My Iraq Opinions in 2007

I wrote the attached article in 2007. In light of President Obama's speech last night on the troop withdrawal from Afghanistan, I thought a reprise of my views would be appropriate. I do not believe that my views have not changed much. 
Tell me what you think.

The Way to Hell is Paved With Good Intentions

By: Conservative Tom

September 15, 2007

The question of the day seems to be “what will happen in Iraq?” If you listen to certain politicians and pundits they say we need to get out now. Others say we must stay the course. My answer is that it does not matter.

Since World War II the United States has been on a track that has brought us to point in time. We were the major power on the “good side” and those who opposed us were on the “wrong side.”  

We had good intentions to help the South Vietnamese when we put “advisors” into the country in the late 50’s. We wanted them to have their freedom and to have South Vietnam to be a democratic country to stop the spread of the evil of Communism. When we left, the North overran the South and unleashed a human disaster, which spread to the killing fields of Cambodia. Did our good intentions help there?

We are now faced with a similar situation in Iraq. Our initial good intentions to remove Saddam and to set up a democratic country in the Middle East sounds eerily similar to our Vietnam experience. My concern is that when we leave, and WE WILL, a bloodbath of unbelievable dimensions will be released. However, instead of the bloodbath being localized to one or two countries as it was in Southeast Asia, it will be worldwide.

The major difference between Southeast Asia and Iraq is the North Vietnamese wanted only to control the South. They did not have regional or worldwide aspirations. That is not the case in Iraq. There, our good intentions have come into conflict with a movement, which has global aspirations. The extreme Muslims want the world to be Muslim. To be rid of any non-Muslim country or religion.

When the United States pulls out of Iraq, the extreme elements of the Shia, Sunni, Kurd, al Qaeda and other troublemakers will go on a murderous rampage that will make any previous atrocity look like a Sunday School outing. They will not discriminate. They will kill anyone who “might” disagree with them.

Once Iraq has been satisfactorily cleansed, the movement will expand to the region. Expect Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Afghanistan to be the next on the radical’s hit list. We then can expect to see entire cities (worldwide) destroyed by chemical, biological or nuclear agents. No place on earth will be safe.

The relative distance that has kept the United States safe in previous conflicts will not this time. Our lack of control of our borders has and will continue to allow foreign “agents of fear” to come and go without any concern of capture or punishment. We have only to look back six years to September 11, 2001 to see how easy it is to come and stay in the US and to hide in clear sight.

The result will be that millions in the United States, not thousands as in 9/11 will be killed, maimed and deformed by the attacks. Worldwide, the numbers will be in the 100’s of millions.

At this point, you are probably saying to yourself—“this guy is crazy.” My hope and my prayer, is that I am totally wrong.

From World War II, the United States has become less sure of itself and has become very politically correct. For example, we cannot control our borders as it might be seen as negative toward a certain voting block. So what do we do, we do not enforce our laws. We allow millions to come to the country ILLEGALLY and our politicians do NOTHING. We talk about walls, but don’t fund them. We talk about setting up a citizenship track but we cannot track students to our country that overstays their visas.

Today, we face an enemy that is more determined than any one in history. Additionally they have a major advantage. They will control the Mideast Oil fields. After we pull out of Iraq and the human disaster spreads, the radical Muslims will take over country after country until the entire Mid East (except Israel) is under their thumb. At that point they will pull out the ultimate weapon—Oil.

By that time the moderate Saudis and others in OPEC will be replaced by radical Muslims who will demand the oil importing countries of the world comply with their wishes or no oil will be exported to them. Also, the cost of the exported oil will be raised to multiples of the current record prices. Under this pressure, our “leaders” will be “forced” into doing anything to get the oil flowing again.

Our good intentions have brought us to this historical point in time. Will Americans face reality and take the appropriate actions or will we hide our heads in the sand until we have to fight for our way of life as we did in World War II?

Americans must come to understand the enemy with whom we are dealing. That the conflict will not last a year or two or ten but rather it could last 100. The decision is yours America.

Sarah Palin--Could She Be President?

In our current poll, we are asking who you think will be the Republican Presidential Candidate.  One person has voted for Sarah Palin and I was wondering if that person would comment on their rationale. Please make your comment after this posting.You can be anonymous or you can post your name.  I just want to know if you would vote for her or hoping she will be so that President Obama can become re-elected. We are waiting to hear from you.

 Now, let me say that I love how she seems to get under the skins of the Press and Democrats.  Her ability to have the press follow her where ever she goes and to listen to her anytime she talks is unrivaled by any competitor. I believe she has made some mistakes in some of her publicity but anytime someone is doing things, there will be errors.

One can only imagine the disappointment the press had when they went through all the  emails from her years as Alaska's Governor and found nothing. Obviously, it was all about the business of Alaska and nothing out of order.  What a disappointment!

I also love her ability to relate to the common man. Yes, its folksy. Yes,  its not what you normally see. But when she talks the average man or woman on the street understands what she is talking about. No twenty dollar words, but plain speaking. 

Opponents think that she is dumb and that how can we elect someone who only went to normal colleges and did not a graduate of the Ivy League.  It seems that in the past thirty or so years, we have elected a couple really smart people like Jimmy Carter (supposedly a nuclear engineer) and Bill Clinton (a Rhodes Scholar). Neither of these gentlemen will be viewed by history as great Presidents. While Ronald Reagan who was an "actor" and did not graduate from a great college will be one of the best Presidents.  Harry Truman, arguably a great president, also did not graduate from a prestigious school.

My point is that education does not necessarily make a wise man.  Common sense and knowing what you stand for does.  Those elements were part of the nature of both Truman and Reagan.  I think it is also shared by Sarah Palin.  She is not flowery, but she knows what she stands for.

Has she made mistakes in speaking? Sure but do not all of those who are running for the White House? Didn't Obama say there were 57 states?  So let's give Sarah a fair hearing and then decide if she has the mettle to be President.

That's just my opinion, I would like to hear yours.

Delta Airlines Say No "Jews" Fly

Tonight a  posting on World Net Daily made me think of Nazi Germany.   Delta Airlines has decided that any Jew or someone who had been to Israel will not be allowed to travel to Jedda, Saudi Arabia.  Additionally, on the Delta flights, there will be limitations on books (No Bibles) and jewelry (no Crosses). What is the world coming to?  After Delta charged returning troops over $2500, this is another black eye.

This decision is based upon Saudi  Arabian Airlines (owned  by the Saudi Royal Family)  wanting to join Deltas airline partnering program. The argument is that Delta must go along with a host nation's requirements.  I think corporate greed to get Saudi travellers is overriding their humanity. I find this disgusting and I think that until Delta changes their decision, the airline should be boycotted by all Americans. Additionally, we all should write letters to Delta protesting their disgusting actions.

If we do not protest these actions, when will other actions become "normalized."  The Nazi Regime did not start with concentration camps, they started with other actions such as no Jews in schools and boycotting of Jewish businesses.  Speak out now, we must stop this immediately!!

Read the posting and let us know what  you think.  The link is: www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=314309

Weiner's Mother In Law and The Muslim Brotherhood

In the June 19, 2011 issue of American Thinker, Eileen Toplansky explodes a bomb that I have not seen anywhere in the media therefore I do not know if it is accurate. However, if it is correct, it will be devastating.  If Weiner's mother-in-law is indeed directly connected to the Muslim Brotherhood, it tells me that the paranoia some Americans have about Islam and its adherents, is well founded.  Please read the article and do your own research and report back.

Here is the article:
June 19, 2011
The Muslim Brotherhood and Weiner
By Eileen F. Toplansky

Far more disturbing than the salacious details of Weiner's dalliances is the fact that apparently his mother-in-law is a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. Furthermore, Huma Abedin's brother, Hassan, "is listed as a fellow and partner with a number of Muslim Brotherhood members." Hassan works at the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies (OCIS) at Oxford University. The Egyptian Al-Azhar University, well-known for a curriculum that encourages extremism and terrorism, is active in establishing links with OCIS.
How is it that the Western media, with its hourly analyses of Weiner, missed this salient point, yet Arab news sources revealed this connection? Walid Shoebat, formerly with the PLO, explains that Saleha Mahmoud Abedin, a professor in Saudi Arabia "belongs to the Sunni movement's women's division known as the Muslim Sisterhood." During the recent uprising in Egypt, which resulted in Mubarak's removal, "a special women's unit within the Muslim Brotherhood served as 'mules' to deliver messages and acted as messengers for the terrorist group."
The Muslim Sisterhood is also known as the International Women's Organization (IWO) and members are located "across 16 different countries." Its goal is to "work at all levels in accordance with the message of the Brotherhood." The Muslim Brotherhood's goal is Islamic world domination and "[i]t is now public knowledge that nearly every major Muslim organization in the United States is actually controlled by the [Muslim Brotherhood] or a derivative organization. Consequently, most of the Muslim-American groups of any prominence in America are now known to be, as a matter of fact, hostile to the United States and its Constitution."
This chart on page four of the Domestic Intelligence Briefing by Mark Hass shows the FBI - Identified Terror Networks connected to the Muslim Brotherhood in North America.
Which should now raise even greater concerns since Huma Abedin-Weiner is the deputy chief of staff to Hillary Clinton, the United States Secretary of State. Did any vetting occur by Clinton's people concerning Huma Abedin, her brother Hassan, or her mother Saleha Mahmoud Abedin, and any connections with known Islamists, particularly the Muslim Brotherhood?
But then again, would it have troubled Mrs. Clinton? After all, during her husband's time as President, she warmly embraced Suha Arafat the wife of Yasser Arafat, arch-terrorist, right after a speech during which Suha Arafat falsely accused Israel of poisoning the Palestinian water supply.

Huma's brother has "worked with Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal on a program of "spreading Islam to the west." More intriguing is the fact that the Abedin family left Michigan for Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, around 1977, which is the same year that the Muslim Sisterhood was formed.
Couple this with the Clinton family playing a key role in promoting Fethullah Gulen who has worked assiduously to overthrow Turkey's secular government. Gulen, who currently resides in Pennsylvania, has told his followers that in order for "worldwide Islamic domination to succeed, every method and path is acceptable, including lying to people."
In March of this year, the FBI was investigating the more than 120 charter schools in the United States that are linked to Gulen's movement. These schools, funded with millions of taxpayer dollars, promote Gulen's worldview that is both anti-Israel and anti-America. In fact, in 2010 it was reported that Bill Gates had given almost 11 million dollars to the Cosmos Foundation, which is a Gulen enterprise.
Moreover, one needs to question why Huma Abedin, a member of a family of devout Muslims, would ever marry a Jewish Congressman -- in a ceremony officiated by Bill Clinton. Sharia law clearly forbids Muslims from marrying non-believers, so what does this portend?
Furthermore, when Huma Abedin accompanied Hillary Clinton to the Dar El-Hekma women's college in Saudi Arabia, where Huma's mother is co-founder and vice dean, it was reported that "Hillary explained that Huma holds an important and sensitive position in her office." Where was the scrutiny?
Why are so many at the highest levels of American government ignoring the methodology of Islamists like Gulen, who has declared that the best way to seize power is to lie in wait "with the patience of a spider" in order to "wait for people to get caught in the web"? Is Clinton so naïve?
Thus, Huma Abedin's position with Clinton in the State Department, as well as her marriage to Representative Weiner, has given her enormous exposure "to state secrets and access to the inner workings of Congress."
This would be unsettling enough if it were not also for Obama's latest appointee. The 44th president has just appointed Azizah al-Hibri to the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom. Al-Hibri believes that sharia law is superior to American law. Yet, al-Hibri is only one of the pro-sharia adherents that Obama has placed in influential positions since he became president. Dalia Mogahed was one of the earliest appointees and as Nonie Darwish has written, "[t]he empowerment of Radical Islam under the Obama administration" is extremely disturbing.
Obama's record concerning Islamic terror was alarming from the beginning of his term and it has only become more entrenched. Congressman Keith Ellison aka Keith Hakim, who converted to Islam, is already in place in Congress. His connections to CAIR are troubling.
Is the Weiner scandal really covering up a far more disturbing scenario whereby jihadists continue to infiltrate and influence American universities, military installations, homeland security, even local police forces, all while the press ignores the steady encroachment of these radicals who seek to overturn and destroy America?
The disgraceful indifference by the general press to Weiner's in-laws and their connections to the Muslim Brotherhood keeps eroding America's ability to rout those who wish to see her destroyed.
Fethullah Gulen has exhorted his followers to "move in the arteries of the system without anyone noticing [their] existence until [they] reach all the power centers...until the conditions are ripe..." Can America continue to close its eyes to this deliberate hibernation strategy of our enemies?
Eileen can be reached at middlemarch18@gmail.com.

Don't Know History-Join the Crowd

 No wonder we keep making the same mistakes over and over, we, Americans, don't know our history. A recent Department of Education report indicated very poor results for sixth, eighth and high school seniors.  I do love history and took the 12th grade test and got an 80% even though it has been a year or two since I had classes.  Of course, I did not have the privilege of internet, computers and ipods but did have a great history teacher who made us learn more than just dates and events. We learned the connections and reasons for things occurring and how different people interacted with each other. In other words, I had a great background.

This brings me back to the education report.  Where have we gone wrong? Is this just another example of the dumbing down of American children? In my opinion, education in the 20th century was not about teaching but entertaining. Making the class exciting, a place where children wanted to be. Now that might be a noble goal, however, to many teachers it meant that they could not really demand hard work from their students but rather had to make it fun. Fun meant that hard work was out and easy was in.

I experienced the difference between  college  and later in my MBA program.  In college, we were expected to know everything that was covered either in class or in the books and reading material. The professors would not tell us what would be on the test.  A short five years later in my graduate school, the kids would ask the teachers what would be covered on the test. I was amazed that we were given the material to be covered.

Another difference was one of my college classes, a history class, where the professor would not accept misspelled words even if they were right. For example, if the answer was Lincoln and you wrote Lencoln, it was an incorrect answer. In graduate school, any word, even misspelled was right if it was close.

Not knowing history only leads us to repeat the mistakes of the past. We cannot learn from what others have done. I believe it is as important as knowing math, English, science and foreign languages.  However, most teachers dwell on dates and people and do not bring it alive to relate current events with the past.  This must be done if we are going to turn around this trend.

Are we going to do it or will we continue to not educate our children in the beauty, in the importance of history. I hope it is the latter.

A story by Jeff Jacoby in Townhall.com is below. 

What are your opinions?

Who cares about American history?by: Jeff Jacoby
Townhall.com

WHEN THE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION last week released the results of the latest National Assessment of Educational Progress -- "the Nation's Report Card" -- the bottom line was depressingly predictable: Not even a quarter of American students is proficient in US history, and the percentage declines as students grow older. Only 20 percent of 6th graders, 17 percent of 8th graders, and 12 percent of high school seniors demonstrate a solid grasp on their nation's history. In fact, American kids are weaker in history than in any of the other subjects tested by the NAEP -- math, reading, science, writing, civics, geography, and economics.

How weak are they? The test for 4th-graders asked why Abraham Lincoln was an important figure in US history and a majority of the students didn't know. Among 8th-graders, not even one-third could correctly identify an advantage that American patriots had over the British during the Revolutionary War. And when asked which of four countries -- the Soviet Union, Japan, China, and Vietnam -- was North Korea's ally in fighting US troops during the Korean War, nearly 80 percent of 12th-graders selected the wrong answer.

Historically illiterate American kids typically grow up to be historically illiterate American adults. And Americans' ignorance of history is a familiar tale.

When it administered the official US citizenship test to 1,000 Americans earlier this year, Newsweek discovered that 33 percent of respondents didn't know when the Declaration of Independence was adopted, 65 percent couldn't say what happened at the Constitutional Convention, and 80 percent had no idea who was president during World War I. In a survey of 14,000 college students in 2006, more than half couldn't identify the century when the first American colony was founded at Jamestown, the reason NATO was organized, or the document that says, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal." Numerous other surveys and studies confirm the gloomy truth: Americans don't know much about history.

Somewhere in heaven, it must all make Harry Truman weep.

He never attended college and had no formal intellectual credentials, but Truman was an avid, lifelong student of history. As a boy he had devoured Plutarch's Lives and Charles Horne's four-volume Great Men and Famous Women, developing an intimacy with history that would later become one of his greatest strengths. "When Truman talked of presidents past -- Jackson, Polk, Lincoln -- it was as if he had known them personally," the historian David McCullough wrote in his landmark biography of the 33rd president.

Truman may have been exaggerating in 1947 when he told Clark Clifford and other White House aides that he would rather have been a history teacher than president. Yet imagine how different the NAEP history scores would be if more teachers and schools in America today routinely imparted to their students a Trumanesque love and enthusiasm for learning about the past.

Alas, when it comes to history, as Massachusetts educator Will Fitzhugh observes, the American educational system imparts a very different message.

Fitzhugh is the publisher of The Concord Review, a journal he began in 1987 to showcase the writing of just such exceptional student scholars. The review has printed 924 high-caliber research papers by teenagers from 44 states and 39 nations, The New York Times reported in January, winning a few "influential admirers" along the way.

But this celebration of what Fitzhugh calls "varsity academics" amounts to just drops of excellence in the vast sea of mediocrity that is American history education. Another kind of excellence is represented by the National History Club that Fitzhugh launched in 2002 in order to encourage middle and high school students to "read, write, discuss, and enjoy history" outside the classroom. Beginning with a single chapter in Memphis, the club has grown into an independent national organization, with chapters in 43 states and more than 12,000 student members involved in a rich array of history-related activities.

"Our goal," says Robert Nasson, the club's young executive director, "is to create kids who are life-long students of history." He and Fitzhugh have exactly the right idea. But as the latest NAEP results make dismally clear, they are swimming against the tide.

- Original Article: http://bit.ly/lzVzNw

Debt Ceiling--Is The Sky Falling?

I am amazed, our country has not fallen into default since we did not approve an increased debt ceiling.  Isn't that Secretary Tim Geithner said would happen?  Or do we have to wait until August to have the calamity befall us?

Remember in 2008, when then Secretary Paulson said that if we did not approve the 787 billion going into the banks that we would surely have another depression. Many agree that was the right message, but just for a second, lets consider might have occurred?  Housing sales would have dried up, mortgage foreclosures would have increased, unemployment would increase and the banks would have collapsed.  Pretty scary, huh?

Well, in retrospect the only thing that did not happen was that the banks did not collapse and now we are getting the same scare tactics from the present Treasury Secretary.  I am getting a "scare me once shame on you, scare me twice, shame on me" feeling.  Why should I believe these Henny Penny warnings?  

I understand that the national debt payment is half of what tax revenues are collected.  We will not default on our payments on the debt (at present, however if the debt limit is increased, that will not be true in the future.) Other payments will not be so lucky. Of course, the first ones that this Administration will cut will be the pay for the members of the Armed Forces. Why? It will bring a cry from the public much the same as does cutting police and fire when a city needs to cut its spending. 

For some reason  government cuts always start with those services that they are supposed to provide. They never look at the unnecessary ones. It is easier to cut where it hurts, other ones might take some work. Give me the power of the pen and I am sure we can round up some really juicy programs that could be cut.  I have written about the training programs that have never been audited and that have questionable results.  Or the seven layers of government that effect one salmon.  Or the Energy Department whose original goal was to make us energy independent, that really has worked well!

If I were in Congress, I would not approve an increased debt ceiling until government is put on a major diet in areas  that do not effect defense, interstate commerce, foreign trade and other areas the states cannot handle. How about eliminating drinking training for the Chinese prostitutes that I wrote about last week?  I am sure there are many other programs that could be cut, reduced or combined with similar programs that could save billions if not trillions of dollars.

Our poll last week asked if the debt limit should be lifted and a vast majority of respondents said it would.  I would hope that it will be raised only after major spending cuts were taken. If not, we are putting off the inevitable collapse of our economy and the resulting riots not unlike those occurring in Greece right now. Do we want to be like them. I hope not but we do not have much time.

Israel Support Strong In US

The attached link is to a survey conducted in early June about the support of Israel, Hamas, Palestinians and the peace process.  Although there is strong support for Israel across all demographic and political categories, I have long term concerns that Israel can count on the support remaining strong for two reasons, money and nukes.

First of all, will  the press which is owned and operated by the likes of George Soros combine with other anti-Israel  groups and start spending money to influence the peace talks in a negative way when it comes to Israel. Money buys influence and influence can affect the coverage given to the real issues that are involved in any settlement.  We have seen the biased coverage of the City of David excavations done by Lesley Stahl on CBS's Sixty Minutes which implied that Palestinians were being forced out of their homes when the truth was that the homes had been sold voluntarily by the former owners.  How many of these stories will it take to change future surveys?

The greater concern I have is the possibility of the United States being blackmailed by a nuclear  Iran or Syria into not  protecting Israel in the event of an attack (conventional or otherwise.) Would our leadership cave into such demands or would they still support our ally?  If they would ignore the warnings, what would the public's reaction be, if a nuclear attack on the United States was threatened?  Would Americans say, "hey, that's not our fight!" or would we stand up to the threat? 

I would hope that Americans are smart enough to see through the stories, however, when their families are threatened, will they have the same gumption as their fathers and grandfathers did during WWII or are they cut from a different cloth? What do you think?

Here is the link http://www.uc4i.org/news/?p=6826