Wasting Time With Alex
Conflicts & Wars
About the many wars & conflicts.
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Tonight’s speech by Obama on Iraq…
Tonight President Obama is scheduled to deliver a speech about the whole Iraq situation. Frankly I am intrigued at how the morons in the WH will try to play this. It seems all bad things they inherited from Bush, but this victory that clearly came from the efforts of our troops that these same grandstanding demcorats put in harms way with their actions and words, and the conviction of President Bush to fight it despite the fact that the opposition was trying to hand our troops another Vietnam-like loss - if you believe the talking heads that are predicting this - that the WH is going to claim is theirs. I doubt Obama will give credit to Bush for this, because that’s not his way. If he does, he will somewhere in there take it back and blame Bush. Maybe by indirectly brining up the liberal meme that Bush faked the intel, red meat for the morons that buy this crap, or some such other nonsense. I certainly hope he credits the troops. And of course he will play to his left wing moonbats and claim he is keeping his promise. The problem is that it will be all show, and we won despite of him and his party, while there is still a risk that we might be pulling out too soon.
The fact is that Obama was part & parcel of the donkey lineup that made the claim back when Bush’s team announced they would pursue the surge option, that it was going to fail. I do give him credit for not declaring it a failure before it happened like Reed did, or for slandering our troops or taking other actions to help the enemy’s cause like Murtha and other demcorats did, but Obama was one of the people that tried - real hard - to derail any and all efforts intended to support our troops and give them what they needed to win in Iraq. Obama made it a point during his campaigning – I mean before the election, not the continued campaigning they are doing almost 2 years after taking the WH and that is making everyone stop wondering if these morons know anything else – to say Iraq was still a failure, and that unless he was elected to fix it by pulling out the troops, things would get even worse. In short, this guy, while not going as far as many in his party have, was if not outright rooting for us to lose in Iraq, at least vested in making our efforts in Iraq look & go bad, for political and personal gain. And the troops at least seem to know that. Of course, I doubt the Lame Stream Media will bring any of that up.
Even more interesting, as I already pointed out, is the fact that most believe that Obama is about to likely claim he kept his campaign promise and that this withdrawal is due his work, when there is no doubt for anyone willing to do the leg work that the pullout going on right now was following Bush’s team’s withdrawal time table, set a long time ago, and the only contribution from the Obama team was that they didn’t fuck it all up in Iraq and pull defeat right out of the jaws of victory before now, as many of us suspected they would. My guess is that the LSM would go right along and hand him that credit. After all, he is their guy, and he desperately needs to be propped up, because the mood of the American people after seeing Obama & the progressive left in action these past 2 years is dour indeed, and November promises a massacre at the polls for the left.
Then you have the fact that Obama now is ramping up the fighting in Afghanistan, which promises to be a difficult and costly slugfest. I wonder if he and his team realize now why Bush’s team moved the fight to Iraq back in 2003. And this whole endeavor seems to be mired in doubt, what with all the talk of a fixed withdrawal table and all, despite the fact he has put General Petraeus whom immediately opted to go on the offensive and actually do some killin’ – hear much about that in the LSM these days? No stories of US troops murdering babies either, huh? - in charge of that operation as well. And then there is of course Iran, which I still feel Bush made a mistake not to deal with at the same time as they took on Iraq.
Say what you want, but tonight’s speech should be interesting. At least it should provide people with a lot to waste time on. Me, I bet it will be a lot of nothing, Obama grandstanding and campaigning, taking credit for other people’s work, blaming Bush as usual for his mistakes, and then the fawning LSM telling us how lucky we are to have this guy in charge. I sure hope I am wrong.
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Monday, August 23, 2010
The numbers don’t add up…
I just got back from a week of vacation where I played US government - I spent way too much money on feel good stuff that yield no actual benefits - and am now because of the time off, busier than a one legged man at an arse kicking contest now at work. But I felt I had to address something that came up during a conversation I had, with a bunch of obvious liberal morons defending the disastrous collectivist policies of the last decade that have reached new limits under demcorat and Obama control, when they blamed Bush and the Iraqi war for anything from $3-$5 trillion in deficits spending. The numbers widely varied apparently even for them, but I was stumped as to why they would be pulling these ridiculous numbers up until I realized the left still wants to make believe that the deficit spending is because of the Iraq wars and defense spending, and not because of the massive growth in wasteful collectivist spending by government.
And lo and behold, it seems that the CBO in this document provides the needed information to break down the facts, and thus, like a someone using a holy symbol or water on a vampire, cause the liberal morons pushing this idiotic meme to scramble for cover. See according to the CBO, the Iraqi war, which I might point out ended in a win just this past week when, on paper at least, the last combat unit left the country, and I must say despite the efforts of so many on the left to force a loss, cost some $709 billion dollars for the duration. In fact, one quick look at the details in the above mentioned document and the numbers in these other CBO documents provides everything needed to create a real nice picture to illustrate the deficit spending from 2003 to this year. A must for your typical factually challenged leftard to see:
The telling numbers, other than the fact that any deficit spending attributed to the cost of the Iraq war are small at best, and all things considered insignificant in the overall deficit spending picture, are the numbers for the last 2 years, where deficit spending skyrocketed. The numbers don’t lie. The total deficits from 2003 through 2010 is $4.73 trillion. Subtract the entire Iraq War cost - $706 billion according to the CBO - and you still have the unbelievable sum of $4.02 trillion to account for!
Your average and predictable lib will then just move the goal post, like the people I was talking to did, and tell you that the massive increase of deficit spending since Obama took office and the demcorats ended up in complete control of both the White House and Congress, was to fix all the stuff the Bush broke. Including the trillions wasted on what they feel was a stupid war in Iraq, despite the fact that those numbers are bullshit.
Let’s just forget the illogic in trying to blame the cost of the war for the deficit when anyone willing to do the research, as I showed, can quickly find out that the economic crisis was a product of a combination of idiotic government mandated lending practices and the subsequent need for a massive scam, centered on Fannie and Freddie, to make the stinking heap of bad loans palatable to investors. While Wall Street also should share in the blame, their fault lies with going along with these stupid collectivist policies instead of shutting down the spigot and letting government choke on these idiotic anti-market and anti-reality policies.
Of course, as soon as I pointed the above out, the factually challenged libs I was talking to switched to the other two booggie-boos often touted, Afghanistan and the Bush tax cuts, as the culprits. Unfortunately for them, the numbers in this graph clearly show these two also seem to have really made no big impact on deficit spending, as the numbers for 2003 to 2007 when both were going on show, while not even adding up to the deficit spending for either 2009 or 2010. There is simply no denying that spending went bonkers after 2007, and we all know what happened in 2006, and 2008, respectively. And Bush was long gone when the donkey decided to flush close to $1 trillion – more than the $706 billion for the 7 year old Iraqi war- down the toilet in that patronage bill that served to only pay off demcorat interests and keep public servants living large while the private sector was hammered by the economic policies and regulations of these collectivists.
In fact, there are several social program outlays during the Bush years that far exceed the cost of the Iraqi war during the same period. Federal outlays on defense as a percentage of GDP under Bush were 4%. And one might be inclined to think higher defense spending numbers might be a good thing when you compare to the roaring 60s and 70s when defense spending was closer to 9% of GDP and the economy was booming to the anemic and moribund economy we now have the pleasure of enduring because of the defense hating collectivist running the country. Numbers, facts, and logic make the lib’s weak and emotion based arguments about what really is causing our massive deficits easy to defeat.
Suffice it to say that when I was done pointing out the real numbers to them, these libs all hated my guts for making them look like idiots. I am certain they also completely ignored the facts I showed them and like the politicians that represent them, will continue to run the same tired lines, hoping to fool as many as possible. After all, way too many people don’t have the time to go figure the truth out, and the Lame Stream Media will certainly not do so for them either, so they can get away with these lies. In the mean time, we will never address the real issue while these people can so freely fabricate the history they want to suit their own disruptive and destructive goals.
We are here today because collectivists refuse to accept the fact that there isn’t enough wealth in the world to give everyone everything for free. Consequently what we end up with when we let their economic and social policies run wild is what they had in the USSR: everyone equally miserable and poor. But to these social justice idiots, that’s better than having some guy that works hard get rich while they don’t.
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Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Yeah, I am rubbing it in…
One of the more interesting stories to go on this week, and obviously completely ignored or misreported on by the Lame Stream Media, is the story of Omar Khadr, a terrorist that was captured in Afghanistan at the age of 15, and whom had murdered a US Special Forces servicemen with a grenade, amongst other things. This kid, now 23, was a media darling, and even juicier, one of the many cases of “inhumane treatment and torture” the left accused the Bush Administration and our servicemen of being involved with at Gitmo. Even now they are haranguing the Obama administration for the fact this poor an innocent torture victim ended up in a military tribunal!
Yep, this week Omar Khadr’s trial, a military one and not the much promised civilian ones from the campaign trail, started. Funny that. Evil Bush was demonized for holding military tribunals and the evils of Gitmo. Obama ran and won on evil Bush, and especially the wars we were fighting in 2008, and yet today we have Obama not just continuing those, but expanding them. Oh yeah, before the usual libtard brings it up, let me point out that you should not be fooled by the claims Obama is pulling troops out of Iraq. First off, this isn’t Obama’s doing because his pullout was part of the Bush Administration’s time table, and we are leaving some 50K troops behind. And we all know Obama, to his credit, has stepped stuff up in Afghanistan. Even more telling is the fact that Gitmo is still open and in business. Guess being a bunch of holier-than-thou leftist twits that accused the Bush Administration of being an evil bunch of torturers that only concocted Club Gitmo to avoid scrutiny and be able to torture at their leisure and demanded/promised its closure, completely ignoring the reality on the ground, suddenly isn’t so easy when you have to deal with the problems, huh libtards?
And now that we are on the subject of Gitmo and torture, let me give you a piece of information I doubt you will get from the MSM. Remember those torture charges filed by the usual scumbag lawyers – no, these lawyers aren’t just doing their jobs, they want to screw over the US and are hoping to demonize our troops and country, so they are scumbags - defending these evil bastards? Well, the attempt to use them to suppress Khadr’s confession because they were obtained through torture have they have been summarily dismissed:
The decision by army Colonel Patrick Parrish came shortly after Mr. Khadr pleaded not guilty through his Pentagon-appointed defence lawyer to the five war crimes charges he faces. The ruling is a major blow to Mr. Khadr, who claimed in a February 2008 affidavit he was abused during interrogations after his capture at the end of a 2002 firefight with U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan. The judge ruled a video apparently showing the suspect making and planting land mines is admissible, rejecting the defence argument it was obtained based on information coerced from him.
Oh the evil military judge screwed Khadr over! Well, no, because the video is damning:
In a video shown at the hearing yesterday, Mr. Khadr was seen telling Guantanamo Bay guards trying to weigh him for the International Red Cross “God will take ... revenge” on the United States. “I am here in prison, but there are millions of people outside,” he says in the May 2006 clip. “What’s happening to you is not for nothing.” In the February 2008 affidavit, Mr. Khadr, 23, alleged guards mistreated him during the weighing session, claiming they “pressed on my pressure points.”
The clip appears to show the guards acting with restraint as they push him toward the scale and point out all his “brothers”—a reference to other detainees—had been weighed without protest. “Come on man, it’s not that bad,” says one after Mr. Khadr claimed the treatment was a “very small example of what’s really going on” at the facility. “We’re not doing this to hurt you, torture you,” adds another, amid explanations his weight was needed for his health records. Although Mr. Khadr spent about 20 minutes resisting the guards, the tape hinted he had been playing to the camera as he switched from the English he used to speak to the guards to Arabic to speak to fellow detainees in nearby cells.
So the “torture” these libtard accused our troops of committing under direction from evil Bush? Yeah, weighing this bastard - while he was threatening our troops with murder and our country with destruction - so we can have accurate medical records to please the libturds that will try to turn everything and anything into an argument about the evils of America and its military.
And surprise, surprise! This bastard is obviously been coached on how to play to the camera to help the libturds do the dirty job of helping the Jihadists and their cause. Don’t expect the left to admit they where used – my take is that it is more complicity than used despite the claims from the lot of them to the contrary – yet again, and that the facts bear out quite a different narrative than the rampant torture stories we constantly are subjected to by them, though.
What’s the odds we are going to continue to hear from the usual suspects that they are ignoring the torture or white washing it – and even more important that it is happening under Obama’s reign (are we no longer an evil empire?) – going forward, despite yet more evidence there was no torture, and that these people will rethink their stance on Gitmo or the Bush Administration’s efforts to fight a vile and evil murderous bunch? Yeah, I know. Zilch.
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Monday, August 02, 2010
Leftist idiots discover the obvious..
Remember the good old days when the occupant of the WH didn’t have a (D) next to his name and the left told us that killing terrorists was only going to make more of them? Well, those days are long gone. Now we have the leftists at the NYT telling us about the new CinC Obama, his “New war” in Afghanistan, how hardcore he is because he committed 30K troops, and the knew found knowledge that the best way to deal with insurgents was to, get ready, “kill them”!
One has to wonder why these leftists only seem to be interested in accepting the way things work in the real world when their asses are on the line? Seriously, can anyone here imagine the NYT allowing anything like this to be published while Bush was president and we were really fighting the enemy? We all know that the story would be about “the innocents” massacred by our bloodthirsty and evil troops. Seriously, don’t you have to laugh when you read stuff like this:
Faced with that reality, and the pressure of a self-imposed deadline to begin withdrawing troops by July 2011, the Obama administration is starting to count more heavily on the strategy of hunting down insurgents. The shift could change the nature of the war and potentially, in the view of some officials, hasten a political settlement with the Taliban.
Faced by reality! There you have it. Now that you had to deal with the consequences of your stupid ideological beliefs, suddenly you have the guts to do away with them. It is not coincidental that in the real world the stuff the left tries the hardest to fight against or pretend doesn’t matter that actually does. I wish this reality induced lapse of sanity on the left was more frequent an occurrence on the left. Reality has a way of shattering the idiotic illusions and fantasies of the stupid, and if they don’t learn the lesson quick, it does away with them. We need a lot more of that reality so these left, embodied these days by the demcorats, but also some RINOs, can stop destroying this country.
In the mean time, kill these stupid and evil bastards we were told for 8 years would only reproduce in numbers. I wonder why the NYT didn’t comment on that shattered leftists meme, huh? Better late than never, I guess.
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Tuesday, July 27, 2010
WikiLeaks redux
Unless you live in a cave somewhere - not Afghanistan or Pakistan of course, because if you are there, your co-conspirators in the MSM are keeping you in the loop, and letting you now how well your joint war on civilization is going - you have heard about the big WikiLeaks document dump. The real big revelation?
A trove of military documents made public on Sunday by an organization called WikiLeaks reflects deep suspicions among American officials that Pakistan’s military spy service has for years guided the Afghan insurgency with a hidden hand, even as Pakistan receives more than $1 billion a year from Washington for its help combating the militants.
Yawn! As if this was not obvious already. Maybe we need to talk more to the Pakis and cut off their funding. Let their Chinese buddies pay for them. Military investigators are checking computers used by Pfc. Bradley Manning, who somehow made it into an intelligence analyst slot, and then got charged this month with leaking this classified information for whatever idiotic reason. I hope that he spends a lot of time in Leavenworth, being “loved long time” at a minimum, or hangs for this treasonous act. The MSM, and especially these losers, are an enemy of this state.
Anyway, the left is dead set in pretending these documents show war crimes. Of course these morons would not know a war crime if it bit them in the arse, and only believe that the US or other NATO troops can commit war crimes - where else have we heard something just like that, huh? - anyway, so take it all with a grain of salt. As I suspected, this moron released mostly boring and low level contact reports, and while it is obvious that there will be information that is damaging to security, the troops, and operations, I doubt there will be anything that is going to satisfy the left’s need for a grand conspiracy and rampant war crimes after this revelation about the documents classification status made it obvious that:
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Pentagon said on Monday that its review of the leak of secret military documents on the war in Afghanistan would take “days if not weeks” and that it was too soon to assess their damage. WikiLeaks, an organization promoting the leaking of information to fight corporate and government corruption, on Sunday said it released 91,000 U.S. military documents on the war stretching back to 2004.
This Australian newspaper also seems not to know WikiLeaks is one giant joke where fake is real and not give them so much legitimacy, but who then again, it doesn’t fit the narrative. Speaking of narrative, check out this beat down:
Well, the issue of civilian casualties is a major one and the U.S. has taken a lot of criticism because of this. However, what’s interesting to note that is according to the documents, 195 Afghan civilians have been killed. But also according to the documents, two thousand Afghan civilians have been killed by the Taliban, which is more than ten times the number said to be killed by U.S. and NATO forces. And very little is being made of that.
I have been asking the same question. Why is the western media obsessed with how many people we kill but always giving these barbarians a pass? At a minimum it puts into serious doubt their motives and makes it clear that there is an agenda, and then not a good one. When the agenda is that leaks that compromise lefty reporters and their agenda is bad, but any leaks that kill American troops and hampers America’s ability to fight wars against evil people while helping those fighting America is good, you have a problem. In case you are not seeing the obvious swipe here, I am discussing the left’s reaction to the t revelations about Journolist and their shenanigans, up and including their collusion to defend and elect the idiot now living in the WH, versus the reaction from the left about the release of documents intended to hurt American troops during a war.
Don’t you worry though! The left will have someone on their side cook up the facts just right. Maybe they can get Oliver Stone to do it for them after he reforms Hitler’s & Stalin’s images so the left no longer needs to remember that these two collectivists combined to kill close to a hundred million people in a war, and that Stalin fellow killed a few tens of millions more of his own people and a few hundred million more, leaving billions in chains, as their filthy collectivist ideology spread across the globe.
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Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Now they are gonna get it!
Either Obama was handled by some right wing warmonger or he is showing more of the stupid that is rampant in the liberal ideological system when he said that al Qaeda was a racist organization.
A senior US official suggested Mr Obama was taking a direct swipe at the ideology and motives of al-Qaeda affiliates on the continent, which US intelligence agencies say are the extremist group’s most active branches. “Al-Qaeda is a racist organisation that treats black Africans like cannon fodder and does not value human life,” said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Mr Obama issued the personal warning to the continent of his father’s birth days after suicide bombers killed 76 in Uganda in an attack claimed by the Somali militant group al-Shabaab, which has links to al-Qaeda.
Mr Obama said terrorist organisations “do not regard African life as valuable in and of itself”. “They see it as a potential place where you can carry out ideological battles that kill innocents without regard to long-term consequences for their short-term tactical gains,” he told the South African Broadcasting Corporation.
I say brilliant! I sure as hell hope this was a plant by right wingers to finally get this government of fools, hell bent on making al Qaeda like us, pissed at these bastards. If you look at what Obama is saying it literally comes down to “hey, we finally see al Qaeda, and organization that has a long and distinguished homicide bomber and murder record, is bad because they are killing blacks!”, and it seems to be hitting one of the three pillars of liberal ideological black listing; racism, sexism, and homophobia.
Suddenly, because they are now going of West Africans, they are bad guys. Maybe now Eric Holder will have an interest in going after them? It’s Arabs on black violence, after all. Let’s forget the feeling you get reading Obama’s words that he is almost regretful that al Qaeda is targeting people he feels would be sympathetic to their cause for now, and focus on the fact that the WH suddenly has decided these guys are real bad. Maybe we can go after them for hate crimes now? Heck, Gitmo might suddenly become a good thing too. What’s next? Islamic radicalism might even make its way back into the lexicon? You have to forgive me for seeing a conspiracy here considering the revelations.
Let’s get the WH to see that al Qaeda is also virulently homophobic and sexist, and maybe we actually will get them to have the UN send them an angry letter…
Dirkka dirkka, Mohamed Jihad!
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Wednesday, July 07, 2010
Bold admission that Iran going nuclear is bad..
Israel has had nuclear weapons now for a few decades, and short of the usual nutjob demanding the Jews be pushed into the sea and the land reclaimed, non of its Arab nations have ever felt the need to build nukes to protect themselves. As anyone that hasn’t been living under a rock knows, that sentiment has not been extended to Iran, a fellow traveler and the nation vying for the title of top Jew hater, which has nuclear ambitions. In fact, Iran’s Arab neighbors are all either contemplating nuclear programs of their own - something they never felt compelled to do to keep up with Israel, or flat out pointing out that only idiots think anything short of force will deter Iran at this point.
ASPEN, Colo. | The United Arab Emirates ambassador to the United States said Tuesday that the benefits of bombing Iran’s nuclear program outweigh the short-term costs such an attack would impose. In unusually blunt remarks, Ambassador Yousef al-Otaiba publicly endorsed the use of the military option for countering Iran’s nuclear program, if sanctions fail to stop the country’s quest for nuclear weapons. “I think it’s a cost-benefit analysis,” Mr. al-Otaiba said. “I think despite the large amount of trade we do with Iran, which is close to $12 billion … there will be consequences, there will be a backlash and there will be problems with people protesting and rioting and very unhappy that there is an outside force attacking a Muslim country; that is going to happen no matter what.”
“If you are asking me, ‘Am I willing to live with that versus living with a nuclear Iran?,’ my answer is still the same: ‘We cannot live with a nuclear Iran.’ I am willing to absorb what takes place at the expense of the security of the U.A.E.” Mr. al-Otaiba made his comments in response to a question after a public interview session with the Atlantic magazine at the Aspen Ideas Festival here. They echo those of some Arab diplomats who have said similar things in private to their American counterparts but never this bluntly in public. The remarks surprised many in the audience.
Emphasis mine on that last bit. See, the only people surprised by this are the morons that also still believe talk can make a difference. That the problem here isn’t that Iran is run by destructive madmen, but that we (meaning that aggressive America of the Bush age) are the evil ones. This Ambassador has basically admitted that at least his country, the UAE, knows that nothing short of force will deter Iran at this point, and that Iran’s terror supporting/enabling leadership is pursuing these weapons so it can use the shield it will provide them, to escalate that support. And he has done it in public. He knows Iran will cause mayhem in this region if they go nuclear. Don’t take my word for this:
The ambassador also said that “talk of containment and deterrence really concerns me and makes me very nervous.” He said Iran has not been deterred from supporting terrorist groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah now, when it doesn’t have a nuclear arsenal. So why, he asked rhetorically, would Iran be more cautious in its support for terrorism if it did.
Exactly! Why does Iran need nukes if it has gotten away with this stuff already? The only thing that makes any kind of sense is that Iran plans to escalate, not reduce its efforts and the problems that its proxies are causing, and it thinks that nuclear umbrella will protect it from what happened to Saddam in Iraq or the Taliban in Afghanistan when they pushed us too hard. Does anyone doubt we would have handled these situations differently if we had to deal with a nuclear armed enemy? Thank Israel that Saddam didn’t have nukes. We might be thanking them too for Iran not having them sooner than later.
Of course, I am sure the usual leftards will now chime in that a nuclear enemy might have prevented Bush’s cowboy adventurism, and thus justify why we should let Iran go nuclear, but before you actually think these morons have a valid point, consider the following statement by the UAE ambassador:
Mr. al-Otaiba said that his country would be the last Arab country to cut a deal with Iran, if Tehran were to go nuclear. But he predicted other wealthy Arab states in the Gulf would dump their alliances with the U.S. in favor of ties with Tehran if President Obama does not stop the Islamic republic’s quest to become a nuclear power. “There are many countries in the region that if they lack assurance that the U.S. is willing to confront Iran, they will start running for cover with Iran,” he said. “Small, rich, vulnerable countries do not want to stick their finger in the big boy’s eye if they do not have the backing of the United States.”
Anyone thinking that this will result in more stability or lead to a better world is not just a moron, they are delusional. As I have often said, at a minimum you will get this:
Mr. al-Otaiba also said that an Iranian acquisition would set off a nuclear arms race in the region, predicting that Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Turkey would all start nuclear programs if Iran acquired such weapons.
Your average ignorant moron would argue that there is nothing wrong with these countries going nuclear too, I am sure. After all, Pakistan and India did it. And we are even living with the Norks being a nuclear nation. Let me point out what this ambassador had to say about that…
The ambassador in the end stressed that his country would not tolerate a nuclear Iran. “The United States may be able to live with it,” he said. “We can’t.”
I think the US would not be able to live with it either, but then again, the people that think this way are also the ones that believed the USSR should have been the one to win the Cold War, America isn’t fit to be the world’s leader because it is the root of all evil, China would do a better job than the US if it was top dog, and that they are able to use talk to keep a nuclear armed Iran in line. No matter how this plays out, it is going to be ugly. The thing is, as this ambassador has pointed out, that a nuclear armed Iran will be much more costly than whatever crap we get if we prevent it by force.
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Wednesday, June 09, 2010
It’s Bush’s fault that Obama is going to double the deficit!
Well, no, but that’s the surefire argument these morons that still believe this Kenysian stuff actually has a chance in hell of working are going to have to defend their policies with, because as this article points out, we are now looking at close to $20 trillion in U.S debt by 2015.Here is the relevant quote:
June 8 (Reuters) - The U.S. debt will top $13.6 trillion this year and climb to an estimated $19.6 trillion by 2015, according to a Treasury Department report to Congress. The report that was sent to lawmakers Friday night with no fanfare said the ratio of debt to the gross domestic product would rise to 102 percent by 2015 from 93 percent this year.
Yeah, good luck with that last bit. It’s great credit to the resilience of the American economy that the most hostile and destructive administration I have ever witnessed has managed to only drop our GDP to 93% with all their horribly costly and insane job and economy killing “tax & spend” policies. They have flushed $1 trillion down the drain through the stimulus patronage bill. They are presiding over the ever expanding largesse of our tax payer dollars for corporate fat cats – which they then promptly and successfully blamed on Bush and republicans while continuing to dole out the goodies – that have become too big to fail. And then under regulations they rigged to force lenders to give money to high risk entities anyone but people that live in the collectivist la-la land figured out would sooner than later come back to bite us, which they then promptly demanded the right to “fix”, while leaving the fundamental and underlying problem not just in place, but expanding the chance of more of the same. Don’t forget the healthcare takeover by government that is sure to cost us another healthy $1-3 trillion dollars a year as soon as the first 10 years are over. That gimmick of taxing us for a decade to provide 5 years of coverage will only work that once. After that, we are toast. And they are still looking to do more damage to those of us that make a living in the private sector. Be happy we are down to just 93%. It could have been worse.
And that brings me to that deluded 103% projection. Not going to happen with these people and their ideas in charge. In fact, if they do more of the same we are going to be lucky to keep the GDP the same. You can only funnel so much money from the productive to the unproductive sector before things go real bad. Of course they won’t blame their ideological beliefs and policies:
The U.S. debt has grown rapidly with the economic downturn and government spending for the Wall Street bailout, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and the economic stimulus. The rising debt is contributing to voter unrest ahead of the November congressional elections in which Republicans hope to regain control of Congress.
Yeah, blame those evil Bush wars! After all, Bush is the one that went looking for them, and we could have avoided them completely, if you believe these morons. Even if they cost a mere pittance compared to the real pricy things, like that healthcare takeover or the massive increase in additional entitlement spending, which if you notice remain unmentioned. And nary a word of the insanity that these policies of addressing the rapidly growing debt by creating even more debt signifies. Go figure. This is what you get when the “progressives” talk about fiscal discipline. It never is about debt or deficits, just that they aren’t the ones robbing us blind.
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Monday, May 24, 2010
The economy, government spending, and healthcare..
I have been busier than a one legged man at an ass-kicking contest the last month or so, and have not posed much, but today I have finally gotten some slow time and decided it was time to get back at it. And I think the appropriate place to start is with the current economic crisis gripping the world, and closer at home, this whole government healthcare takeover thingy, better know as Obamacare. Since everyone but the usual bureaucrats seem to understand the budgetary problems facing the great Western socialist paradises on the verge of economic collapse are caused because the parasites “working” in government have had a great run for the last few decades buying themselves both power and bennies with other people’s money, and are discussing the fact that we can’t keep spending at the rate we are, it should be obvious that this massive government expansion would remain unpopular and continue to get more unpopular as people realize the economic impacts associated with it. In fact, the numbers for those of us wanting it repealed, have climbed to 63%, and they are just going to keep going up as even the CBO now has to admit. I am sure the democrats are quite surprised that it now looks like Obamacare will not save us anything but actually cost more. And that is with a shameful slight of hand/scam used by those promoting this most massive government expansion since the first day of the Roosevelt socialist takeover, that allows the government to collect taxes for 10 years, but then only offer services for the last 5 or 6 years in a 10 year cycle. As I have pointed out repeatedly, it should be blatantly obvious that there is no arguing that even if the program doesn’t end up as I suspect it will deep in the red in the first decade, come the next 10 year cycle, the program is going to be short a trillion or more from the start.
The left made a successful run at power starting back in 2008 by pointing out the lack of fiscal discipline by the demcorats. Of course, many forget that despite the president’s best efforts spending is done by Congress, and that Bush’s worst years are those after the demcorats took over in 2006. The left of course blamed Bush’s “warmongering” for the out of control spending despite the obvious fact that this stuff was peanuts compared to the massive, bloated, and ever expanding social spending. Many like me laughed hard at the demcorats pretending to be fiscal hawks, and warned others that they were being lied to. Now but 18 months after they sweeped, we have tacked on, in a single year no less, more than all the Bush years combined. And we are going to tack on oodles more, even if we discount the disastrous Obamacare government takeover of the healthcare monies and decision making process (because that is really what this was about) masquerading as healthcare reform, because that’s what these people are about. Call me cruel or insensitive to my fellow man, but I still remain unable to quantify any benefits for society as a whole from all this social spending, and see it doing far more damage than good, but that’s neither here nor there. When we have created a whole new ever expanding class of serfs dependant on government for their daily subsistence – people that have trade freedoms in return for minimal security, and have as a result neither – that are akin to slaves, lacking in any desire to contribute to the advancement of mankind, other than by the means, I see very little good coming from all this spending. At least the money spent on the military provides decent and good jobs for hardworking taxpayers. Hey, maybe I am just biased that way…
The fact is that this collectivist stuff, past anything other than a family unit, is unsustainable. No, that’s not just my opinion, as the facts clearly prove. The people that see government and this socialist stuff as the answer to everything are trying to reverse course with actions like this one, or this one, all the while maligning and blaming the only system that has actually created new wealth and helped improve our standard of living on this planet, while the collectivists remain good, and that is me being generous because they even suck at that, at wealth redistribution and destruction schemes. The stuff that has gotten us where we are now (no, it was not Bush), and the people that know, are predicting even more bad times.
I often wonder why so many still do not realize or see how Obamacare is going to serve only to speed up our demise. And it isn’t even as if we are actually going to get something good from it. Oh, sure the usual morons have argued about the evils of private insurance and how this government takeover addresses that, but anyone making that argument is an absolute moron. If anything, you will see the very things that so concerned and angered them when done by private insurance companies, happen with more frequency now that a broke government looking to drag out the circling process that is taking us all down the drain as long as possible, will be in charge. You think those evil insurance people were bad? Wait until you have to deal with a spiteful and petty government employee that gets off on the power that their ability to make your life miserable by denying you services, gives them. At least when the insurance companies did it you were under the illusion that you could seek redress from government. Who will you turn to when it is government that is putting the screws to you? Other government employees? Yeah, good luck with that. Don’t worry though. At the rate we are going we might just implode and all end up without healthcare or anything else for that matter, returning to a 19th century standard of living. But in the eyes of these collectivist that would be a good thing – social justice has been served since we are all equally miserable – considering that the only evil they see is that life doesn’t guarantee equality of outcome.
UPDATE: Arthur C. Brooks has this absolutely awesome piece titled “America’s new culture war: Free enterprise vs. government control” over on the WaPO opinion pages. A must read to understand what is currently going on.
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Tuesday, May 04, 2010
Lefties suffer another letdown.
This morning I woke up to find out that the all those lefties that were already excited about, and predicting that the would-be-bomber that left the SUV filled with explosives that fizzled this past weekend in NYC would end up being a right wing extremist racist, pissed off at Obamacare or some such like NYC mayor Michael Bloomberg, amongst the many that said the same, did, are going to yet again have their hopes dashed. As most of us that do know where the threat is coming from suspected and believed, it turns out this was not the work of a McVeigh disciple, Tea Partiers, or anyone angry at the collectivists destroying the country, but, according to this WaPo article, an Islamic terrorist.
Looks like all the drivel from the left about the domestic terrorism threat was right, only they got the real threat wrong yet again. This guy they grabbed at the last minute, as he tried to leave the country on a flight to Dubai , goes by the name of Faisal Shahzad. From the details the media is releasing, to their chagrin I bet, is sure doesn’t sound that, other than the fact that he is a naturalized citizen that was born in Pakistan and thus can be labeled home grown, he is going to turn out to be a right winger as they hoped he would be. Even worse, now it has become quite obvious that since the messiah took over, despite their promises that things would get better, it looks like we are getting more and more terror attack attempts from the people that should have now hated us less. And so far they have not succeeded in killing us simply because of pure dumb luck and ineptitude. I doubt we will hear much about that from the MSM or the WH though. At least Holder finally gets a real in the flesh domestic terrorist he can now stage a show trial in NYC for.
And another thing that caught my attention was that we got this fellow because of NSA probes of a disposable cell phone that led authorities to the would-be terrorists. Can you imagine the cries of woe and accusations of Orwellian or Nazi like government intrusion if this happened while Bush was president? I bet this isn’t even going to come up as a big deal now that the guy in the WH has a (D) next to his name.
Seems like the mythical redneck racist terrorist, like Sasquatch or the Loch Ness monster, continues to elude the left, dashing their hopes for a good excuse to delegitimize the causes of, and facilitate their crack down on, these moronic peasants that aren’t smart enough o understand their betters are in charge and that they should be happy about it. In the mean time terrorists and leftists all over the place continue to commit or try to commit acts of violence, but there isn’t any story there to report.
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Friday, April 23, 2010
X-37B makes its first flight
Our military knows how important our satellites are to their operations. Any country that goes to war with the formidable US military would be in a world of hurt. That is, unless they can cripple the technological advantages we have. And the quickest way to do so is to destroy enough of our satellites to fail both the GPS and the communications capabilities that our military hardware relies on to do its job well. The Chinese know they can not take the US head on. Let’s not kid around. China has ambitions to global domination, and they know the road to that requires them to eventually deal with the US military. They might choose to simply wait it out and hope 5 decades from now their economic advantages, the rapid decline of the US as the collectivists destroy anything and everything that made it exceptional, and their program to steal any and all military or industrial secrets without even the slightest bother to conceal that’s their agenda, to come together and deliver onto them that superior military capability, but my bet is that the fight will come sooner than later. The Chinese seem to feel the same way because for a while now their strategy has been to explore and build ways to come at us by asymmetrical means. From bringing down the internet to using ballistic missiles as carrier killers, they are looking at ways to overcome the technological advantage of our military, and score a David vs. Goliath kind of kill. And they are relying heavily on a strategy that attacks our space based infrastructure and destroy our technological advantage in the quickest and most effective way. So it is good to see that our military, despite the pap from the usual idiots that think the way to keep the hungry wolf at bay is to bare your throat to it in a gesture of submission, are taking the space threat seriously and acting upon it.
The military is fast moving to the use of UAVs. It should come as no surprise that an UAV would be just as good an option to have in space. The ability to quickly replace satellites or even protect ones in space while destroying enemy satellites or enemy kill vehicles, in order to provide continuity on the modern battlefield are key to deterring aggressive opponents. If you know your strategy to deny your enemy space and technology isn’t going to work, even a lunatic is going to think twice about starting a conflict that hinges on an asymmetrical attack reducing your enemy’s ability to take your forces out and give you a chance to win a fight you otherwise would not. If anything, this stuff will deter adventurism.
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Wednesday, April 07, 2010
Obama’s new non-nuclear and non-anti-Islamic radicalism policies..
I heard about Obama’s new nuclear policy a day or two ago, but decided to get more details before commenting on it. I should have gone with my first instincts and just pointed out then that this idiotic new policy was madness masquerading as progress. When even the usual MSM DNC talking point outlets like the NYT are asking if the new policy disarms America, you can bet that’s the end result, if not the end goal and plan, in the first place. Think about it. The people that have now decided America will literally take forever to decide on a response and get the options from lawyers, if they can respond to any WMD attacks in kind at all. These people and this new policy are completely undermining the MAD (mutually assured destruction) philosophy that have prevented a nuclear exchange by the powers that be, first during the Cold War with the USSR, and then in the new world that came after their inevitable fall. These are the same people that have vehemently objected to any and all US efforts to create some kind of missile defense, and have argued that it was because they firmly believe that if we got such a defensive system, it would undermine the MAD principle and lead to bad choices if not another arms race. But what they are pushing for is disarmament – that’s what the end game is, and Obama has made no bones about it – and whether they admit it or not, this policy has now have literally done away with the concept of MAD. WTF? In order to deter the use of WMDs from others - only stupid liberals live with the idiotic angst that it will be the evil US that will start Armageddon - we will now make our response to a WMD attack to not only be even more unclear, but now also limited? Again, WTF? Bye, bye MAD. No changes for defense, but changes that make us not just weaker, but invite attack, that’s progress!
And I almost broke out laughing when I read the part about how the new Obama policy, in response to a WMD attack, relies on an army of lawyers which will first go over the suspected nation that attacked us’ IAEA nuclear non-proliferation report, and then based on that report and their nuclear efforts & ambitions, decide if a nuclear reply was allowed. I don’t know if you caught the meaning of this move, but have no doubt that Obama’s new brainfart indirectly gave the UN control over not just our nuclear arsenal – which he is also hard at work obsoleting, but that’s a different story for a different day – but over our decisions to use them! All the IAEA has to do is whitewash their reports, and the US literally can’t use nuclear weapons on anyone. What’s the plan then? You are not going to try to make the case that the left will push for a conventional response to any WMD attack, are you? Look at their stances on Afghanistan and Iraq, and you will see that their first inclination, after they blame us for the attack, will be to urge “restraint”. These are the morons that tell you they believe violence never solved anything! Well, to be honest they don’t believe violence against anyone other than those that don’t share their ideology and hate of this country’s exceptionalism solves anything, because in my experience they tend to be the most violent people in defense of their twisted ideology. Can you think of anything more insane than these people now being in charge of life and death decisions and our security? What about the mindset that this policy puts those that would want to use WMDs against us, then? If you say this shift will do anything but encourage them more, you are a fool. We have just been made even more unsafe.
Oh yeah, the fact that Obama and his team of geniuses, directly or indirectly, excluded Iran and North Korea from this new policy, should matter a bit. Does anyone think that people like Obama that wanted to sit down and talk to a hostile Iran but threatened our Pakistani ally – I know they are an ally of convenience, but that’s neither here nor there, as much smarter men than I long ago pointed out that when it comes to nations and their interests are allies are just that – with nuclear hellfire, can be trusted to do what’s best for us? These are the same morons that want to lawyer up those gunning to kill us and rammed through a terribly unpopular government healthcare takeover that will hurt us all and bankrupt the country, after all. We are in great hands! The world has suddenly become a better place. I miss that “Cowboy”…
If I was Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, or any other nation that had lived under the promise of protection from the US nuclear umbrella, this new shift towards insanity would be a wake-up call. Don’t be surprised that these nations with North Korea and China in the mix, decide they can no longer trust us and decide to start up their own nuclear program. If anything, I suspect this new policy will not only backfire on us and weaken our security and the confidence of our allies, while emboldening our enemies, but it will lead to exactly the opposite of what these leftist morons are hoping for. Instead of others giving up their nukes or nuclear ambitions, this policy will force countless other nations that rightfully no longer trust us to provide for their security – we can’t even provide for our own – to go nuclear. I mentioned the Asian nations that would feel obliged to go nuclear, but that list is going to extend to many nations in the Middle East – I should point out that these nations were fine with an Israeli bomb and never felt the need for a nuke of their own – and likely also Europe and South America. And I am not even discussing the open door policy this invites on non-nuclear WMDs. If you really want to screw over the US use a bio or chemical weapon, keep the UN in your pocket and their report clean, and then make sure the US knows that any conventional response is going to be nary impossible or super costly, especially with weak spined collectivist twits in charge, resulting in a token use of force at best, and you score. Only people in fantasyland think this isn’t how the new policy will play out.
I also found it telling that this dangerous nuclear policy shift by the Obama Admin came in the same week that the WH has adopted a new policy that literally abandons the use of anti-radicalized Islam terminology. If you can’t define or name your enemy, how do you propose to fight, let alone defeat them? Do these morons think that if they stop pointing out that the terrorists and terror enabling nations at war with us are such, that they will cease and desist? Ostrich much? Or is it so they can broaden the terms to just terrorists and then bran Tea partiers as such as well? After all, the left has clearly shown they see more of a threat, when none really exists I should add, from those that disagree with their policies, than from radical and evil Islamic terrorists hell bent on blanketing the world in Sharia.
There is a pattern here with these drastic changes to things that these people when it is convenient for them claim are weakened when someone is making changes that would strengthen our security, and I am worried about what it says. I see no good coming from these decisions, which ultimately again bring us to the radical America hating left’s obsessive and stupid believe that the problem is the US, and if it just exposed its jugular to the world’s predators, they would all suddenly learn to live in peace with us. This kind of thinking is insanity, and yet these are the people we now put in charge of our security. We can’t call the enemy what it is, and we are bending over backwards to ease the faux concerns of people that would like nothing more than a crack at crippling and destroying us if they but could get away with it. I guess we deserve the consequences of these dumb moves.
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Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Holder gets a short reprieve
It looks like the WH has handed Eric Holder a reprieve, and just 24 hours before he was to appear in front of the Senate, to answer to the plethora of questions his embarrassing testimonies have resulted in, for today, rescheduled his senate appearance, using the excuse he was needed there when the demcorats sign away our future and try to make Obamacare the law of the land.
US Attorney General Eric Holder was scheduled to have a chat with the Senate today, but, with less than 24 hours on the clock, it was rescheduled for April 14. The postponement is possibly due to the signing of the health care bill, but Republicans think Holder might be glad for the extra time. No matter when it happens, it will not be a passive event. The hearing is officially billed as “oversight of the Department of Justice” but general consensus is he’ll face strong questioning over his decision (which seems more and more likely to be reversed) to try some of the alleged 9/11 masterminds in federal court. The Wall Street Journal has a full report today on criticisms lobbed from both the left and the right and suggest that “the controversies provoked by his decisions threaten to derail his career...”
Holder has huge problems he needs to address. First off, will be an explanation of his DOJ which wants to try terrorists in civilian court will circumvent the obvious strategy by every defense team to demand the government disclose vital secrets and methods of operation against the terrorists that the government doesn’t want to. The fact of the matter is that there is no way to do this successfully in a civilian court unless the trial is rigged and just for show anyway, and Holder knows it. Any defense attorney worth his salt would demand the US disclose everything about how they go after terrorists, national security be damned, and hope that the government when it opted to keep critical procedures, informants, or operational tactics secret, would end up destroying its case. Civilian courts do not really care for or tend to allow secrets, even those with national security implications, from excusing the government from meeting those legal obligations.
At this point nobody that is sane disputes the second point, that this DOJ, despite the claims they were showing more deference to and confidence in our judicial system than the evil Bush clique and their military tribunals - basically switching to treating terrorists at war with us as common criminals - actually intended these trials to be anything but show trials. The choice of New York, where the 9-11 attacks occurred, backs that up. But the killer was Holder’s guarantee during one of his recent meetings to testify to our political class, that all the defendants would be found guilty. I don’t know about you, but I was always thought our system, in an effort to provide fairness and give everyone a chance to prove their innocence, couldn’t guarantee results like Holder promised, unless of course the verdict was already predetermined, and the rest is just for show.
The fact is that the DOJ itself admitted that military commissions would do a better job to in their written submission to these kinds of questions for the congressional committee. There is no disputing that the DOJ admits in this written report that the Classified Information Protection Act (CIPA) that would govern federal courts - where they want to try terrorists like common criminals - offer inferior protections to critical national security and operations secrets compared to those provided by military commissions. In fact, they point out they would have to make changes to CIPA to get similar protection offered by a military tribunal. Here is the relevant passage from the DOJ report:
28. Under the Classified Information Protection Act (CIPA), the government may pursue an interlocutory appeal from orders “authorizing the disclosure of classified information . . . or refusing a protective order sought by the United States to prevent the disclosure of classified information.” 18 U.S.C. App. § 7(a). In United States v. Moussaoui, 333 F.3d 509 (4th Cir. 2003), the Fourth Circuit held CIPA did not authorize interlocutory appeals from orders related to the “pretrial disclosure of classified information to the defendant or his attorneys.” Id. at 514.
a. Do you agree that under the Moussaoui decision, the government may not seek immediate review of certain decisions authorizing the pretrial disclosure of classified information? If not, please explain your answer.
Response: In cases involving CIPA within the Fourth Circuit, under the Moussaoui decision, appellate courts lack jurisdiction under CIPA § 7 to entertain an interlocutory appeal by the United States of a district court order allowing a criminal defendant to depose a witness who may possess classified information.
b. Senator Kyl has offered legislation, including an amendment in Committee, to amend CIPA to address the deficiencies in CIPA. Given your decision to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and others in federal court, do you support legislation to address gaps in CIPA that could lead to disclosure of classified information?
Response: While CIPA has generally worked well in both protecting classified information and ensuring fair trials, there may be certain portions which could be usefully updated and clarified. The Administration has not yet taken a position on possible legislation to improve CIPA.
And I am even more interested in getting answers from Holder about his previous claim that some 300 hundred terrorists had successfully prosecuted in criminal court and are now in the prison system. If you read the answer in their report it is obvious that they have either “misplaced and/or can’t find” the documents to back their claims, or were lying, and are now stalling to avoid the embarrassment of this idiotic assertion. I vote the later. April 14th will be here sooner than later though, and then Holder can make a bigger jackass out of himself yet again. This is going to be fun to follow.
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Tuesday, March 16, 2010
What’s sadder?
That Obama and crew are again being shown to have lied while campaigning, or the muted and low-key reporting by the few MSM outlets to carry the story that Obama’s team is more secretive than the Bush team ever was? Their actions are finally giving meaning to what they meant when they told us they were about “hope and change”, I guess.
WASHINGTON (AP) - Federal agencies haven’t lived up to President Barack Obama’s promise of a more open government, increasing their use of legal exemptions to keep records secret during his first year in office. An Associated Press review of Freedom of Information Act reports filed by 17 major agencies found that the use of nearly every one of the law’s nine exemptions to withhold information from the public rose in fiscal year 2009, which ended last October. Among the most frequently used exemptions: one that lets the government hide records that detail its internal decision-making. Obama specifically directed agencies to stop using that exemption so frequently, but that directive appears to have been widely ignored. Major agencies cited that exemption at least 70,779 times during the 2009 budget year, up from 47,395 times during President George W. Bush’s final full budget year, according to annual FOIA reports filed by federal agencies. Obama was president for nine months in the 2009 period.
Right!!!! Obama told them not to, but they then went ahead and used it with such frequency - it’s almost double the number - that they set a new record! Either that means they think Obama a weakling moron and simply don’t care what he has ordered them to do, which is bad thing for the country in general because it projects the image that the executive has no control over it’s own government agencies, or the more likely truth, that Obama was saying this stuff during the campaign, but didn’t mean it at all, and the MSM, as they are wont to, is giving him cover with this kind of stupid writing in this article, which IMO is a much worse thing. My bet is - and this is based on the other promises not kept so far - that it is a combination of both, with the later being the bigger driver. And before you claim that these exemptions are happening for national security or military reasons, look at this:
In all, major agencies cited that or other FOIA exemptions to refuse information at least 466,872 times in budget year 2009, compared with 312,683 times the previous year, the review found. Agencies often cite more than one exemption when withholding part or all of the material sought in an open-records request. The AP examined the 2008 and 2009 budget year FOIA reports from the departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, Education, Energy, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, Housing and Urban Development, Interior, Justice, Labor, State, Transportation, Treasury and Veterans Affairs; the Environmental Protection Agency; and the Federal Reserve Board. Other FOIA exemptions cover information on national defense and foreign relations, internal agency rules and practices, trade secrets, personal privacy, law enforcement proceedings, supervision of financial institutions and geological information on wells.
Now, before you rabid libs get all mad at me and say I am inconsistent or did not call the Bush administration out when they did the some of the same, know that I have no problem with the government’s legitimate use of exemptions to FOIA. I am writing this to point out how differently the MSM reports a much broader and intensive use by government of the FOIA exemption depending on who is running the government. Even more important, I am writing it to point out that Obama and the demcorats, yet again, lied to us during their campaigning. If anything, this government is more secretive, and less concerned with your freedoms, than the one BDS infected liberals accused of being fascists, and yet, we now get tepid articles that actually defend the same practices that a year or two ago sent these morons into a frenzy.
Much of the Obama administration’s early effort on FOIA seems to have been aimed at clearing out a backlog of old cases: The number of requests still sitting around past the time limits spelled out in the open-records law fell from 124,019 in budget year 2008 to 67,764 at the end of the most recent budget year over the 17 agencies, the AP’s review found. There is no way to tell whether those whose old cases that were closed ultimately received the information they sought.
I wonder how many of these back-log items were filed by liberals when they thought they could use it to hurt the Bush Administration, but now would if revealed would be inconvenient to them since they are the ones in charge. Nice when it hurts and hampers the fascist Bush administration, bad if we have to live by the same standards and rules we hoped to use against them. If anything, that should make you wonder how seriously these people take our security when they so callously and easily play political games with information that when someone else was running the country they wanted disclosed, even if it endangered us, but now that they are in charge, feel should no longer be disclosed. Keep that in mind the next time you hear a democrat tell you how much worse others are and especially when they promise you something.
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Friday, March 12, 2010
The al Qaeda lawyers controversy
The recent revelation that came out, after some massive stonewalling by the WH which obviously knew it was damning, that many of Obama’s top legal appointees, including Eric Holder over at Justice, seem to have a conflict of interest when it comes to terrorism, seems to have lit a fire in the legal community. Whether you feel that there are issues with the whole terrorists are enemy combatants that purposefully avoid any uniforms or identifications vs. terrorist are just criminals, you can not fail to grasp that there is something problematic with having the very people that are now in charge of preventing another terrorist attack being sympathetic to that cause. And before you lambaste me for saying this, remember that, as this Andrew C. McCarthy article points out, these attorneys chose to go represent people that wanted to destroy this country, and we should be able to ask why. Especially when, as I pointed out, several of these attorneys are now the ones making critical decisions on how to handle not just captured terrorists, but how and how timely we get intelligence from these captured terrorists that can protect Americans from another attack. Here is the money quote:
The Justice Department lawyers who represented al-Qaeda were volunteers. Of all the causes to which they could have donated their services, they chose our enemies. They are no doubt sincere in claiming they sought to vindicate principles, not terrorists. But the other stubborn fact is that, since they took the helm at Justice, counterterrorism policy has become much more terrorist friendly.
Anyone that tries to make the case that those people asking for clarifications and pointing out the conflict, are just ushering a new era of McCarthyism, demanding we ignore the consequences and impact of the policies implemented by, and the actions taken by these lawyers now making the decisions to treat terrorists like common criminals, or worse tries to make the case that these policy shifts have made us safer, is an outright liar or moron. Maybe even both. I can guarantee you that the people that say this is much ado about nothing and that anyone that points out that these lawyers once chose to defend terrorists, would be singing a different tune if we had a clear conflict of interest like this with some government appointee that had links to the private sector. There is no excuse, and this is based on their won words and actions, even when you think that capitalism is a bigger threat than terrorism, to pretend that there isn’t a clear issue here. The truth is that these lawyers have made us all less safe. We have been lucky so far, but that luck won’t hold.
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