My Apology for Mamoud Amademajad

Recently our new President, Barack Obama took an interview with Al Arabiya where he stressed that the United States would take a new direction with the Muslim world. In return, President Mamoud Amademajad of Iran gave a reply to both the interview and President Obama’s offer for direct negotiations. He demanded certain conditions be met in order for negotiations to take place. Among the demands was an apology for the past sixty years of treatment of Iran, and I guess the Muslim world in general. So, here goes my offer of an apology for Mamoud Amademajad and the Muslim world.

Mamoud Amademajad, right off I would like to apologize that after your revolution and the kidnapping of American diplomats and embassy personnel that we did not bomb your entire country into a combination of slag pits and glass.

I would also like to extend apologies for the following acts we have perpetrated on the Muslim world over the last sixty years.

I am sorry for our support for Pakistan all those years when we could just as easily have supported India.

I am sorry we stopped Israel from taking the Suez Canal in 1956.

I am equally sorry that we coerced Israel to return the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt after the 1956 war over the closing of the Suez Canal.

I am sorry that we assisted the United Nations in preventing Israel from taking more land from Syria, Egypt, and Jordan by forcing a cease fire in the Six Day War also known as the 1967 war.

I am sorry we stopped Israel from taking Cairo and Damascus during the Yom Kippur War in 1973.

I apologize that we aided in any way the return of the Sinai Peninsula once again to Egypt during the negotiated peace facilitated by United States assistance.
I apologize for once again forcing a cease-fire on Israel before they took Beirut in the Lebanon War against the PLO in 1982.

I am equally sorry that at the same time we did not allow Israel to wipe out the Syrian forces in Lebanon.

I apologize for not going further and removing Momar Kadafi from his rule in Libya when we were having difficulties in 1986.

I am sorry we did not invade southern Sudan and free the people from the genocidal rule from the government in Khartoum.

I truly regret working with the Muslim Albanians to bomb Serbia and steal their land to make the countries of Bosnia and Herzegovina and a few years later again with Kosovo (or Kosova as the Muslims call it).

I regret not invading Iran to free the people from the oppressive rule of the Mullahs immediately after we freed the citizens of Iraq from the evil clutches of Saddam Hussein.

I am sure there are other events I probably should apologize for, but I bet you get my drift. I hope this satisfies your request for an apology, now can we talk?

Beyond the Cusp

New Republican Backbone Real or Imagined?

The House of Representatives passed the “Economic Recovery Act” which is supposed to stimulate our lagging economic situation. That is the bad news. The good news is that this boondoggle passed without a single supporting Republican vote and even had ten Democrats vote against it as well. Now many are reporting that the Republicans, at least the ones in the House of Representatives, have found their backbone for voting against federal overspending and in favor of fiscal responsibility. The question we need to answer is whether this is true or is this one vote an anomaly not representative of the norm. I fear it is simply an anomaly caused by the lack of support for the spending solution by their constituents. This was self-preservation, not backbone to stand on principle. Oh, how I wish I were wrong on this one.

The reason behind my doubt comes from the fact that the current group of Republicans in the House of Representatives, unlike after the 1994 GOP revolution, are the same bunch that could not find a pork spending bill they couldn’t love for the last eight to ten years. Somehow, I sincerely doubt that they suddenly found integrity. The opposition to the spend, spend, spend solution to our economic problems must offer an alternative and do what is necessary to place their alternate solution before the public and find support. The Republicans did offer an alternative that mostly consisted of tax cuts but the Democrat majority turned it down without real discussion or debate. Though tax cuts are the right direction to head, they must be done in coordination with spending cuts that will lead to a balanced budget and eventually to debt reduction. They have always known, as many of us also know, that tax cuts are the only guaranteed way to put money into the economic engine with great speed and also in a productive and positive way. Return monies to the people and they will use it wisely and spend the monies efficiently; unlike the government, where in order to put $100 into the economy they must take $150 or more out of the economy through either taxes or building more debt leading to the need to print more money to cover the funds which produces inflation and lessens the worth of the dollar. Anyway you look at it, the government must take at least 50% more out of the economy than they are going to inject into the economy. It is the classic case of the faster I go, the behinder I get.

If history has taught us anything about economic downturns, it is that the less government does the quicker the recovery. My idea of the perfect way for government to confront an economic slowdown or downturn would be for them to debate the solutions they will impose long enough to make their interference no longer necessary. During such crises, it is best for the government to fall into a prolonged gridlock preventing them from making things worse through well-intentioned actions that will always produce unintended consequences, and these consequences are rarely of a good nature. Unfortunately, this time government has gone whole hog wild and sunk its teeth deep into this recession and the results will not be advantageous to the people they are presuming to help, or at least claim to help. It is quite possible that once we come out the far end of this economic crisis we will have the situation where the federal government will be partners in many industries that include but are not limited to the entire financial banking and investment sector, the domestic automobile sector, the insurance industries, the energy sectors, and, if Obama has his way, so many more sectors and industries that the expanse will be vast and scary. There is a name for the case of industry and government ruling as one entity, and that name is fascism. May the Lord above protect us.

Beyond the Cusp

Déjà vu on the Southern Border

America has mostly ignored the growing and festering problems on the border with Mexico. Judging from past efforts such as our training of special forces style troops for the Mexican government to fight the drug lords who then turned around to work for the higher paying drug cartels, nothing might be an improvement. Despite our failure in creating the now infamous Special Forces style Zetas in the past; the long term will call for new actions from the United States and the preparation needs to begin now. The problem has progressed beyond simply illegal immigrants crossing the border to burgeoning drug smuggling and the lawless violence that goes with the drug trade. Many of our border towns have begun to be subjected to gangland style murders, kidnapping, and other related crimes against the people and civil society.

The Mexican government no longer controls more than twenty of their thirty-two provinces/states to the drug cartels. These lost areas include virtually every province/state that borders the United States. This is creating a far more deadly and serious problem along the border with Mexico. The corruption allowing the drug lords to rule over so much of Mexico has reached to the point that there have been cases of the Mexican military running escort for drug runners bringing their poison across the border. This is part of the reason why our Border Patrol agents are facing a serious threat that has them outgunned and places their very lives in great peril.

Mexico has reached a tipping point where it is very likely to turn into another Somalia, a country run by rival criminal gangs. This makes Mexico a larger threat than even the threat of terrorism. Should the Mexican government fail, and the drug gangs take control of the country, we can expect soon thereafter for terror groups such as Hezballah, Hamas, and al-Queda to also arrange to use Mexico as a staging area for attacks on the United States. Yet, while this situation grows more and more untenable, our government and the media go on ignoring this problem at a great risk to Americans, mostly those near the border but the effects are spreading further into the country. There have been home invasions in Dallas and even as far as St Louis committed by Mexican drug related gangs. We need to wake up and demand our government to detail a plan to prevent this festering problem from worsening.

For those who study history, this is not a new or unique problem with Mexico. We faced a similar form of lawlessness before with Mexico. During the insurrection under Pancho Villa, when numerous cross border raids victimized American citizens, we sent Black Jack Pershing’s cavalry troops to intercede and prevent further attacks on American soil. I realize this is a very simplistic description of what is referred to as “The Punitive Expedition in Mexico”, but it makes my point. Unfortunately, in many ways, the way things are done in this new “politically correct” world does not allow us to use the Black Jack Pershing method of solving such problems. As a side note, it is interesting that General Black Jack Pershing’s major accomplishments beyond WWI would be against Mexican lawlessness and Muslim uprisings in the Philippines. Kind of makes one yearn for a modern Black Jack Pershing for the problems we face currently. One can wish.

I guess I would be remiss if I did not offer my two cents worth of a solution to this growing problem on our border. Since protecting Americans from invasion is one of the Constitutional duties of the Federal Government, I would not be at all put out if we stationed troops on our southern border to seal it completely. One method of doing this would be to simply add a six-month stretch of duty safeguarding the southern border to the training cycle of all Army and Marine infantry and support basic training routines. This would be a benefit in completing such training and would send the message that we are serious about enforcing our borders. Any lesser measure would probably not solve the problem and just serve to kick the can down the road. A threat this close to home, and the border is about as close as it gets, makes it imperative that we treat it with all the seriousness it deserves as our citizens safety is at stake. Governments are formed primarily to provide protection for the citizens. With that in mind, anything less than total effort would be a dereliction of that sacred duty.

Beyond the Cusp