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One More Last Chance for Iran

Thursday, July 17th, 2008

Iran is teetering on a political precipice. Very soon it will fall one of two ways.

Iran will either back down or get shut down.

They’ve adopted an anti-civilization stance since their muslim-revolution in 1979. They purged themselves, fought with their neighbors, threaten the world, and sent terrorists to kill the people in many places. They were identified as a charter member of the “Axis of Evil” by the President of the United States. And have been sponsoring the terrorists in the Global War On Terrorism (GWOT). Even with a stack of sins that high, they weren’t on the edge of what is about to happen.

What put them on the brink of doom is their well-publicized effort to acquire nuclear weapons and their public declaration that they will destroy the nation of Israel. Any reasonable reader of the news should be able to deduce that Iran intends to use nuclear weapons against Israel some time after they get them. Since it appears that nothing short of national disintegration will change their minds, the only solution is to deny Iran the ability to possess nuclear weapons.

As much as a nuclear attack on America would bother us, a geographical small nation like Israel couldn’t absorb the attack and expect to recover. Thus is seems that nothing short of national disintegration will prevent them from doing everything they must to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. Some say it would be impossible for Israel to succeed with such a mission against Iran.

That’s what some people said prior to the successful 1981 mission against Hussein’s nuclear reactor in Iraq and the surprising 2006 mission against the “secret” nuclear reactor in Syria. While past performance is no guarantee of future results, it does suggest more truth than those who oppose freedom’s war against terrorism.

Suppose Iran doesn’t back down. Suppose Israel decides Iran is about to have functional nuclear weapons. Suppose no other nations shut down Iran. Then one of two things will happen.

The first possible outcome is that Israel once again pulls off the impossible. They destroy the 1000-megawatt nuclear plant at Bushehr and the other two-dozen or so suspected nuclear targets. In the process they out-think and out-fight what ever defensive actions Iran tosses at them. Standing in the rubble of extensive national damage and total embarrassment Iran would have two choices.

Choice one: Cut their losses and back down. Squeal to the UN and complain about the aggression of Israel, producing nothing more than a tongue-lashing for Israel. Israel, believing they saved their own lives, would tacitly accept the short season of talk. Eventually indigenous forces for change inside of Iran would prevail and they would have regime change.

Choice two: Iran squirts out of their borders with their diminutive airpower only to have most, if not all of it converted into smoking holes in the sand. Iran’s neighbors are not likely to give them free-transit of their airspace. Most of Iran’s neighbors are friendly enough with America to request assistance as needed. Having failed in the air, they would try to shut down the flow of oil through the Straits of Hormuz. After one or two successful attacks against merchant vessels, American air and sea power would neuter Iran’s ability to project power. Civil unrest at the embarrassing turn of events would most likely produce a violent regime change.

Another outcome supposes something different. Suppose Israel’s attack is unable to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. Then Iran will most likely use their nuclear weapons on Israel. Maybe even on some of their other neighbors, but certainly against Israel.

Thanks to Jimmy Carter the world has little doubt that Israel has more than 100 nuclear weapons.

Let’s suppose Iran’s nuclear strike on Israel is successful. Israel would have little need for their nuclear weapons after they’ve been wiped off the map. Thus, they would at least give a major portion of their arsenal to Iran. Pointy end first. The parties in the streets of Iran’s major cities would be short-lived. The bowl of death produced by the nuclear shock-waves rebounding off the mountain ranges around Tehran would probably be studied for years by nuclear weapons experts. There would probably be little left of the near 13 million who live there now. But that would be from just one of the more than 100 weapons that would rain down on the Iranians. The small bands of survivors in the less populated areas of Iran would eventually be assimilated by their neighbors as the land became more inhabitable. The ultimate regime change.

The really ugly part of that entire scenario is that it would establish a precedent for using nuclear weapons in war. A pity for twenty-first century humanity, especially after over 60 years of investment by Americans to deter use of such destructive weapons.

But that’s what happens with rogue nations are not convinced to back down.

When will the attack happen?

According to John Bolton, former American ambassador to the UN, the attack will take place between the November 4, 2008 presidential election and swearing in of whoever replaces George W. Bush on January 20, 2009. Thus George W. Bush will be in command of the American response to Israel’s bombing of Iran.

So is all lost?

Not yet. You might have read in the news about the American envoy going to Geneva this week for the Iran nuclear talks. It hasn’t gotten as much attention as the Obama cartoon on the cover of the New Yorker or Jackson’s vulgar language but it’s much more important than either of those.

It is completely out of step with American policy. Presidents have been impeached for less. Yet, the civilized-world’s leader is sending Williams Burns, the third highest-ranking American diplomat to Geneva. The cover story is that he’s there to listen.

Of course we know that diplomats are best at talking, not listening. Is it possible that America is going to give Iran one more last chance? Will Mr. Burns say something like, “Let me help you save yourself from embarrassment, pain, and national suicide. Back down or get shutdown.” Will he? I hope so.

It just makes sense.

Party Pooper

Tuesday, July 8th, 2008

Five Hundred and Fifty metric tons of yellowcake. That’s a lot.

A metric ton is equal to a little over 2204 pounds. So 550 of them is just on the shy side of 1 1/4 million pounds. Needless to say, over a million pounds of anything is a huge amount. Thus, 550 metric tons of yellowcake is a huge amount of yellowcake.

No joke.

The Canadians bought the huge amount of yellowcake from the Iraqi government. The US military saw to its safe shipment via aircraft then by ship. Canada will process the yellowcake into energy-producing nuclear fuel. Yellowcake even in its raw form is a radioactive hazard. Now this potentially hazardous material is going to be used for good and not for the evil it was intended.

Certainly the former leftist ruler of Iraq, Hussein was his name, never intended for any good to come of his WMD seed. Even with his body digested by worms, the remnants of his nuclear weapons development program still was a threat to civilized people.

Imagine suicide terrorists padding their underwear-bombs with a few pounds of radioactive yellowcake as they went about their dastardly deeds. Now don’t imagine it, because America and its allies have prevented that from happening.

At least that time. At least in that place. America had the leadership with the determination to do what they believed to be the right thing to do. Since Americans were unable to deter Hussein from plotting, preparing, and performing evil, the next best thing was to invade, dispatch his fielded forces, and force a regime change. The criminal had to be stopped.

To have allowed Hussein’s fascist forces to fully develop nuclear weapons for employment against the civilized world would have been criminal on America’s part. Even though the powerful press in America continued to insist there were no WMD in Iraq, even though influential left-bent politician in America continued to call for the impeachment of President Bush, even though evil still stands strong in some rogue nations, America went the distance.

And it worked.

The terrorists invaders have nearly been completely pushed out of Iraq in a war of attrition. The strategic sponsors of the terrorist fielded forces have been mostly untouched, except for the former regimes in Afghanistan and Iraq, which were annihilated. Because the people of Iraq recognized Operation Iraqi Freedom as a liberation campaign within the Global War on Terror (GWOT), they joined forces with the civilized nations of the world. Soon Iraq will be cleansed of any large scale terrorist forces. But the GWOT will continue. It’s not over.

If the majority of the well-financed, left-leaning Americans would stop for a moment and realize that the terrorists are not their buddies, not their ideological soul-mates, they are their want-to-be executioners–then the war could end soon. Before that can happen, those same folks will have to understand that Hussein had a huge amount of yellowcake in his basement. He was planning a surprise death day party for a huge amount of people.

George W. Bush was Hussein’s party-pooper. Thank God for George W. Bush.

It just makes sense.

Have Your Rights Been Violated?

Saturday, June 28th, 2008

Very bad stuff. When your rights are violated by the local or state elected officials, appointed officials, or the police. When that happens without interference by a higher legal authority, the only thing left is something akin to:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

It’s basically what all those riots in the 1960s were all about. Nearly 50 years later, it’s a blur to most of us. Maybe that is because we’ve been lectured that it was about racial issues. Without a doubt race was involved, but the ultimate issue was whether Americans had rights that could not be legally infringed by local, state, or even federal governments. It took the federal government’s might to intervene in state and city laws to stop and prevent unlawful rights-violations on some of its citizens.

It’s not about democracy. It’s about a constitutional republic, where all citizens are guaranteed certain rights by the law of the land. The law of our land is the Constitution of the United States. It affirms many God-given rights.

Rights like freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, freedom of petition, the right to legal counsel, the right to keep and bear arms . . .

Did you see that one coming? Either way, here’s the rub.

The Supreme Court recently affirmed that the simple language in the Second Amendment of the US Constitution means what it says.

The part where it says, “the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed,” — it took the highest court in the land to decide that it means the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

Infringe means to break, limit, or undermine, or to encroach on. This recent ruling means the Second Amendment really applies to the American people. No city, county, parish, borough, district, or state has the legal authority to infringe or deny you the ability to exercise those rights.

Well, it almost means that. The actual ruling was limited to the District of Columbia. So you could say, the Second Amendment is only a right of the people in Washington D.C. — how does that make you feel in San Francisco, Seattle, Shreveport, or South Carolina? I’d guess it might make you a little irritated with this selective ruling stuff.

Imagine if the 1968 Civil Rights Act only applied within the city limits of where demonstrations were held? How silly would that be? If so, discrimination would be legal in most places. But it is not. Because that is not the way we do things in America. Except for with the Second Amendment, it seems.

Even with the limited scope of the ruling, there was much leftist ranting about militia-only applicability, state-rights (hang the 14th amendment), and even questioning if “arms” really meant handguns were protected by the Second Amendment. Their arguments were soulless and without merit. Some even impugned the intelligence of law-makers and citizens who agree with the simple wording in the Constitution. They were grasping at anything that might negate the ruling or the Second Amendment.

It almost could make a fellow wonder what do these people really want? What are they not telling you? Why does the pistol in the nightstand next to where your grandpa sleeps bother the gun-control addicts? What do they want to do once all lawful citizens surrender their means to protect themselves?

What do they really want to do?

I don’t want to find out.

No more than I want the federal, state, or local government deciding what I can write on this website, or deciding which church I may attend on Sunday, or telling me I can’t go to church on Saturday or even a Tuesday if I decide to. And neither do you.

Even if you’re a low-hanging fruit of a leftist, you’ve got to realize that governments are comprised of people. The more power individual people in certain positions in government have, the more likely it is that self-serving power-addicts will seek to obtain those positions only to enrich themselves. You see, it’s not really the Second Amendment those treasure-hunters want to infringe. It’s the Constitution itself.

It just makes sense.

Great Balls of Fire

Sunday, June 22nd, 2008

Did you hear the one about Mohamed ElBaradei the director general of the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)? He wins the Nobel Peace Prize for his “efforts to prevent nuclear energy from being used for military purposes and to to ensure that nuclear energy for peaceful purposes is used in the safest possible way,” then in 2008 he threatens to resign his position if a military strike against Iran happens because “it would turn the Middle East region into a ball of fire.”

Not funny? Come on, don’t you get it?

Here you have an Egyptian lawyer in charge of the IAEA since 1997 being credited with preventing nuclear proliferation. But the Israeli Air Force did more on September 6, 2007 to prevent the military use of nuclear weapons by rogue nations than most any nation or UN affiliate since 1981.
In 1981, Israel took out Hussein’s French-built nuclear reactor in Baghdad. Since no other country had sufficient motivation to stop or deter Hussein, the Israeli’s did the job themselves. And it worked. Secretary of State Alexander Haig told President Reagan, “Before this is over, we’ll be on our knees thanking God Israel did what it did.” Over a decade later, Secretary of Defense Cheney referenced the 1981 attack when he told the Israeli ambassador to the US, “If it weren’t for you, Desert Storm wouldn’t have been a success.”

Now do you remember what happened on September 6, 2007? Yes, that was when Israel took-out Bashar al-Assad’s secret nuclear reactor in Syria. Israel’s motivation was probably similar to what they had in 1981. While we haven’t heard any public statements similar to Haig’s comment, I’d think somebody, somewhere must have said it.

In 2008, ABC news reported that Assad’s terminated Syrian reactor was strikingly similar to North Korea’s nuclear reactor in Yongbyon. North Korea? Do they have nukes?

Yes, their nuclear program dates back to the 1960s. The Clinton administration tried several appeasing techniques starting in 1994 to get Kim Jong-il’s newly-inherited regime to abandon the long-running program. While Kim Jong-il freely took the bribes, ultimately funded by the American taxpayer, he never lived up to his word on the North Korean part of the agreement. In 2003 Kim Jung-il’s regime admitted the North Koreans possessed nuclear weapons and then proved it with a successful test on October 16, 2006. The North Koreans apparently got busy exporting their proven nuclear weapons capability to Syria.

Diplomacy didn’t work. Sanctions didn’t work. Appeasement didn’t work. The UN didn’t work at all.

Lesson learned?

For several years, we’ve been listening to Iranian threats to blow Israel off the map. Meanwhile, plentiful evidence has piled up that Iran has been supplying the terrorists in their illegal war against the democratically-elected government of Iraq and its people.

While Israel is politically prevented from helping fight global terrorists operating within sovereign nations around them, they do have a pretty well proven record for doing something if they believe they are about to be blown off the map.

The charter members of the axis of evil identified in the 2002 State of the Union Address, Iraq, Iran, and North Korea, all made decisions to continue to defy post-911 America and the rest of civilization. Deterrence failed.

Iraq insisted upon forced regime change before it would change its way. North Korea flaunts their nuclear weapons program while their people starve and their cousins to the south prosper greatly. Iran defiantly is clinging to its threat to destroy Israel, supplying the terrorists invaders in Iraq, and desperately trying to get their nukes developed before it is too late.

But “too late” is defined by their nuclear weapons development progress. The sands of the hour-glass fall to obscurity as their program approaches completion. It is much like they are playing Russian roulette with the tactic of squeezing the rounds off as fast as possible in order to get the game over before they lose. It’s suicide.

The facts are simple:

1)  Israel refuses to die.

2) Therefore they can not allow those who wish them dead to acquire the weapons that can kill them.

3) Therefore if the UN, or America, or any other nation or collection of nations does not want Israel to do the job themselves, they have to do or find somebody to do the job instead.

4) Or Iran has to change.

Iran needs to do a couple to things to rejoin the community of civilized nations. What they chose to do is totally up to them. But if Iran really wants not to be attacked, they need to completely abandon their nuclear weapons development program and then prove it to the world. And if Iran really really wants to end the Global War on Terrorism, they need to join the rest of the civilized nations in the war against global terrorists and then prove they have changed their ways.
A peace-starved world will not hold their past sins against them. If the Iranian did those two simple things, they would not be attacked. They would improve the life of their people. They would prosper like never before. They would even be considered heroes by many.

However, if Iran stays-the-course and doesn’t do those two things then ElBaradei’s opinion that “attacking Iran would be worse than anything else,” would be wrong. Not attacking would be much worse.

It just makes sense.

Socialism is Anti-Freedom

Wednesday, June 18th, 2008

Maxine Waters (D-CA) used a very thin veil to cover her threat to socialize all the American oil companies. Even though she balked at the public use of the s-word, she couldn’t help but finishing her statement once it was started. At least she was honest about saying what she believes in. We should all thank her for that. There’s few things worse than a socialist who lies about being a socialist. What was the public reaction to her statement?

Except for a little coverage on Fox News…

…and some attention by radio talk-show icon Rush Limbaugh it was allowed to fade away in the background of other news.

Not that they’re trying, but it might be wiser for the Democrats just to forget about defending Waters and just to distance her opinions from the Democrat Party. After all, Democrats are Americans and America has fought against socialism from the very beginning. Right?

What is socialism?

Socialism is a political process where the people who control the central government control the production, distribution, and exchange of property. Advocates of socialism like to argue that it is the community as a whole that is in control, but that would only be in theory. In practice, every time it has been tried, a select group of government officials have the control and the loser has always been the people.

Socialism comes in many flavors, but it always leaves the same bitter after taste.

Some of the flavors sound more appetizing than others, but they all drain away the people’s freedom to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness to some degree or another. In 2003, the pan-Arab socialist, Baathists Party lost an advocate when Hussein’s regime was vanquished. With the 1991 fall of the Union of the Soviet SOCIALIST Republic, Marxist-flavored socialism lost its most powerful advocate. The 1945 destruction of National-SOCIALIST (Nazi) Germany, another flavor was removed from the menu.

It is interesting how modern socialist-theory advocates have deceived Americans into thinking of the Nazis along with their fascist partners of Mussolini’s Italy and totalitarian Japan of the 1930s-1940s as “right-wing,” when those governments have always opposed democracy. Many socialist-regimes use the facade of a ballot to fool the masses, but no one who gives it much thought can really be fooled by such a prevarication. Socialist-regimes always take freedom away from the people. Pol Pot’s socialist-regime might have sounded good to him and his fellow freedom-takers, but the average person’s life suffered greatly.

Despite the appeal of a regal King of 18th century England, George was little more than an oppressive, socialist dictator demanding total control to the average cobblers, merchants, and farmers of early America. Since none of us were alive then, we have to imagine for a moment how bad it must have been for the average men of the day, to put down their tools used to provide food and shelter for their families and pick-up their squirrel guns to go do battle against the most powerful army on Earth.

That first generation of real Americans pledged their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor to give us the foundation of the freedoms we enjoy today.

One of those freedoms is the right to say what you believe. So it is okay for people who believe in socialist-theory to express their opinions. We don’t want socialist-minded people to think they have to lie about their beliefs.

Waters’ statement is not the problem, it is merely a symptom. The problem is history-ignorant people believing that a socialist government is the answer to all our problems, then those people voting for people who believe the same. Then the rest of us are affected by those people being in office. Yes, they have the right to believe the way they want to, but they don’t have the right to take the freedoms given to us by God and affirmed in our Constitution.

Just yesterday, a group of House Democrats are so bold as to be calling to nationalize (that means socialize) America’s oil refineries.
Can you believe the same type of socialist-minded politicians who oppose the harvesting of American oil reserves also want to seize control of American refineries? You might remember how they tried to socialize the American health-care facilities and professions back in the 1990s, but they were delayed by a group of energetic Americans who saw the danger in that. But that doesn’t mean it won’t be tried again.

Using socialist-minded logic, why stop with the refineries? Why not go ahead and take the oil companies too? Some people might argue that it would reflect poorly on Wall Street. After all, people might pull their money out of the market resulting in economic collapse. But an even bolder socialist solution to that problem would be to seize or at least freeze the entire market. Wouldn’t that do wonders for your 401K? What would this generation of Americans do if that happened? It’s really not that far-fetched.

Those socialist-minded resource-grabbers need to take a history lesson from old King George. Don’t make the same mistake he did before trying to deny too many freedoms to the average American. Not that they haven’t been trying, but they’d better collect our squirrel-guns first.

It just makes sense.

You’re Fired

Sunday, June 8th, 2008

While those words have been heard in millions of homes when Donald Trump said them on his television reality show The Apprentice, they’re not the words anyone wants to hear their boss say to them. In The Donald’s show, he fires a competitor each week, based on poor performance, leaving only one final winner at the show’s finale.  The collection of losers go off to find other jobs on their own.  At least television gives us the perspective that they are losers.

But are they really?  How many people are chosen to be a competitor on a quality reality show?  As each round of elimination progresses, the ones that survive become a member of a smaller, elite minority.  Until there is only one.

They all want to win, but there can be only one.

We all know reality shows are edited, directed, and optimized for entertainment value in order to keep audiences interested in them.  So honestly, they’re just entertainment and not reality.

In reality, all those people who make the sets, run the cameras, provide the meals, edit the film, and basically carry the water for the stars make everything work.  It’s a team effort, but only a few are chosen to be stars and to get the camera focused on them.

The principle is clear.  The ratio of pretty-faced stars for the camera have to be balanced with the number of water-carriers who do the work that make it all possible. Not everyone is destined for fame, but the ones that are, can’t do it without the ones who do the work.

Entertainment is big business.  After all, what would the rest of us do in our spare time if we didn’t have entertainers singing, dancing, posing, or pretending to be somebody else for us?

Entertainment is most interesting when it parallels reality.

Somewhat like a reality show, the career path of an Air Force officer is an exciting competition that most often ends with something like being fired.  Oh, we don’t call it being fired, we use “retired” as the code word.

I think Air Force officers come in something like 256 shades of type-A personalities.  Everyone of them has the secret desire to become the Chief of Staff of the Air Force, but there can be only one.   Most will not get their star, but all of them have their story.

Some of them are told to either take an undesirable assignment or to retire.  Others are told they are too old and they should retire.  Too many are told they aren’t part of the in-crowd, “You’ve done a lot of good things, but I don’t know you and you should retire.”  A few might hear, “I can’t believe you’ve embarrassed me this much–time for you to go.”  It all boils down to, “You don’t fit the mold, you’re fired.”

It’s about as fair as any system can be.  We can’t promote everyone.  There are not enough stars.  Somebody has to go.  At least that’s the mantra.

Operating the Air Force is much more complicated than running a television series, but a common principle applies.  You have to keep enough people around to carry the water or the stars will fall from favor.  As the Air Force has down-sized, the number of stars should have reduced also, but that’s a hard idea for some to understand.  They’d rather cut the water-carriers.

In the process of making room for the clones of themselves, they pushed hundreds of superior officers with great leadership potential out the door to retirement.  They denied them school slots, leadership positions, and commander jobs in order to groom their hand-picked people.  Critical mass was achieved.
For the last 12 years or so the battle-cry has been, “The only thing you need to know about the nuke mission is, it’s easy.”  Well, that kind of thinking has started an earthquake in the Air Force.

How many after-shocks will follow is anybody’s guess.

To use an already over-used Naval metaphor; if an aircraft carrier runs aground, it is certain the captain will be fired, even if it takes a few months to figure out who the captain is.  It is also certain that the replacement captain will not come on-board trusting the crew like the last captain did.  Heads will roll. Planks will be walked.  Keels will be hauled.  DD214s will be signed.

It just makes sense.

Beware of the “Global Proverty Act”

Sunday, May 4th, 2008

On the sixty-sixth anniversary of the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Barack Obama introduced S.2433. It is a Senate Bill with a couple of other names. One is the “Global Poverty Act,” which sounds nice and caring. Who would dare oppose a bill designed to reduce global poverty? The other name is the “Obama Bill,” which sounds friendly enough. Who would dare to oppose the handsome, baritone Senator from Illinois? The answer to both of those question is, only those Americans who would rather maintain our sovereignty than to become a puppet state under the rule of the United Nations.

I know this sounds like a stretch. In fact, it sounds nearly insane. So I’ve included a few supporting documents for you to reference if you’d like to read them for yourself. Here’s the bill that was introduced and here’s the updated version from April 24 that added names to the supporting list. You’ll notice that this is not just a Democratic Party member backed event, but Republican Party members are on record and sponsors of this attempted raid on American coffers and liberties.

Ready for the sticker shock? The bill’s backers refer to it as .7 percent of the nation’s GDP. However, over a 13-year period it adds up to $845,000,000,000. That’s 845 billion US dollars to fund the United Nations’ program. Of course that is in addition to the $300 billion we already plan to invest in global aid. And it doesn’t count the tremendous amount of foreign aid that comes from American churches and private organizations. That’s a lot of money.

Obama’s Global Poverty Act is not a source document. It is built from, and is designed to advance the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals (General Assembly Resolution 55/2). Back in the year 2000, The UN came up with the plan to not only fix global poverty, but a lot of other things too–all for only .7 percent of the productive world’s GDP.

As I read it, the UN will basically become the controlling legal authority on Earth. The International Criminal Court will trump our Supreme Court, private ownership of small arms and light weapons will be banned, the Kyoto Protocol will become law, they will control the use of fresh water and all types of forests, and they’re going to end war.

End war? Now, how are they going to do that?

Well, they’ll use the billions of dollars coughed up by American taxpayer to establish a standing UN Army, and they will eliminate weapons of mass destruction. Don’t you feel safer already?

Imagine a squad of goose-stepping, blue beret wearing, international-socialist storm-troopers kicking in your front door and demanding you surrender your illegal small arms. While they’re there they’ll make sure you’re Kyoto compliant. And after they have your guns and your money, I guess they’ll be able to do just about anything else they’d like to do. If you have a complaint, take it up with the World Court.
Imagine that. With the humanitarian goal of ending global poverty, we’ll surrender first our money, then our sovereignty, and finally our liberty.
Back in 1776, a resilient breed of Americans, who loved liberty above life, put everything they had on the line so you and your children could have the liberty you enjoy today. Now 232 years later, we’ve freely elected enough “representatives” who believe in the hollow promises of international socialism that they are willing to give it away.

What founding father ever said Americans should surrender their hard-earned money to support the rest of the world? What American today believes we can add 1.5 billion people to our welfare roles without destroying ourselves? After decades of UN failures, which includes exposed corruption with fraud, waste, and abuse of the resources they have controlled, is there any American taxpayer who really believes the UN will be a good steward of the money?

Once we surrender all, what will it take to get it back? You don’t want to know.

You might want to know how to contact your Senator. You might want to send them a message about how you feel about the “Global Poverty Act.” You might want to tell them that you could never vote for the re-election of a Senator who votes for S.2433.

Do you want to know how to contact your Congressman? Not much sense in doing so. It was already rushed through the House and passed with a “unanimous” voice vote under the title of H.R. 1302. The backers of the bill did a great job of getting the sheep to vote for a bill they hadn’t researched or even heard about. I guess most of us would have fallen for the same trick. However … most of us aren’t Congressmen.

If this bill is passed in the Senate, then every American will have one last chance to let our President know how you feel about him signing it in to law. He shouldn’t have the chance to veto the bill, if we can just stop the Senate from passing S.2433.

If you lived in Lexington back on 14 April 1775, a knock would have sounded on your door. Then a neighbor would have told you to collect your musket and to assemble on the village green. All the men, and some of the boys, in the small village answered the call. Later that afternoon, a few of them died at the hands of foreign soldiers, but it started a movement that led to a free America.

That same America fought itself to end slavery, defeated the National Socialists of Germany and the fascist regimes of Italy and Japan, contained Soviet Socialism until it imploded, and now stands as the primary obstacle to global terrorism. But international socialism lurks in the darkest, waiting for it turn to control the world.

Today, you might get an email or read this column. All you need to do is click here, find your Senators’ names and then send a respectful message saying you will not tolerate them voting for S.2433, the Global Poverty Act.

We shouldn’t surrender freely what our founders gave their lives for us to have.

It just makes sense.

The Food Standard

Sunday, April 27th, 2008

As Americans have carried the lion’s share of the war against the global terrorists, we seem to have come under assault from all directions: A former US senator and vice-president leads a world-wide publicity stunt to destroy our economy backed by millionaire Hollywood singers, dancers, and pretenders. He is given an Oscar and a Nobel Peace Prize along with an an opulent lifestyle for his prevaricating power-point presentation; Our trade policies have fueled an ever threatening Asian giant with tens of billions of dollars, which they are using to transform themselves into a military superpower; Our once solid dollar is losing value against almost every other currency in the world; A nuclear North Korea seems intent on exporting that technology to nations that back global terrorists; Iran is openly defiant about not only developing their nuclear capabilities, but also about continuing to promise to “wipe Israel off the map” as soon as they can; And even our allies in OPEC cooperate with the malevolent voices that call for greater efforts to pump up crude oil prices, even though they have risen over 94% in the last year, nearly 380% in the last five. 

OPEC does not completely control the price of oil. They influence part of the supply, but academics will tell you that the total supply and demand for oil drive the price. Other countries also produce oil, thus affecting the supply. The environmentalist movement in the United States, and the members of Congress that agree with it, have prevented drilling for the known American reserves, which would have helped to keep down prices by increasing supply.

Meanwhile, the oil-thirsty, rapidly growing economy of China and other nations help to prop up prices by increasing demand.At least the Chinese are doing what they can to increase oil supplies. Among other things, they are drilling between Cuba and Florida. A place where our government’s environmental policies prohibits US companies from drilling.

The US has been pursuing other ways to affect supplies. From investing in the development of various emerging technologies to converting corn into biofuels. All this has generated some unintended consequences for everyone.

Food supplies have dwindled, which has pushed the price up. The record harsh winters of the last couple of years, despite Hollywood’s global warming, along with the biofuel movement have reduced the world’s food supply. Additionally, the parasitic price of oil has driven up the costs to produce food and to deliver it to where it needs to go. Food prices are soaring, and the world can’t do without food.

Unlike the oil-crop of OPEC nations, food-crops require more than simply harvesting it and sending it to processing. Farmers work their magic the world over, but especially in America.

American farmers have some advantages. They are blessed with great crop lands and an abundant supply of fresh water, something lacking in most countries–especially OPEC nations. If food-exporting nations wanted to extract a payback for the inflated oil prices it wouldn’t take long to recoup the looting of past years. Even without an organized effort, that may happen anyway.

If oil exporters continue their artificial pumping up of oil prices, it will be met with market-driven price increases in food products. When their cost of food imports exceed their return on oil exports, it will be too late for them to make smart corrections in oil production to save themselves.

When their economies finally collapse, so will the price-bubble of oil. It will take a couple of growing seasons after that for food prices to drop accordingly, but they will just have to be patient and tighten their belts, while the food-producing nations of the world save them again. First from a life of goat herding, then from their home-grown global terrorists, and then finally from starvation.

Our problem with China’s growing militarism may also be solved with rising food prices. Over the last several years the Chinese standard of living has increased, but it still lags behind what we enjoy in America. The average American spends 10% or less of their income on food, but in China it is different–it is nearly 50%.

America produces much more food than it consumes. If our supplies dwindled, we’ll take it out of our exports, but we’ll still have food. And if food-prices double, Americans will just spend less on Hollywood movies and maybe eat at home more often. But we still eat and many of us will still be fat. But if food-prices double for the Chinese…

The Chinese government will be forced to curtail their massive offensive weapons build-up and then to subsidize food for their people. Those billions of dollars they’ve collected in trade imbalances with America and the rest of the world will be their solution to impending starvation and unrest. When that happens, the Chinese will be the first to wish the US dollar was worth more.

The Chinese people are smart and hard-working. They are aware of the world around them–they have more internet users than we have in America. They will not sheepishly permit themselves to starve as the people of North Korea have. They know a starving people do not a great nation make. And they want to be great.

While this may not be exactly “beating swords into plowshares” as prophesied in Isaiah 2:2-4, it might be an interesting start to a better state of peace.

In the long run it all boils down to the food standard.

It just makes sense.

We’re Going to Lose a City

Wednesday, April 23rd, 2008

That’s what Newt Gingrich told the National Press Club he was afraid was going to happen before America would react to the growing menace to our way of life. Part of our reaction would include a ruthlessness imposed on ourselves. What we would do to our enemies was left to the imagination.

More recently, Hillary Clinton discussed what she would do as President concerning nuclear attacks from terrorist nations against our allies. She strongly suggested we would obliterate Iran if they nuked Israel. That means to destroy utterly. To cause to become invisible. Strong words from a Senator who declared in February that any action against Iran would have to be first approved by Congress.

That provides an interesting chain of command for those familiar with what it takes to employ nuclear weapons. I’ve been out of it for a while, but I don’t think Congress carries the football. But it is an election year, and sometimes the arguments get interesting.

For instance, my last article explained how Barack Obama’s intentions to rid the United States of nuclear and technologically advanced weapons was near suicide as a nation. After viewing his mini-speech on YouTube, the lesser evil of the two international socialists became very obvious. Even with Hillary as the most desirable democratic party nominee hopeful, her doctrine is flawed in at least two areas.
First, the American President should chose words of threat carefully. If you say you’re going to obliterate a country for attacking an ally, and you don’t when they do, you’ve made yourself into a liar. A weak liar. An afraid, weak liar. The President needs to keep a bit of a veil over how much of a price an antagonist will pay.

Better words are something like, “We view any nuclear attack on our allies the same as a nuclear attack on ourselves. It is completely unacceptable, and we would deal with that in a most harsh manner.”

It gives America the latitude to be flexible in our immediate and long-range responses, without making the terrorists think they have a chance of getting away with it.

Secondly, the massive retaliation doctrine was tailored for Soviet expansionist ambitions. The Soviets sought to dominate a world of puppet governments, hand-picked by them. If in the process of waging war with the United States the USSR became militarily the equal of the post-war Germany, they wouldn’t get to pick anything. A world of third, fourth, and fifth place nations would have run the show.

Sure, the outcome of a Soviet attack would have been terrible for the US, but it would have ended even the slightest dream of Soviet world domination. The implosion of Soviet Socialism changed the world. While some individuals in Russia might dream of being Earth King, it is not a national policy. And that makes all the difference.

In order to deter an antagonist like the USSR or the folks in charge of Iran, you have to understand what is most precious to them. Deterrence must go to the core values of decision makers for it to work best. To attempt to apply a Cold War deterrence strategy to a Global War on Terrorism antagonist presupposes that their core values are the same as Stalin’s. Nobody really believes that, do they?

The arrogant zeal associated with plotting and executing the 9/11 attacks clearly demonstrates that something else is at play here. The bold, defiant, near-public pursuit of nuclear weapons by Iran suggests they are either not afraid or they don’t believe America will kill 70 million people, no matter what they do.

They have a low opinion of America. They call us names, and we shrug. They call their children to become sucide-martyrs, and we express astonishment. They declare war on us, and we bicker with ourselves. They seek the most destructive weapons on Earth, and we say, “You’d better not.”

Declaring that we’re going to kill all of them after they destroy one of our cities is not enough. Unless we quickly learn how to use the value system of the terrorist’s centers of gravity to our advantage, they will obtain nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons in the control of terrorist nations will shortly turn into detonations on our allies and ourselves. We have to do something now, before we lose a city.

It just makes sense.

The Resolute BUFF

Wednesday, April 23rd, 2008

The BUFF still carries the water.

In 2002, the B-52 celebrated the 50th anniversary of the XB-52 first flight. The models flying today are much newer. The H-models were built in 1960 and 1961, making them 47 to 48 years young. Imagine that.

Combat aircraft lasting longer than a general’s career. Projected to remain in service for another 30 to 40 years, those airplanes will last longer than the average life span of a typical American. Time will tell whether that is an accounting trick or a new standard in combat aviation. The B-52 is without equal–the undisputed heavy-weight champion.

Ironically designed as an “interim bomber,” it proved superior to airframes designed to replace it. From the Mach 3+ B-70 to the current collection of bombers with names that sound more like bingo squares, the B-52 has remained the resolute American bomber. However, time and politics has taken a toll on its numbers. Of the 744 bombers built, only 94 remain in service–and that took an act of congress.

Following the demise of SAC, the fighter-minded Air Combat Command took administrative control of the aircraft. In 1993, they took action to reduce the aircraft down to as few as 43 airframes and to cut the crews down to a number to match. The Air Force used personnel tools like a Reduction in Force (RIF) and the selective early retirement board (SERB) to deplete the ranks of the “excess” B-52 crew members.

One bomber pilot, who was serving as an instructor at the Air Command and Staff College, was actually told that his career was over because the BUFF’s utility was obsolete. Looking at the thousands of combat hours flown in the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT), it is easy to see that his non-rated boss was wrong about the BUFF. Unfortunately, perspectives are easier to correct than terminated careers are to resurrect.

March 24, 1993 was another dark day when many soon-to-be-missed B-52 Lt Colonels were told to pack their bags. Eventually, a respected bomber general testified before congress, and the Air Force was over-ruled with its plans to gut the bomber force.

Memory of that general has mostly faded away in the 15 years since his career was flat-lined by his noble actions, but the B-52’s flexibility and versatility has continued to serve the nation well. Those who were fated to fly the B-52 have developed a band-of-brothers mentality as they’ve become part of the legend of the mighty BUFF.

Even after its long history, today the B-52 has the highest mission capable rate when compared to the bingo bombers: B-1 and B-2. In contrast the utility of the B-1 remained in question until the JDAM became operational. That GPS-guided weapon, which was initially developed on the B-52, provided the B-1 with a real-world capability to replace it’s public-relations rhetoric of being called the “primary bomber” of the Air Force. The B-2 is in it’s sixth week of what is being called a “temporary pause,” the politically correct term for the grounding of a billion dollar plus aircraft. The pause followed the baffling loss of a B-2 in Guam where the aircraft became uncontrollable immediately after take-off.

Air Force officials assure us that the diminutive B-2 fleet could resume flying should national necessity dictate. Until that necessity presents itself, I agree that it is prudent to isolate the problem that caused the early rotation and subsequent stall of the high-tech heavy bomber.

Technology is a wonderful thing when it works.

We can enjoy the luxury of a temporary-pause option because we bask in the glow of a decision made by Congress to keep a sufficient number of the smoky, noisy, cabled-driven, hydraulic pump actuated, big, not-so-ugly, flying fellows that strike fear into the hearts of our enemies, pride in the hearts of those that fly them, and envy in the libido of those who can’t.

However you stack the numbers, the BUFF is the greatest heavy-weight champion of heavy-bombers that has ever flown. I agree that other airplanes are prettier than the B-52, and in a Hollywood society, that is an important attribute. But when the world gets ugly, we need combat aircraft that can fly, fight, and win.

It just makes sense.