Congratulations to South Sudan, the World's newest Nation

South Sudan President Salva Kiir, wearing the hat given to him by George Bush

Nationhood for the beleaguered people of Southern Sudan seemed a distant fantasy a few years ago, when Muslim Janjaweed routinely raped, robbed and murdered southern animists and Christians by the tens of thousands. Even more incredible, the UN has declared Sudan president and bloody tyrant Omar Hassan Ahmad Al-Bashir a war criminal guilty of genocide.

All this with nary one US boot on the ground.  It was a shared marshaling of moral and political force, as well as some money to pay for the African UN peacekeepers 

The United States gains a great ally with the birth of the Republic of Southern Sudan.

It is a largely Christian nation whose official language is now English. It sits at a strategic mid-point in east Africa along the banks of the Nile. Many Sudanese sought asylum in the United States when the civil war was ongoing. There is a deep affinity between our two nations, despite the distance.

As his trademark, President Salve Kiir proudly wears a black cowboy hat given to him by President George W. Bush. Likewise, President Obama is revered, at least in part because he made stopping the genocide in Darfur one of his signature issue during the time he was in the Senate.  (Daily Beast)

This is a victory we can all enjoy:  The UN as well as the UN bashers.  Liberals like Bono, George Clooney, and Nicholas Kristof, as well as Republican George Bush, who does not get enough credit from liberals (other than Bob Geldoff) for what he's done for Africa.

Most of all, it is a victory for the people of South Sudan, who now have a place they can call their own.  To paraphrase Ben Franklin, they have a republic, if they can keep it.  There are nefarious forces who will work hard for their failure.  I hope the US and Europe will continue to push hard against those evil forces, and I will pray for the people of South Sudan. 

CBS - US Welcomes Birth of a New Nation
FOX - South Sudan Celebrates Birth
NY Times  - South Sudan becomes New Nation

Bad Medicine

 

H/T to an old war buddy who's still in the game

Czar of Chaos

Creating Chaos… and turning chaos into a new order

Many conservatives miss the mark when evaluating this administration’s actions. We want to believe Obama really wants to do the right thing, but is simply misguided from his liberal past.

The truth is he wants to tear down our current system and implement his own. It’s not a matter of degrees of opinion on the future of this country; but instead a fundamental philosophy that desires to tear down the old system, then usher in a new socialist one.

In almost every area of federal oversight we can see Obama working to create problems in order to bring about a public reaction – with a liberal solution waiting in the wings. From banning offshore oil drilling to massive federal borrowing we see this administration sowing the seeds of trouble and chaos.

Meet Cloward and Piven

From the beginnings of the Progressive Movement it was seen to remake America into a “better” society, certain bulwarks had to be removed. Family ties, Christianity, the Constitution, and American culture as a whole had to be razed to the ground before a Socialist America could be constructed. In other words, the system had to be crashed. Then order out of the chaos.

The theory of creating a new order out of chaos was described by two liberal professors out of Columbia University named Cloward and Piven. The thrust of the theory was to overload the governmental system with welfare freeloaders, and out of that tumult a new socialist order could be constructed. Subvert… destroy… and then rebuild.

We can see this at work during the Great Depression. A created financial crisis… national suffering… a New Deal… and soon most Americans were suckling the government teat. According to Alan Simpson, “Social Security is a cow with 310 million tits!”

Speaking of the Great Depression, it was a manufactured crisis. Ben Bernanke admitted as much when speaking of the Federal Reserve of the 1920’s: “We did it… very sorry, won’t do it again”. The same names were at it then as today: the Federal Reserve and Goldman Sachs.

A Senate staffer recently told me a month ago the system was going to financially collapse. All of us around the table were slack-jawed to get this from officialdom.

The collapse of the entitlement state is coming into view. This year Social Security began to borrow to pay current retirees. To balance the federal budget without cutting Social Security or Medicare poses no obvious solution.

We have passed the point of being able to pay off our debts. All that is left is to wait for the collapse and a massive devaluation of the dollar.

I’ve never expected to collect social security and but a fraction of my military retirement. Instead, I’ve invested in hard assets like land, buildings, precious metals, and even base metals (like lead in 7.62 mm diameter).

Problem / Reaction / Solution

A societal manipulation technique by those in power is to first define an end-state solution. Then a problem is created (by a bureaucracy or useful idiots) that alarms the population and leads them to the end-state solution.

We can see this administration is adept at supporting rabble-rousers and troublemakers, from union thugs in Wisconsin to the Muslim Brotherhood. The administration even sent out Jimmy Carter and the DNI to exclaim the “Muslim Brotherhood is secular”. That doesn’t even pass the giggle test.

This President is still a community organizer at heart. I believe he wants to create a climate of financial chaos in order to usher his version of a New Deal II. A climate where the American people will cry out for a new solution. I believe the solutions Obama will offer will shred the Constitution.

Don’t fall for the Hegelian Dialectic, as fellow blogger Rev. Gregori reminds us. Let your fellow citizens know that a crisis usually doesn’t just happen, but is made to happen with a goal in mind. Fight back by supporting conservative causes that stall the “solution” offered by the administration. Write your congress-critter. Slow the beast down. Stall the plan. Frustrate The Man.

The Problem / Reaction / Solution process has a shelf-life. If it is slowed down, and the American people are educated, the whole dialectic falls apart. Those apologists for the “solution” are seen for the destructive individuals they are. They then will have a choice: shrink into the shadows or become oppressive. If they become oppressive, the mask is finally off and even more Americans will be woken up.

Hegelian Dialectic: "If you want to take total control over large populations, first you devise a solution to a problem that does not exist. Once you know that your solution will work, you then cause or allow the problem (or incident), for which you devised your solution, to take place so that you can implement your solution."

A question: Is there a group using Liberals as useful idiots to destroy America, in order to bring in something quite different than Socialism?

- Hugh Farnham

photo chop courtesy of Chicago Ray

Raping America

Strauss Kahn is still a pig, by all accounts, but we knew that already.  International organizations are rife with oligarchic ass-pinchers, pedophiles, rapists, shakedown artists and thieves.

Regardless, what happened in that Sofitel hotel room between him and the maid has been called into question.  Kahn's defense team admits they had sex, but they insist it was consensual (how would you like to face your wife with that defense?  "Honest honey, I'm not a rapist!  It was consensual!")

Europeans smelled a setup from the start, and it looks like they were right.  First the phone call from the alleged victim to her criminal boyfriend, in immigration lockup, where she told him, "Don’t worry, this guy has a lot of money. I know what I’m doing,"

Prosecutors then discovered...

...she had lied about her immigration, about being gang raped in Guinea, about her experiences in her homeland and about her finances, according to two law enforcement officials. She had been linked to people suspected of crimes. She changed her account of what she did immediately after the encounter with Mr. Strauss-Kahn.

She lied to gain asylum in this country:

The housekeeper also told investigators that she had been gang raped in Guinea.

She described soldiers destroying the home where she lived with her husband, and said they were both beaten because of their opposition to the regime. She said her husband died in jail.

But then, in a subsequent interview with Manhattan prosecutors, she said the story was false, one she had been urged to tell by a man.

She lied about her financial status to scam benefits from the government:

In recent weeks, investigators collected bank records showing deposits of thousands of dollars in Arizona, Georgia, New York and Pennsylvania to an account in her name.
The woman had repeatedly said that the Sofitel was her only source of income.

The district attorney’s office said the woman had lied about her income to maintain her public housing, and had claimed a friend’s child as her own dependent to increase her tax refund.

So regardless of whether she attempted to shakedown DSK, she has definitely scammed the United States of America and We the People.  We should deport her back to Guinea.

Uncle Stupid's Gonna Take Care of You...

Reading through this chain of fraud and lies, I see a common thread:  Stupid immigration policies that let in cigarette bandits, dope peddlers, welfare cheats and devout Muslim prostitutes.  We let people in because they know how to concoct a good heartsob story, and we're a soft touch.  Too many "victims" then use their privileged status in The Land of The Free and Home of the Brave to conduct criminal activities.

This is why immigration, and even asylum, should be conditional, for five to ten years.  Anything more than a traffic ticket and you're out.  This woman should be stripped of any status we granted her and deported back to Guinea.

NYT - Strauss-Kahn Accuser
Maid Cleaning up as Hooker

Coercion is the Cornerstone of Progressivism

Obama Orders Regulatory Reform

When I saw this news item, my immediate question was, "what are they up to?"  The President can't be serious.  He and his statist minions love regulations!  The bigger and more complex, the better!

Leftists love regulating the lives of others.  They get a perverse pleasure from it.  Go try to comment on your average lefty blog.  You will quickly meet up with a giddy little potentate who has her twitchy finger on the delete button, ready to scold you for your offensive rightwing hatred.

Statism and Coercion Go Hand in Hand

Progressivism is not statism, but statism is the vehicle progressives have chosen to advance their agenda.  Friedrich Hayek rightly observed that governmental grand schemes logically lead the government to become increasingly dictatorial.  It must if it is to enforce the order.   The people have got to cooperate for the schemes to work.  The grander and more numerous the government projects, the more dictatorial coercion is required...

• Obama bars Boeing barred from expanding manufacturing to North Carolina
• The Federal Government forces you to buy into their healthcare scheme
• Taxpayer money is handed to Ethanol millionaires
• Congress bans the incandescent bulb
• In times of austerity in states, cities and private homes, a tentacular federal government stubbornly refuses to rein in programs, and instead recklessly increases spending and regulation
• The federal government responds to acts of terrorism by treating its own citizens as criminals 

Meanwhile, the clanking, soulless federal monster has set about destroying the value of our currency and now talks of government-private sector partnerships to "get the economy working."   It didn't work in the Soviet Union and it wont work here.

Here is what will work, for indeed it has always worked since time immemorial:

Remove the roadblocks to economic activity which are taxes, regulation, barriers to trade, and cheap, unstable money.  (John Tamney - An Entirely Predictable Economic Dip)

Our Economic Emperors Have No Clothes

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke admits he doesn't "have a precise read on why this slower pace of growth is persisting." He is only our latest economic emperor revealed as having no clothes.

It apparently takes a tenured Princeton economics department chairman not to understand what the average Joe knows only too well - that an $800 billion-plus stimulus that didn't stimulate on top of Washington turning the mortgage industry into a welfare program isn't something the jobs market can easily recover from.  (IBD - Fall of Economic High Priests)

So, What Would Fix It?

As economic historian Thomas Woods points out in his book on the financial crisis, "Meltdown," a few bankruptcies of too-big-to-fail firms would do more to jolt the financial sector "into being sensible and cautious instead of reckless and irresponsible than all the regulatory tinkering in the world."

A free economy doesn't need an elite of government high priests named Bernanke or Greenspan or Rubin or Summers to reach and maintain the greatness that has marked most of U.S. economic history. It needs protection from such arrogant figures.  (IBD - Fall of Economic High Priests)

This Weekend Brought to You by a Long Line of Patriots

Happy 4th of July!

Here are some quotes to get this patriotic weekend started...

A free people claim their rights as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of their chief magistrate.
-- Thomas Jefferson, Rights of British America, 1774


But a Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty, once lost, is lost forever.
-- John Adams


I like to see a man proud of the place in which he lives. I like to see a man live so that his place will be proud of him.
-- Abraham Lincoln


Government's first duty is to protect the people, not run their lives.
-- Ronald Reagan


Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same.
-- Ronald Reagan

Enjoy the long weekend, but please pause to remember those who fought and died to make that enjoyment possible. Also, say a prayer for the over 100,000 Americans celebrating this Independence Day far from our shores.  Many of them are voluntarily in harms way.  Freedom is never free.

It Has Always Been The Soldier

It is the soldier,
not the President who gives us democracy.
It is the soldier,
not the Congress who takes care of us.
It is the soldier,
not the Reporter who has given us Freedom of Press.
It is the soldier,
not the Poet who has given us Freedom of Speech.
It is the soldier,
not the campus Organizer who has given us the
Freedom to Demonstrate.
It is the soldier,
who salutes the flag;
who serves beneath the flag,
and whose coffin is draped by the flag,
that allows the protester to burn the flag.
(Father Dennis O'Brien, US Marine Corp. Chaplain)

http://www.foundingfathers.info/
http://www.vfwpost1503.org/it's_the_soldier.html

4th of July Weekend - Afghanistan

Please forgive the self-indulgence of this post, but since that one 4th of July weekend back in 2005 at Bagram Air Base, Afghanistan, Independence Day will always hold special meaning for me.

I was up there to work on an ASOC air to ground system that had been giving us lots of problems.

The frenetic search for Navy SEAL "Lone Survivor" Marcus Luttrell was on-going.  I was not involved in the effort, but I talked with those who were when I had to go into the Joint Operations Center to troubleshoot and test the operator console end of the communications system I was working on.  It added extra urgency to what we were doing.

I also stood on the flightline that evening, with everyone else, tears in our eyes and saluting, as they loaded the flag draped caskets containing the bodies of the SEALS who had died trying to rescue Petty Officer Luttrell.  The Taliban had a golden BB moment, shooting a rocket into the open door of the helicopter before the rescuers could unload.  It was the greatest single-day loss of Special Forces troops in the history of the United States.

Navy SEAL Petty Officer Danny Dietz

Two 4th of July's later, I stood with my wife and kids in Littleton, Colorado.  The city dedicated a park, along with a bronze statue, to fallen hero and Navy Seal Petty Officer Danny Dietz, one of Luttrell's SEAL team members who died in Operation Redwing.  His remains were recovered by Combat Search and Rescue on the 4th of July, 2005

I was just a support troop, but I was there.  Regardless of what the critics say, our efforts there were noble.  Like every war, the politicians screwed it up.  Our fighting forces were tactically brilliant but our government was strategically stupid.   Getting the hell out does no disrespect to those who have fought and died there.  They were selfless heroes who fought to give Afghans a shot at a better life.  We did our part and it's not our fault if the people failed to grasp the opportunity we presented them.

Mark Steyn sums up my feelings.  We should leave...

...the mullahs, warlords, poppy barons, and pederasts to have at each other without the distraction of extravagant NATO reconstruction projects littering their beautiful land of charmingly unspoilt rubble.

After the C-17 took off with the caskets, I wandered by the pax terminal and took this picture of the back wall.  I don't know who painted it, but it sums things up beautifully

Caption:
This is a tribute to all who have fallen during Operation Enduring Freedom
Live a life worthy of their sacrifice.

Amen