The Steadfast Patriot
with liberty and justice for all
Passing The Buck on Iran
So now we know how President Obama is going to deal with the Iranian nuclear crisis…
Let the Russians handle it!
Their asking price? Merely us agreeing to dismantle the plans for our missile shield of Europe.
And we conservatives were worried President Obama was in over his head. Shame on us…
First off, I doubt the Russians can even do anything at this point to stop this run-away-train-like Iranian nuclear program. Every time there are new intelligence developments, reports always show that the Iranians are further along in their nuclear development than anyone had thought.
The latest example of this came just this weekend from the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen.
But even if we were to believe Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev could persuade Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to give up his nuclear aspirations, we need to take a long look at Russia’s motives.
First, why is Russia so eager to see the demise of the missile shield? I mean, if they had no desire to launch a missile attack, than having a missile shield should be of no concern to them…right?
Wrong.
I do not really believe that Russia is planning to hurl some intercontinental ballistic missiles into Europe, however, do not believe for a second that they will not, either directly or indirectly, blackmail some of its neighbors with the mere threat that they could do so if they chose.
That is a huge strategic advantage that Russia would possess when dealing with countries like Ukraine, Poland and Georgia.
So in essence, we are selling out the burgeoning democracies of Eastern Europe in this scenario.
Well done Mr. President!
Secondly, it is possible Russia will not really give these negotiations an honest effort. After all, if Iran develops nuclear weapons, the Middle East will be in turmoil and what does that mean…that’s right, high oil prices. A spike in oil prices would do wonders for the slumping Russian economy, an issue that should not be overlooked in this situation.
So in this situation, Russia would have the high oil prices it craves and the dismantling of the U.S. missile shield.
Please forgive Mr. Putin’s drooling.
Look, I know that we have had to enter into dicey agreements with Russia in the past (See: World War II), however, back in 1941 we had no choice. Now, we do have other choices.
Israel is one such choice. As I’ve discussed before, Israel has the ability and drive to take out the Iranian nuclear program on their own. They have the military might, intelligence and equipment to do so, plus, they will face very little international condemnation if they were to follow through.
Another choice? The United States Military.
Gee, what a novel concept…you know, actually handling our own international issues.
On a side note here, after all of the sanctimonious rhetoric regarding U.S. corporations outsourcing jobs to oversea companies, it’s funny to me to see the Obama Administration doing the very same with its foreign diplomacy.
But back to my original point…our guys are right over there and we could easily take out the Iranian nuclear program.
We certainly have the firepower and could easily make the case that we are protecting, not only our own national security, but the security of two of our staunchest allies-Iraq and Israel.
Either of these choices would accomplish all of our goals. The Iranian nuclear program would be stopped, oil prices would remain low, Russia will not have an inflated international role, the European missile shield would continue on as planned and our democratic friends in Europe will not have to worry about Russia acting like a playground bully.
I know that the Obama White House wants to appear as pragmatic and willing to work with other countries when dealing with international issues, however, there is a difference in being pragmatic and being irresponsible
In this case, the Obama Administration is being the latter.
That’s all for now folks. Until next time, take care and be well.
-John
You Can't Say That!
Of all of President Bush’s “sins” in the eyes of those on the Left, his supposed barrage on our personal freedoms was certainly one of their most despised.
According to these people, free speech, the very foundation of our republic, was under constant attack by President Bush and his evil henchmen, with laws and programs like the Patriot Act and the NAS wiretaps.
Judging by the recent deeds and words of those on the Left, however, you’d think that they were quite fond of restricting personal freedoms, particularly free speech.
You can see this is numerous arenas, but especially over the country’s radio waves.
There is now a debate whether the “Fairness Doctrine” should be reinstated due to the utter dominance of conservative talk radio. Liberals claim that the country needs the Fairness Doctrine to level the playing field regarding the talk radio industry.
If you are not familiar with it, the Fairness Doctrine is not really a document. It is an abandoned policy by the FCC to regulate the content of the nation’s broadcasters to ensure both sides of an issue are heard.
While on paper, this policy seems to make sense, in the real world, it doesn’t hold water. To support this policy, one must believe that, in this case, radio stations are colluding to stop liberal viewpoints from being discussed.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
There’s one simple reason radio stations air so much conservative programming…it’s profitable.
What the liberals that support the Fairness Doctrine fail to understand is that conservative talk radio is wildly popular and liberal talk radio simply isn’t. This is not an opinion formed by my conservative ideologies; this is a fact…just look at the ill-conceived Air America and the enormous contracts of conservative talk show hosts like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity.
If conservative talk radio was not a cash cow for radio stations, they would pull it in a second and broadcast more listener-friendly programming to drive ratings.
Believe me, if there were any liberal talk radio hosts that were as popular and generated the same ratings as their conservative counterparts, there would be more airtime given to them.
That’s not what Dick Durbin, John Kerry and Nancy Pelosi would lead you to believe however. They seem to believe that conservative radio is yet another right-wing conspiracy to stop the free flow of ideas.
What rubbish.
An interesting closing note on this section; you don’t hear liberals trying to extend the Fairness Doctrine to apply to television, magazines or newspapers.
Hmmm... I wonder why.
That’s all for now folks. Until next time, take care and be well.
-John
Yes, It's Very Impressive
I would like to revisit the Iraqi elections that were held on January 31.
These provincial elections were held in 14 of the country's 18 provinces (Kurdistan will hold separate elections, and the disputed oil-rich city of Kirkuk was deemed "too hard" at present).
These were the first post-Saddam elections that the Iraqis completely handled by themselves and if I may say so, they did an incredible job.
Contrary to what some commentators (mainly those on the left that will always refuse to acknowledge any progress in Iraq due to their hysterical opposition to the War) are claiming, participation was very good, by both voters and candidates running for office.
The voter turnout was 51%; a figure used by those that, if they do not want to see Iraq fail, than they are, at best, indifferent to their success, to show a flawed election.
However, before I go into the 51% figure, I would just like to take a moment to note that some are calling a 51% voter turnout a disappointing showing for an election in Iraq.
That’s right…an election in Iraq.
This is absolutely absurd as a democratic election in Iraq, even as recent as seven years ago, was such an unthinkable idea that no one would ever discuss the possibility of such a thing. The progress that has been made there is almost unbelievable.
But back to the 51%. This was a provincial election, not a general election where a prime minister would be voted in or out of office, thus making the stakes not nearly as high as some elections.
To put that into perspective, take a look at the turnouts for our last two Congressional elections:
2006: 41.3%
2002: 40.5%
Notice anything?
We would kill to have participation like that in this country, so can we please stop criticizing the 51%?
In regards to candidates, there were 14,412 candidates running for office, many of which were women and some overtly secular.
I think these figures can finally put to rest the ridiculous claim that Iraqis are not interested in democracy.
Then there is the issue of the Sunnis. In 2005, the Sunnis all but completely sat out the elections out of protest.
Not this time.
This time, 40% of voters in the overwhelmingly Sunni province of Anbar went to the polls; four years ago, turnout was 2%. In fact, turnout in some of the Sunni areas was as high as 65%.
This is extremely encouraging to say the least as it shows that Iraqis are starting to view themselves as Iraqis, not merely as Shia and Sunni.
In addition to the strong Iraqi participation, these elections also had something else that greatly contributed to their success.
That something? Peace.
The shocking lack of relative violence was just that…shocking.
The election featured international observers in all 712 constituencies, in 2005 terrorist attacks made that too dangerous. In addition, in 2005 more than 200 candidates were killed - this time, eight died. Four years ago, there were 299 terrorist attacks, this time there were only a small handful.
The peaceful polling was remarkable and so were the results. All the Islamic parties lost ground, especially the party associated with Moqtada al-Sadr, whose share of the vote went down from 11% to 3%.
The principal Sunni Islamic party, the Islamic Party of Iraq, was totally wiped out.
The only Islamic party to gain ground was the Dawa party of the Shia Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a man that’s proving to be an incredibly sound and capable leader.
The election is thus a big defeat for Iran, which had hoped that Shia religious parties would control the south and enable Iran to turn them into a mini Shia republic.
Sorry about that, Mr. Ahmadinejad!
Were these elections perfect? No.
There were some discrepancies with voter lists that resulted in some voters being turned away at the polls and there were reports of Iraqi citizens being confused as to where to go to vote.
While these events are regrettable, based on the progress that has been already made in Iraq, I’m quite sure these issues will be ironed out for the next round of elections.
By the way, more U.S. soldiers died in accidents (12) than in combat (4) for the month of January.
Not that most of you didn't already know this, but the war is over.
That’s all for now folks. Until next time, take care and be well.
-John
One Surge Fits All?
As we have all been reading over the past few months, the situation in
Obviously, this is rather alarming and something has to be done…and fast.
But what needs to be done? It appears that everyone is under the assumption that all we need to do is execute a troop surge in
I am not so eager to grant that reasoning (the reasoning that seems to be the main argument for this action, by the way) as 100% sound.
Simply from a geographic standpoint,
The geographic issues are one problem; however, the countries’ other differences are even more daunting. The people, government, customs, culture, society, economy, infrastructure and history of
As one can see, one surge does not fit all.
Now, I am not suggesting that we pack up and head home.
That would be ludicrous.
What we need to do is not simply throw more troops at the Afghan problem; rather we need to develop a completely different strategy for
We need to gain the trust of the Afghani people, so there needs to be cultural and economic portions of the plan, so the Afghans realize that we are the good guys and if they side with us, they will be safe.
It was this, a change in strategy enacted by General David Petraeus, that I believe was the main reason for the remarkable turnaround that Iraq is currently experiencing.
After all, the troop surge that happened in
The troop surge, however, went hand-in-hand with a different strategy. The counter-terrorism approach (where we would run around, seeking out the bad guys, engage them, go home and repeat the next day) that we had in place from 2003 until the middle of 2007 ultimately failed.
What was successful and what did turn
It is this type of strategy, this outreach that will lead to an
Right now, people in
If we can change that, if we can go out to the population centers and convince them that they will be safe if they trust us, then the Taliban’s and Al-Qaeda’s support system will begin to be dismantled.
I deliberately say, “begin to be dismantled” in the previous statement for a major reason…
Right now,
Any time American or NATO forces turn up the heat on the Taliban or Al-Qaeda, they simply slip into
This needs to stop.
It is my opinion that the Bush Administration was too easy on the Pakistani government. After all, they have had over seven years to eliminate the terrorism problem in their country. In those seven years, they have received military support, billions and billions in economic and humanitarian aid and political support from us and in return, they have not upheld their side of the bargain.
We need to make it perfectly clear to the Zardari Government that we will have a terrorist-free
We also need to continue the drone aircraft attacks, even if they go into
To be clear, we cannot have a terror-free
I know that I am painting a fairly bleak picture of
I will say this however; I have tremendous faith in General Petraeus. I believe he is without a doubt the right man for this monumental job.
I am also hopeful that when the August Presidential elections come for the Afghani people, they elect a real leader, unlike the one they have now. With the rampant corruption that infests the Afghan Government, I am not going to hold my breath that a Nouri al-Maliki with step forward, but you never know.
Just remember it was only a mere 20 months ago that most politicians and commentators were calling
It’s funny what a little time and a new strategy can accomplish.
Let’s hope the previous statement can be applied to
That’s all for now folks. Until next time, take care and be well.
-John
Recent Blog Entries
Recent Videos
Newest Members
Follow Us on Twitter
Sponsored
Share on Facebook
Search Our Site
