Tag Archives: War On Terror

Economy, Politics, War On Terror

The Handbasket

You know where it is going. And you know who is in it. Don’t you?

Days after our President and Commander in Chief is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, which even he cannot justify receiving, let’s assess the state of affairs here and around the world and see how the ‘hope and change’ is working.

Neither the economic stimulus nor the bank bailouts are working. Unemployment is up (over the 8% promised), and rising. Higher taxes for 100% of Americans (not the 5% promised)  to pay for ‘public option’ health insurance and ‘cap and trade’ legislation is coming. The effects of nationalizing parts of the private sector and the hostile tax climate is depressing business, not stimulating it. The Federal Reserve is monetizing the debt, which is growing exponentially. And China, Saudi Arabia, and other countries in the world are talking about dumping the dollar as the world’s trade currency. None of which bodes well for the economic well being of Americans and businesses in the United States.

The so-called stimulus package has only stimulated government control. Business is down, and as a result, so are tax revenues. What is Obama’s economic wizards’ plan to remedy this? Increase the debt and increase taxes. What? Did you expect anything different from a presidential candidate, now President, and a Cabinet that have no experience in running a business or making a payroll, let alone the largest economy and military on the face of the earth?

We have had a war on terror going on long before Sept 11, 2001. But we didn’t start fighting back until after 9/11. After eight years of fighting this war, and nearly two months after receiving a request for more troops in Afghanistan from the general he picked, the Commander in Chief is consulting politicians on how, or whether, to win. He made it clear he does not fancy the word ‘victory’ when it comes to the war in Afghanistan. Morale of the troops in Afghanistan is going sour.

Excerpts from COMISAF’S INITIAL ASSESSMENT, General Stanley McChrystal’s report to Secretary of Defense Robert Gates . . .

We face not only a resillient and growing insurgency; there is also a crisis of confidence among Afghans — in both their government and the international community — that undermines our credibility and emboldens the insurgents. Further, a perception that our resolve is uncertain makes Afghans reluctant to align with us against the insurgents.

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Unique Moment in Time

This is an important — and likely decisive — period of this war. Afghans are frustrated and weary after eight years without evidence of the progress they anticipated. Patience is understandably short, both in Afghanistan and in our own countries. Time matters;  we must act now to reverse the negative trends and demonstrate progress.

Considering that this report was written August 30, 2009, it must depend on what the definition of ‘now’ is because Obama is just now beginning to do meetings on the subject. Despite the General’s emphasis that time is of the essence. Do you get the impression that, for Obama, prosecuting the war is a distraction to expanding governmental power at home?

What is important to the President is appeasing the gay community in repealing a ‘don’t ask don’t tell’ policy in the military. He is the Commander in Chief. Maybe he doesn’t realize he could do it in a single statement or directive. He doesn’t need Nancy Pelosi’s advice to do it. Some in the gay community aren’t buying it. But the ones he spoke to the other night apparently did.

Obama, who was referring to the policy prohibiting openly gay people from serving in the U.S. military, was seeking to shore up his support among gays and lesbians who backed him strongly during last year’s presidential campaign.

Not surprisingly, the signal being sent to teenagers of recruiting age isn’t encouraging either. Liberals always have wanted a draft. By no accident, his policies, inaction and indecisiveness may just require it now.

Islamic extremists are gaining ground in Afghanistan and in Pakistan. The equivalent of our Pentagon in Pakistan was raided last Saturday by this enemy, and took hostages. Pakistan has a nuclear arsenal. Iran is working toward a nuclear arsenal. And in Somalia, after we cut and run in the 90’s, these very same Islamic extremists have virtually taken over the country and are making plans to attack Kenya. And they are making headway in several other African nations. Their safe havens are no where near eliminated, on either continent.

The apology tour, which weighed pretty heavily on the minds of the Nobel committee, hasn’t had any affect on the enemy. Makes one feel pretty safe and secure doesn’t it?

related links:

Iran, War On Terror

Was Arms Dealer, Not Nuclear Scientist

Don’t you feel better now that you know that the Iranian who was mistaken to be a nuclear scientist was merely an arms dealer? Who knows, maybe dealing in nuclear stuff now?

AP correction:

The Associated Press erroneously reported that the Arab newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat identified an Iranian who disappeared in Georgia as a second nuclear scientist. Asharq Al-Awsat said the man was believed to be an arms dealer.

The original story cast him as a nuclear scientist, and his wife cast him as a ‘researcher.’ Don’t know how she missed the arms dealer part. The original story also blamed the United States for the disappearance.

Iran’s foreign minister on Wednesday accused the United States of involvement in the disappearance of Shahram Amiri, who reportedly worked at a university linked to the elite Revolutionary Guard military corps.

You think he is missing or just gone underground? I mean, you dont’ see nuclear technology peddlers hanging on the corner. My guess, knowing Iran, he’s not missing. He’s very very busy.

links: Disappearance of Iranian scientist creates mystery | Correction: Iranian nuclear scientist story

Politics, War On Terror

White Flag Democrats

What else would you call this liberal pow-wow of politicians, all Democrats, putting up legislation to usurp the power of the Commander In Chief? Regardless of the fact that the current Commander In Chief would probably want nothing more than to cut and run in Afghanistan, this bunch of ‘lawmakers’ is showing their disdain for the US Constitution as well as the troops already there.

Sponsored by Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA), H.R.3699 would ‘prohibit any increase in the number of members of the United States Armed Forces serving in Afghanistan.’

Politics, War On Terror

Action Alert: Renew Patriot Act

Time is coming for parts of the Patriot Act to expire if not explicitly renewed by Congress.  As you can imagine, or not, the Left at Democrats.com are panicked over what they have been calling illegal spying.

What was made painfully clear years ago and in the report from the 9/11 Commission was that al Qaeda’s goal, besides killing you and me, was to recruit US citizens to carry out their mission. The Left ignored it, calling it scare tactics of the war mongering Bush administration et.al..

We’ve been here before and so far, the Patriot Act has done nothing but save our collective ass from attacks. No grandmother has been arrested for her reading list at the public library. However, several terrorist attacks have been thwarted since that time, including several last week, thanks to the tools afforded law enforcement  by the Patriot Act. Some of those arrested last week were US citizens who were successfully recruited by al Qaeda and actually went to Pakistan for terrorist training. Hear that Fertik?

The time has come to counter the efforts of Bob Fertik at Democrats.com, and Russ Feingold and Dick Durbin, to tie the hands of those trying to protect us, to wit:

We elected Democratic majorities to Congress in 2006 to end illegal spying by the Bush Administration. At long last, Senators Russ Feingold and Dick Durbin are leading the way, but all the other Democrats in Congress need to join them.

It’s time to repeal telecom immunity for illegal spying and roll back the worst abuses of the PATRIOT ACT.

Maybe they did, but the American people didn’t. Write your elected representatives and the Congressional leadership today. Tell them the only changes you want to the Patriot Act would be changes that would make it better at combating terrorism both home and abroad, not worse. Tell them that telecom companies with the technical ability to help Homeland Security should be held harmless when they actually do help Homeland Security.

related link: Director of FBI Urges Renewal of Patriot Act

Politics, War On Terror

A Leader Or Follower Be

Military commanders on the ground say more troops are needed to win in Afghanistan. The President’s advisers (apparently not Secretary of State Hillary Clinton), a flock of doves representing the far Left of his party, want US troops out. Not increased.

Obama's fickle finger of fate.
Checking the wind. Part of the decision-making process.

It’s crunch time for the Obama administration. Not only for how to handle the war, or more correctly, whether to handle the war, but for the message that cutting and running under political pressure sends to our allies and potential allies around the world.

At least under Bush, our allies could count on us keeping commitments and fighting to keep us, and them, safe no matter what the public sentiment was. All that is now put into question under Barack Obama, our new Commander in Chief.

It demonstrates the difference between leading on principle and not leading at all.  Just ask Poland and the Czech Republic.

Politics, War On Terror

Let's Never Forget

Let’s never forget the first 3,000 casualties in the war on terror on this day eight years ago, September 11, 2001. May God bless and comfort them, their families and friends for this tragic loss.

The war is not over. Actually, the war on terror began long before Sept 11, 2001. We have lost our citizens and soldiers long before that date at the hands of these very same Islamofascists. No matter how you choose to characterize the war or the enemy, the fact is, there is a war being waged against us by an enemy that wears no uniform and hides among otherwise ‘innocent’ civilians. Suffice it to say, it is a very unconventional war being waged by an ideological enemy that thinks they are doing the bidding of Allah by killing so-called non-believers. That would be you and me.

Fighting this war and keeping Americans safe requires using capabilities that were not available in previous wars. The tools available now incorporated in the Patriot Act are tools that have been effective. They are also tools that are slowly but systematically being put back in the toolbox by the Left.

In fact, the Obama Justice Department is now exploring whether to prosecute our own people for serving and fighting this war using every tool in the toolbox.

There’s no better time to highlight the most searched post here on The Lunch Counter written two years ago. This isn’t spreading fear, and its not hyperbole. This is unfolding before your very eyes.

Democrats Soft On Terror

And one written five years ago puts it all into perspective.

Free, But Not Free To Kill, Patriot Act

Media, Politics, War On Terror

Can You Trust President Obama?

If you believe what our President says, then you must be wondering now if you can trust what he says from now on. Never mind for now that all that he has said so far about the economy has not come to fruition. Things of that nature have lots of variables and, therefore, wiggle room to leave any discrepancies to chance and judgment, rather than trust.

But when it comes to turning loose Eric Holder, his Attorney General, to fire up a special prosecutor to investigate harsh interrogation techniques, after telling the CIA and its director Leon Panetta that that will not happen, goes completely and directly to his personal integrity, honesty, and trust.

I hate to say this about my president, but he is not the leader he professed to be and that the media has built him up to be. Nor can he be trusted. He is being led by the political base (the far left) of his party, and his teleprompter. And, unfortunately for us, they take priority over our enemy, al-Qaeda.

What we witnessed in April, when he visited the CIA to put out the fires started by the far left demanding he fulfill his campaign promise, and to answer the concerns of former Vice President Dick Cheney and CIA chief Leon Panetta, he said he wouldn’t go there. That was not only his ‘words, just words,’ but that of his Chief of Staff Rahm Emanual too!

“Don’t be discouraged by what’s happened in the last few weeks,” he told employees. “Don’t be discouraged that we have to acknowledge potentially we’ve made some mistakes. That’s how we learn. But the fact that we are willing to acknowledge them and then move forward, that is precisely why I am proud to be president of the United States and that’s why you should be proud to be members of the CIA.”

As the debate escalated, Cheney weighed in, saying if the country is to judge the methods used in the interrogations, it should have information about what was obtained from the tough tactics. “I find it a little bit disturbing” that “they didn’t put out the memos that showed the success of the effort,” Cheney said on Fox News. He said, “There are reports that show specifically what we gained as a result of this activity.”

On Sunday, Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff, said on the ABC program “This Week” that “those who devised policy” also “should not be prosecuted.”

Since the AG is under the purview of the executive branch, ie. the President, he could keep his word and maybe even keep his CIA director Leon Panetta. To let this spectacle continue will only be to assuage the far left base while giving aide and comfort to the enemy. One could argue that it also serves as a distraction to the insurmountable and unsustainable debt that his policies are heaping upon this country as well as his imaginary health care plan that the folks do not want.

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Economy, Politics, War On Terror

Who's Passing Bills Without Reading Them?

Listen how Obama characterizes the Bush administration’s reaction to keep the terrorists from killing our people and our economy with their quick reaction to the 9/11 attacks with the Patriot Act. Compare that to what the Obama administration is doing to merely kill the economy. The hypocrisy is priceless.

Wait. On second thought. Under his proposed government-run health care called the ‘public option,’ the rationing of health care will be giving a death sentence to senior citizens as well. Odd that the AARP supports his plan. I guess they’re liberals first, then senior citizens.

The results are the same, only with Obama’s plan, way more than 3000 people will die before their time.  Whew, talk about an inconvenient truth. . .

h/t National Center Blog

Politics, War On Terror

Homeland Security Secretary Attacks Patriot Act

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Consistent with what President Obama and others in his party ran on, Janet Napolitano, the Secretary of Homeland Security, is taking a valuable tool out of the war-on-terror toolbox.

Let’s try this again. The head of Homeland Security, that’s the new cabinet level position in The White House responsible for preventing terrorist attacks and keeping us as safe from terrorists as possible. That one.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano plans to kill a program begun by the Bush administration that would use U.S. spy satellites for domestic security and law enforcement, a government official said Monday.

Napolitano recently reached her decision after the program was discussed with law enforcement officials, and she was told it was not an urgent issue, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk about it.

The program, called the National Applications Office, has been delayed because of privacy and civil liberty concerns.

Tearing up the Patriot Act by removing the tools from the toolbox means Obama is willing to take a gamble with your life where his predecessor would not.

link: AP, DHS to kill domestic satellite spying | Free, But Not Free To Kill, Patriot Act