Barack Braveheart Strikes Again

Barack Braveheart Strikes Again

Recently we were treated to an “open mic” moment during which President Obama whispered to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev that if Russia could just be patient, after his reelection, the American president would have more maneuvering room to “reach accommodations” with the former Soviet Union. Obama had already agreed to a nuclear arms reduction (likely to be unilateral) and cancellation of plans for a defensive missile shield in Eastern Europe (final agreement pending).

Obama has now been confronted with a fact that anyone with the least sense of history knows—but which he apparently does not. When dealing with autrocratic rulers like Medvedev (and soon his predecessor and successor Vladimir Putin), gestures of good will and offers of compromise are treated as weaknesses to be exploited. At an international conference in Moscow, attended by American State Department officials, General Staff Chief Nikolai Makarov responded to Obama’s overtures with a serious threat that indicated what the Russkies would do if Obama reneged on his cancellation of the missile defense shield.

Said the general of the potential missile defense shield: “A decision to use destructive force pre-emptively will be taken if the situation worsens.” Translation: “If you do anything to protect yourselves and your European allies via missile defense, we will commit an act of war by destroying your sites.” In just a few decades we have gone from Ronald Reagan standing up to the Soviets in Berlin and saying “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall” to an American State Department spokesman saying: “We will rebouble our efforts to seek common ground and to seek understanding.” If you can’t get your enemies to love you, at least you can make them fear you. They feared Ronald Reagan. They laugh at Barack Obama.

In an effort to tamp down the shock and anger felt by a large number of Americans at the Obama administration’s constant capitulation to a resurgent [Soviet] Russian empire, the same State Department spokesman, Mark Toner, attempted to make light of the Russian comment: “I’m aware of this kind of rhetoric being thrown around. [But] I would also just point you to the fact that outgoing President Medvedev also addressed the meeting that was taking place in Moscow, and he expressed confidence that despite differences, we’re going to be able to resolve those differences on missile defense.” Check out your history, Mr. Toner: “There are no offensive missiles in Cuba.”

“This is my last election,” Mr. Obama whispered to Mr. Medvedev. “After my election I have more flexibility.” This development alone points out that America must make this his last election and his first big electoral defeat. In fact, I’m hoping we give him enough flexibility to perform a physically-impossible act on himself. It’s bad enough we have a huge modern Caliphate to face in the years to come, but now we have a president who thinks that Neville Chamberlain did a dandy job of bringing peace for our time at Munich and wishes to accomplish the same kind of peace in Eastern Europe.

Any American general who states loudly and publicly a policy which is not consistent with that of his president will be fired. Any Russian general who states loudly and publicly a policy which is not consistent with that of his president will be fired on (as in “firing squad”). If Obama’s amateur diplomats genuinely think this is “just rhetoric” they have no idea of what incoming President Putin has engineered in the past, most particularly as head of the KGB. One has to wonder if the equally naïve and vastly more dangerous weak-spined President of the United States is acting out of foolish trust or merely simple fear.

Recently we were treated to an “open mic” moment during which President Obama whispered to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev that if Russia could just be patient, after his reelection, the American president would have more maneuvering room to “reach accommodations” with the former Soviet Union. Obama had already agreed to a nuclear arms reduction (likely to be unilateral) and cancellation of plans for a defensive missile shield in Eastern Europe (final agreement pending).

Obama has now been confronted with a fact that anyone with the least sense of history knows—but which he apparently does not. When dealing with autrocratic rulers like Medvedev (and soon his predecessor and successor Vladimir Putin), gestures of good will and offers of compromise are treated as weaknesses to be exploited. At an international conference in Moscow, attended by American State Department officials, General Staff Chief Nikolai Makarov responded to Obama’s overtures with a serious threat that indicated what the Russkies would do if Obama reneged on his cancellation of the missile defense shield.

Said the general of the potential missile defense shield: “A decision to use destructive force pre-emptively will be taken if the situation worsens.” Translation: “If you do anything to protect yourselves and your European allies via missile defense, we will commit an act of war by destroying your sites.” In just a few decades we have gone from Ronald Reagan standing up to the Soviets in Berlin and saying “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall” to an American State Department spokesman saying: “We will rebouble our efforts to seek common ground and to seek understanding.” If you can’t get your enemies to love you, at least you can make them fear you. They feared Ronald Reagan. They laugh at Barack Obama.

In an effort to tamp down the shock and anger felt by a large number of Americans at the Obama administration’s constant capitulation to a resurgent [Soviet] Russian empire, the same State Department spokesman, Mark Toner, attempted to make light of the Russian comment: “I’m aware of this kind of rhetoric being thrown around. [But] I would also just point you to the fact that outgoing President Medvedev also addressed the meeting that was taking place in Moscow, and he expressed confidence that despite differences, we’re going to be able to resolve those differences on missile defense.” Check out your history, Mr. Toner: “There are no offensive missiles in Cuba.”

“This is my last election,” Mr. Obama whispered to Mr. Medvedev. “After my election I have more flexibility.” This development alone points out that America must make this his last election and his first big electoral defeat. In fact, I’m hoping we give him enough flexibility to perform a physically-impossible act on himself. It’s bad enough we have a huge modern Caliphate to face in the years to come, but now we have a president who thinks that Neville Chamberlain did a dandy job of bringing peace for our time at Munich and wishes to accomplish the same kind of peace in Eastern Europe.

Any American general who states loudly and publicly a policy which is not consistent with that of his president will be fired. Any Russian general who states loudly and publicly a policy which is not consistent with that of his president will be fired on (as in “firing squad”). If Obama’s amateur diplomats genuinely think this is “just rhetoric” they have no idea of what incoming President Putin has engineered in the past, most particularly as head of the KGB. One has to wonder if the equally naïve and vastly more dangerous weak-spined President of the United States is acting out of foolish trust or merely simple fear.

Barack Braveheart Strikes Again

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Saudi Arabia Burning

Saudi Arabia Burning

News Update: Santorum has withdrawn from the race, but no endorsement yet.

Two days after Easter, it seemed appropriate to have a little chat about our “friend and ally” Saudi Arabia. We all know that Saudi Arabia is hostile to Christianity. Many of us first realized how hostile during the first Gulf War when the Saudis. ”

The beleaguered protectors of the Holy Sites reached out pleading hands to the United States, crying: “Save us from Saddam Hussein. Save us. Oh, and by the way, when you get here don’t even think of celebrating Christmas.
For decades now, the Saudis have forbidden the building of new Christian churches in Saudi Arabia, and the penalty for a Muslim who converts to Christianity remains death. But that’s simply not enough for the purveyors of the religion of peace. So the Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdulaziz al-Shaikh, chief cleric of the Saudi kingdom, has issued a fatwa that remedies that deficiency. He has called for the physical destruction of all Christian churches within the confines of the oil-rich, freedom-poor nation.

The fatwa was picked up by Islamist news stations in other parts of Jihadistan, but so far the Saudi king’s state-controlled media have not reported on the latest round of Islamic religious tolerance. Saudi king Abdullah does not want his phony interfaith “dialogue centers” in Europe endangered by the cleric’s move. He may also fear that the current robe-kissing, deep-bowing American president will be defeated in November and replaced by a new commander-in-chief with a backbone. It should also be noted that if the monarch were truly interested in interfaith dialogue he might open a center or two in his own kingdom.

On March 30, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had a private meeting with the king, in which the topic was allegedly the miserable state of women in the sand kingdom. It is also rumored that she brought up the fatwa, but that remains unconfirmed. If she did discuss the matter with the king, he must have replied “shut up, foolish woman” since nothing has been heard from State since.

The news concerning the fatwa first came out in the Kuwaiti newspapers. Kuwait’s parliament was kicking around the idea of a ban on new church construction to match Saudi Arabia’s. They invited al-Shaikh to speak on the topic, but the chief Saudi cleric figured it was a dandy time to go that one step farther and propose the destruction of existing churches as well.

The grand mufti speaks officially only for the Saudi Muslim state, and then only after consultation with the king. But al-Shaikh was taking advantage of his position as chief cleric for the home of the sacred cities of Mecca and Medina, a position which gives his words significance outside the Saudi realm. It’s likely no coincidence that he made his decree known in a neighboring Muslim state which was considering banning all Christian churches. Although he has no authority outside Saudi Arabia, this message was addressed to all Muslims. It will have an effect, even in those states where Sunni-Shiite rivalries are vicious. Even mass murderers are know to occasionally rally around a common cause such as destroying Christian places of worship. Take Egypt and Lebanon for starters.

Think of it this way. The Pope is the single most influential Christian in all of Christendom, but his secular authority does not extend beyond the territorial limits of the Vatican, and his religious doctrine cannot be enforced outside the Roman Catholic Church. Still, anything he says is going to be taken note of by his fellow Christians. If the Pope declared that the doctrine of transubstantiation must be enforced throughout the Christian world, Protestants would take little note of it.

But what if the Pope announced an official decree (called a “bull,” something very similar to an Islamic fatwa) requiring the destruction of all mosques in Italy, the home of Roman Catholicism? And what if he did so in an address to the British Parliament? You can let your imagination run wild with that. But two things are sure. The secular authorities would declare the bull to be in violation of civil law, and many Christians would be horrified.

But in theory, at least, it would be an order to Italian Catholics, an encouragement to Catholics elsewhere in the world, and a call to arms even for many Protestants. With or without the support of the majority of Christians, trouble would soon be in the offing among those who are scarcely able to tolerate Islam in their homelands now. Medieval Popes did something very similar. The generic term for it is The Crusades.

In reality, of course, the current Pope is a real man of peace, as opposed to Islam and its major clerics who are advocates of the phony religion of peace. So don’t expect any Papal calls for mosque demolitions. In Saudi Arabia and adjacent lands, religious tolerance is honored more in the breach than in the observance. But at least until this fatwa came along, there was a small pretense that Islam was not out to destroy or reduce Christianity into submission.

And let us remember, that the Arabic word “Islam” does not mean “peace.” It means “submission.” Islamists and weak-kneed non-Muslims would have you believe that the word means “voluntary submission to the will of Allah.” Would that it were true, but the words of the grand mufti prove otherwise.

News Update: Santorum has withdrawn from the race, but no endorsement yet.

Two days after Easter, it seemed appropriate to have a little chat about our “friend and ally” Saudi Arabia. We all know that Saudi Arabia is hostile to Christianity. Many of us first realized how hostile during the first Gulf War when the Saudis. ”

The beleaguered protectors of the Holy Sites reached out pleading hands to the United States, crying: “Save us from Saddam Hussein. Save us. Oh, and by the way, when you get here don’t even think of celebrating Christmas.
For decades now, the Saudis have forbidden the building of new Christian churches in Saudi Arabia, and the penalty for a Muslim who converts to Christianity remains death. But that’s simply not enough for the purveyors of the religion of peace. So the Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdulaziz al-Shaikh, chief cleric of the Saudi kingdom, has issued a fatwa that remedies that deficiency. He has called for the physical destruction of all Christian churches within the confines of the oil-rich, freedom-poor nation.

The fatwa was picked up by Islamist news stations in other parts of Jihadistan, but so far the Saudi king’s state-controlled media have not reported on the latest round of Islamic religious tolerance. Saudi king Abdullah does not want his phony interfaith “dialogue centers” in Europe endangered by the cleric’s move. He may also fear that the current robe-kissing, deep-bowing American president will be defeated in November and replaced by a new commander-in-chief with a backbone. It should also be noted that if the monarch were truly interested in interfaith dialogue he might open a center or two in his own kingdom.

On March 30, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had a private meeting with the king, in which the topic was allegedly the miserable state of women in the sand kingdom. It is also rumored that she brought up the fatwa, but that remains unconfirmed. If she did discuss the matter with the king, he must have replied “shut up, foolish woman” since nothing has been heard from State since.

The news concerning the fatwa first came out in the Kuwaiti newspapers. Kuwait’s parliament was kicking around the idea of a ban on new church construction to match Saudi Arabia’s. They invited al-Shaikh to speak on the topic, but the chief Saudi cleric figured it was a dandy time to go that one step farther and propose the destruction of existing churches as well.

The grand mufti speaks officially only for the Saudi Muslim state, and then only after consultation with the king. But al-Shaikh was taking advantage of his position as chief cleric for the home of the sacred cities of Mecca and Medina, a position which gives his words significance outside the Saudi realm. It’s likely no coincidence that he made his decree known in a neighboring Muslim state which was considering banning all Christian churches. Although he has no authority outside Saudi Arabia, this message was addressed to all Muslims. It will have an effect, even in those states where Sunni-Shiite rivalries are vicious. Even mass murderers are know to occasionally rally around a common cause such as destroying Christian places of worship. Take Egypt and Lebanon for starters.

Think of it this way. The Pope is the single most influential Christian in all of Christendom, but his secular authority does not extend beyond the territorial limits of the Vatican, and his religious doctrine cannot be enforced outside the Roman Catholic Church. Still, anything he says is going to be taken note of by his fellow Christians. If the Pope declared that the doctrine of transubstantiation must be enforced throughout the Christian world, Protestants would take little note of it.

But what if the Pope announced an official decree (called a “bull,” something very similar to an Islamic fatwa) requiring the destruction of all mosques in Italy, the home of Roman Catholicism? And what if he did so in an address to the British Parliament? You can let your imagination run wild with that. But two things are sure. The secular authorities would declare the bull to be in violation of civil law, and many Christians would be horrified.

But in theory, at least, it would be an order to Italian Catholics, an encouragement to Catholics elsewhere in the world, and a call to arms even for many Protestants. With or without the support of the majority of Christians, trouble would soon be in the offing among those who are scarcely able to tolerate Islam in their homelands now. Medieval Popes did something very similar. The generic term for it is The Crusades.

In reality, of course, the current Pope is a real man of peace, as opposed to Islam and its major clerics who are advocates of the phony religion of peace. So don’t expect any Papal calls for mosque demolitions. In Saudi Arabia and adjacent lands, religious tolerance is honored more in the breach than in the observance. But at least until this fatwa came along, there was a small pretense that Islam was not out to destroy or reduce Christianity into submission.

And let us remember, that the Arabic word “Islam” does not mean “peace.” It means “submission.” Islamists and weak-kneed non-Muslims would have you believe that the word means “voluntary submission to the will of Allah.” Would that it were true, but the words of the grand mufti prove otherwise.

Saudi Arabia Burning

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Left Coast Ecoweenie News

Left Coast Ecoweenie News

The left hand doesn’t know what the other left hand is doing in California. This past week, leftist multimillionaire Democratic contributor and “philanthropist” Susie Tompkins Buell of San Francisco decided to withhold her largess from the Obama administration since “the president has not been vocal enough on global warming.” Even though Buell is a close friend of Hillary Clinton’s, she didn’t think that the State Department’s current initiative on climate change was “enough.”

Yesterday, the State Department announced an international climate change initiative to reduce short-lived climate pollutants other than carbon dioxide. The initiative will initially cost $15 million. The United States will be joining Bangladesh, Mexico and Ghana in the effort, with moral support from Canada and Sweden. The US will provide $12 million, while the other five will make up the difference. Well, that’s nothing new. China, which is not a party to the initiative, will no doubt be glad to lend the money to the US to pay for the latest climate change fad. From the perspective of the other five, this sounds a lot like “we must do something right away, shouldn’t you?”

“Secretary Clinton today announces a climate and clean air initiative to reduce short-lived climate pollutants” read the State Department announcement. Which was quickly followed by Buell’s announcement that “I would just love to write my big check, or have a high-dollar dinner here on the president’s behalf, but I can’t. Mr. Obama has got to be a leader on the urgency of climate change.” Buell, who could afford to pay the combined share of Bangladesh, Mexico, and Ghana with bucks to spare for Canada and Sweden believes strongly that it is not her job. The money should be paid by the American government and paid for by extorting the taxpayers.

And then there’s that sovereignty thing. Buell doesn’t care who determines how much effort and money is needed to remedy the problem that most people have never heard of, as long as she doesn’t have to pay for it. And she does agree with Clinton about who the proper experts are to make these determinations. In Clinton’s words: “We will look to the United Nations. The UN Environmental Programme (UNEP) lists sixteen major actions that could either be taken on black carbon or methane which could have quite striking effects with respect to global warming.” How can you trust a group that can’t even spell “program?”

The State Department uses all the right obfuscations to avoid demonstrating that its troops don’t have a clue as to what they’re talking about. But it sounds so good. “The Initiative is going to be aimed at action, at attracting high-level public support (Buell excluded, I suppose), mobilizing resources, catalyzing and helping to drive the implementation of national action plans, and broadly raising public awareness about the impact of action in these areas.” How’s that for totally meaningless?

The Obama administration says it expects the initial group of six countries to rapidly expand. I would have chosen “metastasize,” but that’s just me. “We are starting with about $15 million of funding to get this effort up and running.” And in a fit of wishful thinking, the Clinton announcement also said “$12 million of that will come from the US over two years, and Canada, and there will be, I am sure, also some funding coming from Sweden, although they are not at a phase of their budget process that they have been able to put an exact number down, but they certainly will be contributing, as will new partners and others.”

Isn’t it comforting to know that the American budget is in such good shape that we can front the first $12 million without hesitation? In fact, it’s in such good shape that the Democrats insist we don’t even need a budget. Need money for “temporary pollutants?” Just authorize it and it will take care of itself.

On a somewhat related ecoweenie note, we bought our first home near the Altamont Pass, east of San Francisco. At the time, it was a raceway and was used for occasional rock concerts. The most notorious was the Rolling Stones concert at which the Hell’s Angels motorcycle club was used as security and bodyguards, resulting in a murder or two. Today, it is one of the largest wind farms in California. I now live in the Tehachapi Mountains, near a more modest wind farm in the Tehachapi Pass. Both places share something in common. Raptors such as hawks and eagles are being chopped up willy-nilly by the 200 mph spinning blades of the wind turbines.

The Los Angeles Times reports: “The toll makes the Pine Tree site in the Tehachapi Mountains among the deadliest in California's wind farm industry. Activists say birds' behavior should be studied before erecting more sites.” The report goes on to say: “Those deaths give Pine Tree one of the highest avian mortality rates in California's wind farm industry. The death rate per turbine at the $425-million facility is three times higher than at California's Altamont Pass Wind Resource Area, where about 67 golden eagles die each year. However, the Altamont Pass facility has 5,000 wind turbines — 55 times as many as Pine Tree.”

The most notable victims are the golden eagles, which are a protected species and one of two symbols of America (the other is the bald eagle). So why aren’t those ecoweenies getting massive federal help under the federal Endangered Species Act? Simple. Eagles don’t deliver votes. Eagles don’t community organize. Eagles don’t own wind farms, or any other federally-subsidized Obama-friendly project. Eagles don’t sit on corporate boards, voting to accept federal funds and tax-breaks while giving large contributions to the perpetual Obama campaign. And if eagles could reason and vote, they might just vote for their own self-preservation over inefficient but deadly green schemes.

The left hand doesn’t know what the other left hand is doing in California. This past week, leftist multimillionaire Democratic contributor and “philanthropist” Susie Tompkins Buell of San Francisco decided to withhold her largess from the Obama administration since “the president has not been vocal enough on global warming.” Even though Buell is a close friend of Hillary Clinton’s, she didn’t think that the State Department’s current initiative on climate change was “enough.”

Yesterday, the State Department announced an international climate change initiative to reduce short-lived climate pollutants other than carbon dioxide. The initiative will initially cost $15 million. The United States will be joining Bangladesh, Mexico and Ghana in the effort, with moral support from Canada and Sweden. The US will provide $12 million, while the other five will make up the difference. Well, that’s nothing new. China, which is not a party to the initiative, will no doubt be glad to lend the money to the US to pay for the latest climate change fad. From the perspective of the other five, this sounds a lot like “we must do something right away, shouldn’t you?”

“Secretary Clinton today announces a climate and clean air initiative to reduce short-lived climate pollutants” read the State Department announcement. Which was quickly followed by Buell’s announcement that “I would just love to write my big check, or have a high-dollar dinner here on the president’s behalf, but I can’t. Mr. Obama has got to be a leader on the urgency of climate change.” Buell, who could afford to pay the combined share of Bangladesh, Mexico, and Ghana with bucks to spare for Canada and Sweden believes strongly that it is not her job. The money should be paid by the American government and paid for by extorting the taxpayers.

And then there’s that sovereignty thing. Buell doesn’t care who determines how much effort and money is needed to remedy the problem that most people have never heard of, as long as she doesn’t have to pay for it. And she does agree with Clinton about who the proper experts are to make these determinations. In Clinton’s words: “We will look to the United Nations. The UN Environmental Programme (UNEP) lists sixteen major actions that could either be taken on black carbon or methane which could have quite striking effects with respect to global warming.” How can you trust a group that can’t even spell “program?”

The State Department uses all the right obfuscations to avoid demonstrating that its troops don’t have a clue as to what they’re talking about. But it sounds so good. “The Initiative is going to be aimed at action, at attracting high-level public support (Buell excluded, I suppose), mobilizing resources, catalyzing and helping to drive the implementation of national action plans, and broadly raising public awareness about the impact of action in these areas.” How’s that for totally meaningless?

The Obama administration says it expects the initial group of six countries to rapidly expand. I would have chosen “metastasize,” but that’s just me. “We are starting with about $15 million of funding to get this effort up and running.” And in a fit of wishful thinking, the Clinton announcement also said “$12 million of that will come from the US over two years, and Canada, and there will be, I am sure, also some funding coming from Sweden, although they are not at a phase of their budget process that they have been able to put an exact number down, but they certainly will be contributing, as will new partners and others.”

Isn’t it comforting to know that the American budget is in such good shape that we can front the first $12 million without hesitation? In fact, it’s in such good shape that the Democrats insist we don’t even need a budget. Need money for “temporary pollutants?” Just authorize it and it will take care of itself.

On a somewhat related ecoweenie note, we bought our first home near the Altamont Pass, east of San Francisco. At the time, it was a raceway and was used for occasional rock concerts. The most notorious was the Rolling Stones concert at which the Hell’s Angels motorcycle club was used as security and bodyguards, resulting in a murder or two. Today, it is one of the largest wind farms in California. I now live in the Tehachapi Mountains, near a more modest wind farm in the Tehachapi Pass. Both places share something in common. Raptors such as hawks and eagles are being chopped up willy-nilly by the 200 mph spinning blades of the wind turbines.

The Los Angeles Times reports: “The toll makes the Pine Tree site in the Tehachapi Mountains among the deadliest in California's wind farm industry. Activists say birds' behavior should be studied before erecting more sites.” The report goes on to say: “Those deaths give Pine Tree one of the highest avian mortality rates in California's wind farm industry. The death rate per turbine at the $425-million facility is three times higher than at California's Altamont Pass Wind Resource Area, where about 67 golden eagles die each year. However, the Altamont Pass facility has 5,000 wind turbines — 55 times as many as Pine Tree.”

The most notable victims are the golden eagles, which are a protected species and one of two symbols of America (the other is the bald eagle). So why aren’t those ecoweenies getting massive federal help under the federal Endangered Species Act? Simple. Eagles don’t deliver votes. Eagles don’t community organize. Eagles don’t own wind farms, or any other federally-subsidized Obama-friendly project. Eagles don’t sit on corporate boards, voting to accept federal funds and tax-breaks while giving large contributions to the perpetual Obama campaign. And if eagles could reason and vote, they might just vote for their own self-preservation over inefficient but deadly green schemes.

Left Coast Ecoweenie News

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Have We Apologized Enough Yet?

Have We Apologized Enough Yet?

The more I think about the Obama administration’s magical mystery apology tour, the harder it is for me to let go and behave rationally. OK, a small group of young warriors are alleged to have urinated on some dead Taliban. Big deal. Slap ‘em on the wrist and let’s get on with the real world. But for God’s (and America’s) sake, stop the apologies for everything America does that doesn’t comport with “world opinion.”

Even AA tells its members to make amends unless to do so would harm oneself or others. Since the first day of the Obama administration, they have been apologizing for America’s every misstep, including the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden. The apologies for the actions of the Marines peeing on dead lowlifes has turned into a pathetic Greek chorus. As Christians in Egypt are being murdered en masse, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton reserves her "dismay" for dead Taliban and her angry criticism for our own Marines.

To add insult to injury, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta practically fell over his own feet rushing to the phone to call the vile Taliban-friendly Afghan President Hamid Karzai to apologize for the Marines’ barbaric behavior. You can see from the accompanying picture how the Taliban treat prisoners, dead or alive. I don’t know about Panetta, but I’d rather be peed on dead than hanged alive. Panetta told Karzai that the Marines’ actions were “deplorable.” That to a leader of a nation that treats civilians as if they were armed combatants, tortures and brutalizes opponents, and hangs prisoners of war from public overhangs without even the pretense of legal process.

Karzai’s reply said that the Marines’ behavior was “inhuman and condemnable in the strongest possible terms.” I can understand how the leader of such a peace-loving people would think that. The Afghans and the Taliban rarely torture and murder prisoners before first having attended to the important business of stoning adulteresses to death, neutering homosexuals, and beheading apostates. The Taliban themselves were even clearer in their call for an American apology: “These were the inhuman acts of wild American soldiers in contradiction with all human and ethical norms.” They ought to know inhuman acts when they see them.

This pattern of apology is not something new with the Obama administration. It’s just that they’ve elevated apologizing for their country to high art. George Bush admonished us not to make judgments about the religion of peace: “Islam’s teachings are good and peaceful and those who commit evil in the name of Allah blaspheme the name of Allah.” Yes, George, and those who have never read the Koran should keep their big mouths shut. His Secretary of State, Condoleeza Rice, called Islam the religion of love and peace.

During Bill Clinton’s presidency, Hillary said that Islam’s “deepest yearning of all is to live in peace.” His Secretary of State, Madeline Albright said that “Islam is a faith that honors consultation, cherishes peace, and has as one of its fundamental principles the inherent equality of all who embrace it.” And the inequality of all those who deserve a violent death for not embracing it.

The alleged and real incidents for which America must apologize are too many to list in a short article. But one thing is sure. The administrations and the mainstream media have treated each incident as earth-shattering events requiring massive apologies to the jihadists (a word now not to be used in polite company). There are no minor infractions or simple mistakes in judgment. Only great disruption of the peace of the world and shocks administered to the conscience of man. Abu-Ghraib and the sophomoric hi jinx of youngsters who should have known better was raised to the level of Auschwitz. APOLOGY. Military personnel at Guantanamo performed the impossible task of flushing a Koran down a toilet. APOLOGY. The innocent prisoners at Guantanamo were being abused and tortured. APOLOGY.

Two themes, both wrong, have emerged from these hysterical mea culpas. One is that we must apologize because the reason Islamists hate us is that we’re so mean to them. The other is that by prostrating ourselves before these primitives we can achieve peace. At the cost of American honor, American strength, and reality. Worst of all, the Islamists don’t even pretend to think that the apologies are in good faith. They merely laugh at our weakness and servility, and plot their next real atrocity. To date, all our apologies aren’t worth a bucket of warm spit, and have accomplished the exact opposite of their seeming purpose (you know—the thing that the road to Hell is paved with).

For all the apologies, all the hand-wringing and soul-searching of the clueless do-gooders, there have been over 18,000 Islamic terrorist attacks or attempts just since 9-11. Obama himself has apologized, on foreign soil, for America's arrogance and racist history. Obama, Clinton, Panetta and all the other usual suspects think the only thing wrong with their apologies is that they’re not numerous enough, self-flagellating enough, or quick enough. To them I have only one thing to say: ”P#@s on you."

End of rant.

The more I think about the Obama administration’s magical mystery apology tour, the harder it is for me to let go and behave rationally. OK, a small group of young warriors are alleged to have urinated on some dead Taliban. Big deal. Slap ‘em on the wrist and let’s get on with the real world. But for God’s (and America’s) sake, stop the apologies for everything America does that doesn’t comport with “world opinion.”

Even AA tells its members to make amends unless to do so would harm oneself or others. Since the first day of the Obama administration, they have been apologizing for America’s every misstep, including the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden. The apologies for the actions of the Marines peeing on dead lowlifes has turned into a pathetic Greek chorus. As Christians in Egypt are being murdered en masse, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton reserves her "dismay" for dead Taliban and her angry criticism for our own Marines.

To add insult to injury, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta practically fell over his own feet rushing to the phone to call the vile Taliban-friendly Afghan President Hamid Karzai to apologize for the Marines’ barbaric behavior. You can see from the accompanying picture how the Taliban treat prisoners, dead or alive. I don’t know about Panetta, but I’d rather be peed on dead than hanged alive. Panetta told Karzai that the Marines’ actions were “deplorable.” That to a leader of a nation that treats civilians as if they were armed combatants, tortures and brutalizes opponents, and hangs prisoners of war from public overhangs without even the pretense of legal process.

Karzai’s reply said that the Marines’ behavior was “inhuman and condemnable in the strongest possible terms.” I can understand how the leader of such a peace-loving people would think that. The Afghans and the Taliban rarely torture and murder prisoners before first having attended to the important business of stoning adulteresses to death, neutering homosexuals, and beheading apostates. The Taliban themselves were even clearer in their call for an American apology: “These were the inhuman acts of wild American soldiers in contradiction with all human and ethical norms.” They ought to know inhuman acts when they see them.

This pattern of apology is not something new with the Obama administration. It’s just that they’ve elevated apologizing for their country to high art. George Bush admonished us not to make judgments about the religion of peace: “Islam’s teachings are good and peaceful and those who commit evil in the name of Allah blaspheme the name of Allah.” Yes, George, and those who have never read the Koran should keep their big mouths shut. His Secretary of State, Condoleeza Rice, called Islam the religion of love and peace.

During Bill Clinton’s presidency, Hillary said that Islam’s “deepest yearning of all is to live in peace.” His Secretary of State, Madeline Albright said that “Islam is a faith that honors consultation, cherishes peace, and has as one of its fundamental principles the inherent equality of all who embrace it.” And the inequality of all those who deserve a violent death for not embracing it.

The alleged and real incidents for which America must apologize are too many to list in a short article. But one thing is sure. The administrations and the mainstream media have treated each incident as earth-shattering events requiring massive apologies to the jihadists (a word now not to be used in polite company). There are no minor infractions or simple mistakes in judgment. Only great disruption of the peace of the world and shocks administered to the conscience of man. Abu-Ghraib and the sophomoric hi jinx of youngsters who should have known better was raised to the level of Auschwitz. APOLOGY. Military personnel at Guantanamo performed the impossible task of flushing a Koran down a toilet. APOLOGY. The innocent prisoners at Guantanamo were being abused and tortured. APOLOGY.

Two themes, both wrong, have emerged from these hysterical mea culpas. One is that we must apologize because the reason Islamists hate us is that we’re so mean to them. The other is that by prostrating ourselves before these primitives we can achieve peace. At the cost of American honor, American strength, and reality. Worst of all, the Islamists don’t even pretend to think that the apologies are in good faith. They merely laugh at our weakness and servility, and plot their next real atrocity. To date, all our apologies aren’t worth a bucket of warm spit, and have accomplished the exact opposite of their seeming purpose (you know—the thing that the road to Hell is paved with).

For all the apologies, all the hand-wringing and soul-searching of the clueless do-gooders, there have been over 18,000 Islamic terrorist attacks or attempts just since 9-11. Obama himself has apologized, on foreign soil, for America's arrogance and racist history. Obama, Clinton, Panetta and all the other usual suspects think the only thing wrong with their apologies is that they’re not numerous enough, self-flagellating enough, or quick enough. To them I have only one thing to say: ”P#@s on you."

End of rant.

Have We Apologized Enough Yet?

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Liberals to Obama: “Quit!”

Liberals to Obama: “Quit!”

There have been rumbles for some time about Obama dragging down the left. . . as if they need help. But nobody reputable has said anything publicly, until now. In an editorial in The Wall Street Journal two Democratic pollsters, Patrick Caddell and Douglas Schoen, have openly asked his Messiahness to step down and let someone competent replace him in 2012. Specifically, they want Hillary. Ha! While I LOVE the sentiment, the argument is actually pretty ridiculous.

Caddell and Schoen first state that they think Obama can win re-election, “but the kind of campaign required for the president’s political survival would make it almost impossible for him to govern.” Then they invoke both Truman and Johnson as Presidents who “accepted the reality that they could not effectively govern the nation if they sought re-election.” Both took what Caddell and Schoen call “the moral high ground” of not running for re-election. Thus, since Obama cannot campaign in a way that will let him govern, they call for him to step aside and let Hillary run in his place.

Good times.

Entertaining though it may be, this argument is completely flawed. For one thing, Obama can’t win re-election. Not only is he historically low in the polls, but he’s been there so consistently no matter what’s happened that it’s clear the public has stopped listening. In other words, he’s run out of second chances. And running the negative campaign they think is necessary for him to win won’t help either. This election will be a referendum on Obama and Obama only -- attacking the other guy can’t help him. Not to mention, going negative will only fire up the Tea Party who want to ship his lazy *ss back to whence it came.

Secondly, they are sadly mistaken if they think narcissist Obama will EVER step down. Buddhist monks could literally be setting themselves on fire on the White House lawn and his majesty would still believe the people love him.

Moreover, there’s a huge flaw in their assumption that Obama resigning would somehow change the calculation. Indeed, this concept highlights several of the problems with liberal thinking. For example, they don’t grasp that it’s his policies that have been the problem, not the man. Sure, Obama is a turd as a human being, but people don’t hate him because he’s a turd, they hate everything he’s done. Hillary wouldn’t do a thing differently and we know that. So why should anyone think changing the figurehead for a hateful, pathetic bowel movement like liberalism will somehow make liberalism acceptable? That is frankly stupid.

Further, they argue that Obama resigning “would put great pressure” on Republicans to compromise. <<== That right there is why liberals lose wars, folks. These bozos actually think Obama’s complete surrender will suddenly get Republicans to compromise?! That’s not how reality works. The consistent human instinct for thousands of generations has been to crush an enemy when they are down. . . not cater to their desires.

They also argue this would be constructive because it would “change the dynamic from who is more to blame – George W. Bush or Barack Obama – to a more constructive dialog.” Uh. . . no. Only hardcore leftists think this is still the dynamic. Obama has been the leader for three years. He shoved the federal government up our collective rumps over and over, he tried to unionize private companies, spent the country to death, crushed our medical system, gave aid and comfort to our enemies, abandoned our friends, and otherwise soiled and ruined everything for which the United States stands. The only question people will ask now is: “do you want this to continue or not?” And the dynamic will be those who work for a living versus those who leech for living. That’s it.

Finally, they contend Hillary could reach “an historic agreement” with Republicans just like her husband did, but Obama can’t. And they claim this is important because it’s the best way to “preserve Obama’s achievements.” Hardly. The public wants Obama rousted and the country fumigated. The Republicans get this and they will not cut deals with Hillary or anyone else to preserve Obama’s “achievements.” This goes back to the surrender fantasy.

Obama stepping aside is fun to talk about and I love the demoralizing aspect of this on the left, just like I LOVE how Chris Matthews’s tingle has turned into the burn of an STD, but forget Obama stepping aside to save the Democrats. . . that will never happen. And definitely forget the idea the public would forgive the Democrats if Obama does step aside. The Democrats spent the last few years raping the American dream and the American public is in no mood to forgive them.

There have been rumbles for some time about Obama dragging down the left. . . as if they need help. But nobody reputable has said anything publicly, until now. In an editorial in The Wall Street Journal two Democratic pollsters, Patrick Caddell and Douglas Schoen, have openly asked his Messiahness to step down and let someone competent replace him in 2012. Specifically, they want Hillary. Ha! While I LOVE the sentiment, the argument is actually pretty ridiculous.

Caddell and Schoen first state that they think Obama can win re-election, “but the kind of campaign required for the president’s political survival would make it almost impossible for him to govern.” Then they invoke both Truman and Johnson as Presidents who “accepted the reality that they could not effectively govern the nation if they sought re-election.” Both took what Caddell and Schoen call “the moral high ground” of not running for re-election. Thus, since Obama cannot campaign in a way that will let him govern, they call for him to step aside and let Hillary run in his place.

Good times.

Entertaining though it may be, this argument is completely flawed. For one thing, Obama can’t win re-election. Not only is he historically low in the polls, but he’s been there so consistently no matter what’s happened that it’s clear the public has stopped listening. In other words, he’s run out of second chances. And running the negative campaign they think is necessary for him to win won’t help either. This election will be a referendum on Obama and Obama only -- attacking the other guy can’t help him. Not to mention, going negative will only fire up the Tea Party who want to ship his lazy *ss back to whence it came.

Secondly, they are sadly mistaken if they think narcissist Obama will EVER step down. Buddhist monks could literally be setting themselves on fire on the White House lawn and his majesty would still believe the people love him.

Moreover, there’s a huge flaw in their assumption that Obama resigning would somehow change the calculation. Indeed, this concept highlights several of the problems with liberal thinking. For example, they don’t grasp that it’s his policies that have been the problem, not the man. Sure, Obama is a turd as a human being, but people don’t hate him because he’s a turd, they hate everything he’s done. Hillary wouldn’t do a thing differently and we know that. So why should anyone think changing the figurehead for a hateful, pathetic bowel movement like liberalism will somehow make liberalism acceptable? That is frankly stupid.

Further, they argue that Obama resigning “would put great pressure” on Republicans to compromise. <<== That right there is why liberals lose wars, folks. These bozos actually think Obama’s complete surrender will suddenly get Republicans to compromise?! That’s not how reality works. The consistent human instinct for thousands of generations has been to crush an enemy when they are down. . . not cater to their desires.

They also argue this would be constructive because it would “change the dynamic from who is more to blame – George W. Bush or Barack Obama – to a more constructive dialog.” Uh. . . no. Only hardcore leftists think this is still the dynamic. Obama has been the leader for three years. He shoved the federal government up our collective rumps over and over, he tried to unionize private companies, spent the country to death, crushed our medical system, gave aid and comfort to our enemies, abandoned our friends, and otherwise soiled and ruined everything for which the United States stands. The only question people will ask now is: “do you want this to continue or not?” And the dynamic will be those who work for a living versus those who leech for living. That’s it.

Finally, they contend Hillary could reach “an historic agreement” with Republicans just like her husband did, but Obama can’t. And they claim this is important because it’s the best way to “preserve Obama’s achievements.” Hardly. The public wants Obama rousted and the country fumigated. The Republicans get this and they will not cut deals with Hillary or anyone else to preserve Obama’s “achievements.” This goes back to the surrender fantasy.

Obama stepping aside is fun to talk about and I love the demoralizing aspect of this on the left, just like I LOVE how Chris Matthews’s tingle has turned into the burn of an STD, but forget Obama stepping aside to save the Democrats. . . that will never happen. And definitely forget the idea the public would forgive the Democrats if Obama does step aside. The Democrats spent the last few years raping the American dream and the American public is in no mood to forgive them.

Liberals to Obama: “Quit!”

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Busting Adbusters and Occupy Wall Street

Busting Adbusters and Occupy Wall Street

We finally got past Foreskin Man's antisemitic campaign to ban infant circumcision when a state court declared the San Francisco and Santa Monica ordinances in violation of California law and a violation of First Amendment religious protection. But never fear. The new antisemitism is alive and well and occupying Wall Street.

In a previous post, I mentioned that much of the early organizational impetus for the "spontaneous" Occupy Wall Street movement came from Nazi collaborator and currency manipulator George Soros in Adbusters, the Canadian magazine which first started organizing people to descend on New York City (see: Twitter Twits). But Georgie Boy is the puppetmaster who likes to stay hidden behind the screen. The real brains and major funder behind the magazine and the public image of Adbusters is retired Wall Street stock trader Robert Halper.

It seems that Halper subscribes to two dicta: "There's no antisemite like an old antisemite," and "I got mine, f--- you." Halper still lives in luxury in Upper West Side New York City, near his old haunts at the New York Mercantile Exchange (he is a former VP of that organization) and various other Wall Street locations. He continues to lob missiles and missals at the voraciousness of Wall Street, but as of this writing has not donned sackloth and ashes nor given away all his wealth to the unwashed poor occupying the sidewalks of New York.

But he did write Adbusters a check for $20,000. His checks to the magazine are usually between $50,000 and $75,000. Don't take my word for it. My source is The New York Times (absent my editorial comments, of course): He Made It On Wall Street.

Halper and his magazine claim to be solely anti-corporation and anti-capitalism, but there is a much darker side to their dogma. Their most famous headline from 2004 in an article about American neo-conservatives was entitled "Why Won't Anyone Say They Are Jewish?" At age 54, Halper is not as experienced as Soros at disguising his antisemitism, and in fact at times seems to take pride in it. Both Soros and Halper know how to manipulate currency and manipulate ignorant people.

Adbusters has run articles that are often distinctly anti-Israel and at the same time covertly antisemitic (in the sense that "antisemitic" means "anti-Jewish"). Following up on its suggestion that all, or nearly all, neo-conservatives are Jewish, it then blamed the Iraq war on them. Some time later, it blamed the Israelis for the violence in Palestine. It even managed to suggest that the Holocaust Museum's images of the Warsaw Ghetto were somehow ironically symbolic of the way Israel treats the Palestinians in Gaza. Much of what Adbusters prints is allegedly political humor. It ain't funny.

The Wall Street occupiers have multiple inchoate and unfathomable "causes" to promote, and it's impossible to say honestly that its main theme is antisemitism. But it is certainly a major motif. Dozens of antisemitic and anti-Israel placards (many of them professionally-printed, out-of-town shall we say?). We all know in our heart of hearts that Wall Street=Jewish=rich=bankers=conspiracy. Don't we? When these signs and rabid antisemitic speakers show up to stoke the mob's anger at almost everything, the mainstream media yawns. The crowd does nothing to to quell the bigots.

When a few racists showed up at Tea Party rallies, the Partiers exercised their own right to expel them and loudly denounce them. Yet unlike the Wall Street situation, the MSM treated the Tea Party rallies as if they were huge convocations of a newly-revitalized Ku Klux Klan. Liberals and other Democrats also ignore the antisemitism being displayed at the Occupy rallies nationwide, preferring to claim that these are spontaneous, peaceful demonstrations expressing frustration with the current economic conditions. Grassroots, don't you know?

Among the prominent Democrats supporting and encouraging the Occupy mobs are Nancy Pelosi (who called the Tea Party "astroturf"), Hillary Clinton (and her occasional husband Bill Clinton), and The One, Barack Obama himself. The ignorant, self-centered, half-assed socialism being espoused by the potentially-dangerous mob now has a strong historical "enemy" to aim its anger at. The Jews did it. We're all poor and downtrodden because of those Wall Street Jews. Most disgusting of all, Democratic leaders want the votes of these know-nothings so badly that they completely ignore or downplay the resurgence of American antisemitism.

We finally got past Foreskin Man's antisemitic campaign to ban infant circumcision when a state court declared the San Francisco and Santa Monica ordinances in violation of California law and a violation of First Amendment religious protection. But never fear. The new antisemitism is alive and well and occupying Wall Street.

In a previous post, I mentioned that much of the early organizational impetus for the "spontaneous" Occupy Wall Street movement came from Nazi collaborator and currency manipulator George Soros in Adbusters, the Canadian magazine which first started organizing people to descend on New York City (see: Twitter Twits). But Georgie Boy is the puppetmaster who likes to stay hidden behind the screen. The real brains and major funder behind the magazine and the public image of Adbusters is retired Wall Street stock trader Robert Halper.

It seems that Halper subscribes to two dicta: "There's no antisemite like an old antisemite," and "I got mine, f--- you." Halper still lives in luxury in Upper West Side New York City, near his old haunts at the New York Mercantile Exchange (he is a former VP of that organization) and various other Wall Street locations. He continues to lob missiles and missals at the voraciousness of Wall Street, but as of this writing has not donned sackloth and ashes nor given away all his wealth to the unwashed poor occupying the sidewalks of New York.

But he did write Adbusters a check for $20,000. His checks to the magazine are usually between $50,000 and $75,000. Don't take my word for it. My source is The New York Times (absent my editorial comments, of course): He Made It On Wall Street.

Halper and his magazine claim to be solely anti-corporation and anti-capitalism, but there is a much darker side to their dogma. Their most famous headline from 2004 in an article about American neo-conservatives was entitled "Why Won't Anyone Say They Are Jewish?" At age 54, Halper is not as experienced as Soros at disguising his antisemitism, and in fact at times seems to take pride in it. Both Soros and Halper know how to manipulate currency and manipulate ignorant people.

Adbusters has run articles that are often distinctly anti-Israel and at the same time covertly antisemitic (in the sense that "antisemitic" means "anti-Jewish"). Following up on its suggestion that all, or nearly all, neo-conservatives are Jewish, it then blamed the Iraq war on them. Some time later, it blamed the Israelis for the violence in Palestine. It even managed to suggest that the Holocaust Museum's images of the Warsaw Ghetto were somehow ironically symbolic of the way Israel treats the Palestinians in Gaza. Much of what Adbusters prints is allegedly political humor. It ain't funny.

The Wall Street occupiers have multiple inchoate and unfathomable "causes" to promote, and it's impossible to say honestly that its main theme is antisemitism. But it is certainly a major motif. Dozens of antisemitic and anti-Israel placards (many of them professionally-printed, out-of-town shall we say?). We all know in our heart of hearts that Wall Street=Jewish=rich=bankers=conspiracy. Don't we? When these signs and rabid antisemitic speakers show up to stoke the mob's anger at almost everything, the mainstream media yawns. The crowd does nothing to to quell the bigots.

When a few racists showed up at Tea Party rallies, the Partiers exercised their own right to expel them and loudly denounce them. Yet unlike the Wall Street situation, the MSM treated the Tea Party rallies as if they were huge convocations of a newly-revitalized Ku Klux Klan. Liberals and other Democrats also ignore the antisemitism being displayed at the Occupy rallies nationwide, preferring to claim that these are spontaneous, peaceful demonstrations expressing frustration with the current economic conditions. Grassroots, don't you know?

Among the prominent Democrats supporting and encouraging the Occupy mobs are Nancy Pelosi (who called the Tea Party "astroturf"), Hillary Clinton (and her occasional husband Bill Clinton), and The One, Barack Obama himself. The ignorant, self-centered, half-assed socialism being espoused by the potentially-dangerous mob now has a strong historical "enemy" to aim its anger at. The Jews did it. We're all poor and downtrodden because of those Wall Street Jews. Most disgusting of all, Democratic leaders want the votes of these know-nothings so badly that they completely ignore or downplay the resurgence of American antisemitism.

Busting Adbusters and Occupy Wall Street

View Detail

With Friends Like Pakistan . . .

With Friends Like Pakistan . . .

Admiral Mike Mullen recently testified at the Senate Armed Services Committee that our "ally" Pakistan has allowed the Taliban-supported faction Haqqani to become nothing less than an arm of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence Agency. This testimony comes from the outgoing Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. It wasn't very politic, and it has caused quite a stir.

We have been buoying up our Pakistani “allies” for years, often to the detriment of our much firmer ally, India. The Afghanistan War has opened wounds we either didn’t know we had or thought were healing. Pakistan makes no pretense of being a purely secular state. After all, its capital is Islamabad (“the abode of Islam”). But we counted on the fact that after the first round of Islamists were ousted from power decades back, the military would suppress the major jihadist impulses of the government and the Muslim clerics. They even elected a woman as head of state. It worked for awhile and up to a point.

The war in Afghanistan, a nation which borders Pakistan, has ripped the bandage off the long-festering wound. After successfully driving the largest groups of Taliban out of Afghanistan, we quickly discovered they were being given safe harbor and assistance in Pakistan, particularly the border province of Waziristan. Waziristan is comprised of two administrative districts, North and South, but for all intents and purposes, South Waziristan is an independent state under the very loose administrative control of the central Pakistani government.

Both parts of the province are comprised largely of warring tribes. In the South, the population is largely comprised of Waziris, Mahasuds and Burki. They are not ethnically close to the Pakistani Punjabis, Sindhi or Pashtuns, and consider Pakistan to be an occupying force. In the North, the main tribe is the Darwesh Khel, alternatively known as the Utmanzai Waziris. They are ethnically Waziri, but often at war with the southern Waziris. Unlike the South, which is largely uncontrolled, the North is actually under some direct control from Islamabad, but also unlike the South, the North shares an open border with Afghanistan. In fact, both North and South Waziristan sound a lot like Afghanistan just before the Taliban took over the government.

The battles between the North, the South and the central Pakistani government make this a slippery situation for both Islamabad and Washington DC. The problem that has come to light in recent years is that despite their internal battles, Pakistan and Waziristan are extremely Taliban-friendly. Pakistan makes occasional forays into Waziristan to stamp out open rebellions or arrest terrorists who want to blow up Islamabad. But by their own admission, the Pakistanis are unable to gain effective control of the province.

Though the government of Pakistan is still largely in military hands, those at the top are now more militantly Islamic and bellicose toward India and hesitant toward the United States. Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence Agency (ISI) has been the recipient of complaints from the White House for its complicity in Taliban-sponsored terrorism since early in the Clinton administration. The army’s failure to gain effective control of the Afghan border regions has also been a source of considerable diplomatic maneuvering.

But it is only recently that a personage as important as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has publicly and clearly called Taliban-supported Pakistani terror group Haqqani a “veritable arm of the ISI.” American-Pakistani relations, already strained, were pulled to near-breaking by the honest words of an American Admiral. The official Pakistani response was very angry, indicating that the government believes America is interfering in internal Pakistani matters. The usual mad Muslims took to the streets in the thousands to warn America not to try to deal with Haqqani on its own (though there was no suggestion from any American official that America has any intention of doing anything faintly resembling acting independently on the Haqqani matter).

All that Admiral Mullen really did was point out the danger of an ally which officially claims to be doing its best, but in reality is at best neutral about Taliban/Haqqani terrorism and at worst, actively complicit. Having the truth pointed out in public caused the Pakistani government to announce that it would not tolerate American attacks on Taliban and Al Qaeda bases in Waziristan without prior permission from Islamabad. This, even though the government admits outright that it has scant control of the border regions. It doesn’t help that the Pakistani government at its highest levels has more leaks than a sieve, and that any forewarning to Islamabad about a pending American attack on terrorist bases would get to the terrorists faster than the drones and the bombs.

This is clearly a thorny problem. But pretending that we don’t know how treacherous Pakistan has been is simply no longer viable. The best example of all was the capture and killing of the greatest terrorist of the last half of the twentieth century—Osama bin Laden. He had been living comfortably in a very obvious compound a mere sixty miles from Islamabad, in a security zone, and practically on the grounds of a nearby Pakistani military base.

When a sophisticated American helicopter went down during the operation, the Pakistani government made sure the first people to get to it were the Chinese military experts. Yet we are expected to believe that our ally didn’t know about bin Laden’s compound, had no idea he was in Pakistan, and was acting in the interest of our alliance by allowing Chinese military operatives to sort through highly-sensitive war-making machinery before allowing the Americans in.

So how does the Obama administration react to the admiral’s statement? Just about as you would expect. It wussed out. Barack Obama has refused to publicly endorse the admiral’s statement, and is presently hiding under his desk. He has sent his better-half, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, to soothe the Pakistani savage breast.

Despite recent border incursions from Pakistan into Afghan war zones aiding the Taliban, the Taliban-led attack on the US embassy in Kabul, and attacks on NATO outposts near the border, Clinton failed to address the fact that Haqqani was clearly linked to the attacks. Instead, she met for three hours with the Pakistani ambassador, repeating platitudes about cooperation and vital strategic interests.

This flies in the face of the unrefuted testimony of Admiral Mullen who named names and tied Pakistan and the terrorists together: “With ISI support, Haqqani operatives planned and conducted the truck bomb attack on September 10 which killed five and wounded seventy-seven coalition soldiers. We also have credible evidence that Haqqani was behind the June 28th attack on the International Hotel in Kabul and a host of other smaller but effective operations.”

So what did our brave Secretary of State do? Her department leaked a memo to the Washington Post that said: “Adm. Mike Mullen’s assertion last week than an anti-American insurgent group in Afghanistan is a veritable arm of Pakistan’s spy service was overstated and contributed to overheated reactions in Pakistan and misperceptions in Washington.” She doesn’t contradict the admiral’s statement with any evidence whatsoever, but makes it very clear we mustn’t upset our “allies.”

Admiral Mike Mullen recently testified at the Senate Armed Services Committee that our "ally" Pakistan has allowed the Taliban-supported faction Haqqani to become nothing less than an arm of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence Agency. This testimony comes from the outgoing Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. It wasn't very politic, and it has caused quite a stir.

We have been buoying up our Pakistani “allies” for years, often to the detriment of our much firmer ally, India. The Afghanistan War has opened wounds we either didn’t know we had or thought were healing. Pakistan makes no pretense of being a purely secular state. After all, its capital is Islamabad (“the abode of Islam”). But we counted on the fact that after the first round of Islamists were ousted from power decades back, the military would suppress the major jihadist impulses of the government and the Muslim clerics. They even elected a woman as head of state. It worked for awhile and up to a point.

The war in Afghanistan, a nation which borders Pakistan, has ripped the bandage off the long-festering wound. After successfully driving the largest groups of Taliban out of Afghanistan, we quickly discovered they were being given safe harbor and assistance in Pakistan, particularly the border province of Waziristan. Waziristan is comprised of two administrative districts, North and South, but for all intents and purposes, South Waziristan is an independent state under the very loose administrative control of the central Pakistani government.

Both parts of the province are comprised largely of warring tribes. In the South, the population is largely comprised of Waziris, Mahasuds and Burki. They are not ethnically close to the Pakistani Punjabis, Sindhi or Pashtuns, and consider Pakistan to be an occupying force. In the North, the main tribe is the Darwesh Khel, alternatively known as the Utmanzai Waziris. They are ethnically Waziri, but often at war with the southern Waziris. Unlike the South, which is largely uncontrolled, the North is actually under some direct control from Islamabad, but also unlike the South, the North shares an open border with Afghanistan. In fact, both North and South Waziristan sound a lot like Afghanistan just before the Taliban took over the government.

The battles between the North, the South and the central Pakistani government make this a slippery situation for both Islamabad and Washington DC. The problem that has come to light in recent years is that despite their internal battles, Pakistan and Waziristan are extremely Taliban-friendly. Pakistan makes occasional forays into Waziristan to stamp out open rebellions or arrest terrorists who want to blow up Islamabad. But by their own admission, the Pakistanis are unable to gain effective control of the province.

Though the government of Pakistan is still largely in military hands, those at the top are now more militantly Islamic and bellicose toward India and hesitant toward the United States. Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence Agency (ISI) has been the recipient of complaints from the White House for its complicity in Taliban-sponsored terrorism since early in the Clinton administration. The army’s failure to gain effective control of the Afghan border regions has also been a source of considerable diplomatic maneuvering.

But it is only recently that a personage as important as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has publicly and clearly called Taliban-supported Pakistani terror group Haqqani a “veritable arm of the ISI.” American-Pakistani relations, already strained, were pulled to near-breaking by the honest words of an American Admiral. The official Pakistani response was very angry, indicating that the government believes America is interfering in internal Pakistani matters. The usual mad Muslims took to the streets in the thousands to warn America not to try to deal with Haqqani on its own (though there was no suggestion from any American official that America has any intention of doing anything faintly resembling acting independently on the Haqqani matter).

All that Admiral Mullen really did was point out the danger of an ally which officially claims to be doing its best, but in reality is at best neutral about Taliban/Haqqani terrorism and at worst, actively complicit. Having the truth pointed out in public caused the Pakistani government to announce that it would not tolerate American attacks on Taliban and Al Qaeda bases in Waziristan without prior permission from Islamabad. This, even though the government admits outright that it has scant control of the border regions. It doesn’t help that the Pakistani government at its highest levels has more leaks than a sieve, and that any forewarning to Islamabad about a pending American attack on terrorist bases would get to the terrorists faster than the drones and the bombs.

This is clearly a thorny problem. But pretending that we don’t know how treacherous Pakistan has been is simply no longer viable. The best example of all was the capture and killing of the greatest terrorist of the last half of the twentieth century—Osama bin Laden. He had been living comfortably in a very obvious compound a mere sixty miles from Islamabad, in a security zone, and practically on the grounds of a nearby Pakistani military base.

When a sophisticated American helicopter went down during the operation, the Pakistani government made sure the first people to get to it were the Chinese military experts. Yet we are expected to believe that our ally didn’t know about bin Laden’s compound, had no idea he was in Pakistan, and was acting in the interest of our alliance by allowing Chinese military operatives to sort through highly-sensitive war-making machinery before allowing the Americans in.

So how does the Obama administration react to the admiral’s statement? Just about as you would expect. It wussed out. Barack Obama has refused to publicly endorse the admiral’s statement, and is presently hiding under his desk. He has sent his better-half, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, to soothe the Pakistani savage breast.

Despite recent border incursions from Pakistan into Afghan war zones aiding the Taliban, the Taliban-led attack on the US embassy in Kabul, and attacks on NATO outposts near the border, Clinton failed to address the fact that Haqqani was clearly linked to the attacks. Instead, she met for three hours with the Pakistani ambassador, repeating platitudes about cooperation and vital strategic interests.

This flies in the face of the unrefuted testimony of Admiral Mullen who named names and tied Pakistan and the terrorists together: “With ISI support, Haqqani operatives planned and conducted the truck bomb attack on September 10 which killed five and wounded seventy-seven coalition soldiers. We also have credible evidence that Haqqani was behind the June 28th attack on the International Hotel in Kabul and a host of other smaller but effective operations.”

So what did our brave Secretary of State do? Her department leaked a memo to the Washington Post that said: “Adm. Mike Mullen’s assertion last week than an anti-American insurgent group in Afghanistan is a veritable arm of Pakistan’s spy service was overstated and contributed to overheated reactions in Pakistan and misperceptions in Washington.” She doesn’t contradict the admiral’s statement with any evidence whatsoever, but makes it very clear we mustn’t upset our “allies.”

With Friends Like Pakistan . . .

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