Who do you value: Terrorists? Or the unborn?

As we know, most Democrats are pro-choice, and most Democrats disapprove of the Bush administration's treatment of terrorist detainees. I find this disparity in views about the application of due process rights alarmingly inconsistent and illogical.

Lately we've seen liberals up in arms, foaming at the mouth about the mistreatment of the likes of KSM or Abu Zubaydah. Yet laws passed during the Bush administration lay out unprecedented rights of due process for the most vicious killers known to man: Vicious killers who gleefully violate every law and every right of man and nation-state. All detainees have the right to challenge their detention in federal court. They have numerous due process rights during their tribunal, and they have the right to appeal a tribunal's conviction. America has bathed our would-be murderers in a vast spa of Constitutional rights - the likes of which no honorable, law-abiding enemy POW ever received in any other American war.

Abortion is the arbitrary killing of an unborn innocent human being, who has been denied any due process rights.

I find it starkly amazing that anyone could find it deplorable that we might harm a single hair on a bloodthirsty terrorist's head without due process rights at every step, and yet they don't bat an eye when we de-brain a viable fetus in the birth canal. Do you suppose that that fetus wanted to have its skull punctured? It's brain vacuumed out? Shouldn't we at least hold a single little hearing - to determine if the health/convenience of the mother overrides the baby's right to life?

Liberals: Can we please have a little consistency here?

 

China exposed

President Obama has a tremendous opportunity to press for positive developments in North Korea.

At the present time, Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso, and South Korean President Lee Myung Bak have taken a hard-line approach to North Korea, denying Kim Jong Il their previous implicit support, and thus removing Kim's Western diplomatic cover. In fact, just yesterday, President Bak confirmed South Korea's no-nonsense approach to the the North by joining the Proliferation Security Initiative, in which North Korean vessels will be boarded and WMD materials seized.

With North Korea's Western support evaporated, China now finds itself the lone supporter of that rogue state, and thus diplomatically isolated. According to China expert Gordon G. Chang (writing in Forbes), "the Chinese have defied Washington when they had company [Western diplomatic cover] but were almost always cooperative when they did not."

Now is the time for Obama to bring change to our North Korea policy. Instead of wasting time in the failure that is the "Six Party Talks," Obama has a unique opportunity to use U.S. economic and diplomatic pressure to induce China to put the brakes on North Korea's nuclear weapons program. While he's at it, he can urge China to pressure Kim into making various social reforms in the North as well.

I'm not holding my breath.

Act now or forever hold your peace

The Western World is on the cusp of losing the initiative in the struggle against violent radical Islam. With today's revelations detailing China's secret efforts to help Iran obtain a nuclear bomb, we are reminded that we have months before Iran crosses the nuclear threshold. When that moment passes, Western nations will lose any and all significant tools in their arsenal for effectively restraining Iran and Iran's proxy armies.

As it is now, the West hardly employs any diplomatic muscle at all. We fail to stiffen existing economic sanctions or impose new ones. We refuse to increase pressure on the Russians (or Chinese) who assist Iran's nuclear program and provide legal and diplomatic cover for their ally. European states are unwilling or incapable of restricting their own trade with Iran. President Obama is so accommodating to the Mullahs, he's gutting our missile defense capability (a decision which is incidentally a slap in the face of our ally, Poland), and the U.S. pressures Israel to use a self-defeating "restraint" when provoked militarily by Iran's proxies Hezbollah and Hamas.

The West behaves in this submissive manner even before Iran acquires the bomb! At this point, Iran's bargaining position should be at its weakest: They don't yet have the bomb, their allies are exposed, and they're suffering limited anti-government insurrections. Despite this, we've exhausted our supply of carrots to offer the madmen of Tehran, and we've precluded any use of sticks. Clearly, the West has needlessly and counterproductively resigned itself to living with a nuclear-armed Iran, and all the fun that comes with that. Who are the madmen now?

In a few months, perhaps up to a year, Iran will announce that it has enough highly enriched uranium to produce a nuclear bomb. Shortly thereafter, they'll test a nuclear device, much like North Korea did in 2006. Even now, Iran is essentially free to do as it pleases. The West simply lacks the will to restrain it. With the bomb in its possession, Iran will be free to populate the entire planet with terror cells, undermine Iraq, Lebannon, and Pakistan, kill Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan, and provoke wars in Israel - and the West will only be able to watch from afar and hope nothing cataclysmic occurs.

In the meantime, Sunni Arab states (Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, etc.) will suddenly find it in their national interest to arm themselves with their own nuclear deterrent. This will provoke a nuclear arms race among the biggest terror sponsoring states in the world.

Geopolitically, this strengthens the hand of our adversaries in Russia and China, who have already pulled off a similar coup in North Korea. The West is increasingly becoming a passive actor on the world stage, and the world stage is becoming a truly dangerous place - far more dangerous than we've ever seen. No longer do massive superpowers checkmate each others' deadly nuclear arsenals. Now, every rogue state in the world is increasingly more free to obtain their own nuclear arsenals - exponentially increasing the odds that one day, soon, a nuclear attack will occur.

Given this, I cannot imagine how a simple U.S. or Israeli surgical strike against Iran's nuclear facilities - even a partially successful strike - could be worse than doing nothing.

Obama: Traitor to Environmentalism?

With the global economy now spiraling down to the depths of severe recession, and with manufacturing and other industrial activity declining, surely the West is now on the right track to meet our Kyoto goals and permanently reduce our national carbon footprints! Environmentalists rejoice!

After all, it was Obama himself who once decried the criminal fact that although Americans constitute only 4% of the global population, we consume 25% of the earth's resources. Well voila! We're now finally on the path to correcting that abomination!

But what is this? Obama is now spending trillions of dollars with the hope of stimulating economic growth? Doesn't he realize that by doing so, we'll only reverse our environmental gains and return to our previous evil ways of mass consumption?

Don't worry. Even if our economy rebounds to pre-September 2008 levels, Obama will institute his promised carbon cap and trade system. That should steer us toward a greener future. However, it'll raise your utility bills by 15-30%. It will cost the federal government up to $1.9 trillion, just for the programs first 8 years (tax increase, anyone?). Lastly, cap and trade will cost up to 2.3 million jobs by 2015.

I suppose this is the change we all wanted...

What does this mean? Honestly!

The Obama Pentagon has decided to drop the phrase "War on Terror" as a moniker to describe our ongoing and deadly global conflict against Islamic radicalism. In its place, the president has decided on a new name: the "Overseas Contingency Operation."

Just what the hell does that mean? I certainly hope that name doesn't confuse Pentagon planners, who no doubt deal with myriad other "overseas contingency operations" (i.e. possible future conflicts with China, Russia, North Korea, etc). Couldn't our president have picked something easier to remember, and more to the point, like "Operation Pacify," or "Operation Appeasement?"

The politics of old lives on

Tonight America heard President Barack Obama continue and extend the very politics he eschewed and denounced during the '08 campaign. Throughout that campaign, Obama attacked President Bush for using the politics of fear to make his case in the War on Terror. Obama derided what he saw as Bush's use of fear mongering and scare tactics to defend the war in Iraq, as well as the prison at Guantanamo Bay and warrantless wiretapping of suspected terrorists. In effect, Obama accused Bush of saying: "If you don't support the war - or this or that policy - then you want the terrorists to succeed."

You may well believe that Bush was guilty as charged - guilty of fear mongering. But if that is so, how is President Obama not guilty of resorting to precisely the same tactics to defend the Stimulus Bill? As he has done many times recently, Obama repeated his threat against the U.S. economy tonight. Said he: "If we do not move swiftly to sign the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, [our] economy... will be faced with catastrophe." In other words: if you don't support this stimulus bill - as it's written - then you must want the economy to suffer a catastrophe (all evidence to the contrary of Obama's argument notwithstanding).

How refreshing! How nice it is to know that Barack Obama has delivered change we can all believe in...

Mark his words

"When we get people who are more concerned about reading the rights to an Al Qaeda terrorist than they are with protecting the United States against people who are absolutely committed to do anything they can to kill Americans, then I worry."

-Dick Cheney (reacting to Obama's abandonment of Bush Administration anti-terrorism policies, 2/3/09)