Bruce Kesler, Maggie's Farm.com

 

That rhetorical question from Barry Goldwater still haunts us today. Many of us who supported the US being in Vietnam found ourselves in the uncomfortable posture of, in effect, backing President Johnson’s floundering, painful, costly half-way measures. Instead of early on going deep and hard to close Haiphong, punish Hanoi, and close the infiltration routes, the US dribbled in and hesitated. What earlier forcefulness would have yielded is indicated by the more compliant reaction from North Vietnam immediately following our major Linebacker pummeling of it in 1972.

 

Analogies can be misleading. Rather, the question of why not victory is to open readers’ minds to wider possibilities than appear in most of the discussions of what to do about Afghanistan. The very concept of victory seems to have disappeared from our vocabulary and consciousness.

 

Victory is the accomplishment of the objective of a reasonably lasting situation in which Afghanistan is not a threat to its neighbors nor ourselves in the West. Pakistan’s nukes cannot be allowed to fall into the hands of foes. Iran cannot be allowed to extend its influence, or coercion, upon others. India’s security interests must be respected.

 

The arguments against a perimeter containment are compelling, as ineffective. The arguments against complete or hasty withdrawal are compelling, as worsening the threats. The arguments against solely counter-insurgency without adequate securing forces are compelling, as inadequate. Read article.

Thomas D. Segel, NMJ.us

 

By now you have heard the story. Taliban insurgents ambushed a 13-man team of U.S. Marine and Army advisors assigned to the Afghan National Army as they approached a small hamlet. Repeatedly the Marines called for artillery support that was denied by their commanders and helicopter gunship support that took more than one hour to arrive. The refused support and slow air response caused the unit to suffer eight Afghan soldiers, one interpreter and four Marines to be killed in action.

 

The uproar across the military community has been deafening and the NATO commanded forces are now investigating why commanding officers rejected repeated calls for artillery fire. They are also looking into the reason why close air support that was supposed to be no more than five minutes away took more than one hour to reach the scene of the battle.

 

Far be it for me to claim I am some kind of Warfighting Strategist. However, it doesn’t take the military intellect of a Patton to understand dumb decisions or political pontification. That being said, I have no reason to believe the current Rules of Engagement (ROE) in Afghanistan originated with those commanders on the ground who are actually engaged in the fighting.

 

The Rules of Engagement now in effect in that war zone are designed to appease the faint hearted rather than win a war. Are they wrong headed? Yes! Are they tailored in such a way they will harm our troops in the field? We have the bodies of four gallant young Marines along with eight national army dead to prove just how wrong the ROE is for Americans and its allies. Read article.

Matt Towery, Patriot Post.us

 

It's easy to attack a leader. And yet President Obama says he wants input from Republicans. When I was politically active, including nationally, I was heavily involved on the GOP side of things. So here's a constructive memorandum to the president. It's based on both experience and on some of the nonpartisan polls our firm conducts.

 

It's intended to explore the reasons Obama's approval ratings are dipping and what he can do to prevent a disastrous four years in office. I know he won't read it, but I'm writing it as if he will -- that is, as fairly and professionally as I can.

 

Americans are scared stiff about a host of issues, including job security, credit availability, home values, international threats, even the Swine flu ... you name it.

 

Mr. President, some liked your stimulus bill, and some didn't. Either way, that legislation, along with the balky "Cash for Clunkers" initiative, are the only "big ideas" your administration has put forward to counter a faltering economy. And with a couple of exceptions, there is little evidence of "stimulus" reaching the public. Americans are losing faith that your administration has a fiscally sound approach to keep the recession from getting deeper or longer.

 

You were elected by independent voters who rightfully felt the Bush administration had overspent and underperformed. They were tired of edicts from on high, bailouts crafted by cozy financial titans and an obsession over a foreign war while circumstances here at home were deteriorating.

 

And yet with your obsession over health care reform, you and your administration are more and more looking at least as out of touch with voters as the Bush team was. Read article.

 

Dr. Bruce Porter, NMJ.us

 

– From a poem by William Ross Wallace

 

– Adolph Hitler

 

A letter from the U.S. Department of Education was recently sent to America’s school principals, announcing that President Barack Obama “will deliver a national address to the students of America” on Tuesday, September 8, at 12 noon EDT. The letter encouraged “students of all ages, teachers, and administrators to participate in this historic moment by watching the president deliver the address, which will be broadcast on the White House website.”

 

The letter goes on to state that the President “…will speak directly to the nation’s children and youth about persisting and succeeding in school.” and “…encourages educators to use this moment” to lay aside their ordinary lesson plans and choose from a “menu of classroom activities” prepared by the Obama administration’s own “teachers-in-residence” and “Teaching Ambassador Fellows.”

 

The climax of this outrage is a letter announcing that the Obama Department of Education is “launching the ‘What I am to Learn’ video contest,” offering three grand prizes of $1,000 cash to the best responses to the President’s educational challenge, to be awarded in October by a “panel of judges including” Obama’s own Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan. There is a dark underside to this little exercise that is more than troubling.

 

Part of the exercise was to include teachers putting up “quotations” from Obama on the walls, and having the children making a “pledge” to do what they can to “serve” President Obama. This is the pinch of arsenic in the sweet-pie. Under our constitution, (unlike nations like North Korea or China) our leaders serve us. They are our employees and as such, we are not their servants! I fear that we are witnessing the beginnings of an effort to recruit our children into a dangerous cult of personality worship not unlike what we saw in Socialist Germany in the 1930s. Read article.

 

Allen Hunt, Townhall.com

 

Eight years after the tragic events of 9/11, most Americans still know nothing about Islam. Moreover, our political leaders now refrain from even associating terrorism with Islamic radicals at all. To commemorate 9/11, President Obama spoke wistfully at a memorial service at the Pentagon. He called Americans “to serve our communities, to strengthen our country and to better our world.” He never once made mention of Islam, the religion Obama had praised in his White House Ramadan dinner, a dinner called to “celebrate a great religion, and its commitment to justice and progress.”

 

Despite the President's efforts to re-educate Americans on Islam, research shows that few of us actually know anything about the alleged “religion of peace.” One would think (and hope) that after the events of 9/11, Americans would have seized the opportunity to examine the movement that spawned such heinous acts of terror. On that momentous day, I realized my own gaping lack of knowledge regarding the world's second largest religion. I had studied Judaism, Hinduism, and Christianity, but knew noting about Islam. In the years since 9/11, I have now read the Koran, studied biographies of Mohammed, reviewed histories of Islam, and interviewed scholars of Islam. I wrongly assumed that other Americans were doing the same self-education.

 

The recent Pew Forum survey regarding how religions are perceived n America reveals some ugly facts about our ignorance. Only four out of ten Americans could correctly answer two basic questions about Islam: Read article.

 

Barry Rubin, Gloria-Center.org

 

One remarkable thing about watching the Middle East is how what’s celebrated as brilliant in Europe or America is errant nonsense.

 

Writing such stuff makes people successful and gives them an audience of millions. What they say is so ridiculous that one wants to laugh, yet so totally accepted as true in Washington and European capitals that the laughter would be laughed at.

 

The article to which I refer is by Jacob Weisberg in the June 22 Newsweek, entitled, “A Friend in Need: Barack gets tough on Bibi.” It is far more terrible because Weisberg is neither leftist nor anti-Israel but has simply imbibed what “everyone says.”

 

As for those giving advice, here’s what we’ve seen in the last six months from those who want to “save” others by imposing their own vision:

 

--The idea that stopping construction on Jewish settlements would bring some Arab concession has already proven wrong.

 

--The idea that engagement with Iran would work has already proven wrong.

 

--The idea that the United States could successfully engage Syria in a set of mutual compromises has already proven wrong.

 

--The idea that an Obama charm offensive would bring higher levels of Arab support has already proven wrong. And that's just in six months! Read article.

 

IBD Editorials.com

 

As if fighting a war in Afghanistan isn't hard enough, ambitious global prosecutors have rolled into Kabul looking to charge U.S. troops. Intentional or not, such legalism will sap U.S. morale as it did in Vietnam.

 

At about the time NATO's new secretary-general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, warned NATO's European members against an early pullout, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the top prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, whose body is charged with looking for international war criminals, announced he was looking for new "clients" from anyone with a grievance in Afghanistan.

 

At a briefing Wednesday in The Hague, Moreno-Ocampo said he had launched a new war crimes inquiry, seeking information about "torture" especially — a European obsession — and had already mined the human rights groups for stories. He added he was also "very open" to more information from foreign governments.

 

But it doesn't take a genius to know what the spotlight-loving attorney (who once launched his own reality TV show back in Argentina) is really after: Americans in the dock as war criminals. Read article.

 

Doctor-Horsefeathers.com

 

While Derek Jeter was tying Lou Gehrig as the Yankees' all time hit leader, Barak Obama was breaking all records for words uttered on one topic by a President. What a contrast: the ill tempered bloviator who trashed those he differed with as liars, vs. the peerless leader who expressed his appreciation to his opponents and said he didn't want to "disrespect" them by calling attention to his singular accomplishment.

 

The President who scorns his fellow citizens, those who differ with him, as the "mob," vs. Derek Jeter, the Captain, who praises his teammates and adversaries for raising the level of his game. Barack Obama, son of a mixed race marriage who played the race card masterfully to obtain the votes of guilty whites, vs. the Captain, son of a mixed race marriage, who never, ever offers excuses, never blames anyone for his own failures and never mentions skin color.

 

Barack Obama attended Ivy League schools where he was flattered and cosseted and told how smart he was. His head was filled with Post-Modernist notions about constructed reality and narratological truths. In that world concepts like 'honor', 'modesty', 'leading by example', and respect for the past are merely patriarchal notions designed to oppress the "other." No wonder Obama unashamedly befriends mass murderers and tyrants, while trashing our longstanding allies.

 

Derek Jeter matters, because he is an exemplar of a vanishing world in which honor was a prime virtue and trashing ones predecessors was unthinkable. He belongs to Lou Gehrig's world, when athletes shunned self praise and when "showoff" was a dreadful label. Can anyone imagine Jeter belittling those who came before him? Can anyone imagine Obama NOT blaming George Bush for every one of his own failures? Derek Jeter has been the same kind of player since he first donned pinstripes. He hustles on every play, always deflects glory away from himself. His consistency over the years is respected by all knowledgeable baseball fans. He knows who he is and never tries to be what he isn't. Read article.

 

Erik Rush, WND.com

 

The irrationality of progressives' doctrine precludes beneficial argument or debate. When another's principles are based upon fallacy and devoid of reason, when logic is convoluted and infinitely mutable, and all rhetorical and perceptual roads lead to a foregone, preferential conclusion, it is folly to engage that individual. In such cases, the flawed pretext of granting our errant fellows their fair and evenhanded due is recklessness.

 

While individuals in accord with my thinking might enjoy what I articulate, and the open-minded may gain clarity from it, nothing I nor anyone else asserts is going to sway the dedicated progressives, socialists and Marxists against whom our nation now struggles. That sort of fundamental transformation of mind can only have its genesis in trauma or revelatory experience of a magnitude beyond human design, such as that which occasionally reforms a lifelong criminal or substance abuser. The core beliefs of these individuals are so deeply irrational and their devotion to same so perverse that it is difficult not to ascribe them to either psychological pathology (as does radio talk-show host and author Michael Savage) or demonic influence.

 

Add to that the cultish dedication of President Obama's supporters, which remains truly disturbing. I've spoken with people who couldn't have cared less about any given president throughout their adult lives, but who lose their minds when someone makes a claim they consider unseemly pertaining to this president.

 

Obama's goal? Replace the Judeo-Christian values that gave birth to the "land of the free" with failed radical leftist beliefs – get Brad O'Leary's "The Audacity of Deceit" One of the most distressing things characterizing these people is the ability they have developed for utterly dehumanizing those whom they perceive as their opposition. This phenomenon has been very soberly and widely discussed in the public arena, particularly since World War II; we have realized that it's a lot easier to march someone you don't consider human into a gas chamber.

 

One of the most distressing things characterizing these people is the ability they have developed for utterly dehumanizing those whom they perceive as their opposition. This phenomenon has been very soberly and widely discussed in the public arena, particularly since World War II; we have realized that it's a lot easier to march someone you don't consider human into a gas chamber. Read article.

 

 

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