We may think of this as a post 9/11 problem, but it's been with us all along. What was Reagan thinking, landing Marines in Lebanon to prop up the government of a country that didn't have one? In 1984, I visited the site where the Marines were murdered. It was a beachfront bivouac overlooked on three sides by hills full of hostile Shiite militia. You'd urge your daughter to date Rosie O'Donnell before you'd put troops ashore in such a place.
Since the early 1980s I've been present at the conception (to use the polite term) of many of our foreign policy initiatives. Iran-contra was about as smart as using the U.S. Postal Service to get weapons to anti-Communists. And I notice Danny Ortega is back in power anyway. I had a look into the eyes of the future rulers of Afghanistan at a sura in Peshawar as the Soviets were withdrawing from Kabul. I would rather have had a beer with Leonid Brezhnev.
Fall of the Berlin wall? Being there was fun. Nations that flaked off of the Soviet Union in southeastern Europe, Central Asia, and the Caucasus? Being there was not so fun.
The aftermath of the Gulf war still makes me sick. Fine to save the fat, greedy Kuwaitis and the arrogant, grasping house of Saud, but to hell with the Shiites and Kurds of Iraq until they get some oil.
Then, half a generation later, when we returned with our armies, we expected to be greeted as liberators. And, damn it, we were. I was in Baghdad in April 2003. People were glad to see us, until they noticed that we'd forgotten to bring along any personnel or provisions to feed or doctor the survivors of shock and awe or to get their electricity and water running again. After that they got huffy and began stuffing dynamite down their pants before consulting with the occupying forces.
Is there a moral dimension to foreign policy in our political philosophy? Or do we just exist to help the world's rich people make and keep their money? (And a fine job we've been doing of that lately.)
If we do have morals, where were they while Bosnians were slaughtered? And where were we while Clinton dithered over the massacres in Kosovo and decided, at last, to send the Serbs a message: Mess with the United States and we'll wait six months, then bomb the country next to you. Of Rwanda, I cannot bear to think, let alone jest.
**********
And now, to glue and screw the lid on our coffin, comes this financial crisis. For almost three decades we've been trying to teach average Americans to act like "stakeholders" in their economy. They learned. They're crying and whining for government bailouts just like the billionaire stakeholders in banks and investment houses. Aid, I can assure you, will be forthcoming from President Obama.
Then average Americans will learn the wisdom of Ronald Reagan's statement: "The ten most dangerous words in the English language are, 'I'm from the federal government, and I'm here to help.' " Ask a Katrina survivor.
#4
I read the whole thing--think I will go attach the garden hose to the exhaust and run it into the window (just kidding)--the article just compounded my depression.
I'm still looking for the pony in the room full of horse$hit.
#5
I dunno...while I agree with many of O'Rourke's specifics as to how we wound up at this low point, I disagree with his basic thesis that "conservatism, if it is ever reborn, will not come again in the lifetime of anyone old enough to be rounded up by ACORN and shipped to the polling booths." The very fact that those of us on the right side of the aisle are even having these conversations is a GOOD sign. What happened in the past when liberals got clobbered? They screeched about the menace of "big money in politics", whined about "vast right-wing conspiracies" and "right-wing noise machines", caterwauled about dark conspiracies of vote-stealing, fascist oppression and even murder (see Wellstone, Paul). Never once did the entire liberal movement take a collective time-out and start asking itself "okay, what's our core philosophy, how do we get back to it from here and how do we get the public to agree and believe?" That collective time-out - and yes, that's going to mean some time in the wilderness - is going to be an absolute necessity for conservatism to regain both its theoretical and practical groundings. But if we do it right (bad pun fully intended), the trek in the woods should be a successful one, and maybe even a relatively short one.
Posted by: Ricky bin Ricardo (Abu Babaloo) ||
11/09/2008 13:12 Comments ||
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#6
good call, Ricky
Posted by: Frank G ||
11/09/2008 13:24 Comments ||
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#7
I was looking for a set of principles that set liberals apart from conservatives. Two that O'Rourke did mention were: 1. Less government meddling and intrusion in personal lives, and 2. A bedrock principle of conservatism is fiscal responsibility. I don't know, were there others? In the current bailout culture, I don't see either of these principles being followed by either party. Following these two principles would be a good start. It sounds more like the Libertarian ideal.
Conservatism, if it is worthwhile and has something to offer will, hopefully emerge as such.
Somewhere, in my searchings, I came across a set of conservative principles that were enumerated and posted on the internet. I don't recall where.
#8
What are the Republican Party's principles that will be employed to meet and surmount these challenges? We have five enduring principles:
1. Our liberty is from God not the government.
2. Our sovereignty rests in our souls not the soil.
3. Our security is through strength not surrender.
4. Our prosperity is from the private sector not the public sector.
5. Our truths are self-evident not relative.
Posted by: Frank G ||
11/09/2008 15:21 Comments ||
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#11
He fought the bailout and voted no on it every time. He's also in a congressional rock band "the 2nd Amendments" - plays lead guitar. Yeah, for a politician he's a good guy. One of the few out of my shitbagged home state. Hopefully, him, Jindal, Palin, Jim DeMint, Steele & Cantor (I'm not too sure of Cantor) can bring the party back to Reaganism and more importantly back to being in step w/the founder's intent of the U.S. Const.
#12
I hope my own, Duncan D. Hunter, continues his father's priorities. If he lives up to his campaign promises, he will
Posted by: Frank G ||
11/09/2008 15:38 Comments ||
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#13
Here's another good guy who'll be a force in the future GOP. He did vote for the first bailout, but told his (angry) consitituents that he did so because the financial meltdown put us in uncharted territory & that he didn't want to be part of causing a general economic collapse because of ideological purity. For those of us here at the Burg who might doubt his free-market credentials, here's the Wall Street Journal's take:
...there were many Republicans who for years aided and abetted Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, yet this week ran for political cover.
Mr. Ryan is among the former. As early as 2000 he was warning in House hearings that Fan and Fred were rushing into subprime loans and mortgage-backed securities, growing and concentrating their risk, and putting taxpayers on the hook. He's so vociferously called for more supervision that he was once stalked by a Fannie Mae lobbyist.
In 2002 he co-sponsored legislation that would have put these beasts under SEC accounting standards. Fan and Fred, and their congressional enablers, killed it in committee. In 2005 he signed on to a bill that would have subjected the giants to modest reform. The Fan-Fred alliance speared it in the Senate.
In 2007, Mr. Ryan opposed a proposal by Texas Republican Randy Neugebauer to gut systemic risk protections for the duo. It passed 383 to 36, with 162 Republicans voting for the companies. Many were the same members who this week thought it too politically risky to stabilize a market rocked by the very Fan-Fred privileges they granted.
The congressman was no fan of Mr. Paulson's plan, and initially rallied conservatives around a rival approach. When it became clear that the administration's approach was the only thing going, he spearheaded negotiations to rid it of its worst liberal elements and to include more taxpayer protections.
As credit spreads widened, he said he also realized this was a "Herbert Hoover moment, where he sat by and let a Wall Street crash turn into a Great Depression . . . There are times when free-markets stop and rational thinking goes out the window. It then isn't enough to be a laissez-faire conservative and let Rome burn . . . This bill is not perfect, but doing nothing is far worse than passing this bill."
Regrettably, Ryan decided not to go after Boehner's Minority Leader post because he was worried about the effect the job's demands might have on his family. Hopefully he'll still put himself forward as a major leadership figure in the very near future. Between this guy, Bobby Jindal, Sarah and the raft of Iraq/Afghanistan vets I hope will be recruited as Trunk candidates in '10 and later, I think we're in better shape than it might appear right now.
Posted by: Ricky bin Ricardo (Abu Babaloo) ||
11/09/2008 16:09 Comments ||
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#14
And as for first principles...what Broadhead & Thad McCotter said is a damn good place to start.
Posted by: Ricky bin Ricardo (Abu Babaloo) ||
11/09/2008 16:11 Comments ||
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#15
My Congressman is John J. Duncan, Jr. He voted against the bailout. I wrote to him several times concerning my opinions about not passing the bailout plan. He wrote back to me and stated the following:
"I want to explain to you why I voted against the Treasury Department's bailout plan. There really was no good choice. It was going to be bad if we did it and bad if we did not, but I thought it would be better in the long run not to adopt the socialist approach."
He would be another good, honest, principled man to include in the list of people that adhere to our Constitution and tries to represent constituents.
#17
The trouble with the Republican platform is that 1) spending like a drunken Kennedy, 2) building a huge bloated bureaucracy, 3) endemic political corruption, and 4) support of a smothering Nanny-state is already the platform of the other party.
#1
The note pinned to Theo van Gogh's body was addressed to Ayaan Hirsi Ali. He was murdered exactly 911 days after 9/11. When Ali speaks about Islam or anything else, I listen carefully.
#4
To drive home Mr. Hirsi Ali's point, credible sources have told me that the national security briefing given to President-elect Obama the other day, "freaked the sh*t out of him."
Obama and his supporters fail to grasp the cold realities of the world. Evil exists and no amount of diplomacy, negotiation, or reasoning is going to stop it. Evil is not interested in any of those things unless it can manipulate them to its advantage.
I suspect Mr. Obama got a healthy dose of reality in that security briefing. I imagine it made clear the evil that this counry is up against. I also suspect it made Bush's national security and foreign policy appear far more sensible, pragmatic, and necessary than his detractors would have us believe.
#6
Obama should have gotten a brief security briefing before he signed on as a candidate. That would have woken him up and he would have had the sense to stay in the Senate, all warm and fuzzy like.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
11/09/2008 14:45 Comments ||
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#7
We're going to miss George W. Bush, and every day we have this Obama fool in office is going to make us miss him more.
I am truly sick at the thought that Americans elected this worthless affirmative action POS to the job. That said, there are a LOT of stupid people out there who were screaming "racism" for lots of years. Well, let's see what they say when their boy starts screwing up. I've been predicting for some time that Bama is going to be America's most hated President before two years is out. So far nothing I've seen makes me think I was anything less than dead on in that prediction.
#10
Obama will never become the most hated President.
The In-tank media have already ascribed that honour to GWB, while they will continue to overlook or spin everything BHO does. Deviations from either of those story lines would only reduce the already diminished credibility they now enjoy and will not be tolerated (hence the revival of The Fairness Doctrine).
#11
WASHINGTON President-elect Obama plans to use his executive powers to make an immediate impact when he takes office, perhaps reversing Bush administration policies on stem cell research and domestic drilling for oil and natural gas.
Some interesting EO's at his disposal:
Martial law is defined as: military rule or authority imposed on a civilian population when the civil authorities cannot maintain law and order, as in a time of war or during an emergency.
Hitler turned Germany into a Nazi dictatorship through executive orders.
Executive Order 10995: All communications media are to be seized by the Federal Government. Radio, TV, newspapers, CB, Ham, telephones, and the internet will be under federal control. Hence, the First Amendment will be suspended indefinitely.
Executive Order 10997: All electrical power, fuels, and all minerals well be seized by the federal government.
Executive Order 10998: All food resources, farms and farm equipment will be seized by the government. You will not be allowed to hoard food since this is regulated.
Executive Order 10999: All modes of transportation will go into government control. Any vehicle can be seized.
Executive Order 11000: All civilians can be used for work under federal supervision.
Executive Order 11490: Establishes presidential control over all US citizens, businesses, and churches in time of "emergency."
Executive Order 12919: Directs various Cabinet officials to be constantly ready to take over virtually all aspects of the US economy during a State of National Emergency at the direction of the president.
Executive Order 13010: Directs FEMA to take control over all government agencies in time of emergency. FEMA is under control of executive branch of the government.
Executive Order 12656: "ASSIGNMENT OF EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS RESPONSIBILITIES", "A national emergency is any occurrence, including natural disaster, military attack, technological emergency, or other emergency that seriously degrades or seriously threatens the national security of the United States. Policy for national security emergency preparedness shall be established by the President." This order includes federal takeover of all local law enforcement agencies, wage and price controls, prohibits you from moving assets in or out of the United States, creates a draft, controls all travel in and out of the United States, and much more.
Martial law can be declared due to natural disasters, Y2k Crisis, Stock Market crash, no electricity, riots, biological attack, .... anything leading to the breakdown of law and order.
From November 5, 2008, US President-elect Barack Obama started receiving from the Director National Intelligence (DNI) a daily brief on the state of the world the previous day called the President's Daily Brief (PDB).
The CIA would do well to incorporate the following in its PDB to Obama.
There is amazement - and confusion - in India over reports that one of the first acts of the President will be to appoint former President Bill Clinton as his Special Envoy on the Kashmir issue to facilitate a settlement between India and Pakistan.
Well-informed sources in India say that if the President-elect wants to severely damage the developing Indo-US relations he could not have thought of a better idea than to meddle in Kashmir. So many Americans----Presidents, Presidents-elect and defeated Presidential-aspirants---- thought they could help in finding a solution to the Kashmir issue and burnt their fingers and damaged Indo-US relations.
This started from Adlai Stevenson, who after losing the election to Gen. Dwight Eisenhower, proceeded to Srinagar ostensibly for a houseboat holiday on the Dal Lake and tried to meddle in the affairs of the State by suggesting to Sheikh Abdullah, the then Chief Minister of Jammu & Kashmir, that he should seek independence and promised that the US would support him.
When the Indian Intelligence Bureau informed Jawaharlal Nehru, the then Prime Minister, of Stevenson's secret discussions with Abdullah, he sacked Abdullah. Adlai Stevenson became persona non grata with the Indian political class and public.
When Clinton became the President in 1993 he could not resist the temptation to have a go at settling the Kashmir issue. He chose as his secret emissary not a distinguished American, but an old college mate of his called Robin Raphael, who was posted as a junior diplomat in the US Embassy in New Delhi. Her American colleagues in New Delhi used to allege that after Clinton took office, she used to go around projecting herself as if she was a trusted adviser to Clinton, who took her into the State Department.
Our Indian sources say that she had two "achievements" to her discredit. She instigated the formation of the Hurriyat , a hotch-potch of anti-New Delhi Kashmiri personalities, which added to the existing mess.
She also encouraged the formation of the Taliban in 1994 with the help of her close personal friends Benazir Bhutto, the then Prime Minister, and Asif Ali Zardari, the present President of Pakistan. She even met Mullah Mohammad Omar, who subsequently designated himself as the Amir of the Taliban, secretly and sought his help for a project of the Unocal for a gas pipeline from Turkmenistan to Pakistan via the Herat area of Afghanistan.
According to the sources, her misadventures in Kashmir further damaged Indo-US relations and her godmothering the Taliban inexorably set in motion the train of events that led to Osama bin Laden shifting from Khartoum to Jalalabad in 1996 and launching from Afghanistan the terrorist strikes outside the US Embassies in Nairobi and Dar-es-Salaam in August 1998, the attack on USS Cole off Aden in October,2000, and the 9/11 terrorist strikes in the US homeland.
Our Indian sources say that in the history of Indo-American relations since India became independent in 1947, there have been more instances of meddling by Democrats than by Republicans. They feel that Democrats seem to think that they understand sub-continental affairs better than anybody in the US and find it difficult to resist the urge to meddle.
According to them, that is why Indian security agencies feel uncomfortable when the White House has a Democrat as incumbent. They say that if one draws a graph of terrorism in J&K, one would find that it tends to go up when a Democrat is the President.
At a time when India and Pakistan are on the road to slowly mending their bilateral relations, Indians are amazed that the President-elect oblivious of the past misadventures of the US in the sub-continent should be thinking of one more.
B. Raman is an expert on security and anti-terrorism operations. He headed the Counter-Terrorism Division of the Research & Analysis Wing (R&AW) for six years. He has been a member of various special task forces related to security and intelligence issues. An internationally acclaimed writer and lecturer, he regularly contributes articles to various national and international publications on security-related topics.
Posted by: john frum ||
11/09/2008 12:35 ||
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#1
Can't wait to see the leftist losers he packs in foreign-policy destructive positions
Posted by: Frank G ||
11/09/2008 13:37 Comments ||
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#2
if the President-elect wants to severely damage the developing Indo-US relations he could not have thought of a better idea than to meddle in Kashmir.
NEW DELHI - India is among the few dozen countries, largely clustered in Asia and Africa, where sentiment in favour of the United States actually rose during the administration of George W. Bush. Nonetheless, more Indians favoured the election of Barack Obama than they did John McCain. What explains this seeming contradiction?
At the heart of the Bush administration's success with India was a belief that India was a nation whose rise was beneficial to US interests. This led Bush to seek to adjust the international order to India's benefit, most notably by negotiating an exemption from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty for India. The net result was a closer Indo-US relationship and a positive view of Bush that overrode unpopular actions such as invading Iraq.
Obama's election - the success of a member of a non-white minority in the world's oldest democratic polity - has seized the imagination of many Indians. He is exhorted in the media and among the intellectual classes. Among the most fervent supporters of Obama in the US have been the nearly three million-strong Indian-American community. "You can't swing a dead cat in the Obama camp without hitting an Indian-American," said an Obama advisor.
In the run-up to the election, many Indians could not believe that an African-American would ever be chosen to reside in the White House. His election inevitably enhanced the standing of the US as a land of genuine opportunity, a nation whose multicultural credentials were as great if not better than polyglot and poly-ethnic India.
The greatest scepticism about an Obama presidency lies among Indian strategic elite, who are focused on promoting India's economic and political interests in the wider world. They found an ally in that cause in Bush. Whatever Obama's ethnic credentials, India's government has detected in his statements reason to believe that he will be less supportive than Bush.
First, India is wary that any Democratic administration will include the same proponents of nuclear nonproliferation who opposed Bush's exemption for India. Obama has publicly said he intends to push for a comprehensive test ban treaty, a treaty that India opposes because it feels its own nuclear deterrent remains incomplete.
Second, Obama has attacked the outsourcing of service jobs to places like India and the offshoring of manufacturing jobs to Asia as a whole. His advisors also indicate that they will seek to incorporate social provisions, like labor standards, into future international trade negotiations. Though candidates tend to rollback from protectionist stances once they come to power, the Democrats' control of both houses of Congress may not give Obama that leeway.
Third, a Democratic administration has said it will put climate change at the forefront of its global policy concerns. If the focus is about mitigating carbon production through technological means, there will be few concerns. However, if the policy slips into more coercive measures such as carbon tariffs and the like, the result is likely to convert climate change into an energy security struggle. It will also pit the big carbon emitters of the future, like India and China, against present polluters like the US and Europe.
Finally, conversations with a few Obama advisors and his own speeches indicate that Washington's number one security concern in the coming years will be Afghanistan and Pakistan. "Iraq is yesterday's problem," said one advisor to an Indian audience several weeks ago.
At the heart of that problem, say Obama advisors, is the growing neurosis of the Pakistani regime. Pakistan suffers from internal strife and is prone to seeing conspiracies against it that include virtually all of its neighbors and often the US. Easing those fears is big concern in the US these days. One element in such a policy of reassurance, repeatedly said by Obama and most recently in a television interview, is to "try to resolve the Kashmir crisis so that they [Pakistan] can stay focused not on India, but on the situation with those militants."
This is a sensible goal, and one India's leaders will acknowledge as in their country's interest. But any Kashmir peace process that is seen to be a consequence of US pressure is politically dead on arrival in India. Kashmir is a diplomatic minefield. One misstep by the new Obama administration could result in a deep freeze of the Indo-US relationship for years.
Ultimately, the indicators are that the new Obama administration will seek to restore an international status quo that preceded the Bush presidency. This includes restoring ties with Europe, tightening the nuclear nonproliferation regime and possibly a restoration of China as the centerpiece of US policy in Asia. If so, the question for India will be whether this is accomplished by reducing the international space that the country gained under Bush.
If so, there is a strong likelihood that one area in which an Obama administration will fail to gain traction is in advancing the Indo-US relationship in areas outside the strictly economic.
(Pramit Pal Chaudhuri is the senior editor of the Hindustan Times and a member of the Asia Society International Council)
Posted by: john frum ||
11/09/2008 00:00 ||
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#2
It will also pit the big carbon emitters of the future, like India and China, against present polluters like the US and Europe.
Future polluters? China now exceeds the US and Europe as the world's leading polluter. Check out, on satellite photos, the brown clouds over china and over india as proof.
Finally, conversations with a few Obama advisors and his own speeches indicate that Washington's number one security concern in the coming years will be Afghanistan and Pakistan. "Iraq is yesterday's problem," said one advisor to an Indian audience several weeks ago.
At the heart of that problem, say Obama advisors, is the growing neurosis of the Pakistani regime. Pakistan suffers from internal strife and is prone to seeing conspiracies against it that include virtually all of its neighbors and often the US. Easing those fears is big concern in the US these days. One element in such a policy of reassurance, repeatedly said by Obama and most recently in a television interview, is to "try to resolve the Kashmir crisis so that they [Pakistan] can stay focused not on India, but on the situation with those militants."
This is a sensible goal, and one India's leaders will acknowledge as in their country's interest. But any Kashmir peace process that is seen to be a consequence of US pressure is politically dead on arrival in India. Kashmir is a diplomatic minefield. One misstep by the new Obama administration could result in a deep freeze of the Indo-US relationship for years.
There are things in the Obama Administration that we can hope for, and things that we have to count on. F*cking up the Indo-US relationship is the latter, not the former.
#1
"Theres even a Hip-Hop Initiative at North Carolina Central University. Although it includes scholarly study of this kind of music, which has been around for more than 30 years, long enough to have its own interesting history, the program also uses hip hop to reach out to at risk males."
#2
Long ago SNL's Dan Ackroyd and Jane Curtain did a takeoff on point-counterpoint: Curltain made a point and Ackroyd always led off by saying: "Jane you slut." Rantings and blather of a mad woman.
#4
Children with two parents who love and care for them do MUCH better than children with one. Children with parents who care about education and make it their utmost priority get better educations than children with parents who don't.
Boys who grow up with hardworking, responsible, capable men as role models learn how to be hardworking, responsible, capable men. Boys who grow up in single-parent households with only gangsters as male role models don't.
Yup. Water will still wet us, fire will still burn. Surprise, surprise.
#5
Children is two parent families don't get the taxpayers to pick up the tab for both baby and momma. Change the financial incentives, change the family structure.
Posted by: ed ||
11/09/2008 18:33 Comments ||
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#6
I sense a return to what once was and will be again.
#1
"However, there is at least one big problem with opening combat positions to women currently, women do not have to meet lower physical fitness standards than men."
--umm, yes, they do. We give them an additional 3 mins to pass the 3 mile run. They do a flexed arm hang vice having to do pullups. At least get your facts right.
#3
When did Obama care what women and/or military members think, anyway?
(I do have one request....I want that snotty little cow who thought she was so clever wearing that "Sarah Palin is a C- - - -" shirt to get extra special verbal treatment from her drill sergeant during basic training. Y'know, something along the lines of "Full Metal Jacket".)
Arizona Supreme Court Chief Justice Ruth McGregor stirred up a hornet's nest by endorsing a demand from the Hispanic Bar Association to censor words and phrases such as "illegal aliens" and "illegal immigrants" and substitute "foreign nationals" in court documents.
#13
Illegal alien is accurate. Illegal Immigrant is patently false - the illegal alien has *not* been granted immigrant status.
Calling them 'foreign national' is inaccurate also - it does not convey their illegal status - which, of course, is the entire point of the demand from the Hispanic Bar Association.
BTW: Isn't the term 'Hispanic Bar Association' Racist?
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
