The AmericanPlatform.org Blog

You can read the speech here.  The word victory is not in it.

We should leave Afghanistan immediately even though the resulting chaos will be devastating.  But we simply can not win if we’re not even trying to win.  And if we aren’t planning on winning no soldier should be expected to risk his life.  Bring ‘em home.

Tonight the president will inform the public of his long awaited strategy regarding Afghanistan.

The president needs to define victory and make clear our wholehearted commitment to the destruction of the Taliban and any al-Qaeda we find, or we need to leave.  If we’re staying in  Afghanistan, the president should turn the military loose with instructions to win ASAP.  The current rules of engagement are politically corrected crap and can be boiled down to this:  insufficient for victory.

The president could set a new tone and right a wrong by stopping the courts martial against three Navy SEALS who captured, as CBS news put it, “Ahmed Hashim Abedm, the alleged mastermind of the gruesome 2004 murder and mutilation of four American contractors in Fallujah. The four worked in the security division of Blackwater USA. The bodies of two were hung from a bridge over the Euphrates River.”  The SEALS are facing charges because Abedm got a fat lip.

Since when has this so become so difficult?  We can’t let the Taliban take over Afghanistan.  It’s right next to Pakistan and their nukes.  All manner of money and bad men with bad intentions will flood in, creating a  giant cauldron of irrational and murderous religious zealots.  The country will become a base for terrorism worldwide.  The president should stress that these are damn bad people, they don’t give a damn about us, and that we damn well better wake up to it.

Let the SEALS and Rangers and the rest of the military provide what the taxpayers paid for.  These guys and gals have trained and sweated and suffered, left their families behind, and  willingly risked their lives for the chance to really make a difference.  For you and me.  They volunteered for the hard job because they love America and want it to be safe, which is about as noble as you can get.  Why are we not letting them do what they trained for?  They can effectively work with the locals as well as slaughter the enemy whenever possible.

Obama isn’t a war guy.  In fact, he’s an anti-war guy.  Well, who isn’t.  Ya gotta be a nut to want war.  But this is a rough planet.  Jihadist fanatics, Iran, North Korea, Russia, Syria, China, Venezuela, the Taliban, and you can throw in a wide variety of  vicious, stateless crime syndicates as well.  In this environment, not showing or using strength will get you killed, especially when you are actually strong but are against using your strength, even to save yourself.  This is called weakness and it will be pounced on.  And it’s going to be that way whether we wish it were different or not.

Half-measures, money distribution schemes, “peacekeeping roles”, etc. will not stop an enemy who firmly believes his God wants him to kill you.  The president needs to stand tall and tell the world that we plan to kick the crap out of the enemy, and make it clear to the locals that they need to decide which side of this unwanted conflict they want to be on.  That they can help us kill the bastards who want to kill everyone who disagrees with them, or that they can throw in with the bad guys.  But they must be made to realize that if they have a terrorist in their living room they may be killed for it.  The president should be clear that we’re not taking any more prisoners unless we need them.  We’re killing the bad guys before they kill us.  Or sue us.

The leader of the free world should make the rest of the world publicly pick sides.  Are we going to hear nothing but complaints from your government, or are we going to get some support and gratitude?  He should proudly point to our efforts to stop the jihadist movement and point out that America is saving their butts from these maniacs as well as ours.  Other countries should be made to appreciate that if America pulled it’s forces home from around the world the fanatics would eat them for breakfast in short order.  Pick a side.

Strong American leadership can rally opinion and action, and would most certainly motivate our forces.  Obama needs to be clear and direct regarding our intentions and our willingness to follow through.  If he isn’t it will be a catastrophe, and we should therefore leave Afghanistan immediately.

From the Media Research Center, November 24, 2009:

As of Tuesday morning, the broadcast networks still haven’t uttered a single word about the revelations late last week [November 20] of e-mails showing scientists on the left-wing side of the global warming debate plotting to hide data and silence those on the other side in an effort prop up the notion of a “consensus” on the issue. But when the liberal side of the debate charged that their opponents were involved in a “conspiracy” to tilt the debate in their favor, those same networks eagerly jumped on the story and castigated the evil “deniers.”

Read the whole story here.

Regarding how Muslims around the world view the United States, and why, Thomas Friedman of the New York Times wrote this today.  I was very surprised to agree with him.

Glenn Greenwald at Salon responded to Friedman’s piece with this.  Read them both and see what you think.

The television is overflowing with dopey analysis of the two attention seekers who crashed the state dinner the other night. Much has been made of the fact that they had been through metal detectors like everyone else and therefore the President was in no danger.
Are we sure about that?  Everything is impossible right up until the time that it’s not. Anyone remember Fort Hood? What if one of these two actually was a terrorist with a desire for martyrdom? Is it inconceivable that they could have killed the President without a gun?

No, it’s not. Anyone trained in hand to hand combat knows how to kill with their bare hands. Including women in fancy dresses.  The jihadist mentality has nothing to do with reason, so it can’t be unreasonable to consider any possibility a possibility.  Remember that jihadists consider it a duty to kill those who disagree with them and in fact would consider it an honor and privilege to kill the head of the great Satan.  Whether or not they themselves would be arrested or killed is not a deterrent but an incentive, a path to immortality and an honor for their family.

The fact is that if one of these people had been trained and really wanted to kill our President they were close enough to do it when they met him in the receiving line.

Think it’s really not possible?

Does America really need the 111 new federal bureaucracies created under the latest plan to “reform” health care?  If you believe that these government entities, created behind closed doors by Harry Reid and Co. contrary to their promise to not act behind closed doors, will benefit the country I defy you to explain how.

All these agencies will need to have budgets and staffs.  They will then need oversight committees to, in theory, watch over them.  Each will create its own volumes of regulations which will then become intertwined into our daily lives, and we will NEVER get rid of them.  Read any section of the bill.  Can you understand it?  Could you explain it to someone in plain English?  You might as well be trying to read a cinderblock.  It’s just as dense and just as informative.

Here, have a small sample from page 220:

4 SEC. 203. QUALITY MEASURE DEVELOPMENT.
5 Title IX of the Public Health Service Act (42 U.S.C.
6 299 et seq.) is amended—
7 (1) by redesignating part D as part E;
8 (2) by redesignating sections 931 through 938
9 as sections 941 through 948, respectively;
10 (3) in section 948(1), as so redesignated, by
11 striking ‘‘931’’ and inserting ‘‘941’’; and
12 (4) by inserting after section 926 the following:

So, there you go.  Simple, easy, to the point.  I feel better already.  Don’t you?  There are over 2000 pages of this nonsense.  2000 pages of bigger government prying ever farther into our lives.  Mandating this, penalizing that, taxing this, criminalizing that.  It’s nothing short of central planning U.S.S.R. style.  It’s government over reach and decidedly unconstitutional.  Which founding father would sign off on this monstrosity? What common sense citizen thinks this is good and will work as advertised for the costs projected?  Anyone older than 30 should know that there will be many unintended consequences and the cost projections will end up being way off the mark.  It’s always the way.

Remember that the lead dog in this battle is Harry Reid, who has argued that Americans do not have to pay taxes and happily announces that he has never read any of Sonya Sotomayor’s opinions, yet will vote for her confirmation to the Supreme Court anyway.  What qualifications does he have for such a gargantuan undertaking?  On top of all this, they are telling us that they are going to REDUCE the deficit and make health care better and cheaper.  Who could possibly believe this claptrap?

The leftists, that’s who.  Today in the New York Times, for example, Nicholas Kristof speaks for them clearly.  He argues that “These days, the critics of Medicare have come around because it manifestly works.”  Works?  Well, I guess it works, if you don’t mention what the Wall Street Journal reported in May of this year:

Last week the Medicare trustees reported that the program has an “unfunded liability” of nearly $38 trillion — which is the amount of benefits promised but not covered by taxes over the next 75 years.

So, yes, it works.  It’s just that it’s not being paid for.  No big deal, apparently, to Kristof and the rest of the socialist left.  Isn’t this the same group of folks who constantly pound the “sustainability” drum?  Why doesn’t that apply to funding of government programs?

This health care bill is terrible.  It’s too big, too complicated, too fiscally irresponsible.  No conservative will ever vote for it.  Olberman and Maddow and Schultz and Reid and Pelosi and Obama and the rest will opine forever about how great this health care reform will be, and how dumb and out of touch the right is when criticizing it.  But common sense tells me it’s a damn boondoggle.

Lou Dobbs, the longtime CNN anchor whose anti-immigration views have made him a TV lightning rod, said Wednesday that he is leaving the cable news channel effective immediately.

-New York Times, November 11, 2009

Here we go again.  How is it possible to print this statement with a straight face?  Lou Dobbs is not against immigration.  Lou Dobbs is right in line with the majority of Americans who are against illegal immigration.  Just so the New York Times might finally understand the distinction, I’ll point out, for the umpteenth time, where this apparently difficult issue seems to trip them up.

There is legal immigration.  There is illegal immigration.  One is legal and fine with everyone.  The other is illegal and fine with many on the left and certain Latino activist groups.  Those who are against illegal immigration are then painted as racist bastards who hate all immigrants.  While obviously untrue,  leftist media outlets such as The New York Times continue to lump those against the one with those against the other, misleading (lying to) their readers on the true nature of Mr. Dobbs position on the issue.

To wit, here is the Media Matters statement on Dobbs:

“For too long, CNN provided Lou Dobbs with its stamp of approval as he pursued a dangerous, one-sided and all too often false conspiracy tinged crusade against immigrants,” said Eric Burns, president of Media Matters. “This is a happy day for all those who care about this nation of immigrants and believe in the power of media to elevate the political discourse.”

Really?  A “crusade against immigrants”?  No.  Against illegal immigration, yes.  Against legal immigrants?  No.  And notice how the phrasing suggests that Dobbs and those who are against illegal immigration don’t “…care about this nation of immigrants…”  Yes, that’s obviously it.  Anyone against illegal immigration just doesn’t care about people.  Nasty, closed-minded bigots!

The Huffington Post yesterday, under the headline Lou Dobbs’ Most Scandalous Moments, claimed Dobbs “is known for his anti-immigration rhetoric”.   Not his anti illegal-immigration rhetoric, but his “anti-immigration rhetoric”.  And then they offer this video as proof that he’s a racist:

Dobbs stops himself mid-phrase, realizing that if he says “…cotton pickin’ politicians” he’ll be accused of some racial slur.  But this is ironic because it’s against just such idiocy that he is continually railing.  And in the end he winds up on The Huffington Post, accused of being a racist for stopping himself from using the term “cotton pickin’”.

Is “cotton pickin’ now a racial slur because the slaves picked cotton?  I think of this term as being from the old western movies, as in “Now just wait a cottin’ pickin’ minute there Mister!”  Somehow I never thought of it as racist in the slightest.  In fact, I doubt anyone knows exactly what it means.  It’s just one of those phrases that somehow work their way into the language.

But there is no doubt that an attempt is being made to label Dobbs and those who are opposed to illegal immigration as racists by deliberately making no distinction between legal and illegal immigration, and by thin insinuations of racism based on things like almost-uttered phrases.

Unless we are to believe that these media outlets are simply making an honest error when they fail to use the word “illegal” when reporting on Dobbs’ views,  I can only conclude that this is being done on purpose to demonize those with whom the left disagrees.  It’s dishonest and leads directly to misunderstanding, distrust and hatred.

Which is exactly what they accuse Lou Dobbs of doing.

“It is, in a way, an odd thing to honor those who died in defense of our country … in wars far away. The imagination plays a trick. We see these soldiers in our mind as old and wise. We see them as something like the Founding Fathers, grave and gray-haired. But most of them were boys when they died, and they gave up two lives — the one they were living and the one they would have lived. When they died, they gave up their chance to be husbands and fathers and grandfathers. They gave up their chance to be revered old men. They gave up everything for their country, for us. All we can do is remember.” –Ronald Reagan

A really terrific speech. Somber in tone, but uplifting and respectful of the victims and their families. I was pleased that the president understood and acknowledged that it was a terrorist attack, and that “…no faith justifies these murderous and craven acts; no just and loving God looks upon them with favor.”

The homage to patriots past and present, the respect for the values they served to protect, and the emphasis on the good we Americans protect and defend was very inspiring.

Well done, Mr. President.

“If the U.S. passed a cap and trade and other countries did not, it wouldn’t work. It would ruin the U.S. economy and it wouldn’t save the climate either.” –Dr. Steve Running, co-author of the Nobel Prize winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s report on global warming

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change will change the world.  Not by lowering the temperature but by shifting wealth from successful countries to unsuccessful countries.  And not just a few bucks here and there, but hundreds of billions.  One clause states that “by 2020 the scale of financial flows to support adaptation in developing countries must be [at least $67 billion] or [in the range of $70 billion to $140 billion per year].”  And once a country has signed they are legally bound to pay if targets aren’t met, regardless of their ability to pay.

As Mr. Yvo de Boer, the head of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, warned Australia in 2007 when the new Rudd government signaled their willingness to sign the Kyoto Treaty:

“Australia is stepping into a legally binding international instrument that would oblige [it] to meet its target and it has penalties in place if [it] were to fail to do so.”

To place our teetering financial health at the mercy of internationalist bureaucrats with agendas at odds with the success and prosperity of the American people would be a catastrophic mistake.   Written in the same impenetrable language as our 1900 page health care bill,  this plan is loaded with fines and penalties and mandates for the entire world.  Including gems like this one on page 18:

38. The scheme for the new institutional arrangement under the Convention will be based on three
basic pillars: government; facilitative mechanism; and financial mechanism, and the basic organization
of which will include the following:
(a) The government will be ruled by the COP with the support of a new subsidiary body on
adaptation, and of an Executive Board responsible for the management of the new funds
and the related facilitative processes and bodies. The current Convention secretariat will
operate as such, as appropriate.

Who the hell are these people?  What arrogance they possess!  They’re forming a new world government, but just dropping this minor tidbit in on page 18?  No big deal, eh?  Nah.  Just go back to work, folks.  We’ve got this covered….

Not only are they telling us that they know definitively that they can change the temperature of the planet, and that we must give up our sovereignty and pay billions of dollars to make it happen, but also that they will administer this plan for the good of the planet in a fair an equitable manner.

This is absolute lunacy.  The UN is one of the most corrupt and fragmented organizations in the history of the world. One that places dictators and murderers on human rights councils.  One that is flagrantly anti-Semitic.  One that cheers, on American soil, the punk leftist Hugo Chavez insulting the President of the United States.  One that is so corrupt, elitist, leftist and hypocritical that it almost defies description.

If the United States agrees to participate in this deal with the world’s most arrogant devils it will be the mother of all mistakes.