Radical Islam is worth worrying about

[Daniel Pipes said] "Islamists have nothing like the military machine the Axis deployed in World War II, nor the Soviet Union during the Cold War. What do the Islamists have to compare with the Wehrmacht or the Red Army? The SS or Spetznaz? The Gestapo or the KGB? Or, for that matter, to Auschwitz or the Gulag?" A thoughtful answer to that question is sobering. The Islamists have:

• A potential Access to weapons of mass destruction that could devastate Western life.
• A religious appeal that provides deeper resonance and greater staying power than the artificial ideologies of fascism or communism.
• An impressively conceptualized, funded and organized institutional machinery that successfully builds credibility, goodwill and electoral success.
• An ideology capable of appealing to Muslims of every size and shape, from Lumpenproletariat to privileged, form illiterates to Ph.D.s, from the well-adjusted to psychopaths, from Yemenis to Canadians."

Add to the above "a huge number of committed cadres. If Islamists constitute 10 percent to 15 percent of the Muslim population worldwide,they number some 125 million to 200 million persons, or a far greater total than all the fascists and communists, combined, who ever lived."

-- William F. Buckley, quoting Norman Podhoretz, townhall.com, 9/6/07

How to define victory

Iraq is only one campaign in the war against the nations that sponsor terrorism.Victory isn't an Iraq that can defend and govern itself. Victory is defined as the end of state sponsorship of Islamic terrorism, which means forcing Iran,Syria, and Saudi Arabia and others out of that business. Nothing more is needed, and nothing less will defeat an existential threat to America. -- Diana West, townhall.com, 9/7/07

Better teach your grandkids to shoot

We fight and defeat these people [i.e. Islamic terrorists] here and now [in Iraq], or my grand-daughter will be fighting them in Des Moines forty years on.. . . You know, as I do, that there are people who want to kill every American in Iraq. And if they succeed in doing that, they will come here and try to kill every American in America. -- Rich Galen, townhall.com, 9/12/07

Keeping Up Appearances

The conclusion I came away with after a couple of rounds [of diplomatic talks]was that the Iranians were only interested in the appearance of discussion, of being seen at the table with the U.S. instead of actually doing serious business. -- Ambassador Ryan Crocker, congressional testimony, September 2007.

If Uncle Sam Ain't Happy, Ain't Nobody Happy

The paradox is this: There has been no follow-on attack against he United States [since 9/11]. The United States did dislodge Saddam Hussein and the Taliban, and while the war goes badly, the casualties are a small fraction of those lost in Vietnam. Most important, bin Laden's dream is gone. No Muslim state has been overthrown and replaced with a regime that bin Laden would find worthy. He has been marginalized by both the United States and by his rival Shiite radicals, who have picked up the mantle that he dropped. His own jihadist movement is no longer under his effective control. . . .

The effect on the United States is much more profound. The war, both in Iraq and against al Qaeda, has worn the United States down over time. The psychology of fear has been replaced by a psychology of cynicism. The psychology of confidence in war has been replaced by a psychology of helplessness. Exhaustion pervades all.

That is the single most important outcome of the war. What happens to bin Laden is, in the end, about as important as what happened to [Che] Guevara.Legends will be made of it -- not history. But when the world's leading power falls into the psychological abyss brought about by time and war, the entire world is changed by it. Every country rethinks its position and its actions.Everything changes.

. . . The United States has psychologically begun tearing itself apart over both the war on terrorism and the war in Iraq. Whatever your view of that, it is a fact -- a serious geopolitical fact.

-- George Friedman, Stratfor: Geopolitical Intelligence Report, 9/11/07

The Games Russkies Play

The Russians are chess players and geopoliticians. In chess and geopolitics, the games is routine and then, suddenly, there is an opening. You seize the opening because you might never get another one. The United States is inherently more powerful than Russia, save at this particular moment. Because of a series of choices the United States has made, it is weaker in the places that matter to Russia. Russia will not be in this position in two or three years. It needs to act now.

Therefore, Putin will go to Iran on Oct. 16 and will work to complete Iran's civilian nuclear project. What agreements he might reach with Iran could give the United States nightmares. If the United States takes out Iran's nuclear weapons, the Russians will sympathize and arm the Iranians even more intensely.If the Americans launch an extended air campaign, the Russians will happily increase the supply of weapons even more.

. . . At a certain point, sooner rather than later, the Iranians must examine whether they want to play the role of the Russian cape to the American bull.

-- George Friedman, Stratfor: Geopolitical Intelligence Report, 9/17/07

Figure It Out; It's Not That Hard

Which makes more sense: trusting the judgment of military commanders closest to"conditions on the ground" in Iraq and with no political ax to grind, or that of partisan armchair generals on the left aisle of the Senate with little to no expertise and no constitutional authority to act as mini-commanders in chief? -- David Limbaugh, townhall.com, 9/14/07

Of Hammers and Nails

Liberals like to say of the Bush administration's allegedly militaristic foreign policy that if the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. Likewise, if the only tool you have is dialogue, everyone looks like a reasonable interlocutor. -- Rich Lowry, townhall.com, 9/24/07

How to end a war

Just because you want to leave doesn't mean the bully is finished with you. You can pull the US military out of Iraq, but that doesn't end the war. Victory and defeat end wars. -- Senor Dangriga, 9/14/07, senordangriga.blogspot.com

There Are Bigger Fish To Warm

I confess: Though it may surprise those who use the term "denier" so as to put me on a moral plane with Holocaust deniers, I have children for whom I would not wish an environmental apocalypse.

Yet neither do I wish the civilizational bounties built up over two centuries by an industrial, inventive, adaptive, globalized and energy-hungry society to be squandered chasing comparatively small environmental benefits at gigantic economic costs. One needn't deny global warming as a problem to deny it as the only or greatest problem. The great virtue of Mr. Lomborg's book ["Cool It"] is its insistence on trying to measure the good done per dollar spent. Do we save a few lives, at huge cost, as a byproduct of curbing global warming? Or do we save many, for less, by acting on problems directly?

Some might argue it is immoral to think this way. Maybe they are the ones living in denial.

-- Bret Stephens, opinionjournal.com, 8/28/07

Entertaining Addictions

Today's young people have the ability to experience excitement more than any generation in history. Outside of school, excitement is available almost 24/7.MTV is exciting (MTV has done far more damage to this generation than has the tobacco industry); video games are exciting... The list of exciting things many children experience is as long as there are hours in the day. But all this excitement is actually inhibiting our children's ability to enjoy life and therefore be happy. All this excitement renders young people jaded, not happy... All this excitement in their lives bodes poorly for the future happiness of millions of American children. Real life, let alone daily life,will seem so boring to them that they will not be able to enjoy it. And more than a few of them will opt for lives of constant excitement, often in ways destructive to themselves and others. The solutions are as simple to offer as they may be difficult to enforce. Limit the amount of excitement in your children's lives: the amount of video games, the amount of non-serious television, the amount of music whose only aim is to excite. If they are bored, they will have to remedy that boredom by playing with friends, finding a hobby,talking to a family member, walking the dog, doing chores, reading a book or magazine, learning a musical instrument or foreign language, memorizing state capitals, writing a story or just their thoughts, exercising or playing a sport, or just thinking. The younger the age from which children are deprived of superficial excitement, the longer they will remain innocent -- i.e., not jaded -- and capable of real happiness.
-- Dennis Prager

Health Care American Style

I believe we can reduce costs and improve the quality of care by increasing competition. We can do it through tax cuts, not tax hikes. We can do it by empowering patients and their doctors, not government bureaucrats. Instead of being more like Europe, we need to be more like America. -- Rudy Giuliani

KGB and the Cold War Genesis of Bush-Hatred Syndrome

I spent decades scrutinizing the U.S. from Europe, and I learned that international respect for America is directly proportional to America's own respect for its president. ...

Sowing the seeds of anti-Americanism by discrediting the American president was one of the main tasks of the Soviet-bloc intelligence community during the years I worked at its top levels. The same strategy is at work today, but it is regarded as bad manners to point out the Soviet parallels. ...

The communist effort to generate hatred for the American president began soon after President Truman set up NATO and propelled the three Western occupation forces to unite their zones to form a new West German nation. We were tasked to take advantage of the reawakened patriotic feelings stirring in the European countries that had been subjugated by the Nazis, in order to shift their hatred for Hitler over into hatred for Truman--the leader of the new "occupation power." Western Europe was still grateful to the U.S. for having restored its freedom, but it had strong leftist movements that we secretly financed. They were like putty in our hands.

The European leftists, like any totalitarians, needed a tangible enemy, and we gave them one. In no time they began beating their drums decrying President Truman as the "butcher of Hiroshima." We went on to spend many years and many billions of dollars disparaging subsequent presidents: Eisenhower as a war-mongering "shark" run by the military-industrial complex, Johnson as a mafia boss who had bumped off his predecessor, Nixon as a petty tyrant, Ford as a dimwitted football player and Jimmy Carter as a bumbling peanut farmer. In1978, when I left Romania for good, the bloc intelligence community had already collected 700 million signatures on a "Yankees-Go-Home" petition, at the same time launching the slogan "Europe for the Europeans."

During the Vietnam War we spread vitriolic stories around the world, pretending that America's presidents sent Genghis Khan-style barbarian soldiers to Vietnam who raped at random, taped electrical wires to human genitals, cut off limbs,blew up bodies and razed entire villages. Those weren't facts. They were our tales, but some seven million Americans ended up being convinced their own president, not communism, was the enemy. As Yuri Andropov, who conceived this dezinformatsiya war against the U.S., used to tell me, people are more willing to believe smut than holiness.

The final goal of our anti-American offensive was to discourage the U.S. from protecting the world against communist terrorism and expansion. Sadly, we succeeded. After U.S. forces precipitously pulled out of Vietnam, the victorious communists massacred some two million people in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. Another million tried to escape, but many died in the attempt. This tragedy also created a credibility gap between America and the rest of the world, damaged the cohesion of American foreign policy, and poisoned domestic debate in the U.S.
Unfortunately, partisans today have taken a page from the old Soviet playbook. ...

On July 28, I celebrated 29 years since President Carter signed off on my request for political asylum, and I am still tremendously proud that the leader of the Free World granted me my freedom. During these years I have lived here under five presidents--some better than others--but I have always felt that I was living in paradise. My American citizenship has given me a feeling of pride, hope and security that is surpassed only by the joy of simply being alive. There are millions of other immigrants who are equally proud that they restarted their lives from scratch in order to be in this magnanimous country. I appeal to them to help keep our beloved America united and honorable. We may not be able to change the habits of our current political representatives, but we may be able to introduce healthy new blood into the U.S. Congress. ...

For once, the communists got it right. It is America's leader that counts.

-- Lt. Gen. Ion Mihai Pacepa, highest-ranking KGB officer to have defected from the Soviet bloc, opinionjournal.com, 8/7/07

Mormon Mitt Romney Unplugged

During the breaks in this interview, supposedly "off air," Romney candidly discusses his Mormon faith without the campaign rhetoric. This is the genuine Mitt as a devout Mormon. You be the judge.

Liberal Military Economics

Liberals used to be the ones who argued that sending U.S. troops abroad was a small price to pay to stop genocide; now they argue that genocide is a small price to pay to bring U.S. troops home. -- Jonah Goldberg

Nothing New Under The Sun

Not only the history of the UN, but the history of the League of Nations before it, demonstrates again and again that going to such places [as the UN] is a way for weak-kneed leaders of democracies to look like they are doing something when in fact they are doing nothing. The Iranian leaders are not going to stop unless they get stopped. And, like Hitler, they don't think we have the guts to stop them. -- Thomas Sowell

An Encouraging Sign

The recent capture of the leading Iraqi in al-Qaeda's Iraq affiliate is no accident... You capture such people only when you have good intelligence, and you have good intelligence only when the locals have turned against the terrorists. -- Charles Krauthammer

A Manager for President? Instead of a Lawyer? Duh!

It would be helpful to have a person leading the country who understands how the economy works and has actually managed something. In the case of the three Democratic front-runners, not one of them has managed even a corner store, let alone a state or a city. -- Mitt Romney

The Rookie is Right

"Today's federal government is too big, too powerful, and too expensive because it is doing things beyond the scope of the Constitution. This is foolish and it is dangerous." -- newly elected Georgia Rep. Paul Broun

Rules of Presidential Politics, Iran, and Bush

1. No Democrat from outside the old Confederacy has won the White House since John F. Kennedy. . . .
2. No Republican has won the White House since Eisenhower who wasn't from Texas or California. . . .
3. No sitting senator has won the presidency since Kennedy. . . .

This election is shaping up as one that will break all the rules. . . .

Here is what the Iranians are seeing: . . . Bush become increasingly weak. . . . Congress making sweeping declarations, but backing off from voting on them . . . . a Republican Party splitting in Congress. . . . a presidential election shaping up in unprecedented ways with inherently unexpected outcomes. . . .

This gives Bush his strange strength. . . . Given the strange dynamics, he is not your normal lame duck. Everyone else is tied in knots in terms of policy and in terms of the election. Bush alone has room to maneuver, and the Iranians are likely calculating that it would probably be safer to deal with this president now rather than expect the unexpected in 2008.

-- George Friedman, Stratfor: Geopolitical Intelligence Report, 7/24/07