The Devil You Know Is Better Than The Devil You Don't

Before you get all warm and fuzzy about these "rebels", maybe you should understand that this isn't necessarily a "good guys" vs. "bad guys" scenario. As is so often in this region, it's more like a "lesser of evils" situation and we may will be using our military to make matters worse, not better.

I never wanted to see us involved in this Libya mess in the first place. Sure, Qaddafi is a bad actor of the first order, but at least Libya wasn't a Muslim theocracy. This revolutionary activity throughout the Middle East is presenting al Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood with a sparkling opportunity to get its claws in major Middle Eastern countries. To wit:

Libyan rebel commander admits his fighters have al-Qaeda links

Abdel-Hakim al-Hasidi, the Libyan rebel leader, has said jihadists who fought against allied troops in Iraq are on the front lines of the battle against Muammar Gaddafi's regime.

In an interview with the Italian newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore, Mr al-Hasidi admitted that he had recruited "around 25" men from the Derna area in eastern Libya to fight against coalition troops in Iraq. Some of them, he said, are "today are on the front lines in Adjabiya".

Mr al-Hasidi insisted his fighters "are patriots and good Muslims, not terrorists," but added that the "members of al-Qaeda are also good Muslims and are fighting against the invader".

His revelations came even as Idriss Deby Itno, Chad's president, said al-Qaeda had managed to pillage military arsenals in the Libyan rebel zone and acquired arms, "including surface-to-air missiles, which were then smuggled into their sanctuaries".

Mr al-Hasidi admitted he had earlier fought against "the foreign invasion" in Afghanistan, before being "captured in 2002 in Peshwar, in Pakistan". He was later handed over to the US, and then held in Libya before being released in 2008.

US and British government sources said Mr al-Hasidi was a member of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, or LIFG, which killed dozens of Libyan troops in guerrilla attacks around Derna and Benghazi in 1995 and 1996.

Even though the LIFG is not part of the al-Qaeda organisation, the United States military's West Point academy has said the two share an "increasingly co-operative relationship". In 2007, documents captured by allied forces from the town of Sinjar, showed LIFG emmbers made up the second-largest cohort of foreign fighters in Iraq, after Saudi Arabia.

Earlier this month, al-Qaeda issued a call for supporters to back the Libyan rebellion, which it said would lead to the imposition of "the stage of Islam" in the country.

British Islamists have also backed the rebellion, with the former head of the banned al-Muhajiroun proclaiming that the call for "Islam, the Shariah and jihad from Libya" had "shaken the enemies of Islam and the Muslims more than the tsunami that Allah sent against their friends, the Japanese".

Yemen, Syria, Tunisia and Egypt are all in a state of political unrest and you can bet that Muslim theocrats are not only eying them with hungry eyes, but may well be fomenting this unrest so they can pick up the peices. They would like nothing more than to remold all of these counties in the image of Iran and, unfortunately, we are aiding and abetting them by eliminating Libya's military. Quite accommodating of us, no?

North Korea is Starving.......Again

Once again the feckless UN is running the guilt trip regarding North Korea, which seems to be in a perpetual state of starvation.

North Korea's government food distribution programme will run dry in May and put one-quarter of the country's 24 million people at risk of starvation, the United Nations has warned.

The UN World Food Programme, which resumed sending food aid to North Korea in 2006, blamed flooding, foot-and-mouth disease, and an unusually cold winter for devastating food supplies to the country.

"Vulnerable members of society are currently facing increasing shocks to their daily coping strategies, leaving them on a knife edge," the WFP said in a statement.

Yeah, I'm sure that Kim Jong Il's insatiable quest more for more sophisticated weapons has nothing to do with the dire straits in which his country finds itself. So nice of the UN to blame flooding and foot-and-mouth disease for North Korea's starvation. The truth is that this is their natural state.

The hermit police state is tragic, indeed, but at what point does this starvation cease being the the responsibility of the West? China is all of the rage now with their "booming" economy and their boasts of overtaking the U.S. as the world's pre-eminent financial power. Considering that China is within a stone's throw of North Korea (and they have occupied the position as North Korea's "big brother"), one has to wonder why they don't rush in with aid.

People are starving, being murdered by despots and generally being persecuted all over the globe. The UN looks the other way when North Korea builds and tests nukes, they are uninterested when they launch attacks on the South, yet when North Koreans starve as a result of their government's adventurism and investment in WMDs, it's time to render assistance.

If we continue to rescue this odious country from revolution, or oblivion, we simply delay the inevitable as we have been doing for decades. In a sense, we are effectively prolonging the suffering of the people of North Korea by accepting the responsibility for its people's survival - a responsibility that belongs to their own government.

Maybe leaving countries like this to their own devices would be the best course of action. I say this not because we cannot afford it; even in the poor state in which we now find ourselves, we can certainly can. I say his because by "allowing nature to take it's course", perhaps it will bring North Korea to the brink. An empty belly is a powerful incentive for the people to rise up against those who enslave them. North Korea doesn't need to be stabilized, it needs to be destabilized.

Is The Libyan Conflict a Civil War?

Of course it is. A better question would be how could it NOT be? The definition of a "Civil War" is as follows:

A war between political factions or regions within the same country.

Clearly, the Libyan uprising is a civil war; it is, in fact a revolution which has developed into a civil war. Foreign nations are ill-advised to involve themselves in civil wars and, historically, simply don't.

Well, you might say, "wasn't the American Revolution a civil war and didn't France give us invaluable assistance against the British?". Actually, that's a whole different matter. The American Colonies were, well, colonies. The war was one of succession; we weren't trying to overthrow the British Crown, we were colonials attempting to succeed.

You might say "well, what about the American Civil War?" While the British were on the side of the South, there was no effective involvement by the British government. Besides, the American Civil War was a war of secession.

The Libyan conflict is the classic definition of a civil war and, again, I feel that the deeper we go in to this, the worse it will be. Sure, the "Arab League" is somewhat behind this, but they're fickle and likely to change their position on a moment's notice.

The bottom line her is that this is a Muslim country and the very fact that Muslims are dying by our hand means that we are the villain.  In the end, it matters not to the Muslim world that Qaddafi is a ruthless tyrant, what matters is that he's a Muslim brother.

This is a wholly different situation than Iraq, where a threat actually existed, and the point of the exercise was to crush Iraq into submission, occupy it, remove the existing regime and build the place back from the ground up. We started that eight years ago, are we prepared to do the same in Libya?

The Real-Life Bond Villain

George Soros is just about as creepy and scary as they get. Yeah, the world has a lot of scary guys, but none of them with the wealth and power of Soros. Forget his past as a youthful, Jewish Nazi collaborator in a Nazi death camp, his present is quite disturbing enough. He has made his vast fortune by manipulating national currencies thus profiting from, and some say causing economic misery on a national scale. He has clearly walked away from that heady experience with a life-long god complex and a megalomania most can only imagine. He's a far left sugar daddy who freely bankrolls all manner of socialist causes while being a ruthless capitalist that would make J.D. Rockefeller look like Ghandi.

Behold his most recent project:

Where's 007 when you need him?

Two years ago, George Soros said he wanted to reorganize the entire global economic system. In two short weeks, he is going to start - and no one seems to have noticed.

On April 8, a group he's funded with $50 million is holding a major economic conference and Soros's goal for such an event is to "establish new international rules" and "reform the currency system." It's all according to a plan laid out in a Nov. 4, 2009, Soros op-ed calling for "a grand bargain that rearranges the entire financial order."

The event is bringing together "more than 200 academic, business and government policy thought leaders' to repeat the famed 1944 Bretton Woods gathering that helped create the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. Soros wants a new 'multilateral system," or an economic system where America isn't so dominant.

More than two-thirds of the slated speakers have direct ties to Soros. The billionaire who thinks "the main enemy of the open society, I believe, is no longer the communist but the capitalist threat" is taking no chances.

Thus far, this global gathering has generated less publicity than a spelling bee. And that's with at least four journalists on the speakers list, including a managing editor for the Financial Times and editors for both Reuters and The Times. Given Soros's warnings of what might happen without an agreement, this should be a big deal. But it's not.

What is a big deal is that Soros is doing exactly what he wanted to do. His 2009 commentary pushed for "a new Bretton Woods conference, like the one that established the post-WWII international financial architecture." And he had already set the wheels in motion.

What a duplicitous bastard; he decries the "capitalist threat", yet is he not one of the most successful capitalists on the planet? Therein lies the basic fallacy of the socialist mindset - they are quite content with destroying the capital of others, but personally, they feel exempt.

We should always be wary of those with a "for thee but not for me" mentality and it's easy to find on the left.

Capitalism Decimated Maritian Life?

Well, it could have happened, so sayeth Hugo Chavez:

CARACAS (Reuters) - Capitalism may be to blame for the lack of life on the planet Mars, Venezuela's socialist President Hugo Chavez said on Tuesday.


Chavez with Science Advisor



"I have always said, heard, that it would not be strange that there had been civilization on Mars, but maybe capitalism arrived there, imperialism arrived and finished off the planet," Chavez said in speech to mark World Water Day.

Chavez, who also holds capitalism responsible for many of the world's problems, warned that water supplies on Earth were drying up.

"Careful! Here on planet Earth where hundreds of years ago or less there were great forests, now there are deserts. Where there were rivers, there are deserts," Chavez said, sipping from a glass of water.

The man is beyond parody; he's virtually his own punch line.

The Libyan Hot Potato

Geez, what a bunch of morons:

France has proposed that a new political steering committee outside NATO be responsible for overseeing military operations over Libya.

The proposal comes just a day after Prime Minister David Cameron told the House of Commons that NATO would be in charge of enforcing UN Security Council resolution 1973.

But on Tuesday NATO secretary general Anders Fogh Rasmussen said that it would only "help enforce" the no-fly zone, not lead it.

French Foreign Minister Alain Jupe said the new body would bring together foreign ministers of participating states - as well as the Arab League.

It is expected to meet in the coming days, either in Brussels, London or Paris.

Mr Jupe said "not all members of the military coalition are members of NATO and this is therefore not a NATO operation."

A "political Steering committee" to run a military operation? Really? Such utter foolishness almost makes one root for the bad guy.

No one wants to lead yhis operation because no one wants their fingerprints on it; not only is this a clear sign that there is no confidence in success, but also of a lack of belief in the mission itself.

If this doesn't come crashing down on our collective heads, it will be a miracle.

Happy St. Paddy's to You and Yours!

I've oft considered St. Patrick's Day the unofficial harbinger of spring and this year I've not been disappointed; what a glorious day here in Louisville! Yes, the Cardinals have been knocked out of the first round of the NCAA tournament, but it's a glorious day nonetheless.

While I can't be sure, there is a chance that President Obama may be celebrating this traditional day of Irish revelry in that it appears that he has some Irish ancestors (please, no "black Irish" comments, they're way too obvious).  Clearly, this is not only a testament to the universality of Irish ancestry, but to a distinct wisdom as well:

Obama’s Irish-American relatives not exactly thrilled

President Barack Obama found out years ago he had an Irish ancestor who fled the potato famine in Ireland in 1850. He can now claim 28 living relatives who also descended from that Irishman, including a Vietnam veteran, a school nurse and a displeased Arizona Republican.

The president’s newly identified relatives are revealed in a study released to The Associated Press by Ancestry.com, a family history website whose genealogists also traced descendants of 23 other Irish passengers on the ship that brought Falmouth Kearney to the United States when he was 19.

The survey allowed genealogists to further trace branches in Obama’s family tree and others who arrived on the ship, known as the Marmion, on March 20, 1850.

According to the survey, the passengers’ descendants live in Canada, Syria and throughout the United States. Among Obama’s newly identified relatives is 83-year-old Dorma Lee Reese, of Tucson, Ariz.

“I’m not a Democrat, so I can’t say I clapped,” said Reese, a retired brain-imaging technologist. “I don’t appreciate what he’s done by any means, but I do appreciate that he holds that office.”

Kearney arrived with his brother-in-law William and his wife, Margaret Cleary. They were destined for Ohio, where Kearney’s relative had left property in his name. Kearney married, had 10 children and later settled in Indiana, where he worked as a farmer.

Obama’s mother, Ann Dunham, was a descendant of one of Kearney’s daughters, Mary Ann Kearney, and Jacob William Dunham. The White House didn’t immediately return a message Wednesday seeking comment on the president’s Irish heritage.

When the 903-ton Marmion arrived after a 3,000-mile voyage to New York Harbor from Liverpool, England, carrying 289 passengers, it was following a well-worn route used by masses of Irish immigrants.

Among the carpenters, bricklayers and shoemakers arriving that day was Kearney, listed in records only as a laborer.

Like many of the passengers, he was fleeing a country ravaged by a potato blight that destroyed families and livelihoods and left the country starving. From the 1840s to the end of the 1850s, about 1.7 million Irish immigrants came to the United States.

On the day of the Marmion’s arrival, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported that the St. Patrick’s Society in Brooklyn had held its first annual banquet; a toast was made to the passengers’ homeland, referring to it by its ages-old nickname: “Though gloomy shadows hang o’er thee now … as darkness is densest, even just before day, So thy gloom, truest Erin, may soon pass away.”

By 1860, the city had the largest Irish population in the world outside Ireland. Nearly 37 million Americans claimed Irish ancestry in 2009, according to census estimates.

Ancestry.com revealed Obama’s Irish roots and his connection to Kearney in 2007, but it is uncovering its new findings this week following months of work as part of a larger project on Irish heritage.

“We had this idea of trying to look at a micro-study of how Irish immigrants have impacted the United States,” said Anastasia Harman, the lead family historian for Ancestry.com.

Other distant Obama relatives include Roma Joy Palmer, 66, of Mulvane, Kan., who is retired from the insurance business, and Daniel Dillard, 63, a Vietnam War veteran and retired community college professor.

“I really don’t like to claim a relationship to Obama. He is not my favorite president,” said Palmer, a Republican. “I don’t have anything against him personally. But I don’t think we have the same agenda.”

Dillard, though, said he took pride in his family “being related to a president of the United States,” even though he is a registered Republican, did not vote for Obama and opposes his politics.

Sandra West, 65, of Hereford, Ariz., also was identified by Ancestry.com but had already discovered years ago that she was distantly related to Obama when she investigated the Dunhams of Kansas.

“I figured there had to be a connection somewhere,” she said.

West, who works as a nurse at Palominas Elementary School, said that it had become a running joke and that the principal had suggested requesting a tour of the White House. But West figured the president already had enough going on.

“I don’t think he would want to pay much attention to me,” she said. “I’m sort of a peon down the road. I’m nobody special.”

Liberalism is clearly so pervasive that even the Irish are not immune, but it seems that Obama is the exeption rather than the rule in this family tree.

Erin Go Bragh!

The Obamas Are Off To Rio For The Weekend

Really, does no one in the White House have any sense of timing or what is remotely apropriate?

When looking at the big picxture, though, perhaps Podhoretz is right when he says that Obama is pretty much invisible even when he's here.

Whither Libya?

At this point, I couldn't care less. The "rebels" are begging for American assistance, but as soon as we take action, we will be criticized as "meddlers". This seems to be the drill in the Middle East; damn us when we do and damn us when we don't. Maybe this time we should be damned because we don't and leave them to their own devices. The Arab League has called for a "No Fly Zone" - fine, let them do it. There are a number of Middle Eastern countries that have military prowess and now is the time to have at it. Let them topple Qaddafi and save their fellow Arabs.

Some in Congress have called for arming the rebels. All we need do is look at Afghanistan to see how that could well work out. We armed the rebels in that country against the Soviet Union and those arms were turned upon our own soldiers; let's not repeat that mistake. Again, let the Libyans Arab brothers arm them - there seems so be no shortage of arms in the Middle East.

I'm no isolationist. Afghanistan was a must after 9/11 and Iraq was a belligerent state that simply could not be ignored. Both of these conflicts should be brought to a successful conclusion. Libya, on the other hand, does not have that much significance for the United States at this point and certainly does not merit the shedding of American blood.  This could change; if Libya threatens the Suez Canal, then we have a problem, but at this time American military action is a non-starter in my eyes.

All of that said, I find it infuriating that Libya's Arab "brethren" have no taste for risking their own skins in the protection of the Libyan people.  As usual, the Muslims are all talk and no walk - they're quite comfortable with "allowing" the West to take action, but wouldn't think of doing it on their own.  The day of Americans being "hired guns" should be over, it's time these spoiled Muslim children learn to take care of themselves.

All of this said. words cost nothing and the dearth of rhetorical support for the demise of the Qaddafi regime is troubling.  What is happening throughout the Middle East is historic, and the White House has given the appearance of being loath to even make comments on the events that are unfolding.  We should have a position and that position should be in support of freedom throughout the world.  The Obama administration has a disturbing habit of being reactive rather than proactive in stating its stance on any number of issues, particularly in the area of foreign policy.  Some leadership from the White House would be refreshing after two years of lethargy.

'Tis the Ides of March

Beware!

Outraged?

Many Outraged Over Prayer Service Held Before Tests

BALTIMORE (WJZ) — Getting higher test scores with a little bit of prayer is one local school’s strategy to passing tests.

WJZ’s media partner, the Baltimore Sun, reports Tench Tilghman Elementary/Middle School has been holding prayer services for the past two years ahead of standardized testing.

The American Civil Liberties Union is crying foul for organized prayer in the public school.

Outraged? It would seem to me that this sort of thing would not occupy a very high slot on the priority list, all things considered. With the multitude of serious, pressing issues facing this country and this world, the fact that anyone is "outraged" over a matter such as this is laughable.

The "many" who are "outraged" really do need to get a life.