Lots of columns floating around on the GOP loss. Many conflicting opinions. Here's the real answer: They (we) lost due to our own stupidity and the control of the party by two kinds of folks: The far right and those desirous of being liked by the NY Times.

The Far Right: Who cares about homosexuality - and why? It has always been around and so far no civilization has collapsed because of it. Western Civ might indeed collapse because of those who think this issue is more important that our security, the education of our kids, and a host of other things far more important than who bones whom.

The Far Right II: Abortion. There are ZERO women of child-bearing age in America who have never NOT had access to legal abortion. To think that'll change is ludicrous. The way to stop abortion is to educate our kids. This won't happen as long as the Far Right thinks they can stop homosexuality via legislation, and as long as they think abortion is all bad all the time. In fact, it isn't even always a bad thing. 43M abortions 1973-2004, 75% by liberals = GOP White House. That's bad? By 2024, 79M fewer liberals than if no abortion. This is a bad thing? (43M abortions, assume 75% by liberals, assume 51% female, assume fertility rate of 2.1.) And - if my daughter were raped by some big ugly Arab slug, you bet I'd want her to get an abortion.

The Far Right III: As long as the above are the main drivers of the GOP platform, it'll get more and more difficult to win national elections. That'll leave control of guns, schools, courts and foreign policy in the hands of the Left. This is intelligent?

Then, when we NEED to be hard asses, we're not - like why are we in Iraq if we're not willing to kill the bastards the same way our parents killed the NAZI and Imperial Japanese bastards - by not worrying about the "Street" or civilian casualties in a war zone? This is a friggin' existential war, and being nice isn't going to win it. I really don't care if they like me or not. I care that my kids live in Western Civilization rather than some 7th-Century fascist-religio-government in which my daughter won't be educated, won't be equal, won't be able to report a rape and will have to wear a friggin tent all the time, and in which men will think that's an OK way to treat women. The left doesn't care about this because they don't have any kids. Look at the demographics of the Blue States and Western Europe. They're done. Why worry about their opinions? They have no hostages to the future and so necessarily care only about their own comfort here and now. Those listening to childless politicians and elites need to have their heads examined.

The argument that if we (GOP) follow the above we'll be just like the enemy (DNC), is just dumb. We can save our kids, save our nation, continue being a beacon of hope to the world only if we win elections. And we can't win elections by worrying about abortion and homosexuality. We ought to teach our kids not to use abortion as birth control. Let the libs teach their kids to use it whenever they want -- they're removing themselves from the gene pool. We want to stop them... why?

The NY Times. GOPers thinking they can please the NY Times and the rest of the MSM are not thinking people. A Republican trying to please the MSM is like teaching a pig to sing - wastes your time and annoys the pig.

Conservatives need to be conservative on serious conservative issues: Government size and encroachment (and how do you argue against the size of government but insist it worry about sexual orientation or behavior or whatever it is?), taxes (for dumb things like Title 1 breakfasts when 75% of the kids being fed by the taxpayers have cell phones), and defending our country. You can't do that and please as idiotic and adolescent a paper as the NYT - why do we continue to try? We didn't win in 1994 by pleasing the MSM. How can we have forgotten this so soon? Now the idiots are in charge, Islamists may feel they have added the US to their scalps - they already have the USSR and Spain (Yes, they think they won the cold war - and it is hard to argue with it; they kicked Russia's butt in Afghanistan and it all went to hell after that.)

If we want to re-introduce democracy - that's when elections aren't overturned by judges, in case you've forgotten - and protect our nation and the future of our kids we need to get serious and throw the Far Right off the train, grab all those conservative democrats just seated by the middle,  and move forward.

Protecting my kids is just a little bit more important than worrying about where some guy's dick is or if the NY Times or some idiotic Muslim who allowed Islamofascism to grow in their region likes me, don't you think?

Medved today published a column about why the world hates us.

Who Cares?

 

The adolescents of the West, which include American liberals, the UN, nearly all of

Western Europe and certainly Canada, live under standard adolescent mythology:

everything has always been as it is, and everything always will remain as it is. (This is

why we all have a cow over the price of gas, for example - it's more expensive than when

we first became aware of it (as adolescents) even though the cost of everything else has

increased tenfold and gas merely is catching up.)

 

Western Civ as it exists today has existed only since 1945. It is in this timeframe that

diseases have been cured, peoples fed by Western advances in farming (Green

Revolution of the 40s and 50s), computers invented, communications taken huge leaps

forward, etc.

 

And it was during only a part of this period that Europe, caught in a vise between the

Warsaw Pact and NATO, for the first time in its history stopped fighting with one another

for not quite 50 years. (And went back to fighting as soon as the Cold War rivalry ended,

btw.)

 

Adolescents think this all is normal and has always been around. And will never change.

 

Like Liberals who think the world always has been peaceful and the rights and liberties

of Western Civ always have been prevalent everywhere.

 

Like Liberals who find it "good" to "protect" recently-discovered Paleolithic peoples in the

Amazon or New Guinea, regardless of the fact we haven't discovered them before

because they are wracked by diseases, starvation and infant mortality – but, hey, we can't

help them, we'd be intruding on their prehistoric lifestyles and bringing them food,

medicine, etc.

As though our million-year-march to leisure time, books, communications,

stored food, transportation, etc., ought to be denied these peoples so they can be a living,

breathing, starving, dying-young museum for the leftists on their eco-tours.

 

But of course thinking people know better.

 

We also understand that there is nothing inevitable about the West. It can go in a

historical heartbeat if not protected and defended.

 

If there are those who benefit greatly from Western Civ, but who seem to mind not-at-all

that it's in trouble which may be mortal, who in fact want to destroy the only guarantor of

Western liberties and liberal traditions, who cares about them and their opinions? They

are too silly and adolescent to take seriously.

 

Medved ought to spend time on pointing out the value of Western Civ, particularly the

value placed on it by those attacking it the most, and stop being lazy by noting that some

idiots feel badly about us. He ought to spend time on the fact that Rod Paige was right

and that the West won’t get fixed unless that problem is acted on.

 

But the “feelings” of idiots and adolescents? Who cares?

 

 

I wish for my kids and theirs the rights and liberties we take for granted now. That will require one of two things, only one of which is in our control. The first is a Reformation within Islam. The second is the destruction of Islam.

While there certainly are voices speaking toward a reformation (read MEMRI.org), it is uncertain as to whether the Baby Boomer mulitcultis will have sown the seeds of final destruction within the West before that Reformation can occur - in which case it likely won't.

The last time a civilization was at this brink the Barbarians breached the gates of Rome and we got 1,000 years of the Dark Ages. There is no need to go through that again.

 

Decades ago Bill Cosby recorded a short comedy routine about Seattle. In the opening

minute he noted that in Seattle, “It rains AT LEAST 365 days a year. When the sun comes out

the natives look up nervously, asking, ‘what did we DO?’”

Riding the tram into Disneyland a few weeks ago I listened to a young man trying to

impress his date by telling her that the scientific consensus on Global Warming was,

“unanimous.” Good place for a fantastical claim.

This is the Global Warming crowd. Ignorant of the weather – which no one really

understands, including the head of the Climatology Department at MIT, author of a

recent Op-Ed in which he debunked most of the GW crowd’s theories while admitting

that no one really knows but the evidence is contrary to the current popular mythology.

And the GW crowd, like the denizens of Cosby’s Seattle, walk around, looking at

perfectly normal weather – hurricanes, storms, hot summers and cold winters – look up at

the sky and say, “what did we DO?”

The knee-jerk response of these brainwashed masses? Sign a treaty to drop the overall

global temperature 0.4 degrees C over the next century and pretend it’ll fix what they

think is a problem.

Never mind that these same liberals are the ones yammering about wages for the poor

and that complying with this treaty will cost the economy of the world trillions of dollars,

making the poor even poorer.

Never mind that a technology that can limit whatever warming exists, technology from

which their favorite nation, France, gets about 78% of its power, that is, nuclear power

plants, is prevented from being exploited by this same crowd.

And, like the pre-scientific society of Cosby’s Seattle looking for an

explanation, and blaming everything they don’t like on the current President, the fact of

the US not signing the Kyoto Treaty somehow is the fault of President Bush.

The intelligent people in the debate remember that the language of the Kyoto treaty was

submitted to the US Senate for a vote when Gore was the President of the Senate and

Clinton the President of the country, and an advisory vote taken. Before the American

delegation to Kyoto left the US.

The result of that August, 1997 vote? 95-0 against the treaty. All Democrats joined all

Republicans in rejecting the treaty.

How this has morphed into Bush’s fault, how we have gotten to the point at which the

popular wisdom is that Democrats would have passed it and saved the world, is a

remarkable comment on the media and the education system of the US, both in thrall to

mythology, neither taking advantage of current science or knowledge.

For to believe that Bush is the reason we don’t have Kyoto is to be ignorant of recent

history, too stupid to Google the issue, and too in thrall to the Luddite mythology of the

Democrats to realize what is going on in the real world.

These willfully uninformed liberals ought to go read a book, educate themselves on the

issues of the day, or go home and stop talking, writing and – most of all - voting.

For they are not moving the society forward. They are looking up at the sky and asking,

in their total ignorance, “What did we DO?”

 

In the article, “Clausewitz and World War IV,” Maj. General Scales (ret) has confused combat with war. They are not at all the same.

 

Combat is what occurs between armies of warring societies. Scales refers to Clausewitz several times, but misses that observer’s most important observation: That war is the continuation of politics by other means.

 

Rather than spending time and energy discussing winning wars, General Scales discusses winning battles.

 

Rather than enlightening the reader with the lesson that wars are political actions conducted by the forces organized, trained and equipped by a society, and that a war is a political action between societies, he writes of learning about the culture of an enemy and that future wars will be “intimate” and “brutal.”

 

It truly is unfortunate that Gen. Scales once taught future battlefield commanders, for he does not understand war.

 

The battlefield may indeed be, as he says, “psycho-cultural,” whatever that means, and combat may be “intimate,” but wars are not won or lost on battlefields. A battlefield victory is a means to an end, not the end itself.

 

Worrying about the culture of an opponent is fine in academia. Destroying the enemy, however, is what wins wars, regardless of their culture. No one sat around writing articles about the need to understand the Japanese or German cultures – they were all too busy winning the war to waste their time.

 

America never lost a single battle in Vietnam, not even the surprise Tet Offensive, or the first large fight against the NVA and overwhelming odds in the Ia Drang Valley.

 

But there is no question we lost the war.

 

Wars are concluded either by causing enough inconvenience to the enemy to quit the field, or by destroying the society with which one is at political odds to begin with.

 

America made the battlefield inconvenient for the British Empire in the American Revolution, again in the War of 1812; for Mexico in the Mexican War; for Spain in the Spanish American War, for the Germans in WWI. The Vietnamese made the battlefield inconvenient for us in Vietnam. In none of these wars was the enemy of the victor defeated.

 

America destroyed or collapsed the enemy society only in the Civil War and in WWII. These are the only wars America won. In the others the enemy simply left the field.

 

It is silly to think a modern industrial country can inconvenience a 7^th-Century tribe off the

battlefield. When espoused by one in a position to train or influence future military leaders, it is dangerous.

 

Defining theories of combat that are high-tech, low-tech or no-tech has nothing to do with war. These theories simply are ideas on how to manage a tool of policy in executing that policy.

 

It is the policy of the enemy – or of ourselves – that is changed through war. Killing a bunch of men on the field doesn’t do that. Never has. Never will.

 

Either that the enemy society must be destroyed, or we have decided the war is not worth the fight.

 

If we have not made that decision, if we have not decided that our political goals are more important than those of our enemy, we have no business forfeiting life and treasure.

 

Either way, the mono-cultural, Western ideas of limited warfare and of avoiding civilian deaths at all costs are theories of the battle that are not at all applicable to a multicultural war.

 

General Scales discusses high-tech tools of war. Again, he misses the mark. These are high-tech tools of combat. Frankly, we would be better off without them. Had we carpet-bombed Baghdad, as we did Berlin and Tokyo and other targets, we would be much farther along toward our goal. Why? The society would have been collapsed.

 

Who was a political, economic and military ally one generation after the pertinent war – Germany a generation after 1918, or the Germany and the Japan one generation after Hiroshima and Nagasaki and Dresden, Cologne and Berlin?

 

Why? Because in WWII we won the war. We collapsed the enemy society. We worried more about winning than about the culture or feelings of our enemy. Those leaders who had seen in the rise of the Third Reich from the ashes of Verdun, what happened when an enemy society was not destroyed, waged war – and destroyed their enemies.

 

If we are to win this war on terror, we must destroy our enemies.

 

Do we want to win?

 

I have been saying for over a decade that we are on the brink.

 

Once a society puts material comfort above controlling its borders, and entertainment

above education, it is done. Ask the Romans.

If a society doesn't educate its children for a long enough period of time, there is no

one left to do the educating. What followed last time was 1,000 years of the Dark Ages.

It is hard to find a future right now that doesn't come out that way.

We don't educate our kids - haven't for about two generations, now - or as long as the

teachers' unions have held sway. We don't control our borders.

More people vote for American Idol than for President.

Convince me that the Dark Ages aren't next, and give me your rationale as to why not?

I am coming to the idea  that the enemy of civilization is --- civilization.

 

Once we are so civilized that we can't imagine the thought process of killing with no

materialistic goal (money, land, etc), but only for primitive religious beliefs, then we are too

civilized to fight back against those who will, and necessarily will lose to them.

 

We can pretend all day long that we can win hearts and minds because of the wealth,

education and liberties that Western Liberal traditions and civilization have provided. But

when you look at a young woman in a Burkha in the United States holding a sign, “NO

FREEDOM,” you must realize that these hearts and minds do not think in Western ways

and cannot be won over.

 

We must accept that this is a multicultural war that cannot be fought with culturally

Western goals (limiting damage and death, making the denial of material comfort the

goal, trying to find a way to get along). When the enemy does not think that way, when

their goal is to convert or kill – which has been Islam’s goal throughout history,

hearts and minds cannot be won.

 

Fighting in a multicultural world means accepting the goals of other cultures – even when

fighting them. This, truly, is knowing your enemy.

 

We have had prisoners beheaded before, tortured, etc. By the Japanese in WWII. Other

cultures fight other ways. Other cultures think other ways. We traditionally fight

Europeans in European wars – WWI, ETO in WWII, etc. Other cultures are different, as

the multicultis point out. BTW, The Geneva Conventions were very much designed for European

wars. The Japanese never signed them.

 

Well, this means we must fight them their way, not ours. We must understand and accept

how they are driven and motivated by their goals. Our goal must be every bit as harsh as

theirs if we are to win - which means if we are to continue to exist as Westerners with all the

freedoms, liberties and liberal traditions we have developed over thousands of years.

I have no interest in bequeathing to my kids a 7th-century lifestyle.

 

We must destroy these people before they destroy us. As in my earlier post, wars are won

by inconveniencing the enemy or killing his society. We cannot do the former in this

fight. We must do the latter.

 

Time is running out. Or do you want YOUR children fighting these people in ten more

years?

 

Regarding the post below, War and Politics, I have been asked two questions: 1. What

about Muslims within Western cities, of whom there are millions, and, 2. Where to begin.

The tone of both was that perhaps nothing can be done against those Muslims living in

London or Paris, for example, or Los Angeles or Detroit. And, that, while it would be

nice to begin in Iran, terrorists are non-state actors.

 

The questions are excellent. But they assume an alternative to fighting this fanatical

tyranny. I am unaware of one not based in Western cultural mores -- e.g. assuming the

enemy has a goal which can be negotiated toward, met, and we can all get along. But that

is not a workable alternative. Using only Western assumptions to fight a civilizational

war will not work.

 

It seems at first glance that the query assumes, while not a silver bullet, a quick answer

and result. There isn't one.

 

While I agree that the enemy military forces – policy tools -- are non-state actors, the

enemy are the societies in which they prosper, and these societies are not non-state actors.

It is Iran that is equipping Hezbollah and Hamas. Saudi Arabia providing spiritual

guidance and money. Lebanon and Syria allowing transit to forces attacking democracy

and liberty.

 

Killing those states would necessarily lessen the violence against the West in the long

run. It would disrupt civilian support and financing, transport and travel. It likely also

would localize much of the violence temporarily, making more of the enemy easier to

destroy.

 

And it would show them we are deadly serious, something they know not to be the case

now.

 

Do we then have another Iraq guerrilla war, this time in Riyadh or Teheran? Recall my

statement about PGMs. Had we lacked PGMs and carpet-bombed Baghdad, we would be

much, much farther along toward our goal. War, not police action, is required. Three

years after Berlin and Hiroshima we were farther along than we now are in Baghdad, and

the weapons of war were the reason.

 

You also can’t have a guerrilla war in a city that has ceased to exist.

 

Where do we attack? Riyadh, Jeddah, Teheran first. If necessary perhaps Damascus,

Cairo. Perhaps even Jalalabad. These are the locus points of the enemy society. These

must be destroyed, both because that’s where the enemy is, and because not destroying

them would be like attacking Germany and Japan and not attacking Berlin and Tokyo - -

unserious and detrimental to the overall effort.

 

We were bombing Berlin and Tokyo long before we got to Germany or Japan with

ground forces. On our way to those capitals lots of other societies and peoples had to bear

the brunt of that fighting in their cities and towns because they had let the bad guys take

over - just as have the countries of Western Europe now. We very well may see urban

fighting, and perhaps on a large scale, in some Western cities.

 

Training in this war is done in Mosques and Madrassas – nearly all of which, as I

understand it, are funded by Saudis. All it takes to train a suicide bomber is to make

him/her a zealot - and then strap on a bomb. All it takes to blow a bunch of planes out of

the air is an OAG and a will -- and some liquid explosives. We're not talking about

D-Day-like logistics. Unless we keep waiting.

 

We also pretend that this war is "asymmetrical" in our favor and so treat it like a game

with statistics and general unseriousness – as though there is no question we will win;

that we need only set the parameters of the victory.

 

This is incorrect. Given the fact of inconvenience (terrorists will not leave this battlefield due to

the inconvenience of the fight - we will), it is asymmetrical in THEIR favor.

 

There is an excellent line in the book/movie “Gardens of Stone.” The veteran sergeant,

back from VietNam and now training new soldiers tells some recruits about VC attacking

a helo with bow and arrows. The recruits wonder how we can lose to people like that; the

sergeant looks at him and asks, “How can you beat people like that?” That, of course, is the

question of the age.

 

The logical first step in the West is to close all the mosques and madrassas and begin

deporting those who become violent about it. Can we suspend the First Amendment and

remain Americans? Lincoln dropped habeus corpus and saved America. FDR interned

100,000 Japanese-Americans. We have not ceased being Americans.

 

The biggest part of the problem is in treating Islam as a religion alone. It is not. It is a

competing form of government, a fanatically tyrannical one, one which also happens to

have a deity. Treating it solely as a religion in the Western sense is fundamentally

incorrect, and now is bordering on suicidal.

 

Limited warfare will not work: a modern society cannot drive barbarians from the

battlefield through inconvenience, period. (Limited war also is a Western concept

preached by multicultis who know no better, btw.)

 

At some point Teheran will have a bomb and blow up some Western city. At that point

this Republican president would blow up Teheran. (I really have no idea what a

Democrat or other Republican would do.)

 

In seriousness: why wait? It isn’t as though years and years of diplomacy have slowed

Iran’s nuclear quest. It isn’t as though they all will become Western Liberals once they

have the bomb. How many need to die because we won't act now?

 

Ahmadinejad already has told us what he’ll do with a bomb, just as did Hitler, in Mein

Kampf. Has he given us any reason to disbelieve him? Then why do we?

 

Waiting through the 1930s gave us 50M+ dead people. We had to go to war anyway. This

is the same – we’re in the ‘30s again, with a similarly ineffectual world body pretending

to knowledge. And a similarly elite Western civilization pretending there are alternatives

to war.

 

There aren’t.

 

As to Western cities, like London? Through inaction they have become the frog in the

pot. A frog tossed into a pot of boiling water, jumps out. A frog tossed into a pot of cold

water just placed on the stove swims around until it is cooked. Western society is

swimming in a pot that was cold until 1979 (thank you, Jimmy Carter), has been

heating up since, and now is coming to a boil. Are we going to realize it and jump out?

Or will our societies be the ones destroyed? Our military tool certainly cannot

be beaten, but our societies still can lose this war.

We never lost a single battle in VietNam, btw.

 

Like the frog, Western Europe probably has waited too long to jump out. Ask those living

in the suburbs of Paris or Amsterdam.

 

Given the enemy and its presence throughout the West, this war will result in hard

fighting, lots of deaths, and lots of disruption. Starting at the center, however, not only is

the only logical way to go, it is the only serious way to get started. You don't leave

in-place the capitals and monuments of the enemy as places of worship, symbols of purpose

or a boost of morale when you are trying to kill those societies. You destroy the

monuments. And you destroy the societies that erected them.

 

How demoralized would we be if an enemy began by destroying the monuments in DC?

Much more than if they left them for us to rally around - even if only symbolically.

 

One hopes and thinks that the destruction of Saudi Arabia and Iran (their governments

and cities, not their oil fields, which can be overtaken quickly by the huge numbers of

Western oil companies that would be ready, willing and able to do so under protection –

I am aware of the economic argument, as well), would presage the "coming out" of large

numbers of local terrorists in cities around the world, bringing them into the open to be

killed.

 

As in the 1930s, we have waited longer than we should have to deal with the situation –

but that does not mean it cannot, or must not be dealt with. It just will be more expensive

in blood and treasure than otherwise could have been the case with mature leadership,

civilizational confidence, and an educated franchise in the US.

 

I was asked this morning, "What do they want?" Very simple - they want what Islam

historically has wanted when it has encountered infidels - death or conversion. “Getting

along” is not on their agenda. They have no other goals – no treasure they desire, no land

they need, no resources they lack and want.

 

Just as Hitler wanted war and did everything he could to get it, Islamists want war - and

are waging it now.

 

And the longer we wait, the more expensive it will become. This fight isn’t going away.

Why don’t liberals want Roe overturned?

 Stick with me here for a sec…

 Assume for a moment that the Court finally overturns Roe.. Then what?

 
Prior to Roe most states were moving toward legalization of abortion. Ronald Reagan,

when CA Governor, in fact, signed what was at the time the most liberal abortion

legislation in the country.

 

So – let’s say Roe is overturned by a conservative Court. The issue will go to the state

legislatures. The legislatures, in vast majority - perhaps all 50 of them, will pass

legislation legalizing abortion. Since half – or more -- of their voters are women, and

since there are zero women in America of child-bearing age who have never NOT had

access to legal abortion, to think that legislators accountable to the voters will prohibit it

argues against logic. They won’t.

 

But that just returns us to the current status quo, right? So why would liberals be for it?

 

Because it will undercut hugely the far right of the GOP. Those social conservatives will

have little left on which to hang their hats. The moderates in the GOP, of which there are

far more than the media or the blogosphere fantasize, would throw the social

conservatives under the bus.

 

Why don’t liberals want to splinter the GOP?

 

How about because of the large numbers of moderates among the Demos, who vote Demo

only because of abortion? They might all leave that party, join with the moderate GOPers

and form a new party – solid on defense, moderate on social policy.

Like Jack Kennedy's party. And Harry Truman's. And FDR's.

 

And the country will be exactly where we were until VietNam, campaign “reform” and

the takeover of both party’s agendas by the shrill voices on the far extents of their

parties… like those who just ran Lieberman outta town.

 

This would leave the Kososians and MoveOn crowd out in the cold.

 

It also would create a more intelligent discussion of issues, and a more thoughtful society.

 

Just a thought.

Great. Now we can’t travel carry-on-only due to restrictions on all liquids and gels due to

yet another bunch of Islamofascist terrorists.

 

Americans travel around the world doing business, spreading ideas, creating wealth,

creating jobs, spreading freedom. Does anyone else do this? Not really. Europeans create

basically no jobs. When they run around the world they spread arrogance, not jobs,

liberty and wealth. Some Asians do, but mostly they are traveling to America to do it.

 

Now it will be harder for Americans – and anyone else wanting to do business – to get

business done. The rest of the world will suffer more than will America, of course, but

we will suffer, too.

 

Here’s an idea: Decide that freedom, liberty, education, Western Liberal traditions, all are

more important than some 7th-century civilization, and quarantine them instead of

quarantining everyone else in the world every time we want to go somewhere, do

something, create jobs, wealth or opportunity.

 

This has to be addressed. Muslim terror has to stop. It cannot be stopped through

 namby-pamby hearts-and-minds nonsense. If they won’t reform themselves, if they

won’t wage peace on their populations and mosques and schools, then we can wage

peace with a vengeance and leave ‘em all Resting In Peace.

 

Then the rest of the world – that part living in the modern age – can get back to work,

travel, play and the creation of opportunity in modern lands.

 

There are those who believe, against all historical evidence, that “war never solves

anything.” This is historically inaccurate. War liberated the US from Britain. War

repelled the invasion of South Korea. War liberated Belgium and France from Germany –

twice within 35 years. War rescued the remaining Jews, Gays, Communists and others

Hitler was gassing. War freed the peoples of East Asia and the Pacific Islands from the

Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere of the Japanese. Without exception, the countries

liberated from the AXIS in WWII are better off than they had been.

 

In fact, those major international issues that have not been solved by war are far fewer

than those that have.

 

Those who would put sanctions over war misunderstand the nature of sanctions. Many

studies have demonstrated that sanctions are far harder on a country than is a war. Who

and what are hurt via sanctions? Women, children, infrastructure, education, health. Who

is not affected by sanction? The military and civilian leaders who created the policy

against which the sanctions have been placed. War, on the other hand, in recent history

(the same recent history in which serious sanctions have been tried), results in fewer lives

lost among the civilian population, less economic hardship over time, and a more-rapidly-

repaired infrastructure.

 

In short, if you care about your enemy’s populace, you fight him;

if you don’t care about your enemy’s populace, you sanction him.

From: http://www.casi.org.uk/discuss/1999/msg00123.html

ECONOMIC SANCTIONS AS A WEAPON OF MASS DESTRUCTION

 Excerpts from an essay by Roger Normand, Policy Director, Center for 

Economic and Social Rights

 There are a number of reasons why economic sanctions have become a 

favored foreign policy tool in the post-Cold War era. Sanctions provide 

the US with a relatively cost-free mechanism for defining the 

boundaries of acceptable international behavior and punishing regimes 

that, in the American view, cross the line. Sanctions do not require 

Congressional approval and do not attract much public attention, 

thereby minimizing the government's accountability to domestic 

politics. And in today's global economy, with most countries dependent 

on access to international markets, sanctions have more bite than ever 

before. This is especially true for comprehensive sanctions, which 

isolate a country from all foreign trade and investment.

 It is commonly believed that sanctions are a humane alternative to 

war. But this is a misconception. Both sanctions and war are forms of 

organized violence that cause people in the targeted country to suffer 

and die in order to achieve certain political objectives. Economic 

violence is a humane alternative to military violence only if one 

believes that it is more humane to die from hunger than from a bomb. 

 In fact, there are several reasons why war may sometimes be a humane 

alternative to sanctions [emphasis mine – DGC]. The resort to war 

generally attracts intense public scrutiny and a certain level of vocal 

opposition, and therefore must be politically justified at every turn. 

Moreover, the pain of war is usually felt on both sides of the 

conflict, even if one country holds the military advantage. In 

addition, war is limited and regulated by international law, albeit 

imperfectly. Military attacks are supposed to be directed against 

legitimate targets such as the opposing army or political leaders, and 

may not cause disproportionate civilian casualties. Carpet bombing an 

entire city in order to kill its leaders or "change their behavior" is 

a clear violation of the laws of war, as is causing civilian starvation 

through blockade.

 Of course, these limiting factors have not gone far towards reducing 

the horrors of war. Yet it is significant that even these weak 

constraints are absent in the case of economic sanctions. Sanctions are 

not generally viewed as subject to human rights law or even the laws of 

war. Sanctions generate very little public attention, since soldiers do 

not risk their lives and television does not provide instant coverage. 

Most importantly, by depriving the entire targeted country of 

resources, comprehensive sanctions take the greatest toll on the 

poorest and weakest sectors of society (minorities, women, and 

children) rather than on political or military elites.

 Iraq is a case in point. Eight years of comprehensive sanctions have 

not affected the nature or behavior of the Iraqi regime. Any temporary 

gains in dismantling weapons of mass destruction (which can always be 

reconstituted later) are dwarfed by the staggering human costs. Well 

over half a million Iraqi civilians, many of them children, have been 

killed by hunger and disease brought on by economic collapse. A 

civilian death toll of this magnitude during the US-led war against 

Iraq in 1991 would have provoked public revulsion and been denounced as 

a violation of international law. But what would have been unacceptable 

in war has passed almost without notice because economic violence kills 

people quietly, in homes and hospitals, beyond the glare of television 

cameras.

 

 

I find myself beginning to be bemused at the constant (for a decade or more) refrain that

we "celebrate diversity."

 

I can't seem to find that anywhere. Presidents’ Day? No. Easter? No. Memorial Day? July

4th? Thanksgiving? Christmas? No.

 

We celebrate one of two things on these days: Being an American or our Christian

heritage.

 

Where, exactly, do we "celebrate diversity?" Labor Day? On that day we celebrate those

who have come to America, have joined our culture of the free market, democracy and

capitalism, and have made their way by successfully producing goods or supplying

services for others who have done the same. It is a celebration of assimilation, not of

diversity.

 

Has America been made stronger by diversity? Yes -- but only following assimilation of

the people bringing the diverse thoughts and ideas. We don't celebrate diversity - at least

we never have - for its own sake. We have always been about merit, and that is what is

celebrated by the American Dream.

 

In one moment, mainstream America is told that America always has been made strong

by our diversity. In the next, that America is a country of white racists and male sexists

who have ruined the continent, “native” peoples, and the world at large. These

accusations flow from the same people. How can the same mind hold at the same time

these competing thoughts?

 

The argument, however, works both ways.

 

Immigrants from other cultures have brought much to our country. Immigrants are the

reason America is now and will continue to be a vibrant economy as the remainder of the

West slips into economic irrelevancy. How does one natter about closing American

borders and yet comment positively on our economic dynamism? How does one mind

hold these competing thoughts?

 

Immigration is not the issue; it is lack of assimilation, which returns us to

“multiculturalism.”

 

What matters not is diversity of skin color, physical characteristics over which none of us

have control; what matters are new and diverse goals and new and different ideas on how

to achieve them. Immigrants bring to our shores these new and diverse goals and ideas, in

short, their cultures. They learn from those already here of our goals and ideas, our

culture. Some ideas new to each cultural group are accepted, some are rejected. From this

amalgam comes a successful culture, country and people: A successful culture, not

multiple successful cultures. (This once was called a “melting pot,” but that has lost

favor.)

 

Outside America the West is in serious and probably irreversible economic decline. The

native non-American West is depopulating itself in a historical race to extinction.

Economic irrelevancy is but a step on the path already chosen, and from which no return

seems likely. In large part this is due to a lack of assimilation of new ideas, and the

requirement for convenience over racial sustainability.

 

If one is charged higher and higher taxes to pay for more and more services for new

arrivals not assimilating into the culture and not making their way educationally and

economically, and if one has the convenience of state-funded abortion to lessen the

number of children and their economic impact on a family bearing this increasing burden

of taxation to support non-assimilating immigrants, racial sustainability loses out to

convenience.

 

Europe, through the submergence of cultures, independent economies and

decision-making into a monolithic federation yet to be fully birthed, but already showing

signs of totalitarianism, still pretends to relevancy, but the rest of the world knows this is

a sham. As it depopulates it will become more shrill, and more dangerous.

 

Some view Europe on its way to extinction as the model for a multicultural future.

Europe’s future may indeed be what is considered “multicultural,” by many, but that will

be due to the diminishment to insignificance of those who initially settled the lands and

created governments of laws, rights and liberties, and the rise of a non-native population

neither versed in, nor believing in, the Western rights and liberties “multiculturalists”

take for granted.

 

By and large, Conservative Americans have reached complete agreement with Dr.

King’s, “I have a dream” speech, easily one of the most important speeches in Western

History. By and large, Liberals still requiring evaluating success by the color of one’s

skin.

 

Which is the party of the “multiculturalist” preaching “diversity”? The party which

accepts and ignores physical differences and treasures a diversity of thought and culture

(what is culture but national thought?), or the party that rejects and ignores diversity of

thought and culture and treasures only physical differences? One would think the

“multiculturalist” would be the former. One would be wrong.

 

But is it really the color of one’s skin that ought to frame the diversity argument? Ought

it frame by default the multicultural argument? (Few argue that Sweden or England are

cultures to be emulated to make ourselves more “multicultural.” The argument for

multiculturalism rests on cultures of non-white peoples.)

 

But what does this mean in the political context of today?

 

Do “multiculturalists” support the denial of rights to women? No. Yet there are no

non-Western cultures that recognize these rights. Indeed, the half of the West living in

southern Europe and South America doesn’t support these rights. Demanding women’s

rights across the globe and across cultures is not “multiculturalism.” It is quite simply

American imperialism.

 

Do “multiculturalists” support the rights and liberties enshrined in our Constitution, rights

such as freedom of speech and assembly, to petition our government, to a speedy trial by

a jury of our peers without being forced to incriminate ourselves? Of course they do.

 

There are no non-Western countries that support these rights, or many others of our

culture. Many western countries deny them, as well. Again, requiring of others what

American culture claims to be self-evident, and what American culture views as

absolutely basic, is not “multiculturalism.” It is American imperialism.

 

Others will vehemently deny these facts and call names, but they will be unable to tell

you why American rights and liberties (our culture) ought to be replicated everywhere

across the globe, and why multiculturalism is a good thing, at the same time. This is the

same argument that our country is great because of diversity, but simultaneously racist

and sexist, applied on a global scale.

 

They will be unable to tell you why diverse peoples do everything they can, legal and

illegal, to come to our culture and leave behind theirs. These people will tell you

immigrants are not leaving behind their culture but are coming to America for a better

chance.

 

What provides this better chance is our culture. Other than our culture, what makes

America the destination of so many? Our weather?

 

 

Let's begin in 1800 and go through 11/30/04, and let's skip the Civil War –

Demos attacked Repubs, but let's leave it out. (Doing so doesn't change the

conclusions.)

 

Given duration and KIA, (D) Administrations kill American military personnel at a

rate of 2,040 per month; (R) at 49 per month. In the same amount of time, in

other words, (D) kill 42 times as many Americans as do (R). And (D) have had

America at war more than twice as long as (R). Of our time as a Republic,

roughly 2,760 months, (D) have had us at war 7% of the time, (R) only 3% of the

time.

 

Of these wars, America was attacked by the British in 1812, the Japanese in

WWII. In all others American forces were introduced into combat by a President

of the party indicated, when America had NOT been attacked - including the

European theater of WWII.

 

If we remove KIA for WWII because I don't know the split between Europe

(where we were not attacked) and Japan (where we were), then (D) KIA are

136,266, and GOP KIA are 3,987. So without WWII, (D) still kill 34 times as many

American military as (R).

 

And, of course, it was a Democrat in the White House who dropped the nuke on

Japan – twice.

 

And here's where the fun really begins. Less than 1% of American KIA were

killed in a war entered into by a (R) president. But the demos call the (R) the

"War Party." And the "anti-war" folks all are (D). Hilarious, isn't it? Oh, yeah, and

when a (D) gets us into a war he can't get us out of, a (R) manages to do so

(Eisenhower, Nixon).

 

(I left out the Revolutionary War for what seem obvious reasons, but just for

grins, remember when Pres. Jimmy said it was one of our bloodiest wars? 55

KIA/mo ranks it 9th-least bloody (out of 11); 4,435 KIA is 8th-least. Moron.)

 

Go to http://www.cwc.lsu.edu/cwc/other/stats/warcost.htm ... if you want all the

stats.

 

 

Heckuva commentary on education in America, isn’t it? Go wig out your

friends....

 

Whether or not one admires the policies of our current President or GOP-led Congress,

the question of follow-through grows with every new policy proposal. Lack of follow-

through in the previous GOP administration helped ensure its single term. Lack of

follow-through now may turn the Congress over to the Democrats this Fall, and the

Presidency to them in 2008. 2,500 miles away in Sacramento the same question exists

regarding a star GOP governor. Is it systemic?

 

The GOP was voted into power in 1994 largely on a promise to reform and reduce

government, making it more accountable. Instead, they have made it bigger and less

accountable. They have not followed-through.

 

Bush 41 did not go to Baghdad when it was the logical follow through to Gulf I. As the

party leader it was his responsibility to ensure a succession strategy to continue the

policies of his party. He campaigned on no new taxes. He followed through on none of

these. So we handed him his walking papers.

 

Bush 43 has made numerous policy pronouncements. His lack of follow through,

however, has been startling.

 

Reforming Social Security? His lack of fighting for what he says he believes has left it

short even of the starting gate.

 

Reforming K-12 education? Even ultra-liberal San Francisco has outstripped Bush in

school choice and budgetary reform.

 

Reforming an activist judiciary? Was nominating someone as unfit as Harriet Meiers

rather than renominating a Justice Rogers-Brown follow-through of judicial reform? Was

not fighting against the Gang of 14, follow-through on what Conservatives sent him to

Washington to do?

 

The war on terror? Why did it take two tries to get Fallujah right? Why are we not

fighting to win? Where is the follow-through? The wars we have won were conducted

ruthlessly on the field of combat, were fought to unconditional surrenders, accepted

millions of civilian casualties, and resulted in free democratic states around the globe;

what we say we want. The citizens of those countries are freer, happier and wealthier

than ever before in their histories. So why can Bush not figure this out, fight to win,

accept civilian casualties, and follow through?

 

Does anyone seriously believe that being nice to an enemy citizenry will help us win?

Are the citizens in Iraq happy now that we are nice to them while they still are being

slaughtered because we have yet to follow through and kill their domestic and foreign

enemies? Or do we not really want to win? If we are going to expend blood and treasure,

don't we need to follow through and kill the bad guys? Our efforts to save civilian lives

have resulted only in civilian deaths caused by our joint enemy blowing up Iraqis and

Americans on a daily basis.

 

How about his own succession? The most important legacy that can be left by a

freely-elected president is to ensure continuation of the policies that got him elected. This

is done by preparing the ground for a successor in a similar mold. So why is no

succession strategy evident? Because he does not think he needs one? Because he does

not want his policies continued? Because he does not believe what he says? Are there any

other answers?

 

2,500 miles away in California the same issue of follow through exists. Star-power

Governor Schwarzenegger made a big show of going around a Legislature widely viewed

as obstructionist, got four major propositions on the 2004 ballot, and then went MIA

during the campaign. He did not follow-through; each proposition failed. Did he just not

really believe in them?

 

Three powerful GOP leaders and a GOP Congress. Nearly twenty years of responsibility.

No follow through. Why is this good for America? Given our place in the world, why is

this good for the world? What is the GOP going to do about it?

 

Do we need to bring the other party back to power to see if they believe in what they say

enough to follow-through? Does the GOP have a serious answer to that question?

 

Or will we hand them their walking papers?

 

 

We Californians have become accustomed to a broad economic climate, one not

dependent on any particular industry for our economic health. Across this economic base,

however, the jobs with the fastest wage and salary employment growth, the

fastest-growing occupations, and the occupations with the largest job growth, already

have left California. There is no reason to expect them back. The report by the Bureau of

Labor Statistics on job growth 2000 – 2010 (Economic and Employment Projections,

2000 – 2010, http://stats.bls.gov/news.release/ecopro.toc.htm), is – or should be –

disturbing reading for all Californians.

 

Within Industries with the fastest wage and salary employment growth, Computer and

Data Processing takes 1st place, adding 1.8 Million new jobs, an average annual rate of

increase of 6.4%.

 

Seven of the ten places in the Fastest growing occupations are: Computer software

engineers – applications (1), Computer support specialists (2), Computer software

engineers - systems software (3), Network and computer system administrators (4),

Network systems and data communications analysts (5), Database administrators (7), and

Computer systems analysts (9).

 

In Occupations with the largest job growth, Computer Support specialists ranks 5th with

490,000 new jobs (a 97% increase), and Computer software engineers – applications,

ranks 9th, with 380,000 new jobs (a 100% increase).

 

California is known around the world for high tech and Information Technology (IT),

though, so why is this a problem?

 

Because while large amounts of high tech are invented in California, implementation of

IT occurs elsewhere. Virtually no large companies are headquartered in California any

longer to implement these technologies and provide these jobs. Only ten of the Fortune

100 companies are headquartered in California, and only seven have even some of their

IT operations in the state, the home of 12% of the global economy.

 

System and application software jobs are performed where large data centers are located.

Network and System Administrators, and Computer Support Specialists are where the

computers are. The same is true of Network Systems Analysts, Data Communications

Analysts, and virtually all other computer-related jobs, including the high paying IT

consulting and Project Management careers within the major consulting companies.

 

Fortune 100 companies either writing their own application systems or implementing

some of the more complex commercial applications in the marketplace do the

preponderance of system and application development, implementation and support.

Contrary to office workers’ applications, installation of these complex systems is not via

CD. Rather, it takes hundreds of IT specialists months or years to install a PeopleSoftÒ,

SAPÒ, or OracleÒ system.

 

The pursuit of a high-tech career is the obvious choice for anyone looking at the

projected growth of the labor market. The college graduates who will be pursuing those

careers will be doing so in states other than California.

 

While the policies of what the Wall Street Journal has listed as the most

business-unfriendly state in the nation may today help those on the lower end of the

economic ladder, it is evident that the wealth our politicians continuously seek to

redistribute will continue to leave the state, helping no Californians.

 

Unless we fix our business policies, businesses will continue to leave California, taking

with them good paying jobs and careers. Leaving with those careers will be educated

young parents agitating for higher quality schools, further dropping any residual

attractiveness California may hold. Real estate prices will follow. The tax base required

to support California’s myriad social programs will be lost.

 

The major job growth in the United States, across all areas of measure, will not be

happening in California. Given our deplorable schools, our over-regulation of business,

and the lack of high-paying careers, the future of California is not bright.

 

Our ability to fix the problem seems limited. Democrats pander to those on the receiving

end of wealth redistribution and to those running our appalling public schools.

Republicans refuse to put up a viable candidate due to their insane stands on abortion (it’s

here to stay – get over it) and homosexuality (it’s always been here – get over it).

 

Someone had better be looking at the real issues. California is in a ditch: No jobs, no

education, no future. No kidding.