Honduran Elections Restore Democracy, End Isolation

Hondurans went to the polls in yesterday's elections, choosing the conservative opposition candidate for their republic's new president. The turnout appeared to be higher than the previous election, despite the boycott by former leader, Manuel Zelaya, who was ousted in a military coup earlier this year.

The coup was supported by the Honduran Supreme Court, the legislature and his own party after Zelaya, an ally of Venezuelan left-wing dictator Hugo Chavez, had attempted to conduct a referendum to end presidential term limits, in violation of the Honduran constitution. After the coup, the United States and Latin American states refused to recognize the interim Honduran government, which was led by a member of Zelaya's own party, demanding that the ousted leader be restored to power. The U.S. cut off critical aid to Honduras. However, no deal was reached that would allow Zelaya to return to power. Instead, elections were scheduled and held. The losing candidate from Zelaya's party quickly conceded the race for the sake of national unity.

I had criticized the Obama Administration's decision to isolate Honduras for its actions which rescued its democracy from a would-be Chavist dictator in my post, A Coup for Democracy in Honduras. The ouster of Zelaya has now been legitimatized by the elections, which have restored representative democracy to the Honduran Republic. To its credit, the Administration had announced that it would recognize the results of a free and fair election. Some Latin American states, like Columbia and some Central American states, have followed the American lead, but others, especially those aligned with Chavez, are insisting on a return of power for Zelaya, if only until his term ends in January.

Regardless, the U.S. should end its punishment of Honduras and restore aid to its ally. The U.S. needs stable, democratic friends in Latin America not only for trade, but as a bulwark against the growing threat of Chavist authoritarianism.

The Risks and Dangers of Civilian Trials for the September 11 Terrorists

Despite the legal precedent of trying foreigners who commit war crimes in military tribunals, as well as Congressional authorization to do so, the Obama Administration has decided to try the September 11 terrorists in civilian courts instead. The conspirators, who had been facing a military trial, had expressed a willingness to plead guilty. There are several risks and dangers of the Obama Administration’s decision.

Holding trial of the September 11 terrorists in New York instead of at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba would make that city even more of a target for terrorism than it already is. Terrorists often use trials as a pretext for attacks. In addition, the massive security necessary for the trial will not only be inconvenient for New Yorkers, but costly to the city, as well.

This Obama Administration decision is inconsistent with its decision to try other al-Qaeda terrorists in civilian courts. For example, the Administration plans to try the terrorists who attacked the U.S.S. Cole in 2000 in a military court. Its rationale is the distinction between a military or civilian attack, but this distinction is splitting hairs, as September 11 was both an attack on civilians and the military. The Administration’s supporters have argued that there is precedent for trying terrorists in civilian court. That others before have been tried successfully by civilian courts does not necessarily mean it is a good idea.

Indeed, civilian trials of terrorists represent a return to the pre-September 11 mentality that terrorism is a crime, not an act of war. That mentality emboldened the terrorists to launch the September 11 Terrorist Attacks while the United States considered itself at peace, which its policies reflected, despite Osama bin Laden’s 1996 fatwa tantamount to a declaration of war. The one post-September 11 civilian trial of an al-Qaeda terrorist linked to the September 11 conspirators, Zacarias Moussaui, which took a year to conclude after he indicated that he wanted to plead guilty, should have given the Obama Administration pause. Instead, the Administration is citing this Bush Administration mistake as precedent.

Other concerns about a civilian trial for terrorists include the danger that the evidence will wither force either a revelation of American sources and methods of intelligence or an unwillingness of the U.S. to submit such incriminating evidence, which would jeopardize the possibility of a conviction, unlike in a military tribunal. In fact, the revelation of bin Laden as an un-indicted co-conspirator in a civilian terrorist trial during the Clinton Administration tipped the al-Qaeda founder off that the U.S. considered him a prime terrorist suspect. Another major concern is the federal rules of criminal procedure, unlike the rules for military tribunals, which were not applied to suspected terrorists caught on the battlefield. The terrorists could argue that their charges should be dismissed for any number of legal technicalities, which would not be applicable on foreign soil, which is one of the advantages of Guantanamo Bay. The concern, however, about the inadmissibility of evidence obtained from terrorist suspects through harsh interrogations without the presence of attorneys is not great because there had been sufficient evidence against these terrorists beforehand that caused the U.S. and its allies to capture them in the first place, and the information was obtained in order to thwart other terrorist attacks, not for evidence of guilt. Finally, another procedural concern is that the terrorists would be unable to be tried by an impartial jury in New York, which could be used by the terrorists as a reason to dismiss the charges against them or to appeal a conviction.

Unlike military tribunals, terrorists can turn civilian trials into show trials, which would give them a public platform to explain their rationale for their evil deeds – just a few blocks away from the World Trade Center. Moussai turned his case into a show trial, for example.

Despite these concerns, the Obama Administration has expressed a certainty that the terrorists will be convicted. But the outcome of criminal trials is never a certainty, especially one with such high risks for the prosecution, as opposed to a military trial, let alone all the other dangers this return to a “September 10” policy would represent. The Obama Administration also seems to be politically motivated to appear to foreigners as fairer than the Bush Administration.

These reasons do not outweigh the risks and dangers of conducting civilian trials for the September 11 terrorists and the damaging message being sent to Americans and to their allies and enemies, that the United States no longer considers itself at war with those who are at war with the U.S.

First Anniversary of My Blog; Happy Thanksgiving

Among many other things for which I am thankful, I am grateful for this blog and for your patronage of it. I have enjoyed the opportunity to express my views and appreciate your support.

I have not been posting as frequently as I would like recently, as I have been concluding my service as an elected official. I have avoided that subject on this blog, preferring to keep them separate, but once my term ends soon, I intend to post my observations on implementing conservative principles in an urban environment. I have been thankful for the opportunity to serve, but am looking forward to a break from the commitment of my time. I hope to be able to post to my blog more often.

I wish all of you a Happy Thanksgiving. God bless you and God bless America!

Pennsylvania Considers the Castle Doctrine

The Pennsylvania House of Representatives is considering the adoption of the “Castle Doctrine,” which gives citizens the right to use deadly force against an attacker, if reasonably necessary, to defend themselves wherever a citizen has a right to be.

Pennsylvania House Bill 40 would clarify the state's existing self-defense law by clearly adopting the standard derived from English Common Law that regards a man's home as his castle. The Castle Doctrine includes the abolition of the “duty to retreat” currently in Pennsylvania law, which would guarantee citizens the right to “stand their ground.”

Current Pennsylvania law forces citizens to prove that that the use of a deadly weapon in self-defense -- even only brandishing a firearm -- was justified. Citizens who defend themselves justifiably are often arrested, especially in Philadelphia County. Indeed, justice is unequal in Pennsylvania, as the use of a deadly weapon in self-defense is less prosecuted in many other counties. Under Pennsylvania House Bill 40, the burden will be on the prosecution to prove that the use of deadly force was not reasonable.

House Bill 40 would also provide citizens with immunity from lawsuits brought by criminals against citizens who use deadly weapons to defend themselves.

The adoption of the Castle Doctrine would safeguard citizens better than current Pennsylvania law by removing any fear of prosecution or litigation for justifiably defending themselves, which also would thereby better deter crime. Pennsylvania law should guarantee the rights of citizens to use deadly force to defend themselves and their property reasonably, which is why Pennsylvania House Bill 40 must pass.

1,000th Visit to My Blog

My blog has now been visited over 1,000 times since April 2! I am pleased that it only took seven and a third months to pass this milestone, even though I have hardly advertised my blog at all. Thank you for your patronage. I am especially grateful to those of you who are loyal visitors.

Here are the statistics: I do not count my own visits, and do not count hits from the same person that occur less than one hour apart as a visit. If I were to include the latter total of hits, the total hits would be over 1,400.

Sixty people started their visits to my blog on its homepage. Many of them are loyal visitors; twelve of them alone visited my blog around 225 times! I appreciate that some of them posted links to my blog on the Internet.

Over 720 others either started their visit by directly linking to a post or by landing on it through web searches. Many of them returned for more visits or viewed my homepage or other posts. They landed on a total of 64 posts, going as far back as January, and viewed 10 additional posts. These visitors have come from 47 States in the Union, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico; the most have come from CA, followed by FL, NY, TX, PA and NJ. Visitors have come from 48 foreign states and Hong Kong on 6 continents; the most have come from Malaysia, the UK, Canada, Algeria, India and Pakistan. One of the last hits this morning came from the Peoples' Republic of China -- the first visit from a communist state (not counting Chinese-owned Hong Kong, which is still free).

The most popular posts are Rise and Fall of Islamic Civilization, with over 200 hits, and the Economy, Deficit and Debt at George W. Bush's Administration, with over 100. Other popular posts are Obama did not Inherit the Economy from Bush; Lepanto, by GK Chesterton; Father Stanley Jaki, Rest in Peace; Two Big Myths About the Founding Fathers; Follow-up on the Fall of Islamic Civilization; Radicals in the Obama Administration; and Analysis of Obama's Economic and Fiscal Policies.

Visitors have come from interesting places. Many are from colleges and universities. Some are from governments; although hits to posts had come from searchers at the U.S. House of Representatives before, for the first time since my last blog hit report, another visitor from there landed on my homepage after searching for my name and other information. I had mentioned a hit before in an early blog report from the Holy See, Vatican City, but another one since then came from a parish church (Ave Maria, Colorado). There have even been hits from the media; I had mentioned in an early blog hit report that one visitor came from the New York Times, who used my blog as background reading for a story, but another visitor since then came from CBS.

Again, thank you for visiting my blog and making it successful. Please continue to visit it regularly and to post comments or to submit suggestions for further topics. I have many more posts planned. Thank you!

Berlusconi Defies European Court, Keeps Crucifixes in Italian Schools

The European Court declared crucifixes in Italian state-run schools illegal, but Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi will defy the court and keep the crucifixes in the schools.

Although Catholicism is no longer the state religion of Italy, other Christians and even many non-Christians such as Muslims believe in the Scriptural account of the Crucifixion of Jesus, while many others at least recognize its historicity. Crucifixes have long been in Italian school classrooms, except during the Fascist regime, when they were replaced by large portraits of dictator Benito Mussolini.

Indeed, Crucifixes are the Italian way to remind them that their equal rights come from our Creator, not the state, just as American schoolchildren pledge allegiance to the Flag of their republic “under God.” Thus, even non-believers are dependent for their liberty on the faith of those who do believe. Therefore, it is only right that those believers publicly declare their faith from time to time, in order to reaffirm the commitment of the state to protect the liberty of all the people.

But the Italian school Crucifix issue is part of a larger issue: the potential loss of sovereignty of member states to the European Union. These states, like Italy, have surrendered much of their sovereignty already, but it is not yet clear just how much they have lost. Berlusconi stated that he intends to defy the court order because it lacks any authority. He is right to stand up for federalism within the “United States of Europe,” just as conservatives in the United States of America must do.

Conservative Analysis of the 2009 Elections

The 2009 elections were more favorable to Republicans and conservatives than the 2008 elections. Although Republican and conservative candidates did not win every major race, they did win both of the most significant offices on the ballot: Bob McDonnel was elected Governor of Virginia and Chris Christie was elected Governor of New Jersey.

Both states had voted for Barak Obama for president and had Democratic governors for eight years. Although the 2009 election was not a referendum on Obama, it suggests – at least – that his waning popularity is not transferable to other liberal Democrats. At most, it could suggest voter dissatisfaction with the excessive spending, borrowing and taxing by liberal Democrats in both the federal and state governments. It also suggests that the strategy of campaigning against George W. Bush, such as incumbent New Jersey Governor John Corzine employed, no longer works.

McDonnel’s campaign was a particularly good example of a positive, issues-oriented campaign. His historic landslide produced GOP coat-tails in Virginia: Republicans swept all three statewide offices, including lieutenant governor and attorney general, and won several more seats in the state legislature.

One commonality to both Republican victories is that both nominees were former prosecutors. McDonnel was a state attorney general and Christie a U.S. Attorney. Christie’s election is particularly noteworthy because he had prosecuted successfully scores of public officials, including mostly Democrats, for corruption. Indeed, he never lost a case! Although Democratic-dominated New Jersey had developed a reputation as one of the most corrupt states, voters continued to elect Democrats. The 2009 elections suggest that voters prefer Republicans viewed as tough on crime.

Gubernatorial races are significant beyond suggesting the mood of the American electorate. Even though they are state elections, they have federal implications. For example, governors make appointments to the U.S. Senate when there are vacancies. In some states, like New Jersey, the governor appoints appellate judges, who rule on elections for federal office and congressional redistricting. The party of the governor is given preference on all of the state’s election ballots in some states, including for federal office. Also, governors are often presidential or vice presidential nominees. Moreover, their success at implementing reforms can serve as examples to other states.

There were other conservative Republican victories across the United States. In Pennsylvania, for example, strict-constructionist Republicans won at least six out of seven statewide judicial races, including a seat on the state Supreme Court that determined which party controls the majority on the highest court of appeals in the Keystone State. Republican judges will now be the referees in Pennsylvania of the congressional redistricting after the 2010 Census.

Conservatives must build on the momentum generated by these encouraging victories by recruiting and supporting candidates in Republican primary elections in 2010. In those elections for state and federal offices, voters will elect all 435 members of the U.S. House of Representatives and one third of the seats in the Senate. Many states will elect governors and state legislators. In the meantime, conservatives must continue to speak out in favor of liberty, limited government, virtue and strong defense.

Jihad at Ft. Hood

The massacre by a Muslim soldier of other soldiers at Ft. Hood, Texas was an Islamic militant attack in furtherance of Jihad (Islamic holy war). Although the killer may have been suffering from some mental problems, those who would dismiss this attack as merely the actions of a madman cannot deny the facts: the killer’s statements and writings indicate not only his opposition to the War on Terrorism as a “war against Islam,” but even his support for suicide attacks against the soldiers of non-Muslim states.

Because many jihadis are driven by despair, it would be wrong to focus overly on any despair the killer felt instead of on his ideological beliefs. Indeed, the Ft. Hood killer suggested that to conduct a suicidal attack would not be suicide, which is prohibited by Islam, if it were not motivated by “despair,” meaning that jihad could provide an excuse to commit suicide for one who already had feelings of despair. In short, it is the militant Islamic ideology of jihad that is the sine qua non for suicide attacks.

The Ft. Hood massacre, however, was not an act of terrorism because it was an attack primarily on the military, not innocent civilians, although there were civilians in the area of the attack (See my post, Follow-up on the Definition of Terrorism). That the Ft. Hood attack was not terrorism makes it no less representative of jihad, as it is part of a pattern with al-Qaeda and other terrorists of targeting U.S. military forces (e.g. the bombing of the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia in 1995, the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole in 2000 and the attack of the Pentagon as part of the September 11, 2001 Attacks), regardless of whether the attack was intended to terrorize innocent civilians.

The Ft. Hood massacre is also part of a pattern of domestic attacks by Muslims, usually operating individually, within the United States. Regardless of whether these attacks are acts of terrorism, they clearly represent acts of Islamic militancy in furtherance of jihad. These attacks began before September 11, but have continued since. They are usually dismissed by the media and other commentators, many liberal politicians and some Islamic leaders as isolated events not related to “terrorism.”

The same tolerance of terrorist and other militant Muslim attacks against Americans abroad before September 11 is being practiced domestically, as each attack is seen in isolation and not as part of a pattern, and dismissed as the acts of those who are insane, instead of recognizing the ideology of militant jihad (See my post, An Attack on Americans Anywhere is an Attack on Us). We ignore these threats at our own peril. We must not make the same mistake here in the United States as we did abroad.

The Federalization of Health Insurance is Dangerous to Liberty

The United States House of Representatives narrowly passed a bill to federalize health insurance and require all American residents to purchase health insurance or face a fine and larger employers to provide health insurance benefits. The massive new welfare entitlement would provide health insurance for most, but far from all, of those who currently do not have health insurance, including illegal immigrants, even though many of those who are uninsured neither need nor want it and most people who have private health insurance are satisfied with their coverage.

The bill would do so by creating an optional federal government-run health insurance program and by subsidizing private plans Americans will be forced to purchase, often at a higher premium than they are currently paying. In other words, the redistributionist bill would essentially take money from one group of Americans and give it to another. Redistribution of income denies the liberty of the pursuit of happiness because it denies the fruits of one’s labor. Because it would take money from those who earn it and gives it to those who do not, it would subsidize unemployment. Subsidizing something only encourages it, as those who are lazy will have even less incentive to work.

The federalization of health insurance would therefore represent a takeover by the federal government of a large sector of the economy, which would lead to higher taxes and deficits and more bureaucracy. The only way the federal government would be able to reduce costs is to ration care, as happens in other states with socialized healthcare, which means that healthcare for seniors, for example, would be reduced, and there would be waiting lists for many procedures. As a welfare program, it would make people even more dependent on government, and thereby less free. Indeed, the federalization of health insurance would reduce the liberty of all Americans because the federal government would be empowered to regulate more and more areas of the lives of Americans that might possibly affect the costs of health care. Thus, the “pro-choice” liberals who propose this bill, led by President Barak Obama and Congressional Democrats, would reduce choices about both health insurance and health care for all Americans.

Health insurance, however, is not a federal issue. There is nothing inherently federal about it. Government exists to protect the rights of the people. The federalization of health insurance would distract the federal government, which is primarily responsible for protecting Americans from foreign threats, from fulfilling its purpose. The federal government, which was already large and inefficient, has been taking over more and more sectors of the private economy. There is no effort whatsoever by the proponents of federalized health insurance to explain what is federal about health insurance in order to justify federalizing it. These liberals cannot even find in the constitution where they get the authority to require purchase of something as a condition of residence in the United States, which would be unprecedented. Indeed, they dismiss the question of constitutional authority as irrelevant or stretch its meaning to such a degree as to render it irrelevant. For example, they use the constitutional clause granting the power to the federal government to regulate interstate commerce to mandate how employers compensate their employees, even if they only engage in intrastate commerce.

The federalization of health insurance is the latest example of how the federal government recognizes no limit in its authority at all, at the expense of the rights of the states and the people. The liberals who support the federalization of health insurance do not believe in the principle of federalism established by the Framers of the Constitution which limits the powers of the federal government only to federal matters. They have effectively repealed that document by ignoring it. And there are few conservative voices who even cry out against this centralization of power that violates the constitutional principal of checks and balances by proclaiming such liberal schemes as inappropriate matters for the federal government with which to interfere, let alone control.

The Senate is considering a bill similar to the one that passed the House to federalize health insurance. If the Senate bill passes that body in a different form from the one passed by the House, a conference committee will work out the differences and submit the compromise bill for the final approval of both bodies to send to the President for his signature into law. Conservatives must act to stop this bill that is dangerous to liberty from ever becoming law.

Personal Note; Election Day Reminder

I am sorry that I have been unable to post to my blog lately, as I have been preoccupied once again with local political matters. I am taking this opportunity to remind all readers that General Election Day is one week from today (Tuesday, November 3) in Pennsylvania and other states.

In the Keystone State, there are some critically important statewide appellate judicial races, including one which will determine which party controls the State Supreme Court (which will be especially important because of congressional redistricting after the 2010 Census), as well as many local races for judges, municipalities and school districts which effect citizens most directly. It is noteworthy that New Jersey and Virginia have gubernatorial elections, while there is a mayoral contest in New York City.

I urge those conservatives who have been protesting the growth of the federal government this year to come out to vote on Tuesday, November 3 in these state elections for those candidates who most closely share their views, which would send a message to Washington to reign in the spending, borrowing and taxing and to restore liberty.

I am eager to return to posting regularly as soon as I can, but am pleased in the meantime to have had this timely opportunity to post today. I thank my readers for their loyalty to my blog.

Remember to vote on Tuesday, November 3!

Obama Admits U.S. Is the Wealthiest Economy

United States President Barak Obama admitted recently that the U.S. is “the wealthiest nation in the world.” He made the comments in order to justify the expenditure of his proposed federalization of health insurance, which amounts to a massive new welfare entitlement financed with tax increases and higher insurance premiums.

Of course, as I have noted in earlier posts, the U.S. is neither a nation nor a nation-state, but a union of states. Regardless, the point is that despite the recession, which Obama and his supporters have attempted to portray as the worst since the Great Depression, he has admitted that the U.S. remains the wealthiest economy in the world.

Wealth is measured by economists in terms of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Even though U.S. GDP has contracted in 2009 for the first time in many years (it even increased in 2008, even though some economists date the beginning of the recession as late 2007), the U.S. GDP is still larger -- by trillions of dollars -- than that of any other economy in the world.

The financial crisis of 2008 did cause the recession to become one of the worst since the Great Depression. Although it is true that it was the worst financial crisis, during which banks became reluctant to extend credit, a depression was avoided by swift federal action. It is not yet clear that the Panic of 2008 has been the worst economic recession, a title still held by the 1981-1982 recession, during which unemployment peaked at well over 10%.

Indeed, those same economists who declared the recession began in 2007 have just announced that the recession is already over -- before most of Obama's policies have taken effect. The same natural business cycle that caused the recession, albeit with some contribution from liberal policies that triggered the collapse of the mortgage industry, has caused its recovery, albeit with some contribution from tax rebates, lower interest rates and the extension of federal credit to the financial industry. In short, this recession was scary, but not proof of the failure of the free market system that would justify Obama's massive spending, borrowing and taxing

Nevertheless, it is worth considering Obama's point that the U.S. economy is so strong that even such a blow as the Panic of 2008, like September 11, could only temporarily weaken it and not even come close to allowing the next largest economies, as measured by GDP, to pass it in size.

If Obama realizes that the U.S. still has the wealthiest economy in the world -- by far -- and the recession is over, according to the economists he trusts, then he should save the 90% of his spending spree that he had insisted was a necessary component of his so-called “stimulus” bill but has not yet been spent. Those hundreds of billions of dollars are thus not necessary to stimulate an economy already in recovery and instead should be saved and used to pay down the debt or reduce taxes, which would promote long-term growth instead of risking another recession which would be caused by the higher taxes and inflation the economic stimulus would necessitate.

Although Obama and his liberal supporters are already making the dubious claim of credit for the economic recovery, we conservatives should encourage the opportunity be taken to rescind the most unnecessary parts of the stimulus spending, which would be good for the U.S. economy, for which both parties could share the credit, as when the Republican Congress rescued the Democratic President Bill Clinton from his economic mistakes. Otherwise, after claiming credit for the current recovery, Obama would not be able to escape the blame for the “double-dip” recession his inflationary policies would trigger.

Celebrate Columbus Day

Two major media articles recently focused on the Columbus Day Holiday. Neither was positive, with one praising the negative treatment of Christopher Columbus in schools as being more balanced, and the other focusing on how the holiday is increasingly less observed in terms of days off or celebrations and is under attack from those who do not appreciate the achievement of the Discoverer of the New World.

The first article celebrated how the negative aspects of the Discovery of the New World, or even about Columbus himself, are included in the curriculum in many schools across the United States, which the article indicated represents a change from the more heroic treatment of Columbus before. I find this premise shocking, as Columbus was totally ignored in the curriculum of the 1970s and early 1980s to which I was exposed. Furthermore, it is nothing new for the left to criticize Columbus, as it has long been a trend among liberals to attempt to ruin the reputations of American heroes and Founders. The far left especially does not appreciate the introduction of Christianity and Western ideals of liberty and equality to the New World by Columbus. Leftists cannot acknowledge that it was these very ideals that ended slavery, not the pseudo-egalitarian Marxism to which they subscribe.

The Discovery of the New World by Columbus led to its liberation not only from slavery and politically, but spiritually because God is Freedom. The beginnings of liberation could already be seen in Columbus’ own time. Indeed, Columbus could be called the Liberator of the Caribbean Sea. That sea was named for the Carib Indians, who practiced a most vicious form of cannibalism, in which they would capture Taino Indians, kill them and eat them, except for the young women, whom they raped so as to produce young males, whom they would fatten until adolescence, upon which they, too, would be killed and eaten. The Tainos lived in absolute terror of the Caribs, until Columbus liberated them. The multiculturalist left who insists that all cultures are equal, except that it condemns Western Civilization as the root of all evil, cannot bring itself either to criticize any non-Westerners for such practices or to give the least bit of credit to Westerners for ending them.

It is not unreasonable to raise the point that the initial contact between any two peoples leads to an exchange of diseases, as there is a lack of immunity on the part of one people for the diseases carried by the other. Therefore, it is something that would have happened if the American Indians had discovered the Old World. However, this necessary consequence of discoveries ought not to be the primary emphasis on the Discovery of the New World, which would be like regarding the Discovery and all the riches and new foods it brought as a bad thing for the Old World strictly because the Indians gave the Europeans syphilis. In other words, it is one thing to point out negative consequences of the Discovery, but another thing to regard the entire Discovery as a bad thing because of them, despite all the good things which outweigh them.

Finally, the article on the curriculum made much of the ignorant old argument that Columbus could not have discovered the New World because there were already people there, as if Columbus’ discovery detracts from theirs, as if one’s discovery is mutually exclusive of another’s, or even as if to credit Columbus for his discovery is to ignore the humanity of the American Indians. It ought to be reasonable to expect that in a school, the origin of the word discovery would be explained in the first place. Alas, it is often not. Discovery comes from the Latin prefix dis, which means “to do the opposite of” and the word cover, which put together mean “to uncover.” The Atlantic Ocean was the cover that hid the Old World and New from each other. Through his exceptional skills as a navigator, Columbus removed that cover by permanently bridging the two worlds, which produced a double discovery as each world discovered the other – the greatest discovery in the history of the world.

As for the second article, I intend this post to represent a proper commemoration of Columbus Day, contrary to the trend of minimizing or ignoring the day. Conservatives ought to celebrate Columbus Day as equally as other federal or state holidays and support accurate education about the Discovery of the New World as part of a broad defense of Western Civilization.

Happy Columbus Day!

Obama Wins Nobel Liberal Popularity Contest

United States President Barak Hussein Obama won the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize, a once prestigious prize that has been reduced to a popularity contest for European liberals. Along with some more worthy awardees, Obama joins a gallery of fools, phonies, violent communists and even a terrorist who have won the prize in recent decades.

The selection by the Nobel Peace Prize Committee of the new U.S. president also reflects a trend toward awarding recipients in the hope that they will achieve peace, instead of awarding those who have already achieved it.

The Nobel Committee’s announcement that it was awarding the Peace Prize to Obama was unusual because it contained numerous criticisms of another individual, namely former President George W. Bush, and by extension, the United States, none of which were necessary if Obama’s accomplishments were worthy of the award on their own merit. Instead, it appears as if the Committee awarded the Prize to Obama for representing a break with Bush’s policies, with which it sometimes did not agree.

In selecting Obama, the Nobel Committee pointed to Obama’s emphasis on diplomacy and his acceptance of the primacy of the United Nations. It welcomed Obama’s policies as changes from those of Bush, as if he did not support diplomacy or the U.N. Apparently, the fact that Bush did what the U.N was unwilling to do in order to enforce its own resolutions was interpreted by the Nobel Committee as a rejection of the primacy of the U.N.

Bush did, in fact, engage in diplomacy – through the U.N – in regard to Iraq. He had obtained a unanimous vote from the UN Security Council threatening Iraq with war for failing to fulfill its obligations under previous U.N resolutions to eliminate its weapons of mass destruction programs. I doubt that opponents of the Liberation of Iraq who complain about a lack of sufficient “diplomacy,” like the Nobel Committee, mean diplomacy between the U.S. and Saddam Hussein. They more likely mean diplomacy with the French and others at the time who lacked the willingness to back up their words and enforce U.N resolutions. In other words, these supporters of “diplomacy” mean that the U.S. should have agreed with those opponents who favored continuing weapons inspections upon which Iraq was cheating, while continuing economic sanctions, upon which Iraq was also cheating. Neither act, however, would have represented diplomacy, let alone resolved the crisis. For many liberals, especially European ones, the process is more important than the result. Moreover, Bush attained numerous diplomatic agreements with other states in regard to cooperation in the War on Terrorism. But when it better served U.S. interests, he bypassed the U.N and instead diplomatically gained unanimous support from NATO, such as in Afghanistan.

The Nobel Committee remarked that a leader only has authority when his leadership is based on the views of a majority, which is a typical liberal European view. A policy is neither right nor wrong based upon popularity, but upon whether it is moral and effective. Furthermore, majority vote of U.N. members would mean two things that hardly confer legitimacy: 1) weighing the vote of each member, no matter how small, as equal to that of the greatest powers and 2) weighing the votes of dictatorships that violate human rights as equal with those of representative democracies that respect human rights.

The Committee cited Obama’s encouragement of another round of negotiations between the Israelis and the Arabs even though no agreement is expected from the latest round. Apparently, the Committee, which never awarded the Peace Prize to President George W. Bush, gave Bush less credit for successfully mediating an end to the long, bloody civil war in Southern Sudan and successfully mediating a quick end to the Macedonian civil war before it escalated into a major regional conflict than to Obama for only initiating the latest round of peace talks on the Palestinian Question – something that every recent U.S. president has done.

Obama had expressed the goal of eliminating nuclear weapons, which the Nobel Committee cited as a factor worthy of the Peace Prize. Every recent U.S. president has expressed similar thoughts. Apparently, President George W. Bush received less credit from the Nobel Committee for successfully negotiating nuclear weapons cuts with Russia than it gave Obama for only announcing his goal.

Finally, the Nobel Committee again contrasted Obama’s support for climate change policies with Bush’s policies. Liberals believe that climate change will lead to conflict. Apparently, Bush’s extraordinarily successful humanitarian efforts in Africa did not merit consideration.

The Nobel Peace Prize has been given to a number of undeserving awardees over the last quarter century:
Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu won the Peace Prize for his opposition to apartheid in South Africa, even though he refused to condemn the violent practices towards other blacks of the communist African National Congress; Mikhail Gorbachev, the Soviet dictator who tried to rescue communism, was awarded the Peace Prize for not invading Europe after the overthrow of communism there, as if he would have been reasonable to have done so; Terrorist Yassir Arafat shared the Prize with Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin after having made an agreement with Israel that he failed to keep and reverting to terrorism; Rigoberta Menchu, the Marxist opponent of the pro-American Guatemalan government, won the Prize based upon her autobiography, which was later exposed as containing false accusations of atrocities against that government, and former U.S. President Jimmy Carter won the Nobel Peace Prize for his support for human rights that has largely been unsuccessful, and for the deal he made on behalf of President Bill Clinton with North Korea’s Communist regime to eliminate its nuclear weapons program in return for generous aid, a deal it began to violate not long after Carter’s appeasement.

Conversely, George W. Bush is in good company with some of the people the Nobel Committee never deemed worthy of a Peace Prize, such as Ronald Reagan, who, as the former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher said, “won the Cold War without firing a shot,” or Pope John Paul II the Great, for his successful nonviolent opposition to communism. The Nobel Committee would never have considered Bush for the Peace Prize for combating the scourge of terrorism.

Thankfully, the Nobel Committee made no mention of Obama’s role as a wartime president in Iraq or Afghanistan. To his credit, Obama defended his support for the Afghan War in his speech announcing his acceptance of the Nobel Peace Prize, citing the danger to world peace represented by the enemy the U.S. is fighting there. It is a concern that the award will alter Obama’s decision-making as Commander in Chief in order to live up to the reputation – a result that some have speculated was the Committee’s purpose. We conservatives must continue to encourage Obama not to reject his generals’ proposal to increase the number of troops in Afghanistan in order to win the counterinsurgency campaign against the Taliban so that they do not take that country over again and turn it back into a safe haven for al-Qaeda and other terrorists, or not to avoid the last-resort option of military force against Iran if it is necessary to prevent that terrorist-sponsoring regime from acquiring nuclear weapons.

Readers' Opinion Survey: The Greatest Foreign Threat to U.S. Security

I am interested in what the readers of this blog consider to be the greatest foreign threat to the security of the United States. Therefore, I am inviting you to participate in an opinion survey.

There are many choices. Please choose from among the following, listed in alphabetical order:

China, H1N1 Influenza, Iran/Syria/Hezbollah/Hamas, North Korea, al-Qaeda and its allies, Russia, or Venezuala and its allies

I did not include illegal drugs because -- alas -- it is an import arising from domestic demand, which makes it an internal threat. I also did not include the entry of people into the U.S., legally or illegally, as it is more of a potential means for the other security threats to enter than a security threat itself. However, please feel free to make another choice in addition to the ones I have suggested.

Please post a comment to this post indicating your choice and a brief explanation. You may choose more than one if you are categorizing your choices (e.g. greatest short-term threat vs. long-term threat, most likely to attack, most potentially dangerous, etc.).

I shall reserve from commenting on the choices until after I have received your responses. The more responses, the better the survey will be. Look for a post summarizing the results and providing my thoughts within a few weeks. Until then, readers may follow the progress of the survey by viewing the comments.

Thank you for your participation. I hope you enjoy the opportunity to express your thoughts.

Six-Month Blog Report

Thank you for visiting my blog. There have now been well over 800 visits to my blog since April 2. Hits have come from all but three States in the Union, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, as well as 44 foreign states. California and Malaysia continue to be the American and foreign state leaders, respectively. Searchers have landed on 56 pages and viewed a total of ten more, in addition to those searchers who also visited my homepage. Interesting hits in the last month from searchers included the first visit from an Ivy League School, the University of Pennsylvania, as well as one from the National Defense University. I am especially appreciative of those of you who regularly view my homepage.

Please continue to visit every few days and to post comments or to ask questions or make suggestions for topics. Again, thank you for making blogging enjoyable.

Two Unintended Positive Consequences of Obama's Policies

There have been at least two positive consequences of the policies of United States President Barak Obama that he did not intend.

The first one has been a sharp increase in the purchase of guns, which represents the bonus of being one of the few policies Obama has implemented that have actually stimulated the economy. Many Americans apparently have been concerned that the Obama Administration might try to violate the right to keep and bear arms that is protected by the Second Amendment to the Constitution. Therefore, they are stocking up on guns and ammunition.

The second one has been that a plurality of Americans now consider themselves to be pro-life, as opposed to having been pro-abortion before Obama took office. Obama's policy of providing taxpayer money to groups that promote abortion abroad, as well as to the destruction of human embryos, has caused some Americans to reconsider their views on abortion. Obama's proposed federalization of health care would include coverage for abortion, which may be adding to the discontent that some Americans are experiencing on this issue.

The World is Rejecting Obama

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) rejected the passionate in-person pleas of United States President Barak Obama and his wife on behalf of Chicago's bid to host the 2016 Olympics and instead awarded the bid to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Chicago, Obama's hometown, received the least number of votes among the four cities bidding to host the quadrennial games.

Obama's premise as a presidential candidate was that American allies were not cooperating with the U.S. because of a lack of respect for U.S. President George W. Bush. Obama's liberal supporters supported a change in American foreign policy, which they believed would be better served by a more humble and enlightened leader. They opposed the candidacy of Republican presidential nominee John McCain, whose policies they regarded as too similar to Bush's.

Two examples that Obama and his supporters cited were Guantanamo Bay and Afghanistan. In the case of the former, American allies were reluctant to accept Bush's requests to take in terrorist detainees in order to help the U.S. close the facility that its allies opposed. In the latter case, American allies were reluctant to send a significant number of combat troops to Afghanistan to support the American war effort there. However, there are a number of reasons why American allies decline to assist the U.S., none of which were necessarily based upon a lack of respect for Bush in particular.

American allies have declined to accept terrorist detainees for the same reasons that Americans do not want the terrorists on their soil, either. One reason American allies declined to send anything more than a few combat troops to Afghanistan is because they are unable to do so, as they have become increasingly dependent on American protection and have neglected to contribute financially to their own defense.

A reason some allies oppose American policies at times is just for the sake of opposing American policies in order to appear independent from the U.S. to their domestic populations, or out of nationalism, as in the case of the previous French government (which has since been replaced by a more pro-American one), which had declared its policy to be based upon opposition to a unipolar (read: American-led) world.

Another reason American allies sometimes oppose U.S. policies is because they sometimes disagree with the U.S. Their populations especially hold different views from Americans, if not the governments themselves. For example, many Europeans and other Westerners do not regard the Afghan War as their war, but as an American war. Indeed, they do not regard it as any more of a war of necessity than the Liberation of Iraq. They regard both as wars of choice, as they do not even consider the War on Terrorism to be a literal war. Furthermore, they are more concerned about provoking terrorist attacks by siding with the U.S., such as the Madrid bombing by al-Qaeda that resulted in the election of a liberal government that rewarded terrorism by pulling Spanish troops from Iraq as al-Qaeda had demanded.

Bush was nonetheless able to receive much cooperation from allies and others around the world for the War on Terrorism, but American allies oppose American policies at times for their own reasons, not necessarily because of a lack of personal respect for the American president.

Obama and his supporters expected that his personal qualities and anti-American rhetoric would lead to greater cooperation from American allies than Bush received in regard to Guantanamo Bay and Afghanistan, but he has not received significantly more support in either case: allies have agreed to accept only a token number of terrorist detainees from Guantanamo and have promised to send only a few more combat troops to Afghanistan.

The rejection of these American requests made by Obama, together with the IOC's rejection of Chicago's bid, disproves the premise held by Obama and his supporters that the lack of allied support for the U.S. was because of Bush. Opposition from American allies and others to U.S. policies and interests is not because of a lack of respect for Obama, per se, any more than it was of Bush, but because Obama's premise held that allied opposition to the U.S. was strictly personal, then he must accept the personal responsibility for allied rejection of himself. Indeed, Obama's premise only served to raise the stakes for his requests to allies for assistance. Obama and his liberal supporters appear to be suffering from the psychological condition of projection, whereby they are projecting domestic attitudes onto foreigners.

Moreover, Obama's anti-American rhetoric appears to be validating anti-Americanism instead of abating it through his emphasis on a change in American foreign policy, a concern I first expressed here in my post, Obama's Anti-American Address to Muslims Fails to Achieve Its Purpose, in regard to Muslims. His rhetoric is apparently having a similar effect on anti-American Westerners.

The world's rejection of Obama's policies is exposing him and his liberal supporters as foolish and their policies as counterproductive, to the detriment of American interests.

A Comparison of Switzerland and Iraq

I mentioned Libyan dictator Muammar Khadafi’s speech before the UN General Assembly yesterday in my last post, but another one of his recent speeches was also interesting. Khadafi suggested that the artificial state of Switzerland should be abolished and its territory split between Germany, France and Italy.

The Swiss Confederation is comprised of numerous Cantons that are mostly German, but also French and Italian, and one small Canton that is Romansh. Some of the Cantons are Catholic, some are Protestant. In short, Switzerland represents a compromise on the Alpine frontier between three of Europe’s most powerful states, as well as between Western Europe’s two religions.

The discussion about Switzerland provides the opportunity to compare Iraq. Iraq, it is often stated, is comprised of three rival peoples, Sunnis, Shi’ites and Kurds, who could not reasonably be expected to form a nation-state together. Indeed, as a Senator, Joseph Biden, the Vice President of the United States, once proposed the partition of Iraq into three states comprised of the three groups.

But the theory that Iraq’s peoples cannot unite themselves into a state overlooks the example of Switzerland. Indeed, I submit that Switzerland is an even more improbable state than Iraq.

First of all, the view that Iraq is comprised mostly of three peoples, like Switzerland, is false. Iraq is comprised mostly of only two ethnic peoples: Arabs and Kurds. The reference to Iraq as comprised of “Sunnis, Shi’ites and Kurds” is misleading because it combines two religious groups with an ethnic group (See my post, Media Errors on Afghanistan and Iraq). However, Kurds are Sunni Muslims, too. The Sh’ites, like the rest of the Sunnis, are Arabs. Of course, as in Switzerland, there are other ethnic and religious minorities in Iraq, but Sunni Arabs, Shi’ite Arabs and Kurds are the three main groups.

Iraqis have a sense of national identity as The Cradle of Civilization and the land of Harun al-Rashid, whose age of wealth and culture gave rise to the legend of Sinbad. Kurds have been part of Iraq’s history for a long time. Saddam Hussein even fancied himself another Saladin, the Kurdish Sultan who led the Muslim forces that defeated the Crusaders. The Kurdish rebellion against him, like the Shi’ite rebellion, was more a reaction to his brutality than a reflection of division between Iraq’s peoples. In a sense, the Kurds and Shi’ites were already united – in opposition to Hussein’s regime. At the same time, Kurds and Sunni Arabs are united in opposition to Iranian influence.

Moreover, Islam unites the Kurds to Arabs more than Christianity unites the German, French and Italians in Switzerland. Christianity does not even unite the same ethnic group in Switzerland; Swiss Germans are especially divided between Catholicism and Protestantism. The split between Sunnis and Shi’ites is more one of schism than of heresy, unlike that between Catholics and Protestants. Sunnis and Shi’ites even worship at the same mosque, whereas Catholics and Protestants have separate churches. In fact, Sunnis and Shi’ites often live in proximity and sometimes even intermarry.

The argument advanced by liberals and isolationists opposed to the Liberation of Iraq, or realists skeptical of the success of any post-Hussein Iraqi state, that the Iraqi peoples hated each other represented a misunderstanding. The failure of the al-Qaeda strategy of trying to pit the groups against each other proved the falsehood of the argument. Al-Qaeda’s ruthless massacres only further united the Iraqi people in opposition to this foreign threat.

Iraqis face many challenges in establishing their state, but if an artificial state like Switzerland that is even more ethnically and religiously diverse than Iraq can peacefully exist, then so, too, can Iraq.

A Comparison of World Treatment of Libya and Honduras

Libya’s leader, Col. Muammar Qaddafi, seized power in a military coup d’etat in 1969. In addition to being the President of the African National Union, he has been elected President of the United Nations General Assembly.

It was in his latter capacity yesterday, that the Libyan dictator addressed the Assembly in a 90-minute diatribe filled with bizarre statements and conspiracy theories. Libya is one of several members of the UN whose leaders took power through military coups.

In contrast, Roberto Micheletti, the President of Honduras, has been condemned by the U.S. and the rest of the world. Honduras’ membership has been suspended from the Organization of American States and its government denied representation at the UN. Honduras has been subjected to economic sanctions and other measures by the Obama Administration.

The world is isolating and punishing Honduras because of a coup that removed the previous president earlier this year. But the difference between the treatment of the Honduran government and that of Libya and others is even more pronounced when one considers that the ouster of the previous Honduran president was not by a military coup, as in the case of Libya and the others, but as a result of a constitutional process. That process was necessary to defend Honduran liberty against the ousted president’s attempt to extend his term beyond the constitutional limit, as I observe in my post, A Coup for Democracy in Honduras.

Regardless of whether or not an ouster according to a constitutional process and replacement by a civilian member of the ousted leader’s own party, meets the definition of a coup, the process in Honduras was carried out in order to preserve representative democracy, not to establish a dictatorship, as was the result of Qaddafi’s coup in Libya, for example. In this sense, it was much like the forced resignation of U.S. President Richard M. Nixon. Furthermore, the Honduran government has continued to guarantee the rights of its citizens and has scheduled elections already for November, while the Libyan people have neither enjoyed basic human rights nor seen any competitive elections under Qaddafi.

The reason for the different treatment of Honduras and states whose governments seized power in military coups is two-fold. First, the ousted Honduran president’s attempt to extend his term unconstitutionally was part of a rise of authoritarianism around the world, especially in Latin America, led by Venezuelan dictator, Hugo Chavez. These Latin American dictators represent the replacement of pro-American governments with anti-American ones.

A second reason for the singling out of Honduras causes even the U.S. and other Western states also to oppose the ouster of the would-be Honduran dictator and his replacement by a

pro-American government: an emphasis on the process over the result. The Obama Administration and other Western governments regard elections as conferring legitimacy to a government, even if that government becomes undemocratic. This view is inconsistent in such cases when the initial legitimacy conferred to a government by an election is lost by its establish of a dictatorship. It is the overthrow of that government, especially if performed by constitutional means, which restores legitimacy.

As in the case of its recent betrayal of Poland and the Czech Republic (See my post, Obama Betrays Allies, Appeases Russia), the abandonment of the democratic pro-American regime in Honduras suggests the Obama Administration either cannot distinguish between friend or foe, or is not interested in making alliances with pro-Western states, but more interested in better relations to hostile regimes.

Irving Kristol, In Memoriam

Irving Kristol, an American Jewish journalist and writer whose views shifted from left to right and who became known as the “godfather of neoconservatism,” died two days ago at the age of 89.

Kristol served the United States in World War II. Afterward, he became a journalist. Kristol had been a socialist who supported the policies of Franklin Roosevelt. He was, however, a staunch Cold Warrior, who broke with his fellow liberals when they defended Communists during the Red Scare if the 1950s.

Kristol rejected the massive welfare state of the liberal Great Society of President Lyndon Johnson. He was concerned about the concentration of power in government at the expense of the private sector. Kristol was also alarmed by the decline in public virtue associated with the liberal progressives who took over the Democratic party and succeeded in nominating George McGovern for president in 1972.

By this point, Kristol began to become identified as a “neoconservative,” a new conservative, which is a conservative with a historical persuasion different from traditional conservatives. Neoconservatives were comfortable with strong government, but believed in lower taxes and small, temporary budget deficits, at most. Kristol's most famous quotation described a neoconservative “as a liberal who has been mugged by reality.” He observed that the free market worked economically and fostered liberty. Neoconservative support for “supply-side” economics helped transform the Republican party and led to the election of Ronald Reagan as U.S. President in 1980 and the implementation of his tax and spending cuts.

Neoconservatives also supported a strong foreign policy, just as conservatives had during the Cold War. Kristol had been concerned about the defense of Israel, which was more of a priority for conservatives and Republicans than liberals and Democrats.

Together with his wife, historian Gertrude Himmelfarb, Kristol argued for a restoration of public virtues, allying with Christian conservatives in this cause. Journalist William Kristol is one of their two children. The younger Kristol is known as one of the current leaders of neoconservatism who believe in an aggressive Cold War-like resistance to the existential threat of Islamic militancy.

Kristol was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2003 by President George W. Bush, the highest American civilian honor.

Obama Betrays Allies, Appeases Russia

United States President Barak Obama has betrayed American NATO allies in order to appease Russia, an enemy of the U.S. Obama has decided not to station missile defense interceptors in NATO members Poland and the Czech Republic, which would have defended all of Europe from nuclear missile attack by Iran.

The missile defense system planned for these two states was intended to defend against a ballistic missile attack by Iran, which is developing nuclear weapons and missiles with ranges long enough to strike at Europe. Obama's excuse for abandoning missile defense for Europe, an initiative of President George W. Bush, is that Iran is not developing its long-range missile technology as rapidly as had been believed, and is focusing instead on medium-range missiles with a range of only 1,000-1,200 miles. However, Iran shares a border with one NATO member, Turkey, while NATO members in southeastern Europe are also within range of Iran’s missiles. Yet the Obama Administration is not proposing to station the missile defense interceptors to within Iranian range.

Although ostensibly intended to defend against Iran, the missile defense shield would also have defended Eastern Europe against an increasingly authoritarian and aggressive Russia. Russia had vehemently opposed the missile shield. Russia continues to try to intimidate the former Soviet republics that were once part of its empire, as well as the Eastern European states that were once led by Soviet puppet governments, into siding with Russia against the United States. Despite the statements of the Obama Administration to the contrary – even if true – Obama’s decision appears to give into Russian demands, which reflects his intention to “restart” Russo-American relations, after a deterioration over the last few years. Thus, Russian intimidation seems to have been rewarded by the U.S.

Obama’s reward of Russia is in addition to NATO’s forgiveness of Russia for having invaded Georgia (See my post, NATO Forgives Russia for Georgian Invasion), an act for which Russia was allowed to get away with unpunished. The invasion of Georgia caused many of the former Soviet republics and satellites in Eastern Europe to turn to the U.S. for protection. Obama’s message in appeasing Russia is that maintaining good relations with its Russian enemy supersedes even the American interest in protecting its allies from Russia or Iran, let alone other former Soviet republics and satellites within Russian and Iranian missile range that have been hoping to join NATO for protection. The Obama Administration has indicated that the U.S. will receive nothing in return from Russia for giving into its demands, such as critical Russian cooperation in preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.

The purpose of NATO (The North Atlantic Treaty Organization) is the mutual defense of its members. The reason for the U.S. to defend its NATO allies is not so much for the sake of the allies, but for the defense of the U.S. Defending NATO allies is not, therefore, some kind of foreign aid, but an integral part of U.S. defense. Indeed, there are tens of thousands of American soldiers in stationed in bases in NATO members, some of which are within Iranian missile range. Thus, the decision by the Obama Administration to eliminate the missile interceptors in Eastern Europe is part of its policy of massive cuts in defense spending, despite its contention that government spending stimulates economic growth.

It is also part of a pattern by the Obama Administration of appeasement of enemies and betrayal of allies out of concern for the U.S. image abroad. See also my posts, Clinton, Obama Appease North Korea and A Coup for Democracy in Honduras. But giving into intimidation from enemies and betraying allies only makes the U.S. appear weak, which encourages enemies and disheartens allies, which does not help American image as much as appearing strong and true.

As an optimist, I prefer to see the good. I have observed in numerous posts the positive things the Obama Administration is doing in the War on Terrorism in order to keep the U.S. safe from terrorists or militants, despite its often counterproductive rhetoric and symbolic gestures. However, the Obama Administration’s wartime policy of weakening American defense in the face of threats is indefensible.

We conservatives must continue to support policies that protect the U.S. from threats from Iran and Russia. A missile defense shield must protect the U.S. and its allies and interests and Iran’s nuclear weapons and long-range ballistic missile programs must be thwarted. We must oppose the Obama Administration’s liberal policies that betray allies and support enemies, and instead support our allies and oppose our enemies.

Obama to Extend Three Patriot Act Provisions

I continue to observe President Barak Obama's pattern of saying the wrong thing, both as a candidate and as president, but generally doing the right thing in the War on Terrorism, with some notable exceptions. Despite Obama's statements about the need to review certain provisions of the controversial Patriot Act because of privacy concerns, the Obama Administration has announced that it will extend three of the provisions of the Patriot Act that were due to expire soon.

The Patriot Act, which was signed into law by President George W. Bush a few months after the September 11, 2001 Attacks, after being passed by Congress with overwhelming bipartisan support, has been opposed by many liberals and libertarians because of concerns about privacy. However, many of its specific provisions are not controversial; their constitutionality is unquestionable because they merely are applications of law enforcement tools to terrorism cases that have long applied to other types of cases.

One provision allows roving wiretaps of suspects, instead of requiring a warrant for each new telephone (e.g. cell phones or other communication devices) used by the suspect, which was necessitated by advances in technology. Another provision allows surveillance of suspects not connected with foreign states or terrorist organizations, but who operate independently.

The third provision allows the federal government access to business records. Liberals and libertarians complained about this provision especially because it allows the government to have access to library records. They considered government access to library records -- even public library records -- to be an invasion of privacy. These critics implied that this provision would be used to spy on political opponents' reading habits.

They are wrong. Although there is no right to privacy in the Constitution (and no requirement for a warrant in order to conduct a search), there is a protection under the Fourth Amendment against “unreasonable searches and seizures.” A search must be “reasonable,” which means based upon “probable cause” that the suspect has committed a crime.

Indeed, library records can reasonably be searched in other types of cases. For example, a woman was convicted in one of the States of the Union for murdering her husband, in part because of the evidence revealed from a search of her library records, to wit: her fingerprints on the page in the book for the recipe for the poison that was found to have killed her husband. It is reasonable that such evidence also be available for law enforcement in terrorism cases, such as searching library records of suspected terrorists to see if they read books on how to make bombs or for recipes for chemical weapons, etc.

The Obama Administration will review these provisions and make recommendations for greater protections for privacy, which is not unreasonable, but the main news is that Obama once again is vindicating Bush. More importantly, Obama is doing the right thing in matters of security by extending these provisions of the Patriot Act.

Let us encourage Obama to renew the other provisions of the Patriot Act, some of which are also controversial, when they also come due to expire later, as this legislation has been one of the most important tools in the War on Terrorism that has prevented another attack like September 11.

Obama’s Post-September 11 Comments Reveal His Misunderstanding

It was reported today on the eighth anniversary of the September 11 Attacks that shortly after the attacks, Illinois State Senator Barak Obama opined about the need for “understanding the sources of such madness.” He went on to refer to “embittered children” and the seeds of discontent sown in poverty, ignorance and despair. Obama’s comments reveal his misunderstanding of the nature of the threat posed by the Islamist terrorist enemy.

Madness means “insanity,” although its meaning has been stretched to mean “rage,” as if from madness. Terrorists are not insane. Although terrorists might be angry to some degree, including Islamist terrorists like the al-Qaeda terrorists who committed the September 11 Attacks, anger is not their primary motivation. To attribute terrorism – the killing of innocent civilians in order to intimidate a populace into giving into the political demands of the terrorists – to madness or anger is to rationalize it and, thus to justify or minimize it.

Terrorists are motivated by an ideology that holds that killing innocent civilians is morally acceptable in order to advance that ideology. In other words, terrorists have evil beliefs. Terrorists are not insane or angry, but evil. This distinction is critically important to understand in order to prevent terrorism because it is necessary to avoid the temptation reflected by Obama’s comments to believe that terrorism can be stopped simply by greater understanding of its perpetrators by its victims, as if terrorism is the fault of the victims’ failure to understand the terrorists adequately.

Those who share Obama’s view believe that because the United States must have done something to make the terrorists so angry as to commit terrorism against Americans, all that is necessary to prevent terrorism is to stop doing whatever it is that is making the terrorists angry in the first place. Obama and those who agree with his view fail to understand that terrorists exaggerate their anger over the actions of “infidels” like Christians because they hate Christians not for what they do, but for what they believe. In other words, even if Christians totally give into the political demands of the Islamist terrorists, the terrorists would still hate them. In fact, they would regard such a capitulation as a sign of weakness, and thus a sign of a lacking of divine favor, and a confirmation of divine favor for their own actions.

Indeed, the main complaint of Osama bin Laden with the United States was that it had troops stationed in Saudi Arabia, which he regarded as a desecration of the holy sites of Islam. His anger was not so much at what the U.S. did by stationing the troops there per se, but because he hates those who do not believe in Islam – to the point that he regards their mere presence in the same kingdom as the holy sites as a desecration. If the United States were a Muslim state, he would not have regarded their presence in Saudi Arabia as a desecration worthy of his fatwa that Muslims should kill Americans anywhere they can. As I note in my post, The Hussein and bin Laden Myth, bin Laden’s hatred of Americans was such already by the 1980s that he refused American aid in the Afghan war against the Soviets.

Obama further revealed his misunderstanding and ignorance by attributing poverty and ignorance as the sources of terrorism, despite the fact that many terrorist leaders, including some of the September 11 terrorists, were well educated and wealthy. Like a typical liberal, Obama fails to understand that it is terrorists who cause terrorism, not poverty or other social factors, just as liberals fail to understand that it is criminals who cause crime, not poverty or other social factors. In other words, people who accept an evil ideology are the cause of terrorism. It is important to note that there has been abject poverty throughout human history, but there has only been terrorism for the last 40 years – since the development of a militant Islamist ideology that justifies it.

To prevent terrorist attacks, it is necessary to defeat the terrorists, that is to say, to capture or kill them, in order to disrupt their plots or even to deter others from committing terrorism. It is also necessary to avoid the temptation to accede to their demands. There are additional steps that can be helpful, but it is of foremost importance to recognize the evil of terrorism and to confront it. Conservatives must continue to encourage Obama to pursue the right policies to keep us safe from terrorism, despite his misunderstanding of the threat. Let us be grateful to and pray for all those who serve their country in the cause of defeating the terrorists.

Victory in Afghanistan Is Critical

The Obama Administration has been continuing most of the War on Terrorism policies of the Bush Administration, despite its rhetoric. Like the Bush Administration, the Obama Administration deserves credit for continuing to have kept the homeland of the United States from being attacked by terrorists on a scale like the September 11, 2001 Attacks, which the U.S. has now been successful in doing for eight years – a feat most would have thought impossible after September 11.

Alas, as I note in earlier posts, President Barak Obama has departed from some Bush Administration policies, which may increase U.S. vulnerability to attack.

Nevertheless, one critical Bush policy that Obama is following is the war in Afghanistan and Pakistan against the Taliban and other Islamist militants and terrorists, including al-Qaeda. The Taliban must not be allowed to return to power in Afghanistan, which would make that state a safe haven for terrorists like al-Qaeda again. It was al-Qaeda, which was openly harbored by the Taliban regime that controlled all but the northeastern part of Afghanistan, who committed the September 11 Attacks.

After overthrowing the Taliban in 2001, the U.S. has been successful in removing nearly all al-Qaeda from Afghanistan. However, al-Qaeda, like the Taliban, is able to hide across the mountainous Afghan border with Pakistan, whence it continues to operate. Although the Pakistanis have been fighting al-Qaeda and the Taliban, they lack the capabilities of American forces to be as effective. Afghanistan has thus become strategically important as a base against al-Qaeda and its Taliban allies in Pakistan, for it is from Afghanistan that the U.S. launches missiles from unmanned aerial drones against Islamist militant targets. The Obama Administration has continued this Bush Administration strategy vigorously. Preventing such militants from taking over Pakistan is strategically vital because that state possesses nuclear weapons.

Moreover, military victory against Islamists in any fight is the strategy the West must follow, as I note in my post, Obama’s Standard for Justification for War Troubling. As Islam rose in the 7th Century in large part through a series of military victories, it appeared as if God were favoring Muslims, as if to confirm the truth of Islam. It was not until centuries later that Christendom reached a turning point against Muslim conquests. By the 20th Century, it was clear that the West, led by the United States, was ascendant militarily. The spectacular success of the September 11 Attacks made it appear as if Osama bin Laden might be the new leader favored by God whom militant Muslims have been hoping would be powerful enough to unite them in order to defeat the West.

Defeating al-Qaeda in Afghanistan or Iraq or anywhere else, therefore, would prove that bin Laden is not favored by God, which would cause him to lose his appeal to militant Muslims, whereas a withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan because of a few hundred fatalities would suggest that he is. Withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan, which has become a popular idea, would lead to the collapse of the Afghan representative republic that is allied with NATO in the War on Terrorism, which would allow the return to power of the Taliban and turn Afghanistan into a safe haven for terrorists like al-Qaeda again. Furthermore, because the Afghan-Pakistani Theater of war is where bin Laden his likely hiding, a defeat by his Taliban allies of the greatest power on Earth would add to his prestige even more than a defeat of the U.S. elsewhere.

Moreover, such a major defeat for the U.S. would also suggest that a guerrilla strategy that focuses more on killing American troops in order to decrease popular support for the war than on gaining control militarily of territory would be successful, which would leave the U.S. vulnerable to defeat through guerrilla warfare by any other enemy. American enemies would be emboldened to fight the U.S. instead of deterred from doing so. I have warned of this danger in regard to Iraq in earlier posts, but it is even more of a danger in Afghanistan. Because it was the place from where the September 11 Attacks were plotted, Afghanistan was seen as more of a defensive war than Iraq. Therefore, popular support for the war in Afghanistan was always higher than for the Liberation of Iraq. Indeed, it was the withdrawals of U.S. troops from Vietnam, Lebanon and Somalia because of a loss of popular support – not because of military defeat – that emboldened bin Laden to attack the U.S. on September 11. He was especially encouraged by the U.S. withdrawal from Somalia because al-Qaeda had armed the Islamist militants that fought the Americans; they Somali militants were routed by the Americans but by killing just 19 of them, President Bill Clinton ordered U.S. troops to withdraw. As in Iraq, the U.S. must be willing to prove it has a tolerance for casualties high enough to defend itself sufficiently. In short, military victory leads to peace, while military defeat leads to war.

U.S. and NATO troops must continue to remain in the fight against Islamic militancy in Afghanistan. Only once enough Afghan troops are trained to defend their country, can the West declare victory and even begin to consider a withdrawal. The U.S. success in Iraq suggests that it can also succeed in Afghanistan, despite the particularly difficult challenges of that state. Let us continue to be grateful to our American troops and their allies in the Afghan-Pakistani Theater of the War on Terrorism for defending our liberty!

Analysis of Obama's Economic and Fiscal Policies

Although it is still early in the Obama Administration, it is possible to assess the economic and fiscal policies it has implemented thus far.

Obama's fiscal policies generally have been disastrous. His so-called $787 billion economic “stimulus” has dramatically increased the federal budget deficit and the federal debt. In addition, he missed the opportunity for fiscal restraint by signing into law the $400 billion worth of appropriations bills for the current fiscal year that had not been passed before his predecessor left office. Those bills were heavily-laden with congressional earmarks for pork-barrel spending. The Obama Administration recently revised its estimate of the increase in the debt over the next decade from $7 trillion to $9 trillion. The increase in the debt will require more borrowing and printing of money in the long term, which will cause inflation and increased interest rates, which are both harmful to the economy.

As I note in earlier posts, the federal government does not -- nor should it -- have an economic policy, per se. It only has economic aspects to other policies, such as its fiscal policy (i.e. taxing and spending).

Obama's stimulus and other spending bills did extend some of President George W. Bush's middle class tax cuts, but he somewhat undermined the economic benefit of those tax cuts by increasing the tax on tobacco. Some of the federal spending probably did have some economically stimulative effect (See also my post, Conservative Analysis of Cash for Clunkers), but any citation of the stimulus for the recent signs of economic recovery undermines the premise behind the size of the stimulus because no more than about 10% of the $787 billion has been spent. In other words, if only $79 billion were enough to stimulate economic growth, then the rest of the spending must have been unnecessary. I observe in my post, How to Measure Whether an Economic Stimulus Is Working, the difficulty of attributing any increases of the gross domestic product to the stimulus alone, as other factors apparently are having more of a beneficial effect on the economy, such as actions by the Federal Reserve, federal bailouts of corporations during the Bush Administration and the natural business cycle. In short, the minimal economic benefit of Obama's spending spree has not been worth the price of the increase in the federal debt. It is essential that conservatives not allow Obama and his supporters to attribute any economic recovery to the stimulus alone, in addition to pointing to the long-term cost of it.

Note: the federal debt would be even worse but for one beneficial Bush Administration policy, much as the Clinton Administration benefited from a fiscal policy of its predecessor. The repayment by banks of billions of dollars of bailout loans made to them by the Bush Administration will allow Obama to try to escape blame for an even worse federal deficit and debt, just as President Bill Clinton benefited from the restoration to prosperity of the savings and loans taken over by the Administration of President George H.W. Bush. Clinton had criticized the elder Bush for the economy and deficit, but then took the credit when the deficit decreased because of Bush's policies. Conservatives should not let Obama get away with any Clintonesque deceit like they let Clinton get away with it.

Besides Obama's fiscal policies, there has been little other action from Obama Administration yet that affects the economy. For example, he has not even asked the Senate to ratify free trade agreements signed by President Bush, nor has he proposed any new trade agreements. Monetary policy is controlled by the Federal Reserve, which operates independently. Obama has indicated that he will renominate Fed Chairman, Ben Bernanke.

Two mistakes in strategy that Obama has made, however, were both harmful to the economy. One was to increase pessimism early in his administration by adopting the political strategy of making the economy appear even worse than it was in order to blame his predecessor for the recession and thus to take credit for any subsequent recovery. But the pessimism discouraged investment, which was evidenced by the decrease in the value of stocks, as well as by a drop in consumer confidence, which caused a decrease in consumption. Obama changed his strategy, but not until after much harm was done.

The other factor Obama has generated is uncertainty, which is economically harmful in a way similar to pessimism. His proposals to raise income taxes and taxes on businesses, his proposed energy tax, and his proposed massive federalization of health insurance, which would necessitate much more borrowing and spending alone, have spooked many investors.

In conclusion, Obama has been a fiscal disaster, which will be economically harmful in the long term. At best, economically, some of hs policies have been somewhat beneficial in the short term, but are being outweighed by other beneficial factors beyond his control, while he has undermined the benefits of his own economic policies through his pessimism and creation of unceratainty and fear.

Conservatives should continue to oppose Obama's fiscal policy of massive increases in spending and promote spending decreases. They should oppose Obama's economically harmful proposals to increase taxes and regulation and promote policies that would favor economic growth like income tax cuts, business tax cuts and increased trade.