Year: 2009

On the President's Speech

Okay, I finally am able to get around to writing about the speech and announcement gave by the President on the new troop levels in Afghanistan. First off, in the interest of full disclosure; I did not listen to the entire speech. I was doing something else and realized the speech was on and I turned it on, when the President was giving his speech. I heard over half of the speech; but I heard enough to tell you what I think about it, without in partisan spin or Republican talking points.

First off, it seemed to me that the President was selling the idea of the additional troops to the left. Barring the standard talking points of the far right and of the Fox News/Sean Hannity crowd; that there was not enough of them, that he was dithering and so forth, I really did not have an issue with what was being proposed. My feeling is this — We will simply have to wait and see. Iraq was cut and dry, Afghanistan is very different horse of a different color. There are more issues at hand and I suspect that this mission is going to be a bit more difficult. There are some on the right, which think we should just roll up, pull out, and not make the same mistake as Russia made in that area back in the 1980’s. That way, when the Taliban takes back over and Al-Qaeda hits America again, the Republican Party will be able to blame the Democrats; thereby destroying their credibility. Personally, I believe that is a sick mentality, but there are those on the right that feel that way, I know, I have read the comments sections of their blogs.

As for the people of Afghanistan; they were less then impressed by the bluster of the President:

Thirty thousand more U.S. troops for Afghanistan? Esmatullah only shrugged.

“Even if they bring the whole of America, they won’t be able to stabilize Afghanistan,” said the young construction worker out on a Kabul street corner on Wednesday morning. “Only Afghans understand our traditions, geography and way of life.”

[….]

Shopkeeper Ahmad Fawad, 25, said it would not help.

“The troops will be stationed in populated areas where the Taliban will somehow infiltrate and then may attack the troops,” he said. “Instead of pouring in more soldiers, they need to focus on equipping and raising Afghan forces, which is cheap and easy.”

For many, the prospect of more troops meant one thing: more civilian deaths.

“More troops will mean more targets for the Taliban and the troops are bound to fight, and fighting certainly will cause civilian casualties,” Ahmad Shah Ahmadzai, a former Afghan prime minister, told Reuters.

“The civilian casualties will be further a blow to the U.S. image and cause more indignation among Afghans.”

“It was a very wonderful speech for America … but when it comes to strategy in Afghanistan there was nothing really new which was disappointing,” she told Reuters from her home.

“It seems to me that President Obama is very far away from the reality and truth in Afghanistan. His strategy was to pay lip-service, and did not focus on civilians, nation-building, democracy and human rights.”

Other Afghans, hardened by decades of war and wary of foreign forces whom have for years fought proxy battles in Afghanistan, were skeptical of the United States’ intentions.

Kabul money changer Ehsanullah wondered why U.S. forces had managed to find former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, but had yet to locate Al Qaeda head Osama bin Laden or Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar, who both fled U.S. troops in Afghanistan in 2001.

“This is part of America’s further occupation of Afghanistan,” he said. “America is using the issue of insecurity here in order to send more troops.”

There is no two ways about it; President Obama is got his work cut out for him for the next year. He does make a very decent salary as President. Do not be deceived to think that he will not be working for it. Because now the President is out of the frying pan and into the fire, this is where his job is going to get very interesting.

I just hope, for America’s sake, that the President knows what he is doing.

Chris Matthews opens mouth, inserts foot

This comes via Ace and AllahPundit:

Far be it for me to criticize the man for opening his mouth and inserting his rather large foot into it. I am good at doing this same very thing myself. If you do not believe me, just look around a little. Seriously though; Matthews is old, I also give someone older them the benefit of the doubt. Besides, Chris is harmless; whereas Olbermann is a dedicated leftist, Matthews is simple a left of center Bill O’Reilly.

I figure by tomorrow night Matthews will be apologizing.

Updated: Yeah, I changed the look —- again

Like I said earlier, this dude here, e-mailed me about WMD’s. I liked the look of his Blog template, that went and downloaded it and am now using it myself! 😀

It is a bit more modern looking the other one was geared toward more older version of WordPress. This one is newer.

Hope ya’ll like it! 😀

-Pat

Update: I think I’ve settled on a theme that is a keeper. I tried a few and finally, think I have found one that I actually like.

Why do Liberals Hate Alan Grayson because he is a Jew?

Once again, the so-called Moral Authority has a double standard moment:

Since defeating an incumbent in Florida’s Republican-heavy 8th congressional district last year, Rep. Alan Grayson has emerged as one of the progressive movement’s most vocal champions. His attacks on Republican obstruction of healthcare reform and staunch opposition to escalation in Afghanistan have earned Grayson effusive praise from many liberal bloggers and activists.

Even before his election, Grayson gained recognition from the Wall Street Journal for being a “fierce critic of the war in Iraq” who sported a “Bush Lied, People Died” bumper sticker on his car. Recently, Grayson to CNN, “People want to see a congressman with guts. And America likes to hear the truth.”

Grayson has battled for the public option and opposed the wars Obama has inherited from Bush. Of course, these positions are upheld by a broad swath of congressional Democrats and, at least in the case of the public option, are supported by a majority of Americans. But when it comes to the Israel-Palestine conflict, Grayson is fully programmed by AIPAC and the pro-war, pro-settlements wing of the Israel Lobby.

via Gutsy progressive congressman Alan Grayson leads a double life. – mondoweiss.net

This is the same left that likes to decry people like Pat Buchanan and Ron Paul as Anti-Semites and Racist bigots. But you let one of their own happen to agree with the idea that Israel has a right to exist and that this homeland of the Jews deserves to be defended from outside threats and the Liberal’s standard changes rather quickly.

The double standard is stunning.

Follow Up: WMD's in Iraq

I received an interesting e-mail this morning. A good long while back, I made a posting on a report that Iraq did, in fact, have WMD’s.

Well, a gent e-mailed me, about a blog posting, that he made, on a new blog that he has created, called Right of a Nation. The posting is about the WMD’s that were in Iraq.

Check out those posts Here and Here.

Interesting indeed.

Guest Voice: Homeland Security Or Homeland Enslavement? by Chuck Baldwin

By now, most readers are familiar with the story of how a Virginia couple, Michaele and Tareq Salahi, crashed the White House State Dinner last Tuesday evening. President and Mrs. Obama were entertaining Indian Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh in the first official State Dinner of the new administration. The Salahis were not on the invited guest list, but were still allowed to walk right into the White House. They even had face-to-face conversations with both President Obama and Vice President Joe Biden. Photographs of the Salahis with the President and Vice President have been published in numerous newspapers and on hundreds of web sites.

I wonder if the American people are thinking this episode through? Think of it: in the post-9/11 world, a world that has invented the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), body scanners, retina readers, the Patriot Act, hundreds of laws and regulations restricting the freedoms and liberties of the American people, thousands of cameras photographing our public movements, and satellite spy devices, a couple can walk right into the White House and meet the President and Vice President without being invited!

Is there something wrong with this picture, or what?

I well remember what I had to go through when I was an invited guest of then-Vice President George H. W. Bush at the White House. My wife and I joined several others for a luncheon with Vice President Bush and his wife, Barbara. Later that day, we were in a crowd of several hundred who got to meet President Ronald Reagan. Needless to say, security was tight.

Upon arriving, we had to show the proper credentials to White House security, along with a photo ID and the personal invitation that had been sent to us ahead of time. I remember how some of the folks who had actually received invitations were denied entrance due to bureaucratic mix-ups or unintentional lapses in proper protocols. And these were people who really did have an invitation to be there. I can tell you this: there was absolutely no way that an uninvited person could have gained access to the White House that day. And remember: that was nearly two decades BEFORE 9/11!

That an uninvited couple could be granted access to the President and Vice President in this day and time is more than a “fluke.” It betrays something much deeper.

For the last 8 years, the American people have been told they must sacrifice certain liberties in order that the federal government might protect them. And for the most part, the American people have been happy to accommodate
this incessant intrusion into their personal liberties. They know the feds are monitoring their emails, personal phone conversations, and even their personal letters when received from overseas. They have sat silently as their banking institutions have monitored and reported virtually any and all financial transactions to the federal government. In today’s super-security world, one cannot even cash a check without showing the bank teller his or her driver’s license, which is recorded and made available to the feds. Sometimes, we are even required to provide our thumbprints. Beyond that, even certain service personnel that must come into our homes to provide in-home repair services, home inspections, or general services are oftenrequired to report what they see to various law enforcement authorities. All
of this is done in the name of “national security.”

All the while, America’s federal buildings today more resemble castles of ancient Europe than they do buildings that house the people’s servants. Concrete barriers along with super-reinforced, “bomb proof” structures remind one of castles of old, with their guard towers and crocodile-filled moats. Today, people must walk through metal-detectors and surrender their pocketknives to even visit their local supervisor of elections office (or just about any other public office, for that matter). Again, this is all done under the rubric of “homeland security.”

In the name of “national security,” veterans who have been accused of some kind of domestic disturbance or who have affirmatively answered an ambiguous question on a VA form regarding whether they have feelings of “anger” or “depression” are having their right to keep and bear arms stripped away.That’s right, in the name of “homeland security,” some of the very men who were entrusted with lethal weapons to fight America’s wars are now being told they are not fit to purchase or possess their own firearms.

Yet, in spite of all of the above, an uninvited couple is allowed to calmly walk right past Secret Service personnel and have personal audiences with the President and Vice President of the United States in what is ostensibly the most heavily-guarded, tightly secured building in the country: the White House.

Furthermore, this story comes on the heels of the mass shooting on what one would think would be a rather secure location: the US Army base at Fort Hood, Texas. And, have we forgotten the fellow who brought a gun into the
Capitol Building (the home of the US Congress) in Washington, D.C., a few years ago and killed two police officers?

Dear Reader, ask yourself this question, Do you really think those schmucks in Washington, D.C., actually believe that protecting you and me is more  important than protecting American soldiers, US congressmen, and especially the President of the United States? “Are you serious?” (To quote Nancy Pelosi.) The truth is, to the elites in DC, you and I are expendable commodities. In fact, to some of the soulless creatures running things, you and I are worth more dead than alive (but that’s a topic better discussed at a later date).

The point is, all this talk about “national security” is simply a ruse for Big Government elitists to steal our liberties and make slaves out of us. They don’t care about security; all they care about is POWER.

So, the next time you are required to be strip-searched by an airport screener, or to surrender your pocketknife at your local county commissioner’s office, or to show your driver’s license to your bank teller, or to submit to a random police checkpoint; the next time you make a phone call that you know is monitored by a federal agent (and they all are), or drive under a video camera, or visit these castle-esque federal buildings, remember Michaele and Tareq Salahi. And, if you are old enough, remember the time in America when we really were the “land of the free.” And also remember that it’s not security they seek–it’s the abolition of our liberty.

(Source)

On Charles Johnson's retreat from the Right

I was looking over Ace’s and I happen to notice that he linked over to Charles Johnson’s reasoning for supposedly parting ways with the right. I believe that it would be intellectually dishonest, if I did not point out the fact that; based upon all of the interviews that Johnson has given both pre and post association with the right, that Charles Johnson never was actually a bona fide Conservative. Charles Johnson was, in fact, a 9/11 liberal who, like many others got caught up in the fervor of patriotism and American Spirit that swept the Nation after the 9/11 attacks. This is because the 9/11 attacks where not attacks on liberals or conservatives, but rather attack on Americans in general.

The problem was and still is that the some of the more extreme elements within the Conservative movement imposed on his liberal sensibilities, Johnson simply could not handle it, and he left. Charles Johnson made the fatal mistake that many of the 9/11 liberals made; he put his money on a particular leader and when that leader disappointed him, he went back to the place where he felt most comfortable, the left. It would also be proper to mention that although he was raised a Catholic Johnson is an avowed atheist. Because of this, the Religious right offended his liberal sensibilities —- Thus the reason for Charles Johnson parting ways with the right.

So, while I can understand why some on the right would look to Johnson as a traitor and have sore feelings against the guy for walking away or for even possibly making alliances and walking away. One must realize that Charles Johnson never was “One of us” to begin with. Charles Johnson simply sided with the right, because the leadership at the time, in the Democratic Party was idiotic at best and Johnson saw this and sided with the leadership that he could trust. However, when that leadership did not perform to his liking and then the political winds shifted, Johnson retreated to his safe corner.

A interesting roundup of bloggers: Outside The Beltway, Right Wing Nut House, The Moderate Voice, minx.cc, Pam’s House Blend, Israel Matzav, Dennis the Peasant, The Strata-Sphere, At-Largely, Riehl World View, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion, culturekitchen, Moonbattery, Jihad Watch, The Washington Independent, Julies Crittenden, The Jawa Report, Stop The ACLU, JammieWearingFool, Althouse, The Other McCain, Another Black Conservative, DaTechguy’s Blog, Michael Calderone’s Blog and Wake up America

Was the Election in Honduras a referendum on Socialism?

The question that many are asking today; is what this election actually means, or what it is to the people of Honduras and more broadly, the rest of the world — The answer is quite apparent and could be a bit painful, not to mention a foreshadow of the things to come here in America.

Via The Wall Street Journal:

Unless something monumental happens in the Western Hemisphere in the next 31 days, the big regional story for 2009 will be how tiny Honduras managed to beat back the colonial aspirations of its most powerful neighbors and preserve its constitution.

Yesterday’s elections for president and Congress, held as scheduled and without incident, were the crowning achievement of that struggle.

National Party candidate Porfirio Lobo was the favorite to win in pre-election polls. Yet the name of the victor is almost beside the point. The completion of these elections is a national triumph in itself and a win for all people who yearn for liberty.

The fact that the U.S. has said it will recognize their legitimacy shows that this reality eventually made its way to the White House. If not Hugo Chávez’s Waterloo, Honduras’s stand at least marks a major setback for the Venezuelan strongman’s expansionist agenda.

The losers in this drama also include Brazil, Argentina, Chile and Spain, which all did their level best to block the election. Egged on by their zeal, militants inside Honduras took to exploding small bombs around the country in the weeks leading to the vote. They hoped that terror might damp turnout and delegitimize the process. They failed. Yesterday’s civic participation appeared to be at least as good as it was in the last presidential election. Some polling stations reportedly even ran short, for a time, of the indelible ink used to mark voter pinkies.

The elections in Honduras were, in fact, an extremely large poke in the eye to the socialist movement of the World. The message is clear; Freedom is popular. Freedom is a God-Given right for all of humankind; and Governmental control is an aversion to this concept. The people of Honduras knew the type of Government that Venezuela has and knew that the people of Venezuela are not truly free and did not want it in their Country. This is to be commended and shows that the people of Honduras still have a backbone.

The more broad scope is this; our tepid and incompetent President, Barack H. Obama did not have the guts to stand up for Freedom of the people. This was evidenced by his handling of the situation of Honduras and the civil uprising in Iran. This is because Democrats totally despise total and unfettered Freedom of the people; in favor of a big Government socialist society — President Barack Obama actions in both of these recent situations are an embodiment of this mentality.

My hat goes off to the people of Honduras and I pray God’s blessings upon them, as they return to a Government of Freedom and I pray for the safety of those people from the evil menacing socialists, who would give anything to overthrow that Government. I also pray God’s Protection from the evil dictator in Venezuela, who wants nothing more than to destroy the Freedom of the people of Honduras.

President Barack Obama should take note and see that Socialism is become quite unpopular — everywhere.

Others:  Fausta’s Blog, Gateway Pundit, Commentary, Right Wing Nut House, QandO, , Wake up America, Hot Air, and Atlas Shrugs