Security in Afghanistan

Through a demonstrable lack of will to do what it takes to win in Afghanistan, Barack Hussein Obama is ensuring that America and her allies suffer defeat there. Afghan President Hamid Karzai and the combined might of US forces and our allies there could not even preserve the life of Karzai's own brother. Improvised explosive devices kill every day there and now more precision munitions coming in from Iran are proving ever more deadly. The restrictive rules of engagement and tentativeness of allied forces have done the near impossible- unified the Sunni Taliban and al-Qaeda with agents of Shia Iran- a few short years after they were killing each other. Our failure to go all in and wage total war to win has brought together Muslims from Chechnya and beyond on the ground in Afghanistan to murder us. After a trillion dollars spent and thousands of lives lost, there is no security in Afghanistan.

Shifting the Blame

It is incredible to see both major political parties trying harder to evade responsibility and shunt the blame to the other side rather than solve the nation's debt problem. In a country on a path to catastrophe, gaining political points has become more important than the welfare of the United States (and her citizenry). "What can I do to earn your vote?" has been transformed by today's political class into "look at what a louse my opponent is." In a previous age, America had real statesmen who took their responsibility to govern seriously.

Evil By Design

Why would Barack Hussein Obama want to remove the tax deduction for charitable contributions? Could it be that Obama realizes this would sap traditional non-governmental sources for aid to needy people thereby making them ever more dependent on government for their very survival? As private charity by necessity would then diminish, Obama could then spark more class envy by further demonizing the so-called rich for only giving because they could take the contribution off their taxes. President Obama is deliberately fostering more dependency on government while attacking those outside of government who have traditionally provided relief to those in distress in their communities. It is difficult to help a neighbor up when the Federal government is knocking you down, and it is sad to see an attempt to turn America from a nation of communities to a giant central planning commune.

An Uncompromising Mood

In the attempts to raise the US debt limit, it is the Democrat Party that has taken an inflexible and uncompromising stance. It is as if they would rather have default to use as a wedge issue to triangulate votes against Republicans than actually solve the problem. The GOP majority in the US House of Representatives has sent two plans over to the Senate for consideration, first the Ryan Plan that Harry Reid (Democrat-Nevada) ensured was dead on arrival and then this weekend's Boehner compromise plan that was unpalatable to many conservatives but which emerged from the US House only to be immediately tabled by the Democrat majority in the US Senate without debate. The GOP gave ground and even accepted "enhanced revenue" through elimination of certain tax breaks and loopholes, and came to the Democrat position on everything but raising marginal tax rates and maintaining a few tax credits that actually foster higher employment and grow the economy but are easy to demagogue like subsidies for oil exploration and corporate jets. At this time of so much fiscal uncertainty, the Republicans did stick by their guns to try and protect job creators. The Democrats could have worked with the GOP, negotiated, or advanced their own plan, but instead, they play games for political effect. Stephan Dinan's excellent piece in The Washington Times "http://www.washingtontimes.com/blog/inside-politics/2011/jul/30/democrats-enforce-filibuster-against-own-debt-bill/" demonstrates that even the so-called plan by Harry Reid seems not to have been advanced in good faith to solve the debt crisis. Even the accounting had massive holes in Senate majority leader Reid's plan as it counted savings from wrapping up the Iraq and Afghanistan involvement (which may well not even happen) twice. Double counts and numbers tricks will not repair the financial damage America has sustained. Only meaningful cuts to the Leviathan spending which must include entitlement reform have a chance of returning the United States to the path of prosperity.

Orchestrating America's Destruction

Watching Obama speak is as harrowing an endeavor as can be embarked upon. In his speeches, Obama and the Democrats are not partisan, above politics, and only have the noblest motives for the nation. In reality, Obama and the Democrats are the opposite. Obama is a master of duplicity. He is the chancellor of chicanery and though he pretended that he was willing to be a one-term President who affected real change, it is apparent that wants reelection desperately so that he can finish Israel as a Jewish state, America as we have known her, and the so-called First World off. Obama is determined to spread the misery far and wide where there will be no distinction between rich and poor. Everyone will share an equal measure of Obama prosperity which used to be called "poverty". Never has such a hypocrite occupied the Presidency. Obama, himself, as a US Senator opposed raising the debt limit when George W. Bush was President. This President has two faces.

Disenchanted and Disenfranchised

As I predicted earlier, it appears Republicans are prepared to capitulate again to Obama, this time on the debt ceiling, after closed door meetings between Harry Reid, the majority leader of the US Senate (Democrat-Nevada), Senate minority leader, the putative Republican Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, and the Speaker of the US House John Boehner, also reputed to be a member of the GOP but certainly a sob sister. This is once again a sellout of conservative principles and of the vast majority of Republican voters. Conservatives have no voice in America. We are treated as subjects not citizens and even supposed stalwarts of the right fail the ideological purity test over and over. Even Rick Perry, who is being hyped as the great hope of the Right, pushed in-state tuition for illegal aliens and says the perversion of marriage by homosexuals is a states' rights issue. If GOP actions do not now cry out third party, when will America's conservatives say "enough"?

Preserving the Empire

In the waning days of the Soviet Union, the parents of military conscripts received the grim news that their unfortunate sons had fallen to a training exercise, a bout of dysentery, or a road accident near camp, when in point of fact, they had lost their lives trying to defeat the American-backed mujaheddin in Afghanistan. The price of territorial expansion by means of military adventurism is often steep which is why peaceniks were so heartened at Obama's ascension to the US Presidency. They actually believed his rhetoric- Obama's promises to withdraw from Iraq and start to wrap up the campaign in the old imperial graveyard of Afghanistan, where Great Britain and Russia had both squandered much blood and treasure to little avail. So when the peace camp accounting is done if it were ever deemed to be sincere, should not the thousands that gathered in the street to protest the last President Bush still gather by the multitude, the horde to denounce the current US Emperor, as our forces are more committed in Afghanistan now than under George W. Bush and in fact remain ever active in the Iraq conflict that Obama had pledged to abandon. In June, fifteen US service members had their lives taken in the old Bush fight in Iraq. Where is the new day Obama promised? Occupations continue and a new war is joined in Libya. I am aware that the US can not be the world's policeman but have enough Pax Americana in me to know a global power can never simply beat a hasty retreat. What amazes me is the disingenuous effort of the US anti-war movement which has proven itself to be not so much against violent conflict but simply against wars of American self-interest and self-defense or preemption when waged by leaders whose party affiliation happens to be the American GOP. If this contention is wrong, where is the street theater with hundreds up in arms, aghast, protesting Obama's aggressive wars?