ConservativeINC

First some great news: al Qaeda is in dire straights. I’ve talked about how bin Laden’s most recent audio tape should be taken as a big sign of weakness. Couple that with the encouraging fact that Iraqis and Americans are dying less often and you have on your hands a winnable situation. A recent New York Post piece makes a good point while echoing what I just said:

Until very recently, recall, the common refrain - at least in Democratic circles - was that America’s invasion of Iraq played right into al Qaeda’s hands.

Not only did the war divert precious resources from the hunt for bin Laden in Afghanistan, they argued, it also created a theater in which a seemingly endless stream of new jihadists could come humiliate the superpower.

Now it’s looking increasingly likely that the exact opposite might happen: al Qaeda humiliated, if not seriously compromised operationally - and America, if not victorious, at least well on its way to a win.

Make no mistake: Even if al Qaeda were driven completely from Iraq, it would remain a potent force elsewhere. But no group could suffer such a defeat without significant consequences for both prestige and recruitment.

America’s other enemies, meanwhile, would have to think twice about further angering a lethally adaptable adversary.

If we win in Iraq everyone will take notice and not try to push us at every turn. Defeating al Qaeda in Iraq may be our most important war to win since WW II. Losing it would only embolden our enemies and make the world a much more dangerous place.

For example, Venezuela would feel free to take the military its vibrant economy… wait, just kidding. Venezuela’s economy is in shambles and will continue to need aid just to stay afloat. For an example of their economic ineptitude take a look at the fact that Venezuelans need an official’s writing on their arm to get food. Once they get that food an official puts another mark on them preventing them from getting any more. The reason why we need to worry more about this country then any other in the Western Hemisphere is because the reason, according to historians, why Germany started WW II is because their economy was in a shambles.

Basically they are developing into a situation where they are a cornered animal. When a country gets into this dire situation where their people can’t get food coupled with the government’s ability to use their petro dollars to build up a military we can have a very serious problem. Venezuela has proven it is willing to support every regime that opposes America, what’s to stop them from acting on their bellicosity?

What should we do about Venezuela and other countries that are following its lead? We need to work to increase the standard of living for their people and systematically undermine their totalitarian regimes expunging as much of the sycophants from the halls of power as possible. Increasing trade with the people of these countries is the most important thing to do because it will lift them out of poverty and prove to them that we can live at peace with one another while improving both of our situations. What? Some don’t believe in free trade and point to Cuba and Venezuela as the way to go? Bull.

In 1953, Cuba’s wealth was comparable to that of the state of Mississippi; today, the island’s exports total one-third of the sales of Bacardi rum products, the economic icon of the Cuban exile community. Venezuela’s economic system is a classic case of state capitalism based on oil — exactly what made that nation’s per-capita income go from representing the equivalent of two-thirds of that of the United States in the 1950s to representing barely 15 percent today. And Mexico’s slums are not a factor of that country’s increased trade with its North American neighbors, which has quadrupled in the last 15 years, but of the slow pace of reform.

The world was not rich and suddenly turned poor. The progress of the market economy that began to free the world of its shackles continues at an even faster pace today despite the many restrictions still faced by the people who create wealth and exchange it, and despite the fears that these momentous times understandably inspire in those who have difficulty adapting. What a heartening thought.

Preoccupy their people with improving their own lives and why in the name of God would any of them want to start a war? Heck, just look at America. No one really wants to be at war and if it weren’t for the fact that only a select few were serving there would be absolutely no political will for being at war. Of course there will always be war but the more we can do to limit the the number and scopes of war the better. And capitalism is the answer to limiting war.

Until then we’re going to have to fight a number of wars. But as long as we have allies like the French president (I can’t believe I’m actually writing these words) we’ll be OK. The most impressive thing he’s done so far is give his support to America on the international state and the most impressive thing on the domestic stage is fighting to limit the social welfare state. Another great thing he’s done is walk out on an interview with Leslie Stahl from 60 Minutes. It’s refreshing to see a politician tell off a media elite like that and is rather encouraging.

And it’s always fun to see just how wrong climate prognosticators are. If there is a truth about predictions when it comes to the future state of the world’s resources or weather it is that it is never nearly as bad as they had predicted. We’re not out of food, we haven’t been overpopulated, the face of the Earth doesn’t look like a clone of Mars. And there weren’t as many cyclones in the Northern Hemisphere as were predicted for this year. Just take a look at the actual versus the predicted on this chart.

Furthermore, the number of hurricanes that take place in the Northern Hemisphere is well below average.

Of course this is good news for all normal people but is bad news for everyone who is pushing global warming as a serious threat to our existence.

BigT’s Linkapalooza:
Gold nearing $800.
Dollar nearing $0.
Foreign Affairs article (long article) on Russia.
Some people are fighting the Fairness Doctrine.
Argentina’s first First Lady President.
Here she is with her First Gentleman.

And here’s the picture on Drudge:

BigT

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When I was still an undergrad at CSUF I had to go to one of those Honors’ assemblies where we were filled with liberal bilge. We saw Bowling for Columbine and another guy tried to explain how there was no “Coalition” going into Iraq. One of these indoctrination sessions was headlined by a guy who wrote a book we all had read about fear called The Culture of Fear: Why Americans Are Afraid of the Wrong Things. I have to admit that most of it was fair in my younger mind but one thing stuck with me.

During his talk he decided to make it known that the one thing everyone should be afraid of was guns. His reasoning for this was that when he read some medical journals there was a lot of talk about kids getting gun wounds. After he was done I asked him about this pointing out that maybe the reason why there is an increase is because there has been such an increase in the population and that if you controlled for population increases the number of deaths due to gunshot wounds would actually have gone down. He shot me down saying that I should look up the FBI statistics and if I found something contrary to what he found I should email him.

Well I did just that and, surprise!, the actual number of shooting deaths for children had been going down even though the number of guns had gone up. I emailed this news to my teacher asking her if she knew his email address, she didn’t, and I left it at. I figured that if this guy couldn’t even look at the sources he told me to look at then what was the point in pointing out one of his mistakes. Well, no more!

Another crusader against irrational fear is Paul Krugman, supposed economist and NY Times columnist. The irrational fear he is crusading against is the neocon’s fear of “Islamofascism.” To Mr. Krugman there is no reason to fear this threat because:

For one thing, there isn’t actually any such thing as Islamofascism — it’s not an ideology; it’s a figment of the neocon imagination. The term came into vogue only because it was a way for Iraq hawks to gloss over the awkward transition from pursuing Osama bin Laden, who attacked America, to Saddam Hussein, who didn’t. And Iran had nothing whatsoever to do with 9/11 — in fact, the Iranian regime was quite helpful to the United States when it went after Al Qaeda and its Taliban allies in Afghanistan.

Beyond that, the claim that Iran is on the path to global domination is beyond ludicrous. Yes, the Iranian regime is a nasty piece of work in many ways, and it would be a bad thing if that regime acquired nuclear weapons. But let’s have some perspective, please: we’re talking about a country with roughly the G.D.P. of Connecticut, and a government whose military budget is roughly the same as Sweden’s.

Meanwhile, the idea that bombing will bring the Iranian regime to its knees — and bombing is the only option, since we’ve run out of troops — is pure wishful thinking. Last year Israel tried to cripple Hezbollah with an air campaign, and ended up strengthening it instead. There’s every reason to believe that an attack on Iran would produce the same result, with the added effects of endangering U.S. forces in Iraq and driving oil prices well into triple digits.

First, I think the term Islamofascism came about not as an impetus for war but as a way to delineate peaceful Muslims from bellicose ones so as not to ruffle anyone’s feathers. And the idea that there is no one who can be legitimately called an Islamofascist is ludicrous. Isn’t Osama an Islamofascist? What about the thousands of others whose aims it is to take over every country in the world so they can implement Islamofascist governments like the Taliban’s? Denying the very essence of this problem shows that Mr. Krugman has so divorced himself from reality that he can no longer even remotely be taken seriously.

Second, Iran does want to take over the world and a lot less amazing things have happened in the past. Let’s take the path to Western dominance as an example. I don’t think anyone would have picked Europe as the next center of power 1,000 years ago. It was a backwater to the more advanced civilizations that made up the Middle East and Asia. But the facts are the facts and Europe, plus its scions in the New World, represent the most powerful nations in the world. Just because Iran may not be a juggernaut today doesn’t mean that with a couple of lucky breaks going their way they might be a major power in a couple of generations.

Third, the Islamofascists in general may not have money but they have something more important. They have a widely dispersed possible workforce that has members in every country on the planet. Islamic terrorists have proven they can take everyday, normal items, like box cutters, and kill thousands. It doesn’t take much money to convert a van into a massive bomb nor does it take much more then a bus pass to blow up a couple double deckers in England. This is truly the most devastating power that the Islamofascists have in their arsenal; they potentially have tens of thousands who are willing to die for their cause and that is enough to kill millions.

Lastly, bombing won’t work? What about Israel’s bombing of Syria? And does he really think that oil isn’t headed to $100+ even if we don’t bomb Iran? The reason why the price of oil is going through the roof because Iran and other countries like it are threatening actions that could seriously disrupt the flow of oil. As long as these regimes are around the price of oil is going to continue to rise with or without a bombing of Iran.

Later on in his moronic opinion piece Krugman pins neocon’s fear on the fact that our adversary just happens to have dark skin. Yup, that’s it, we want to kill every Muslim. That’s why we hated us some Soviets during the Cold War. Plus we’re the ones with a KKK leader in the senate (wait, that’s KKK Byrd). We are the ones who seceded from the Union so we could still have them slaves (wait, that was the democrats as well). It’s just an easy way for a moron to end a ridiculous piece. Call your opponent a racist and you’re golden with the great intellects that devour his species of drivel.

Before I say something I’m going to regret I’ll let the good folks at Real Clear Politics take care of this loony:

Apparently, being in favor of a strong response to terrorism now means you’re a bigot as well. It’s a ridiculous, ad hominem attack, and one that perhaps obscures the larger importance of the rest of the column.

Krugman is in many ways a weather vane of liberal opinion, though he doesn’t so much generate new ideas as regurgitate and amplify what he sees and hears among his clique in the liberal intelligentsia and the progressive blogosphere. And this column offers a couple of excellent clues about how the left would like to frame this election, which basically is as follows: Republicans, in general, have vastly overhyped the threat of Islamic terrorism (in part because they’re bigots), and Rudy Giuliani, in particular, is a dangerous man with an even more dangerous set of neo-con advisors who will take America to war with Iran.

Krugman’s column is a road map to the Democrats’ general election strategy against the guy most pundits agree is the Republicans’ best bet to hold on to the White House - if he can win the nomination. It’ll be a replay of the ‘64 campaign against Goldwater, complete with tens of millions of dollars spent on modern day versions of “Daisy.”

Of course, sixteen years later the Democrats tried the same thing against Reagan and failed miserably. But that was after four years of Jimmy Carter. After eight years of George W. Bush, a war weary public might well buy into Krugman’s line of attack on Rudy.

It’s pretty ironic, however, that Krugman slams the GOP for overhyping threats and using fear as a political tool, because that’s exactly what he’s doing in this column. So much so, in fact, it seems Krugman believes that President Giuliani would be more of a threat to the country than Islamic terrorists or a nuclear armed Iran.

Ditto. BigT
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Time is running out for the junior senator’s presidential campaign. His biggest bloc of voters should theoretically be blacks because he is, well how to put this delicately, black. As a show of solidarity with the black community in South Carolina, one of the first primary states, he has hosted a gospel concert. But this is all too little to late to overcome the behemoth that is Hillary Clinton.

Plus he didn’t even show up in person to any of the concert dates. If you were on the fence between Obama and Clinton would a concert without its headline really engender any warm feelings? Probably not. It’s probably not a good thing that he has come out (so to speak) against Christian principles with regards to homosexuality either. While he is gay OK he’s not going to be A OK when it comes to the primaries.

The whole problem with Obama in regards to South Carolina is that he’s not energizing anyone. They were hoping for a surge of youngins at the concert but that never materialized. Instead they got a bunch of old foggies going to the concerts instead.

I think the most telling reason one of the attendees gave for favoring Obama over Clinton was “I like looking at him, and it’s time for a change.” If this is the best that Mr. Obama can muster at this late stage of the primary season then he might as well call it quits.

Maybe him being more pleasing to look at than Hillary is might catapult him to the top. Probably not though. And let’s face it, he has very little seasoning as a politician to warrant much interest. Really, none of the democrat front runners have much experience to warrant a presidential bid. Ms. Clinton just finished up her first term as senator and, depending on who’s giving the message and what day it is, she either had a lot to do with running Bill Clinton’s White House or had nothing to do with it. Edwards isn’t much better. First, he’s a trial lawyer. Second, he’s also a one-termer in the senate. Big deal. There’s more then 100 others with the same senatorial credentials or better. But he is pretty.

And if this democrat contest boils down to who is easiest on the eyes then Obama would still come up second fiddle. This time it would be to Edwards and is that really any better then losing to Hillary? A loss is a loss is a loss. It’s looking more like that is what Obama is facing right now; a loss. BigT

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