GENERALLYSPEAKING.CURRYFORAMERICA.COM

Obama The Muslim

2010-07-26T16:41:00Z

My mother believed in “common sense” testing. She said if it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, waddles like a duck and acts like a duck; it’s a duck. She believed that actions speak louder than words and that only a liar said one thing and then did the opposite.

Would President Obama pass my mother’s “is he a Muslim” test? Let’s see. President Obama says there is nothing more beautiful than the Muslim call to prayer in the evening. He says that the United States was not founded as a Christian nation.

Obama’s father and step father were Muslims and he spent his childhood living in a Muslim country where his school enrollment records say his religion is Islam. As President of the United States he genuflects to the Muslim King of Saudi Arabia but not the Christian Queen of England. He thumbs his nose at America’s friends and bows to its enemies. In short, Obama quacks like a Muslim, waddles like a Muslim and acts like a Muslim, so is he a Muslim? My mother would say, “Yes! He’s a Muslim through and through.”

Growing up as a Muslim, Obama must have learned that according to the Qur’an it is acceptable to lie, deceive and live by a double standard provided in so doing one advances Islamic goals. Muslims only pretend to trust and be friends with non-Muslims; in the deepest of their Muslim hearts they have been taught that all non-Muslims are infidels.

Speaking of double standards, Saudi Arabia is building mosques all over the world and Muslims are hoping to build a 13 story mosque at “Ground Zero” in New York City. At the same time, Islam’s double standard mandates that no non-Muslim churches be built in Saudi Arabia or other Islamic countries.

A good example of this double standard principle in action was Yasser Arafat. He could seemingly enter into genuine peace negotiations with the United States and Israel and, at the same time; lie about it with complete sincerity. Routinely he made all sorts of promises and pronouncements in English, and the very next day said the exact opposite to an Arabic audience -- perhaps to him it wasn’t really lying, just being faithful to the teachings of the Qur’an.

Is it because President Obama is secretly a Muslim that he can so sincerely pretend, like Arafat, that his actions and policies have never put a strain on U.S. Israeli relations? “If you look at every public statement I have made it has been a constant reaffirmation of the special relationship between the United States and Israel.” This is like President Clinton saying that it depends on what the meaning of is is.

In 2005 the U.S. promised Israel, in writing, that in future negotiations with the Palestinians we would not insist that Israel withdraw to its pre-1967 borders. But last year the Obama Administration said that that promise would no longer be honored.
In the past, both Democrat and Republican Administrations have insisted that negotiations be based on a two-state solution, which means that for Palestinian refugees
there can be no open “right of return” to Israel

With open immigration the number of Palestinians living in Israel would quickly overwhelm the number of Jews, and soon the Jewish state would cease to exist. Candidate Obama, while running for president, made it clear that he did not support a “right of return” for Palestinian refugees. But now that he’s president, he has reneged on that promise.

Months ago Obama promised to send 1,500 National Guard troops to the Arizona border and to spend at least $500 million on border security. Gov. Brewer is still waiting for the troops and money to arrive.

In a recent Muslim-double-standard speech, President Obama bragged that the southwest American border is as safe as it has ever been. But at the same time his Administration was putting up signs warning American citizens to stay away from the Arizona border area because, “SMUGGLING AND ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION MAY BE ENCOUNTERED IN THIS AREA.”

Is Obama a Muslim? You make the call.

Good Muslim Bad Muslim

2010-06-29T01:42:00Z

The counterinsurgency strategy being implemented by the United States in Afghanistan is based on building trust and making friends of local Afghan tribal and political leaders. Ideally once they learn to trust us they will become more cooperative in defeating the Taliban, victory will follow upon victory, and soon we will be able to bring our military forces home.

This might be a workable plan were it not for the fact that Muslims are forbidden by their bible, the Qur’an, to make friends with non-Muslims, whom they call infidels. So how and when will we be able to get these Afghan Muslims – who believe that it is perfectly acceptable to lie, deceive and apply a double standard when dealing with infidels – to trust us and honestly cooperate? Is our hope to make friends of the Afghans and to defeat the Taliban an absurd impossibility?

I often hear people ask whether Islam is a religion of peace. The answer is both yes and no. Supposedly it will become a religion of peace once the whole world has been converted to Islam. If you are already a Muslim then for you it is supposed to be a religion of peace already. But if you are a non-Muslim it is meant to be a religion of violence. And it will remain a religion of violence to you unless and until you deny your own religion and accept Islam.

You see Islam follows a double standard. Allah directs that all non-Muslims be forced to accept Islam and to live under Shari’a Law. But at the same time it is a crime for a Muslim to convert from Islam to another religion. The punishment for those who do convert is death.

Additionally, Muslims are forbidden to be friends with non-Muslims. Muslims can lie, deceive and pretend to trust and be friends with non-Muslims, but in their Muslim hearts non-Muslims must always be considered infidels.

A Muslim’s first allegiance is to Islam. Only after that can considerations of allegiance to family and country be measured. So a Muslim’s taking of an oath of loyalty to the United States, or any other non-Islamic country, is probably meaningless.

The Qur’an, was written in sections (called surahs) over a period of 23 years. Some parts of the surahs conflict with other parts of the surahs. I’ve been told that the newer surahs take precedence over the older ones. For example, surahs written in the first year may speak of living peacefully with infidels and treating them with respect. While those written in the 23d year may speak of death, violence and war against those very same infidels.

We Americans strive to be so politically correct these days that Muslims are able to take advantage of our constitutional freedom and tolerance to the point of destroying the fabric of the America our Founders fought and died for. If Islam and its Shari’a Law are permitted to continue to run their natural course in the U.S., unchallenged, the America we know will one day cease to exist.

The long range goal of Islam is to conquer the U.S., Europe, and the western world for Allah and then move on to force the rest of the world to adopt Islam. Our hope of making friends and building trust with Muslim Afghans is an unrealistic and dangerously naïve goal.

LIES, DECEIT AND A DOUBLE STANDARD

2010-06-23T02:56:00Z

I don’t pretend to be an expert on Islam or the Qur’an, the Muslim Bible. But for some reason during my high school years I became fascinated with the career and writings of T.E. Lawrence (aka Lawrence of Arabia.) I found myself intrigued and captivated by the stories and histories of the Middle East. Over time through further historical reading and observation, I formed a few opinions and came to several conclusions about the actions and traditions of Muslims and Islamic nations.

One of the principles I became familiar with is that in Islam it seems honorable to lie, if by doing so you advance Islam’s goals. Perhaps that is why it is perfectly acceptable and even praiseworthy for a Muslim leader to say something in English to a non-Muslim audience and the western news media, and then the very next day say the exact opposite thing while talking in Arabic to a Muslim audience and news media. A good example of this principle in action was Yasser Arafat. He could lie openly with complete sincerity while deliberately entering into false negotiations with Israel, the United States and the United Nations -- probably because to him it wasn’t really lying.

I found that lying, deceiving and living a double standard are the norm for them not because they are bad people, but because their religion approves of it as long as it advances Islam’s goals. As I see it, Islam’s fundamental goals are to convert the entire secular and religious worlds to a belief in Islam, and for those converted nations to agree to be governed by Islam’s Shari’a Law.

So this is about more than lies, deceit, and a double standard. It is also about a Muslim’s holy duty to convert non-Muslims to Islam and to try to turn non-Islamic governments into Islamic Shari’a Law governments. If in the process a bloody, violent war is precipitated, so much the better since the only way a male Muslim can be guaranteed access to the heavenly Paradise is to die fighting for Islam in a holy war. On the other hand, the only way a woman can be guaranteed an after-life in that Paradise is if, upon her death, her husband is pleased with her. In short, women are very much subservient to men.

According to Islam, following laws other than Islamic law is sin. Why? Because the earth is Allah’s and it is a sin for mankind not to live under and to be following Allah’s Shari’a law while on his earth. Thus, it is the duty of all Muslims is to convert all non-Muslims to Islam and to replace all secular governments with an Islamic government -- a “One World Government.” This means that to be faithful to Islam, all Muslims living in the U.S. should insist that the American people and the American government adopt Islam as the state religion and Shari’a as its national law.

To help accomplish this Saudi Arabia is building mosques all over the world, but at the same time Islam’s double standard mandates that no non-Muslim church building can be built in Saudi Arabia or in any other Islamic country. Muslims are free to criticize other religions but it is a punishable sin for anyone to criticize the Muslim religion. In short, there is and can be no freedom of the press in an Islamic country.

Because America was founded upon the Christian principles of honesty and truthfulness we take freedom of the press as a given. It is difficult for us to understand Islamic concepts and practices that are the opposite of those we hold dear, such as life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. We often forget that Muslim nations are sometimes playing chess while The United States and other western nations are playing checkers.

The notion that it is religiously acceptable to lie, deceive and have a double standard -- one for Muslims and another for non-Muslims – is an insidious and dangerous tenant of Islam If that is the Islamic mindset and modus operandi, we must always be aware that any dialogue with Muslims may not be honest and that their intentions might be less than honorable.

We are a nation of people who value transparency and honesty. We must always be awake to the very real possibility that these characteristics which make America great – our generosity, our compassion, our sometimes gullible and naïve willingness to accept, embrace and welcome all religions and nationalities may, in the end, prove to be America’s downfall.

Bring On The Oil Spill

2010-06-22T10:59:00Z

Conquering impossible challenges has been the norm for America since before its founding. In the Revolutionary War, thirteen tiny American colonies stood up to and defeated the world’s greatest and most powerful empire. Compared to that feat, stopping a deep water oil well spill in the Gulf of Mexico is “no big deal.”

The conventional wisdom is that President Obama has no solution for the Gulf oil spill because there is nothing to be done that he and BP haven’t already tried. I could not disagree more.

Immediately following the oil rig explosion two months ago, Obama should have immediately assembled his federal government team leaders and the leadership of the Gulf States. He should have included the United Kingdom, the Dutch, and all other countries that had offered or were capable of providing significant assistance as well as all the oil companies, foreign and domestic, that are involved in deep water drilling.

He should have declared a national emergency, pointed out that failure was not an option and then rescinded all rules which might impede recovery and reclamation operations. If necessary he should have made up new rules as the situation warranted and as events evolved.

Next, he should have briefed everyone on what had occurred, what the current status was, what kind of help was needed from them, and let them all have their say while he listened and interrupted only to keep the discussion focused. The one thing his job did require him to speak to with authority was to outline the nation’s goals: that is, to protect the American people and their livelihood. Clearly he failed.

The most immediate concern was to prevent oil from getting to the beaches and marshes. The most successful way to do that might have been by deploying booms or creating new barrier islands and all that entails. In other locations skimmers may have been the best way. Some situations might have favored dredging, burning the oil or other measures.

Simultaneously he should have explored a dozen or so different ways of mitigating damage and cleaning up the oil. Perhaps only a half dozen of these solutions would have been effective enough to adopt permanently. During the course of the discussions no one should be allowed to lose sight of the necessity of finding a way to stop the flow of oil whether by capping, more drilling or whatever other clever ways the “smart oil guys” might suggest.

What the President should not have done in that meeting was mention or focus any attention on who was to blame for the spill or who had liability. And he should never have sent lawyers to the Gulf to try to establish guilt or fix blame. This was a time that demanded leadership and team building not reproach and fault finding. The time for that would come later once the immediate emergency was past.

Until the conclusion of a complete and thorough investigation of the oil rig explosion there is no way of knowing what really caused the accident. It is a waste of valuable time and energy and an unnecessary distraction to try to fix blame before a sufficient investigation is complete. Neither is it time to try to sell the American people on visions of a brave new renewable energy world.

Everyone should have left the meeting with one goal and focus: to protect the gulf beaches, waterways and maritime industries. Only when this had been accomplished could imaginations be allowed to drift toward creating a mythical green Land of Oz.

Were George Washington and Abe Lincoln here they would laugh at Obama’s notion that this oil spill tests the limits of American technology. So far all we’ve succeeded in testing are the limits of Obama and his staffers. It reminds me of Jimmy Carter, the malaise President, who said that the United States was too large and too difficult a country for just one person to govern as President. Then along came Reagan who governed America – all by himself – just fine.

Last year President Obama, his House and Senate colleagues, and his czars and advisors, ignored the nation’s loss of jobs and the failed economy and piled debt upon more debt while partying at the White House and passing health care legislation. Nero would have approved.

This year they plan to spend their time passing Obama’s new energy and climate change proposals, while blaming BP and President Bush for the oil spill. What they should be doing is fixing the problems. Have they lost sight of the fact that we Americans face no problem that can’t be fixed with a little leadership?

Real Leadership Skills

2010-06-13T01:27:00Z

There were many occasions, during my thirty-four or so years of serving in the U.S. Army, when I took command of failing military units and nursed them back to good, sound health. I did it so often that it became one of my specialties.

If you tell soldiers or units often enough that they are failures, they will become failures even when they are not. A real leader must instill within his subordinates the feeling and knowledge that they are or can quickly become certain “winners” and that if they do what he tells them to do they will not only succeed, but will set the standard for other units to emulate.

The worst thing a new leader can do is to start off by blaming others, threatening punishment or, as President Obama so smugly puts it, “kicking ass.” Obviously he is still in the process of learning that no one can effectively build a unit and motivate their subordinates to successfully attack and solve major problems if the subordinates are in constant fear of being fired or publicly humiliated.

Experience also teaches that sometimes when you assemble a group of brilliant authorities who expertly wrestle their way through a problem and come to a brilliant consensus they are sometimes wrong. Thus you may suffer through the embarrassment of having kicked the wrong “ass.” Experienced leaders know that it is much more effective to motivate your subordinates through reward than through punishment.

The mission statement for every leader from President of the United States to CEO to Boy Scout leader is “well developed skills of persuasion and openness to working through controversy in a positive way.” That is, everyone has their say and dissenting views are openly examined, discarded or expanded upon and adopted. Most of the time an authoritative leadership style is less preferred than a participatory one. Unfortunately for Obama, who still has so much to learn about leadership, there is no substitute for a lack of seasoned instinct and the ability to identify and deal with ever increasing challenges.

Fort Benning, Georgia is the home of the U. S. Army’s Infantry School. I have been assigned to or visited it many times; its motto is “Follow Me!” Those who attend the school major in “LEADERSHIP, LEADERSHIP, and LEADERSHIP!” To help vividly impress the importance of leadership upon the minds of the students is the statue of an infantry leader caught in mid stride, clutching a rifle in his left hand and signaling with his up-raised right arm for those behind to follow him. Appropriately it is named “Follow Me!”

We have a saying in the Infantry. To really know what’s going on in battle you must go to the sound of the guns, the rifles, the machineguns, the pounding mortars, and the screaming “incoming” artillery shells. There is no substitute for going where the action is! Dithering in your headquarters or in the White House for weeks or flying around the country attending parties, social events, speaking at political fund raisers or playing basketball and golf simply doesn’t cut it.

A real leader immediately goes to the sound of the guns, the disaster area, and when he gets there he talks directly to those who are leading the battle – those directly in charge of stopping and containing the oil spill. He purposes to talk to the “James Carvilles” who speak for everyone living and making a livelihood along the Gulf Coast when he cries out, “We’re dying down here!” A true leader recognizes and responds to the pleas for a personal visit and measurable, immediate help.

The worst thing to do is to fail to give the “first responders” and the Governors at the oil spill whatever they request. Most request made by those involved in close combat are for necessities but some are just morale building. I remember my soldiers during one of my tours in Vietnam asking for ice cream to go with their “Thanksgiving” meals. They certainly didn’t need ice cream and it wasn’t on the menu. In fact, it was a real challenge and inconvenience to locate and helicopter it in; but it gave them a sense of home and put a light in their tired eyes. Those who face death daily deserve all the ice cream they can eat and I got it for them.

Our President has yet to learn that a true leader gives his soldiers -- those fighting and winning the battle -- and his subordinates whatever it takes to cause them to rise up and slay the dragons. Or, in this case, oil spills and plumes. That’s how leaders motivate their followers to successfully tame catastrophic disasters and to snatch success from the jaws of failure.

In the meantime, to the dangerous detriment of our country, Obama is on a very sharp and short learning curve. It is time he either learned his job, or turned it over to someone who can.

Put Up or Shut Up

2010-05-28T20:19:00Z

No matter what he does, President Obama’s policy seems to be to commit just enough money and personnel resources to keep in the game, but not enough to win. After months of dithering he finally gave General Petraeus two thirds of the minimum number of soldiers requested to win the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. To some Obama’s delay in supplying troops, and then only supplying reduced numbers, might appear to be frugality when, in fact, it only demonstrates indifference and lack of commitment.

It is not just in war where Obama plays his game of “symbolism” and “photo ops.” He plays the same game in all that his administration does or does not do and in all the policies he formulates and adopts. Most recently the Governors responsible for securing our south western border asked Obama for 3,000 National Guardsmen for border control. After an unconscionable delay, Obama reluctantly agreed to send those troops – but only 1,200 -- not enough to make a difference. As of this writing none of the troops have arrived.

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, in step with his boss, says he will reform the Pentagon through austere spending, cutting back the Pentagon bureaucracy, and by eliminating unneeded weapons systems. My experience while commanding the Army’s Test and Evaluation Command at Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland, where the Army evaluated weapon systems and military equipment, was that austerity was seriously needed at every level of weapons and systems development. If Mr. Gates is serious and not just paying lip service, I commend his efforts and offer to help in any way I can. I question, however, whether or not this is just another of Obama’s many tricks to undercut badly needed weapons systems, military equipment, and personnel requirements.

But it appears that the Commander in Chief actually intends to cut the military health care budget; concurrently he would like to reduce growth in military pay. Our armed forces are being repeatedly sent off to fight two wars at the same time. In the meantime their families live in dread of answering the door bell to find someone in uniform standing there bearing the news that daddy or mommy isn’t coming home.

Is this really the time to reduce military pay, benefits and the availability of artificial limbs? As one who served two tours of duty in Viet Nam, I think it’s criminal for a president to send the nation’s youth back and back again and again to be mangled by the jaws of war.

And while the austerity broom is cleanly sweeping through the corridors of the Pentagon, perhaps it could broaden its scope and address the most significant military problem the nation faces. We are requiring too much sacrifice from too few of our citizens. To adequately face up to our world wide requirements and wars, the threat of a possible war on the Korean Peninsula, a nuclear Iran, and winning the “War on Terror” requires a significant increase in the numbers of soldiers, sailors and airmen on active duty.

To be prudent, the size of the Army and Marines should be increased, perhaps by as much as fifty percent. Yes, I hear the groans from Obama, Gates, the news media and the Washington elites, but I bet that I won’t hear any groans coming from the thinning ranks of our armed forces and their families.

Perhaps President Obama and Secretary Gates should be required to go to Walter Reed Army Hospital and face the soldiers whose legs have been blown off and whose arms have been amputated and tell them and their children why they don’t merit a miserly 1.4 percent pay increase in 2012.

I’d be the first to confess that military spending can be restrained in some areas. But it also needs to be increased in other areas such as medical care, pay, and benefits. We also need to better equip the warriors who are safeguarding our liberty and Constitution. Perhaps then President Obama can win the war-time trust and confidence of the nation’s armed forces and of the American people.

Constitutionally Thinking

2010-05-17T13:05:00Z

Worldwide, there are many political and financial elites who feel obligated to portray the United States as a failed state unworthy of the world’s respect. Their view stands in stark contrast to that of the worlds common man, however. I’m talking about those who ford rivers, climb fences, and risk death while attempting to cross hot, trackless deserts to get to the “Promised Land” called the United States of America. That is the view our Founders held as they risked their lives and the lives of their families to found and establish this great land of America.

John Adams our second president once said, “our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people; it is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” Consequently, he would no doubt agree that the political theocracy that is called “modern” Islam is a 7th Century way of life that is best suited for those who still practice and live under 7th Century ideas and cultures.

But America walks a very different road. At our founding we were a nation that adopted a cultural requirement to maintain a certain level of decency and who refused to allow our moral Christian foundation to be undermined or desensitized by wickedness, shame, violence and scandalous behavior. Unfortunately immorality has now entered into prime time.

Isn’t this what the Tea Partiers are trying to convey to our representatives in Washington? That our political and intellectual elites are producing nothing more than constitutional paralysis. That they are not seeking to secure ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” but are simply creating mass frustration and confusion.

Were he here today John Adams would no doubt be a Tea Partier himself. His written words seem to confirm that when he says, “We face arduous days that lie before us in the warm courage of national unity: with the clear consciousness of seeking old and precious moral values.” He would never use political correctness to justify a sense of false security or a failure to act -- in Washington or at the Arizona border.

Where are the Adam’s, the Abe Lincoln’s the Winston Churchill’s of today? Men who are cpnsistently on the side of righteousness, who stand on the right side of issues, who can be counted on to make right choices and take right actions? These are the kinds of leaders America desperately needs.

The America we know and love exists because our Founders had a vision of and faith in a land of freedom and democracy, one they were able to turn into a great nation. These leaders communicated their vision to the people who, in turn, fully embraced and implemented it. Ronald Reagan embraced and communicated that same vision when he said, “I have always believed that this anointed land was set apart in an uncommon way, that a divine plan placed this great continent here between the oceans to be found by people from every corner of the earth who had a special love of faith and freedom.”

Many of the world’s elites will continue to find fault with the U.S. no matter what it does. But while they are holding us in contempt, illegal immigrants who have a “special love for faith, freedom and democracy” will ignore their criticisms and keep pouring across our southern border in record numbers. What do they know that the educated, privileged and powerful of this world refuse to see or acknowledge?

Racial Profiling

2010-05-07T14:06:00Z

One hot summer’s day in Georgia I was standing on the sidewalk in front of Fort Benning’s Infantry Officer Candidate School Headquarters talking to a white classmate of mine about a racial flare up of some sort that had happened the previous day down in Texas. Unapologetically he said, “My Pappy back in Tennessee taught me that the reason you Negroes have to ride on the back of busses is because you are inferior.”

With my training it would have taken me less than a minute to permanently take him out, but I would have ended up in prison. And while the thought of vengeance was sweet, the penalty was so bitter that I just clenched my teeth, shut my mouth and walked away from him.

Three weeks later I stood on that same sidewalk and watched a bus pull away with that same white classmate on it; he waved to me and I waved back. He had been kicked out of the school for academic deficiencies. I stayed on, graduated, and rose through the ranks to Major General before retiring.

As a black American, back in the days before civil rights laws were passed and before Obama was even born, the least of my problems was “Racial Profiling.” In fact, I would have welcomed a little racial profiling in place of many of the indignities my family and I had to suffer. So please forgive me if I don’t seem overly sympathetic about “suspected” illegal immigrants in Arizona having to show identification papers if they commit a crime. Immigrants must adjust and conform to the society of their host country. The country is not required to adjust and conform to the values, traditions, religion and customs of the immigrant.

Supposedly being asked to show legal identification papers strikes fear into the heart of the immigrant community. The immigrants I know, including those from Europe, are made of sterner “stuff” than that, though. Throughout Europe legal citizens are asked to show identification for all sorts of things, and few take offense at the requirement. I know because my family and I lived in Europe for more than a decade.

The President of the United States and the nation’s governors are expected to protect America’s citizens. That’s what the Arizona state legislature was doing when it passed a law requiring suspected “illegals” to prove that their presence in the state is legal. And that’s what Governor Jan Brewer was doing when she signed that bill into law.

Unfortunately if the U.S. Congress and President Obama were doing their jobs properly they would have addressed and solved the problem of illegal immigration -- since it is a federal problem -- and the state of Arizona would not have been forced to do what they’re doing now.

No doubt many who are asked to show identification papers will turn out to be legal residents of the state of Arizona -- but so what? If a highway patrolman stops one of us for speeding, we show our driver’s license and car registration and think nothing of it, unless it is to thank God that someone is checking “illegals.”

If showing papers to establish legality in the nation or state offends or angers someone, then so be it. That’s far safer than a suspicious person who was never stopped because the Highway Patrolman didn’t want to give offense, later going on to detonate a car bomb in downtown Phoenix.

I agree with Clarence W. Dupnik the sheriff of Pima County Tucson, Arizona, “What we need is assistance from the federal government in the form of effective strategies to secure the border. Additionally, the federal government must take up this issue in the form of comprehensive immigration reform policy.” To put it bluntly, our southern border is out of control and our President refuses to help us get it back under control.

It’s time for President Obama and the U.S. Congress to show some real leadership by getting control of our borders and the illegal immigrant problem. The fear of offending illegal immigrants by racial profiling at the expense of America’s security is grossly misplaced political correctness. And it is dangerous.

A Warning of Things To Come

2010-04-13T20:04:00Z

Many times lately I’ve read what will result should the trend in national fertility rates remain unchanged. Assuming these figures are correct, let’s try to make sense of how this will change our World. Since the nations are evolving along with the make up of America, it would be wise to pay attention.

It is said that in order for a country to culturally mark time and maintain itself “as is” for more than twenty-five years, it must have a fertility rate of at least 2.11 children per family. Once a nation slips below an annual fertility rate of 1.9, the downward trend is believed to be irreversible.

When a family has only one child, that family has half as many children as its parents. If that child follows its parents’ example and it too has only one child, there will be one fourth as many grand children as grand parents. The irreversible declining fertility rate cycle will have begun.

In 2007 the French fertility rate was down to 1.8; England was down to 1.6; Greece was much worse, its fertility rate was down to 1.3. Germany’s rate matched that of Greece. Catholic Italy – a culture that supposedly does not approve of the use of contraceptives -- was down to 1.2. Spain, another Catholic country, was hopelessly down to 1.1.

The combined average fertility rate of thirty-one European countries is 1.38. Europe as we know it is well on its way toward extinction. Yet the European continent as a whole is not loosing population. How can this be?

Simply speaking, the mysterious culprit is immigration -- Islamic immigration. In a few more years, 2027, one in five Frenchmen will be Muslim. If we extrapolate, we find that in about 40 years, France will be an Islamic Republic. Nearly 50% of all children born in the Netherlands today are Muslim; and in about 15 years half the population of the Netherlands will be Muslim.

So what conclusion is to be drawn from all this? It is stark: in less than 20 years, one third of all European children born will be born to Muslim families. Germany expects to be a Muslim state by the year 2050. Some who now reside in Europe refer to it as Eurabia.

Here in North America, Canada and the United States share matched fertility rates of about 1.6 -- minus Latino immigration. Counting Latinos, the rate in the U.S. is about 2.1. Remember, the population replacement rate necessary to sustain a nation’s culture is 2.11.

In 1970 there were one hundred thousand Muslims living in Canada. If immigration rates continue unchanged, it is estimated that Canada will soon have nine million Muslims living within its borders. Thirty years from now, the United States could possibly be home to fifty million Muslims. That would cause America to be a very different nation from the one our Founders created.

Having denied our Christian heritage on more than one occasion, President Obama may be quite content for the United States to lose its national “Christian” identity status and to become a “Muslim” nation. In fact, that may be his long range goal. But Obama is only President; he is not the “American People.”

The real question is what does the average Tea Sipping, Bible toting, hunting rifle carrying, historically savvy American think about these developments? Obviously, our Founders would be quite alarmed by them.

If the average American citizen is content with this state of affairs, then nothing need be done. But for those of us who want to put a stop to these dangerous trends, there are several things that can and should be done. We can begin by electing a Congress and a President who will get control of our borders, so that they are no longer infiltrated by criminals, drug dealers and terrorists.

At the same time a moratorium should be placed on most legal immigration, including stopping the immigration of extended families to join a family member who is already legally living in the United States. Only when our borders are completely under control and our immigration policies fully enforced, should the avenues of legal immigration be restored. And our newly married citizens should be encouraged to have between two and three children per family instead of just one. Regardless of what President Obama has said, children aren’t “punishment.” They are a blessing and the key to America’s future.

Obviously our Founders didn’t envision the need for such harsh and drastic actions. They intended that the door of immigration be held open to all people all the time. They never foresaw the possibility that one day America’s Christian and moral underpinnings would be threatened and abandoned under the guise of political correctness or misguided religious tolerance. America needs to take a long, sober look at the future, and act accordingly.

Jerusalem vs. Danzig - Palestine vs. Sudetenland

2010-04-07T10:24:00Z

Artificially cobbled together cities and nation states usually fail to maintain historical cohesion. Forced reconciliatory attempts result in temporary, unstable arrangements which do more harm than good in the long run. Poland’s “Free City of Danzig” and Czechoslovakia’s “Sudetenland” are two examples which Obama and the United Nations would do well to remember as they draw up artificial boundaries for Jerusalem and Palestine. Hopefully they will avoid copying the League of Nations-style weaknesses which in the past so encouraged aggressors and radicalized their supporters.

One result of WWI was that in 1920, the League of Nations declared the port of Danzig to be a “Free City” – free from the control of either Germany or Poland -- and placed it under the League’s protection. The Free City included roughly about two hundred smaller Polish towns and villages and guarded the mouth of the Vistula River, Poland’s only waterway access to the Baltic Sea. Danzig’s inner city population was mostly German; but the farther out from the center one traveled the more Polish the population became. This forced mixing of ethnic groups, languages and religions often caused national tensions within Danzig to escalate from time to time.

Coincident with Hitler’s invasion of Poland in 1938, Danzig’s German population took advantage of the situation and declared that The Free City of Danzig had become part of Germany. In 1945, Soviet military forces overran Poland, defeated the German occupying armies and forced them to withdraw. The German name “Danzig” was then discarded and the Polish name “Gdansk” was adopted.

For several hundred years the Sudetenland, which consisted of the western crescent of Czechoslovakia, was part of Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire – at least until 1866. After WWI, however, the 1918 Treaty of Versailles mandated that the Sudetenland become part of Czechoslovakia.

The Sudetenland’s German population strenuously objected. They demanded the right of self-determination, declared themselves to be German and petitioned the League of Nations to let them unite with their German brothers and sisters. The League felt it knew better, though, and so forced Sudetenland’s Germans to become part of Czechoslovakia and to speak a language they knew not. As a result, the Sudetenland was never able to form itself into a single historic region on which to build a future, independent of Czechoslovakia.

Years passed and discontent festered. Finally, in a meeting in Munich in September, 1938, Great Britain and France ceded the ten thousand square miles of western Czechoslovakia, known as the Sudetenland, to Nazi Germany. The excuse was that this was not just another territorial power grab by Hitler, but that Hitler was only trying to protect the German population of the Sudetenland.

In return for this “favor,” Hitler promised not to make any further territorial claims on Europe. This was just about as believable as Iran’s claims that its nuclear development program is only for peaceful purposes. A month later the German Army marched in and took de facto possession of the Sudetenland. The League of Nations did nothing but talk, just as Obama and the UN are doing now.

Ignoring the benefit of hindsight, Obama and the UN are trying to come up with some seemingly great original solution for Jerusalem and Palestine. But history warns us that forcing religious and ethnic mixings never end up amicable and fair with all parties equally satisfied.

In fact, the situation that Jerusalem finds itself in today is much like the situation that Danzig faced just prior to WWII; the Palestinian situation of today eerily resembles the conditions that prevailed in pre-WWII Sudetenland. Just as the League failed to recognize that Danzig’s and Sudetenland’s situations were irreconcilable, Obama and the UN seem unable to see that the Jerusalem and Palestine situations of today may be equally irreconcilable. Instead, they are trying to blackmail Israel into giving up the West Bank and into making Jerusalem a kind of “Free City” under U.N. sponsorship and protection.

This artificially created and forcibly imposed solution did not work with Danzig and the Sudetenland prior to WWII, and it won’t work with Jerusalem and Palestine today. Synthetically created cities and nation states inevitably end up disasters. The Obama Administration needs to rethink what they are about in trying to manufacture and manipulate into existence a “Free City of Jerusalem” from Israel’s diverse populations of Arabs, Druze, Christians, Muslims and Jews.

Throughout history, artificially created cities and nation states have failed to coalesce into cohesive historical entities. The Free City of Danzig and Czechoslovakia’s Sudetenland are perfect examples worthy of careful consideration and conscientious study. Unfortunately, by their inept and shortsighted handling of today’s Jerusalem and Palestinian problems, it seems that Obama and the UN are determined to repeat histories’ past failures.

Time to Clear the Air

2010-03-26T14:26:00Z

The events of the last few weeks, as acted out on Capitol Hill in the U.S. House and Senate, are an abomination to all Americans – including those who voted for President Obama. Our Founding Fathers must be writhing in their graves at this unholy spectacle. As the Obama-Care travesty played itself out, it became obvious that the nation needs a “Third Party” – a conservative third party. Traditionally, the Republican Party has fought for the nation’s conservative interests, but no more.

For the last ten years Republicans have been AWOL while the size of government has increased; the federal government has confiscated more and more of the private sector; taxes have increased; private ownership and the free enterprise system have been perverted; debt has spiraled out of control to such an extent that the nation has become insolvent; unsavory men and women with dubious intentions have been recruited and turned loose to run – some say to collapse and destroy – the federal government.

They have glibly and gleefully trashed America’s Constitution; our school systems the effectiveness of local governments have been abrogated; the sanctity of parenthood and the American family has been violated; we have a President who claims that for spiritual inspiration and enlightenment our citizens should look to foreign philosophies and religions that were not present at, and had nothing to do with, America’s founding.

What we feared has suddenly come upon us; the worst that could have happened has happened. President Obama and his too easily corrupted Congress have driven our nation down a steep and slippery road where our Founders would never have taken us and which leads to ruin and destruction. Our nationally elected representatives of both the House and Senate have displayed a disgusting lack of wisdom, moral strength, concern for America’s general welfare, and the intestinal fortitude necessary to stop this calamity from turning into a runaway disaster.

A Conservative Third Party (CTP) could enter the political arena by participating in local or district wide races such as one for mayor or school board, county board of supervisors, or state legislators. If a state, county or district has a Republican Candidate running for office who respects America’s heritage and its traditional founding principles, and is running for office against a Democrat who is an Obama liberal, the CTP could support the Republican Candidate.

Should the Republican Candidate espouse liberal principles and values, and the Democrat turns out to support true conservative principles, the CTP could support the Democrat candidate. If neither the Republican nor the Democrat Candidate is a conservative, the CTP may want to recruit and run its own candidate in opposition to both the Republican and the Democrat candidates.

It may be historically true that the nation has never had a successful third party at the national level, but never has the nation been in such dire need of one! Ross Perot started out like a house afire, but lacked staying power and the ability to “close” the sale with the American people. Probably the most successful Third Party effort was mounted by Teddy Roosevelt and his “Bull Moose Party.” We must be prepared and determined to stay the course, and we must stay the course because there is far too much at stake. Our precious nation and the future of our grandchildren hang in the balance. Standing idly by while Obama drives the train over the cliff into an ocean of feckless despair is not an acceptable option!

Against this background our nation has never had a more divisive and dishonest Administration. Obama looks straight into the TV camera and tells the America people that C-Span cameras will have full access to the internal Obama-care deliberations. The next day the debates began behind closed doors. He tells the public that the Obama-care bill will be posted for a minimum of five days so the public will have ample opportunity to read the mammoth 3000 page perversion. They get only thirty-six hours.

To be successful, the CTP will have to look for unique opportunities where it can make a significant difference, such as helping in races like the Scott Brown campaign in Massachusetts. Eventually the CTP may want to routinely field candidates at all levels of government in all 50 states.

Fortunately it isn’t necessary to hold a majority in either the House or Senate to be a power player. Right now if the Conservative Party USA had held only three seats in the Senate and ten or so in the House, it would have been able to thwart Obama’s grab for dictatorial power.

Forming a Third Party is a momentous step, but the events of the last weeks mandate that such an effort be made. We are at a crossroads of historical and moral significance. The destiny of America hangs in the balance. The time is now for conscious-driven Americans to suit up, show up, and volunteer for hazardous duty.

Is Israel Shaking?

2010-03-24T12:38:00Z

“How can we forget,” writes Aliza Davidovit, “that prior to becoming president, Obama addressed AIPAC in 2008 and said, ‘Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel, and it must remain undivided’ – until he changed his mind the next day. Now that’s commitment … Jews can’t build houses in Jerusalem but Arabs can,” writes Aliza Davidovit.

Double speak seems to be the norm for this White House. According to Obama his healthcare plan will enable citizens to keep their current coverage, but it turns out that the opposite is true. Supposedly it will lower costs, but the Congressional Budget Office says it will cause a steady climb in healthcare costs. Obama says his plan will reduce the deficit. The CBO says it will significantly expand, not shrink, the deficit.

U.S. foreign policy is also rife with double talk. The State Department should have known that when they scheduled the U.S. President for a trip to the Middle East last June without stopping in Israel, that Israel would take it as a diplomatic snub, and retribution would come.

What better time to publicly jab Israel’s thumb of retribution into America’s eye than during Vice President Joe Biden’s recent mission to the Middle East. While he was in the air Israel announced that it intended to build 1,600 more Jewish settlement homes in east Jerusalem and the West Bank which directly conflicted with the State Department’s belief that the U.S. and Israel had agreed to a cessation of construction of Jewish homes in those areas.

Not to be outdone by the Israelis, Biden made a call to the president’s national security adviser James L. Jones last for an hour and a half while Netanyahu waited and waited and dinner got cold. But it didn’t get as cold as relations between the U.S. and Israel were to become.

As Biden flew home, Israel announced that it planned to build more Jewish settlement homes in East Jerusalem and the West Bank. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas then got into the fight by choosing this time to dedicate a town square to Dalal Mughrabi, a 19 year old girl terrorist who, in 1978, led a terrorist attack that killed 38 Israelis.

Arnaud de Borgrave UPI Editor at Large writes, “Bottom line is that Israel …may have a short shelf life historically speaking … At the end of this road lies the one-state solution – e.g., another Lebanon with a Jewish President and a Palestinian Prime Minister .. in 1951, there were 87 million Arabs. Today, there are 320 million. In 2026 … there will be 500 million, presumably possessing nuclear capability in one or two Arab states. So … sitting around and hanging tough is not a viable long-range strategy.”

For two hundred years Americans have spoken with pride of their Judeo-Christian laws, principles, and heritage. Now we have a President who eschews our traditional history and principles and tells us that we should admire things Islamic.

As Davidovit asks, “Shouldn’t we all be terrified when Biden calls the United States bond to Israel ‘unshakable’ on Tuesday and then three days later Secretary of State Hillary Clinton tells Netanyahu that building housing for Jews in East Jerusalem puts Israel’s bilateral relations with the U.S. into question? I have never seen something so unshakable shake so quickly.”

Peace Through Strength

2010-03-07T14:17:00Z

An excellent example of what happens when a world power adopts a weak defense policy is the United Kingdom in the 1930s when Hitler was rising to power. As Prime Minister of Great Britain, Chamberlain was so determined to keep England out of war with Germany that he adopted a policy of appeasement, negotiation and sanctions, not unlike the foreign policy which President Obama has adopted.

In his excellent book on Churchill William Manchester wrote, “The anesthetic effect of German promises to negotiate in these years was extraordinary. Hitler never negotiated. He lied, he bluffed, he blackmailed, but serious negotiation was a skill he despised, a refuge for weaklings.”

So it is today. Ahmadinejad, the President of Iran, despises Obama and the United States of America and has no intention of honorably negotiating with us. But Obama is a slow learner and keeps holding out “unclenched fists” to Ahmadinejad who, in turn, spits on them.

On Oct 3, 1938, Duff Cooper, a member of the British Parliament said of Chamberlain that, “Chamberlain believed in addressing Herr Hitler through the language of ‘sweet reasonableness.’ I have believed that he was more open to the language of the mailed fist … we have taken away the defenses of Czechoslovakia in the same breath as we have guaranteed them.”

That is what the United States has done. We have taken away the missile defenses of Poland, Ukraine and Eastern Europe and, at the same time, we have told them that they can count on America’s missile protection.

Both Chamberlain and Obama emphasize diplomacy over confrontation. As a result Chamberlain got WWII and Obama, most likely, will stumble into a Middle-East War. If Obama cannot contain Iran now while it’s non-nuclear, what chance does he have of containing Iran after it becomes a nuclear power?

The “gathering storm” of WWII, as Churchill called it, “became apparent to British men in bars, women pushing baby carriages, shelf stackers in supermarkets, taxi drivers, businessmen, union shop stewards; to everyone, in short, (it became obvious) except to the oligarchy in power.”

That very same saga is being repeated today in our country, mechanics, fire fighters, hair dressers, clerks, airline pilots, Tea Party members (I Prefer to call them “TEA SIPPERS”) and many other good, solid Americans are telling Obama’s Government that enough is enough and it’s time to “Wake up and smell the coffee!” But the Obama Administration, in its shabby first year, has been oblivious to the will of the American people.

Much to Obama’s chagrin, America is still the greatest nation on the face of the earth. Without its leadership, the free world and western civilization – as we know it today -- will collapse. For if the US doesn’t lead the free world, who will: Russia, China, Hugo Chavez?

This brings us full circle as to why the United States of America, the world’s only super power, must maintain its military prowess. It is because, as history has rudely taught us, peace can only be secured and maintained through strength. Ironically, the greatest contributor to peace is a war-ready military.

NHTSA

2010-02-22T13:30:00Z

Between 40 and 50 thousand people are killed in crashes on the nation’s roads and highways each year. The number of deaths caused by the Toyota “sticking accelerator” problem is set at close to 3.5 deaths a year. Three and a half deaths per year is cause for concern, but it is not a crisis.

Each year more children are run over and killed by school busses at school bus stops than are killed by Toyota’s safety defect problem. The point is we need to keep our eyes on what’s important and not get diverted down a rabbit trail to nowhere. The focus should be on identifying and fixing existing safety defects, not on having dueling press conferences and Capitol Hill Theatric productions.

The National Safety Law of 1966 charges the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to “protect the American public against unreasonable risk of accidents occurring as a result of the design, construction or performance of motor vehicles and to protect (the public) against unreasonable risk of death or injury to persons in the event accidents do occur, to provide a minimum standard for motor vehicle performance or motor vehicle equipment performance, which is practicable, which meets the need for motor vehicle safety and which provides objective (decision making) criteria.”

NHTSA’s only reason to exist is to save lives on the nation’s roads and highways and to protect the American public by identifying and correcting motor vehicle safety defects – including Toyota’s sticking accelerators and sudden and uncontrolled acceleration problems.

It does this by “compiling and analyzing safety statistics and information; and by conducting supportive safety research and development.” It is NHTSA’s job to monitor accident trends, to identify safety defects and to require the manufacturer to recall defective vehicles and correct their faults at no cost to the customer. The manufacturer’s job is to correct the defects when and how NHTSA tells them to; NHTSA, not the manufacturer, is responsible for identifying safety defects.

The way the defect system worked when I was NHTSA Administrator was that anytime a manufacture suspected or had proof that a safety defect had developed -- within five working days -- he must notify NHTSA. In cooperation with the manufacturer NHTSA determined whether or not a real safety defect existed. If one did exist the manufacturer and NHTSA followed an established protocol. First they jointly clarified the problem, designed a program to fix the defect and they were instructed and order the repair parts. Then, the vehicle owners were notified that a safety defect existed and they were instructed to bring their vehicles into a dealership to be fixed.

Ideally NHTSA discovers that a safety defect exists about the same time as the manufacturer. NHTSA receives hundreds of thousands of customer complaints each month over its Traffic Safety Telephone Hotline. If there is a serious safety defect, NHTSA quickly identifies it and starts looking for safety trends.

Every time there is a nonfatal crash the state where the crash occurred notifies NHTSA. This may take several weeks. When there is a crash resulting in a fatality, State Police immediately notify NHTSA who immediately starts evaluating the accident for any indications of a safety trend. Additionally NHTSA has other sources of information such as insurance companies and their claims adjustors.

Right now our nation doesn’t need a publicity war with Japan, nor do we want to see Toyota’s assembly plants in the US falling silent and their workers unemployed. In the past NHTSA and the motor vehicle manufacturers have cooperated in fixing safety defects without resorting to making it a publicity crisis or circus. That’s what needs to be done with the current problem.

This is not the great crisis it has been portrayed to be and it is neither the first nor the last time that a manufacturer will fail to promptly notify NHTSA of the discovery of a safety defect. The problem needs to be handled firmly, but also with calm assurance that working together the manufacturer and the government will do what’s right to protect the American public.

The American People vs. Toyota

2010-02-21T16:43:00Z

For months the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), which is part of the Department of Transportation, had been receiving complaints from customers and police agencies across the nation about “sticking accelerators” on Toyota Motor Vehicles. They routinely processed these complaints and asked Toyota to investigate and report back on the alleged problems. Indications are that Toyota was less than responsive.

Finally in November of last year, NHTSA approached Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood and requested permission for some of its staff to fly to Japan to meet with Toyota executives; permission was granted. The purpose of the trip was to determine whether or not there was really a sticking accelerator problem and, if there was, to find out when Toyota intended to recall its automobiles and fix them?

In the history of the agency I know of no other time when federal regulators went “hat in hand” to an auto manufacturer, at home or abroad, and begged them to make a safety recall of a defective motor vehicle system. During the three years when I was the Administrator of NHTSA it was not unusual to recall nearly a million vehicles a month for repair of safety defects, and not once did a member of my staff have to travel to Japan or Europe to do it. Not once did we refuse to conduct a safety investigation because of the, “need to allocate and prioritize NHTSA’s limited resources to best accomplish the agency’s safety mission.” In fact, I would have fired any member of my staff who came up with such a dumb idea.

The NATIONAL TRAFFIC AND MOTOR VEHICLE SAFETY ACT OF 1966 charges NHTSA with the responsibility to “protect the American public against unreasonable risk of accidents occurring as a result of the design, construction or performance of motor vehicles and is to also protect against unreasonable risk of death or injury to persons in the event accidents do occur … a minimum standard for motor vehicle performance, or motor vehicle equipment performance, which is practicable, which meets the need for motor vehicle safety and which provides objective criteria” to measure against.

It is NHTSA’s job to protect the public by setting standards and identifying and correcting motor vehicle safety defects -- including sticking accelerators and sudden and uncontrolled acceleration... It does this by defect identification and correction; by “compiling and analyzing safety statistics and information; and by conducting supportive safety research and development.” If a safety defect exists NHTSA identifies it and requires that the manufacturer recalls the defective vehicles and corrects their faults at no cost to the customer.

Identifying and correcting mechanical and technical safety defects is something the military trained me to do. At one time I commanded the U.S. Army’s Test and Evaluation Command headquartered at Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland. The command was responsible for the “Engineer Development Testing” of all military equipment including – but not limited to -- aircraft, helicopters, jeeps, tanks, trucks, missiles, artillery and munitions.

When I was leading NHTSA, we assumed that some auto manufacturers would do all they could to stiff arm us and not cooperate, but we didn’t care. Our job was to protect the public and we had all the tools -- or weapons -- we needed to get the job done. We could assess substantial fines, subpoena correspondence and records, loose the news media on the manufacturers for their lack of cooperation and, if need be, have the Department of Justice drag the recalcitrant manufacturer into court. On the average NHTSA opened between 100 and 125 defect investigations a year.

Even back then Toyota was a very large and competently run company; but at times it could be difficult to work with. It had a reputation of not notifying the agency of its discovery of safety defects as required by the Safety Act and of not providing completely factual answers concerning the issues raised by our letters and Special Orders. But this was only an irritant, not a failure of the system. I made it clear to Toyota that I was not above knee-capping them and they wisely decided to fully cooperate.

HOMOSEXUALITY AND THE MILITARY

2010-02-11T02:42:00Z

During his recent State of the Union address, President Barack Obama told the nation that he wanted America’s armed forces to abolish the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy which forbids gays and lesbians to openly practice homosexual lifestyles while on active military duty. This was a blatant attempt on Obama’s part to pay off his campaign debt to the homosexual community for having helped him get elected to the presidency last year.

A week later Admiral Mike Mullen, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates dutifully traipsed over to Capitol Hill to sing to the Senate a chorus from the Obama party line that the homosexual life style was perfectly acceptable and that adopting it as national policy would in no way undermine the morale and discipline of the U.S. military.

The purpose of America’s armed forces should be to win wars, not engage in social experiments. Troops I’ve talked to believe that open homosexual living is incompatible with military service and will undermine unit cohesion and ultimately marginalize the military effectiveness of our armed forces in battle. Should the troops refuse to volunteer for further military duty because Obama’s policy has been adopted, the President and the Joint Chiefs will have lost the loyalty, trust and respect of the military forces that have been entrusted to their command.

The military is about national defense and winning wars, it is not about cultural change. Furthermore, serving in the military is not a constitutional right and neither is being able to openly parade one’s homosexual lifestyle. Under today’s policy of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” any gay or lesbian can serve in the military; they just can’t flaunt their lifestyle. And there is no equivalence between the military’s restricting homosexual conduct and racial discrimination.

I agree with my old colleague Colin Powell who wrote Congresswoman Pat Schroeder that, “Skin color is a benign non-behavioral characteristic. Sexual orientation is perhaps the most profound of human behavioral characteristics. Comparison of the two is a convenient but invalid argument.” It’s easy to recommend sweeping social changes to barracks living when you don’t have to live in those barracks yourself.

Mullen says he favors open homosexuality in the military services although he has no idea how the rank and file will react to such a policy. He says that “I fully support the President’s decision.” That is, first you make the decision and then later on you investigate how it will affect those who have to live with and carry it out. It’s like listening in on an “Alice in Wonderland” conversation, “Let’s have the verdict first and the trial second.” Gates and Mullen are effectively saying that after the policy is changed, they will then worry about how the change will affect reenlistments and performance of the nation’s all volunteer force.

Gates has commissioned an eleven month “outside study” by the Rand Corporation of
Obama’s proposal and a similar “in-service” review headed up by an Army four-Star and by the Pentagon’s chief lawyer. Having a lawyer co-lead the study is probably meant to ensure that Gates, Mullen and Obama’s backs are covered. But the three of them would do much better if they dropped the lawyer and replaced him with one of the uniformed service’s enlisted Sergeant Majors.

Additionally Gates – without inquiry – wants to reduce the number of homosexuals released from the military each year under the policy of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” But he has yet to answer the key question, “What effect will this reduction have on readiness, morale, and military unit effectiveness?”

The nation’s military should be focused on defending America and winning its wars. It
shouldn’t be used to pay back Obama’s campaign debts or just to effect social change.

Racial Profiling

2010-01-25T01:39:00Z

The movie opens with a gorgeous panoramic view of the western plains. In the foreground is a wagon train of settlers migrating west. In the middle distance is a lone rider furiously galloping toward the wagon train, shouting and waving.

Pulling up alongside the wagon master his horse’s hoofs kicking up clouds of dust, the rider points and shouts, “There are hostile Indians just over the ridge.” The wagon master warns, “Be careful how you talk when they get here, we don’t want to offend them.” The scene closes with the wagon master asking with his last breath just as one of my Native American ancestors drills him right between the eyes with a tomahawk, “We didn’t offend them … did we?”

The U.S. military’s report on the Fort Hood killings has been released and nowhere in 86 pages is there a mention that Major Hasan is a Muslim. This is particularly chilling because it was adherence to the Muslim faith, as he interpreted it, that caused him to go on this killing spree.

For the past twenty-five years equal opportunity Muslim terrorists have wantonly attacked and killed American military and civilians around the world without regard to sex, age or occupation. There were many signs that pointed to Hasan’s being a potential terrorist killer, for those willing to see them. He was known to speak out against the U.S. military’s fighting in Muslim countries, to show sympathy toward Muslim terrorists and to pass out business cards that declared him to be a “Soldier of Allah.”

Yet none of this is mentioned in the military report for fear that some Muslim or Muslim organization might take offense. Hasan is the invisible elephant in the tent who gets a free pass. Those who chose to ignore the signs of his Muslim radicalism are as guilty and complicit as he in the killings.

Protecting American lives and interests is what the Department of Defense was created to do. But evidently it’s forgotten how to discharge those duties. Too many of our current military leaders are like the wagon master, who cannot identify an enemy when they see one and, if they do, refuse to come to grips with the reality.

It is like the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) which is responsible for safeguarding our airports, airliners and air transportation systems. At the airport security portal, the TSA searches and pats down 80-year-old grandmothers from Omaha, yet hesitates to segregate and question 25 year old Muslims. The truth is that it is radical young Muslims who wantonly kill our citizens; grandmothers from Omaha do not. The TSA is afraid to take the proper actions necessary to safeguard American lives for fear they might be accused of racial profiling, or they might offend Muslims in the United States.

Vague accusations of racial profiling are a holdover from the pre-civil rights days when blacks were segregated and treated as sub-human beings. I’m old enough to have lived through the racial profiling period of American history. It was humiliating, mean and ugly, but black people like me didn’t crash airliners into World Trade Centers.

Recently I was involved in an intense conversation where the other party verbally assaulted me with what he supposed was a conversation stopper. “What you just said deeply offended me!” he snarled. “Then be offended,” I shot back.

There is a time to be politically correct and a time to kick butt and take names. You shouldn’t be a supervisor in the TSA if you can’t figure out the difference between the two. That is, if you’re confused about which is which, you shouldn’t be assigned to protect the lives of Americans passing through our airports and flying on our airliners.

TSA should zero in like a laser beam on anyone coming through an airport security station that looks like, or the inspectors have reason to believe might be a radical Muslim terrorist. Such people should get the full “terrorist search” treatment; while the grandmother from Omaha should get a pass. As my steel worker father liked to say, “It’s hard, but it’s fair.”

The Awesome Hand of God

2010-01-22T14:20:00Z

A few times each century “The Awesome Hand of God” sweeps down from heaven and punches the world’s “reset” button bringing mankind up short by defining things with a ringing purpose and clarity. Not in the sense of God actually materializing and throwing bolts of lightning at us, but in the letters and documents passed on to us by our Founding Fathers that make it clear that most of our founders believed that events on earth were controlled by a divine providence that was more powerful than man himself.

Perhaps that is why Thomas Jefferson wrote so boldly in the Declaration of Independence that, “We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their creator … with a firm reliance on the protection of divine providence … I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just.” In Haiti last week in the twinkling of an eye, God showed that, as our founders suggested, we are not in control and feeble man is still scrabbling about on earth reacting to unforeseen events and trying to pick up the pieces.

Thousands of years ago King David the great Psalmist wrote, “When I look at the night sky and see the work of your fingers – the moon and the stars you have set in place – what are mortals that you … should care for us.” Until this week our government in Washington was dramatically proclaiming that health care was a great crisis and that if a solution to it was not found immediately the nation and its economy would be seriously damaged.

But God in heaven, with the tapping of a single finger, put health care back into its proper perspective for us. In effect God said, “Health care in the United States is not a major crisis. Health care on the Island of Haiti is a major crisis.” It is most unfortunate that it requires a catastrophe of world wide proportions to sort out our thinking and to put mankind back into his proper place and to remind us of how meager our ability really is to influence God’s universe.

Just as epic world events redirect our attention, so too can the hollowness of a Senator’s character and whether his or her vote can be bought for a hundred (or three hundred million dollars). How have we arrived at the point where our legislators’ character is publicly impaled on a big “For Sale” sign? It was not always so on Capital Hill.

In 1833 Congressman Davy Crockett faced a vote as divisive as today’s health care vote. He summed up his dilemma in these words, “It was expected of me that I was to bow to the name of Andrew Jackson, and follow him in all of his motions, and standings, and turnings, even at the expense of my conscience and judgment …. His famous, or rather I should say his in-famous, Indian bill was brought forward, and I opposed it from the purest of motives in the world. Several of my colleagues got around me, and told me how well they loved me, and that I was ruining my self. They said this was a favorite measure of the president, and I ought to go for it. I told them I believed it was a wicked, unjust measure, and that I should go against it, let the cost to myself be what it might.”

All Congressmen and Senators would do well to examine the current health care bill that Congress is gorging and gagging on, in light of Crockett’s example and that of our Founding Fathers. It would be a noble and trustworthy act should our political leaders declare that, “I believed it was a wicked, unjust measure, and that I should go against it, let the cost to myself be what it might.”

Unfortunately, too few of our political leaders today march to Crockett’s lonely drum beat. Too many of them would rather clasp to their bosoms the words of Niccolo Machiavelli, “[He] did nothing but deceive and never thought of anything else and always found some occasion for it. Never was there a man more convincing in his asseverations nor more willing to offer the most solemn oaths nor less likely to observe them. Yet his deceptions were always successful for he was an expert in this field.”

Too many of our law makers subscribe to the philosophy of Groucho Marx, “These are my principles, and if you don’t like them … well, I have others.” Groucho may have had a haystack full of examples ready to be selected from at random to fit any situation, but we should know better -- especially our Congressional leaders should know better. But no matter what, God is still keeper of the “reset” button.

No Accountability - No Security

2010-01-15T13:50:00Z

Over the past year President Obama’s amateurish dithering, his misuse of national intelligence resources, and his lack of leadership ability and experience has significantly weakened America’s national security at every level. All of the effort he’s spent trying to close Guantanamo would have been much better spent stabilizing the country of Yemen and limiting further al-Qaeda penetrations and operations there.

Instead of preventing terrorist attacks here in the USA Eric Holder, Obama’s attorney general, has been at work 24/7 attempting to find prosecutorial grounds under which to punish intelligence operatives of former administrations. If you work in the FBI, CIA, or other intelligence agencies you had better duck for cover because Obama’s counter terrorism and intelligence officials are spending more time trying to catch your failures than tracking down Muslim terrorist sleeper cells operating within our nation’s borders.

By extending our citizens’ constitutional rights to terrorists, Obama has significantly curtailed the nation’s ability to extract vital intelligence information from senior al-Qaeda members and other terrorist leaders. He has stopped fruitful, aggressive interrogation programs and given away the secrets of our nation’s interrogation methods to our enemies.

Obama’s witch-hunting has alienated the Defense Department, CIA, FBI, and other intelligence communities and has made them skeptical of his motives. Today you would have to be a fool to risk your career and life in the service of your country trying to develop or follow up on desperately needed intelligence leads and information. You can be certain that if things turn out less than perfect, the President and his attorney general will be gleefully lurking around the corner ready to spring forth to entrap and prosecute you.

After the attacks of 9/11, the U.S. National Counter Terrorism Center (NCTC) was set up as a clearinghouse for raw intelligence information. Obama blames the Center and the CIA for not preventing the Christmas Day underwear bomber from getting on the Northwest Airliner headed for Detroit, saying that he will not tolerate such “systemic failures”. What Obama fails to mention is that his administration had planned deep budget cuts for the NCTC prior to the underwear bomber’s flight. Perhaps now the NCTC budget will not only be restored, but increased.

The president fails to understand that these were not just run of the mill “systemic failures.” These were human errors -- failures in leadership – all up and down the chain of command. These failures have not been corrected because there is little accountability in the Obama administration. It treats intelligence failures as cavalierly as it treats job creation.

Dennis Blair, Director of National Intelligence, issued a 7 January memo addressing the underwear bomber situation in which he spoke of the flight as Northwest Flight 153. It was actually flight 253. If you can’t even get three numbers correct, what can you get right? Apparently not much.

Our constitution forces us to place our national security in the hands of the President and his administration. Unfortunately, it appears that our confidence is sorely misplaced and we are sadly being deceived. It is a poignant indicator that the only thing that kept our nation from a disaster on Christmas Day was a handful of brave and alert passengers and an incompetent terrorist who couldn’t detonate his bomb.

Putting the wrong flight number in an intelligence memo is not just a minor oversight. It’s an indication that the Obama Administration’s benign intelligence apparatus and efforts cannot be taken seriously by either the American people or by Muslim terrorists. My experience with the intelligence community taught me that what some might call an insignificant mistake, could very well prove to be the difference between life and death. Due to a similar “insignificant mistake” – a simple typo – the underwear bomber was mistakenly granted a visa by our State Department and allowed to board the plane.

These so-called little mistakes are not only dangerous and life threatening, they are pathetic and disappointing. Everyone knows, especially the U.S. State Department, that an obvious “red flag” is a passenger who buys a one-way ticket, pays cash for it, and has no passport and baggage. The underwear bomber’s identification as a possible terrorist, and his neutralization, should have taken place long before he got in that line to buy a plane ticket.

Another case in point is the three gate crashers at the White House dinner for Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. These three weren’t on the White House social or the Secret Service’s guest lists, but because of another “insignificant mistake” they were able to walk past security and casually sidle up to the President, even have their pictures taken with him. If al-Qaeda knew how easy it was to get to stand next to the President, they could have probably taken him out at one of the Presidential Inaugural parties.

But no, that’s too hasty a conclusion. President Bush was responsible for security at the Obama inauguration parties. So the three gate crashers wouldn’t have been able to get through without being on the guest list.

Presidential Leadership

2009-12-28T18:13:00Z

Leaders in the military are taught to quickly identify, isolate and focus on the most important things in a war to the exclusion of lesser things. That is because to be successful, the focus of a military leader’s efforts has to be on winning the war, not on winning individual battles, no matter how tempting. President Obama has yet to learn that
lesson, and therefore has yet to learn how to lead.

He has evaluated the nation’s current situation and properly concluded that there are three very important issues which require the nation’s attention. Unfortunately, he has been unable to figure out that all three are not of equal significance. Therefore, he has failed to determine which is the most important.

If Obama loses the battle of “Healthcare,” he can still win the war. If he loses the battle of “Global Warming” he can still win the war. But if he loses the battle of restoring the economy and “Creating Jobs,” he will lose the war. That is why at twelve noon on January 20th, 2009, Obama’s focus and the focus of everyone in his Administration should have converged with laser beam intensity on the task of creating jobs.

The urgency of the hour called for Obama to set aside all other agenda items and to focus on restoring the economy, on creating jobs – real jobs – and more jobs. He could not afford then, nor can he afford now, to allow those on Capital Hill to dilute and divert the Administration’s and the nation’s energies and focus. Our nation can not afford to be distracted by the pursuit of Healthcare and Global Warming -- as important as these two issues might be.

All presidential speeches, actions and programs from the hour of Obama’s inauguration until the present time, should have focused on growing the economy and creating jobs. Somewhere, tucked into every speech given by the President and by every member of the Administration, should have been a mention of the need to create jobs. Every subject debated on Capital Hill should have included practical, workable and immediate courses of productive action that would impact the economy and job growth.

When I was growing up my mother taught me that if an individual, a family, or a government spends more money than it has in its accounts, it will be forced to borrow to make up for the short fall and the money it borrows will have to be paid back with interest. She said that if the government couldn’t pay back its loans on time, it would be forced to borrow more money or go into default.

She said that is why it was prudent to keep the federal budget balanced and that all of us at every level should work as hard as we can to individually get out and stay out of debt. Events such as the sub-prime lending and housing construction fiascos are warnings that the federal government has allowed our national accounts to get out of control. We have forgotten that eternal financial vigilance should be a top national priority and that continued abuse of our economic system is suicidal.

It almost seems like Cicero had the Obama Administration in mind when he wrote in 55 BC that, “The budget should be balanced, the Treasury should be refilled, public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed lest Rome [The United States] become bankrupt. People must again learn to work, instead of living on public assistance.”

Two years ago if you had asked any American of any political stripe, from the President of the United States, to a junior member of Congress, to the wizened old bureaucrat, to the vice president of a venerated Wall Street firm, to the president of a local bank in the mid-west, to a grievance committeeman in a labor union, what was the number one problem facing the nation, the answer would have been a loud, resounding, “Creating Jobs!” The same is true today.

As President, Obama’s primary goal should be to lead the nation out of its current economic crisis into the sunlight of financial solvency, but he lacks a sense of urgency. He seems deaf to the cries of citizens, like the “Tea Baggers,” who try to get him to focus on fixing the nation’s economy.

If all the effort and time that have been spent on the healthcare debate and formulation of healthcare legislation had been spent creating jobs, the nation would be well on the way toward solving its financial crisis. To the severe detriment of our nation, Obama the leader has focused his primary attention on a secondary issue – healthcare.

The motto of the U.S. Army’s Infantry School at Fort Benning, Georgia, which I attended, is “Follow Me!” At Benning infantry officers are quickly taught that pointing or suggesting is not the same thing as leading. “In war when men die, and in war some must, you can’t manage them to their death. You must lead them there.” Leadership is making right decisions and personally getting out in front when the bullets begin to fly. It is beckoning for others to leave comfort and safety and to join you in the fight.

Isn’t it time for Obama to focus the nation and the government on what is really of vital importance? Isn’t it time to stop the blame game, to stop assigning fault to others for the problems Obama and his Administration have failed to solve? Whether he likes it or not, the President of the United States is responsible for everything that happens during his administration good or bad, right or wrong --even those things held over from previous administrations. Obama was elected to lead the nation and to solve national problems, to evaluate and establish priorities, not to dodge and weave, assign blame, preen and avoid responsibility.

Mr. President, if you have any leadership ability within you -- and I pray that you have --now is the time to demonstrate it.