Memorial Day 2011

A poem by Henry Reed from World War Two captures the brutal absurdity of war as it depicts a new soldier listening to a field lecture on the various parts of a rifle and compares it to the beauty of the world around him. Unspoken is the need, from time to time, to fight for the freedom to enjoy that beauty.

Naming of Parts

By Henry Reed

Today we have naming of parts. Yesterday,

We had daily cleaning. And tomorrow morning,

We shall have what to do after firing. But today,

Today we have naming of parts. Japonica

Glistens like coral in all of the neighboring gardens,

And today we have naming of parts.

This is the lower sling swivel. And this

Is the upper sling swivel, whose use you will see,

When you are given your slings. And this is the piling swivel,

Which in your case you have not got. The branches

Hold in the gardens their silent, eloquent gestures,

Which in our case we have not got.

This is the safety-catch, which is always released

With an easy flick of the thumb. And please do not let me

See anyone using his finger. You can do it quite easy

If you have any strength in your thumb. The blossoms

Are fragile and motionless, never letting anyone see

Any of them using their finger.

And this you can see is the bolt. The purpose of this

Is to open the breech, as you see. We can slide it

Rapidly backwards and forwards: we call this

Easing the spring. And rapidly backwards and forwards

The early bees are assaulting and fumbling the flowers

They call it easing the Spring.

They call it easing the Spring: it is perfectly easy

If you have any strength in your thumb: like the bolt,

And the breech, and the cocking-piece, and the point of balance,

Which in our case we have not got; and the almond-blossom

Silent in all of the gardens and the bees going backwards and forwards,

For today we have naming of parts.

Editor's note: Henry Reed was a British poet and we should recall that WWII cemeteries

are filled with our British, Canadian, and Australian allies as well.

Why Islam is Different and Dangerous

By Alan Caruba

Imagine that every day of your life begins with a morning call to prayer from minarets around the city or village in which you live.

Imagine that you are required to pray five times throughout the day, every day.

Imagine that the law of the land is based on Sharia, taken from the Koran.

Imagine that you live in a nation where stoning women, beheading criminals, and other draconian, ancient punishments are deemed acceptable.

Imagine being Muslim and knowing that conversion from Islam is punishable by death.

Imagine saying or doing anything that might be interpreted as disrespect for Mohammed, the prophet of Islam, can get you whipped or killed.

Imagine a religion that has no tolerance for any other religion, even those that existed for two or three thousand years prior to Islam.

Imagine a religion that sanctions suicide if it is done for the purpose of killing others.

Imagine a religion that has routinely taken over the temples and churches of other faiths and builds mosques in their place or a religion that builds its mosques upon the most holy sites of other religions.

Imagine a culture that reduces women to chattel owned by their fathers and their husbands.

Imagine a culture that permits the killing of women for “dishonoring” the family.

Imagine a religion in which a close associate of Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri, said, “We have not reached parity with them. We have the right to kill four million Americans—two million of them children—and to exile as many and wound and cripple hundreds of thousands. Furthermore, it is our right to fight them with chemical and biological weapons, so as to afflict them with fatal maladies that have afflicted the Muslims because of the (Americans’) chemical and biological weapons.”

Imagine a religion that, on Iranian television, June 25, 2004, says, “May Allah, by virtue of the Hidden Iman, remove the evil America and Israel from humanity.”

A recent news report says “Al-Qaida is on the verge of producing radioactive weapons after sourcing nuclear material and recruiting rogue scientists to build ‘dirty’ bombs, according to leaked diplomatic documents.”

In his book, “In the words of our enemies”, Jed Babbin, wrote “Like the Nazis, the radical Islamists play on the same sense of persecution and cultural inferiority that many people in underdeveloped nations possess because they are oppressed. And, like the Nazis, the Islamists have convinced their followers that the problems of their world are the fault of others. The Islamists blame every ill of their world on America, the West, the Jews, and Israel.”

The Middle East and Northern African nations in which Islam dominates are in a state of turmoil, seeking to overthrow the despots that have ruled for decades. No matter who is selected to replace them, Islam remains the guiding principle in the lives of their people.

Imagine a religion that divides the world into Dar al Islam, the land of Islam, and Dar al Harb, the land of war.

They cannot be accommodated.

They negotiate only with the end goal of achieving domination.

They cannot be deterred except through the use of force.

The translation of the word “Islam” is “submission.”

We share the planet with 1.6 billion Muslims and we must either convert them or defeat them.

© Alan Caruba, 2011

Israel's Next War Begins

By Alan Caruba

As this is being written, the news is about an Israeli effort to interdict a “humanitarian” flotilla of ships that refused to dock at its port of Ashdod to have its passengers and cargo checked. When Israeli troops boarded a Turkish ship in international waters on Sunday they were met with violent resistance that led to casualties.

The Israeli navy stopped six ships ferrying 700 people and 10,000 tons of supplies toward the Hamas-run Palestinian enclave.

I don’t know what the flotilla was delivering, but it is likely that among its passengers were Hamas terrorists and that there are weapons hidden among its cargo. That is why they refused orders to proceed to the Israeli port where tons of cargo routinely docks before making its way to Gaza.

The flotilla was a deliberate provocation. Naturally, much of the world will blame Israel.

Having been in a state of war since its founding, Israel routinely has interdicted shipments of weapons to the PLO and Hamas. One of the most notable was in January 2002 when the Karine-A, a Palestinian ship, was found to have more than fifty tons of Iranian weapons and explosives.

Largely unreported are the fierce battles Egyptian Special Forces are waging in central Sinai with Bedouin tribesman smuggling weapons and fighters into Gaza on behalf of al Qaeda. As always, the Middle East is an asylum for the insane who, when not trying to kill Israelis, stay busy killing one another.

I believe that war will come again soon and will originate in Lebanon. In the end, the decision will be Iran’s, not Syria’s, its sock puppet and stalking horse. Syria has reportedly provided the Lebanon-based Hezbollah an estimated 1,000 Iranian-made rockets and missiles, all aimed at Israel.

The last time the Israelis had to deal with Hezbollah aggression from Lebanon was in 2006. The conflict lasted 34 days. It is widely agreed that the Israeli Defense Force performed poorly and, not surprisingly, the most criticism came from the Israelis themselves.

Part of the problem at the time was an indecisive Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, who has since been replaced by Benyamin Netanyahu. If “Bibi” gets any intelligence regarding a pending attack, he will not wait around for it to start. On word of the confrontation with the flotilla, he cancelled a June 1 meeting with President Obama and returned to Israel.

You may recall that in March Barack Obama accorded Netanyahu one of the nastiest receptions ever given an Israeli Prime Minister. Only the Dalai Lama fared worse, being ushered out the White House back door.

One might reasonably assume that the president is no fan of Jews after having spent twenty years in the Chicago pews of the Trinity United Church of Christ listening to the Rev. Jeremiah Wright say hateful things about them and about America.

Obama has many close ties with black nationalists and anti-Semites such as Nation of Islam’s Louis Farrakhan. One of his longtime associates is Palestinian apologist Rashid Khalidi, a Columbia University professor.

There is ample reason to believe another attack on Israel is likely. The Syrians have reportedly moved the number of their army units to the Israeli border and have been supplying arms to Hezbollah ever since the last war.

Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has been saying ever more crazy things of late. He even lectured the United Nations on the coming of the Twelfth Imam, a Shiite spook whose return will require massive worldwide death and destruction. More recently Mahmoud got into a fight with the Russians over the proposed UN sanctions. Iran is running out of friends even if its oil is not.

The Israelis have been practicing war games that include long distance flights, the purpose of which may have something to do with dropping some very big bombs on places with Persian names.

While all this is going on, the United States is significantly building up its fighting strength in the Mediterranean and the Persian Gulf regions. Carrier Strike Group 10, led by the USS Harry S. Truman, pulled up anchor on May 21st and headed to the Middle East. That will put two carrier groups in the area. More vessels, including guided-missile cruisers and destroyers will be there as well.

No matter how it plays out, the Middle East is going to turn into a shooting gallery again. The Iranians, Syrians, and Palestinians in Hezbollah and Hamas are living testimony to why all those people demanding that Israel make peace with them are clueless or worse.

© Alan Caruba, 2010

Memories of Munich, Threats from Tehran

By Alan Caruba

By 1938, Hitler had already made plans for the conquest of Europe or at least the parts he could not get without firing a shot. He had annexed Austria earlier that year.

In Munich, Czechoslovakia’s Sudetenland was handed over to Germany by England, France, and Italy. The Czechs were not invited to participate. Despite the Versailles Treaty after World War One, under the Nazis Germany had rearmed while the rest of Europe looked on.

Neville Chamberlain, the British Prime Minister, returned home to claim that he had bought “peace in our time.” Well, he had bought a little time but few had any doubts about Hitler’s ambitions. Even Joseph Stalin, the Soviet dictator, had bought a little time by signing a secret treaty dividing Poland with Hitler. A year after the Munich treaty, Germany invaded Poland and World War Two began.

History has an unfortunate, but utterly predictable, way of repeating itself. The same mistakes are made over and over again by men who have not taken the time to read history or who think that, by dint of their own personalities, they can change it. Barack Obama thinks he has been selected by the gods of Marxism to fulfill that destiny for America. When not “transforming” America, he yearns for a new world order based on diplomacy, but diplomacy has long been defined as telling lies on behalf of one’s country.

His Director of Intelligence, Dennis Blair, just got pushed out of the job for daring to tell him the truth about the world and these days Obama evokes snickers every time he ventures into the thicket of foreign policy and Hillary is no help.

In the history of the United States, no previous president has ever had less experience for the job. In contrast to George W. Bush who told nations he would invade you if you posed a threat, most of the world’s leaders have concluded Obama is an empty suit, a dunce, and an easy mark. The Iranians openly mock him while the rest have the decency to do it behind closed doors.

If you want to find those most wedded to insane notions of their role in history, just visit Tehran where the ayatollahs and their chief stooge, Mamoud Ahmadinejad, believe they must bring about Armageddon to ensure the return of the mythical Twelfth Imam who apparently lives at the bottom of a well.

Once the Islamic Revolution had solidified its grip on Iran in 1979, their top priority became the ability to make nuclear weapons. They have never ceased in this quest. As in 1938, the world looks on.

Iran is the new Nazi Germany circa 2010. It bears a lot of similarities, the most obvious of which is its intense hatred of Jews that is manifested in denying the Holocaust and with daily threats to wipe Israel off the map.

The irony of this is that Iran’s Arab neighbors—Iran is Persian, not Arab—have reached the point where they hate Iran even more than they say they hate Israel. The radical Shiite Iran is an anathema to the mostly Sunni Arab nations of the Middle East and the notion that it might acquire nuclear weapons has them casting their eyes lovingly on Israel.

The Iraqis have no love for the Iranian’s ideological extremism. That’s why Iyad Allawi, a secular Shiite, along with secular Sunni political allies, won the recent elections there. Iranian bombs and terrorists have killed more Iraqis than the U.S. military.

You cannot look around the region without finding a nation, other than Syria, that regards Iran as anything other than a menace, either directly or through proxy forces such as Hezbollah in Lebanon or Hamas in the Gaza strip. Members of Osama bin Laden’s family are said to be guests of Iran.

The Israelis have made no secret of the fact that they do not intend to let Iran join the nuclear club. President Obama has said similar things, but his word is totally unreliable and everyone in the Middle East knows it.

He may have thought he was earning brownie points by being abusive to Israel, but all he managed to do was raise questions about his treatment of a U.S. ally. It is no secret either that Obama has long associated with notorious anti-Semites such as Rev. Jeremiah Wright and the Nation of Islam’s Louis Farrakhan.

There’s never been a whole lot of trust among the leaders of Middle Eastern and North African nations for one another, but there is likely none so far as the U.S. President is concerned.

This is why it is the Saudis have been quietly breaking bread with the Israelis for quite a while and a coalition of sorts exists to support whatever it intends to do to render parts of Iran radioactive. This is not to say that U.S. military and intelligence representatives haven’t held similar discussions with the various parties.

An extraordinary flotilla of U.S. war ships has been building up in the Persian Gulf and there no doubt there are other preparations for war occurring. One can only hope that overt U.S. policy towards Israel is a gigantic deception to make the Iranians think the U.S. will stay out of the fight.

As with Munich in 1938 when the momentum toward war was already too strong and too obvious to all of Europe and the rest of the world to ignore, the Iranian regime is begging for war. It will get it. There is simply no way to use diplomacy when you are negotiating with crazy people.

© Alan Caruba, 2010

I Prefer Local to Global

By Alan Caruba

Perhaps it is just the product of the times in which I grew up and my experience with the events of the world. Or perhaps it is the spin that has been added to the word “global”, endowing it with an almost spiritual quality.

Mostly, though, I think it is my utter disgust with “global warming”, having spent the better part of three decades striving to defeat this plot to enable all forms of governmental intrusion into people’s lives and choices.

A bit of personal history; as a child I recall riding the train to and from the Jersey shore when it was filled with young men in uniform, all destined to fight in far-off places whose names even then seemed exotic to me; Iwo Jima, Guadalcanal, Normandy, and Sicily. It was the harsh geography of war, but to a youngster it only meant someplace far away.

By the time I was a teenager, an older brother was already in Japan at the headquarters from which the Korean conflict was conducted. There were new names to deal with, Seoul, Incheon, and the Yalu River. By then the Cold War was well on its way.

The 1950s were full of talk of A-bombs and then H-bombs, and then intercontinental missiles. In college I took scant notice of events in Cuba, but a few years later I would be in full combat gear waiting for orders to invade. Then the problem went away without ever really going away. It has since spread to Venezuela.

Like many Americans, I learned about the world because we were sending troops somewhere to push back against some form of aggression or some new oppressive regime. At home the streets were filled with Civil Rights marchers or anti-war marchers, both of whom would be replaced by new groups demanding to be heard. It was the era of Woodstock and Watergate.

And no trains filled with soldiers because the military had ceased to be every young man’s duty to serve their nation. It became a voluntary military and, we’re told, one that is superior to the former model. It would suffer casualties in Beirut, wrest Grenada from a communist takeover, invade Panama to remove yet another corrupt leader and then, in response to Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, go there to set things right. After 9/11, in 2001 it would drive the Taliban and al Qaeda out of Afghanistan and then in 2003 invade Iraq to bring down Saddam Hussein.

Is it any wonder Americans are weary of war? Is it any wonder that the word “global” to my generation means some new place where young, dedicated Americans are battling some new despot, regime, or threat to peace anywhere and everywhere?

All of which brings me to the new meaning of “global” for the generations that followed mine. It is attached to “global warming”, the greatest hoax, not merely in the modern era, but in all of history! And it was initiated and implemented by an international institution that was supposed to end wars, the United Nations.

Some years ago, the UN published a book called “Our Global Neighborhood”, but we do not live in a global neighborhood. We live in our own, local neighborhood. The UN is all about global government with, of course, global taxes, a global army, and, as in the case of every dictatorship, a global restriction on gun ownership.

It is all about a vast matrix of global treaties that involve the surrender of some element of U.S. sovereignty to the UN to oversee “heritage” sites and our national parks. It is about an educational indoctrination program to turn American children into “citizens of the world.”

So you will have to forgive me if I look at the world and see places where Americans have continually had to sacrifice blood and treasure because someone or some nation had ambitions to impose their will on people who just wanted to be left alone.

If something terrible happens in America I do not expect to see one single other nation on Earth come to our aid.

In America today, the enemy is not always in some far-off place. It is in Washington, D.C. where an out-of-control Congress is spending and borrowing to the point where we are being warned that our dollar is at risk of being worthless. Led by a feckless new president, it has imposed huge debts on generations yet to be born.

The White House is trying to expand an “entitlement” program, Medicare, that is already broke for the purpose of controlling one sixth of the nation’s economy.

The White House is giving money to banks and then threatening to tax them after they have repaid it.

The White House has bought General Motors and Chrysler instead of letting them go through a bankruptcy process like any other business.

The White House is squandering billions on “clean energy” and “green jobs”, both of which are mere fantasies while billions of barrels of oil go untapped, billions of cubic feet of natural gas remains unavailable, and hundreds of year’s worth of coal is not mined.

Congress is engaged in phony, multi-billion dollar “stimulus” programs instead of cutting taxes to jump-start the economy.

“Think globally. Act locally” is the mantra of the environmental movement, but the movement itself is a global monster, determined to decide what you can eat, how you should deal with your garbage, what kind of car or truck you can drive, how much you should heat or cool your home.

It is despotism, no matter what other name you call it.

And then there are those insane followers of Islam who want to inflict more harm on America because they are not content with killing their fellow Muslims.

I wish I could ignore the world beyond my neighborhood, but it won’t let me.

Iran's Mullahs Threaten the World

By Alan Caruba

In the more than four decades of the Cold War following World War Two, a cadre of specialists called “Kremlinologists”, academics, diplomats, and military, developed for the purpose of figuring out what the Soviet Union was doing and how best to counteract it. As often as not, they were wrong. The fall of the Berlin War came as a surprise to them, followed by the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Now we are watching the same thing occur as various “experts” struggle to tell us what is happening in Iran and why.

What I really want to know is why the President of the United States thought it best not to “meddle” with a nation that had taken American diplomats hostage for 444 days, was funding two Middle East terrorists organizations, Hezbollah and Hamas, and striving mightily to become a nuclear power with which to threaten their region and the world.

President Obama’s muted and belated response to the protests in the streets of Tehran by thousands of Iranians was a national and international disgrace. If America will not speak out boldly for liberty and support a popular uprising for democracy, who will?

My friend, Amil Imani, an Iranian-American who has forcefully spoken out for regime change in his former homeland, has posted a petition calling for an end to the slaughter of Iranians who only want what we in America and the West have, freedom.

You can add your name at http://www.petitiononline.com/ai2d2009/petition.html

Addressed to the leaders of the free world, the citizens of the world, and even to the Secretary-General of the useless United Nations, Imani states what we all know. “The mullahs and their mercenaries are wasting precious human life to maintain themselves in power through terrorizing the population.”

Islam is not about democracy. It is a political system called a theocracy. The clerics rule and, in effect, they only answer to Allah. Turkey, an Islamic nation, has maintained secular rule by splitting off Islam from governance. Other Islamic nations hold “elections” but it is understood by their citizens that they frequently are rigged, that those who rule them, secular or not, are corrupt, and protest gets you put in jail or dead.

One Middle Eastern nation that fashioned a working democracy, Lebanon, has been struggling for decades to throw off the dictators that would rule them, whether it is Syria or Hezbollah, a terrorist group of Palestinian terrorists whose sole purpose is the destruction of Israel.

Imani’s petition calls on “the free governments of the world, as well as all other businesses, organizations, and individuals to enlist in a non-violent campaign of ending the reign of terror of the belligerent clerical regime.”

Towards that end he seeks to protect the lives of Iranians through “a comprehensive program of assistance to all democratic Iranian opposition groups, both inside and outside of Iran, in their struggle to accomplish the regime change themselves.”

“Proclaim wide and far, the cardinal reason for taking these measures against the mullah’s reign of terror is to prevent them from acquiring nuclear weapons, the threat they pose to the region as well as the world, and the stimulus they provide for other nations to develop their own nuclear arsenal..”

There are a number of other proposals in the petition which I urge you to read and sign, but the issue to my mind is the failure of the United States, that is to say our President, to demonstrate any understanding of the fact that one cannot “negotiate” with a “Supreme Leader” intent on having nuclear weapons with which to threaten the region and the world.

That “Supreme Leader” and his minions subscribe to a Shiite myth of a “Twelfth Imam” who can only return to rule the Earth after widespread death and destruction has paved the way.

Little known and underreported have been the discussions underway between Israel, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia as to “strategic” actions they can take to secure the safety of their nations and to bring down the Iranian regime before it achieves nuclear status. Let me repeat that roster. Israel. Egypt. And Saudi Arabia.

America has the misfortune to be led by a President who has been fixated before and since election on a diplomatic resolution to the enmity between Iran and America. He apparently thinks he can talk them out of securing nuclear weapons. That is never going to happen. Israel knows this. Egypt knows this. And Saudi Arabia knows this.

Obama’s willful ignorance and personal arrogance is going to keep the Iranian people enslaved and get a lot of people in the region and beyond killed.

The Iranian mullahs are a pestilence that must be eradicated and removed from power. History teaches this lesson. A nation’s sovereignty is not an excuse to permit its leaders to plunge the world into war.

War! War! War!

By Alan Caruba

“In defense of our nation, a president must be a clear-eyed realist. There are limits to the smiles and scowls of diplomacy. Armies and missiles are not stopped by stiff notes of condemnation. They are held in check by strength and purpose and the promise of swift punishment.” I will tell you who said that at the end of this commentary.

D-Day, 65 years ago, was one of many days throughout history that determined the final outcome of a war. I suspect one can attach a great battle to just about every day in the calendar because the history of humanity is one of constant warfare somewhere, anywhere in the world where two men, two families, two tribes, two empires, or two or more states clashed.

The courage that Americans, joined by Canadians, British, Free French, Polish, and other troops showed on June 6, 1944 preserved freedom for a bit longer among the victors, though all of Eastern Europe had to be written off as the bribe to keep Soviet Russia involved. It would ultimately loose 20 million of its people.

The atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki killed about 199,000. People forget that the Japanese emperor and the military, though clearly defeated, refused to concede.

War is the natural element of mankind. Peace is merely the interlude between wars.

Man is the most dangerous creature on Earth and young men, in particular, are either conscripted into armies or will just as likely form gangs to fulfill the desire “to seek the bubble reputation even in the cannon’s mouth.”

Every time I hear Barack Obama talk of diplomacy, I can hear guns being cocked or missiles being positioned. He is surely the most naïve President since the days of Woodrow Wilson who get elected promising keep the U.S. out of World War I and then, after committing U.S. troops, he went to Europe to participate in the writing of the Versailles Treaty where the British and the French ate his lunch. They divided up the spoils, punished Germany, and set in motion World War II before the ink was dry.

Wilson returned home with his dream of a League of Nations and the U.S. Senate shot it down, preferring to maintain our sovereignty than to get in bed with the knaves that started WWI.

That fool’s dream of an organization to ensure world peace was revived by Franklin Delano Roosevelt and signed into being by his successor, Harry S. Truman, who probably had little choice in the matter. Its first Secretary General was a Soviet spy named Alger Hiss, a communist who had risen high in the FDR government.

The world has always been a dangerous place because it has always been full of egotists and psychopaths who have seized or gained power in one fashion or another. Alexander tried his hand at a Macedonian empire. Rome laid down some fine roads and used them to ensure their hold on a widespread Mediterranean empire. Attila knocked on the doors of Europe. The Visigoths and other barbarian tribes sacked Rome.

The Church sent forth crusades in response to the military aspirations of Muslims to seize and hold Jerusalem, holy to Christian and Jew. The Muslims or Moors had already spread far into India and northern Africa, up into Spain. Their northern drive into Europe was stopped at Poitiers, France in 732 AD and on September 11, 1683 they were decisively defeated at the gates of Vienna.

In the last century, the Empire of Japan murdered thousands, if not millions in China while waging war to control Asia. In Europe the Nazis redefined barbarism and depravity.

War! War! War! Diplomacy is merely the process by which war may be delayed a bit and the terms of surrender are determined by the winner. Diplomacy has never stopped a despot from pursuing war. It has merely rescheduled it.

In 1986, Osama bin Laden formally declared war on the United States. He is still at war with the United States whether anyone is paying attention or not. And we are not. The Iranians, as crazed as bin Laden, have made their intentions clear by declaring “Death to America!” and “Death to Israel” every single day since seizing our diplomats in 1979 and holding them for 444 days.

After 9/11, George W. Bush did not hesitate to pursue war against bin Laden in Afghanistan and against a man, Saddam Hussein, and nation, Iraq, that were the object of dozens of useless United Nations resolutions as an instigator of wars. Obama’s response has been to denigrate our military achievement in Iraq and demand that Guantanamo be closed down.

Barack Obama is going to get a lot of Americans killed with his poetry about diplomacy.

The lessons of history are lost on this fool. Buchenwold concentration camp and the beach at Normandy are just background for “photo ops” to this greatest of narcissists. He is too busy waging his own war on America while seeking yet another stage on which to strut.

To become a nation in its own right America took on the greatest military power of its time, Great Britain, and won. It fought Barbary pirates. It waged a bloody civil war for its soul and won. It fought Mexico and added territory by winning. It fought Spain. It fought insurgents in the Philippines. It fought two world wars. It fought Communists in Korea. It fought them again in Vietnam. It forced the Russians to back off in Cuba. It fought Communists on the island of Granada and it fought a drug lord in Panama. It fought Iraq after it invaded Kuwait. It fought the Taliban and al Qaeda in Afghanistan and it again fought a despot in Iraq. We are still in both these places.

On September 10, 2001 Americans thought they were not at war with anyone. They were wrong. The only thing that has kept us from another attack was the policy enunciated in the quote with which I began this contemplation of war and peace. The man who said it is former President George W. Bush. The date was November 19, 1999.

Obama's Magical Muslim Tour

By Alan Caruba

In life as in international affairs the rule is to never show weakness. It tends to awaken a bloodlust and too often leads to the worst outcomes.

In the Arab culture this is especially true. They are a pretty cowardly bunch as people go. Their weapon of choice these days is the suicide bomber; some dimwit who thinks 72 virgins are awaiting him. As 9/11 demonstrated, they have developed the sneak attack to perfection and, not surprisingly, the word “assassin” comes from Arabic. Arabs prefer to wage war on the weak and that usually means each other.

They tried destroying Israel in 1948, 1967, and 1973. They failed. They were especially unhappy with the protection and friendship America extended, but now they have less reason to be unhappy. They have, they suspect, a Muslim in the White House. A lot of other people suspect that as well.

They have spent decades using their fellow Arabs, the so-called Palestinians, as a wedge to pry loose land from Israel in exchange for a peace that never occurs.

The Israelis withdrew from southern Lebanon in May 2000. Hezbollah made war on them from southern Lebanon in 2006. The Israelis withdrew from the Gaza strip in 2005. Hamas used it as a platform for 10,000 rockets, an act of war punished in recent months. One wonders how Hamas found the time when they weren’t making war on Fatah, another Palestinian group.

Other acts of Arab “courage” include Iraq’s Saddam Hussein using poison gas against an Iraqi village of Kurds. When not slaughtering other Iraqis, he waged war against Iran for eight fruitless years, settling for a truce. Then he invaded Kuwait. And people keep wondering why, after chasing the Taliban out of Afghanistan, George W. Bush decided that the Middle East would be better off without Saddam Hussein. If you ask the Saudis or the Gulf State sheiks, they would agree.

They would also agree that their next big problem is not the United States, nor Israel, but Iran. Iran is composed mainly of Persians, not Arabs, and of Shiites, the minority sect of Islam where the Sunnis are used to calling the shots. Rumor has it the Persians have a low opinion of Arabs.

As for Muslims in general, ask any nation where they have or begin to gain a majority population status and you will discover a combination of antipathy and fear. Arab Muslims always insist on their rules, not yours. They neither trust, nor like each other much.

Israel knows how essential it is to show no weakness. Bibi Netanyahu did not genuflect to President Obama during his recent visit and dismissed U.S. demands about West Bank settlements. Israeli’s have no intention of withdrawing into six blocks of Jerusalem or Tel Aviv. Lately, they have been practicing nationwide war games in preparation for another attack from Hamas and/or Hezbollah.

The most interesting news out of Israel was Avigdor Lieberman’s statement after a recent three-day visit to Russia. The Foreign Minister said that Israel had no intention of bombing Iran’s nuclear facilities, adding that Arab nations in the region should be even more concerned about a nuclear-armed Iran than Israel. I have met Lieberman and he is a very soft-spoken man, almost inaudible, but his words have sent a very loud message to the United States, the Arab states, and the world.

“We do not intend to bomb Iran, and nobody will solve their problems with our hands. We don’t need that. Israel is a strong country. We can protect ourselves,” said Lieberman.

We shall see now how Israel’s projection of strength contrasts with whatever President Obama has to say in Cairo. If the Arabs hear a message of weakness from Obama, he will have opened the door for more attacks on the homeland and our allies.

You can be sure that President Obama’s failure to say one word thus far about this week’s Muslim jihadist murder of a U.S. Army recruiter in Little Rock, Arkansas, is being examined like the entrails of a chicken or goat for its greater significance, nor is it lost on his Arab hosts that he is not going to visit Israel on this trip.

President Kiss-Up needed to go to Turkey to tell Muslims that America is “not a Christian nation” and one can only wonder what other absurd thing he will say in Cairo, Egypt. If he sounds weak and apologetic, we shall all pay the price for his Magical Muslim Tour.

Send More Money Says the United Nations

By Alan Caruba

There was a Washington Post news report in late March that the United Nations had “presented its top donors with a request for nearly $1.1 billion in additional funds over the next two years—boosting current U.N. expenses by 25 percent and marking the global body’s highest-ever administrative budget, according to internal U.N. memos.”

Since I am no fan of the United Nations, my first thought was to ask why the U.S. and other “top donors” would toss more money at this bloated and morally corrupt international bureaucracy when it is manifestly unable to prevent wars—its primary mission—and remains a platform for belligerence, bigotry, and intolerance?

According to the report, the request for more money is blamed on the Bush administration’s “demands for a more ambitious U.N. role around the world.” That seems a rather convenient explanation given the poor performance of most of the U.N.’s so-called peace-keeping missions, some of which degraded into the rape of the women it was supposed to be protecting; its 60-year support of the Palestinians, making them the oldest refugee group in history; and its deplorable environmental program, a platform for the most appalling lies about the climate.

We have the final years of the Roosevelt administration for the creation of the United Nations as World War Two wound down. The failure of the League of Nations to prevent the war should have been sufficient reason not to go down that path again, but perhaps it was seen as the very reason to create a new, international organization to prevent wars?

If that was the thought, they were wrong. Shortly after the end of WWII, the Korean War began with the blessing of Joseph Stalin. Begun on June 25, 1950, it lasted until July 27, 1953. It was a classic Cold War proxy fight. At the end of World War II, Korea had been divided at the 38th parallel into Soviet (North Korean) and U.S. (South Korean) zones of occupation. Fought under the umbrella of the United Nations so as not to turn it into a new war between the Soviet Union and the United States, it managed to draw the Red Chinese into it as well.

So much for peace-loving Communists versus the forces of democracy.

And, of course, the United States fought a similar conflict in Vietnam for the same Cold War reasons. The United Nations stayed out of that one. We should have as well, but there was a “domino theory” current at the time that postulated that the loss of one Asian nation to communism would doom the rest. Considering that China was resolutely communist, it’s easy to see the reasoning at work. After more than 50,000 of our troops died in Vietnam, Americans became more circumspect about going off to war.

It took 9/11 to get us in the mood to kill someone, anyone, to restore our national honor. Here are two headlines from then. “Public stands firmly behind war” said a November 29, 2001 USA Today headline, followed on December 18, 2001 with “Poll finds strong support for expanding terror war.” It seems so long ago.

It is instructive that the Republican nominee for President this year is a hero from the Vietnam War and the two Democrats vying for their party’s nomination cannot get out of Iraq fast enough. Most wars are popular when they begin. We tend to forget that. Vietnam was an exception, but Congress gave it the green light anyway. They always do.

So, the United Nations now wants $1.1 billion more and the U.S. is to blame for it. Those “elections” in Afghanistan and Iraq were largely organized by U.N. personnel. In the process, al Qaeda demonstrated its regard for the U.N. by blowing up its compound in Baghdad. The U.N., in addition, has nearly 110,000 peacekeepers in twenty missions around the world at a 2008 cost of “about $7 billion.”

I do not know and cannot judge if those peacekeepers are worth the cost. One presumes they are and one wonders just how long they will have to be kept on duty. My guess is forever or until one of the missions turns hot. At which point they will run away and the phones at the White House and Pentagon will light up.

The failure of the United States to rein in the United Nations budget is the real story here. It simply doesn’t do much well. Its bureaucrats have been known to prosper from programs like the oil-for-food deal when Saddam was in charge.

It holds costly meetings in places like Bali, a famed vacation destination, to demand that so-called greenhouse gas emissions to be reduced to pre-industrial levels or meetings devoted to tolerance where Israel is the sole object of scorn. Its Council on Human Rights is the worst joke on the face of the earth.

So, no, let’s not give the United Nations any more money. In fact, let’s cut our contribution—easily a quarter of the entire operation—and let these miscreants sink of their own dead weight.

It Is Time to Leave Iraq

By Alan Caruba

Sometime last year I wrote a commentary to the effect that it was time for the U.S. occupation of Iraq to end. Since I am mostly read by those of a conservative point of view, I heard back from many who were convinced that the U.S. had to remain and who thought I had completely misread the situation.

Even at this distance, however, it was no feat of intellectual brilliance to know that, while the initial invasion was a success, the entire aftermath has been a demonstration of what not to do after deposing a dictator.

I recall, right after Baghdad fell, scenes of widespread looting in the city with American troops standing by because there were too few to police the situation. The failure to impose martial law on the city and make it stick was the first hint that any occupation was going to prove more difficult than anyone suspected.

What followed was a succession of blunders of staggering stupidity. It became apparent the United States had invaded a nation without knowing anything about it.

Since those days I have read many books about the situation there. I would recommend Ali A. Allawi’s “The Occupation of Iraq: Winning the War, Losing the Peace”, John Agresto’s “Mugged by Reality: The Liberation of Iraq and the Failure of Good Intentions”, Charles H. Ferguson’s “No End in Sight: Iraq’s Descent into Chaos”, and a brilliant overview of America’s decades of troubles in the region, Lawrence Freedman’s “A Choice of Enemies: America Confronts the Middle East” to be published in May.

History teaches that the United States has been to the Middle East on many occasions since the end of World War Two. We went as a peacekeeper during the civil war in Lebanon. Several presidents have proven to be hopelessly naïve brokers trying to get the Palestinians to cease being the world’s oldest and largest group of refugees.

Our two invasions of Iraq were swift textbook victories, a triumph of technology and finely trained warriors. What followed after got ugly only because the Middle East defies the logic of Western culture. Arabs operate in a different emotional landscape. Books have been written to explain the differences, but I suspect that no one in the Pentagon had read any of them.

After 9/11, the FBI, the CIA, and the NSA had to scramble to find anyone in their ranks that could read Arabic!

Every time we put troops in the field we have suffered what the majority of Americans have considered too many casualties. To put it another way, losing anyone on the battlefield was pretty much too much. Americans prefer live heroes. Since the debacle of Vietnam, our taste for battle has diminished to a point where just bombing the hell out of the enemy is considered sufficient.

I resisted calling for withdrawal because my conservative instincts kept hoping that Iraqis would somehow magically learn how to get along with one another and find a reason to build a nation that did not need a dictator to run it.

Five years into the occupation it pains me to say that both Sen. Obama and Sen. Clinton are right to call for an expeditious withdrawal. Sen. McCain’s metaphorical “hundred years” of occupation is just terribly wrong. If we know anything, it is that the United States no longer does occupations well.

In the final run-up to the November election, I hope Sen. McCain will find a way to tilt away from staying the course. The “course” has been a sadistic carnival funhouse filled with improvised explosives and snipers.

Israel in the Crosshairs

By Alan Caruba

“Israel's security cabinet convened Wednesday, April 2, to examine the homeland's preparedness for war. It decided to redistribute the bio/chemical warfare masks a few months after they were called in. DEBKAfile's military sources disclose intelligence data indicating the possibility that Syria may transfer to Hezbollah chemical or biological warheads known to have been developed for its war arsenal.”

When you have spent every day of your sixty years of sovereignty having to deal with either full-scale wars against your existence, persistent terrorist attacks on your citizens, or the constant rain of rockets and mortars from Gaza, preparing for war becomes second nature.

Hezbollah and Hamas are Iran’s proxy militias, created, funded, and equipped by a nation led by ayatollahs that daily chant “Death to America! Death to Israel!” Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmedinijad, hasn’t even smooth-talked its plans to “wipe Israel off the face of the map.”

A cursory perusal of Israel’s leading newspapers and Internet news sites does not reveal that it is about to move to a full war-footing, but that might just be part of the effort to deceive the militias poised in Lebanon and Gaza, as well as the military forces being massed in Syria. The Syrians are still smarting from a recent Israeli attack on structures said to contain possible nuclear or other WMDs.

If I was to guess when an attack would come, I would put a red circle around April 20 because that is the first day of Passover. The contempt and hatred felt for Israel’s Jews promoted the now famous and failed attack on Yom Kippur in 1973. It reflects the widely held hatred by many Middle Eastern Muslims for all “Crusaders (Christians) and Zionists.”

Israel is on the front line, an affront to the Islamic hubris that lays claim to Jerusalem, a city holy to Christians and Jews. A city built by Jews as the capital of Israel more than 2,000 years before Islam existed. Christians sought to reclaim it from Muslims during the Crusades.

The Zionist movement, begun in 1897, was a response to widespread anti-Semitism in Europe and Russia. It encouraged Jews to return to their ancient holy land, the area that became a British protectorate under the post-WWI Treaty of Versailles. Following WWII, the original settlers were waiting for the survivors of the Nazi Holocaust.

Then as now, the Arab response was war. An attack on Israel is a declaration of war on the West. If the West does not rally to the defense of Israel it will signal the jihadists that we are ripe for conquest.

Anti-Semitism is rampant throughout Great Britain these days despite the terrorist attacks it suffered. The BBC is supine in its surrender to Islam. In Europe, the responses to Muslim protests have ranged from timid to moments of moral outrage. America’s focus is the occupation of Iraq and the backwater conflict in Afghanistan.

The Islamic Revolution’s threat is growing. Israel cannot ignore it. The United States for whom 9/11 is a receding memory does so at the peril of its existence. Half-hearted or measured military responses have not worked.

The Koran is a battle plan.

Electing Generals

By Alan Caruba

There was a time in U.S. history when being a general was a big help in being elected President.

It started, of course, with General George Washington, our first President. A number of men skilled in the development of government followed, but by 1828 Andrew Jackson, famed for his victory in the Battle of New Orleans, was elected. William Henry Harrison who put down a Shawnee uprising at Tippecanoe was elected, only to be succeeded by John Tyler when he died barely a month after taking office. Zachary Taylor fought in the war of 1812.

Although Lincoln was never a general and had opposed the annexation of Mexico, he would forever find a place in our history for winning the Civil War after he found the right general to lead it. That general, Ulysses S. Grant would become the 18th President. James Garfield, best recalled for having been assassinated, had been a general in the Civil War. Benjamin Harrison, the 23rd President, had also been a Civil War general.

Theodore Roosevelt owed his presidency in part to his famed charge up San Juan Hill during the Spanish-American War and to the assassination of William McKinley whom he replaced.

A long period ensued when America elected a number of fairly colorless Presidents, such as Taft, Wilson, Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover. Franklin Delano Roosevelt arrived at the presidency having been Secretary of the Navy as part of his portfolio and is honored for having guided the nation through World War II. On his death, a former artillary major in World War I, Harry Truman, assumed the office. He is famed for the decision to drop two atom bombs on Japan to end the conflict in the Pacific. He was also in office during the Korean conflict which ended in a stalemate.

The most famous former general in the modern era was Dwight David Eisenhower, our 34th President. He was succeeded by John F. Kennedy who gained fame from having commanded a patrol torpedo boat in WWII. Lyndon Baines Johnson also had served in the Navy, but is best remembered now for having misled the nation into the Vietnam War which is generally regarded as a disastrous defeat. It forced him to forego a second term in office.

We can probably credit LBJ for the way the nation changed its attitude toward the waging of war. Americans became increasingly disenchanted with military adventures. By contrast, however, Jimmy Carter, an Annapolis graduate, lost reelection for, among his many failures, not taking or even threatening serious action after our diplomats were taken hostage when the Iranian revolution occurred in 1979.

Ronald Reagan served in the Air Force making training films during World War II and, though not a military hero of great rank, he is largely credited with bringing down the Soviet Union, a process than began with the Truman administration and the long Cold War. His Vice President, George Herbert Walker Bush had been a fighter pilot in World War II and would become our 41st President. He oversaw the first invasion of Iraq after it had invaded Kuwait, but once the thrill of that victory was over, a man who openly detested the military, William Jefferson Clinton, defeated him.

Clinton reflected the anti-war movement of the 1960s and 70s. A noted draft-dodger, his aversion to the use of the military except in the most desultory way is widely seen as the trigger for 9/11. The Islamist fanatics had concluded America no longer had the will to engage in war. They were wrong.

It was 9/11 that thrust George Walker Bush, the 43rd President, in the role of a wartime Commander-in-Chief. His only military experience was as a pilot in the Texas National Guard, but he did not see combat. He responded to 9/11 with an attack on the Taliban and al Qaeda in Afghanistan. He then convinced the nation that Iraq represented a threat that required a renewed conflict. That war continues and is generally unpopular, as much for the fact that there is no end in sight, as for the way it differs from all previous wars when armies in uniform faced one another. It does not fit the template of previous wars.

This brings us to the candidates from whom Americans must choose to take office on January 20, 2009. John McCain, the presumptive Republican candidate is a genuine war hero, having been a prisoner of war during the Vietnam conflict where he served as a Navy pilot. That is a strong credential for many veterans of the wars of the modern era.

Conversely, Sen. Barack Obama’s Democrat Party candidacy rests almost entirely on his opposition to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. He has never served in the military. He is the liberal’s liberal. Struggling against his lead is Sen. Hillary Clinton whose primary claim to office is that she was the wife of the 42nd President, perhaps one of the most absurd credentials for that high office ever offered to the voters!

There are no former generals on the political horizon to lead the nation and Americans have soured on war as what Clauswitz called an extension of diplomacy “by other means.”

War bad, surrender good, seems to be the prevailing philosophy. It is a very dangerous one.

Can America Retain Its Power?

By Alan Caruba

This is when “pundits” and assorted “experts” make their predictions about the year ahead. I will spare you that.

There is no way to make predictions because the future is always a great unknown and events always overtake everyone, followed by recriminations that demand to know “Why didn’t they anticipate that?” or “Why were they so unprepared?”

Accidents are called “accidents” because few anticipate or plan for such events. The levees of New Orleans are an example.

The weather, day to day, anywhere on the face of the Earth is unpredictable because it is subject to so many factors over which no one has any “control”. The weather is the result of immense forces at work such as sunspot (magnetic storms) activity, the shift of tectonic plates, vast underwater volcanoes erupting unseen and unknown. And, of course, a massive volcanic explosion in 2008 would transform the weather for years as the result of all the dust it would spew into the atmosphere.

In the same way that the greatest meteorologists in the world cannot explain why clouds do what they do from minute to minute, we could all use a long rest from the idiots who claim to know what the climate is or will be at any time.

As to unknown human events in the world, the only predictable thing is that there will be conflict somewhere. Man is the “killer ape” that says it abhors war and cannot seem to resist its strange appeal.

The result is that we will focus our attention for however long on the Middle East as it deals with its problem of death-dealing, death-loving, and death-seeking lunatics for whom Islam is a convenient excuse to seek political power over others.

The big question on everyone’s mind is whether and when Iran will acquire nuclear weapon status. The answer is yes. At some point Iran will demonstrate that it has these weapons, joining Pakistan, India, and Israel in their region of the world, as well as its neighbor, China. The Bomb makes these nations feel safe, but its use would turn any one of them into a parking lot.

I often talk about “the tyranny of demography” which is a fancy way of saying that population, the sheer numbers of people, determines policies and actions. In 2008, the United States of America will add a new immigrant—legal and illegal—every thirty seconds. The Census Bureau says our total population will increase by one person every 13 seconds. As of January 1, the total U.S. population will be 303,146,284, a 0.9 percent increase since last New Year’s Day.

Frankly, that is too many people in a nation whose bridges are failing, whose roads need repair, whose electrical “grid” is a product of the 1950s, and which resolutely resists the construction of any new sources of electrical power, either coal-fired or nuclear. That is idiocy.

The failure to stem the flow of illegal immigrants across our southern border is an ugly problem that, if ignored, will continue to contribute to a lot of ugly problems that already exist and which the elites that run our government want to ignore. Someone has to pick up the cost of educating their children. Someone has to pick up the health care costs of tending to them. Someone has to pay for their incarceration if they commit crimes.

That someone is you, the U.S. taxpayer. These problems are causing hospitals to close, filling our jails, and contributing to a failed educational system.

Any candidate who promises to build a big wall on the southern border and to put U.S. soldiers on our side to ensure that no more illegals come across will be elected. It would also do wonders to ending the corruption and control of the Mexican drug cartels.

Where would we find those soldiers? We have some 30,000 guarding the South Korean border since the 1950s. Bring them home. We have some 79,000 in Europe. Bring them home. These nations have been getting a free ride on our dollar for two full generations.

It is the U.S. dollar that keeps the United Nations afloat. We have one vote in the General Assembly. So does Togo. We have a veto power on the Security Council. So do the other members, most of whom are leftovers from the nations that won World War Two. China is a member because China has more than a billion people, but India with a comparable population is not.

The United Nations needs to be allowed to fail. It has evolved into a poisonous conglomeration of regional cliques that engage in horrible insults to humanity as a whole. It can and would be replaced.

The first action following the demise of the UN would be to create a U.S.-led alliance of democratic nations. Nations failing to respect the rules would be frozen out of world trade and aid. An example? North Korea needs to be shut down, not negotiated with. Then make a list of African nations that require the same action. Then add to the list others that haven’t gotten the message yet.

The invasion of Iraq was a message to the world that dictators who are real threat regionally will be deposed, even if the U.S. has to spend a great deal of treasure and blood to do it. Historians will look back kindly on George W. Bush for taking this action. It immediately convinced Libya’s dictator to give up his nuclear program. It put Iran on notice. Et cetera.

What is most needed in 2008? Patience. Events in the world are not movies or television shows. They require time and consensus to evolve.

Most people in the world will trade a measure of freedom for stability, but humans inherently want freedom, so we can expect to see them in the streets as in the case of the Buddhist monks of Myanmar. As in the defeat of Hugo Chavez’s dictatorial aspirations in Venezuela. As in unexpected changes that will likely occur in Cuba when Fidel dies.

The United States needs to be far more cunning in our use of statecraft and spycraft. We need to negotiate our way to a better world and, where that is impossible, we need to use all the arts of espionage and infiltration to undermine and overthrow bad governments.

The Chinese probably have enough spies in the U.S. to populate a small city. In a generation, more Chinese will speak English than all the people in the English-speaking world today. If they can take the time to achieve hegemony, we can take the same time to retain it.

We will not achieve this if our schools continue to graduate illiterates and young people who haven’t a clue about our nation’s history, our governmental system, and the values that have made us Number One since the end of WWII. We will not achieve this if we keep electing people to Congress who spend money faster than it can be printed or pass bills banning the incandescent light bulb—which Congress has just done.

Stupid people deserve what they get and we are allowing too much stupidity to govern us and determine policies essential to our future. On that note, I shall rest.

Try to Find an Anti-War March

By Alan Caruba

Have you noticed that there just aren't any anti-war marches occurring lately?

Afghanistan and Iraq are just not Vietnam. The reason given for Vietnam was that we were still engaged in a long Cold War and we didn't want that "domino" to fall to international communism. A generation later we have an embassy there.

The Middle East is a very different kettle of fish. The motivation there is Islam, a religion whose holy book is more a battle plan with the promise of a hot ticket to paradise if you die in war. Islam divides up the world between Dar al-Islam and Dar al-Harb. There's Islam with its umma or community and all the rest outside of it is a world of "war" until it too is subsumed.

Of course, there are surely lots of Iraqis, Iranians, Afghanis, and other Muslim folks in the region who do not want war, but they are not the ones with guns, bombs, and the willingness to use them. That makes them "victims", no matter who kills them.

Here at home, the anti-war folks can't seem to get a good march going because, I think, most Americans have come to the conclusion that the U.S.A. is going to be in the Middle East for a long time, hopefully providing some kind of containment of conflict, but if that is not possible, killing whole bunches of people until they weary of dying in large numbers or sue for peace to avoid it.

Even the Iraqis seem to be making progress toward divvying up the oil revenue and letting every man sit peacefully beneath his olive tree. That is a major achievement in any Arab society. The Palestinians, by contrast, are busy making war on one another in order to get the biggest share of all the free money from the U.S., the European Union, and anyone else stupid enough to fund them.

As Americans watch the Middle East get even more shaky than it has been since the end of World War II, they are going to be looking at political candidates who, like George W. Bush, know how to kick some butt. Turning the other cheek is not going to be on their minds or their agenda.

Looking into the 2008 Crystal Ball

By Alan Caruba

Between the day after Christmas and January 1st of 2008 is a good time to get one’s affairs in order.

I visited the bank today to get some help because the bank statements and daily report via the Internet kept telling me I had more money than my own calculations told me. It turns out the bank was right and that’s a pretty good way to begin the year. Said the bank officer, “Just begin with what our balance says is in your account and go from there.”

I stepped on the scale this morning and discovered what I already knew. I am at least ten pounds overweight and that’s a modest assessment. I blame it all on family members who, every Christmas, send me FOOD. I should, of course, blame it on myself for eating all of it.

I am reading an interesting new book by an economist who specializes in health-related trends and his thesis is that America’s strong economy is a major factor explaining why so many adults and young people, children, are FAT. Not only has the supply of prepared and packaged food items increased, thanks to modern technology, but we have had the money with which to buy it. Put the two factors together and it adds up to a lot of fat Americans, but it doesn’t stop there. The Chinese and Indians are getting fat too. That’s what a strong economy will do to you.

I am no economist, but I think 2008 is going to be a difficult one for the U.S. economy and may well have repercussions worldwide. Despite a recent bailout of several major banking houses to the tune of some $33 billion, the losses from the mortgage failures are estimated at close to $100 billion. Here’s another factor worth noting. The bailout came from foreign nations that purchased interests in those banks.

They bought in with money that has been flowing out of America at an alarming rate. I read somewhere the U.S. borrows a billion a day just to keep afloat.

A worsening economy, if it occurs, will be a major factor in the 2008 elections. People who follow these things suggest it could produce a Democrat Party landslide no matter who is running for office. There’s no doubt in my mind that the Republican Party is on the ropes. A lot of Republicans want to punish the party for the spending spree it went on for the last eight years, betraying conservative values, and others are just very unhappy with George W. Bush. Will Republicans rally around the party’s choice? No one knows at this point.

Will consumers keep the economy going in 2008? Not if they get nervous about the future and, in an election year, that’s what happens. Decisions are delayed. Investments of all kinds are put off. Spending tightens up.

If voters decide they want to “return” to the 1990’s of the Clinton years, they are in for a nasty surprise. It’s not the 1990’s. It’s more like the post 9/11 first decade of the 2000’s and there’s no robust economy to inherit from Ronald Reagan’s tenure. Taking a page from the FDR years, the Democrats will want to create more programs to help everyone and that just means a larger government. Given the government’s balance sheet, it probably doesn’t matter who gets into office. Taxes will likely have to rise and if that occurs at the same time the economy begins to tank it is going to get very ugly.

There’s a reason why a million Mexicans cross the border. The Mexican economy stinks. It’s the old story of a handful of people who own everything and have all the money. At least in America, there are jobs, but there will be fewer jobs for Mexicans if Americans begin to need them as badly as they do. Americans will insist ever louder that immigration laws be enforced. The present estimate is that one in every five Mexican citizens is currently living in America.

All of us Depression Babies and kids who grew up during World War II and can remember rationing are looking at 2008 and wondering if it could happen again, i.e., wondering if the economy could tank and whether we and our weak sister NATO allies can keep the lid on the Middle East.

One thing’s for sure; wars always begin as a surprise. No one really thinks that will occur.

My 2008 Wish List

By Alan Caruba

With 2008 just around the corner, I am sure all of us have a wish list, even if it is not a formal one. And what good would that do anyway? Wishes are nice, but reality is usually just a big slap in the face. On the other hand, most of us would maneuver better through life if we could just get a better grip on reality.

Here, in no particular order:

1. Once all the primaries and the election is over, I never want to hear another thing about Hillary Clinton. Or Bill Clinton. Or Chelsea Clinton. (This will not happen.)

2. I do not want to hear or read anything more about "Global Warming" because (a) it is not happening and (b) we are all poised at the tail end of an 11,500 year interglacial period that will begin a new Ice Age. Any day now!

3. I wish that aliens from outer space would swoop down and carry Al Gore away. He has got to be one of the most vile men on the face of the Earth. And he's crazy to boot. The man wants to eliminate the internal combustion engine!

4. I wish that Harry Reid, the Senate Majority Leader, (D-NV) would be ordered to remove every incondescent light bulb in his home and office, and never be allowed to purchase or use one again under penalty of confinement. This moron is bragging about how the Democrat "energy bill" will ban them by 2020. That's right, your Big Stupid Government has just passed a law to eliminate one of Thomas Edison's most famed and fabulous inventions!

5. I wish that radio would begin to play music to which I can actually listen without thinking of cats fighting or riot police breaking into a crack house.

6. I wish there was a law that all the slutty little Hollywood actresses who cannot remember to put on underwear, stay sober, avoid drugs, or practice safe sex would be subject to exile to Pony, Montana for a period not less than three years, nor longer than five. The men in the surrounding area would be ever so grateful.

7. I wish that public officials would stop referring to Islam as "a religion of peace." The Koran is a battle plan, not a holy book.

8. I wish that someone, anyone, would capture Osama bin Laden. And his pal Zawahiri. And the rest of that motley crew of killers who can't wait to blow themselves up in the name of Allah.

9. I wish any member of Congress who voted for the mandate to increase production and use of Ethanol would be forced to drink a gallon of it.

10. I wish all our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan (and around the world) would be home for Christmas next year, but this too will not happen because right now, somewhere, someone is planning another terror attack or a full-scale war on the greatest nation on the face of the Earth, the United States of America!

Pearl Harbor Then and Now

By Alan Caruba

On December 7, 1941, I was four years old, but no one born in the years of World War II grew up without memories, conscious and unconscious, of that great conflict. It affects the way you look at the world, how you regard history, how you examine global threats to peace.

The United States was caught flat-footed. Most of the population was opposed to participation in the European war that had begun in 1939 when Nazi Germany invaded Poland. The peace that British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain thought he had negotiated with Adolf Hitler proved to be a dangerous delusion and England was literally fighting for its life.

Everything turned around for Americans on the day the Japanese Empire attacked Pearl Harbor in Hawaii in much the fashion that September 11, 2001 changed the worldview of many Americans.

My earliest memories of the war were trains that were filled with young men in uniform. My Mother’s parents lived in Long Branch, NJ and nearby Fort Dix was where many inductees received their training and processing. Under Mother’s watchful eye I would stroll the aisle of the passenger car and talk with soldiers, many of whom would never return. As a child I had no idea what danger lurked for them or the nation.

By 1945, at war’s end, I was eight years old and fully aware of the war. In school children contributed pennies and nickels to the nation’s drive to fund the conflict. Adults bought “war bonds” and the entire nation was on a war footing, focused on defeating the Axis in Europe and the Japanese in the Pacific and Asia.

Five years later the U.S. was dispatching troops to Korea to thwart an attack from the Soviet puppet in the North. When Red China joined the conflict, the end became a stalemate, a truce that remains to this day, but our action would produce a South Korea that is a vibrant capitalist economy while leaving the North to starve its people in order to maintain a million-man military. It would, in time, become a nuclear power.

Today, we live in no less dangerous a world, but an America that never entered a war without being first attacked is operating under a policy set forth by a President who believes in pre-emption and has positioned the nation as the policeman of the world. This is not a good formula for peace. A more patient approach such as the more than 45 years we patiently worked to bring about the fall of the Soviet Union suggests that strength, held in reserve, works better.

While proxy wars, most notably in Vietnam, were fought, a global conflict was avoided. That is perhaps the lesson of Pearl Harbor. Today, America with its great military power, but significantly smaller fighting force, needs to practice patience, use all the arts of diplomacy, and resist the urge to use our military until every other option has been exhausted or an actual attack is imminent or—God forbid—occurs.

There is little point to criticizing the second invasion of Iraq because it is a fait accompli. Only history will determine whether it was the right thing to do. It may well have been, but today’s children will not know the answer to that for another 50 years.

What we do know is that totalitarian forces and dictators exist in a world that is greatly changed from 1941. It is one in which many new democracies have emerged, many new nations have joined the world community, and all are now threatened by a resurgent, radical Islam.

Beyond that threat, there’s the United Nations, an international institution bent on imposing control of the world through the Big Lie of “global warming”, a false crisis designed to divert attention from a matrix of treaties that cede national sovereignty to a group of corrupt bureaucrats with little care for the genocides that have occurred on its watch and which engages in the most blatant intolerance when it suits their purposes.

It is folly to let the memory of December 7, 1941 fade. A new generation has experienced a new sneak attack and, six years later, its lessons have yet to have been learned. We excel at waging short decisive wars, but we are faced with the ultimate weapon of the weak, terrorism. We need patience to undermine its motivation and use.

The American Empire dreamed of in the minds of some faces the same challenges that former empires encountered. A study of history suggests we need to mix our power with humility along with the resolve to resist and defeat evil. We have done this in the past.

The True Cost of Wars

By Alan Caruba

I read a column by Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne today. This man has a reputation as a deep thinker and, one presumes, is influential inside the Beltway.

“It’s time that we subject the Iraq war to the same cost-benefit analysis that we are called upon to impose on other government endeavors,” wrote Dionne. And, immediately, I thought to myself that this was a fairly idiotic idea. What if, halfway through World War II, it was determined that it was costing the United States too much and that we should cease our efforts to defeat the Axis powers? What if we had decided that the Korean conflict was too costly and the whole of the peninsula should be abandoned to the Communists of the North?

The United States has engaged in any number of military endeavors, large and small, and I cannot remember anyone saying, “Hey, this is costing too much money. Let’s quit.”

Wars are expensive. Modern wars are especially expensive. And wars yet to be fought will be even more expensive. But defeat is costly, too. Just ask the Soviet Union, rumored for decades to be a great superpower equal to the United States. Then Ronald Reagan rebuilt our military and made it clear he would outspend any Soviet effort to threaten Western Europe or anywhere else in the world. Then, one day, after being defeated in Afghanistan, the Soviet Union ceased to exist.

It took some 45 years of a very expensive Cold War, but today it can be argued that it was worth every penny for that fleet of bombers that ceaselessly flew to guard against the prospect of a sneak attack or the Navy that guarded the waters of the world. All the protective actions the United States took, spending billions, in retrospect seem worth it now.

How many times do you think the U.S. should have had to invade Iraq? The first time under Bush 41 was deemed a success in that it restored Kuwait’s sovereignty and denied Saddam Hussein access to its oil reserves. Saddam had previously waged war on Iran for eight years for the same purpose. But Saddam had been permitted to remain in power and the result was the necessity for a second invasion to remove his threat to the region.

Costly? Yes. However, the result is that Saddam’s evil regime is gone. The Shiites and the Sunnis appear to have begun to sort out their differences. And al Qaeda, drawn like moths to a flame, has suffered greatly in Iraq. Initially driven from Afghanistan after 9/11, all the reports out of Iraq suggest how unpopular it is there. Even the Saudis have issued warnings against any more of their young men, the backbone of al Qaeda, leaving to engage in jihad.

So, despite the enormous costs of the Iraq war perhaps history will look back at George W. Bush and the neocons, and conclude it was all worth it.

By way of contrast, more than 40,000 Americans lost their lives on the streets and highways of America last year. That is carnage on a scale that humbles our military casualties in Iraq.

Meanwhile, the United States has continued to undergo a wholesale invasion across our southern border of millions of illegal aliens and, with it, growing and ever more dangerous Mexican drug cartels. Americans spend an estimated $40 billion on illegal drugs every year. Between the illegal aliens and the illegal drugs, the costs to America are in the billions, and we are hard-pressed to read any influential columnist address this “war.”

And, finally, since 9/11 when U.S. troops were sent to Afghanistan to drive out the Taliban and to remain there to protect a nascent democracy, and since they invaded Iraq and destroyed the evil Saddam dictatorship, there has not been a single major attack on the United States homeland. You know what I would call that?
Victory.

Veteran's Day - 2007

Naming of Parts

Today we have naming of parts. Yesterday,
We had daily cleaning. And tomorrow morning,
We shall have what to do after firing. Japonica
Glistens like coral in all of the neighboring gardens,
And today we have naming of parts.

This is the lower sling swivel. And this
Is the upper sling swivel, whose use you will see,
When you are given your slings. And this is the piling swivel,
Which in your case you have not got. The branches
Hold in the gardens their silent, eloquent gestures,
Which in our case, we have not got.

This is the safety catch, which is always released
With an easy flick of the thumb. And please do not let me
See anyone using his finger. You can do it quite easy
If you have any strength in your thumb. The blossoms
Are fragile and motionless, never letting anyone see
Any of them using their finger.

And this you can see is the bolt. The purpose of this
Is to open the breech, as you can see. We can slide it
Rapidly backwards and forwards; we call this
Easing the spring. And rapidly backwards and forwards
The early bees are assaulting and fumbling the flowers:
They call it easing the Spring.

They call it easing the Spring. It is perfectly easy
If you have any strength in your thumb: like the bolt,
And the breech, and the cocking piece, and the point of balance,
Which in our case we have not got; and the almond blossom
Silent in all of the gardens
And the bees going backwards
And forwards,
For today we have naming of parts.

Henry Reed, 1946