My respect for Joe Lieberman continues to grow. The country could use more guys like him. Lieberman has an Op-Ed is in Friday’s Washington Post,
Why We Need More Troops in Iraq
By Joseph Lieberman
Friday, December 29, 2006
I’ve just spent 10 days traveling in the Middle East and speaking to leaders there, all of which has made one thing clearer to me than ever: While we are naturally focused on Iraq, a larger war is emerging. On one side are extremists and terrorists led and sponsored by Iran, on the other moderates and democrats supported by the United States. Iraq is the most deadly battlefield on which that conflict is being fought. How we end the struggle there will affect not only the region but the worldwide war against the extremists who attacked us on Sept. 11, 2001.
It is really troublesome that so few in Washington speak so directly and candidly about Islamic fundamentalism. They are at war with us, and we still don’t get it. Instead of guys like Lieberman in leadership positions we get guys like Democratic Rep. Silvestre Reyes running the Intelligence Committee. Here’s a guy who doesn’t know Shiite from Shineola when it comes to our enemies.
Should we believe what Iran is saying? Some wave off the crazy statements by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the tyrant in the Members Only jacket, by saying he is just a front man for the mullahs, they hold the real power. Well, ok, that’s true. So what are the mullahs saying? Here is Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei this weekend,
The American government, the domineering capitalism of the West and the corrupt Zionist political lobbyists have begun to sense the living truth of the Islamic awakening, and by admitting that their military might is useless against this truth, they are using all their power to employ political ploys and tactics. The entire Muslim Ummah, whether the political, cultural and religious elite, or the masses of people, must remain vigilant more than ever before, and try to identify and foil the conniving schemes of the enemyâ?¦
Feel better?
I know that President Bush will be addressing the American people in the next week or so on Iraq/War on Islamic Terrorism. I hope that he uses it as an opportunity to discuss some other important issues as well. Bush should make it clear to Congress and the American people that he will tirelessly pursue conservative Republican values and ideas in his last two years in office (strong national defense, earmark reform, market based reforms for social security and medicare, school choice/vouchers for all American parents, securing our border, and tax cut permanency. This will put Bush and the GOP on the offensive and will enable them to set the issues and agenda prior to the 08â?? election. If I were Bush here are the main points I would make. I know that he won’t but allow me to dream for a minute if you will.
1. Not only will we not cut and run in Iraq, but as Commander and Chief, I give my word to our troops and the Iraqis that we will do whatever necessary to ensure that the Iraqi people be able to stand on their own in a free and Democratic Iraq. The United States of America never leaves a friend and we will not break our word. Not on my watch. I call on all Americans to not only support the troops but to recommit ourselves to supporting the mission in Iraq until the Iraqi people can stand safely on their own.
2. Iran, Syria, and North Korea should know that we support all citizens in those countries that support a free and democratic way of life. But if the leaders of these countries chose to violate international law by aiding and abetting terrorist organizations- including the development of nuclear weapons programs- that we- The United States of America- reserve the right to pre-empt any such threat they may pose to the free world. We will not negotiate with those who harbor terrorists or sponsor terrorism in any way. And we will not tolerate the intentional flouting of international sanctions and resolutions. Cease from sponsoring terrorism and disarm or be prepared to suffer the consequences.
3. I meant what I said when I promised to never raise taxes. Our Social Security system nears imminent collapse and must be fundamentally reformed. I am calling on Congress to pass substantial SS reform that would allow younger workers to voluntarily invest their own money in individual retirement accounts that would pay market returns that they would legally own. If private accounts are good enough for federal employees, they are good enough for every tax paying citizen in our nation.
4. I call on Congress to make the 2001 and 2003 Tax cuts permanent on personal income, dividends, and capital gains. We know that all the initial predictions of economic collapse, ballooning deficits, and jobless recoveries were incorrect. We are at war and it is imperative that the US economy remains strong via pro-growth tax cuts for individuals and businesses.
5. I call on Congress to end the unethical and immoral death tax. Death should not be a taxable event and all Americans who have worked and saved over their life times should be able to pass on the fruit of their labor to their children without teh federal government confiscating half of it.
6. I call on Congress to fully fund the border fence and increased number of border patrol agents. Construction should begin immediately. I am also officially pardoning the two-border patrol agents wrongly sentenced to prison for capturing an illegal alien drug smuggler. This is a travesty of justice that two such courageous federal employees would be sentenced to prison for protecting and defending the US border. If anybody should go to prison it should be the illegal crimminal aliens who populate our prisons who I am ordering immendiately deported to their nation of origin. The American taxpayer will no longer have to fund 3 square meals a day, cable TV, and weightlifting for crimminal aliens in our federal prisons.
7. I call on congress to pass comprehensive earmark reform-total transparency- and propose specific spending cuts such as revocation of the Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit for wealthy seniors who can afford to buy their own medications. I am also putting Congress on notice that any budget increases beyond the rate of inflation will be vetoed on arrival on my desk. Read my lips (VOA)!
Whether you support same sex “marriage” in our state or not, you should be appalled at the utter contempt our elected so called “representatives have for “we the people” who pay their salaries and benefits by not fulfilling their constitutional responsibility to vote up or down on the ballot initiative. The Wall st. Journal editorial board sums up the current situation and Jan 2nd vote at the Constitutional Convention (subs req):
The constitution only requires that 25% of both houses of the legislature vote to put the measure on the ballot, a bar set deliberately low to ensure that the people would have their say in all but the most extreme cases. But the legislature has so far refused to vote on the measure at all. In November, its members recessed until next Tuesday, the last day of the current legislative session, and to all appearances the politicians intend to adjourn the session without voting on the measure at all — thus letting it die.
Departing Governor Mitt Romney has threatened to withhold approval of legislators’ raises for next year unless they vote on the initiative, but this has purely symbolic value. Thanks to a voter-passed constitutional amendment from 1998, legislators are guaranteed raises every two years. Yet this is that same constitutional-amendment procedure that is now being flouted by legislators who lack the votes to defeat the measure on a straight vote.
The petitioners sued the legislature for abrogating its constitutional duty, and the state Supreme Judicial Court took the case. In its ruling this week, it agreed that the legislature’s duty to vote on the measure was “unambiguous.” But it claimed to be powerless to compel a vote. So the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, whose own arrogation of power created this mess, has suddenly discovered the limits of its power to clean it up.
All in all, this is quite the political spectacle. First judges usurp the power of the legislature to dictate their own social policy. Then the legislature uses a procedural ruse to deny voters a say on the gay-marriage issue. And these are some of the same people who say Iraqis aren’t ready for democracy.
And people wonder why residents of the Commonwealth continue to flock to other more family and business friendly states?
Richard Fernandez, who writes as Wretchard at The Belmont Club, has a must read post if you are interested in the media, blogs or Iraq.
The Blogosphere at War
I wrote this paper as an attempt to describe how the blogosphere works; to situate it vis-a-vis the mainstream media and to indicate some of the ways it can be used as a weapon of information warfare. The reader may find many of the ideas half-baked, and the reader would be right. But perhaps this flawed little monograph can contribute in some small way to a discussion of what the blogosphere is and what it’s future might be. I truly believe that “it is possible that in the long run the global public will come to rely on fellow Internet users to learn about the world more than it will from professional journalists.”
This post is well worth your time and consideration.
Human Events Magazine’s Top 10 Conservative Books of 2006
The Human Events Book Service has tabulated its sales figures for 2006 and come up with the most popular books. The following books are ranked by sales figures.
10. Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters by Dr. Meg Meeker
9. 365 Manners Kids Should Know by Sheryl Eberly
8. The Truth About Muhammad by Robert Spencer
7. Conservative Comebacks to Liberal Lies by Gregg Jackson
6. America Alone by Mark Steyn
5. The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) by Robert Spencer
4. The Heritage Guide to the Constitution by Edwin Meese, ed.
3. The Trivium by Sister Miriam Joseph Rauh
2. Godless: The Church of Liberalism by Ann Coulter
1. The Life and Religion of Mohammed by J.L. Menezes
You are right in the middle of some big names. Congratulations Gregg!!
Michael Yon is back in Iraq. That is good news for everyone looking for a fresh, honest assessment of what is going on. Before entering Iraq, Michael had Christmas in Kuwait, and he made the following observation,
This war is strange. I never hear soldiers worried about their own morale sagging. Contrary, the war-fighters here are more concerned to bolster the morale of the people at home. Here in Kuwait, where the dining facilities are bedecked in Christmas decorations, soldiers stream in from Iraq on convoys and stream back north along those bomb-laden roads. The service members here are not all rear-echelon people who never see fighting or blood. Yet their overall morale obviously is high. Few of them know I am a writer, and so they speak freely at the tables around me. In Qatar, from which I�??d just departed, I spoke with troops taking four-day R&R passes, some having just returned from the most dangerous parts of Iraq, and others heading straight back, and their overall morale was also very high. The morale at war is higher than I have ever seen it at home; makes me wonder what they know that most Americans seem to be missing.
Now compare that with this.
As you can imagine, the cost of doing this is staggering, and if you can, support Michael’s work through PayPal.
I hope that this post is my last of the year on the “holiday” known as Kwanzaa. My earlier post generated some significant discussion and one of the comments from a friend of this blog suggested that even though Kwanzaa was concocted by a Marxist crimminal that it still celebrated some positive values. This assertion however is 100% false. Those “positive values” may have been “positive” under many totolitarian dictatorships but not here in the United States of America.
Pundit Review’s friend Ann Coulter nails it in today’s Human Events:
Kwanzaa itself is a lunatic blend of schmaltzy ’60s rhetoric, black racism and Marxism. Indeed, the seven “principles” of Kwanzaa praise collectivism in every possible arena of life — economics, work, personality, even litter removal. (“Kuumba: Everyone should strive to improve the community and make it more beautiful.”) It takes a village to raise a police snitch.
When Karenga was asked to distinguish Kawaida, the philosophy underlying Kwanzaa, from “classical Marxism,” he essentially explained that under Kawaida, we also hate whites. While taking the “best of early Chinese and Cuban socialism” — which one assumes would exclude the forced abortions, imprisonment for homosexuals and forced labor — Kawaida practitioners believe one’s racial identity “determines life conditions, life chances and self-understanding.” There’s an inclusive philosophy for you.
Coincidentally, the seven principles of Kwanzaa are the very same seven principles of the Symbionese Liberation Army, another charming invention of the Least-Great Generation. In 1974, Patricia Hearst, kidnap victim-cum-SLA revolutionary, posed next to the banner of her alleged captors, a seven-headed cobra. Each snake head stood for one of the SLA’s revolutionary principles: Umoja, Kujichagulia, Ujima, Ujamaa, Nia, Kuumba and Imani — the same seven “principles” of Kwanzaa…Kwanzaa was the result of a ’60s psychosis grafted onto the black community. Liberals have become so mesmerized by multicultural nonsense that they have forgotten the real history of Kwanzaa and Karenga’s United Slaves — the violence, the Marxism, the insanity. Most absurdly, for leftists anyway, is that they have forgotten the FBI’s tacit encouragement of this murderous black nationalist cult founded by the father of Kwanzaa.
Now the “holiday” concocted by an FBI dupe is honored in a presidential proclamation and public schools across the nation. The only principle Kwanzaa promotes is liberals’ unbounded capacity to respect any faith but Christianity.
A movement that started approximately 2,000 years before Kwanzaa leaps well beyond collectivism and litter removal to proclaim that we are all equal before God. “There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28). It was practitioners of that faith who were at the forefront of the abolitionist and civil rights movements. But that’s all been washed down the memory hole, along with the true origins of Kwanzaa.