You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on having both at once. - Robert A. Heinlein -
Today, in H.R. 1, Democrats will bring legislation to the House floor supporting the transfer of responsibility for a critical national security program to the United Nations. House Republicans will offer a motion to block it.
American politics may be heading for uncertain waters. The Arabs, however, appear unusually determined to resist the tide of Khomeinism..
* Last autumn, the GCC states - plus Jordan and Egypt - asked Washington to review their defenses in case of a showdown with Iran. The mission, led by the then-U.S. Assistant Secretary of Defense Peter Rodman, presented its report last month.
* Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt and Jordan have concluded partnership accords with NATO, and two more Arab states, Kuwait and Bahrain, have opened talks for a similar relationship with the alliance.
* Last month, British Premier Tony Blair proposed an alliance of moderate Arab states, backed by major Western powers, to contain the Khomeinist threat. At least 10 Arab states have indicated interest.
Fear of a showdown with Iran has triggered an arms race. The GCC states have placed orders for 150 ultra-modern European and American fighter jets and are negotiating massive purchases of surface-to-surface missiles from China and Russia. Average defense budgets in the region show a 17 percent increase.
The GCC group and Egypt have also launched studies to create a nuclear industry - ostensibly for peaceful use, but clearly designed to meet a Iranian military threat.
Tehran started beating the drums of war over a year ago. If one listens carefully, one can now hear the response from the Arab side - in the form of faint drumbeats that are bound to get louder in the months ahead
This is a true story....Check out this photo from our mess hall at the US Embassy yesterday morning. Sen. Kerry found himself all alone while he was over here. He cancelled his press conference because no one came, he worked out alone in the gym w/o any soldiers even going up to say hi or ask for an autograph (I was one of those who was in the gym at the same time), and he found himself eating breakfast with only a couple of folks who are obviously not troops.
What is amazing is Bill O'Reilly came to visit with us and the troops at the CSH the same day and the line for autographs extended through the palace and people waited for two hours to shake his hand. You decide who is more respected and loved by us servicemen and women!
There's a lot to suggest socialism is a kind of arrested development. When we are babes in arms, everything is given to us. Our every need is catered to- to the extent that we can communicate our needs. The more we communicate our needs, though, the more we are expected to deal with them ourselves. Potty training is probably the first harsh reality we have to encounter- which brings with it, the first time we have to plan in advance, the first time we have to recognize the signals of an impending event and react to them in time.
(....)
At some point in your life, you are brought to the awareness that your life is in your hands- that is, unless you have an arrested social development. When we're young and idealistic, we think that if everyone just worked together for a common goal we'd all be in nirvana, and anyone who didn't want to work for the common good should be forced to do so- for their OWN good. Except there is nobody who can apply a "common good" fairly to all men. Except that anytime a government agency is involved fully 1/3 (if not dramatically more) of the money is lost to corruption and graft. Except that everyone's "common good" is different from everyone else's . Common isn't so common. When we begin to understand that people are different, when we start being aware of the fact that some jobs pay more, that some jobs pay less, that there are balances between power, income and responsibility, we begin to direct our own lives.
(....)
John Smith and William Bradford saw the socialist social experiment fail, right before their eyes.
Since then, millions of people have made excuses for the failure of socialism every single time it has failed. "there was nobody to help". "Too many people interfered". "Not enough people worked hard enough". "the officials were too corrupt". Always excuses.
Capitalisim is robust. It works despite interference from all corners. Socialism is not. The only reason for believing socialism can work is an arrested social development.
Conservative capitalism is robust in this country, and it has survived all attempts to regulate, litigate, duty, asses, and tax it out of existence. Conservative capitalism is the poles holding up the tent- and as there are a lot of poles, it's hard to see the tent collapsing until they're all gone. The pilgrim colony could not absorb the failure of social experimentation. the United States Economy can- for a time. After it has absorbed so much, it could reach a point of unstoppable decay. Where is that line? I have no idea. I'd rather not cross it at all.
I'd rather just potty-train the socialists among us, so they understand that the idea is fundamentally flawed and can never work.
Scientists say they have discovered a new source of stem cells that could one day repair damaged human organs. The Harvard University team say they have recovered functioning stem cells from amniotic fluid - the liquid that surrounds the baby in the womb. ...
The Harvard scientists say the stem cells they found in amniotic fluid seem to have many of the qualities of embryonic stem cells. The scientists, from Wake Forest University School of Medicine, were writing in the journal Nature Biotechnology.
They say they have managed to turn the stem cells into functioning muscle, fat, blood vessel, nerve and liver cells. In tests, these newly made cells seemed to restore some function in brain-damaged mice.
This record in and itself makes it abundantly clear that the hegemonist doctrine is fantasy, and widespread as it has become, an extraordinarily dangerous fantasy. The U.S. is not, and has never been, the snake in an international Eden. Quite the contrary: when the United States retreats, the tyrants, bandits, and ideologues are unleashed. The rule of blood returns, and genocide and horror walk the streets and highways of this civilization.
The record in recent years serves only to underline this fact. In Yugoslavia, a situation that a relatively small European expeditionary force, consisting at most of a few divisions, could have sorted out in a matter of months, was allowed to fester for the larger part of a decade. Thousands died in repeated offensives, sieges, ethnic-cleansing campaigns, and outright massacres until the U.S. broke the Serbian grip by main force.
Darfur, in which hundreds are being slaughtered at this moment, could be controlled with a few squadrons of helicopter gunships reinforced with Predator-class drones to establish a cordon across which no horsemen would be allowed to venture. But the U.S. is entangled elsewhere, and no one else is willing to step in. Not a single European state, not a single African country. Not even Kofi Annan, himself an African, was willing to bestir his underlings, instead contenting himself with tirades at the Truman Library condemning the United States for the temerity of interfering with other countries.
More troops, fewer troops, different troops, "redeployment"—all the Democrats' peculiar little talking points are just a way of sounding busy. Who are they kidding? Democrats want to cut and run as fast as possible from Iraq, betraying the Iraqis who supported us and rewarding our enemies—exactly as they did to the South Vietnamese under Ford.
Liberals spent the Vietnam War rooting for the enemy and clamoring for America's defeat, a tradition they have brought back for the Iraq war.
They insisted on calling the Soviet-backed Vietcong "the National Liberation Front of Vietnam," just as they call Islamic fascists killing Americans in Iraq "insurgents." Ho Chi Minh was hailed as a "Jeffersonian Democrat," just as Michael Moore compares the Islamic fascists in Iraq to the Minute Men.
During the Vietnam War, New York Times scion Arthur "Pinch" Sulzberger told his father that if an American soldier ran into a North Vietnamese soldier, he would prefer for the American to get shot. "It's the other guy's country," he explained.