Gary is probably NOT a name you have heard unless you are a lover of UFO's or fear that the "man" will get you for exposing your conspiracy theory of the day. And although it is tempting to uncover the "Truth" by going to the source, the US government computer files in, oh, say, the Pentagon, it is not generally considered to be a really good idea. Seems they take the idea of hacking into their computers seriously. Even if the person doing it is a geeky kid from North London.
Imagine that.
Gary has been going through a lot of stress lately. Seems the entire US government is really pissed at him...and have managed to convince the UK government to extradite him back to the US to face trial.
The story is all here ... http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/aug/01/gary-mckinnon-extradition-nightmare
Now why is this worthy of even a moment of my valuable time? Well, where should I start? How much SHOULD we protect people from their stupid actions? Should we forgive people who create breaches of security of military security? How about the stupid Pentagon IT clerks who left their laptops unprotected? You think THEY will get more than a slap on the wrist? (actually I do...one thing I am certain about is that the military will eat their own...grin!)
Balance that against the fact that "Hell yeah, he's guilty as sin", with the question, "Will he get a fair trial?"
I don't think he will get a fair trial...though I am certain he will get a trial of some sort. I suspect that his reasons for entering into areas which are forbidden will not be found as important as the fact that he did it at all. A young joy rider who steals a car for "a little fun" is just as guilty as the hardened criminal who steals it in order to send it to a chop shop.
But one might think that perhaps a little humanity might be in order....perhaps at his hearing they may decide that the offence was perhaps misguided. Not malicious.
Regardless, we should all keep this case on the front burner....if only to keep an eye on the goings on of the "aroused tiger" who is proving to not be constructed of paper after all.
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
What were they thinking?
|  |   | |||||||||||
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Because they hate.
Date: Thursday, June 11, 2009, 12:18 PM
Brigitte Gabriel - Letter to President Obama
> Brigitte Gabriel, is a Lebanese Christian woman thrown out of her home by Palestinians, who has written a book called: Because they Hate. Below, Brigitte, who now lives in America, writes to President Obama, bringing her unique perspective to bear.
> Brigitte Gabriel - Letter to President Obama.
>
> Dear Mr. President,
>
> You face difficult challenges in matters such as achieving peace in the
> Middle East and protecting America from the threat of radical Islam and
> terrorism. These are challenges that have vexed past presidents, going as
> far back as our second president, John Adams. I have no doubt you appreciate both the gravity of these challenges and the enormous obstacles that exist to solving them.
>
> I also have no doubt that you and your staff understood that, no matter what you said in your speech last Thursday in Cairo, there would be those who would take issue with you. That is always the case when attempting to solve problems that are as deep and emotionally-laden as these challenges are.
>
> I am assuming it is your sincere hope that the approach you have chosen to take, as evidenced by what I'm sure was a carefully crafted speech, will
> ultimately prove successful. However, it pains me to say this sir, but,
> while you said in your speech that you are a "student of history," it is
> abundantly clear that, in these matters, you do not know history and thus, as Santayana noted, you are doomed to repeat it. In doing so your efforts, however well-intentioned they may be, will not produce what you profess to hope they will produce.
>
> A wise man once said that if you start with the wrong assumptions, no matter how logical your reasoning is, you will end up with the wrong conclusion. With all due respect Mr. President, you are starting with certain assumptions that are unsupported by history and an objective study of the ideology of political Islam.
>
> You began in your speech by asserting that "tensions" exist between the
> United States and Muslims around the world, which, of course, is correct.
> Unfortunately, you then proceeded, incorrectly, to lay virtually all the blame for these tensions at the feet of America and the West. You blamed
> western colonialism, the Cold War, and even modernity and globalism.
>
> A student of American history, who is not trying to reconstruct it to fit a
> modern politically correct narrative, would state that tensions between
> America and Muslims began with the unprovoked, four-decades long assault by the Muslim Barbary pirates against American shipping in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. I find it telling that you mentioned the Treaty of Tripoli in your speech but ignored the circumstances that led to it. That treaty was but one of numerous attempts by the United States to achieve peace with the jihadists of the Barbary Coast who were attacking our shipping and killing and enslaving our citizens and our soldiers and who by their own admission were doing so to fulfill the call to jihad.
>
> These jihadists were not acting to protest American foreign policy, which was decidedly isolationist, and there was no state of Israel to scapegoat. They were doing what countless Islamic jihadists have done throughout history, acting upon the hundreds of passages in the Qur'an and the Hadith that call upon faithful Muslims to kill, conquer or subjugate the infidel.
>
> A student of world history would know that, for all the acknowledged evils of Western colonialism, these evils pale in comparison to the nearly 14 centuries of Islamic colonialism that began in Arabia under the leadership of Mohammed. The student of history would know that Islamic forces eradicated all Jewish and Christian presence from Arabia after Mohammed's death, and then succeeded in conquering all of North Africa, most of the Middle East, much of Asia Minor, and significant portions of Europe and India, eventually creating an empire larger than Rome's was at its peak.
>
> The number of dead and enslaved during these many centuries of Islamic imperial conquest and colonialism have been estimated to total more than 300 million. What's more, the wealth of many of the conquered nations and cultures was plundered by the Islamic conquerors, and millions of non-Muslims who did survive were forced to pay onerous taxes, such as the "jizya," a humiliation tax to the Islamic caliphs. Indeed, in some areas Christians and Jews were made to wear a receipt for the jizya around their neck as a mark of their dishonor.
>
> These facts have not been invented by Christian or Jewish historical
> revisionists, but were chronicled by Muslim eyewitnesses throughout the past 14 centuries and are available to be researched by any person seeking an objective understanding of how Islam spread throughout the world.
>
> You say in your speech that we must squarely face the tensions that exist between America and the Muslim world. That is a laudable notion with which I agree, but by casting Islam as the historical victim and the West (and by implication, America) as the aggressor, you do not face these tensions squarely, but alleviate the Muslim world from coming to grips with the jihadist ideology embedded in its holy books and acted upon for 1,400 years.
>
> Even worse, you empower and embolden militant Islamists who regard your gestures as signs of weakness and capitulation.
>
> The issue is not that all Muslims are terrorists or radicals or extremists.
> We all know that the majority of Muslims are not. We also know that many peace-loving Muslims are victims of Islamist violence.
>
> The issue is this: what drives hundreds of millions of Muslims worldwide to call for the death of Jews?
>
> What drives millions of Muslims to riot, destroy property, and take innocent lives in reaction to the Danish cartoons?
>
> What drives tens of thousands of Muslims to demand the execution of a > British teacher whose only "crime" was allowing her students to name their teddy bears "Mohammed"?
>
> What drives countless Muslims worldwide to actively participate in, or fund, or provide nurture to terrorist organizations?
>
> What drives Muslims in mosques in America to proclaim and distribute
> materials that call for hatred of and the destruction of infidels?
>
> What drives entire Islamic countries to prohibit the building of a church or synagogue?
>
> To assume, as you apparently do, that what drives these actions is not an > ideology embedded in the holy books of Islam, but rather other "root
> causes," most of which you lay at the feet of America and the West, is at
> best naïve and at worst dangerous.
>
> Lastly, I must address your statement that "Islam has a proud tradition of tolerance." Unfortunately, the examples you gave are the exception rather than the rule.
>
> Historically speaking, I seriously doubt the Egyptian Copts, the Lebanese Maronites, the Christians in Bethlehem, the Assyrians, the Hindus, the Jews, and many others who have been persecuted by Islamic violence and supremacism, would agree with your assertion.
>
> For instance, Christians and Jews became "Dhimmis," a second class group under Islam. Dhimmis were forced to wear distinctive clothing; it was Baghdad's Caliph Al-Mutawakkil, in the ninth century, who designated a yellow badge for Jews under Islam, which Hitler copied and duplicated in Nazi Germany nearly a thousand years later.
>
> I witnessed first-hand the "tolerance" of Islam when Islamists ravaged my country of birth, Lebanon, in the 1970's, leaving widespread death and
> destruction in their wake. I saw how they re-paid the tolerance that
> Lebanese Christians extended toward them. My experience is not an isolated one. When you make an unfounded assertion about the "proud tradition" of tolerance in Islam, you do a great disservice to the hundreds of millions of non-Muslims who have been killed, maimed, enslaved, conquered, subjugated or displaced in the cause of Islamic jihad.
>
> Mr. President, those of us like me who are ringing the alarm in America
> about the threat of radical Islam would like nothing better than to
> peacefully co-exist with the Muslim world.
>
> Most Americans would like nothing better than to peacefully co-exist with the Muslim world. The obstacle to achieving this does not lie with us in America and the West. It lies with the hundreds of millions of Muslims
worldwide, including many of their spiritual leaders, who take seriously the repeated calls to jihad in the Qur'an and the Hadith. Who regard "infidels" as inferior and worthy of conquering, subjugating and forcibly converting. Who support "cultural jihad" as a means to subvert non-Muslim societies from within. Who take seriously the admonitions throughout the Qur'an and the Hadith to convert the world to Islam by force if necessary and bring it under the rule of Allah.
>
> Unless you are willing to courageously and honestly accept this, your
> aspirations for worldwide comity and peace in the Middle East are doomed to fail. >
> Sincerely,
> Brigitte Gabriel
Brigitte Gabriel - Letter to President Obama
> Brigitte Gabriel, is a Lebanese Christian woman thrown out of her home by Palestinians, who has written a book called: Because they Hate. Below, Brigitte, who now lives in America, writes to President Obama, bringing her unique perspective to bear.
> Brigitte Gabriel - Letter to President Obama.
>
> Dear Mr. President,
>
> You face difficult challenges in matters such as achieving peace in the
> Middle East and protecting America from the threat of radical Islam and
> terrorism. These are challenges that have vexed past presidents, going as
> far back as our second president, John Adams. I have no doubt you appreciate both the gravity of these challenges and the enormous obstacles that exist to solving them.
>
> I also have no doubt that you and your staff understood that, no matter what you said in your speech last Thursday in Cairo, there would be those who would take issue with you. That is always the case when attempting to solve problems that are as deep and emotionally-laden as these challenges are.
>
> I am assuming it is your sincere hope that the approach you have chosen to take, as evidenced by what I'm sure was a carefully crafted speech, will
> ultimately prove successful. However, it pains me to say this sir, but,
> while you said in your speech that you are a "student of history," it is
> abundantly clear that, in these matters, you do not know history and thus, as Santayana noted, you are doomed to repeat it. In doing so your efforts, however well-intentioned they may be, will not produce what you profess to hope they will produce.
>
> A wise man once said that if you start with the wrong assumptions, no matter how logical your reasoning is, you will end up with the wrong conclusion. With all due respect Mr. President, you are starting with certain assumptions that are unsupported by history and an objective study of the ideology of political Islam.
>
> You began in your speech by asserting that "tensions" exist between the
> United States and Muslims around the world, which, of course, is correct.
> Unfortunately, you then proceeded, incorrectly, to lay virtually all the blame for these tensions at the feet of America and the West. You blamed
> western colonialism, the Cold War, and even modernity and globalism.
>
> A student of American history, who is not trying to reconstruct it to fit a
> modern politically correct narrative, would state that tensions between
> America and Muslims began with the unprovoked, four-decades long assault by the Muslim Barbary pirates against American shipping in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. I find it telling that you mentioned the Treaty of Tripoli in your speech but ignored the circumstances that led to it. That treaty was but one of numerous attempts by the United States to achieve peace with the jihadists of the Barbary Coast who were attacking our shipping and killing and enslaving our citizens and our soldiers and who by their own admission were doing so to fulfill the call to jihad.
>
> These jihadists were not acting to protest American foreign policy, which was decidedly isolationist, and there was no state of Israel to scapegoat. They were doing what countless Islamic jihadists have done throughout history, acting upon the hundreds of passages in the Qur'an and the Hadith that call upon faithful Muslims to kill, conquer or subjugate the infidel.
>
> A student of world history would know that, for all the acknowledged evils of Western colonialism, these evils pale in comparison to the nearly 14 centuries of Islamic colonialism that began in Arabia under the leadership of Mohammed. The student of history would know that Islamic forces eradicated all Jewish and Christian presence from Arabia after Mohammed's death, and then succeeded in conquering all of North Africa, most of the Middle East, much of Asia Minor, and significant portions of Europe and India, eventually creating an empire larger than Rome's was at its peak.
>
> The number of dead and enslaved during these many centuries of Islamic imperial conquest and colonialism have been estimated to total more than 300 million. What's more, the wealth of many of the conquered nations and cultures was plundered by the Islamic conquerors, and millions of non-Muslims who did survive were forced to pay onerous taxes, such as the "jizya," a humiliation tax to the Islamic caliphs. Indeed, in some areas Christians and Jews were made to wear a receipt for the jizya around their neck as a mark of their dishonor.
>
> These facts have not been invented by Christian or Jewish historical
> revisionists, but were chronicled by Muslim eyewitnesses throughout the past 14 centuries and are available to be researched by any person seeking an objective understanding of how Islam spread throughout the world.
>
> You say in your speech that we must squarely face the tensions that exist between America and the Muslim world. That is a laudable notion with which I agree, but by casting Islam as the historical victim and the West (and by implication, America) as the aggressor, you do not face these tensions squarely, but alleviate the Muslim world from coming to grips with the jihadist ideology embedded in its holy books and acted upon for 1,400 years.
>
> Even worse, you empower and embolden militant Islamists who regard your gestures as signs of weakness and capitulation.
>
> The issue is not that all Muslims are terrorists or radicals or extremists.
> We all know that the majority of Muslims are not. We also know that many peace-loving Muslims are victims of Islamist violence.
>
> The issue is this: what drives hundreds of millions of Muslims worldwide to call for the death of Jews?
>
> What drives millions of Muslims to riot, destroy property, and take innocent lives in reaction to the Danish cartoons?
>
> What drives tens of thousands of Muslims to demand the execution of a > British teacher whose only "crime" was allowing her students to name their teddy bears "Mohammed"?
>
> What drives countless Muslims worldwide to actively participate in, or fund, or provide nurture to terrorist organizations?
>
> What drives Muslims in mosques in America to proclaim and distribute
> materials that call for hatred of and the destruction of infidels?
>
> What drives entire Islamic countries to prohibit the building of a church or synagogue?
>
> To assume, as you apparently do, that what drives these actions is not an > ideology embedded in the holy books of Islam, but rather other "root
> causes," most of which you lay at the feet of America and the West, is at
> best naïve and at worst dangerous.
>
> Lastly, I must address your statement that "Islam has a proud tradition of tolerance." Unfortunately, the examples you gave are the exception rather than the rule.
>
> Historically speaking, I seriously doubt the Egyptian Copts, the Lebanese Maronites, the Christians in Bethlehem, the Assyrians, the Hindus, the Jews, and many others who have been persecuted by Islamic violence and supremacism, would agree with your assertion.
>
> For instance, Christians and Jews became "Dhimmis," a second class group under Islam. Dhimmis were forced to wear distinctive clothing; it was Baghdad's Caliph Al-Mutawakkil, in the ninth century, who designated a yellow badge for Jews under Islam, which Hitler copied and duplicated in Nazi Germany nearly a thousand years later.
>
> I witnessed first-hand the "tolerance" of Islam when Islamists ravaged my country of birth, Lebanon, in the 1970's, leaving widespread death and
> destruction in their wake. I saw how they re-paid the tolerance that
> Lebanese Christians extended toward them. My experience is not an isolated one. When you make an unfounded assertion about the "proud tradition" of tolerance in Islam, you do a great disservice to the hundreds of millions of non-Muslims who have been killed, maimed, enslaved, conquered, subjugated or displaced in the cause of Islamic jihad.
>
> Mr. President, those of us like me who are ringing the alarm in America
> about the threat of radical Islam would like nothing better than to
> peacefully co-exist with the Muslim world.
>
> Most Americans would like nothing better than to peacefully co-exist with the Muslim world. The obstacle to achieving this does not lie with us in America and the West. It lies with the hundreds of millions of Muslims
worldwide, including many of their spiritual leaders, who take seriously the repeated calls to jihad in the Qur'an and the Hadith. Who regard "infidels" as inferior and worthy of conquering, subjugating and forcibly converting. Who support "cultural jihad" as a means to subvert non-Muslim societies from within. Who take seriously the admonitions throughout the Qur'an and the Hadith to convert the world to Islam by force if necessary and bring it under the rule of Allah.
>
> Unless you are willing to courageously and honestly accept this, your
> aspirations for worldwide comity and peace in the Middle East are doomed to fail. >
> Sincerely,
> Brigitte Gabriel
Friday, May 01, 2009
Swiss banks
Yet another example of the US government thinking that somehow, someway, their laws, regulations, wants and needs somehow apply to another country!
Please visit Canoe.ca for the rest of Sarah's excellent report!
http://money.canoe.ca/News/Sectors/BanksFinance/2009/04/30/9308786-ap.html#top
Swiss bank tries to keep secrets
By Sarah Larimer, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
2009-04-30 21:56:00
banking giant UBS AG said turning over to the IRS the names of thousands of wealthy Americans who might be withholding billions in income from U.S. taxes would violate Swiss law and undermine international relations, according to a court brief filed Thursday.
The U.S. Internal Revenue Service has sued UBS to try and force the bank to turn over information about 52,000 account holders the agency says have an estimated US$14.8 billion in assets and are using Swiss bank secrecy to shield the money. UBS asked that a Miami federal judge deny the IRS petition.
"There can be no question that the Swiss interest in enforcement of its financial privacy laws is strong and legitimate," the filing states. "In contrast to some other countries' financial privacy laws, the laws of Switzerland impose criminal, as opposed to merely civil, liability on those responsible for violations."
(my comment on this...)
Her report goes on to document the idiocy of trying to get a Miami judge to sue Swiss banks to get them to divulge the names and amounts of money kept in the Swiss bank accounts. So how did this all happen? Well, when a bunch of banks went on the auction block last year, the Swiss bank UBS AG bought the accounts. Now who owns the accounts, and what is in them is pretty much a Swiss matter! It was ever thus. The Internal Revenue Service figures this was a money hiding scheme by the bankers who were going under, and maybe the UBS bankers themselves who probably met with the account holders and informed them that henceforth your banking information is protected under Swiss law. The IRS figures that since they don't know what or who has the accounts, they are possibly evidence of tax evasion. And they are probably right! But...its a Swiss bank so tough nooggies.
Sarah's report continues....
February's lawsuit followed an agreement in which the Justice Department would defer criminal prosecution of UBS in exchange for the identities of up to 300 U.S. customers and payment by the bank of $780 million. That deal did not cover the list of 52,000 names now sought.
Government officials could not be reached for comment late Thursday.
Please visit Canoe.ca for the rest of Sarah's excellent report!
http://money.canoe.ca/News/Sectors/BanksFinance/2009/04/30/9308786-ap.html#top
Swiss bank tries to keep secrets
By Sarah Larimer, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
2009-04-30 21:56:00
banking giant UBS AG said turning over to the IRS the names of thousands of wealthy Americans who might be withholding billions in income from U.S. taxes would violate Swiss law and undermine international relations, according to a court brief filed Thursday.
The U.S. Internal Revenue Service has sued UBS to try and force the bank to turn over information about 52,000 account holders the agency says have an estimated US$14.8 billion in assets and are using Swiss bank secrecy to shield the money. UBS asked that a Miami federal judge deny the IRS petition.
"There can be no question that the Swiss interest in enforcement of its financial privacy laws is strong and legitimate," the filing states. "In contrast to some other countries' financial privacy laws, the laws of Switzerland impose criminal, as opposed to merely civil, liability on those responsible for violations."
(my comment on this...)
Her report goes on to document the idiocy of trying to get a Miami judge to sue Swiss banks to get them to divulge the names and amounts of money kept in the Swiss bank accounts. So how did this all happen? Well, when a bunch of banks went on the auction block last year, the Swiss bank UBS AG bought the accounts. Now who owns the accounts, and what is in them is pretty much a Swiss matter! It was ever thus. The Internal Revenue Service figures this was a money hiding scheme by the bankers who were going under, and maybe the UBS bankers themselves who probably met with the account holders and informed them that henceforth your banking information is protected under Swiss law. The IRS figures that since they don't know what or who has the accounts, they are possibly evidence of tax evasion. And they are probably right! But...its a Swiss bank so tough nooggies.
Sarah's report continues....
February's lawsuit followed an agreement in which the Justice Department would defer criminal prosecution of UBS in exchange for the identities of up to 300 U.S. customers and payment by the bank of $780 million. That deal did not cover the list of 52,000 names now sought.
Government officials could not be reached for comment late Thursday.
Tuesday, March 03, 2009
Cricket.
So why are we over in Afganistan?
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/World/2009/03/02/8597451-ap.html
Because thats where the head of the snake is.
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/World/2009/03/02/8597451-ap.html
Because thats where the head of the snake is.
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
US weakness?
I rather like James Lewis...he seems to call it like he sees it, and too often, he seems to be a voice in the wilderness, so to speak. This exerpt is from the American Thinker blog, and I suggest you visit it to read more of this magnificent orator and journalist. Regardless of the title, it seems to be more about the US weakness in the face of the world's bullies than an article about Israel. Worth the trouble reading.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/02/can_israel_make_it_alone.html
Can Israel make it alone?By James Lewis
In 1938 the West abandoned Czechoslovakia and Poland to Nazi aggression, signaling so much weakness that Hitler immediately grasped that he could now send his tanks against France and the rest of Europe. At Yalta, in 1945, the United States and Britain abandoned Eastern Europe and half of Germany to Stalin's armies. China was left to Mao Zedong, who ended up killing an estimated 40 million of his own people in various utopian massacres. In 1975 we left Vietnam and Cambodia to the tender mercies of Pol Pot and Ho Chi Minh, poster kids of the American Left. Several million dead people later, in 1979, Jimmy Carter abandoned Iran to Ayatollah Khomeini and his torturers, one of whom is now President of Iran. Later this year Iran may explode its first bomb. The Obama administration will stand by and smile.
Now the US and our allies cannot control everything in the world, not by any stretch of the imagination. We were able to defeat Soviet imperialism with a true bipartisan consensus, from Truman to Reagan. But that took half a century. It also took tens of millions of clear-thinking Americans, Europeans and Asians, who were willing to recognize evil and stand up to it. Still, our record of standing by besieged allies is decidedly mixed, especially when Democrats take power. Barack Obama is no Harry S Truman.
Israel's planners have to be thinking that with Obama and his crowd in power, the United States may simply pull out the rug from the democratic and modern state of Israel.
Caroline Glick of the Jerusalem Post has listed some of the moves that have already been made by America-hating regimes -- just in the first weeks of the Obama Presidency.
She writes,
Since coming into office, Obama has repeatedly tried to build an alliance with the "newly emboldened" Russian bear. A week after entering office, he announced that he hoped to negotiate a nuclear disarmament agreement with Russia that would reduce the US's nuclear stockpiles by 80 percent. ... Responding to these American signals, the Russians proceeded to humiliate Washington. Last week President Dmitry Medvedev hosted Kyrgyzstan's President ... in Moscow. After their meeting the two announced that ...Kyrgyzstan will close the US Air Force base at Manas which serves American forces in Afghanistan.
Clear enough, right? But not to our media, who just haven't bothered to notice, choosing instead to stage the most butt-kissing display of presidential worship in history.
Last Friday, the Pakistanis tested Obama. The Supreme Court freed Pakistan's Dr. Strangelove -- A.Q. Khan -- from the house arrest he had been under since his nuclear proliferation racket was exposed by the Libyans in 2004. ... Khan's release casts a dark shadow on Obama's plan to dismantle much of America's nuclear arsenal, because with him free, the prospect that Pakistan is back in the proliferation business becomes quite real. ...
Pakistan's open contempt for the US and its weakness in the face of the Taliban's takeover of the country has direct consequences for the US's mission in Afghanistan ..... This week the Taliban bombed a bridge on the Khyber Pass along the Pakistani border with Afghanistan that served as a supply line to US forces in Afghanistan.
You probably didn't hear that on ABC News Tonight.
How about Iran?
Obama came into office waving an enormous olive branch in Teheran's direction... (But) the regime has become more outspoken in its hostility toward the US. ... . It has announced it will only agree to direct talks with Washington if it pulls US forces out of the Middle East, abandons Israel and does nothing to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. ... In all of its actions, Iran has gone out of its way to embarrass Obama and humiliate America. And Obama, for his part, has continued to embrace Teheran as his most sought-after negotiating partner.
Apparently if somebody spits right in your face and you pretend not to notice, it's just as if it never happened. That's not true in Southside Chicago, and it's not true in the Middle East. It only works that way in the liberal imagination.
Just look at the world. Putin is arm-twisting the Ukraine. He has cut off natural gas supplies to Germany and its neighbors in the middle of a bad winter. He is now in control of all the pipelines that supply Germany --- which is constantly sabotaged by its own Greens, who refuse to develop nuclear power plants.
And the US? Obama doesn't want to know. Neither does Hillary, who just flew off to Asia. Nor does Joe Biden, who now competes with Hillary and the National Security Council for control over foreign policy. The President is busy trying to peddle a trillion dollar payoff to Democrat Machines all over the country. Americans seem to be in a daze.
We are being tested by the bullies in the world. We are failing all their tests so far. Bullies keep testing and testing until they meet resistance, and there is no hard muscle in this flabby administration. It goes against their most cherished beliefs.
If you look at the world the way Israel must be doing, the question is, can you survive with a flabby America, or even with an America that turns against you?
The basic answer is "Yes," but at a stiff price. Israel is a fairly advanced nuclear power, and no such power has ever been overthrown by any other. The risk is just too great. Nuke-armed Pakistan is always on the edge of crumbling, and it is now believed that its intelligence service helped Islamic terrorists who gunned down hundreds of civilians in Mumbai a few months ago. India may threaten to retaliate, but it can't do much in the face of Pakistan's missiles armed with weapons of mass destruction. Pakistan is therefore using its nuclear power to create a safe haven for Islamic terror assaults on the Hindu nation next door.
After 9/11 the Pakistan government was sufficiently afraid of George W. Bush to allow American strikes against Al Qaida on its territory. But Pakistan has pulled back since General Musharraf was driven from power -- in good part by American pressure, along with outrageous and ignorant public insults from Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. So Musharraf is gone, and the Pakistan military and terror-support apparatus is now free to keep attacking majority-Hindu India. It may be their way of keeping their own militants under control. Or maybe they just believe in sticking it to the infidels, wherever they may be.
This is not, as the Obama administration would like to believe, just a quarrel about the Kashmir. It's all part of the worldwide jihad -- like communism and Nazism, Islam is inherently imperialistic.
When Iran gets its bomb, the Mullahs will feel free to sponsor terrorism in Saudi Arabia, as Ayatollah Khomeini did, or wherever they can stir up trouble in the Arab world. Iran's proxies have been launching missiles at civilians in Israel for years. They came close to hitting the nuclear power plant at Dimona in this last round, as much of a red line for Israel as anything imaginable. Next time they could easily hit that plant. What would Obama do?
The death of Israel is only a part of what the Mullahs want; they really crave control over Mecca and Medina, the holiest cities in Islam. The Saudis have ruled Arabia for only a hundred years, a fleeting moment in time by the millennial reckoning of fanatics. Why should the Arabian Peninsula be dominated by the despised Sunni Arabs, when seventy million Shiites in Iran are only fifty miles across the Gulf, and will soon be armed with nukes? The Persian Empire never stopped at the Gulf. Why should the new Shiite Caliphate stop there?
That's why the Saudis are looking to make peace between the Arabs and Israel. It is also why they financed Pakistan's nuclear program, and why they will do the same for Egypt when the time comes. They see a deadly threat to their survival, even if the American government doesn't.
So Iran's nuclear weapons will be used to create impregnable havens for terror groups. If Obama allows Iran to dominate the Gulf to "satisfy its ambitions to become a regional power," as the Left likes to say, you can fully expect the Mullahs to take the logical next step.
Nations have no permanent friends, only permanent interests -- like survival. If the United States abandons the Jewish State, Jerusalem will have to seek new alliances. It may feel driven to conduct an open nuclear test if Iran does. That's what happened with India and Pakistan ten years ago. Israel is working with India -- and so far, the US -- on advanced antimissile defenses. India has a natural affinity with the Israelis, as a majority-Hindu state that has been fighting jihadi terror since 1948. Historically, India experienced constant aggression from Muslim powers. China and Russia have a long horror of Islamic invasion. If survival is at stake, expect Israel to make whatever alliances it can.
Other nations that rely on us --Taiwan, Singapore, Poland, the Czech Republic, the Ukraine, Georgia, the Baltic States -- will also see the handwriting on the wall. Not all of them will collapse.
Western Europe may be crumble to domestic Muslims, as the Geert Wilders case suggests. But Russia has a thousand years of fighting Islamic aggression, and has just carried out a vicious war against jihadi rebels in Chechnya. China also fears Muslim invaders and rebels. Even Australia is showing real spirit in the fight against this very ancient fascist ideology.
In a decade or so civilized nations will have adequate anti-missile defenses, and better protection against smuggled dirty bombs. Bio-identification will make it easier to pinpoint dangerous people trying to enter the country. But we may have to pay a big price in individual freedom.
These calculations are surely going through the minds of politicians and strategists around the world. If the Obama administration walks away from democratic allies, we will see a fast reshuffling of the alliances we've seen since World War I.
Obama is the most radical leftist ever to occupy the White House. He will teach us many lessons, but he is not likely to sway American culture for very long -- including our admiration for small and besieged democracies. If anything, he will end up reminding a new generation why the United States fought the Cold War. There will come a time for another Ronald Reagan, a president who combines our deepest values with a coherent national strategy.
But that's over the long term. In the next four to eight years Israel will have to think very hard about how to survive without the United States.
Page Printed from: http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/02/can_israel_make_it_alone.html at February 15, 2009 - 03:33:25 PM EST
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/02/can_israel_make_it_alone.html
Can Israel make it alone?By James Lewis
In 1938 the West abandoned Czechoslovakia and Poland to Nazi aggression, signaling so much weakness that Hitler immediately grasped that he could now send his tanks against France and the rest of Europe. At Yalta, in 1945, the United States and Britain abandoned Eastern Europe and half of Germany to Stalin's armies. China was left to Mao Zedong, who ended up killing an estimated 40 million of his own people in various utopian massacres. In 1975 we left Vietnam and Cambodia to the tender mercies of Pol Pot and Ho Chi Minh, poster kids of the American Left. Several million dead people later, in 1979, Jimmy Carter abandoned Iran to Ayatollah Khomeini and his torturers, one of whom is now President of Iran. Later this year Iran may explode its first bomb. The Obama administration will stand by and smile.
Now the US and our allies cannot control everything in the world, not by any stretch of the imagination. We were able to defeat Soviet imperialism with a true bipartisan consensus, from Truman to Reagan. But that took half a century. It also took tens of millions of clear-thinking Americans, Europeans and Asians, who were willing to recognize evil and stand up to it. Still, our record of standing by besieged allies is decidedly mixed, especially when Democrats take power. Barack Obama is no Harry S Truman.
Israel's planners have to be thinking that with Obama and his crowd in power, the United States may simply pull out the rug from the democratic and modern state of Israel.
Caroline Glick of the Jerusalem Post has listed some of the moves that have already been made by America-hating regimes -- just in the first weeks of the Obama Presidency.
She writes,
Since coming into office, Obama has repeatedly tried to build an alliance with the "newly emboldened" Russian bear. A week after entering office, he announced that he hoped to negotiate a nuclear disarmament agreement with Russia that would reduce the US's nuclear stockpiles by 80 percent. ... Responding to these American signals, the Russians proceeded to humiliate Washington. Last week President Dmitry Medvedev hosted Kyrgyzstan's President ... in Moscow. After their meeting the two announced that ...Kyrgyzstan will close the US Air Force base at Manas which serves American forces in Afghanistan.
Clear enough, right? But not to our media, who just haven't bothered to notice, choosing instead to stage the most butt-kissing display of presidential worship in history.
Last Friday, the Pakistanis tested Obama. The Supreme Court freed Pakistan's Dr. Strangelove -- A.Q. Khan -- from the house arrest he had been under since his nuclear proliferation racket was exposed by the Libyans in 2004. ... Khan's release casts a dark shadow on Obama's plan to dismantle much of America's nuclear arsenal, because with him free, the prospect that Pakistan is back in the proliferation business becomes quite real. ...
Pakistan's open contempt for the US and its weakness in the face of the Taliban's takeover of the country has direct consequences for the US's mission in Afghanistan ..... This week the Taliban bombed a bridge on the Khyber Pass along the Pakistani border with Afghanistan that served as a supply line to US forces in Afghanistan.
You probably didn't hear that on ABC News Tonight.
How about Iran?
Obama came into office waving an enormous olive branch in Teheran's direction... (But) the regime has become more outspoken in its hostility toward the US. ... . It has announced it will only agree to direct talks with Washington if it pulls US forces out of the Middle East, abandons Israel and does nothing to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. ... In all of its actions, Iran has gone out of its way to embarrass Obama and humiliate America. And Obama, for his part, has continued to embrace Teheran as his most sought-after negotiating partner.
Apparently if somebody spits right in your face and you pretend not to notice, it's just as if it never happened. That's not true in Southside Chicago, and it's not true in the Middle East. It only works that way in the liberal imagination.
Just look at the world. Putin is arm-twisting the Ukraine. He has cut off natural gas supplies to Germany and its neighbors in the middle of a bad winter. He is now in control of all the pipelines that supply Germany --- which is constantly sabotaged by its own Greens, who refuse to develop nuclear power plants.
And the US? Obama doesn't want to know. Neither does Hillary, who just flew off to Asia. Nor does Joe Biden, who now competes with Hillary and the National Security Council for control over foreign policy. The President is busy trying to peddle a trillion dollar payoff to Democrat Machines all over the country. Americans seem to be in a daze.
We are being tested by the bullies in the world. We are failing all their tests so far. Bullies keep testing and testing until they meet resistance, and there is no hard muscle in this flabby administration. It goes against their most cherished beliefs.
If you look at the world the way Israel must be doing, the question is, can you survive with a flabby America, or even with an America that turns against you?
The basic answer is "Yes," but at a stiff price. Israel is a fairly advanced nuclear power, and no such power has ever been overthrown by any other. The risk is just too great. Nuke-armed Pakistan is always on the edge of crumbling, and it is now believed that its intelligence service helped Islamic terrorists who gunned down hundreds of civilians in Mumbai a few months ago. India may threaten to retaliate, but it can't do much in the face of Pakistan's missiles armed with weapons of mass destruction. Pakistan is therefore using its nuclear power to create a safe haven for Islamic terror assaults on the Hindu nation next door.
After 9/11 the Pakistan government was sufficiently afraid of George W. Bush to allow American strikes against Al Qaida on its territory. But Pakistan has pulled back since General Musharraf was driven from power -- in good part by American pressure, along with outrageous and ignorant public insults from Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. So Musharraf is gone, and the Pakistan military and terror-support apparatus is now free to keep attacking majority-Hindu India. It may be their way of keeping their own militants under control. Or maybe they just believe in sticking it to the infidels, wherever they may be.
This is not, as the Obama administration would like to believe, just a quarrel about the Kashmir. It's all part of the worldwide jihad -- like communism and Nazism, Islam is inherently imperialistic.
When Iran gets its bomb, the Mullahs will feel free to sponsor terrorism in Saudi Arabia, as Ayatollah Khomeini did, or wherever they can stir up trouble in the Arab world. Iran's proxies have been launching missiles at civilians in Israel for years. They came close to hitting the nuclear power plant at Dimona in this last round, as much of a red line for Israel as anything imaginable. Next time they could easily hit that plant. What would Obama do?
The death of Israel is only a part of what the Mullahs want; they really crave control over Mecca and Medina, the holiest cities in Islam. The Saudis have ruled Arabia for only a hundred years, a fleeting moment in time by the millennial reckoning of fanatics. Why should the Arabian Peninsula be dominated by the despised Sunni Arabs, when seventy million Shiites in Iran are only fifty miles across the Gulf, and will soon be armed with nukes? The Persian Empire never stopped at the Gulf. Why should the new Shiite Caliphate stop there?
That's why the Saudis are looking to make peace between the Arabs and Israel. It is also why they financed Pakistan's nuclear program, and why they will do the same for Egypt when the time comes. They see a deadly threat to their survival, even if the American government doesn't.
So Iran's nuclear weapons will be used to create impregnable havens for terror groups. If Obama allows Iran to dominate the Gulf to "satisfy its ambitions to become a regional power," as the Left likes to say, you can fully expect the Mullahs to take the logical next step.
Nations have no permanent friends, only permanent interests -- like survival. If the United States abandons the Jewish State, Jerusalem will have to seek new alliances. It may feel driven to conduct an open nuclear test if Iran does. That's what happened with India and Pakistan ten years ago. Israel is working with India -- and so far, the US -- on advanced antimissile defenses. India has a natural affinity with the Israelis, as a majority-Hindu state that has been fighting jihadi terror since 1948. Historically, India experienced constant aggression from Muslim powers. China and Russia have a long horror of Islamic invasion. If survival is at stake, expect Israel to make whatever alliances it can.
Other nations that rely on us --Taiwan, Singapore, Poland, the Czech Republic, the Ukraine, Georgia, the Baltic States -- will also see the handwriting on the wall. Not all of them will collapse.
Western Europe may be crumble to domestic Muslims, as the Geert Wilders case suggests. But Russia has a thousand years of fighting Islamic aggression, and has just carried out a vicious war against jihadi rebels in Chechnya. China also fears Muslim invaders and rebels. Even Australia is showing real spirit in the fight against this very ancient fascist ideology.
In a decade or so civilized nations will have adequate anti-missile defenses, and better protection against smuggled dirty bombs. Bio-identification will make it easier to pinpoint dangerous people trying to enter the country. But we may have to pay a big price in individual freedom.
These calculations are surely going through the minds of politicians and strategists around the world. If the Obama administration walks away from democratic allies, we will see a fast reshuffling of the alliances we've seen since World War I.
Obama is the most radical leftist ever to occupy the White House. He will teach us many lessons, but he is not likely to sway American culture for very long -- including our admiration for small and besieged democracies. If anything, he will end up reminding a new generation why the United States fought the Cold War. There will come a time for another Ronald Reagan, a president who combines our deepest values with a coherent national strategy.
But that's over the long term. In the next four to eight years Israel will have to think very hard about how to survive without the United States.
Page Printed from: http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/02/can_israel_make_it_alone.html at February 15, 2009 - 03:33:25 PM EST
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Change, part two
Well, I see that we are heading down a slippery slope in a handbasket as usual. South of the border, we have a world leader who has just been handed a mandate to spend like a drunken sailor. Never in the history of the world has so much paper been printed to cover a debt which a lot of folks don't believe the government should have assumed in the first place. Not even in the trust fund debacle a few years ago. Mr Obama's supporters blame the previous administration, forgetting that for the last several years, both the upper and lower houses have been dominated by the Democratic Party. So, sorry, it was the Democrats who got ya into this mess, maybe the Democrats can spend y'all out of it!
Actually, it might work....since so much money existed in the form of mortgages on properties worth only half their face value, this money has essentially been taken out of the economy, and the US's trillion dollar input "should" only be shoveling money back into the hole. Normally it would take a war to pull this miracle off! If they can resist the urge to print a couple of extra trillion, you know, just to leave as tips and pocket linings, then there will not be a corrosion in the value of the cash such as exists in say, the Belgian Congo, or in Germany leading into WWII. Quite a balancing act! So it may well be the right answer, at least for the US.
Now up here in Canada, we are facing an economic meltdown of our own. For the first time since the Trudeau years, Canada has had a negative trade balance. 33 years. We are seeing thousands being laid off from GM plants, auto parts plants are closing their doors, fewer housing starts have been the norm in the US, leading to lower demand for lumber, and it doesn't take a crystal ball to spot that much the same thing will be happening here in the next year or so. Nickel, iron, copper and potash prices are falling through the floor, causing those companies to reduce their operations. We can't sell our oil! Ottawa gang bangers are coming back home because there are no longer any rich pickings in the oil patch.
Note that my examples are all of companies which are foreign owned. They employ thousands of workers here in Canada, and the Obama government is on record as saying that they have no interest in propping up any economy but their own. General Motors Canada is not going to get any of that great bail out money, so GM Canada has stated that they will simply close operations in Canada. Unless of course, the federal conservative party of Canada decides to bail out General Motors Canada. Then they would stay here, and as they piously point out, continue to employ UAW assembly line plugs. You want to bet that Wehrhouser lumber, Exxon, Gulf Oil, and Theissen Nickle are not watching this real closely, and if GMC gets a sugar plumb, their execs won't be flying their corporate planes into Ottawa International Airport asking for theirs as well?
Only trouble with that is, as we get back to the original statement, you can print money like it was growing on trees if you have a place where it vanishes just as quick...like say, a war, or a bank bailout. But Canada doesn't really have that...Canadian banks were "fiscally responsible", and therefore any massive bailout we hand out here in Canada will simply corrode the value of our currency. The trade deficit won't last long....as the Canadian dollar crashes in value like a cessna driven by a drunken ten year old, the economy will recover.
The real question is, as the US dollar nose dives as well, which will come out of it intact and level, and which will simply thunder into the turf?
Ahh, we live in interesting times!
Actually, it might work....since so much money existed in the form of mortgages on properties worth only half their face value, this money has essentially been taken out of the economy, and the US's trillion dollar input "should" only be shoveling money back into the hole. Normally it would take a war to pull this miracle off! If they can resist the urge to print a couple of extra trillion, you know, just to leave as tips and pocket linings, then there will not be a corrosion in the value of the cash such as exists in say, the Belgian Congo, or in Germany leading into WWII. Quite a balancing act! So it may well be the right answer, at least for the US.
Now up here in Canada, we are facing an economic meltdown of our own. For the first time since the Trudeau years, Canada has had a negative trade balance. 33 years. We are seeing thousands being laid off from GM plants, auto parts plants are closing their doors, fewer housing starts have been the norm in the US, leading to lower demand for lumber, and it doesn't take a crystal ball to spot that much the same thing will be happening here in the next year or so. Nickel, iron, copper and potash prices are falling through the floor, causing those companies to reduce their operations. We can't sell our oil! Ottawa gang bangers are coming back home because there are no longer any rich pickings in the oil patch.
Note that my examples are all of companies which are foreign owned. They employ thousands of workers here in Canada, and the Obama government is on record as saying that they have no interest in propping up any economy but their own. General Motors Canada is not going to get any of that great bail out money, so GM Canada has stated that they will simply close operations in Canada. Unless of course, the federal conservative party of Canada decides to bail out General Motors Canada. Then they would stay here, and as they piously point out, continue to employ UAW assembly line plugs. You want to bet that Wehrhouser lumber, Exxon, Gulf Oil, and Theissen Nickle are not watching this real closely, and if GMC gets a sugar plumb, their execs won't be flying their corporate planes into Ottawa International Airport asking for theirs as well?
Only trouble with that is, as we get back to the original statement, you can print money like it was growing on trees if you have a place where it vanishes just as quick...like say, a war, or a bank bailout. But Canada doesn't really have that...Canadian banks were "fiscally responsible", and therefore any massive bailout we hand out here in Canada will simply corrode the value of our currency. The trade deficit won't last long....as the Canadian dollar crashes in value like a cessna driven by a drunken ten year old, the economy will recover.
The real question is, as the US dollar nose dives as well, which will come out of it intact and level, and which will simply thunder into the turf?
Ahh, we live in interesting times!
Friday, January 23, 2009
Gettin on...
As we age, we tend to end up seeing more of the medical establishment. For
example, my regular family doctor referred me to a female urologist. I saw
her yesterday and she is gorgeous. She's beautiful and unbelievably sexy.
She told me that I have to stop masturbating.
When I asked her why, she said, ..........
"Because I'm trying to examine you."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)