to 1500 weapons, even as evidence emerges that China may have as many as 3000 (official estimates are 300). The Obama administration doesn’t seem to understand the reasons for having lots of nukes (including: maintaining a retaliatory capability after a first strike; having strategic and tactical flexibility in responding to a variety of attacks; just maintaining a credible deterrent).
There are reports that he is seeking ways to go below congressionally allowed levels by another of his extra-constitutional (to put it nicely) tricks.
Just for starters:
“Libya once fed the Western Roman Empire until the Moslems trashed it just like they’ve trashed everything else they’ve ever touched.”
Fall of Western Roman Empire 476
Birth of Muhammad 570
Libya was part of the Eastern Roman Empire. It was the Vandals who overran the Western part of North Africa. Maybe you’re thinking of them.
You know your mother was right. You should have toughed it out and finished high school.
For the record, I’m not arguing with you. I’m making fun of you.
And yet the broader point is true.
The Middle East used to be the most prosperous, most civilized region of the world. What changed?
Islam, happened. The people are no different than they were thousands of years ago. Only the culture is different. And they want to spread that culture to the rest of the world. And they are succeeding. I see women in burkhas all the time now, and I live in St. Louis.
Hopefully my contempt for pompous asses like you is readily visible. One day people like you and people like me will have a serious disagreement.
The Vandals did indeed separate Roman Africa from Italy but they didn’t trash it except to the extent that many Roman landowners fled rather than be subservient to them. Much of Rome’s financial difficulies in the last years were, first, from the loss of food and revenue caused by the loss of Africa and, second, from their attempts to mitigate the losses of Roman citizens expelled or who fled from Africa. However, the Byzantine Empire restored Roman control to most of the former African province and were poised to restore Imperial authority to Italy when the Black Plague disrupted the plan in, IIRC, the 600s (it’s been too long and I’m not looking it up for you) In any event the Byzantines and even the Vandals kept Africa fairly advanced; the Vandals were as Romanized as the Romans, they just didn’t accept Imperial authority and taxes. When all the Roman irrigation systems and architechture went to Hell was when the Moslem barbarians took over after about 700. The Byzantines maintained enough wealth and power to make reunification at least somewhat realistic until near the millenium after which their internal divisions and Moslem pressure had made them too weak to do more than defend an ever shrinking Empire.
Probably the only thing teachable from the whole thing is that the Romans allowed barbarians to become wealthy and powerful; they just couldn’t be Romans without some significant service. That was their mistake; the wealthy and powerful barbarians rejected Roman rule. That is the epitaph of all the Empires I can think of that didn’t ruthlessly suppress the Native populations. The American colonists were considerably richer than the average Englishmen and as it turned out powerful enough to throw off the British. The Moslems have routinely kept their native populations in penury and ignorance; to the extent that there have been brief, shining moments of liberty and enlightenment in the Moslem world, it has been as the result of non-Moslem influences. But, since you idiots on the Left are so fond of them, I’d be happy to turn, say, all of the US’ Humanities professors over to the Moslem nation of their choice.
You obviously have little knowledge of history. The problem isn’t just a matter of getting facts wrong, though scrambling to look things up in Wikipedia has its limitations. You only look backwards to find the answers you need to promote your cartoonish politics, and that question begging guarantees you won’t understand much of what actually occurred in history. For example, you have a need to picture Islamic peoples as a bunch of barbarians imposing their fanatical religion on unwilling subjects, and as a result ignore most of what actually happened in the Middle East over the last 1500 years or so. So long as you only look to the past to find what you want to find, you’re doomed to come across as merely ignorant even to people like me who have only a modest knowledge of the subject. If you want to be more intelligently anti-Islam, at least read one history that doesn’t have an ax to grind.
Well, ignorant lefty a**hole, I have a very comprehensive knowledge of history. I’m not one of you brainwashed punks. The World really isn’t the way your communist perfesser told you it was. We’re going to have to have a confrontation soon; justice is coming.
Well Jim, member of the arrogantsia, you appear to have no understanding of history or just about anything else.
In your reply to Art Chance you say: “For example, you have a need to picture Islamic peoples as a bunch of barbarians imposing their fanatical religion on unwilling subjects …”
From all the evidence we have that actually seems to describe Islamic “civilization” pretty well.
Since you are so smart perhaps you could enlighten us about all the contributions that Islam has given the world to make the lives of everyone better.
–i, understudy to Karnac the Magnificent, divine his answer will be “Me, myself, & I”
You write: ‘In your reply to Art Chance you say: “For example, you have a need to picture Islamic peoples as a bunch of barbarians imposing their fanatical religion on unwilling subjects …”
From all the evidence we have that actually seems to describe Islamic “civilization” pretty well.’
But that’s the problem in a nutshell. “All the evidence we have” is obviously not very much in your case. You guys are a monument to the Dunning-Kruger effect, the tendency of the ignorant to be ignorant of their ignorance.
And note this asymmetry between you and me. I’m supposed to be arrogant, but you’re the one with a self-proclaimed “comprehensive knowledge of history” and all the answers. In fact, what you’ve got is a bunch of prejudices that are counted as home truths on a site where some pretty amazing things are counted as obvious facts.
For the record, the “communist perfessor” who taught me Medieval History fifty years ago was an old Jesuit—most of what I know about the Middle East I’ve picked up myself from a life of private study motivated by curiosity. Son, if you were as well laid as I am well read, you’d be a legend.
@Jim Harrison -
Well, lefty ass, as a matter of fact I am a legend for being both well-laid and well-read. Your professor of 50 years ago having been a Jesuit certainly doesn’t bar him from being a communist. Only a little less than fify years ago, most of my professors in the Humanities were at least the faculty lounge version of communist and some were the real thing.
And you still haven’t offered anything but arrogance; give us ONE thing the Moslem “cultures” have contributed that wasn’t either looted from the Byzantines/Greeks or produced by people enslaved, forced into dhimmitude, or forced coerced into conversion.
Alberuni, Averroes, Avicenna, Al Kindi, art, hydrology, chemistry, medicine…
I don’t know how you score a thousand years of one civilization against a thousand years of another or why you’d want to. Thinking about the issue, though, reminds me of one salient difference between the Muslim world and Europe. The Muslim world was vastly more cosmopolitan and multicultural than the West—the European states became, to use the expression of R.I. Moore, persecuting societies, especially after 1000 AD or so, while the persecution of Jews, Christians, and Hindus was not the rule in Muslim lands, which is why non-Muslims had so much scope to participate in the political, commercial, and intellectual life of the region. I guess you could point to somebody like Frederick II as a tolerant monarch in the spirit of the Mogul Akbar. Who else? Intolerant and fanatical versions of Islam have become more common or at least more visible in the last couple of centuries, but arguably most forms of fundamentalism, Christian and Jewish just as much as Muslim, are specifically modern phenomena and not a reversion to some eternal essence of the faith. Blanket evaluations of entire religions and civilizations aren’t worth a whole hell of a lot. They are worth about as much as the assumption that college professors are all communists. (Yeah, I know that folks around here use language in a peculiar way so that Communist pretty much just means somebody I don’t agree with.)
Please don’t take Jim Harrison seriously. He has vehement opinions on topics he knows nothing about (but thinks he’s very knowledgeable on), he believes that civilized and successful people and countries are intrinsically evil and he has a vicious hatred of Jews and Israel. He is simply too ignorant to understand how ignorant he is.
Art Chance, tanstaafl, Patrick of Atlantis, JeremyR, chuck, buddy larsen: Why do you waste your time and energy on the likes of Jim Hitlerson? The guy is an immature, malignant, narcissistic, attention-starved demagogue. His posts are often incoherent ramblings. He evades questions. He tells outright lies. He throws tantrums. You’ve got bigger fish to fry.
Obama has an uncanny ability to find evil men and women for his appointments. It takes one to know one it seems.
Of course! America has to share world hegemony with, or maybe give it up entirely to, our worst enemies. That will surely bring peace and justice.
I don’t think foreign affairs matters just now, unless you have a personal agenda related to certain other countries or a desire to impose your ideas on others.
I think now is the time to step back and watch: its a lot cheaper, and the more you try to ‘manage’ in a Marxist fashion the more and not less control you have because of commitment made to be in the game in the first place.
Iran’s nucs? Well let me see, how much more influence will we have when its neighbors are in real fear of them, more than now? Let the others beg for our help rather than some wimpy kumbaya stuff on our part to make them feel better.
I think Hagel will be great in this role because he is willing to count the cost.
Who’s ready to admit it?
We’ve been doing the just-how bad-and-evil-is-Obama-dance since the election. On the dance floor for the first time are Simon, Hannity, Ingraham, Morris and Beck. Levin and Limbaugh have been out there alone for awhile now.
But I think it’s time to take the dance one step farther.
Obama and his lying, thieving,corrupt henchman aren’t just well on their way to achieving their goal of destroying America, but they’re now admitting their intentions to rape America it with Hitleresque braggadocio.
There is no doubt to me what a Nazi Obama has transformed into.
There is no doubt Muslim blood flows in his veins; that he dreams about the night of the long knives as he lays next to his frowning partner in crime.
The anointed one is the extremist ones who wants to spill ours and our children’s blood with a carving knife. This is the long and short of it.
It’s good versus evil. WWII all over again.
To drill down on the analogy, we’re about to fight the Battle of Britain. Obama is in the process of invading the values and ideals of America on all fronts. From the first amendment’s freedom of religion evidenced by the shots he’s taking on the beliefs of the Catholic Church to jumping from the bodies of six and seven year olds in Newtown, Connecticut to obliterate the second amendment.
Think it’s a mistake to call them Nazis? Think people won’t take you seriously when you accent your argument with talk of Hitler? I think you’re wrong.
Because I think it’s the truth; the best way of describing them. I’m here to describe Obama to a tee and lynch political correctness from the highest tree.
Folks, we’re kissing a 17 trillion debt. Every day, ObamaSpending pushes us into the red by four billion dollars. That’s right, every day we sink 4 billion farther into the spending hole. On the backs of working men and women because Obama spends your tax money like a drunken Congressman.
Of course, Obama is as quick to loot our treasury as he is to massacre the truth.
We investigate Benghazi without investigating decisions made in the White house on the night of September 11, 2012. ObamaInvestigations amount to a dirty whitewash.
But that’s not all. His hate of our military is equal to Obama’s hate for the truth.
Our military is about to be cut to the bone because Obama sees our military as a treat to terrorism. Just like the terrorists do.
Yes, I’m calling Obama a mole. A terrorist. That’s why, more and more, patriotic Americans can’t walk past 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. without holding their nose.
Will Obama support Israel? Don’t hold your breath.
You know what’s coming. Because Obama hates Israel and loves the Muslims, Israel is quickly becoming the Alamo of the middle east. Surrounded. About to engage in a fight for its life. When the first nuke hits Israel, the pukes in the White House will talk. They’ll talk like they did when Benghazi was hit; when Americans were slaughtered. They’ll talk about making excuses and deflecting blame.
“How can we prevent this from hurting us politically? Maybe we’ll have another pretend investigation.
A lying skunk, Obama hears, sees, smells no evil.
And his odorous anti-Americanism is stinking up America.
Is it time for the bandits in Washington to have their Northfield, Minnesota comeuppance?
Have the ObamaNazis become too big for their britches? Have they crossed the line of decency? Are even the lukewarm Americans who squandered their vote to the man who squanders our tax money finally coming to their senses? Because, last week, the ObamaImpecils all woke up to lower pay checks.
Or can we expect no help from them? Will we have to right this ship alone? It’s time to take a shot at it. Or die trying.
There’s no doubt Obama wants us dead.
There’s also no doubt that the people who voted for him want us dead.
They were honestly so f’ing stupid that they thought that Obama was only going to make his policies apply to the people that didn’t vote for him.
Useful idiots, every last one of them.
And every last one of US for not shaking any of them to their senses.
good one, peepers. I see not an iota of it to disagree with.
False dichotomy.
He’s doing permanent harm on a number of fronts. Foreign policy is only one of them. It’s hugely damaging, and perhaps the least fixable, but it’s still only one of the fronts in this war.
And those of you who are still saying he’s stupid are…. stupid.
Mr. Simon should get to the point. He equates foreign policy with what is good for Tel Aviv. The Middle East is secure for the globalist bankers who own the U.S. and Israel. Destabilizing and overthrowing of rulers was the strategy for rule by the British Empire, and is used today. The only difference is that the U.S. military has become that of the Empire. The Rothschilds, if you recall history, moved heavily into the Middle East as their British Navy converted from coal to oil. Stalin bragged that he worked for them in Baku. The only loose end is Iran, with it’s non-Rothschild banking system, and energy reserves. I imagine U.S. soldiers will invade, rather than just a bombing campaign, at a horrible cost in blood. How has the U.S. benefited in the recent wars? The oil resources of Iraq have gone to foreign owned companies, while we pay the bill with blood and taxes. If it was to make Israel safer, than should that state not pay for the “protection”? A benefit of aggressive war has always been plunder. Where is ours? It appears that $8 billion in $100 bills disappeared in Iraq under the Cheney-Bush regime, pocket change compared to the cost in dollars and interest of the war. Benjamin Disraeli, the first Jewish Prime Minister of Great Britain, spoke of the hidden hand ruling the Empire. It now rules the U.S. Empire. A Rothschild made the statement last year that the future is in China. Our military is being consumed, so that the inevitable war with China is in their favor. An invasion of Iran would finish the job. Our military uses Chinese silicon and components, and we would fight China if needed with what we have on hand. We have one enemy, and it is globalism. Starting with Reagan’s administration, we have been deindustrialized. Under Clinton, our military technology was shipped to China. When the owners of the Fed finish off our economy, Foreign Policy will become irrelevant. Like Xenephon’s Greeks, our troops will probably be abandoned to walk home, while foreign troops prowl our streets. Disraeli’s hidden hand still rules. Foreign policy is theirs. If Israel is ever abandoned, it is because it’s owners will it. Whatever Obama does, he was ordered to. The FP adjustment may simply be letting Bibi know he is trying to wag the dog at the wrong time.
DUCK! There’s a black helicopter hovering right over your head!
“He equates foreign policy with what is good for Tel Aviv.” Well, Andre, tell us about something that is good for Tel Aviv that is not good American foreign policy.
Perhaps a different view is called for here. Mr. Obama has chosen the wrong people for himself, not just the nation. They will likely have short tenures, particularly Brennan, because he has a vicious temper, while Hagel and Kerry are merely opinionated, at least according to the public record. Agreements on general approaches can founder (or flounder) on small personal slights and hurts. Ever wonder why Rahm Emmanual left the White House?, Lawrence?, Goolsby?, etc. Obama has chosen men who are used to getting their own way. They will not take orders eternally from a boss who will give those orders while looking down his nose at them. So, Mr. Obama’s hubris has shown through once again, by his presuming that he can control three angry, strong and opinionated manly men. I’ll take odds on Brennan not lasting the first year, even bets on Kerry or Hagel not lasting the first year. And that would be just fine with Obama, who does not care about any human other than himself.
FROM ISRAEL NATIONAL NEWS JANUARY 9 , 2013
Report: Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood Infiltrated Obama Admin
Egyptian magazine claims that six Islamist activists who work with Obama are Muslim Brotherhood operatives.
By Elad Benari
” The six named people include: Arif Alikhan, assistant secretary of Homeland Security for policy development; Mohammed Elibiary, a member of the Homeland Security Advisory Council; Rashad Hussain, the U.S. special envoy to the Organization of the Islamic Conference; Salam al-Marayati, co-founder of the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC); Imam Mohamed Magid, president of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA); and Eboo Patel, a member of President Obama’s Advisory Council on Faith-Based Neighborhood Partnerships. ”
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/164009#.UO0ELo6UAy5
Let’s not forget Huma Abedin, Hillary’s Chief of Staff.
Roger, I agree:
Obama’s destruction of the military will be far more lasting and far more devastating than his destruction of the economy. (However, ObamaCare does go a long way in destroying the economy).
I find it amazing that after four years of dealing w/Obama Republicans had no idea who they were dealing with. That Boehner thought he could negotiate w/Obama is laughable. Republicans will either be sliced and diced in short order — or wind up stronger and better organized for ’14. We’ll see.
What’s left unsaid is that the biased MSM is the real villain in all this — for leaving unsaid everything necessary for the uninvolved to understand what’s going on.
–i posted a link-laden –and thus difficult to paste –comment at #10 over at Barry Rubin’s Noxious Nominations column. It’s got some info re Brennan and the notorious video of Benghazi that –while it’s no secret –is i think WAY under-discovered by most people who would care to know it.
It’d be good for more folks to savvy it before we have the Hillary hearing. If it can help create another question for her to dodge, well, that would be a good thing.
Over and over, people point out the obvious menace that Obama and his ilk pose to the Republic, as if he, almost by himself, took control of our destiny. But are not the millions of people who voted for him, re-elected him, and support him the real villains? He is a dangerous, obnoxious individual but there are plenty of people like that. By himself, he is nothing. The problem is that he symbolizes the hopes, desires and world view of tens of millions of Americans. What do you do about that? Going on ranting about Obama accomplishes nothing. It’s the people who vote for him and support him no matter what, who are the real problem (I almost used the word “enemies”). Unless you have a remedy for that, you are just making wind.
Obama is just greatly accelerating the decline of the US that began when FDR gave Eastern Europe to the master criminal,Stalin,and that was worsened when Nixon, in his infinite wisdom,decided on a “constructive engagement” policy with Communist China. Both have been our enemies all along. With Emperor Zero so obviously maneuvering to bring the Moslem Brotherhood and other IslamoNazi groups to power all over Africa and Asia,we will have THEM to deal with as well,and his inaction on Iranian nuclear capabilities, to me, is an impeachable offense,as so many other of his actions have been,but the media seemingly paints him as perfect because if they tell the hideous truth, they might be RAAACIIIIISTS. It’s only racism when you WRONGLY DEFAME an INNOCENT person of a different color than you,but the distinction is lost on the knuckleheads of the mass media.Telling the naked TRUTH about the massive wrongdoings of our President can NEVER be racist.
I was watching episode 5 of “24″ last night and the similarities between Presidents Logan and Obama are astounding. Not their politics: their methods; totally ignoring the law; totally above the law.
But that’s not what I wanted to talk about.
I’m interested in number 42, Stephen Ryan’s, comment.
He criticizes the American people for going along with Obama. And he is right.
Anybody who voted for Obama should be forced to spend a week with a Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Salesman. I love how these mind benders, truth bending Northwestern agents end visits.
Whether or not they sell you anything, they ask for the names of your friends to infect with their money sucking schemes; employing the techniques of used car salesman bleed you dry.
There lies the similarity with 1937-45 Germans who would listen to Hitler on the radio, attend his rants in person or read about him in the newspaper. Like Americans for Obama, they were totally under his spell, to the point of pointing our enemies of the state. (Remember Obama’s “Rat on a friend” website? “Turn in anyone who’s against the anointed one”? Basically, the same type dirty stuff.
Of course, Hitler and Obama were (are) great blamers. Jews the targets of Hitler. He’d have his people produce video shorts of them in movies, showing Jews to be rats, with a lurid, demonic voice over.
Want people to blame? “How about the rich”, says Obama. “Think of them as parasites.” And Obama’s blame game goes on. Want more people to blame? How about white men; “racist are they all. Unfair to all because they take your jobs and your money…those Wall Street bankers.”
Eric Holder, in the 3rd week of Obama’s first term announced to the people on NBC, CBS and ABC, the new propaganda arm of the White House, that “white males are all racist” (notice not some are racist) but as Hitler would say about a group he hated) “all of them are racists.” Like Randy Newmann, avid Obama supporter, said in his ditty, short people, (meaning white people) “have no reason to live.”
Hitler controlled the newspapers. Obama controls the news. When Fox went against Obama, remember what Obama said? They have no reason to exist. They’re not a news organization.
O’Reilly asked Obama about this in an interview before the Super Bowl three years ago. Remember Obama’s answer. Obama folded like a deck filled with aces and eights. Obama admitted Fox was a worthwhile news organization. In front of a real questioner, the bully’s facade fell like a blind roofer.
In point of fact, Obama would rather be a police state than a bunch of communist lecture halls. Obama wants to neuter our military because they’re a threat to his totalitarian core and replace it with Obama’s version of the SS.
Haven’t you heard all the Obamunists lately talking about killing white males and offing the tea partyers who disagree with Obama? It’s all over the news. Their braggadocia is amazingly Hitleresque. Hitler often likened killing Jews as a game of cat and rat, too.
A new online video game demonstrates what liberals mean when they talk about “civility.”
A post at Pundit Press reports that liberals have created a new online video game with the goal of killing “Tea Party Zombies.”
According to Pundit Press:
Refusing to have a legitimate discussion on the merits of each side’s economic ideology, the Left has just gone ahead and decided that Tea Partiers are zombies. And those zombies must die!
Thus is the premise of the online video game “Tea Party Zombies Must Die!”
Among the “zombies” the player must kill: Brit Hume, Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity – all from Fox News – and of course, Glenn Beck.
“Then you have the Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann zombies,” Scotty Starnes writes at his blog.
Pundit Press poster Aurelius writes that after playing the game, he found it, “decidedly laggy and decidedly racist,” noting a swastika that is visible within moments of starting the game.
A review at squidoo.com reports:
This game is part of some very good games at http://www.starvingeyes.com. Some of them are creepy, others just wacky. Have fun and come back here to tell us which one you enjoy the most. Pleeease ? (sic)
Jim Hoft of Gateway Pundit observed: They don’t want to discuss the issue. They just want you dead.
Violent rhetoric against the Tea Party and those affiliated with Fox News is nothing new, but this game takes liberal hate to a whole new Nazi SS level.
On Monday, Teamsters President Jimmy Hoffa, Jr., called on union activists to “take out” Tea Party “sons of bitches.”
During the August recess, members of the Congressional Black Caucus engaged in overheated rhetoric against the Tea Party, with false accusations along with Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) call for the Tea Party to “go straight to Hell.”
This video game, however, should prove to everyone – once and for all – that liberalism is an ideology of rage and hate.
Starnes concludes: “This is the new era of civility brought to you by far-left liberals with murdering blood lust.”
Living Under Drones In addition to killing and maiming, the presence of drones exacts a high toll on civilian life in northwest Pakistan
http://livingunderdrones.org/living-under-drones/