Dealing With ISIS and Other Enemies in the Middle-East

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Kemal Atatürk

[Updated on 10/16]

Erdoğan and Obama

Now, I think, is the time for America to "lead from behind", or follow from the front(?) or essentially continue to do almost nothing.  We should arm the Kurds and support them (and only them) from the air with special forces ground support.  Not more, beyond playing the role of dishonest broker among the major powers: the Arabs, the Turks and the Persians.  About this, more later.

Keeping in Touch with his friend Rouhani

Ukraine. Once Again Obama Strikes Fear in the Heart of Vladimir Putin

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Tall tales and humor often have a way of putting human foibles into perspective.  Beyond that they may project them upon a larger stage.

I am reminded of an old but instructive yarn.  After the passing of years, I may remember it imperfectly, but the gist of the tale remains in tact.

Once upon a time when the old West was being settled there lived a rancher, his wife and two adolescent children.  They had staked out and improved a sizable spread of fertile grassland, stocking it with cattle and horses.  The rancher had built a sturdy pole house and dug a year-round well that furnished sweet, clean water. The family was happy and self-sufficient.

There is no Serious Problem -- Social, Political or Economic -- that is not Either Caused by or Made Worse by Big Government

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The Course of Empire Destruction (Thos. Cole, 1836)

For a number of years now I have been posing the title statement as a question.  In print and in conversation.  Crickets and bullfrogs; the query might just as well have been rhetorical.  Few have responded, and no one has ever offered an apposite answer. Big-government types occasionally make an attempt, but only after they've changed the question to suit a prepared answer. The most common response, for example, is to reply that government does some things right, which I've never denied and which is entirely outside the scope of the question.

When PC Drives Foreign Policy: A Soldier's View

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In an article titled How Muslims Defeated the United States, Diana West offers a letter from a soldier now serving in Iraq.  His views on America's role and future in the Middle East are not optimistic, and it runs counter to virtually all 'established' narratives.  In her comments about the letter, West rightly observes that it is "certain to challenge and disturb readers across the political spectrum...".

End of post

Marxist Obama

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Which is simply calling a spade a spade. While I can only guess at Barack Obama's motives, and motivations -- who he is as a man -- what he is, behind the evanescent mask of language, is plain enough.

He is a Marxist. 1. To elaborate I would add, consequently anti-American 2. and devoutly anti-capitalist.

Now the president's liberal (and robot conservative) defenders will object to the term -- arguing, as is their custom, only at the margins -- but the evidence is plain enough. His earliest and subsequent associations point us toward making that judgment, but his words and the policies he favors can leave no doubt. Obama's policies and his stated intentions to re-shape America (the world, if it cooperates) reflect clearly those of Marxists past and present.

Besides definitional objections, certain 'conservatives' who carry the memes of the 60's (comity at any cost) will say there is nothing to be gained politically by using the term. That may be so, but, as the left amply demonstrates, denying the truth of a matter does not make the truth go away. Denial is a refuge of comfort, but it carries danger. 3.

I make my case by examining Mr. Obama's policies, pronouncements and actions in the context of his work.

Foreign Policy. Honduras provides a telling current example of the president's views. Here the president chooses to view the lawful (constitutional) ouster of President Zelaya as a coup. It is hard to imagine a reason other than his wish to preserve congenial relations with Zelaya's communist allies, the Castros and Hugo Chavez and his contempt for democratic government. The popular uprising against the theocracy in Iran -- a provocative sworn enemy of the US -- barely drew Obama's notice. He has been hostile toward toward the only fully functional democratic government in the Middle Easy and our traditional ally, Israel.

The US Economy. As famously and unintentionally revealed in a recorded statement to 'Joe-the-plumber' Mr. Obama believes that justice is achieved by the redistribution of wealth. He encourages class warfare by his words and taxation policies. He has seized private business, abrogated the sanctity of contracts by fiat and uses every means further to accrue power to the federal government. The obscene 'stimulus' package, the drive toward socialized medicine and the devotion to taxing by 'cap and trade' in response to the mythical anthropocentric global warming are designs to destroy the US economy. Obama's repeated claim that he intends to rebuild the economy "from the bottom up" fairly boggles the mind. Paving the Road to Serfdom is a shovel-ready job.

Obama's Church. Liberation Theology is a religious denomination created in Latin America about 50 years ago. It is the result of a Faustian bargain between leftist Catholics and Marxists designed to suit their mutual purposes. The publicized preachments of Rev. Wright
supported by his colleague, Father Pfleger, are not aberrations, but rather the mainstream of the politicized church. And doubtless congenial to Mr. Obama.

There is much more to be said about President Obama, but I want to confine myself to the case at hand. If he succeeds in his pernicious objectives -- domestic and foreign -- the future, as game theorists say, will cast no shadow.
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1. The matter of political definitions is not an easy one. It is complicated by the fact that Marxist nations and movements have, absent any structural or philosophical change, taken to calling themselves Socialist -- presumably because the term is seen as more benign. But by far the greater problem is the fact that no combination of political, social and economic systems and the ideas that drive them will precisely fit a general definition. I view Marxism as the political heritage of the theories of Marx: dialectical materialism, critical theory of capitalism and revolutionary theory. Ideas that form a consistent thread from Gramci to Alinsky. To be sure the lines between the various surviving forms of collectivism blur, but the Marxist strain -- the most virulent -- tends to unify them.
2. "American" in the sense of the Founders and of history through the middle of the last century. -The America he may be for is a Utopian construction, centrally planned.
3. Denying the existence of a threat -- small, medium or existential -- is to yield the means and readiness to combat it. A herpetologist who calls a rattlesnake by another name and attributes to it innocuous qualities is unlikely to enjoy a long career.
The avoidance of properly descriptive language often makes us feel safer. I was once a jury foreman in a murder case. The case was simple and the evidence clear, but one juror could not agree with the verdict. "I understand the evidence and the law, but when I look at the defendant I just can't believe he's a murder."

Suicide by Government: The Obama-Kavorkian Connection

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Most readers will remember that Dr. Jack Kavorkian came to public notice because he was overtly engaged in the medical specialty of euthanasia. His clients, who were terminally ill and/or in constant, unbearable pain, engaged him to hasten their demise in a quick and humane manner. The courts ruled that his activity was illegal and ordered him to desist. He did not, and he was consequently imprisoned.

Mr. Obama and his party are similarly engaged, but with multiple “clients” – the American polity. Similarly, the plurality of that polity has entered a contract with government to assist them in the matter of assisted suicide. This analogy is sound but limited. When we broaden our examination we find notable differences between Dr. Kavorkian and the Obama government.
First, the polity is reasonably healthy and without severe pain. Second, the manner of death will be neither humane nor quick. Third, and most importantly, there is the matter of informed consent. Dr. Kavorkian, to his great credit, was careful in the extreme to ensure that those under his care (and their families) were perfectly informed regarding alternatives to suicide, and what could be expected in the final moments if they opted for death. And finally, the government will not be subject to prosecution.

We have proceeded from analogy to metaphor. Now, let us consider facts.
Security – economic, political and existential – has and continues to be aggressively undermined. We begin with economic security. The conceit of piety rather than the care of probity drives policies that are certain to weaken or destroy the economy. The wanton spending and printing money in the name of a litany of Utopian purposes seizes money from those who have earned it and distributes it among those who are content to live on government largesse in lieu of honest labor. Under current economic policy America is destined to become a third-world nation – Obamastan, if you like. Despite the stated intention of narrowing the gap between rich and poor, that gap will remain. But it will now be between a ruling bureaucratic aristocracy, on the one hand, and everyone else on the other. Worse than the loss of wealth will be the continuing and accelerating usurpation on personal liberty. Once liberty is surrendered the state will become totalitarian and ultimately murderous. (1)

In the matter of defense diplomatic and military decisions are being taken that make America appear weak in the eyes of our enemies. A posture of appeasement invites challenge from other nations on fronts military, political and economic. The most immediate threat, Islam (2), seems to have escaped this administration's notice; or, perhaps, they seek the comfort of denial. In either case failure to confront aggression in the Middle East serves only to encourage it. (3)

Voting for the services of Dr. Obama seems to have been unwise.

(1) The reader may ask if I am not taking an eschatological view of the world. I would reply that one has only to glance over his shoulder at recent history to note the appalling number of deaths in totalitarian (esp. Socialist/Communist) states. Excluding Nazi Germany, a million times 149.

(2) I use 'Islam' rather than the PC circumlocutions such as, 'Islamist', 'Militant Islam', etc. Diana West has a good article on the matter of corrupted language and the assertion of the right to free speech.

(3) It is vital that we recognize that Islam, in particular, is the natural and enduring enemy of liberty and democratic forms of government that flow from it and – ideally – support it. Where Islam does not threaten violence, it is corrosive to representative government (as we see clearly in Western Europe and increasingly in America).