What are we talking about today?
What do you think of this?
From the DC
“After weeks of pressure from Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul, the Senate is scheduled to vote on cutting off U.S. aid to Pakistan, Egypt and Libya.
A resumption of aid would be contingent on Egypt and Libya arresting the people responsible for the recent embassy attacks and turning them over to American authorities.
Pakistan would be required to release an imprisoned doctor who helped the CIA identify Osama bin Laden.
Paul had threatened to hold up all Senate business until the measure came up for a vote.”
Read more here
Sounds good to me.
How about this one?
From the WaPo
“Senior Republicans say they will be forced to retreat on taxes if President Obama wins a second term in November, clearing the biggest obstacle to a deal with Democrats to defuse a year-end budget bomb that threatens to rock the U.S. economy.”
“If Romney wins the White House, Republicans say, their strategy is clear: They would push to maintain current tax rates through 2013, giving the new president time to draft a blueprint for overhauling the tax code and taming the $16 trillion national debt.
But if Obama wins, the GOP would have no leverage — political or procedural — to force him to abandon his pledge to raise taxes on family income over $250,000, according to senior Republicans in the House and the Senate.
Read more here
This makes it obvious just how important this election is.
Wandering Views 
I don’t if anyone was watching the news last night, but there was a pro American demonstration in Libya. The demonstrators were in the town where the Ambassador was executed. They tore down the flags of the Islamist militias. Some were shot by the militias. They carried signs saying how much they loved the Ambassador and called for his murders to be brought to justice. I would say that we should examine the options in Libya carefully before making a decision there.
Egypt and Pakistan are another story. Pakistan is not our friend in the region, but they do supply supply routes for our troops. Egypt controls the Suez canal. The canal is a choke point for trade and shipping.
As a former military man and I am sure Michelle’s husband would agree with me, you cannot prosecute a war in you tie the hands of your warriors. If Washington is serious about prosecuting a war against Islamist goofballs, then the military needs to be unleashed, not tied up with limited rules of engagement. In other words, if you are going to war, do so with only one intention: WIN!
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Sometimes it is encouraging just to see what is being sold in the marketplace.
http://www.zazzle.com/secession+tshirts
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Joe, that’s the way we lost the Vietnam war. We gave the enemy sanctuary in Cambodia.
That’s the way we lost the Korean War. We gave the enemy sanctuary in China
.
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It’s actually useful for the executive branch when the legislative branch rattles its budgetary sword on aid to countries behaving poorly. Libya, I would not include with Pakistan for reasons Joe cited. And Egypt is a more complicated study with the new government. You may remember last week when the President did not call Egypt an ally on news and folks thought that was a gaffe — it wasn’t it was a message which Morsi seemed to receive as he called off national holidays and called on people to stop. We’ll see what the Paks do after 19 dead Pakistanis from yesterday’s riots (I can’t bring myself to call those demonstrations) but surely someone in their govt must understand the folly of giving a holiday for “demonstrations”.
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On Libya — this is worth a read:
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/africa/2012/09/2012922102327532674.html
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It’s time to stop believing that “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” As seen in the Middle East, the enemy of our enemies may also be our enemy. So, GOP, when you win in November, pull all our troops out of the Middle East, let them fight each other to the death, then make sure whoever is left acts in a civilized manner with the rest of the world.
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Here’s what Joe B. was talking about. This is the first good news I’ve seen from the whole affair.
http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/09/21/14018495-protesting-libyans-overrun-militant-compound-in-backlash-against-armed-groups?lite
“Hundreds of Libyan protesters stormed the compound of Ansar al-Shariah in Benghazi Friday night, driving out its militant occupants and setting fire to the compound, in an unprecedented public backlash against armed groups that have run rampant in the country since the 2011 ouster of former dictator Moammar Gadhafi.
At least one person was killed and 20 wounded in the confrontation, a hospital source told Reuters on Saturday.”
“An estimated 30,000 Libyans marched to the group’s brigade compound earlier in the day in protest, chanting, “No to militias,” the Associated Press reported.
According to The New York Times, protesters seized control of several other militia headquarters in the city as well.”
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Peter, it never was “The enemy of my enemy is my friend”, but the enemy of my enemy can by my ally. This was true of Russia in WW II. Most people outside the Roosevelt administration realized that Russia was a potential adversary.
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Rand Paul’s bill, if passed, would send shock waves through Egypt, Libya, and Pakistan. In all of those states the governments have lacked the backbone to stand up to the radical terrorists. Note that in Libya it was groups of people, not the government, who succeeded in driving the terrorists from their Benghazi headquarters.
Governments in these states attempts to balance desperately needed financial aid from America with a reluctance to seriously stand up to the terrorists. This feckless behavior has gone on for years.
CB may argue that bills like Pauls, as long as they don’t pass, strengthen their hand in these countries, though in truth State itself lacks the backbone to stand up to the leaders of these countries. There is some risk that the Paul proposal could strengthen the hands of the terrorists, though more likely it will force the spineless leaders of Pakistan, Egypt, and Libya to wake up and deal hardly with these evil terrorists that do great damage to their countries.
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I don’t know. Saudi Arabia has been buying off their terrorists for decades and/or expelling them as they did with bin Laden. At some point you can’t buy them off anymore. Things are starting to come to a head and the world is so interconnected, I don’t know how you can become an isolationalist in safety.
Remember what finally resolved the Iran hostage situation? The Carter administration told the hostage takers things would be bad when Reagan came into office. Rand may be helping the administration by giving it some needed leverage.
If anyone in those countries really has any control .:-(
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You don’t think of Saudi Arabia as a police state, but It is. The family has it’s hands in everything.
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If there is a man in your neighborhood who is loudly abusive to his wife and kids, you don’t let your kids play in his house. His children may be welcome at your house but if they are bad influence on your kids, they may not be welcome.
Just remember, if you call the cops on the man… like it or not, we are the world’s policeman.
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bobbuckles: Agree that you don’t let your kids play in his house, but do you just stand by and watch as he abuses his wife & kids?
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I understand why Obama runs ads on The View, World’s Biggest Dieting Singer and The New Abnormal. He should stay off of football. It just makes us mad.
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Ricky,
😆
Too funny.
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Should you want to know what’s going on in Afghanistan, the following paragraphs by Max Boot, Retreater in Chief, tells the dismal story.
The greatest cause for despair is the lack of presidential leadership. President Obama notoriously refuses to talk about the war, to explain setbacks, and to tell the American people how his plan for victory will work. “Victory” is not, in fact, a word he ever uses. Instead he talks mainly about how he is “ending the war,” by which he means pulling U.S. troops out—thereby making a bigger war more likely. Obama never granted the generals as many troops as they requested (Gen. Stanley McChrystal had said that 40,000 reinforcements were necessary to keep risk at a moderate level; Obama sent only 30,000), and he pulled out the surge troops faster than the generals wanted (Gen. David Petraeus had recommended keeping the surge forces through the summer of 2013 or at least until the end of 2012; Obama has already pulled them out).
Obama’s determination to withdraw is plainly evident to Afghans, friend and foe alike—and undercuts the assurances of continuing American commitment contained in the U.S.-Afghan Strategic Partnership Agreement signed earlier this year. The Taliban are obviously expecting, with all U.S. combat troops gone by the end of 2014, that they will be able to make up lost ground. And those Afghans who are allied with the United States are visibly nervous, wondering if they should make accommodations with the Taliban lest they wind up on the losing side. This could well account, at least in part, for Karzai’s willingness to break publicly with the United States on numerous issues; it could even help to explain why some renegade soldiers and police turn their guns on their coalition partners.
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The Audacity of Retreat…
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Kay, I don’t know; should you?
Or to turn the question around differently, what if people in your own family are killing their children–should neighboring families intervene?
If we can intervene in other nations to make them replace their governments, don’t they have at least as much right to intervene in ours to stop us aborting our children?
Or maybe, just maybe, governments shouldn’t act as police to other governments? We hardly have clean hands ourselves, if it comes to that.
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Drivesguy,
That’s a good point, and we should think carefully before withdrawing aid to these countries. The merits of such a move needs to be considered individually for each country; it could have an affect that we don’t want on things beyond the arrests or whatever moves we are demanding.
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Cheryl, I understand and appreciate what you’re saying. But I couldn’t help but think of what happened to so many Jews in the run-up to what would become WWII. 😦
Much of what was going on then wasn’t altogether verified or known; but I’m guessing the victims of these kinds of wholesale genocidal slaughters would think intervention by anyone would be a good idea.
These are tough questions with a lot of moral and political implications.
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Donna, it’s not that intervention is never necessary–but again, on what moral grounds does a nation that kills more than a third of its unborn turn around and decide what is or is not appropriate for other nations? Often we’re going in just to get rid of a leader, and most of the time the one they end up with is almost as bad, sometimes worse.
Can another nation come and depose Obama? Under what moral law?
Obviously Hitler was a whole different issue . . . but such questions aren’t usually as clear, and we often act in very ambiguous situations.
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Cheryl,
“on what moral grounds does a nation that kills more than a third of its unborn turn around and decide what is or is not appropriate for other nations?
That’s a good question. I know the answer, yet I’m sad and ashamed by it. That huge black stain on our nation removes any credibility or moral authority we have had. How can a nation that so easily kills so many tell anyone their way is wrong? Just sad.
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