My Beauty Best Teacher

Yes, I have personally met Bill Ayers. At some point in my career, I was told that he would be coming in to speak to my class. As I am a little young, I looked him up, and immediately discovered his past connections with terrorism and the Weather Underground (memo to Obama- it's kind of easy to find out that information- you have to be an idiot not to know that Ayers was a terrorist).

So I went to my principal, and told him that I didn't want to have this guy come in to speak to my students. I am repelled by him- I don't want to be in the same room as this unrepentant terrorist. I wasn't even alive when he attempted to murder innocent and decent Americans, yet I don't want to be associated with him (unlike Obama, who wants to associate with terrorists).

My principal told me to just let him come in and talk. I guess the parent who was bringing in this terrorist was influential in the district, and had some pull with the administration. So I took my class in to hear him speak. He talked about the usual communist drivel.

Mr. Ayers gave me the impression that teachers should primarily be community organizers, dedicated to provoking resistance to American racism and oppression. He said that teachers should be promoting radical, leftist, communist values. My brother forwarded me this link where he elaborated more on this stuff, and this other link too. This link talks about Obama's association with Bill Ayers.

Before my students met him and heard him speak, I wanted to talk to them about his ideas and discredit him; and after my students heard him speak, I wanted to talk to them about his ideas and discredit them. But I was told I was not allowed to do this. So I just pretended it had never happened and that that day was a snow day.

But it wasn't in reality. The students were given the impression that it was okay to be a terrorist, that it was okay to believe in communist ideas, and that Bill Ayers vision of the world was an accepted one. They were given the impression that being an Obama voter was okay. And personally, this day marked a turning point for me.

Months later, the administration let me go, and the union worked to make sure that I wasn't brought back. I was quickly grabbed by another district, where I have proven to be an exceptional teacher. One of the factors that led to my release was my disgust and verbal protests over having people like Bill Ayers come into the classroom. So that's my experience with this terrorist scumbag.

UPDATE: Several people have emailed me about this post, suggesting that if my new district ever finds out that I thought badly of Bill Ayers, I could be fired, and I would be wise to remove this post. But I refuse to be intimidated! They can not control my thoughts! Our nation may be turning towards fascism, but I am going to fight as long as there is fighting to be done. You can't stop the signal!

Via the AP comes this shocking announcement- that the UN is actively supporting Hamas by letting these troops have access to its buildings and supplies. Apparently Hamas troops have been operating from UN buildings under the belief that they will be targeted less than civilians, whom Hamas usually hides behind.

According to the report, UN officials are healing and repairing Hamas fighters so that they can re-enter the fight against Israel, were running a series of warehouses and workshops from which they could distribute aid to terrorists, and even had stockpiles of fuel that they were distributing to terrorist agents.

It is unclear how or why the UN, an international organization dedicated to world peace and law, is supporting terrorists or the aims of terrorist groups, is supporting Hamas, but that it is is clear. What else could explain how people wearing black masks armed with machine guns could enter a building that the UN owns and operates, and no protests were made? How does the UN allow terrorist groups to assume defensive positions in these buildings without lodging protests and condemning the terrorist groups for violating world peace and order? The only explanation is that it must support these groups, either openly or implicitly.

Upon hearing about this incident, it was reported that the UN had "grave concerns"- but, in another indication of the bizzaro world that we live in, the concern that the UN had was because Israel returned fire and destroyed the compound that terrorists had seized, and the UN, instead of being angry and upset at the bad guys in this conflict, apparently are upset and angry at the good guys.

"We are calling all parties to respect international humanitarian law and especially to ensure the protection of civilians" said a spokesman for the UN, even as it supports terrorist groups operating outside international law and that have a policy of killing civilians with indiscriminate rocket attacks and using civilians as human shields.

The article that I am loosely quoting from in the AP also takes the bizzaro slant on it, clearly biased towards the bad guys. It isn't surprising though- the AP has a policy of subsidizing Hamas in this conflict by employing and supporting hundreds of 'reporters' and 'stringers' to 'gather news' about events in this area.

In addition to the attack on the U.N. office, Israel shells landed next to a U.N. school in another Gaza City neighborhood, wounding 14 people who had 'sought sanctuary' there", Hamas 'medics' and 'firefighters' said. One wonders what curriculum is being taught at this UN school- it wouldn't be shocking to me if the UN was using international money provided by liberals like Ted Turner to teach classes on How to Launch Rocket Attacks at Jews 101.

The revelation again that Democratic President Barack Obama's biography Dreams from My Father was supposedly written by Bill Ayers reminded me again of the time that I had Bill Ayers come into my classroom. Since I have a lot of new readers who haven't likely taken to the time to go through my excellent old posts, I thought that I'd take you all on a trip down memory lane and repost on it below. Enjoy!

My Experience Meeting Bill Ayers

Yes, I have personally met Bill Ayers. At some point in my career, I was told that he would be coming in to speak to my class. As I am a little young, I looked him up, and immediately discovered his past connections with terrorism and the Weather Underground (memo to Obama- it's kind of easy to find out that information- you have to be an idiot not to know that Ayers was a terrorist).

So I went to my principal, and told him that I didn't want to have this guy come in to speak to my students. I am repelled by him- I don't want to be in the same room as this unrepentant terrorist. I wasn't even alive when he attempted to murder innocent and decent Americans, yet I don't want to be associated with him (unlike Obama, who wants to associate with terrorists).

My principal told me to just let him come in and talk. I guess the parent who was bringing in this terrorist was influential in the district, and had some pull with the administration. So I took my class in to hear him speak. He talked about the usual communist drivel.

Mr. Ayers gave me the impression that teachers should primarily be community organizers, dedicated to provoking resistance to American racism and oppression. He said that teachers should be promoting radical, leftist, communist values. My brother forwarded me this link where he elaborated more on this stuff, and this other link too. This link talks about Obama's association with Bill Ayers.

Before my students met him and heard him speak, I wanted to talk to them about his ideas and discredit him; and after my students heard him speak, I wanted to talk to them about his ideas and discredit them. But I was told I was not allowed to do this. So I just pretended it had never happened and that that day was a snow day.

But it wasn't in reality. The students were given the impression that it was okay to be a terrorist, that it was okay to believe in communist ideas, and that Bill Ayers vision of the world was an accepted one. They were given the impression that being an Obama voter was okay. And personally, this day marked a turning point for me.

Months later, the administration let me go, and the union worked to make sure that I wasn't brought back. I was quickly grabbed by another district, where I have proven to be an exceptional teacher. One of the factors that led to my release was my disgust and verbal protests over having people like Bill Ayers come into the classroom. So that's my experience with this terrorist scumbag.

UPDATE: Several people have emailed me about this post, suggesting that if my new district ever finds out that I thought badly of Bill Ayers, I could be fired, and I would be wise to remove this post. But I refuse to be intimidated! They can not control my thoughts! Our nation may be turning towards fascism, but I am going to fight as long as there is fighting to be done. You can't stop the signal!

Via Powerlineblog.com comes this little piece of information. Even though Obama promised to meet with other terrorist groups without precondition, he did say that Hamas was one group he wouldn't be meeting with- as he stated publicly, he wouldn't meet with them until they renounced terrorism and recognized Israel's right to exist. By meeting with them, it would be recognizing their claims and giving them increased status within the Muslim world, and would be a bad thing for everyone.

Apparently though Obama was lying, and that not only does he intend to meet with terrorist groups who want to murder all Jews in Israel, he ALREADY has been meeting with these terrorists, sitting down with them and fomenting policy before he even is President.

Yesterday, in an interview in the London-based Al-Hayat, Dr. Ahmad Yousef, political adviser to Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, said senior Hamas figures had held a secret meeting with advisers to Barack Obama in Gaza before the U.S. elections.

According to Yousef in the Al-Hayat interview, the Obama-Hamas talks were already ongoing during the U.S. election campaign: "We were in contact with a number of Obama's aides through the Internet, and later met with some of them in Gaza, but they advised us not to reveal this information as it may influence the elections or become manipulated by McCain's campaign." Yousef also claimed he personally had friendly relations with some of Obama's advisers and that Haniyeh will draft a congratulatory letter to Obama for his victory."

Why did McCain take Obama's terrorist associations off the table? He has a long history of meeting with extremist groups and listening to them, and afterwards, putting in place policies that they like, as evidenced by the campaign contributions and congratulatory letters he received. Look, I want to give him the benefit of the doubt, but when I hear that our President-elect is lying to the American public and yet having friendly meetings with America's enemies, I get a little upset.

Although I do agree with the theory that the only good kind of terrorist is a dead terrorist, I've always felt that we should catch them, pump them for info, and then kill them off. The problem with this line of thinking is that it means that you have to be willing to take a couple losses in the attempt to capture them, you have to be willing and able to pump them for info, and then you have to have a reliable and honest means of killing them off. I'm not a monster, and I recognize that terrorists need to be given some rights, at least until it is established that they are in fact a terrorist, and that needs to be done in a delicate and sensitive manner. In other words, the policy of 'catching them, pumping them, killing them' is hard work that requires boldness, vision, and intelligence. Obama doesn't have these, so he instead just killing these terrorists.

Now, on one hand, I really do like the fact that Obama is killing terrorists. But on the other hand, I get the feeling that once again, Obama has demonstrated his lack of boldness, vision, and intelligence on this key issue. And this policy does not fit with Obama's desire to read Miranda rights to captured terrorists and give them civilian trials. It's like Obama has decided to shoot and kill them before talking to them, but if we do accidentally catch one, we can't do anything but release puppies and bunnies on them.

From powerlineblog post "Obama takes the easy way out, to the detriment of our national security":

The Washington Post reports that the Obama administration is increasingly opting to kill al Qaeda terrorists rather than capturing them and attempting to find out what they know. For example, when a window of opportunity opened to kill or capture Saleh Ali Nabhan, the leader of al Qaeda in East Africa, the White House opted to eliminate him by firing from helicopters rather than trying to take him alive.

According to the Post, these decisions are being driven in part by the "dwindling options" for placing U.S. captives. As one "senior military officer" put it, "when you don't have a detention politcy or a set of facilities," the balance tends to shift in favor of simply eliminating the terrorist.

But this entails an obvious cost -- lost opportunities to obtain important intelligence. Thus, says the Post, "some military and intelligence officials" are balking at the administration's "shoot the bastard" policy. The decision to eliminate Nabhan appears to have come in for particular criticism, as well it should. It's difficult to conceive that we might be more secure with the head of al Qaeda's East Africa operations dead and dumb than we would be with him sidelined and singing.

Powerlineblog today had several outstanding posts that are worth checking out.

The first one that I want to point out is an update on Obama's associations with the New Party, which was a socialist third party popular in Chicago in the 90's. Apparently there is more evidence that Obama was indeed a card-carrying socialist (to be fair, I don't know if he carried his socialist party membership card around in his pocket). I wrote about this here.

The next post I want to point to is a report on the attitude of Obama's campaign towards illegal campaign contributions. Apparently, on Obama's website, it is very easy to submit information that is false and give money to Obama, in clear violation of campaign finance laws- as long as you give Obama money, he is willing to overlook that you are not who you say you are. For comparison, McCain's website does not accept campaign donations from false or fictional people. Now, I know that McCain's campaign probably has accepted illegal contributions- every campaign has, both Republicans and Democrats, throughout our history. What is shocking is the openness of Obama's campaign, and the extent of it. We're looking at an increasingly orchestrated effort to buy and steal an election. I posted my thoughts on this before here and here.

Next, here is information from a Pew Research study finds that of 2,412 stories on John McCain that appeared in newspapers and cable news channels between the Republican convention and the last Presidential debate, only 14 percent were positive, while 60 percent were negative. That was the worst ratio of any of the four national-ticket candidates. Wow. Good thing you are reading my blog- my ratio is much more fair and balanced!

Here is another good post. One area of the media that is not fair and balanced is the View. This popular show is increasingly hostile to most Americans, pushing liberal and left-wing viewpoints. I wonder how it is doing in ratings? Anyways, apparently yesterday Rush Limbaugh was described on the View as a "terrorist." A terrorist. A radio-show host, using his power of free speech to voice another viewpoint shared by a large number of people in our country. And he is called a terrorist. The good thing is that liberals believe terrorists should never been punished. And all Rush has to do is blow up a couple buildings and kill some people and he will be upgraded from 'terrorist' to 'education reformer.'

Lastly, one person who will not be intimidated is Governor Sarah Palin. This great patriot is filling in the blanks of Joe Biden's recent speech. If you haven't heard, on Sunday of this week Joe Biden issued warning to Democratic fundraisers- he said that within six months of his inauguration, new President Barack Obama will face an "international crisis" brought on by our enemies to "test [his] mettle." Biden said he could foresee "four or five scenarios" for such a crisis. Biden then went on to forecast that Obama's response to such a crisis will seem wrong to most Americans, so donors were encouraged to stay tough and see it through. That's right boys and girls, if you elect Obama President, you are inviting an international crisis that will be handled badly. Biden didn't specify what "four or five [crisis] scenarios" he had in mind and no reporter went any further into these statements, and mainstream coverage of this has been non-existent. But, the Governor of Alaska filled in the blanks. Watch it here.

From Powerlineblog's The wages of not finishing the job:

Michael Oren, Israel's stellar ambassador to the U.S., is warning that Hezbollah has amassed an arsenal of approximately 15,000 rockets in South Lebanon, near the border with Israel. That's about four times more than Hezbollah had in 2006, when it launched constant rocket attacks deep into Northern Israel. Moreover, according to Oren, Hezbollah's rockets can now reach every Israeli city, even Eliat in the South.

To make matters worse, this time Hezbollah has placed its rockets under hospitals, homes and schools. So, if Israel were to try to take the rockets out, it would face howls of protest from the "international community" including, I suspect, President Obama. Israel may well have to pay a steep price for its cautious approach to the 2006 fight against Hezbollah and for not finishing that fight.

Back in 2006 I began my attack on the MSM when I contacted the Managing Editor of the Detroit News, Dave Butler, to express my disappointment in their coverage of Israel's fight against Hezbollah in 2006. Now I know that pointing out that the MSM had a liberal bias was an exercise of pointing out the obvious, but back several years ago I was still figuring this out, and I wanted to know why the coverage was so one-sided. As I pointed out back then:

Every day there is a story about the number of Hezbollah and Lebanese civilians killed so far, and there are frequent stories in your newspaper focusing in an the specific deaths of these people, but I can not find any news reports focusing on the death count for Israeli civilians and defense forces, or a single in depth article on some poor Israeli mother who has lost her children to a Hezbollah rocket.

My point in writing was not just to point out the one-sided coverage- my fear was that by favoring a pro-terrorist organization like Hezbollah, the News would be siding with the bad guys, and everyone knows that when you side with the bad guys you always eventually lose (whether in this world or the next). In this particular case, I feared that by siding with an immoral and evil group that represents the worst in humanity readers would be driven away, which would result in less advertising revenue, which would result in cuts being made to the sports section and the comics- and I love my sports section and color comics.

In my conversation with Mr. Butler, he stressed that neither side was immoral or wrong- that this conflict was a nonpartisan affair between two combatants of equal morality, and thus he could defend his coverage of the conflict. To him, there was no difference between a terrorist non-state group launching random rockets into populated areas in Israel and Israel's response to kill those terrorists who were launching the rockets and to destroy those rockets. To him, there was no difference between a uniformed solider trying to kill an un-uniformed terrorist, and the un-uniformed terrorist who hid in schools and churches and launched his rockets from those locations. He saw nothing wrong in a free-thinking adult choosing to put women and children and the sick in harms way in order to defend himself from a retaliation attack as he launched weapons of random mass destruction (WRMD's?) at women, children, and the sick. The Managing Editor of the Detroit News thought that he was brave and fair and morally right in equating the two sides of this conflict. Clearly, he was wrong for doing so, and his paper suffered accordingly for choosing to equate evil with good and be 'unbaised and nonpartial' when covering a conflict that clearly had good guys and bad guys.

One other point- over the ensuing letters that Mr. Butler and myself exchanged several interesting points emerged, which I believe will come up again when Hezbollah once again attacks Israel and that good nation is forced to respond. The most important point that emerged is the MSM's reliance on outside sources for information- whether it be the AP or the Wire Service or something- the MSM is just like me- simply an organization that mostly takes news from other sites and filters it and rewords it and then passes it along, while doing a little bit of original reporting on the side (I do original reporting too). If conflict once again erupts in the Middle East, be careful that your news source isn't just recycling what some biased AP or Wire Service reporter wants to feed to you.

"To plan secretly,to move surreptitiously, to foil the enemy's intentions and balk his schemes, so that at last the day may be won without shedding a drop of blood"- that is how Sun Tzu described how to win in warfare. Further, Sun Tzu wrote this about the Art of War:

It is through the dispositions of an army that its condition may be discovered. Conceal your dispositions, and your condition will remain secret, which leads to victory,; show your dispositions, and your condition will become patent, which leads to defeat

One of my degrees is in International Relations and just recently I was talking to some of my high school students about the United States policies with regard to the use of nukes. The one that they were the most fascinated by was the policy of Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD).

Via wikipedia, Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) is a doctrine of military strategy and national security policy in which a full-scale use of nuclear weapons by two opposing sides would effectively result in the destruction of both the attacker and the defender. In theory, by adopting this policy in which your nation is prepared to destroy everything if attacked, it will deter your enemy from attacking you since he'll be terrified that you might just be insane enough to blow up everything rather than just lose the war. The strategy is effectively a form of Nash equilibrium, in which both sides are now forced to entertain the possibly that the worst possible outcome of a nuclear attack- the nuclear annihilation of the world- is now on the table if one side attacks the other.

I've always felt that MAD is an insane policy- but its very insanity is what made it work- I mean, no country in their right mind would be willing to destroy the world rather than just get nuked. But a nutty one might, and you have to respect that crazy will to win, and in this case, the fear of MAD just may have played a role in deterring nuclear attacks on the United States during the height of the Cold War.

After 9/11, the United States adopted a similar policy towards nations that might support or encourage terrorist attacks on our own nation, stating that we would respond with nuclear attacks if any nation in the world attacked us using chemical or biological weapons. Once that genie gets out of the bottle, it will be hard to put back in, and terrorist groups around the world would be unleashing deadly chemical and biological weapons on our innocent civilians here. Bush said that if a nation helped or supported something like that, they would be wiped out.

That policy was an insane and totally disproportionate response- but that's why it works. Nations know that we would never nuke them if they gave a terrorist group some chemical to release into the water supply of a major city, killings thousands... but maybe we would. Maybe we're just that crazy, especially with a wild card cowboy like Bush at the helm. Americans are nutty- the whole world knows this- and don't think rationally or act normal like other countries. Perhaps we might use those nukes.

Except now, we won't. Faced with no threats, under pressure from no one, with no barbarian invaders on the horizon, our nation willingly disarms and lays down our arms and our threats and our deterrents in a sad and stupid belief that this will lead to a better world. The threat of MAD saved millions, and the threat of wild American nukes lobbed at terrorist nations might have saved thousands, but now, that threat is off the table.

"We're a nice sane nation just like any other nation, no different than France or Germany, and now you can beat us soundly if you just test our defenses," we now tell our enemies. "Chemical and biological attack us- it will make us upset and we'll think long and hard about it, call for a months long review, and then allow a smaller attack than the ones that the Republicans want, but will pull out soon," is our new policy. "We're not insane, we're totally rational, and thus, rational calculations about our political will to do what is done will hold true." Our new administration announces.

President Obama is expected to announce soon that he will restrict US nuclear weapons use, even in self-defense. According to the Times Online, he will announce the new doctrine that the US will no longer threat the use of nukes in response to biological or chemical attacks on our nation. President Obama wasn't briefed on the U.S. nuclear-strike plans until some months after he had taken office, and when he found out about these policies that my high school students study, "he thought it was insane," says sources. Soon after, he decided that nuclear weapons would be taken off the table and no longer be an option that we would consider as a deterrent, and now is telling anyone who will listen this new policy change.

Obama is hoping that he will be showered with accolades and the world will all say what a great person he is. But the truth of the matter is that he made this decision with very little thought or understanding of warfare. So what if you think it is insane and you pull the option off the table- that's nice. Just don't tell anyone about it. Then the 'insane' option is gone, the world is a nicer place, but the deterrent remains. The only reason you go ahead and announce this policy change is not to improve or help the security of the United States, but to lessen and hurt the security of the United States in order to be showered with praise by other world leaders, world leaders who might possibly mean the United States harm and no longer be deterred by our crazy nuclear policies.

Obama has once again made the world just a little more unsafe for democracy and showed once again why the American people really need to be more careful about who they elect President.

For more commentary, be sure to check out Belmont Club's post Unthinking the unthinkable.

Last week, President Barack Obama saw the site of the future Ground Zero Victory Mosque (or as it is sometimes called the Cordoba House Initiative Project, or Ground Zero Mosque, or Celebration of the Thousands Killed by Extremist Muslims, or Cordoba Initiative) for the first time, as he laid a wreath at the site of the collapsed Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York to pay tribute to victims of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks against the United States.

Obama last year gave his blessing to "the right of Muslims to build a place of worship" on Ground Zero and was supportive of the building of a 'victory mosque' on the site of the most successful attack ever on America by Muslim extremists by Muslim extremists, and last week he took time from his busy schedule to view this location before he laid a wreath at the foot of the Survivor Tree, which sustained damage during the attack but was freed from the rubble.

Obama also visited a fire station that lost 15 firefighters during the attack and almost drove within sight of the victory mosque before he stopped by another lower Manhattan police station. One year after he trumpeted that "as President, I believe that Muslims have... the right to build a place of worship and a community center on private property in lower Manhattan, in accordance with local laws and ordinances", he stopped by New York City to bring meet with people after the U.S. commando raid in Pakistan killed 9/11 mastermind Osama bin Laden.

Of the victims of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attack that bin Laden masterminded, Obama said: `'We keep them in our hearts. We haven't forgotten."

Obviously he hopes that people have forgotten that he supports building an Islamic victory mosque on the same ground that he visited to honor the fallen victims of 9/11- I guess when you are taking credit for killing an evil terrorist it is okay to say that the ground is holy and honor those who were killed on it, but when you are defending Muslims it is okay to say that the ground isn't holy and that anyone can build whatever they want on it, even a victory mosque that celebrates the attack (and also is a house of worship and is an educational center and other stuff too, but mostly a victory mosque).

Earlier last week I was critical of Obama's response to Tunisia's revolution, where it appeared that rather than take an active role in events, Obama's administration simply sat on the sidelines and tried to figure out where Tunisia was (I'm kidding- I heard that he had a 40 minute briefing on Tunisia after the revolution broke out- I'm sure he learned about it then). He is dangerously incompetent, especially on important world events that our President is supposed to be the primary actor on in our political system. The revolution in Tunisia though was just the start of something bigger, something that the Iranian Revolution of 1979 has taught us will have repercussions lasting decades, and that is the revolution that is taking place right now in Egypt.

For the past couple days I have been trying to get a handle on events there, much like our President, and like usual, my reactions have mirrored Obama's. First I first supported the young revolutionaries against the bad dictator, while Obama supported the bad dictator. But now I support the bad dictator over the evil militant terrorist groups who want to take power in Egypt, while Obama now supports the evil militant terrorist groups (he supports them by not saying anything bad about them while saying bad stuff about Mubarak- that's an upgrade over his usual 'voting present' by showing support for the bad guys). Obama is dangerously incompetent again and once again, anyone who voted for him or his party made our nation and world a worse place by doing so.

The best article that I have found to help me get a handle on what is going on in Egypt appeared today in the Jerusalum Post by Caroline Glick called Our World: Clueless in Washington. I am going to pass on some of the better parts of it to you to help you too understand a little bit better what is going on in Egypt...

The Egyptian multitudes on the streets of Cairo are a stunning sight. With their banners calling for freedom and an end to the reign of President Hosni Mubarak the story these images tell is a simple one as old as time.


On the one hand we have the young, dispossessed and weak protesters. And on the other we have the old, corrupt and tyrannical Mubarak. Hans Christian Andersen taught us who to support when we were wee tots.

But does his wisdom apply in this case?

Certainly it is true that the regime is populated by old men. Mubarak is 82 years old. It is also true that his regime is corrupt and tyrannical. Since the Muslim Brotherhood spinoff Islamic Jihad terror group murdered Mubarak’s predecessor president Anwar Sadat in 1981, Egypt has been governed by emergency laws that ban democratic freedoms. Mubarak has consistently rejected US pressure to ease regime repression and enact liberal reforms in governance.

This reality has led many American commentators across the political spectrum to side enthusiastically with the rioters. A prestigious working group on Egypt formed in recent months by Middle East experts from Left and Right issued a statement over the weekend calling for the Obama administration to dump Mubarak and withdraw its support for the Egyptian regime. It recommended further that the administration force Mubarak to abdicate and his regime to fall by suspending all economic and military assistance to Egypt for the duration.

The blue ribbon panel’s recommendations were applauded by its members’ many friends across the political spectrum. For instance, the conservative Weekly Standard’s editor William Kristol praised the panel on Sunday and wrote, “It’s time for the US government to take an active role… to bring about a South Korea/Philippines/Chile-like transition in Egypt, from an American-supported dictatorship to an American-supported and popularly legitimate liberal democracy.”

The problem with this recommendation is that it is based entirely on the nature of Mubarak’s regime. If the regime was the biggest problem, then certainly removing US support for it would make sense. However, the character of the protesters is not liberal.

Indeed, their character is a bigger problem than the character of the regime they seek to overthrow.

According to a Pew opinion survey of Egyptians from June 2010, 59 percent said they back Islamists. Only 27% said they back modernizers. Half of Egyptians support Hamas. Thirty percent support Hizbullah and 20% support al Qaida. Moreover, 95% of them would welcome Islamic influence over their politics. When this preference is translated into actual government policy, it is clear that the Islam they support is the al Qaida Salafist version.

Eighty two percent of Egyptians support executing adulterers by stoning, 77% support whipping and cutting the hands off thieves. 84% support executing any Muslim who changes his religion.

When given the opportunity, the crowds on the street are not shy about showing what motivates them. They attack Mubarak and his new Vice President Omar Suleiman as American puppets and Zionist agents. The US, protesters told CNN’s Nick Robertson, is controlled by Israel. They hate and want to destroy Israel. That is why they hate Mubarak and Suleiman.

WHAT ALL of this makes clear is that if the regime falls, the successor regime will not be a liberal democracy. Mubarak’s military authoritarianism will be replaced by Islamic totalitarianism. The US’s greatest Arab ally will become its greatest enemy. Israel’s peace partner will again become its gravest foe.

What has most confounded Israeli officials and commentators alike has not been the strength of the anti-regime protests, but the American response to them. Outside the far Left, commentators from all major newspapers, radio and television stations have variously characterized the US response to events in Egypt as irrational, irresponsible, catastrophic, stupid, blind, treacherous, and terrifying.

They have pointed out that the Obama administration’s behavior – as well as that of many of its prominent conservative critics – is liable to have disastrous consequences for the US’s other authoritarian Arab allies, for Israel and for the US itself.

The question most Israelis are asking is why are the Americans behaving so destructively? Why are President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton charting a course that will necessarily lead to the transformation of Egypt into the first Salafist Islamic theocracy? And why are conservative commentators and Republican politicians urging them to be even more outspoken in their support for the rioters in the streets?

Does the US not understand what will happen in the region as a result of its actions? Does the US really fail to understand what will happen to its strategic interests in the Middle East if the Muslim Brotherhood either forms the next regime or is the power behind the throne of the next regime in Cairo?...

...As Prof. Barry Rubin wrote this week, “There is no good policy for the United States regarding the uprising in Egypt but the Obama administration may be adopting something close to the worst option.”
 
Unfortunately, given the cluelessness of the US foreign policy debate, this situation is only likely to grow worse.

Two more years remain in President Obama's term of office. Hopefully voters in America will wake up and realize how dangerously incompetent his administration has been and how destructive the impulse to take a flier on this unknown was.

As the recent conflict between Hamas and Israel unfolds, what is most interesting to me is how it is viewed by the larger world. Not to be overly dramatic, but a peaceful and prosperous nation conducting air attacks by uniformed personal vs a violent and poor non-nation launching rocket attacks by men wearing black ski masks should be viewed as a conflict between good guys and bad guys, and treated as such. I know there are underlying issues, and I am sympathetic to them, but clearly this conflict has a clear good guy and bad guy.

Unless you live in bizarro world, that opposite reality that the American left, the main-stream media, and Democrats live in. In Bizarro world, society is ruled by the Bizarro Code which states that you mus do the opposite of all normal things- you must hate beauty and love ugliness and it is a crime to make things right. Inhabitants of Bizarro world believe that our economy must crash for things to be better, and that you must appease all bad guys in the name of peace. Kind and considerate people who are curious about the world around them are the bad guys, and closed minded shouting politically correct individuals who want to control your life are the good guys- that is bizarro world.

So let's look at what bizarro world looks like in relation to the conflict between Hamas and Israel. Much of the controversy in this conflict centers around what is a 'proportionate' response by Israel for unprovoked random rocket attacks by terrorist groups operating in Hamas controlled Gaza Strip. After reading David Aaronovitch's article in the Times Online, I think I have a better idea of what bizarro world would look like here.

In bizarro world, the world of the liberals, it be best if Israel were to manufacture a thousand or so wildly inaccurate missiles and then fire them off in the general direction of Gaza City. Or one of Hama's rockets could manage to hit an Israeli nursery school at the wrong time (or the right time, depending upon how you look at it) and then the proportionality issue would be solved in one explosion. In bizarro world, Hamas is the good guy, and Israel is the bad guy- you know if you're talking to a resident of Htrae (Earth spelled backwards to those unfamiliar with Superman lore) because they'll believe this and cry about genocide or some such nonsense.

Yes, people are dying, and that is bad thing. Innocent civilians are being killed. But I wonder- how innocent are you when you support with your labor and taxes and comforting words the terrorist who is shooting random missiles at a peaceful country? Are you really 'innocent'? This debate is deep and complex, and gets to the very heart of the beast on conflict, war, and terrorism. Solving it will make the world a better place.

To be honest, I took the headline from this site. I like it though. The long years of conservative rule is over, and for many, this truly does mean the nightmare is over.

Years of low taxes for everyone will finally come to an end, and others can now be taxed more. Years of low regulation and incredible innovation will come to an end, and predictable controlled low growth can be again the norm. Years of low unemployment will end, but even though it will go higher, it will be unemployment for productive people too, which is what people want. Years of no terrorist attacks will finally end, and we can go back to reacting to terrorist attacks, and reclaim the moral high ground of being killed and being upset by it. Years of terrorists on the run, killed in foreign countries, will be over, and we can go back to arresting bad guys when we convict them in a court of law or give them back to their own country for more fair justice than they'd get here. Yes, the long conservative nightmare is finally over.

The nation can begin to finally shake itself out of sleep, out of the dream it has been having of a world where we are the good guy, where god watches over us, where prosperity comes to all, where many voices are heard in the media, and where education is about teaching real knowledge- yes, this nightmare can end, and we can return the real world, of China, and Russia, and Kenya, and Iran, and North Korea.

The long conservative nightmare ends, and we wake to join our bothers and sisters of the world in union and equality.

Let's go back in time a little bit, to last year. During the campaign for President, Obama tried to block television stations from airing an advertisement that correctly linked the Democrat to the terrorist Bill Ayers. He did this by having his thugs warning station managers not to air the advertisement and even went so far as to suggest that the Justice Department would step in if these stations exercised their free speech. The Obama campaign also compelled advertisers to pressure stations that continued to air the anti-Obama commercial. Click here for details.

At that time, I wrote "This is change I can believe in- the change from a free state to an unfree one, led by Democrats trying to chill free speech in the name of fairness and diversity." This is the situation we face today, only now the Democrats more firmly control the power of the state and the media, and are able to put even more pressure on television stations and advertisers to toe the correct party line on issues of great importance like health care, energy, and spending.

If you or someone you know voted Democrat or plans to vote Democrat in the future, this is the change that was voted for- I predicted it and I don't expect this chilling of free speech to stop any time soon.

Time travel back to 5 short years ago. The Democratic Party was frantically doing everything possible to pull our troops out of Iraq. Leaders in the party demanded an immediate withdrawal from the unwinnable war. Political lines in the sand were drawn, reputations were staked, bitter battles were fought, all by Democrats who were all against the War in Iraq. Our President, supported by angry demonstrators, regularly shouted about how bad the War in Iraq was. So what happened?

This question has importance, and is not asked simply to dwell on the past. It speaks to the credibility, the experience, the ability to accurately judge and predict events, of our current leadership. Obama, Pelosi, Reid, Peters- they all had the same position on Iraq, and time has proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that on that very very important issue, they were very very wrong.

Victor Davis Hanson recently wrote a great article called So What Happened to Iraq? that analyzed this very question:

Six years ago, the conventional wisdom was that Ayad Allawi, then prime minister of the appointed Iraqi Interim Government, was a puppet of the United States. Last month, though, the Allawi-led Iraqiya alliance won, by a narrow margin, more parliamentary seats than any other coalition in national elections -- and he may become the country's next prime minister.

The secular Allawi successfully campaigned on the message of curbing religious interference in government -- countering the often-argued charge that the U.S. has created a radical Islamic republic in Iraq.

Indeed, as we look back at our years in Iraq, almost all of what once passed for conventional wisdom has been proven wrong.

Yes, there is still terrorist violence in Iraq -- especially recently as the leadership of the country's next government remains in doubt. And, yes, there are still around 130,000 American soldiers in Iraq. But in the first three months of 2010, the number of American soldiers killed in Iraq was about equal to those murdered in Fresno, Calif.

Meanwhile, Iraq's democracy has for some time now proven itself independent from the U.S. -- and that old anti-war accusations that we entered the war to control Iraqi oil were false. Last June, the representative Iraqi government held its first oil auction -- featuring transparent negotiations in which no American oil company was awarded an oil concession.

Instead, Chinese, Russian, British, French and other national oil consortia were given the awards. These were legitimate contracts, too -- not the sweetheart deals Saddam Hussein used to make with other governments in exchange for international political cover.

After the U.S. removed the monstrous Saddam, many argued that we were only empowering neighboring Iran -- and thus that the U.S. and the region were better off when he was in power. Putting aside the morality of playing one dictatorship off against another, has theocratic Iran really benefited from the emergence of a constitutional democracy in Iraq?

Currently, the Iranian theocracy is far more unpopular among Iranians than the Iraqi democracy is among Iraqis. Ending Saddam Hussein's reign in the short-term might have been welcome to the ruling Iranian mullahs, but a nearby functioning secular constitutional state -- with a Shiite majority -- is becoming its worst nightmare. Millions of restless Iranians must now wonder, "If Iraqi Shiites can talk freely on television, why can't we?"

Given Iraq's progress these last years, it's hard to find anyone who still argues -- as the current troika now directing U.S. foreign policy, President Barack Obama, Vice President Joseph Biden and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, once did -- that President Bush's 2007 troop surge was a mistake.

To a then-Sen. Clinton, the surge's purported success required a "suspension of disbelief." But, as we now know, the surge saved Iraq and provided a blueprint of sorts for operations in Afghanistan.

Finally, there was the assertion that anti-war protests were all genuinely based on opposition to the American presence in Iraq rather than fueled, in large part, by partisan politics. But since January 2009, when Obama was sworn into office, there have been almost no anti-war demonstrations against the still-sizable American presence there. Popular demonstrations in the U.S. now oppose excessive government, not the war.

And Hollywood has ceased making its usual, unpopular anti-war movies like "In the Valley of Elah," "Redacted," "The Kingdom," "Rendition," "Lions for Lambs" and "Home of the Brave."

Many on the left no longer oppose the Bush-Petraeus plan of slow, graduated withdrawal from Iraq, as this strategy is now sanctioned by President Obama. In the words of Vice President Biden, Iraq may well become one of the Obama administration's "greatest achievements."

It's true that many original supporters of the three-week removal of Saddam Hussein underestimated the ordeal of establishing a constitutional state in his absence. But it's also evident that many who damned the war did so mainly to embarrass then-President George Bush.

We see all of this mostly in hindsight. Dire assertions about Iraq did not come to pass. Anti-war passion cooled once war-critic Barack Obama was no longer a presidential candidate but became president -- and commander-in-chief. And, most importantly, a successful democracy finally did arise after the fall of Saddam.

As of Sept. 30, 2009, the national debt was almost $12 trillion and interest on that debt was $383 billion for the year, according to the Treasury Department's Bureau of the Public Debt. The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) estimated total government revenues at about $2 trillion, of which $904 billion is from individual income taxes.

That means that 42% of the tax money that you send to Washington is simply being used to cover the interest on the debt. The other 58% of the tax money that you work so hard to send to Washington is being used to provide more and more and more government services and to issue more and more government promises that are going to lead to to more and more debt. The principle on the balance is not being paid back, and there is no intention for it to ever be paid back.

In the first year of Obama's administration, the debt grew at a record pace. The Congressional Budget Office on Oct. 7 estimated the 2009 budget deficit to be almost $1.4 trillion- that is a stunning amount of debt to add, especially when our nation did not have to deal with a hurricane or terrorist attack or war- the only disaster that hit our nation in 2009 was Barack Obama being elected President.

I know my math is probably too simplistic- someone with an economics degree needs to correct it- but if $12 trillion in debt= 383 billion in interest, that is $32 billion in interest per trillion. Obama intends to add to the national debt over the next 10 years another 9.7 trillion (his own spending plans called for another 11.1, and he's already dropped 1.4, so that equals 9.7). That will mean another $310 in interest. If the economy does not recover and tax receipts do not surge (in fact, they shrank this year), then that means that the government will pay $694 in interest alone, while only collecting $904 from taxes.

If we continue Obama's policies for another 16 years, our nation will be in debt $29 trillion dollars and owe $907 per year in interest. We will owe more in interest than we bring in in taxes. If we continue Obama's economic policies another 20 years, the interest we owe on our debt will be greater than all revenues combined. America will be destroyed.

The numbers are sobering, even if my math is wrong. Obama's policies are going to economically destroy our nation in a fire of debt and interest. Anyone who supports his policies or his Democratic allies's are destroying the hopes and future of your children and grandchildren, who will have to live in a country that is bankrupt beyond any hope of ever emerging.

Obama's policies are going to send our entire nation to a debtors prison from which we may never again emerge.

Via Dirty Harry's Place comes this little note about the misuse of government power for the purposes of harming anyone who speaks a conservative voice- Joe the Plumber has been illegally investigated by Ohio authorities:

Ohio’s inspector general is investigating why a state agency director approved checking the state child-support computer system for information on “Joe the Plumber.” Helen Jones-Kelly, director of the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, confirmed today that she OK’d the check on Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher following the Oct. 15 presidential debate.

She denies that there were political reasons for the check on the sudden presidential campaign fixture though the Support Enforcement Tracking System, and Democrat Gov. Ted Strickland is satisfied with that explanation.

The use of a state computer system to search for information on Wurzelbacher is the fourth uncovered by The Dispatch.

This is what happens when you ask the wrong questions in this country. And Helen Jones-Kelly? She is both appointed by a Democrat and a maxed out Obama donor. Interesting. I guess the ACLU and other civil liberties groups would have been outraged if Joe the Plumber were a foreign terrorist plotting to destroy America- then they would have called for an investigation into this abuse of power. But since he is just a regular American who recognizes that Obama's tax plan would hurt him, I guess he has no rights.

Over at American Spectator, there is a good article on why we should not be looking forward to the collapse of America and the chaos that will ensue. I know some of my friends think the revolution will be good for our country- but everyone knows that most revolutions end up poorly, so I'd still rather work my tail off to save this country then let it go down in flames by personally doing nothing or voting third-party.

At Belmont Club, speculation into the future collapse of America stems from discussions on the financial crisis. It's a good entry in this good blog, because it makes the case that our current system is not designed to hold up to a systematic collapse due to the interconnectedness of our society today. I agree- although, I think the one connecting feature of the world is America, so other countries better realize this and step up to save us from ourselves, because if we go down, we're taking the world with us.

Over at Commentary, another angle is explored- that of Russia. This is a good analysis of what Russia is up to- the basic point of it is that we should not analyze Russia using our models of world superpowers, but rather look at how Russia has been increasing its ties to nations that oppose our policies at a regional or local level. This is the real threat to us- not that we'll engage in a Cold War Part 2, but that states like Venezuela, Iran, and Syria will foster terrorism and conflict with Russia's support.

Dirty Harry, in this post, points to another sign that the end may be coming- apparently, using money raised by terrorist Bill Ayers through his organization Annenberg Challenge (which Barack Obama headed up from 1995 to 1999 and helped raise over a $100 million for), the city of Chicago has decided that gays and lesbians should be segregated into their own special school, where they will learn a different version of history and be taught differently than others. I predict that this will only lead to falling grades and opportunities for these students, but after all, that's really what socialists want- a ruling class and rulers.

Before anyone reading this gets too upset though, please look at this site, and it'll calm all your fears.

From the Belmont Club comes this note. The Washington Post reports that lawyers are successfully arguing that terror financiers can’t be blacklisted because it violates their fundamental rights. The European Court of Justice declared that the blacklist for those people financing the killing of civilians and the bombing of innocent people violates the “fundamental rights” of those targeted. The Court is concerned that the list lacks accountability and makes it impossible for terrorist groups, once on it, to contend that they are not terrorists.

To fight against terrorists, their lawyers, and those who would aid them requires courage, conviction, and force of will. Let's see if our new President has got those.

George Friedman, CEO of Strategic Forecasting, is a noted futurist, someone who predicts future trends in politics and business. According to a recent article of his, one of the biggest threats to the security of the world (and therefore one of the biggest threats to American military, political, and business interests) is Iran. Iran soon will acquire nuclear weapons, and they may just use them against Israel or other US allies in the region, or give them or sell them to terrorist groups out there who may use them to attack the United States. 9/11 was bad, but a suitcase nuke in New York City is an unimaginable tragedy. This is what Friedman wrote about Iran and the United States options, specifically the Obama administration, on how to deal with Iran:

Obama has three choices on how to handle Iran: First, he can impose crippling sanctions against Iran. But that is possible only if the Russians cooperate. Moscow has the rolling stock and reserves to supply all of Iran’s fuel needs if it so chooses, and Beijing can also remedy any Iranian fuel shortages. Both Russia and China have said they don’t want sanctions; without them on board, sanctions are meaningless.

Second, Obama can take military action against Iran, something easier politically and diplomatically for the United States to do itself rather than rely on Israel. By itself, Israel cannot achieve air superiority, suppress air defenses, attack the necessary number of sites and attempt to neutralize Iranian mine-laying and anti-ship capability all along the Persian Gulf. Moreover, if Israel struck on its own and Iran responded by mining the Strait of Hormuz, the United States would be drawn into at least a naval war with Iran — and probably would have to complete the Israeli airstrikes, too.

And third, Obama could choose to do nothing (or engage in sanctions that would be the equivalent of doing nothing). Washington could see future Iranian nuclear weapons as an acceptable risk. But the Israelis don’t, meaning they would likely trigger the second scenario. It is possible that the United States could try to compel Israel not to strike — though it’s not clear whether Israel would comply — something that would leave Obama publicly accepting Iran’s nuclear program.

And this, of course, would jeopardize Obama’s credibility. It is possible for the French or Germans to waffle on this issue; no one is looking to them for leadership. But for Obama simply to acquiesce to Iranian nuclear weapons, especially at this point, would have significant diplomatic and domestic political ramifications. Simply put, Obama would look weak — and that, of course, is why the Iranians announced the second nuclear site. They read Obama as weak, and they want to demonstrate their own resolve. That way, if the Russians were thinking of cooperating with the United States on sanctions, Moscow would be seen as backing the weak player against the strong one. The third option, doing nothing, therefore actually represents a significant action.

Elections have consequences. Obama is in office until 2012, and we have to hope that getting him out of office at that time will not be too late. In the meantime, there are Congressional elections in 2010, and Congress can put some pressure on the President in foreign policy, so make sure you vote correctly in the coming elections.