Followers

Thursday, May 26, 2011

Israel and 'occupation'

This is part of the Arab reaction to the Prime Minister of Israel’s speech. They rejected it and called it a declaration of war.

“We must work to adopt an Arab and Palestinian strategy based on the right of resistance."

They are speaking of violent resistance. This reaction IS a declaration of war. By whom? They are not a national government. This is Islamic nationalism at work. Declaration of war is the function of a nation-state, not a religion. This is why Israel 'occupies' land that no other sovereign government claims. Islam is also fielding an army to resist its enemies. Imams frequently field their own militias. This is a central point as to the cause of the violence and warfare in the first place. Religions can't be acting like national governments anymore.

This war is BIG. All that needs to happen now is for WMD to make an appearance. And this is only a matter of time.

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

President Obama is no friend of Israel

The Middle East ‘peace’ effort is to implement borders being adjusted to what Israel was in 1967. The gap from withdrawal of Israeli ‘occupation’ would allow for room for the new state of Palestine. If Israel does not withdraw, according to international law; Israel would then be occupying a sovereign nation.

How can this NOT start a war?

Why is the 1967 border so important? Why not 1917? Why go into the past at all? Is this not why wars are fought in the first place? I had thought that wars are fought to decide the issue. Otherwise, wars are not worth waging. In that case, why not today’s border?

1967 was the only Arab-Israeli war begun with an Israeli offensive. It was the 3rd of 4 major wars. Going back to 1967 is to set things right. Now we have the moral high ground. Who are we kidding?

When the shooting starts, you find out who your real friends are. Whose side are we on? We are certainly happy to jeopardize Israeli lives, while holding our own so dear as to withdraw from active contact with our enemies. This is not being even handed; it is taking the other side.

In the Muslim world, we are considered to be in the house of war. (The other house, the ‘house of peace’ is the areas under Islamic control) The definition of ‘innocent’ is Muslim. ‘Guilty’ is everything else. Islamic law is about as different from our system as can be imagined. Just look at Rape. Rape is certainly not defined in Islamic law in any way near our definition. According to Muslim law, a man may take his wife against her will. A woman who is not married is ‘public property’. A large percentage of Muslims believe that Islamic law allows a man to beat his wife. And this is only part of the picture. Physical violence is much less discouraged within Muslim culture. Few emotions are allowed, anger being one that is OK to express publicly. And now this culture will obtain a new national status where land is internationally recognized as ‘occupied’. This is a far cry from “Occupied Muslim land”. It can be compared to the occupation of France by Germany, 1940-1944.

Islam has been and is today fielding an army. By granting statehood in this way, we will be giving Islamic ‘soldiers’ a uniform, a flag, a national government and the ability to declare war though internationally recognized means. One of the big advantages in fighting terrorism is that they do not have a state. Like dealing with pirates, countries have many options as to what they can do with captured terrorists. Statehood will remove much of this advantage when fighting Islamic terrorism. Why do we wish to do this? And we will be doing this at Israeli expense. Some friend and ally we are.

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

We are losing the war

The prison system in the United States is under attack. A new settlement in Virginia requires the system to provide Islamic materials, additional time and room so that Muslims can practice their ‘religion’. This is the worst place on earth to allow the study of a totalitarian governmental system that most prisoners can identify with already.

Hamas and Fatah are making deals. Lots of pressure on Israel to allow for a Palestinian state. We are seeing massive unrest and confusion throughout the Middle East. Is Democracy breaking out all over? Historical cultural patterns indicate no such thing. It is likely that any government of a new Palestinian state will be openly hostile to Israel and the United States. After the failure of Oslo, it can be seen that creation of a new Palestinian state could easily bring about a new Arab-Israeli war.

On top of this, I have never seen our country so divided. Our divisions today are worse than our division during the Vietnam War. Historically speaking, I believe this is the worst division since the U.S. Civil War. Our government overrides the American public in installing a socialist heath care system that basically takes a large percentage of the private economy and will nationalize it. My natural reaction is to order my representatives to MAKE NO DEALS! Lot’s of lines in the sand type stuff that will only result in deadlock. I would rather have deadlock than any more ‘CHANGE’ like we saw in February 2010. Wars are caused because of issues like this.

It is becoming much more difficult to make money in the U.S. today. This can only drive capital outside of our country’s border, as investment in other countries becomes more desirable than within the U.S. Spread the wealth around? Lets take all of the wealth of the United States and spread it around the world. Wars have been fought over more trivial issues than this. And who wants to deliberately damage the economy of the United States?

The United States is on the strategic defensive. Withdrawal and draw down of forces are the order of the day. Our enemies are much better at attacking shopping malls than our military. So if our enemies aren’t sustaining as much loss, where are the resources going? They will let us know when they are ready. This is NOT winning the war. On any front: Economic, ideological or militarily.

Saturday, May 14, 2011

Michigans emergency law

Now the governor of Michigan can fire (And replace without elections) elected officials of local governments whose fiscal problems allow for ‘emergency’ intervention. This is a centralization of power that is a natural reaction to the fiscal policies that are destroying our country.

Democrats see (Accurately) that this is why Republicans are dangerous. This reaction IS a step in the direction of totalitarianism. What they fail to see is how their fiscal policies are the cause. This begins with the idea that government can allocate the resources of the nation better than the individual. The way that you do this is to tax private resources until very little is left. Outright nationalizing of industry is the final step. The political advantages of doing so are very real.

The problem is that centralization of economic activity takes away the major incentive of American ingenuity. A major reason why the United States has such a large share of world inventions is because we can directly benefit from them. This is why socialist countries lag in inventiveness. My son told me that the definition of communism is that everyone is treated the same. It sounds like a good idea. OK, let’s pay everyone the same. A doctor who is operating on you is paid the same as a factory worker? Think the quality will be higher? Think again. The problem is that our shift toward a centralized economy has moved so rapidly in the past 2 years that fiscal crises are beginning to crop up. In order to get these under control; power needs to be centralized. It is a cycle that I do not believe can be broken. The best way would be to exercise fiscal responsibility, which the American public has not wanted in generations. Extreme situations call for extreme measures. We have created our own extreme financial situation. And now we will see the extreme measures and responses

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

The war is over

President Obama has announced how the U.S. will begin to stand down in Afghanistan and allow the Afghan forces to take up the fight. Now that Osama Bin Laden is dead, the war is over for the United States. We should withdraw from Afghanistan and end it now. Although I did not expect us to get Bin Laden, I have expected President Obama to withdraw from both Iraq and Afghanistan prior to the election cycle of 2012. The death of Bin Laden is a great reason and excuse to execute what I believe was a priority of President Obama during his first term of office. The problem is that this is not the end of the war.

Osama Bin Laden believed himself to be a soldier of Islam. (Although I do not think of him as having been a ‘soldier’, strictly speaking, he was a soldier of Islam) He believed that Islam is a sovereign entity and acted upon it. He believed in ‘occupied’ Muslim land and Muslim ‘waters’. Notice how no nation would accept his body. Even Iran wanted nothing to do with his body, except for insisting that the body be treated in Muslim tradition. Bin Laden had no real nationality except for an Islamic caliphate. He believed in the national entity of Islamic government and was an Islamic nationalist. This belief is by no means uncommon, although he was more extreme than many and had plenty of resources to be able to act upon those beliefs. This is where the war begins. Take Iraq for example.

The U.S. invasion of Iraq was resisted by not only the Iraqi military/population. After the fall of the Iraqi government, Iraq became ‘occupied’ Muslim land. Therefore, those who believed in Islamic sovereignty fought the United States ‘occupation’. Bin Laden’s forces were actually a minority of those that were deployed against our military. I am not referring to nationalist Iraqis. I consider Sadr to be one of those who fought for Islam, not Iraq. Sadr was an Imam who fielded his own militia to repel the ‘occupiers’ of Muslim lands. The army of Islam was mobilized, much the same as those armies of the Middle Ages had been, and how Islam has historically fielded its armies. Another case in point: Israel.

Arabs don’t really care about the Palestinians by themselves. Otherwise, they would accept the Palestinians within their own countries. They do not because they want to use them to fight the ‘occupiers’ of Muslim lands. In other words, Israel is ‘occupying’ land that Islam had controlled in the past. This is why no peace can be found without the destruction of Israel. A problem here is that even if the land that Israel is on does revert to Muslim control, the war will not be over.

By withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan, the United States is not challenging the sovereignty of Islam. Because so many believe in Islam as a national entity, they will continue to wage war against us. The war will only move on to other places where Islamic nationalism conflicts with modern nation-states.

Friday, May 6, 2011

Osama Bin Laden and the changing story

Servo96 on townhall blog summed it up well:

There was a firefight.
Osama "resisted."
There wasn't a firefight.
Osama' daughter says he was captured alive and shot dead.
Osama was armed.
No, he wasn't.
Osama didn't have to be armed to "resist."
The team was supposed to take him alive if possible.
No, it was always a 'kill' mission.
No, they were going to take him alive until the chopper was shot down.
No, it crashed and blew up.
No, it had mechanical trouble and the team blew it up themselves.
Osama lived without TV, Internet or phone.
No, there was clearly a big satellite dish on the building.
Osama had a cell phone on him.
We found a 'treasure trove' of media and intel.
Osama hid behind a woman and she was killed.
The woman was his wife.
No, it was some other woman downstairs.
No, his wife ran at the team and got shot in the leg.
Osama's son was killed.
No, it was some other guy.
Leon Panetta said a photo of Osama would be released soon.
No, President Obama, during an interview taped for “60 Minutes”, said it won't be released.

As pleased as I am to hear that Osama is dead, I am disturbed about the way the story of his death is changing so much. Conflicting information is not uncommon in wartime, so it is not be surprising that we might get different accounts from different sources. For example, the daughter is saying things that conflict with our soldier’s account. This is almost a natural expectation. Not only is the viewpoint different, but motivation is strong to present the events in a different light. What is disturbing is that the ‘official’ information from Washington is changing so much. I would expect that our government would take the time to make certain that the information is accurate before it is released. Naturally, mistakes can be made. But the quantity of the changes here do not give me confidence that our government is being completely honest with us.

I really want to believe that Osama Bin Laden is dead. I also want to believe our government is telling us the actual facts as much as security can allow. This administration was to be the most transparent in a long time, if ever. This ‘incident’ does not give me much confidence that we are actually being told the accurate story. This also brings into question my confidence about other issues that this administration is addressing and what it is telling the American public. Even though I might disagree with him, I want to think that at least President Obama actually believes what he is telling us.

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Osama Bin Laden

In general, I do not wish death upon anyone. It happens soon enough for all of us. However, I do make a few exceptions. Osama Bin Laden is one of them. Mass murderers (including terrorists) are my general exception. So I am pleased to hear about his death. Even though I believe that this is good for the United States, it comes at a cost.

Many people will think that the war is now over and we should exit the region. In general, these same people do not understand what the issues are that are causing the wars. Why did Bin Laden attack us in the first place? It must be believed that only he and his relatively small group hold the ideology behind the reasons that they wanted to destroy the U.S. Pakistan is a good case in point.

Pakistan is a divided country. Many people within Pakistan believe as Bin Laden did. This explains why it took so long to find him. Even within the government, many were protecting him. I am actually surprised that we were able to pull it off. It is a good sign that we were able to take this type of action within Pakistan itself. What is troubling is the fact that Pakistan is not the only country where we see this problem.

Just about every country in the Middle East has this issue. Just look at Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Iran and Iraq, just to name a few. Islamic nationalism is alive and well. (Look at the militias that were generated within Iraq after our invasion. Many fought to repel the ‘occupiers’ of Muslim ‘lands’. ) In fact, with the deal that Hamas and Fatah are working on, our enemies are looking to be more alive and united than ever in my lifetime. Bin Laden’s death may actually help in this. Just listen to what is being said about our action. After all, when the shooting starts, whose side would you take? It is only natural that many from that part of the world will side with Islamic ideology. And make no mistake. Hundreds of millions of people are believers in many of Islamic government concepts. This is where the war becomes so dangerous.

The war is NOT over. Our enemies are actually more united and powerful than I have seen in a long time. The war is coming here. It is already here to a small extent. Europe is far more advanced in this, and yet the United States is heading in the same direction, in a number of ways. We are on the strategic defensive. Bin Laden’s death was a tactical victory. It will not reverse the tide of the war, nor will his death end the war.