My three-week victory, your seven-year mess
It is difficult trying to figure out what the left’s position is on democracy and the Middle East. Here’s a brief effort.
Once upon a time, a number of prominent liberals — among them Thomas Friedman, Fareed Zakaria, John Kerry, Hillary Clinton, Harry Reid — thought it was a good idea to remove Saddam Hussein and supplant his Baathist rule with democracy. I say that with confidence since one can watch the speeches of the senators in question on YouTube debating the 23-writ authorizations to use force in October 2002, in addition to reading the New York Times and Newsweek editorials between 2002-3 of prominent liberal columnists. The New Republic stable of authors was particularly in favor of the Bush-Cheney “just war” to invade Iraq. Jonathan Chait (who would go on to author an infamous essay about why “I hate George Bush”) and Peter Beinhart were especially hard on the fellow left for not joining the Bush effort.
By early 2004, almost all that liberal support had entirely dissipated, predicated on two developments. First, a presidential election was just months away and Bush’s war was no longer “mission accomplished” but turning into a campaign liability. Second, a resistance had formed under hard-core Islamists that was beginning to take a heavy toll on American forces. No WMD had been found, and it was now easy to suggest that one could withdraw support for building democracy in Iraq because two of the 23 writs for going to war were no longer operative, the effort was probably lost, and George W. Bush might well deservedly not be reelected.
No matter. Bush pressed on. His polls sunk yet he was barely reelected. His ongoing “democracy” agenda got little support from those who once had enthusiastically praised the Iraqi adventure and had proclaimed their belief in universal human rights. Few came to Sec. of State Rice’s support when in 2005 she chastised Hosni Mubarak’s regime to grant fundamental rights. Fewer saw any connection between Saddam’s fate and America’s pro-democratic stance and the Cedar Revolution in Lebanon, the fright of Mr. Gaddafi who gave up his WMD arsenal, or the sudden willingness of Pakistan to harness Dr. Khan.
Instead, “spreading democracy” was seen by the left as a wounded George Bush’s quirky tic. His talk about “universal” freedom was ridiculed more as a manifestation of a sort of evangelical Christianity than genuine political idealism. Bush’s zeal for democracy, then, was orphaned: the right was now realist again (“they are either incapable of democracy or not worth the effort to implant it”) and the left multicultural (“who are we of all people to say what sort of government others should employ?”).
Then and now
Note especially that Barack Obama, both as senator and presidential candidate, derided the war, declared the surge as failed, and wanted all troops out of Iraq by March 2008, regardless of the effect on the struggling Maliki government. That Bush also confronted Putin over the putdown of Georgia, allowed a plebiscite in Gaza, and warned of the anti-democratic tendencies of a Chavez or Ahmadinejad was drowned out by Iraq. Remember that these were the days of Cindy Sheehan, Michael Moore calling for a right-wing fundamentalist insurgent victory in Iraq, and novels and films envisioning the assassination of George Bush.
Fast forward to the presidency of Barack Obama. I think it is fair to suggest that all talk about promoting democracy was dropped entirely, and for three reasons: anything Bush had promoted was de facto tainted (“reset”); Obama’s multiculturalism accepted that all indigenous governments were more authentic than an imported Western democracy (cf. his silence over the brutal putdown of the Iranian dissidents); Obama was busy courting China and Russia, two authoritarian and powerful governments that could complicate any pro-democracy pressure on lesser states.
For the true coward real power fascinates and is to be embraced when one can use it as a veneer to hide a reality.
Obama is a coward. Our danger is with him courting evil for providing a covering veneer. We pay the real price of his self hatred, even when it is projected onto others within his wrath.
Hillary Clinton is a clown, nothing more, nothing less…just ask Bill.
And what better refuge for a coward than the Left’s moral and cultural relativism?
Harsh but accurate. Much of the Left’s repeated romances with the Soviet Union, Maoist China and Castro’s Cuba (to name but a few) is the fact that these regimes brutally crushed any opposition while retaining the fig-leaf of “popular socialist” rhetoric. As an increasing number of people are beginning to (finally) notice it is power, not freedom, that motivates to the Left. If developments to result in a “Sunni Ahmadinejad” which seems at least a 50/50 bet you can be sure that the progressive element will remain silent when even existing Egyption liberties are taken away.
Dems’ behavior over Iraq may be the most vile episode in their sordid recent history. A narrative of defeatism and lies, intended to bring about a military disaster (flight from the battlefield in the face of a ruthless enemy) would have emboldened the Jihadis to new heights of madness; and not only thrown away the sacrifices of our brave soldiers, but slapped them in the face in the process.
I’ll take it one step further than the good doctor. I think there is something to this notion that elements of the left, including some working in, or closely with this administration, are indeed working with the Jihads to bring about the fall of Israel, disrupt America’s alliances in the region, hobble our security posture and thus foreign policy options, and finally, push Sharia at home in order to break our belief in American exceptionalism.
If this isn’t treason, I don’t know what is.
I agree with the traitors part, but not the Sharia part. I think that the left views Islam simply as an ally of convenience. The left’s goal is to break down capitalism and freedom and replace it with a central totalitarian state. They have dozens, probably hundreds of initiatives directed toward that goal. Radical Islam is a free and easy one. Why wouldn’t they encourage it?
I also don’t believe that they like or admire Sharia or want it to be implemented in the long run. Again, it’s simply a means to dishearten people who want to be free.
If the left succeeds, they will turn on Islam in a flash and destroy it, because at that point, Islam would have become the enemy. And that destruction won’t be slow or nuanced.
Notice that the left never praises terrorism, Islam or Sharia, except in a few rare cases when they are making one of their silly displays of multicultural equivalency. They tolerate Islam. In particular, we would be foolish to think that homosexuals or feminists actually think Islam / Sharia is something they favor. They obviously do not. Indeed, homosexuals and feminists will be eradicated themselves if the left succeeds. They have been duped by the propaganda of the left. Both of those groups would be far better off on the conservative side of the conflict, where human rights are respected instead of used as cannon fodder to pretend leftists care about the people they intend to trample in due course.
I think you’re correct when you say the left see the Sharia threat as a means to an end. But they’re having a pipe dream if they believe once the left have solidly taken over America they will then turn on the Islamic world and destroy them. If the first part were to happen it’s the left that would end up in camps waiting their ultimate destruction. Of course they don’t know this, nor could they even imagine it occurring. Because the left believe they are infallible when all they are is conceited.
That third paragraph, I would suggest, is backwards. Islam will turn on the left and destroy it ruthlessly. Islam knows a great deal more about ruthlessly dealing with inferiors than the Left does. Islam is a much more unified entity, than the left, which coalesces into a single force when confronted with enemies from without, while dissolving into schisms in the absences of external threats.
Muslims couldn’t keep their cars running without western assistance and they certainly can’t develop sophisticated weapons systems. The ones they have now are 100% maintained by westerners or the Chinese.
The culture is diametrically opposed to technology. Allah grants everything. There is no need for innovation or invention. They can trade but not build. Name one Muslim innovation since prayer rugs, excluding IED’s. There aren’t any.
It won’t matter if they have 100 times the population of the west, and ruthlessnes is only a factor if the other party won’t be ruthless as well. The Russians don’t have that problem. The Chinese don’t. And the Left doesn’t have it either. The whole PC thing is just another element of the marxist strategy to break down the US. Knowing the history of leftists, it’s lucicrous to think they would ever be less brutal than their enemies. Muslims know it as well. They would retreat into a shell in the first week of a full-blown Leftist takeover of the west.
Correct. Islam is useful to the left in terms of weakening the West. They will sacrifice Israel in return. Once that is accomplished, they will turn their back on Islam in the East, and decimate Islam in the West.
When you say “allies of convenience”, I think you are right, but not in the way you mean it.
The Left’s goal is power. Plain, simple, Hobbesian power, nothing else. And power for the moment; none of this Federal papers balance-of-interests-for-the-long-term crap, I mean power for today, this day.
Towards that end, the Left will engage the services of whatever tool is at hand, and Islam serves that purpose just fine. Too bad if Islamists will turn on the Left in, say for example, Amsterdam, and drive them out, that’s tomorrow’s problem.
What about the future? Let me give you an example from a past gf, smartest person I know, even now. She didn’t pay much attention to current affairs, except green energy, and had no resistance to Left propaganda, the slogans go right from NPR and
Daily KOS to her thought process.
When pointing out that a particular policy is unsustainable, that we preserve Western culture so that, if not for her, at least her younger niece would have the same educational opportunities she did, she said flat out she didn’t care.
I don’t quite believe she meant that answer, but think if you are having a debate with someone whose horizon goes only through the next few years. Then, who cares about Islam, women imprisoned in their homes, Sharia law, unsustainable public expenditures? Its tomorrow’s problem.
Interesting post. You could be right about the short-term vision. Or at least some of them may well think that way.
But in the long run, if they achieve their goal of a 2-tier society, with a near infinite gap between themselves (the elite) and everybody else (the serfs), then they will have achieved a feudal structure that can last many generations.
The US experiment is the only political structure that has ever interrupted the 2-tier one, and it has only lasted 230 years.
I would NOT be surprised in the least if we found the Obamaites were behind this uprising in Egypt
What better way to allow the “muslim brotherhood” to get the foothold it’s been after? This administration has their hands in this somehow..
Proreason: I didn’t say the left likes Sharia, (though at some level they probably feel an affinity with its exclusive, coercive and totalitarian nature). I agree that they probably view it simply as a convenient multi-cultural wedge to help pry society apart. I think many leftists (and their special interest sub-tribes) take a “my enemy’s enemy is my friend” stance. Practically anything which is in opposition to normative, traditional middle-class values is to be embraced. They seem confident that they will be able to contain the fire of Islamic Jihad once their permanent global oligarchy has been established. No doubt the Islamists have other ideas.
Anonymous: I agree. George Soros for instance, who is pulling many of Obama’s strings, has a history of fomenting existing social tensions in various countries; in order to install regimes favorable to his economic interests. One may argue that he even succeeded in the U.S. (in 2008).
I think you are giving the White House too much credit. BO is hiding under his desk the same way Carter did after the fall of the American embassy in Teheran.
I’m on both sides of the credit issue.
There is no question that leftists are routinely incompetant. The evidence of that is manifest. Little Lenin is a case in point.
But strategically, they have been brilliant. The overall strategy of capturing the media, the intelligensia and balkanizing the US in every way possible (class, race, sexuality, value systems, culture, on and on) has put a structure in place that has worked magic. After 6 decades, the marxist architects have now bred 3rd-generation converts who don’t even know that they are subsersives (most of the media, for example). The brainwashing is phenomenal. The leftist, anti-American assault on the senses is overwhelming. You can’t escape it. Whole classes of Americans (blacks, homosexuals, feminists, unions) work in opposition to their direct interests. They will be the first to be “redistributed” when the coup is complete. It’s really a stunning accomplishment, and conservatives have nothing even remotely similar. If marxism wasn’t so obviously repudiated by history, they would have completed the coup 30 years ago.
You give them too much credit.
There most definitely is and has been collaboration between the American Left, including Barack Obama, and the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas. Breitbart’s Big Government website has been covering that extensively. Here are a few articles to get you started:
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2011/02/obama-administration-held-secret-meeting-with-muslim-brotherhood-planning-post-mubarak-government.html
http://biggovernment.com/taylorking/2011/01/29/did-muslim-brotherhood-learn-day-of-rage-egypt-protest-tactics-from-obama-allies-bill-ayers-and-code-pink/
http://www.redstate.com/laborunionreport/2011/01/30/the-american-lefts-role-in-leading-mid-east-regime-change/
http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=258937 ["Egypt Now Fears Obama a 'Manchurian President'"]
Oh, and yes, it certainly is treason. There are people who should hang, and I would put Bill Ayers and George Soros at the top of the list.
Obama hasn’t lost me – he never found me in the first place. The most telling was the utter silence for Iranians versus the emphatic orders for the Egyptians.
Deer in the headlights?
Doesn’t even come close to describing this man’s incompetence.
A failure to lead, period.
It is easy to sit back and say how you would do things…but when you are put in the seat, not all can follow through…Obama is one of these people not able to follow through.
I don’t really understand it though. He has so many people around him advising him.
…Are they as incompetent as he is? Is this a game to them?
…It sounds like “lets see how far we can drag America down the rabbit hole before the average citizen wakes up”
Or is this a serious attempt to take over our republic and destroy it.
If the American public does not wake up and take control of their country…we certainly will be smack in the face with reality really soon..
I think it’s an attempt, a really good one, to take over our republic.
“I don’t really understand it though. He has so many people around him advising him.”
One often hears or reads that he is or thinks he is “the smartest person in the room”. I wonder if likes to keep it that way by avoiding hiring those who might pose an intellectual challenge. On the other he and all those around him are Progressives not exactly the way to raise the average IQ in any given room.
He reads what is written for him by indoctrinated academics who have only their ideological training to draw from. There is a a consistently sophomoric progressive narrative and every speech and every reaction to world events derives from it. It really isn’t any more complicated than that.
Count me in the “realist support for Mubarak to keep a lid on things and change slowly,” crowd.
It isn’t often Kirsten Powers and I agree but……..
America’s Naivete About Egypt
by Kirsten Powers
http://www.thedailybeast.com/b…/
The best two paragraphs I’ve read was written by Adjoran in the comments here.
http://theothermccain.com/2011…/
This is a country with no significant democratic tradition or institutions to support it. They were a monarchy until King Farouk was deposed by Col. Nasser, and have been ruled by military strongmen ever since.
The choice isn’t between autocracy and Australian democracy, people – it’s between autocracy and Iranian “democracy.” Take your pick, but there’s no off-menu orders in this restaurant.
Once again, vdh provides the best analysis of little lenin’s flailing, but declines to complete the picture.
As a trained community organizater, the only thing obama really knows how to do is to exploit a crisis. His ideology doesn’t exceed the boundaries of his current community, which doesn’t yet excced the borders of the US. So it isn’t likely that he is surprised or not surprised by Egypt. Other than his memyI Cairo speech, he doesn’t think about that stuff, and has no curiousity about world affairs. That is scheduled for next week, month, or year.
But he can spot an opportunity, and boy has he seen one in this. Obamacare declared unconstitutional, and a tree might as well have fallen in a virgin forest. Now THATs messaging. What a godsend. Abortion clinics…hey, tell me about it. National debt…huh? We’re having fun now.
Every thought about Cairo, every breath that is taken in a meeting about Eqypt, every word spoken to or about Mubarak, or democracy, or the Muslim Brotherhood, or the creeping Armageddon has one and only one purpose…to advance and idolize Obama.
His foreign policy can be described in one word…Obama. There are no suprises in Obamastan.
yes …but obama does still try to cause chaos around him …again it is what community organizers do …break things down, take from those that produce ..never build of create.
I still don’t know why VDH isn’t more blunt (…I do think there is some fear of retaliation )
I shouldn’t be so harsh on Mr. Hanson. He would surely be attacked by the rabid dogs and torn to shreds if he were to be as forthright as anonymous commentators, and he does need to make a living.
He is certainly among the most explicit pundits in the mainstream of conservatism. Nobody with his academic background creeps as close to the real thruth as he does. He is probably persona non grata in academia because of it.
He is a hero, no question.
no question ..I think VDH is a hero.
…but sooner or later the argument needs to take in the actual issue …it isn’t only obama’s policies ..it is obama and his cadre that are the problem ..we keep talking about the policies without addressing where they are coming from and what their intentions are. at least not directly.
they are at war with the USA and until that is acknowledged the fight hasn’t been joined. the obama crew expect (and it looks like they will get) a pass.
All y’all are correct and I have an encouraging thought to add. The world situation is more complex than all but the mentally gifted can keep track of let alone sort out. However … people are intuitive. More and more when I see Obozo on the tube I get a creepy-crawling-skin sort of revulsion in my stomach. While simultaneously being impressed with his bearing, diction and ability to spin spin spin the gut feeling persists long after his face disappears from the screen.
I bet more and more folks are having a similar experience. The guy is creepy and the more he puts himself forward (Has ANY POTUS EVER had himself on the tube as much as this worm?) the more nausea he causes. I don’t think he’s the anti-christ but he’s a good facsimile for the false prophet.
I’m with you, General Malaise. The wrecking of America has been long planned and is deliberate. Frances Fox Piven — she of the diabolical Cloward-Piven strategy — was caught on video a few weeks back expressing disappointment that the violent part of the overthrow of America — the blood-in-the-streets part — hasn’t started yet. Where are the food riots? The unemployment riots? The health-care riots? She was actually disappointed that the bloody part of the socialist takeover hasn’t started yet! She’s been waiting for it all her adult life!
Read “Barack Obama and the Strategy of Manufactured Crisis,”
http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/09/barack_obama_and_the_strategy.html
and
“The name of their game is CHAOS,” http://www.redstate.com/heartlander/2011/01/16/the-name-of-their-game-is-chaos/
I’m still surprised at how many “smartest people in the room” manage to hold reality in abeyance.
They were or are doing drugs. You do remember these types in High School, don’t you ?
LOL! I’m sure a good portion of the idjits who voted for 0bmao had blood-shot eyes and tokey-breath. You betchya!
Someone has suggested that their appetite for drugs may be the real reason they absolutely refuse to close the Mexican-U.S. border! They DON’T WANT to cut off the drug traffic!!
I don’t know if I agree with that or not–but there may be something to it.
I’m so happy to see Obama with his empty suit down around his ankles. He’s looking as foolish as what he’s making our nation and government look like.
Mubarak should have declared free healthcare, low cost housing, and a flat screen TV for every hut.
Mubarak has been what Obama wants to become; So, where’s the media support? Is Mubarak that different from Bill Aires, Bernadette Dorn, Jeremiah Wright, Saul Alinsky, Frank Marshall Davis, or Van Jones?
Mubarak has thugs (czars); Obama has thugs (czars).
And this Democrat Congress must be very envious of Mubarak and his authoritative power. This is precisely the authoritarianism Harry Reid, Rahm Emanuel, Eric Holder, and Nancy Pelosi are lusting for.
Deer in the headlights, go to investors.com, cartoon, priceless.
Michael Ramirez is a genius.
A conservative Paul Conrad – the ability to skewer the disingenuous with wit and class – to lay the truth bare.
Here is the link:
http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/IBDEditorials.aspx
Priceless. Thanks for the head’s up.
I would take the same cartoon and make it larger and instead of having just Egypt I would create a list:
1. Taxes
2. Health care
3. Afghanistan
4. Jobs
5. BP Oil Spill
6. Economy
7. Egypt
etc.
Obama has been a deer in the headlights for virtually every issue he has faced since becoming Our Dear Leader.
This is an administration that has announced from the outset that it was willing to speak with any enemy of America…without pre-conditions.
What it did not announce, was the now very clear corollary. They will only talk to friends and allies…under preset conditions.
Since this administration can’t quite figure out if Egypt and Jordan hate America quite enough to suit their tastes, it is hard to put them in a proper category.
There is no bust of Sadat to return to Egypt, like Churchill. There is no construction in their own capital that someone else wishes to lay claim upon, so there was no snub of the Egyptian military leadership left to dine alone, as Bibi was.
The far, hard, radical leftism that seems to jerk and lurch this administration’s drunken butterfly dance forward, upward, backward, and sideways…takes its cues almost entirely from those who hate America and all that she stands for and against.
There once was a word for those who adopted such a stance.
Traitor.
Today…we call them “elite” and “progressive”…and their media “mainstream”.
Is there anyone brave enough to stand up and protect America’s good name? Sorry, all the heroes are a bit too timid these days.
The best we can hope for, is that someone gives a stirring speech to hold out for a tie… for the Gipper.
Bravo, cfbleachers!
I am hearing more and more people use “the T word” these days. It’s not just you (or me) anymore. And “the I word” (impeachment) is getting downright commonplace.
“Obama usually seemed more fond of the anti-democratic than the democratic alternative: Syria and Iran were courted, Israel was snubbed; Colombia was ignored, Cuba and Venezuela got “outreach”
He knows exactly what he’s doing:http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/02/obama_well_knows_what_chaos_he.html
As proreason points out, Obama has no curiousity about world affairs. And no knowledge either; and no ability to understand the basic economic, demographic and political dynamics that are driving these events.
Exactly- Obama simply repeats the last statement/advice that some ‘expert’ has given him; he hasn’t a clue. And his massive ego and pathological narcissism does indeed lead him to not merely betray confidences but to impugn what’s left of the dignity of foreign leaders (such as Mubarak) by suggesting that they rely on the Obama Wisdom and orders. That, of course, sets up a situation where Mubarak can’t resign because it appears as if the US is telling him to do so.
As for Egypt, as I’ve argued in other threads on this subject, the key variables that must be considered and that are, strangely, ignored, are: population, economic structure and political structure. These are entangled.
The Egyptian population has exponentially doubled from 40 to 80 million since 1970. But the economic and political structure has remained the same: a two-class (tribal) one of Rulers and Ruled.
This has operated as a statist economy made up of massive public. institutions (the Suez Canal, the bureaucracy, all services)which functions as a public ‘redistribution’ of income to subsidize and serve the people. The problem is that such an economy does not generate enough wealth to support such a population growth; the result is that the majority of the population live in poverty, there is enormous unemployment (you get a job with the state bureaucracy only if you know someone, have family there or can bribe someone).
There is no middle class, that is, a sector of the population engaged in private capitalist small and medium size businesses which would support this increased population.
And – the political system doesn’t enable a middle class to emerge, to take power (via democracy). Result? Unrest – and Mubarak has taken to brutal means to repress the people, outlaw all opposition parties, reject a free press, intimidate and coerce submission.
And, the most impoverished turn to ‘magical solutions’ or the utopian dreams of fanaticism, Islamic fascism, which promises that IF only you are pure, THEN, everything will be OK. Unfortunately, utopianism is an activity confined to the imagination and cannot set up private businesses or run a country.
Mubarak has enabled the appearance of ‘magical solutions’ by his refusal to acknowledge that a statist economy cannot support 80 million people. We in the West, with our support for him, have enabled him to maintain power and repress the people. It can’t last. You can’t have those three systems: population, economic and politial mode ‘out of sync’ with each other.
Does Obama understand economics or political modes or population dynamics? heh. All that the Great One knows, is the photo-op and the ‘Let me be clear’ statement of empty rhetoric.
This is a better analysis than your others on this topic ETAB, and you have convinced me now that you are close to the heart of the topic, not just for Egypt but for all of the other Muslim countries. Explosive population growth with no plan whatsoever, except magic. Magically, through faith, all will be well, even thought the babies are starving and there is no work, because that culture long ago lost the ability to increase wealth. Allah gave them everything so there is no need to invent, no need to strive, no need to improve.
Contrast with China and India. Both nations, in different ways are increasing wealth and well-being by leaps and bounds: neither perfectly, but given the magnitude of their problems, in admirable ways. Egypt: nothing. Iran: nothing. Saudi Arabia: nothing. Pakistan: nearly nothing. Afghanistan: less than nothing. This is not a sustainable model. It is the model for a world war. And the poor Muslims are going to suffer greatly when it happens. Their chances of overcoming the west, China and India are essentially zero. The west, with our head spinning like drunken sailors from the 6+ decade onslaught of marxism may surrender, and allow the maniacs to win by default. But China won’t, and I don’t think India will either.
The future of the Islamic religion is as bleak as a future can be.
Exactly, proreason. All we have to do is compare, as you point out, China and India.
After all, both those regions had the same situations: massive population growth in a short period of time, out-of-date economic systems operating in the old two-class rural statist structure and political systems that of course, privileged the Old Elites. That left the majority of the population – totally out of the economic and political picture.
But – China and India did things differently. They enabled the emergence and robust strength of an economic middle class – of private small and medium businesses. This capitalist economy took over the wellbeing of that increased population. India has moved on to politically empower this increasing ratio of the population within democracy. China will, in its time, have to do the same. Neither nation is ‘out of the woods’ yet for there is still a strong rural/urban imbalance – but there is no comparison with the decay and entrapment of the ME.
The Middle East moved down a dead-end road; it retained that old statist two-class economic and political system. Why and How? Because it had oil..and could subsidize the emerging population and keep it quiet. Up to a point.
Then it went down another road as the population began to increase even more; the ME moved into repressive tactics. Military repression in Iraq, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iran. And the most brutal repression – theocracy – for you cannot argue with the inarguable axioms of ‘god says so’.
Now, the population pressures have reached a critical threshold. The statist economic mode of public industries and employment simply cannot generate the wealth to maintain this massive population. And, the repressive measures are no longer viable – for the electronic communication systems allow the people to see that things are very different in other parts of the world. So- the whole thing starts to crack – that tectonic shift –
The ME can’t repress this enormous change. I don’t think that Islamic fascism will continue in any strength when this region enables a middle class to emerge into economic strength. So, the way to combat fascism is not to maintain the old dictatorships – for that actually is the breeding ground for fascism. The way to combat Islamic fascism is to enable the growth of a middle class capitalism.
7 February 2011
Baghdad
Ah ! Exactly the plan in Iraq, if imperfectly applied. Lack of linear thought combined with IBM (Inshalla, Bukarah, Mafimuskalah) mentality has been the hurdle we work to overcome. Just returned from a meeting of the IBCI–the International Business Chamber of Iraq–where the Greek Ambassador implored the audience to consider the commercial business opportunities and abilities a Greek-Iraqi partnership would mean. . . “after all, Greeks and Iraqis are not friend for the last decades, not friends for the last centuries, but friends for the millennial !” he proudly proclaimed.
Well, there is recognition that individual freedom and political liberty are a result of a strong capitalist business model; hand in glove. But can we get there?
Ironic that the Iraq adventure, designed to bring a pro-democracy, pro-capitalism government in the very heart of the Middle East (and in turn this acting to prime the pump of greater liberty and freedom throughout the Middle East), is being ‘led’ (use this term with great elasticity) by an administration bent on snuffing out capitalism in its own country.
OBAMA a traitor –?– yep, and so is his cabal. There needs to be a list compiled of all of the traitors. Obama’s boys, like Jim Webb–the Red–who took a durable oath (like many of us) to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same” is a poster-boy for this traitorous group. They need to be incarcerated.
Take good care,
Sandy
VDH: Clueless on Cairo
Beg to differ:
Everybody knew that Egypt would eventually undergo a
Malthusian Crisis, and nobody saw any way to avoid it;
The Obama administration is not _that_ clueless, they
simply had the bad luck to be in charge when the crisis
occurred.
The only possible variation on a tragic theme would
be for the Army, which holds power, to allow the young
educated unemployed men calling for reform to do what
they can to feed the masses, and eventually to improve
their lot in life, as opposed to allowing the Muslim
Brotherhood to lead the nation down a ruinous road.
I doubt the obama clowns were that surprised.
after all they have been undermining the egyptian government for some time and destroying the US economy and QE2 had the added effect of sparking the riots. it is no secret that obama is the muslim brotherhood’s man.
you give these cretans too much credit VDH
Thank you! Somebody had to say it! A regular commenter from Israel here on PJM who goes by the moniker “Adina Kutnicki, Israel” alluded to that and provided a link between 0bama and the muslim brotherhood but I couldn’t find it. :(
Delia,
Might it have been this article in the Canada Free Press?
“Obama linked to Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood”
http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/33014
Absolutely explosive.
Liberalism, think of it all as a death wish, the liberal death wish, things may begin to come into focus.
good insight.
Not merely a death wish either, an entire continuum of failed policies. Their policies continually and predictably make worse whatever they are purportedly attempting to fix…i.e., the black family, the economy, health care, race relations, on and on.
It’s hard not to conclude that they are trying to destroy themselves, the country, the world. Such self-hatred is hard to fathom.
the elites always think themselves outside the reach of the consequences of their policies.
…they consider that they are better, smarter and irreplaceable.
they live in a reality that is entirely in their own minds. they have no problem sacrificing all of us for their utopia.
“they live in a reality that is entirely in their minds.”
pretty much sums it up.
I prefer to think of it as a collision between reality and the left wing system of myths. You know– the US is the problem in the world, not the Russians or the Islamists or the other troublmakers, all of whom are eager to engage us if we rein in the imperialists multinationals and just hold out our hand; the US has a racist, homophobic society and an unfair, corporate domintaed ecnonmic system, all of which requires fundamental change. You can fill in teh rest.
What is disturbing is that othjerwise inelligent people can fabricate these myths and hold to them as a belief system instead of a more realistc view. They then commit silly acts such as sending churchill’s bust back to Britan and engage in all sorts of goofy diplomatic overtures and policy decisions which blow up in their (and our) faces.
There aren’t many of them that genuinely buy into the alternate reality belief system. Maybe a librarian here and there or a few of the more stupid people with their elbows in your pockets.
Pretending that America is a criminal enterprise is just an element of the strategy to destroy it.
Notice that they don’t forego the blessing of the last 230 years. Somehow, despite their public disdain for everything American, they are able to live in carbon-spewing mansions, eat wagu beef, drive around in massive SUV’s, fly in corporate jets and send their kids to segregated private schools (with, of course, their contingents of hand-selected, non-threatening minorities who are only allowed to remain if they kowtow to the bosses appropriately).
proreason,
You’ve hit on something there. It’s nihilism. Maybe that’s the real, underlying reason the Left and the jihadists are making common cause right now. Deep down, both groups are hate-based nihilists who just want to destroy.
I think I may finally make some time to read Dostoevsky’s “The Possessed.” [sometimes translated "The Devils."] It’s about a bunch of nihilistic revolutionaries. Probably as relevant today as it was when he wrote it!
I so enjoy your assessments of our current situations globally and domestically….keep up the great analysis.
One thought that came into my head while reading this line: “Strongmen like Gaddafi, Ahmadinejad, and Assad are weirdly seen as either untouchable or genuine in a way a Mubarak or a Jordian king is not. ”
It seems that Obama and the left have a tendency to “stab in the back” or criticize freely those leaders who have traditionally or are currently our allies. That could have something to do with their tendency to believe that Mubarak is fair game, while Ahmadinejad is not. And the reason why Obama feels free to share nuclear “secrets” of the UK with Russia.
Of course, the opposite is true for those who consider America the enemey….the left in America place them on a pedestal and consider them off limits. Muslim Brotherhood, Castro, Chavez are good examples there.
It is amazing (and moreso everyday)— the reality of our current status is we have elected a President that is anti-American to his core. That drives much of his agenda, his ambivalence, his reaction and his so-called policy. Unfortunately, it is making not only America, but the world, an immensely more dangerous place.
Sharp Right,
You are absolutely right.
Someone tell me how America survives another two years of this hateful nihilist who is rapidly demolishing this country. I’m just not seeing it. How do my children and I survive? If we don’t get wiped out in a terrorist attack — which Obama as much as said was GOING TO HAPPEN (remember that comment? This guy DAILY utters and commits so many outrages it’s impossible to keep track of them all!), we may very well starve or freeze (no fuel) or die of disease.
Here’s what really haunts me. Obama’s best friend for years — indeed they shared an office for three years — was Bill Ayers. Bill Ayers, some years earlier, presided over a Weather Underground meeting where a plan was discussed to ELIMINATE up to 25 million Americans, namely, the ones who proved to be completely resistant to the “re-education” program Ayers and company planned to implement in the concentration camps they were going to build in the American Southwest.
See: http://www.redstate.com/heartlander/2011/01/16/the-name-of-their-game-is-chaos/
Squeeze:
“…Are they as incompetent as he is?…”
Here a two examples- both from supposed experts
“Arab unrest will complicate our ability to fight terrorism”.
“The next time American interests are attacked and there’s a return address in Yemen, the U.S. may have to act unilaterally,”
If this is what passes for “expertise”-well- I will let you draw your own conclusions
Dave M.
The President hasn’t the slightest idea of what is going on, nor has he in any way prepared himself for such events as the street protests in Cairo. Furthermore he will be just as clueless when the next foreign affairs crisis arises. He is being used by those opposed to American policy in the Middle East. America cannot abandon Israel no matter what. It is the only nation in the middle east with a representative form of government which is truly an ally of the United States. But for President Obama, Israel is at best undeserving of support other than tolerance of its existence.
“Tolerant” of Israel’s existence?
No way. The man sat there every Sunday for 20 years listening to that Jew-hating Jeremiah Wright rant and rave.
We should be so lucky as for him to be tolerant of Israel.
If you think he doesn’t agree with all the folks he’s been hanging around with his whole life that Israel is a big mistake that never should have happened, well, sir, I’ve got a bridge in Brooklyn I’d like to show you sometime.
I beg to differ on one point. While the “no WMD in Iraq” meme was a major Left talking point,
it was also wrong. There were certainly delivery systems (e.g., missiles) and, as shown recently in the WikiLeaks documents, chemical and biological weapons. US troops continued to look for them and deal with them long after Bush critics had declared that none existed. The only question seems to be whether there was an active Iraqi nuclear program at the time of the invasion (There is no question that one existed in the past, e.g., when Israel bombed the Osirak reactor).
Thank you for pointing out the truth about the WMD, which even otherwise well-informed people keep getting wrong. Even before the WikiLeaks documents, Richard Miniter wrote a book, “Disinformation,” back in 2005 that debunked that ridiculous “there were no WMDs” myth.
http://www.amazon.com/Disinformation-Media-Myths-Undermine-Terror/dp/0895260069
And even if there had not been any WMDs — in other words, even if the myth were actually true — people were deliberately playing stupid to get hung up on that; the key thing was that Saddam had everything IN PLACE to RESUME his WMD programs at any time, and was biding his time until the sanctions were lifted to get his programs cranked up again.
Obama will never do anything that promotes American values. He will love the despots as long as they hate America. It just isn’t chic to love ones country in his circles.
The flashpoint will be the Suez Canal. An Islamist Egypt might jack up the tolls sky-high, or they might selectively close it to Western nations. Our options? Take the oil around the Cape of Good Hope & pay the extra cost. Implement greater use of the pipelines from the Gulf to the Mediterranean. Put more R&D money into finding alternate forms of energy.
And after all that, maybe even bomb the Suez Canal so as to make it unusable by the jihad-supporting states.
It would be suicidal for an ‘Islamist Egypt’ to increase Suez tolls beyond the value for its use or to close it to any. After all, without that 4 billion in tolls a year – how could Egypt pay its bureaucracy, its state employees, distribute welfare and so on? Therefore, your hypothetical future, including its bombing, is – incredibly naive.
By the way, this whole Middle East unrest has absolutely nothing to do with Israel. It’s all about a critical threshold having been reached in the economies of the Islamic state – because they prevented a middle class economy from developing – and are unable, now, to sustain their exponentially increased populations within the old economic mode.
lol
stop trying to find reason in unreasonable people and things.
http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/33009
regards
You are right in your point about economies.
But you think that regimes in the grip of self-generated hysterical rage don’t committ suicide? Saddam’s invasion of Kuwait was a form of longterm suicide. Iran is committing slow suicide right now. As to where an Islamist Egypt would get funds to replace lost Suez tolls: they would beg from the Chinese, they would blackmail the oil sheiks, they would blackmail Europe with the threat of a flood of Coptic refugees, etc. Remember: nations that cannot afford bread can ALWAYS afford bombs.
Egypt did in fact close the Suez Canal for eight years (1967-75) under Nasser and later Sadat. Don’t know what they did for income then; shook down the Soviet Union probably.
Here’s how to fix America’s energy problem:
1. Convert over the road trucks to compressed natural gas.
2. Open ANWR.
3. More drilling off of shallow waters in US waters.
4. Drop ethanol subsidy!!
Dr. Hanson:
To simplify matters let’s just cut to the chase; Obama and the Left applaud anyone who hates Israel. Obama’s personal friends particularly, being upset at Egypt’s reluctance to help the flotillas. Egypt has a gas deal and a peace agreement with Israel and that is viewed as a negative by Israel’s enemies. The Left and the Islamists are strange bedfellows but they are united by their common hatred. Meanwhile the spin machine will continue the Obama “I’m a Christian” run up to the election while doing every possible thing to hurt and destroy the God fearing. It’s useful to note that the Christian God is full of Love and Mercy and the god of Islam is full of hate and murder. Not the same.
While it’s entertaining to have long drawn out conversations as to all the reasons why, it’s really pretty simple in the case of Obama and the Left. They hate and they have been outed once and for all because they do hate. All of the smoke of confusion is simply the attempt to hide what they are, Egypt being the latest example of it.
Keep up the good work.
Actually, it comes down to the fact that Professor Hanson is a teacher. His style is a reflection of this. He writes so as to lead to obvious conclusions, but then leave the readers (students) to find the lesson for themselves.
That was supposed to be a comment on the thread at 5. Not sure what happened.
VDH – Problem understanding Obama’s policy shifts ? Think 2012 and his desire to get in front of the parade. Obama looks no further than the next self-promotion “let me be perfectly clear”.
VDH:
“In short, the left has not yet sorted out its adherence to multiculturalism and its supposed support for human rights, which are usually antithetical.”
I’m not sure the Left is interested in sorting out the dichotomy here. That would require a bit of ethical reflection, something beyond their ken. Easier to just change the focus. In the current the narrative, multiculturalism trumps human rights.
Besides, as you point out, their main concern in international affairs in general, and the latest ME crisis in particular, is protecting their own statist client ruler here at home. As he, Obama, seems determined to nullify some of OUR human rights, going forward don’t expect the oh-so-compassionate Left to care one whit about the “rights” issue, anywhere. 90% of the young girls in Egypt can continue to be circumcised for all they care. We are not worthy to pronounce judgement on others, especially when doing so puts the Left in a political bind.
In a large body of impressive work on this site, I think this is VDH’s best work.
I have never seen the dissonance between’s the left’s supposed belief in human rights and its belief in multiculturism (which is paramount) expressed so pithily and well as:
In short, the left has not yet sorted out its adherence to multiculturalism and its supposed support for human rights, which are usually antithetical.
Forgot to click in my name.
To say that Obama is anti-american only skims the surface. It is ironic that he taught constitutional law. His call for change in Egypt does not even conform with anything it whatever constitutional institutions in Egypt. He took a similar position when the courts of Honduras directed their military to remove the president from office when he wanted to continue in office beyond what his term allowed. Like it, understand it or not – this was a clause in the constitution of Honduras to guard against cadillos. We can see the same approach to extra-constitutional means in the U.S. as the administration attempts to rule by bureaucratic fiat.
bob L
“It is ironic that he taught constitutional law.”
What is even more ironic is that he “taught constitutional law” and apparently, never read the constitution.
You can check it out with Judge Vinson of Florida’s District Court.
Please! He only ‘lectured’ on the Constitution; Meaning, he gave his opinion of what his interpretation of the Constitution was.
Obama is so completely ignorant, that he couldn’t tell anyone how to become President. He still doesn’t know how he got where he is.
He can’t even dream unless he has tele-prompters.
Obama is the poster boy for the Peter Principle.
Yeah, and pity the poor students in his classes, getting the leftist claptrap brainwash. The only photograph I’ve ever seen of him in his “professorial” (ha!) job shows him at the blackboard drawing a “power analysis diagram, totally Alinskyite.
See: http://cache.boston.com/universal/site_graphics/blogs/bigpicture/ppotus_07_04/candidates18b.jpg
Cybergeezer,
Your comment that the president is ignorant reminds of what the Bishop Fulton J. Sheen said about such people (I guess that dates me). To paraphrase him, he would say the president is educated beyond his intelligence.
He took a similar position when the courts of Honduras directed their military to remove the president from office when he wanted to continue in office beyond what his term allowed.
The clueless, cowardly and unprofessional media gave Obama, and Hillary, a complete pass for their support for Zelaya. Of course the GOP was virtually MIA on that issue as if they didn’t understand that the grab for power of the communist Zelaya was an attempted coup and Obama’s support for him was outrageous.
The Country Club GOP wasn’t MIA on Zalaya. They were just their normal ****-for-brains selves doing their normal nothing.
Why do conservatives or libertarians look to them at all?
Beaner, Grahamcracker and the whole booby show need to be run out of town.
….If this Obama “Administration” isn’t careful, we’re going to see in this country an Islamic/Muslim aggrieved-tail-wagging-the-United-States’ dog. The CAIR and their like-minded ilk are all standing by arm-in-arm in the wings, fairly drooling over the next opportunity to seize yet a greater portion of their camel’s nose under our tent.
I don’t know what to suggest…all I know is what th’media present and that ain’t so pretty.
Finally I understand what the Obama “brand” signifies metaphorically.
It is a prophylactic. Alas it is a faulty brand.
Yes this “brand” doesn’t work. You see it leaks. Intentionally.
Regrettably the user is fecund and aroused continually, but yet his pose is always cool and full of stealth as he impregnates without pause those who are adroitly shagged.
You see, all who get a whiff of his cologne reply, “oh what a fine Gentleman”. Then pow! Then the next response is, ” oh &%#, what the &%%@ was I thinking”? And then we all go, ” didn’t they know, he just can’t help himself.
Yes this “brand” is the gift that keeps on giving. Hide your daughters, and lock your doors and windows. And remember he has pimps, ahem, enablers galore, and they are often are more enthused about the “brand” than the man it’s named after.
And wow, after a session and those sweet words, what and afterglow. It’s like a sunset on the Nile.
For an inexperienced Senator from Illinois who voted present most of the time what could we expect?
Barry hasn’t disappointed me in the least, he’s just as incompetent has I knew he would be.
Note the one very notable exception to the voting “present” pattern: His dogged fanaticism on the issue of babies who survive late-term abortion procedures and are born alive. On FOUR occasions, Barack Obama took a very emphatic stand AGAINST providing the most basic medical care to these babies, who at the time were being left in dirty-linen closets to die, sometimes taking hours to expire and in the excruciating physical torment of dehydration and/or suffocation. That “nice gentleman” Barack felt very strongly that when a woman signs up for an abortion, she doesn’t just have a right to get un-pregnant; no, dammit, she has a right to a DEAD baby. One way or another.
Barack Obama was the ONLY member of the Illinois Senate to actually stand up and SPEAK OUT AGAINST a law that would have stopped the infanticide of born-alive babies. He felt THAT strongly about it.
I believe that Obama’s behavior on that one issue told us everything we needed to know about the man.
It’s just that nobody wanted to listen. I told people about the issue till I was blue in the face, donated to BornAliveTruth to get those TV ads on the air, handed out leaflets, etc. Thousands of other Americans did the same. To no avail. People just shut their ears; they didn’t WANT to hear. They were determined to prove to themselves and everybody they knew just how “enlightened” and special they were because THEY were voting for America’s first black president, by golly, and nothing and nobody and no pesky little details such as the guy’s actual voting record was going to stop them.
See: http://www.bornalivetruth.org
I believe Dr. Hanson has captured the essence of Obie’s ‘policy’ – it is about Obama and looking good on camera as he pretends to grapple with a situation he can’t really understand. There is of course the missing element of his deep identification with Muslim masses and his conviction that Islam guides them towards truth. That does not believe Barry is a believer. The only thing we know for sure that he believes in is himself.
I take issue with VDH on one point. It won’t be ten years before the Ikhwan or MB seize power. Maximum – 2-3 years at the current rate, possibly sooner.
VDH states ["I think it would be fair to say that the Obama administration has been caught entirely surprised by the crisis in Egypt."] The U.S. has not had a sustained, much less viable, independent intelligence apparatus since the Reagan administration. We have more FBI, DEA, and ICE intelligence operating unconstitutionally in sovereign foreign nations, than we have CIA and other authorized intelligence operatives.
As for the rest of the articles focus, foreign relations is no longer centric to national security and commerce economics. It has become a “musical chair” game strategy of social and political ideologies, solely dependent upon which party is occupying the Presidency and his Department of State every four to eight years. Both parties have become solely ideology centric in domestic and foreign policy strategies.
America has strayed a long ways off course from its founding and traditional constitutional intent and mandates.
I’m on the professor’s side 99% of the time.
But I have a nagging thought. When Katrina happened, many (not me) said ‘Bush could’ve done better…he did a bad job’. Different people, same blame game with the Iranian revolution, the forest fire in Northern Israel, this Egyptian event, Haiti, 911 and many other conflagrations of sorts. Somebody should have known. Somebody should have done better. Someone screwed up.
In other words, I wonder if some things are just acts of G-d and humans are incapable of reining in everything. So maybe we should cut a little slack here (I can’t believe I’m saying this). Having said that, I also have another nagging thought that Rudy Gulianni would have handled this Egypt thing a whole lot better.
I think there’s something in what you say. Kennedy didn’t sign up for the Cuban Missile Crisis. Bush I didn’t sign up for the invasion of Kuwait. Clinton didn’t sign up for the Balkan wars. Bush II didn’t sign up for 9/11. Obama didn’t sign up for the Egyptian revolution. All these Presidents signed up to lead the country and implement their policies and try to improve the economy. Unfortunately, Reality had other plans…
Except that with Barry, there’s this one little problem: He’s in on the fix.
See: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/egypt/8289698/Egypt-protests-secret-US-document-discloses-support-for-protesters.html
http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=258937
http://biggovernment.com/taylorking/2011/01/29/did-muslim-brotherhood-learn-day-of-rage-egypt-protest-tactics-from-obama-allies-bill-ayers-and-code-pink/
http://www.redstate.com/laborunionreport/2011/01/30/the-american-lefts-role-in-leading-mid-east-regime-change/
“Obama will talk far too much and seek to turn someone else’s revolution into a showcase of his own rhetoric.”
I thought he did that last week.
Should we be looking forward to a repeat performance?
Two quibles: Ahmadinejad is Shiite; 3am is not a slur if it’s true.
David, thanks for being the only journalist who is telling the truth about how the left wanted democracy, didn’t want democracy, excoriated President Bush for proposing democracy in Iraq, and now is proclaiming democracy for Egypt which will be ruled by the cutthroat Muslim Brotherhood. There will be blood and the MSM left will say it was Bush’s fault.
The Muslim Brotherhood publicly declared war on the US just last year.
Nothing good will come from the Obama administration legitimizing their claims to a greater role in a new Egyptian government.
We are indeed seeing the stage being set for the explosion of radical Islam and militant jihadism into what have been relatively moderate Muslim states, as the violent radicals overwhelm the more peaceful elements in these countries.
I think Obama has taken the phrase, “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer” and turned it on it head. He assumes that those closest to the US are its actual enemies and those not so close are our frineds.
Hope and change … he hopes Iran can be talked out of the bomb and he will change the way we deal with allies …
Hillary was right about her 3AM slur, and Obama is acting as any…
Any analysis of Obama that assumes mere incompetence is mistaken.
The man is evil, intends evil for this country, and will always do his best to act contrary to the best interests of the United States.
If, in any particular case, he happens to act in the best interests of the U.S., we can then ascribe incompetence to him.
@ Cornhead; Slightly off-topic, but your #1 Idea will result in higher food and product prices. C.N.G has about 45% of the heat energy of #2 diesel. Double the cost of transportation and the cost of everything goes up. Consider rethinking your idea.
Annoyed – you have no clue what you are talking about. CNG is the cheapest fuel out there and the best part of it is that it is all ours. And we have a lot of it. Yes it’s energy density is less than diesel fuel, that is why we compress it. It’s also a much cleaner burning fuel than oil.
As VDH points out we should be on an (ultra) fast track to nuclear power. Many nations are now leap frogging ahead of us in nuclear power development but we are still hobbled by the nuclear neurotics. We really need an all out campaign in this country to educate the citizens about the facts and the very serious situation we face in this country.
I loved VDH’s comment about “tilting”. That’s all we are doing in this country, “tilting at windmills”
Am I mistaken, or did Hosni Mubarak just tell Obama (and the State Department) to buzz off while he handled the situation?
I conclude that NOBODY listens to Barack (“Choo-choo”) Obama anymore, except of course O’Reilly and The New York Times.
Back under the desk, choo choo.
Another home run from VDH! Concepts such as human freedom and personal liberty seem to be pushing up posies on the progressive left. Many have observed that one of the chief reasons that liberals have embraced both massive health-care reform and all of the scare-mongering of the enviromental movement is that these two issues promise vastly expanded government control and a corresponding dimunition in personal freedom. Nothing gets the progressive heart beating faster than when they can tell someone what to do in a faceless bureaucratic fashion.
The same is true for the rest of the world. Multi-culturalism trumps everything else in the liberal mind. There is a strong and increasing acceptance of the view that concepts like “liberty” are Western in origin and therefore “imperialistic” if applied to a non-Western society. I am convinced this is why the Obama administration refused to assist or recognize the Iranian revolt against Ahmadinejad. They simply felt that they did not have the right to support a freedom movement in an Islamist society.
As Winston Churchill famously said about the British government’s response to the rise of a re-armed Germany….”So they, the Government, go on in strange paradox, decided only to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, all-powerful to be impotent.”
Priceless:
“I think it would also be fair to say that the administration has been caught entirely surprised.”
What I think is that the entire Obama Presidency will be summed up by this statement.
“Obama usually seemed more fond of the anti-democratic than the democratic alternative”
That’s because he’s mostly a fascist. He wants to control society without actual ownership of it (which is the socialist/communist model.) Now, he’s not Mussolini (or the guy to the north of Mussolini), it’s more of a soft fascism, or fascism-lite. But he still favors government dictating to private business and inherently sides with dictators.
But really what fascism/socialism/communism/marxism is, is modern day feudalism. Obama (& Hillary – she’s more dangerous because she’s competent) believe that there is a ruling class. But rather than earning your spurs on the battle field, you are granted (no longer even earning it) your degree from Harvard or Yale. Yet you still get to lord it over the serfs who aren’t smart enough to even make decision on what food to eat.
The US was the culminating point of the anti-feudalistic Enlightenment. The Left is neo-feudalistic and thus has to hate the US. Unfortunately it is in ascendancy these days. It’s also why the Left can ally itself with Muslim extremists — they are also feudalists.
Agreed- all of these, feudal, fascism, socialism, communism, marxism – are all similar. They are all two-class structures with a set of Elite Rulers…and the Ruled. There is no middle class.
That is, there is no class where private property is the key factor of wealth production: whether it be your intellect or your hard work or your private ownership of goods. Instead, in a two-class economy – the Elite Class own or control all the wealth producing factors of the state – from land to oil to control over the Suez canal to manufacturing industries.
All public rather than private – which is to say, all producing wealth for the Elite. This elite then, at their will, redistributes some of this wealth to …the masses. In the form of public services and welfare.
This system works reasonably well in a medium size population but once the population size moves into the multimillions, as it has in the Middle East, then, the statist economy cannot feed and support this size of population. It requires a private capitalist economy, of individually owned small to medium size businesses, engaged in manufacturing and services – to employ the majority (who become the middle class) and to provide wealth to sustain them (by exports, etc).
The ME has refused to enable a middle class; it has reached the threshold, the limits, of the carrying capacity of its two-class system…and is in deep trouble. And Obama, the socialist in the US, is busily engaged in destroying the US individual freedoms, and middle class freedoms…in favour of a two-class statist system.
The Telegraph
Egypt protests: America’s secret backing for rebel leaders behind uprising
The American government secretly backed leading figures behind the Egyptian uprising who have been planning “regime change” for the past three years, The Daily Telegraph has learned.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/egypt/8289686/Egypt-protests-Americas-secret-backing-for-rebel-leaders-behind-uprising.html
Egyptian protesters promise to destroy Israel
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWcKewmyh_o&feature=player_embedded
Muslim Brotherhood Wants War With Israel
Forex Bits | Yohay | January 31, 2011 2:54 pm GMT
Mohamed Ghanem, one of the leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, calls Egypt to stop pumping gas to Israel and prepare the Egyptian army for a war with it’s eastern neighbor.
http://www.forexcrunch.com/muslim-brotherhood-wants-war-with-israel/
What do the Egyptians want? They have an enormous enthusiasm for sharia law as shown by a 2010 survey:
http://www.jpost.com
Our World: Clueless in Washington
By CAROLINE B. GLICK
02/01/2011
…However, the character of the protesters is not liberal.
Indeed, their character is a bigger problem than the character of the regime they seek to overthrow.
According to a Pew opinion survey of Egyptians from June 2010, 59 percent said they back Islamists. Only 27% said they back modernizers. Half of Egyptians support Hamas. Thirty percent support Hizbullah and 20% support al Qaida. Moreover, 95% of them would welcome Islamic influence over their politics. When this preference is translated into actual government policy, it is clear that the Islam they support is the al Qaida Salafist version.
Eighty two percent of Egyptians support executing adulterers by stoning, 77% support whipping and cutting the hands off thieves. 84% support executing any Muslim who changes his religion.
…What has most confounded Israeli officials and commentators alike has not been the strength of the anti-regime protests, but the American response to them. Outside the far Left, commentators from all major newspapers, radio and television stations have variously characterized the US response to events in Egypt as irrational, irresponsible, catastrophic, stupid, blind, treacherous, and terrifying.
They have pointed out that the Obama administration’s behavior – as well as that of many of its prominent conservative critics – is liable to have disastrous consequences for the US’s other authoritarian Arab allies, for Israel and for the US itself.
The question most Israelis are asking is why are the Americans behaving so destructively?…
http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/Article.aspx?id=206121
Of major concern to non-Muslims, is the fact that a huge percent of Muslim immigrants to Western countries declare they want Islamic sharia law implemented in their host countries.
More essential VDH.
I continue to be fascinated by the ease with which BHO throws friends and allies under the bus. Has this guy ever really stood up for anything or anyone that didn’t benefit him personally?
More to the point, does he even have any close friends? It’s all very chilling.
DD
Jimmy Carter helped jihadist establish a root of defiance against a much resented West contaminating Muslim homelands with Western friendly/contaminated Iran, purging the Shah.
Obama is helping the jihadist to purge the Muslim homelands ‘contaminated by the West’ with Egypt that has been far too Western civilization friendly.
How is it so obvious and yet so obscure ? ? ?
Wouldn’t it be funny if rather than be surprised by the uprising, the Obama administration not only knew it could, or was, coming, but helped it along. After all Murbarak was an ally, and you know how the WH garbage feels about allies. And their are indications of State Dept. people meeting with protest planners fairly recently.
One must remember that leftists can get at least destruction right.
Who says they’re good for nothing.
I find it amusing that Egypt’s people are rising up against a tyrant on their own terms without the US babysitting them along the way and instead of focusing on the wonder in this, you infantile idiots can’t get over how much you hate Obama.
Get over it morons. Obama isn’t the issue here. Egypt is.
I would not say “infantile idiots” but more likely worshippers of a strange God where a curse against Obama is deemed likely to curry favor with some force in the universe.
Here is a President faced with the predictable, unpredictable crisis, who is mucking around, treading water until ANYONE sees how the ground has shifted in whatever the hell that is going on in Egypt. Let’s face it, everyone is clueless on Cairo.
Carter got demolished by the Iranian hostage crisis, but I’m not sure what he could have done differently. Do we think that the Shah really could have dug in his heels with our support and held on? Revolutions happen, and you can guess where the wheel will stop turning, but no one really knows. It is a good opportunity to blame whatever administration is in power for not knowing what is going on. However, as a few posters have already pointed out, it is not one of the stronger exhibits of Obama’s incompetence …or evil, depending on who we listen to here.
AJB, why didn’t you lefties focus on the wonder of Iranians rising up against THEIR dictator and regime?
Instead, you and your Dear Leader Obama completely abandoned them.
AJB: Calling people “infantile idiots” is not a way to make friends or allies.
For Egyptians, “the issue is Egypt.” Does this statement have a meaning? I mean, you might have written, “for Egyptians, the issue is establishing a constitutional republic,” but you didn’t. You might have written, “for Egyptians, the issue is establishing Sharia law,” but you didn’t. Just as Choo-Choo Obama ran on a platform without meaning (“Hope & Change”), so you lay out a meaningless agenda for Egypt (“the issue is Egypt.”)
By the way, for most Americans, the “issue” is peace in the Middle East, which Hosni Mubarak has provided for thirty years or so. You don’t state your views on that issue, but confine yourself to calling other people “infantile idiots.”
Good luck with that.
This what happens when people base their vote for President not on who is the best person for the job, but on how the candidate makes the voter feel.
We need a Reagan. Instead, we have a President with the ego of Caligula and the backbone of a squid.
the riots in egypt are essentially food riots.
Therefor the answer to question as to what to do involves food.
So first have a five year plan to subsidize Egyptian grain. During that five years invest in pulling up water from the ancient aquifers in the Egyptian western desert to grow grain. (Libya shares the same giant aquifer and already has huge wheat fields in the desert that can be seen from space) At the end of five years stop the subsidies and rely on the home grown wheat.
Finally an international contest would be drawn up to collapse the cost of water desalination. The contest would to see who could drop the cost of seawater desalination by $100 on three oceans. Then a new contest would be held. Whoever could beat the new price point would win 1 billion dollars. And so on until the price of desalinized water was ~50@acre foot. At Which point it becomes cost competitive to grow crops. Another contest would be held to cut the cost of delivered water by pipeline. The idea would be to bring down the cost of installing, and maintaining the pipeline and lowering the cost of pumping water.
Cheap water and cheap pipline pumping would make it possible to desert farm 1000 mile from any seacoast with desalinized water. Basically you’d be able to turn the deserts green around the world and double the size of the habitable planet and solve the worlds food water and population problem for 100-200 years.
I have read that Mubarak has 40 billion in personal wealth. You might be able to get him to subsidize Egyptian grain imports for 5 years at a cost of 12 billion or so.
You might also be able to get the Saudis to invest in Egyptian agriculture by pulling up water from the ancient aquifers. That might cost another 12 billion. It is in the Saudi interest to have a stable Egypt.
Finally the cost of contests would also be born by international billionaires as proposed by Bill Gates. This program would run ten years for a cost of ~12 billion.
In the end none of the parties that are non islamist will be able to govern unless they have a vision. This is it. Mubarak has actually been playing with the idea of grain independence–but he has not been able to deliver.
So many leftists, progressive, (communists) who happen to be American citizens have made hating America and trying to destroy everything good it stands for their life’s work.
Now, faced with the fruits of their labors; a world filled with radical Muslims whose kill list ironically includes American leftists,leftist American traitors don’t quite know how to react; everywhere the leftists look, they’re hated. To the Muslims, they’ve been useful tools. To America, they’ve been traitors.
It’s as if the leftists have built their own noose and gallows and now aren’t sure if they want to order the trap door pulled.
What did the leftists expect? That the Muslim Brotherhood and Muslim extremists would treat them as brothers in arms; comrades in hating America?
And where does Obama stand? This Christian in name only, this American hater from way back, now, about to get what he’s always wanted: a destroyed America; a world under Sharia law, Israel blown off the map, Europe in shambles, England fixed in Muslim cross hairs; all this he’s dreamed of. Obama’s got what he wanted.
So Obama and his henchmen should be jumping for joy like schoolgirls whose team just won the big game. But I sense they’re not. I sensed there’s a whole lotta shaking going on; I sense the ObamaPukes are shaking in their boots. Maybe finally realizing that America’s not such a bad place after all. But in many ways, it’s too late.
Financially, Obama has destroyed America with his 5 trillion worth of soaring deficits. Spend, spend, spend he keeps saying. Obama’s morally bankrupt while our country is financially bankrupt. Our national defense Obama’s neutered. No missile defense. National secrets stolen. Or given away.
ObamaCare’s fuel injected premium rises are like Mexicans breaching the Alamo’s walls in 1836 and illegally flowing across our borders in 2011 carrying death and drugs. And Obama refuses to stop it.
Obama’s single payer system is on the way; and Obama’s readying bureaucrats to decide whether your parents should get expensive procedures they can’t live without.
People, it’s March 5 and you’re in the Alamo. Your leader isn’t Davy Crockett or Col. Travis. It’s Obama, today’s Santa Anna equivalent. Obama is here to lay America to the sword.
Call them Muslim extremists, al qaida; whatever you call them, America, Obama has put you in a place you never thought you’d be. He’s the mole in the White House you never thought you’d have. By giving him your vote, you gave him the tools to destroy us.
America. You’re in for the fight of your life.
Well, I’m hoping that we will do BETTER than Col. Travis, Davey Crockett and pals did at the Alamo. Our firepower is a lot better now.
Obama continued/expanded the drone program etc from the beginning and surged in Afghanistan. To state that he wanted to destroy us when he began, but now is reconsidering, is Exhibit A of the absurd stuff that gets said around here, but the brethren clap their hands and shout “Amen.”
But at least we can beleeeeve that posters can be resurrected! That didn’t take long.
No, you misunderstand.
We don’t hate Obama. We disagree with the concept that he has any ability to deal with the realities that face a POTUS or CinC.
If he was back in a faculty lounge grading papers there wouldn’t be any comments or commenters for you to disparage.
AJB
It is not about hating the O it is about the policy. It is about getting caught flat footed with all that foreign aid money going to Egypt and do we continue borrowing money for Mubarak’s personal bank account that is estimated at 70 Billion or do we continue sending money just to the Egyptian Army to keep the peace and allow a “democratic” process ensue and how do we keep the foreign aid money out of Mubaraks hands (?)or do we fund the Muslim Brotherhood (Obama has already said they (MB) will have a seat at the table or do we just send Hillary over there with her reset button?
An Islamic Caliphate is becoming a possibility with the Egyptian “revolution” possibly going against theWest. Israel will be gone, the Suez Canal will be closed to us and the straits of Hormuz will not be available. WE have moratorium on oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexioco which represents 30% of oil supply domestically. What do you drive?
The idea that an aimless rant about “ACORN, ALINSKY, VAN JONES, BLAH BLAH BLAH” is suitable right now is insane.
Look at this:
Christian, Muslim unity at Egyptian mass
Egypt’s Muslims and Christians join hands in protest
EGYPT: Muslims and Christians Protest as One
Look at these pictures and tell me: why should we dash these people’s hopes for the sake of a mass-torturing kleptocrat?
I suppose you’ll just bring up Iran and proclaim some sort of double-standard despite the fact that the Green Movement in Iran was a self-proclaimed Islamist movement itself. In Egypt we have an overwhelmingly secular democracy movement and I hear nothing from you guys but evidence-free fear-mongering about the Muslim Brotherhood.