Obama's Relativism Invites War

Publisher's Note: It is my pleasure once again to publish a guest essay from my friend, Rusty Walker.

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President Barack Obama’s recent speeches feature a reluctant nod to our American heroes - and really, do we have to go back to "Algebra" to find significant Islamic contributions to society, when a cursory glance at Jewish contributions are too numerous to list?

Combined with our current recession, the United States, thanks to Obama’s obsequiousness in the Middle East, non-action in North Korea, and deference to the UN, is now as vulnerable to a world war as we were in the 1930s. We are also just as inactive in response to aggression as we were then. Once again we have a war-weary Democratic administration; but now, the world recognizes us as having a dangerously unprepared president. If this is not an invitation to WWIII then I don’t know what is.

The Obama administration, in its self-important quest, is too preoccupied with bankrupting the U.S. with infrastructure projects to recognize our immediate peril. With a potential depression and advantages of a two theater war, North Korea and Iran are sizing us up for an all out conflict. Meanwhile, Obama is busy with his speeches, mounting pure Middle Eastern theater, including teleprompter taking-points on the Holy Koran.

The president’s nominal responses to Iran and North Korea, always followed by non-action, reveals his unhealthy aversion to confrontation. The UN Ambassador Susan Rice threatens North Korea, suggesting they will “pay a price.” These sound bites do nothing but perpetuate the liberals' lame hopes for a peace, working ultimately to embolden Iran and North Korea. Since the G20 speeches, Obama and Secretary Clinton have been repeating the same empty phrases. And wasn’t Vice President Biden supposed to be the expert on foreign policy. Where is he? I believe we do nothing because it is “inconvenient” to consider the possibility of a war right now, particularly when Obama's love affair with the press is going so well.

The administration is rightly perceived to be weak by those Islamic and Asian rogue regimes to whom he extends friendship. The D-Day landing was necessitated because the U.S. had let the Third Reich rise and conquer most of Europe, while Americans, weary of war, stayed out. If this teaches us anything, our current enemies will engage in military rearmament during such times. War experts say an aggressor’s advantage is fleeting. The build up of arms and secret alliances are formed, and the aggressor strikes suddenly.

The Obama cult of personality has transformed into “The Cult of Apology.” We have no world credibility left. Our verbal threats carry no follow-up. Our apologies feel momentarily good while we languish dangerously in our rhetoric. In the midst of the Great Depression, military rearmament took place on two fronts, in Asia and in Europe - much like our present plight. What does this portend for us in today’s heated climate? Behold Palestinian Nationalist myth-making, Iran's demonization of the West, and the steady development of nuclear capabilities. North Korea's a proven nuclear proliferator with expansionist designs, both with no concern about their expendable casualties.

If we don’t act decisively very soon we will be looking at a scenario very similar to WWII – two theaters of war. It is an exercise in futility to look for Russia and China to pressure their allies. These countries have deep self-interests, and trade agreements with Iran and North Korea respectively, and both have a history of opposing U.S. interests. Yes, even though Obama is reaching out with empathy, these countries all want us to fail.

While Obama is in the Middle East, the Asian theater of war is currently developing. Instead of China attempting to help us in this new crisis, expect China to sign a secret non-aggression agreement with North Korea. As for the U.S. building up military options in the event of conflict in and around Asia and Iran - as we would if John McCain were president - Obama and the Congress are not paying attention. I also don’t see this administration having the intestinal fortitude to help Japan build a nuclear capability to level the Asian playing field. And even if they did, we don’t have the luxury of time.

The threat of war in the Middle East theater is currently developing in Iran, while Obama warms our souls with his constant reference to differing religions on the world stage. After Obama’s speeches, I was reminded of my studies of the Crusades. Has Osama Bin Laden finally convinced the president that we are in a Holy War? Perhaps Obama's reference to the HOLY Koran will make it into the Madrassas. Maybe his speeches will dissuade the Arab orphans from suicide bombings, or including dirty bombs in our future.

In view of Obama’s relentless apologies, expect Iran to finish its nuclear capability in step with North Korea. Iran will form an alliance with North Korea, and like-minded Arab countries, to join in the attempted annihilation of its neighbors. Iran will work to wipe out Israel, becoming the hero of an emboldened Middle East. The Taliban will move on Pakistan with the aid of Iran and Syria. When that happens rogue elements will join in from Hamas, Hezbollah, and Al Qaeda; if they achieve nuclear capability, they will take out India and finish off Israel. China will use the opportunity to take Tibet and Taiwan. Similar to the death wish of the aging Mao in later years, the North Koreans and fundamentalist Islamists won’t mind losing great populations for victory. If President Obama were to actually read the objectively-instructive Koran, it seeks to foretell our infidel fate.

It will be a nightmare wake-up call for Americans. We'll watch hostile Middle Eastern countries align one-by-one with other Arab countries once considered our allies. There's further self-deception in expecting Arab regimes, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the gulf states, to be our allies in a war over Palestine. These states do not care one wit about the "charms" of Barack and Michelle, or our complaisant American way of life. These states have split loyalties. With the exception of small forces of England and Australia, the weakened European countries will afford the U.S. no assistance. Expect no help from France or Germany.

If Americans are waiting for Israel to solve the Iranian problem as they did in Syria, this is improbable. Israel has a small, powerful, but limited Air Force in today’s complex world of fortified nuclear facilities. At a distance of 1000 miles against an enemy with Iran’s air defenses, Israel would need something more than non-nuclear forces. In addition, the effort would involve prior notification to the U.S. Such a strike would mean great distances though U.S.-controlled air. Even if Israel knew the exact location of Iran’s nuclear facilities, ICBMs and cruise missiles would have a tough go at these buried targets. If Iran is allowed first-strike capability, Israel would be toast. To interrupt Iran’s surprise attack, we would need to declare intentions for a U.S. first strike on those facilities if they are not dismantled and inspections resumed. Sound familiar? That’s right, But, Obama and the Democratic Congress will not go there.

If you want to see where North Korea is now headed with a 68 year-old Kim Jong-Il, consider what Mao Tse-Tung, at 68, was planning and would have accomplished were we not protected by President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Mao stated, “We are prepared to sacrifice 300 million Chinese for the victory of the world revolution” (pp.457-8, Mao: The Unknown Story biography, Jung Chang). Were it not for the cautious Soviets, who were calling the shots for China, we were looking at WW III. Now, we may have it. Kim Jong-Il has followed Mao’s totalitarian domination. The motivation of the masses uses the same sociopathic cult of personality. Kim organized state-sponsored terrorist activities on his populace; “re-education” camps, and famine – just like Mao.

Obama has humiliated us on the world stage. The U.N. resolutions are a joke - China will form a treaty with North Korea just as the Soviets' alliance with the German aggressor in 1938. Obama’s penchant for platitudes is fostering partnerships of a nuclear North Korea, Iran, Syria. This is my prediction, unfortunately, that North Korea will attack South Korea. Iran will attack Israel (but the Israelis will have been denied sufficient air space by the Obama administration, making a pre-emptive attack on Iran prohibitive; it is no longer possible to simply launch a strike against these well-buried and hidden sites.) We can expect the thuggish Russian leadership to align with its trading partner Iran, and may take advantage of aggression to make a move on Georgia, Ukraine, et. al.

It is all reminiscent of the sleeping giant of WWII. A war on two fronts happened with Americans early unwillingness to fight. We have enemies in South America with ties to Russia. Russia will form an alliance with them, as well as Iran and North Korea.

The hapless U.N. will do nothing. So, we need to act with such strength of conviction that we reverse our image to the rest of the world. Insist on the dismantling of Iranian nuclear facilities, and reject fake "inspections," or take them out. In North Korea, we need to start by enacting the NSCR 1718 Proliferation Security Initiative that will allow our U.S. Navy to board and search North Korean vessels that may contain nuclear related materiel. Seizing contraband would be the next step. The United States is the sole chance for stopping the coming horrors.

All this, and, Obama is currently cutting military spending in areas essential for our defense and offense.

I hope I am wrong, but if Obama is in for eight years, I will be right. I don’t want to be right.

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Previously from Rusty Walker, "Barack Obama's Overblown Self-Delusions."

Picture of the Day, 6-8-09

From today's Los Angeles Times, "Pakistan military campaign has broad support, but for how long?":

Taj Mina, 10, in blue scarf, and Mariam, in brown, line up for food at the refugee camp dubbed Little Lahore outside Swabi. Residents queue for hours for supplies in extreme heat, without water or electricity.

Support for the military offensive against the Pakistani Taliban in the northwest has been widespread, cutting across economic and ethnic lines. But that support hinges precariously on how Pakistan manages the massive humanitarian crisis created by the war's displacement of an estimated 3 million Pakistanis.


About 200,000 of the displaced people, nearly all ethnic Pashtuns, are crammed into sprawling tent camps in Mardan and elsewhere in the country. The rest have sought refuge with relatives or friends. At Sheikh Yaseen, more than 7,600 people live in 1,485 tents.

The Pakistani military launched the offensive in April after Taliban militants based in Swat began to assert control over adjoining districts, one of them just 60 miles from the capital, Islamabad.

The broad support for the military campaign could be undermined if the flow of displaced Pashtuns to other regions and cities triggers ethnic tensions. Thousands of Pashtuns have sought shelter in camps and homes in the southern port city of Karachi, where political leaders of the majority ethnic Sindhi population have vehemently opposed their influx.

Photo Credit: Carolyn Cole for the Los Angeles Times.

Simon Owens: The Ethics of Outing

Simon Owens sent this via e-mail, "Should a National Review writer have outed an anonymous blogger?"

Simon interviews both Ed Whelan and John Blevins. There's also a thread on Simon's post at Memeorandum.

I've already written on the Whelan/Blevins controversy, here and here. But since there's some continuing discussion, check out Jay Anderson excellent commentary at Pro Ecclesia, "An Outing in the Blogosphere":

I know for a fact that there are many times when people write things anonymously or pseudonymously that they NEVER would have written under their own names. I don't believe that to be a particularly healthy state of affairs. Quite honestly, my own personal opinion is that blogging anonymously/pseudonymously removes much of the incentive for engaging in responsible, charitable, and good-faith commentary, and, therefore, should be discouraged except for the most extreme of circumstances.

The debate continues with Jonah Goldberg on "amateur blogging," with responses from Steve Benen and The Anonymous Liberal.

Matthew Yglesias: George W. Bush's Guantánamo Archipelago

Isn't this despicable?

Matthew Yglesias has used the North Korean prison sentences of Laura Ling and Euna Lee to make a political attack on the policies of the George W. Bush administration. Yglesias' post is "Hard Labor in North Korea." After a long discussion of forced labor in totalitarian societies, Yglesias concludes with this:

As in the Soviet Union during the high tide of the Gulag, it appears that the forced labor camps are important to the regime not just as a mechanism of repression ....

Needless to say, it’s easy to recognize this sort of barbarism as the torture that it is when you read about it being done by North Korea (it appears that the Bush administration and the DPRK were both modeling themselves on the Chinese Communist tactics from the Korean War). And it is being done, and on a massive scale. Meanwhile, a related angle to this is that many of the people in the prison camps are people who actually escaped from North Korea and then wound up getting apprehended in China and deported back. In terms of practical things that could be done to help the population of North Korea, getting the Chinese to stop doing this.

I don't have much to add.

If radical leftists today really think the Bush administration's detention policies - which were the product of a national, bipartisan, and democratic consensus on the clear and present dangers following 9/11 - are coequal to the policies of not only Kim Jong Il, but to Joseph Stalin's Gulag Archipeligo, than we really have reached the Rubicon of partisan polarization in American politics today.

Words. Utterly. Fail.

Matthew Yglesias is just a sick, awful man.

My thoughts and prayers go out the families of Laura Ling and Euna Lee. And I'm praying for their safe return home.

There's more commentary at Memeorandum. Senator Jim DeMint's statement on North Korean terrorism, at Red State, is also worth a look.

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Added: It's not just Yglesias. Check out Spencer Ackerman as well, "What Laura Ling And Euna Lee Will Endure."

Supreme Court Rejects Challenge to DADT Policy

The Supreme Court has turned down a challenge to the Pentagon's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, which prohibits openly gay service in the military:

Fox News reports, "Supreme Court Turns Down Challenge to 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell'":

The Supreme Court on Monday turned down a challenge to the Pentagon policy forbidding gays and lesbians from serving openly in the military, granting a request by the Obama administration.

The court said it will not hear an appeal from former Army Capt. James Pietrangelo II, who was dismissed under the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy.

The federal appeals court in Boston earlier threw out a lawsuit filed by Pietrangelo and 11 other veterans. He was the only member of that group who asked the high court to rule that the Clinton-era policy is unconstitutional.

In court papers, the administration said the appeals court ruled correctly in this case when it found that "don't ask, don't tell" is "rationally related to the government's legitimate interest in military discipline and cohesion."

During last year's campaign, President Barack Obama indicated he supported the eventual repeal of the policy, but he has made no specific move to do so since taking office in January.

Meanwhile, the White House has said it won't stop gays and lesbians from being dismissed from the military.

You know, it's not public opinion that's preventing a repeal of DADT.

Gallup had an interesting piece on this last week, "Conservatives Shift in Favor of Openly Gay Service Members."

I wrote on DADT a couple of weeks ago, "Obama's Stunning Failure on Gays in the Military."

What's interesting to me is not so much the civil rights of openly gay service (I think the policy should be repealed), but this administration's spineless incoherence on gay issues. As noted previously, respected milbloggers don't care much about Don't Ask, Dont' Tell (see Greyhawk at Mudville Gazette and Uncle Jimbo at Blackfive).

But I have no regrets, actually, over the schadenfreude in seeing the response of gay radicals on the Court's ruling. See for example, Pam Spaulding, where she throws up her hands:

Honest to god, it's embarrassing at this point. Anyone who thinks DADT is going to be harder to repeal than passing ENDA is smoking something, IMHO. I'm not saying one is more important than the other, mind you, just that the fundievangelical machine has no one relevant left to make a case on DADT. Who are they going to have on the other side -- the "professional Christian" set, fossil retired military officers and...Elaine Donnelly?

On the other hand, the right has been working hard to bring the bathroom debate front and center with ENDA and that will be a PR battle that we have to be ready for. If the White House and Congress is so gun shy on DADT, I don't believe that they will grow a spine to help us sell a fully inclusive ENDA when the bathroom hysteria sh*t hits the fan if we don't lay enough groundwork and political cover for them, sorry to say. What do you think?

The "professional Christian" set? "Fossil retired military officers"? And ... "Elaine Donnelly"?

Hmm ... must be part of the "evil Christofascist" cabal that's taking over the country!

Oh, actually, here's something on Elaine Donnelly: "Elaine Donnelly Steps Up Crusade Against Gays in the Military." Interesting. Donnelly's bio at the Center for Military Readiness is here.

I'll be looking into this issue a bit more. I'm all for equal rights for homosexual Americans, but as I've noted many times, gay marriage is not a civil right. Open service for gay Americans is important, but relaxation of DADT, unfortunately, may give a boost to the program of gay licentiousness on the far left.

More later ...

Ten Illegals, "Stacked Like Wood," Killed in Arizona SUV Rollover

The first video shows the local Arizona news report on the 10 illegal aliens, "stacked like wood," who died when a bus carrying 27 rolled over in southern Arizona yesterday. The Associated Press has the story, "10 suspected illegal immigrants die in SUV crash in Arizona." But take a look a the second video, which is from London's Daily Mail:

Tickle Me Obama? I'll Pass, Thank You...

Time Magazine debuts a novel form up sycophancy this morning, "Tickle Me Obama: Lessons from Sesame Street."

Warner Todd Huston puts things in perspective:

You want a blatant example of the Old Media's over-the-top, gobsmacked love affair with Obama? Well, one would be hard pressed not to see Time Magazine's latest piece by Nancy Gibbs as a perfect example of the media ignoring all ills and of projecting only what is wonderful onto the dearly beloved as this piece represents. The lionization of Obama is bad enough, but the selective memory of the writer is even more appalling.

I love that saying, "gobsmacked."

Read the whole thing, here.

See also, Tim Graham, "Time: Barack Obama, Sesame Street Both Show Mastery, Empathy, and End to 'Childish Games'" (via Memeorandum).

Sotomayor and the Politics of Race

From Shelby Steele at the Wall Street Journal, "Sotomayor and the Politics of Race" (via Memeorandum):

The Sotomayor nomination commits the cardinal sin of identity politics: It seeks to elevate people more for the political currency of their gender and ethnicity than for their individual merit. (Here, too, is the ugly faithlessness in minority merit that always underlies such maneuverings.) Mr. Obama is promising one thing and practicing another, using his interracial background to suggest an America delivered from racial corruption even as he practices a crude form of racial patronage. From America's first black president, and a man promising the "new," we get a Supreme Court nomination that is both unoriginal and hackneyed.

The Sotomayor nomination suggests not. Throughout her career Judge Sotomayor has demonstrated a Hispanic chauvinism so extreme that it sometimes crosses into outright claims of racial supremacy, as in 2001 when she said in a lecture at the University of California, Berkeley, "a wise Latina woman . . . would more often than not reach a better conclusion [as a judge] than a white male."

The White House acknowledges that this now famous statement -- both racist and dim-witted -- was turned up in the vetting process. So we can only assume that the president was aware of it, as well as Judge Sotomayor's career-long claim that ethnicity and gender are virtual determinisms in judging: We need diversity because, as she said in her Berkeley lecture, "inherent physiological or cultural differences . . . make a difference in our judging." The nine white male justices who decided the Brown school-desegregation case in 1954 might have felt otherwise, as would a president seeking to lead us toward a new, post-racial society.

But of course "post-racialism" is not a real idea. It is an impression, a chimera that grows out of a very specific racial manipulation that I have called "bargaining." Here the minority makes a bargain with white society: I will not "guilt" you with America's centuries of racism if you will not hold my minority status against me. Whites love this bargain because it allows them to feel above America's racist past and, therefore, immune to charges of racism. By embracing the bargainer they embrace the impression of a world beyond racial division, a world in which whites are innocent and minorities carry no anger. This is the impression that animates bargainers like Mr. Obama or Oprah Winfrey with an irresistible charisma. Even if post-racialism is an obvious illusion -- a bargainer's trick as it were -- whites are flattered by believing in it.

The whole essay is here.

See also, Betsy Newmark, "Obama is Not a Post-Racial President."

Cartoon Credit: William Warren.

Employee Forced Choice

Daily Kos has a big roundup on legislative developments on labor's "card check" agenda, "Employee Free Choice Act."

But don't miss Investor's Business Daily, "Card-Check Threat Alive And Well":

If you thought "card check" legislation that would kill off workers' right to a secret ballot is dead, think again. Despite public repudiation, it's back — with its advocates using sneakier tactics.

The Employee Free Choice Act would permit the establishment of new unions solely on the signatures of a company's employees, taken either on the fly or with union thugs standing in their doorways.

Besides denying workers a right to a secret ballot, "card check," as it's known, also forces federal arbitration onto companies for union contracts, ensuring that either unions dictate the wages they want or a federal bureaucrat will step in and do it for them based on politics, not economics.

It's a formula for disaster. This still-undead bill will shut plants, drive jobs abroad and ensure that few new jobs are ever created. Little wonder the public has turned a thumbs-down on it, and Congress has backed away. A recent Pew poll shows that 61% of Americans think labor unions have gotten too powerful.

But it hasn't stopped Big Labor. Card check remains its top goal, and instead of dropping a bad idea, it's switching tactics ....

Read the rest of the editorial, here.

See also, "The Real Faces of EFCA."

Image Credit: Union Facts.

European Tea Leaves for Conservatives

From Ken Davenport, "From Europe, hope for conservatives":

The left in this country has made much of the big electoral victories that the Democrats won in 2006 and 2008 -- and for good reason. Not since 1977, when Jimmy Carter swept to victory along with huge Democrat majorities in the House and Senate, has there been such lopsided partisan rule in this country. With Al Franken seemingly a lock to win the Minnesota Senate seat, the Democrats are on the verge of a 60 vote "supra majority" that is virtually filibuster proof. The immediate future seems to all be swinging the left's way, and all the things that come with it are now a foregone conclusion: major health care reform, tax increases, deficit spending and a spate of intensive, restrictive environmental regulation.

But will it last? As we know, Jimmy Carter's 1977 victory gave way in just four years to the Reagan Revolution -- and though Barack Obama is much more politically sophisticated than was Carter, a former Georgia peanut farmer who was poorly schooled in the ways of Washington, there are many similarities thus far between the two presidencies. Carter took over after a period of eight years of Republican rule and in the wake of an unpopular war and scandal; his campaign was based on a promise to "change" Washington -- to clean up government and restore the nation's image in the world. The economy he inherited was suffering from high unemployment and high inflation -- and Carter's typical "tax and spend" policies made both worse. He oversaw the expansion of government with the creation of the Departments of Energy and Education, instituted price controls and rationing on energy, oversaw the bailout of a Detroit automaker (Chrysler) and pursued Middle East Peace by promoting the cause of the Arab states over those of Israel.

Sound familiar?

But it is not a lost cause, for as Carter gave way to Reagan, Obama’s left-wing policies and programs may lead to a new conservative revolution. In fact, there are signs now from Europe that the purported "death of conservatism" has been greatly exaggerated. As the BBC reports tonight, in European Parliament elections this weekend it appears that Center-right parties have made major gains ...

More at the link.

Obi's Sister and Robert Stacy McCain

From Obi's Sister, "The Six Degrees of Stacy McCain," riffing on, well, "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon" :

Saturday morning, I got to play this game with Notorious Blogger, Stacy McCain, during breakfast at a Cracker Barrel in Douglas County, Georgia. He was in Georgia to give a speech up in Rome to the Sons of Confederate Veterans.

As if Osama and Your Mama Were Reading...

I want to follow up my last post on the Ed Whelan/John Blevins controversy.

Two friends, Wordsmith and Serr8d, took exception in the comments (here and here) to my claim that using a blogging pseudonym is "kind of cowardly ..."

So let me clarify: It is my personal belief that someone, especially an academic, should stand up for what they have to say. It's a matter of integrity and reputation. Would you make more vociferous attacks on others when enjoying the cloak pseudonymity? Would you make demonic attacks? Even if your answer is no, can you deny that your comfort level would not tempt you? It's a difficult situation. James Joyner said something this morning that was just about right for me. He notes:

I’ve blogged here under my real name for over six years and prefer to read and link bloggers who do likewise. Signing my name to what I write makes me think twice and the active realization that others whose arguments I’m engaging are real people also tends to make me more reflective.

And to remind folks:, I don't approve of what Ed Whelan has done. On the other hand, I question why "Publius" needs to remain protected by pseudonymity. Ann Althouse has been a long-time inspiration for me, and she's written quite a bit on using the "cloak." See quotes herself in a post today on Publius' predicament, offering a little cost/benefit analysis on academic blogging:

I would never insult or demean or deliberately hurt the feelings of students. I wouldn't casually knock my law school (though there are some considered criticisms I would be willing to make). I wouldn't hurt my family or acquaintances or even reveal much of anything about them (without permission). So there aren't really any significant ways using my own name limits me ... I care immensely about freedom as I do this blogging. But I also want to be aware of myself as an identifiable person, responsible for what I say (which is true whether you use a pseudonym or not). And I don't mind getting personal credit for anything good I might happen to say. Also, I kind of like being a public persona.

I especially like that last part about the "public persona." That's precisely how I feel about my blogging identity. But I also like Ann's honesty and integrity. She wants to blog responsibly. But I don't think academics who blog using a pseudonym are going to worry about responsibility when they're able to write whatever they want, cost-free. That, to me, is what's "cowardly."

Having clarified that, I think Greyhawk at Mudville Gazette makes the most compelling case on the need to blog under the cloak of pseudonymity, "Who the f%^& are you?":

I staggered back to the Underground
And the breeze blew back my hair
I remembered throwin' punches around
And preachin' from my chair
<...>
Well, who are you / Who are you... who who, who, who...
Oh, who are you / Who are you... who who, who, who...
Come on, tell me, who are you / Who are you...
Oh, who the f%^& are you / Who are you...

- The Who, "Who are You?" ...

Wanna be linked by everyone in the blogosphere? Try exposing an pseudonymous blogger. It works, and as a double bonus your subject's identity will be known far beyond the readership of your site.

Bad form, says I - though so is hiding behind a pseudonym in order to be an obnoxious twit (note I'm not accusing anyone of that motive here). I maintained a pseudonymous blog here for many years and many reasons - at the outset primarily because as a milblogger I practiced more strict OPSEC than what's officially required; for example, someone who knew who I was could determine where I was, from that many other bad things could potentially follow. Bear in mind that was the calculation of a guy who was one of the first milbloggers, entering into an unknown world (and an unknown future at war) - and the handful that preceded me were all pseudonymous, a tradition that continues with the vast majority starting out today.

I'm fine with that - I'd encourage it, even. But beyond potential OPSEC considerations, I tried to write everything I posted as though I were using my real name (as if Osama and your mama were reading is advice I follow and give freely). Part of the reason for that was anticipating I wouldn't be pseudonymous forever - that either by my choice or otherwise (as in the example above) I would one day be known ...

Read the rest here.

Wordsmith and Serr8d have their own reasons for blogging under a pseudonym, and I really don't begrudge them for it. These guys are right-on, straight-up, and solid. They're not messing around, attacking their enemies with the most vicious slanders and vulgarities - and if they were, they wouldn't be my friends.

If you're up for more, Ed Whelan has now responded to the whole uproar he instigated. He crossed a line, and he's diminished for it. And that's all I have to say about that ...

Schwarzenegger Seeks Deep Cuts in Welfare Handouts

From the Los Angeles Times, "Pockets Empty, Calif Considers Deep Cuts in Spending for the State's Most Vulnerable Residents":

Carolina Fuentes and her daughter Katherine, 5, wait for an appointment at the Sacramento county welfare office in Sacramento, Calif., Monday, June 1, 2009. Facing a $24.3 billion state budget deficit, Gov. Arnold Schwarzengger has proposed ending welfare for poor mothers and their children, wiping out health insurance for 1 million children and disbanding care for people with Alzheimer's disease or other disabilities. Fuentes, 22, a newly-single mother , doesn't qualify for benefits having crossed the U.S.-Mexico border as a teenage, applied for cash assistance, food stamps and health coverage of her daughter.

With empty pockets and maxed-out credit, California is debating whether it can continue honoring all parts of its social contract with the state's most vulnerable residents.

The state faces an unprecedented drop in tax revenue and a widening budget deficit amid the deepest recession in decades, prompting Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to propose cost-cutting steps that once seemed unthinkable.

At stake are programs for the poor, elderly and frail, placing millions of people in the nation's most populous state at risk of falling through a decades-old social safety net.

Ending the welfare-to-work program for mothers and their children would affect some 546,000 families, and health insurance could be eliminated for 1 million children from low-income families. Services for Alzheimer's patients, disabled and other frail recipients of in-home care also would be greatly reduced under the governor's latest budget proposal, leaving more than 400,000 people without such support.

Schwarzenegger acknowledges that his proposals will be painful.

"I know the consequences of those cuts are not just dollars. I see the faces behind those dollars. ... I see the Alzheimer's patients losing some of their in-home support services," he told lawmakers last week. "It's an awful feeling, but we have no choice."

The twists of political logic to this story are unreal: Here you have a Republican governor who came to power with a mandate for reform. Having blown that, he's presided over the worst fiscal collapse in California history: and he's now being forced by his own political opportunism to adopt the kind of cutbacks in government that he should have been seeking all along!

Also interesting about this story: No talk of the teachers unions facing similar draconianism. The poor need some safety net of c,ourse, but they won't have one as long as average teacher salary in California is higher than anywhere else in the nation.

Photo Credit: Associated Press.

Blogging Anonymity and Blogging Ethics

I should probably weigh in on the Ed Whelan/John Blevins imbroglio. Everyone else is, and I'm getting some links out of it as well!

Some quick background: Ed Whelan outed "Publius" at Obsidian Wings. The latter's real name is John F. Blevins, and he's an Assistant Professor of Law at the South Texas College of Law. Check the links above, and Memeorandum. At issue are the attacks on Whelan as the right's go-to "legal hitman." The term is from the "Anonymous Liberal," so the irony there is rich. Readers can assess who comes out on top in the substantive debate. No matter, though. Whelan comes off as putz, either way. Both James Joyner and Dan Riehl eloquently make the case against Whelan.

Now, I wouldn't do it. I wouldn't out someone who writes anonymously (or "pseudonymously," as the case may be). Repsac3 got mad at me once for using his real name in a comment thread. But he had posted his real name at his Twitter link, at he linked to it at the sidebar. So, it's kind of hard to get mad at being "outed" if you "outed" yourself.

Frankly, if a blogger writes under complete anonymity (or pseudonymity), that's his prerogative. And it's not up to me or anyone else, in pure spite, to reveal their identity. It's kind of cowardly, in my opinion, to use a pseudonym, but I can understand it. After the Repsac3 exchange, PrivatePigg, a conservative blogger and friend of mine, said he blogs anonymously simply to protect his privacy from the radical leftists he knows will stalk him and his family.

It happens. As reader know, I routinely wade into the comment threads at leftist blogs to debate and ridicule. I don't claim to be nice about it. I've even used profanity in a comment thread at "Dr. Hussein Biobrain's" blog. But I don't threaten people; I skewer. And some folks can't handle being revealed as nihilist America-bashers. After commenting a few times at The Swash Zone, I received this e-mail from "(O)CT(O)PUS," the blog's publisher:

DO NOT HARASS ANY OF MY WRITERS AT "THE SWASH ZONE" AGAIN. IF YOU HARASS ME OR ANY OF MY WRITERS ONE MORE TIME, I WILL NOTIFY ELOY OAKLEY AND DONALD BERZ AT YOUR PLACE OF EMPLOYMENT AND TAKE IMMEDIATE LEGAL ACTION AGAINST BOTH YOU AND YOUR EMPLOYER. THIS GAME OF YOURS ENDS HERE.

I don't harrass. If folks can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. Or go to comment moderation at least!

But if there was ever good reason to blog anonymously, real harrassment such as this is it. "(O)CT(O)PUS" made the rounds at leftist blogs to brag about how he'd "kicked my ass." And he PUBLISHED MY WORK CONTACT INFORMATION so that his co-bloggers could call my college president. I wrote about it here, "(O)CT(O)PUS = CYBER-BULLY."

What's funny about this, in the present debate, is that while Whelan's coming off like an adolescent jerk, the truth is that radical leftists have made a career out of "outing" those with whom they disagree. TBogg, whose real name is Tom Boggioni, has made a pastime of it, as Willliam Jacobson reveals:

So yeah, screw Ed Whelan. The guy's coming off like a thin-skinned prick. But just know that all the faux-outrage on the left is totally hypocritical. These folks get off on outing, snarking, shaming, and demonizing conservatives. That's their livelihood. This secular demonology has no counterpart on the right. Sure, some conservatives are peurile, but leftists are masters at the game.

P.S.: I have a lot of respect for conservatives who get along amicably with leftists. I don't do it well, online at least. Some of my best friends are Democrats (scroll down, here, for my colleague Dr. Greg Joseph, who's a Truman Democrat). But these friends would never put up with the kind of filth that is the stock and trade of today's netroots hordes.

Also, Ed Morrissey's got a poll up, "When is it okay to out liberal bloggers?" See also, Rick Moran, "The Outing of Publius and the Comfort of Anonymity."

Full Metal Saturday: Caroline Glick

I'm mixing it up a bit this weekend for Full Metal Saturday!

I want to thank, right off the bat, the network of bloggers who make up the American Power community. Some folks link often, and some less so - and it's all appreciated. Mostly, though, I just like having friends and allies who read my stuff and who encourage me to keep plugging away.

A special thanks goes out to Chris Smith at The Other McCain.

"Smitty," as he's known, keeps the Rule 5 aggregation-machine pumping at Stacy's place. A lot of bloggers are thankful for the roundups, and it's helped their networking as well. In any case, I'm sending out thanks to everyone. And here's wishing all my friends many happy years of blogging. Don't forget to have some fun while we take back power in Washington! Here we go, in no particular order:

Pat's Daily Rants, Bob's Bar & Grill, Power Line, Melanie Morgan, Dave in Boca, Neo-Neocon, Right in a Left World, Flag Gazer, Politics and Critical Thinking, Riehl World View, Midnight Blue, Caroline Glick, The Average American, The Griper, FouseSquawk, The Other McCain, Cheat Seeking Missiles, Roger Simon, Classical Values, Samantha Speaks, Grizzly Mama, The Capitol Tribune, The Patriot Room, The Real World, RADARSITE, Serr8d's Cutting Edge, Bloviating Zeppelin, Born Again Redneck The Educated Shoprat, Gateway Pundit, Political Pistachio, Liberty Pundit, Not One Red Cent, Phyllis Chesler, Right View from the Left Coast, Generation Patriot, Macsmind, Flopping Aces, Edge's Conservative Movies, Stop the ACLU, The Conservative Manifesto, Gates of Vienna, Joust The Facts, Panhandle Poet, Steven Givler, The Astute Blogger, Chris Wysocki, Moonbattery, Sweating Through the Fog, Three Beers Later, PA Pundits, Paco Enterprises, Ken Davenport, Sister Toldjah, Blazing Cat Fur, The Daley Gator, Just One Minute, Dave's World, Sparks From the Anvil, Right Truth, Dave's Notepad, The Red Hunter, Maggie's Farm, The Next Right, This Ain't Hell, Stop the ACLU, Right Wing Nuthouse, Melissa Clouthier, Paula in Israel, Pamela Geller, Vanessa's Blog, St. Blogustine, Yid With Lid, Pondering Penguin, Betsy's Page, The Anchoress, Ace of Spades HQ, Right Wing Sparkle, Thunder Run, The Classic Liberal, Conservative Grapevine, Cassy Fiano, Jim Treacher, NetRightNation, Q and O, Urban Grounds, Ed Driscoll, Cold Fury, Michelle Malkin, Neptunus Lex, Neo-Neocon, The Astute Bloggers, The Liberty Papers, The Monkey Cage, Law and Order Teacher, Mike's America, AubreyJ, Dan Collins, The Jungle Hut, Wake Up America, Dan Riehl, Nikki's Blog, Big Girl Pants, Maggie's Notebook, Hummers & Cigarettes, Mark Goluskin, Jawa Report, Darleen Click, The Skepticrats, Fausta's Blog, Clueless Emma, Obob's World, Seymour Nuts, Red State, Dr. Sanity, The Desert Glows Green, Not One Red Cent, Vinegar and Honey, Sarge Charlie, Thoughts With Attitude, Kim Priestap, Swedish Meatballs Confidential, Five Feet of Fury, Amy Proctor, Blonde Sagacity, Liberty Papers, TigerHawk, Point of a Gun, Right Wing News, And So it Goes in Shreveport, Nice Deb, Becky Brindle, GrEaT sAtAn'S gIrLfRiEnD, Fishersville Mike, Ann Althouse, The Blog Prof, Monique Stuart, No Sheeples Here!, Dana at CSPT, Glenn Reynolds, Obi’s Sister, Right Truth, Gold-Plated Witch on Wheels, Chicago Ray, Ace of Spades HQ, Natalie's Blog, Jimmie Bise, Little Miss Attila, Moe Lane, Private Pigg, Pundit & Pundette, The Rhetorican, R.S. McCain, Saber Point, Stephen Kruiser, Suzanna Logan, TrogloPundit, Doug Ross Journal, Villainous Company, PoliGazette, Prying 1, The Western Experience, The Oklahoma Patriot, Right Wing Sparkle, Conservatism With Heart, Duck of Minerva, Wolf Howling, Right Wing Nation, Stephen Green, The Tygrrrr Express, The News Factor, Gayle's Place, Israel Matsav, The BoBo Files, Grant Jones, Tapline, New Testament News, Wizbang, and William Jacobson.

Now, since this post really is a Full Metal Roundup, let me share Caroline Glick's essay on Barack Obama and Middle East international politics: "Obama's Arabian Dreams."

I turn to Caroline Glick when I want the best analysis on Israeli security politics from a neoconservative perspective. She's the best! Check out her Wikipedia entry for some background. With all due respect, Bar Rafaeli may be the more in tune with my regular Saturday postings, but Caroline's got a hot Zionist thing going on herself!

In any case, check out Caroline's piece:

US President Barack Obama claims to be a big fan of telling the truth. In media interviews ahead of his trip to Saudi Arabia and Egypt and during his big speech in Cairo on Thursday, he claimed that the centerpiece of his Middle East policy is his willingness to tell people hard truths.

Indeed, Obama made three references to the need to tell the truth in his so-called address to the Muslim world.

Unfortunately, for a speech billed as an exercise in truth telling, Obama's address fell short. Far from reflecting hard truths, Obama's speech reflected political convenience.

Obama's so-called hard truths for the Islamic world included statements about the need to fight so-called extremists; give equal rights to women; provide freedom of religion; and foster democracy. Unfortunately, all of his statements on these issues were nothing more than abstract, theoretical declarations devoid of policy prescriptions.

He spoke of the need to fight Islamic terrorists without mentioning that their intellectual, political and monetary foundations and support come from the very mosques, politicians and regimes in Saudi Arabia and Egypt that Obama extols as moderate and responsible.

He spoke of the need to grant equality to women without making mention of common Islamic practices like so-called honor killings, and female genital mutilation. He ignored the fact that throughout the lands of Islam women are denied basic legal and human rights. And then he qualified his statement by mendaciously claiming that women in the US similarly suffer from an equality deficit. In so discussing this issue, Obama sent the message that he couldn't care less about the plight of women in the Islamic world.

So, too, Obama spoke about the need for religious freedom but ignored Saudi Arabian religious apartheid. He talked about the blessings of democracy but ignored the problems of tyranny.

In short, Obama's "straight talk" to the Arab world, which began with his disingenuous claim that like America, Islam is committed to "justice and progress, tolerance and the dignity of all human beings," was consciously and fundamentally fraudulent. And this fraud was advanced to facilitate his goal of placing the Islamic world on equal moral footing with the free world.

See the full essay, here.

Send me an e-mail at my Blogger profile if you've been left off the network roundup above. I'll be reposting the links periodically!

P.S. Snooper's Report let off some steam yesterday after participating in a comment thread here. So, once again, hat's off to those who keep the flame of freedom burning across the blogosphere.

Bloviating Zeppelin on D-Day, June 6th, 1944

I thought of Saving Private Ryan today. I thought twice about posting a video, for as powerful as that movie is, I wasn't sure if the cinematic version of history would be solemn enough on today's 65th commemoration of the Normandy invasion.

I changed my mind after reading Bloviating Zeppelin's powerful essay, "D-Day, June 6th, 1944: WHY WE ARE FREE":

Our WWII veterans are almost entirely gone. My father, an 8th AF B-17 pilot, passed away on February 11th of this year at the age of 88. Where did we find such men? Ordinary, common men from every part of our nation, from the farmlands of Iowa to the cities of New York and Los Angeles? They all answered the call, willingly, courageously, unselfishly. They set their lives aside in order to do their part. Some made it back; some didn't. Some came back in pieces.

Who will sacrifice for our nation's future? Where will we find our future warriors?

I fear: I do not see so many.

I still say: God bless America. The last, best hope for the entire planet.

Check the whole post.

BZ quotes from President Roosevelt's prayer for our troops, June 6, 1944, and President Reagan's "the boys of Point du Hoc" speech, June 6, 1984.

The 320th Antiaircraft Barrage Balloon Battalion on D-Day

Check out this great piece on the 320th Antiaircraft Barrage Balloon Battalion, a blacks-only unit at Omaha and Utah during the D-Day landings, "Forgotten Battalion’s Last Returns to Beachhead":

William G. Dabney could hardly have expected to be spending that ferocious June day in 1944 hunkered on Omaha Beach, struggling to keep aloft one of the tethered silver balloons intended to confound German pilots trying to bomb or strafe exposed Allied invaders in Normandy.

As a member of the only all-black unit in the D-Day landings on Omaha and Utah, the two beachheads assigned to American forces, Corporal Dabney was a rarity in a European war that in its early days was fought almost entirely by whites.

The contributions of his unit, the 320th Antiaircraft Barrage Balloon Battalion, have been largely forgotten over the years. But on Saturday, Mr. Dabney, now 84, will join President Obama near Omaha Beach to mark the 65th anniversary of the invasion. On Friday, he received the Legion of Honor from the French government. Officials of the White House Commission on Remembrance, which organizes services at American war memorials, say he is the only survivor of the 320th they have been able to track down.

At 17, Mr. Dabney, of Roanoke, Va., had chafed to join older friends already at war, and had to persuade his grandmother to let him enlist. Most black soldiers were being given support roles in the United States, but like many young men, Mr. Dabney craved action at the front. He volunteered for “special service,” which he thought would have him loading artillery weapons.

“I didn’t know that it involved flying balloons,” he said in a telephone interview from Roanoke.

He was sent to Tennessee to train with the 320th, a unit intended mainly to deploy blimplike balloons for coastal defense. But he soon found himself bound for England and a role in the invasion of France.

In retrospect, Corporal Dabney and his contemporaries can be seen as pioneers. As late as the mid-1930s, the Army had been less than 2 percent black. The Coast Guard used blacks only as stewards, the Navy mainly for kitchen help. The Marines and the Army Air Forces barred blacks outright. The discriminatory treatment was defended by an Army War College report in 1925 concluding that blacks lacked intellect and courage.

“Blacks wanted to participate” in World War II, “but the position of the military was that wartime is not a time for social experimentation,” said William A. De Shields, a retired Army colonel and founder of the Black Military History Institute of America.

The full article is here. Don't miss the photo slideshow as well.

Obama Hammers Israel on Settlements

Surprisingly, here's a penetrating section on Obama and Israel from today's New York Times, "Obama Pins Mideast Hope on Limiting Settlements":

“I am not a Greater Israel guy and I have no objection to dismantling settlements as part of a peace deal, but getting so hung up on freezing settlement growth is not wise because it is not the most important issue out there,” argued Efraim Inbar, director of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Bar Ilan University.

The far bigger concern, he said, is that the Palestinians are unable to make similar concessions because of their political divisions and weakness.

Israelis have turned rightward and most analyses suggest that the reason is a growing fear of regional threats, notably Iranian-backed parties like Hezbollah and Hamas, on Israel’s borders.

Sarah Honig, a columnist for The Jerusalem Post, a conservative paper, put it this way a week ago in a column: “Settlements aren’t the problem and removing them isn’t the solution. Israel foolishly dismantled 21 Gaza Strip settlements in 2005. Did peace blossom all over as a result? Precisely the reverse occurred. The razing of Israeli communities was regarded as terror’s triumph, expediting the Hamas takeover.”

The settlements are a complex issue that resonates in surprising ways here. Zionism began 125 years ago through the Jewish purchase of land in Palestine and the building of settlements on what the Jews saw as their ancient homeland. When Israel won additional territory in the 1967 war, a conflict it felt was imposed on it, many here viewed it as the miraculous continuation of Jewish national rebirth in the biblical heartland. Religious Jews began settling there, but others were attracted by low prices, open space and a pioneering ethos.

I think I saw the Honig piece earlier. In any case, here's the link, "Another Tack: What Bibi Didn't Say."

For more on the settlements issue, see Israel Matsav.

Obama's Remarks on 65th Anniversary of D-Day

From the New York Times, "Obama Hails D-Day Heroes at Normandy."

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

The text is here.

Gateway Pundit notes, "In a surprise move, Obama didn't apologize for America."

But he did deal the moral relativism card:

We live in a world of competing beliefs and claims about what is true. It's a world of varied religions and cultures and forms of government. In such a world, it's all too rare for a struggle to emerge that speaks to something universal about humanity.

The Second World War did that. No man who shed blood or lost a brother would say that war is good. But all know that this war was essential. For what we faced in Nazi totalitarianism was not just a battle of competing interests. It was a competing vision of humanity. Nazi ideology sought to subjugate and humiliate and exterminate. It perpetrated murder on a massive scale, fueled by a hatred of those who were deemed different and therefore inferior. It was evil.

The nations that joined together to defeat Hitler's Reich were not perfect. They had made their share of mistakes, had not always agreed with one another on every issue. But whatever God we prayed to, whatever our differences, we knew that the evil we faced had to be stopped. Citizens of all faiths and of no faith came to believe that we could not remain as bystanders to the savage perpetration of death and destruction. And so we joined and sent our sons to fight and often die so that men and women they never met might know what it is to be free.

Damn!

America's "not perfect"? The American culture of liberty is just another "competing belief" about what is true in the world? I'm sure Thomas Jefferson might have a quibble with that!

EagleWingz08, a commenter at Gateway Pundit, is underwhelmed:

Given the tenor of the speech, and how Obama claims that it was a miracle it succeeded, one must posit the belief, as with Obama's take on the surge for the past four years, that if he were in the Oval Office when the plans for D-Day were being hashed out, he would have rejected them as too improbable and impossible to succeed. How we would have retaken Europe under a President Obama is a mystery that gets me sick even to consider.

Well, it's one more notch for "Obama's message of weakness" (via Mark Steyn at Memeorandum).