Happy 4th of July!!!

Let's Get Out of Afghanistan Now

American soldiers engaging in "social work" and nation building in Afghanistan

Despite being a hawk and a believer that the United States should project its power, all I can say now is that the time has come to get out of Afghanistan.

Carl von Clausewitz defined war as the continuation of politics by other means. Our politicians and generals are defining politics as the continuation of war by other means. This is dooming the war to failure and American soldiers once more to victims of policies carried on on the coffins of heroes.

Wars should be fought with one goal in mind: Victory. Fighting a war differently when it’s deemed an insurgency rather than a conventional war is letting the enemy know that we are putting our troops off limits in certain areas. These areas become then the places where the enemy chooses to hide in and fight from. Combine this with rules of engagement (ROE) that tie the hands of troops; announce a withdrawal date and presto, you have created a formula for defeat.

This new methodology of warfare stems from a belief that the majority of Afghanis are peace-loving victims of the Taliban andal-Qaeda and that killing one of them will make radicals of many. The belief in this concept is at the root of the new ROE. But this is nonsensical. Liberals believe that we are all equal in our ambitions and creed, and that given the choice the entire world would vote for peace and choose to become Jeffersonian democrats. In Afghanistan, Afghanis will tell us what we want to hear, and then they will do to us as much damage they can. This has been their modus operandi for centuries, and the British and Russians can attest to it.

The fact is that in the Muslim world exists a combination of inferiority complex, intertwined with Jihadism, Islamism, and a historical tradition of violence that is incongruent with our democratic traditions. The minority that wants peace and democracy is too terrified of the consequences of cooperation with our troops knowing our defeatist attitude.

America should announce that we are leaving, but that the drones will remain. Afghanis once again will be free to stone women who were raped, hang homosexuals, kill the infidels, deal in drugs, prohibit education of women, reinstate the burka, cane women who are caught unaccompanied by their husbands, and let the kites vanish once more from the skies of Kabul.

But let them know that if the terrorists return, the drones will hunt them, and no place will be sacred enough to prevent our bombs from finding their targets. If the cowards hide among innocent civilians, so be it. I’d rather see innocent civilians dead in Afghanistan, than innocent civilians dead in Manhattan.

Day 68, and the oil spill continues

This is a picture of the A Whale, the largest oil skimmer in the world, with the capacity to skim 500, 000 barrels a day.  The rest of  the skimmers in the Gulf combined have skimmed 600,000 barrels combined. 

The A Whale was tied to a dock in Norfolk, Virginia waiting for authorization from the Coast Guard and the EPA who were concernede about safety and environmental impact.  Does anyone really care?  Why can't bureaucrats cease being bureucrats while the oil spill in the Gulf continues to gush? 

Let us try anything that seems capable of helping.  We will have plenty of time to push pencils after the oil is continues.

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Video - Obama Who Threatened To Filibuster Alito, Says Kagan Deserves Fair Shake

RealClearPolitics - Video - Obama Who Threatened To Filibuster Alito, Says Kagan Deserves Fair Shake.  Funny, I don't remember Obama saying the same thing during the confirmation hearins of Justice Alito.

129 Days Left Till Election Day

Fascinating picture.  Senator Dodd, and Rep. Barney Frank celebrate after reaching an agreement over the shape of a new finance reform bill. 

It's appropriate that Barney Frank should be pulling his pants up after screwing 300 million Americans.  Here is a guy who "didn't know" that a male prostitution ring was being ran by his boyfriend from the basement of his house, but knows how to reform our economy.  Dodd, on the other hand, is the son of Thomas Dodd, of a former alcoholic senator who was censored by the senate for corruption.  Chris Dodd has so far avoided prosecution and jail by announcing that he is not running for reelection. 

The bill that democrats are about to ram through our throats contains 2000 pages of regulations that no one seems to understand how they will actually work and what their impact will be.  But the most interesting aspect of this legislation is that it attempts to reform our economy without mentioning once Fannie Mae or Freddy Mac.  This is the equivalent of performing surgery to remove a metastasized cancer and leaving the original tumor untouched.

For those who say that reform is needed to avoid another economic crisis, let me remind you that we live in a global economy.  Those who want derivatives or dangerous speculation will do so with a laptop, pressing the enter key and conducting their businesses from Singapore, Hong-Kong, Panama or a thousand different locations that will welcome American investments.  Wall Street does not have to be in lower Manhattan anymore.

The gambling industry is a perfect example.  We prohibit Internet gambling in America, and millions of gamblers are playing from home in virtual casinos located in Costa Rica.

Can't wait till November.  I just hope it wont be too late.

It's World War II, not the Great Patriotic War

Ooops, he did it again.

In a press conference with Russian President Medvedev, Obama was attempting to convey a positive message oncerning the meeting between the two leaders. In reality, Russia got the technology it wanted, and the United States got some patronizing smiles and the promise of cooperation with an embargo of Iran that would not hurt the citizens of that nation. Basically, a promise of a poodle with no teeth. Just a little annoying barking against Iran. That should scare them into giving up the nuclear bomb!

As usual, Obama couldn’t control himself and had to mention the poor relations that existed between the two nations when he became president, as if the deterioration of relations was somehow related to President Bush, conveniently forgetting the invasion of Georgia by the thugocracy in Moscow. Obama then proceeded to mention the improvement of relations that resulted from his administration diplomatic breakthroughs. Just to show that he didn’t agree with Medvedev on everything, he reminded us that there were actually disagreements over Georgia. Obama then continued as if a disagreement over Georgia was a disagreement over whether to eat hamburgers or borscht and blinis for lunch.

Obama gave us a note of optimism and the hope that we could return to the “good old days” of the alliance between the United States and the Soviet Union during the “Great Patriotic War.”

The Great Patriotic War? Is Obama insane, or is it that he just cannot avoid using the terminology of his leftist upbringing? The Great Patriotic War was a term developed by Stalin after the USSR was betrayed and invaded by its German allies. The rest of the world calls it World War II. Only Russia continues referring to it by Stalin’s term.

Is Obama so insecure as to feel the need to ingratiate himself with every dictator around the Globe?

Given the fact that Obama is destroying NASA and will use Russian rockets to place American satellites, perhaps we should begin calling astronauts cosmonauts.

What do you say, tovarich?

Eric Hoffer

As our government grows and becomes more and more intrusive, I was reminded by a quote from Eric Hoffer:

"The troublemakers are they who need public cures for their private ails."