Supporting not the same as meddling

In a comment on my earlier Ron Paul post, my brother Chuck posted a timely quote from Daniel Webster which he said came from a column by Stephen Hayes. I found the column (actually by Stephen Hayes and William Kristol) at the Weekly Standard, and here's the money quote:

In 1823, first-term congressman Daniel Webster spoke up in support of the Greek revolution. Responding to critics who said that mere rhetorical support would do the revolutionaries no good, Webster said: "I hope it may. It may give them courage and spirit. It may assure them of public regard, teach them that they are not wholly forgotten by the civilized world, and inspire them with constancy in the pursuit of their great end."

Unfortunately, the Obama administration has little use for the incoherent ramblings of this nation's forebears, so they've probably never heard of Daniel Webster.

By the way, it was during my search for this article that I stumbled upon the quote that now appears on the header.

Ahmadinejad to Obama: You're not my friend any more!

I guess this means that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has not only de-friended Obama on Facebook, but has also unfollowed him on Twitter.

"Definitely by hasty remarks you will not be placed in the circle of friendship with the Iranian nation. Therefore I advise you to correct your interfering stances," Ahmadinejad was quoted as saying.

I can't help but wonder if the situation in Iran wasn't deliberately precipitated by the regime as a pretext to cut off what little dialog there was over their nuclear program and to start booting nosy western journalists out of the country and in general lock down the entire country.

If so, it appears there may be unintended consequences.

Why does this guy keep getting elected?

Last Friday, the House of Representatives passed a resolution which stated in its entirety the following:

Resolved, That the House of Representatives--

(1) expresses its support for all Iranian citizens who embrace the values of freedom, human rights, civil liberties, and rule of law;

(2) condemns the ongoing violence against demonstrators by the Government of Iran and pro-government militias, as well as the ongoing government suppression of independent electronic communication through interference with the Internet and cellphones; and

(3) affirms the universality of individual rights and the importance of democratic and fair elections.

The resolution passed on a vote of 405-1. The Senate version of the resolution passed unanimously. So, who cast the one "nay" vote on this no-brainer?

If you guessed Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX), take a bow.

Iranian revolt: Most likely outcome

I'm not usually one for making predictions, but I'll go out on a limb here and forecast what I believe the most likely outcome of the voter revolt in Iran.

There's no question a huge number of Iranians are seriously pissed off at the current regime. But I don't think it's safe to assume that all those people are necessarily opposed to the structure of the current regime. Yes, it's probably a pretty safe bet that many of the younger crowd hope for a less autocratic, more secular government. But take a look at the guy they really wanted to win. Mir Hussein Mousavi is hardly a true reformer wishing to take Iran down a more liberal, secular path. The differences between him and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad are more ones of style than substance. The fact that Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri has cast his lot with the protesters should be ample evidence that this is more of a power struggle within the mullahcracy than a true secular revolution.

So, without further ado, my prediction: An agreement will be reached among the Guardian Council and the Assembly of Experts (the theocrats who actually run things in Iran) and Mousavi will be installed in place of Ahmadinejad. The unrest will quiet down as the majority will have had their say, and the status quo in Iran will be maintained.

Update 28 September 2009: It would appear my prediction was thoroughly wrong on one count (that Mousavi would be installed) and more correct than I'd like on the other count (that the status quo would remain).

Iran and Obama's silence

I don't get Barack Obama's silence on the situation in Iran. Yeah, I'm pretty critical of him and I don't expect much from him - certainly not greatness - but this is really a no-brainer. So why the silence? If not an outright message of support for the protesters, why not a rebuke to the regime for their brutal suppression of those protests?

I can understand not coming out with overtly supportive statements for Mousavi and his supporters. That's the kind of thing that can too easily be spun into Iranian government propaganda that Mousavi and the protesters are puppets of the hated Americans. But surely Obama can find within himself the words to denounce the rigging of an election and the violence perpetrated against those voicing their anger at having their votes discarded? I guess these women have more guts than Obama:

Hot air

Via my buddy Kris, a little Sunday morning humor...

A woman in a hot air balloon realized she was lost. She lowered her altitude and spotted a man in a boat below. She shouted to him, "Excuse me, can you help me? I promised a friend I would meet him an hour ago, but I don't know where I am."

The man consulted his portable GPS and replied, "You're in a hot air balloon, approximately 30 feet above a ground elevation of 346 feet above sea level. You are at 47 degrees, 30.97 minutes north latitude and 122 degrees, 49.09 minutes west longitude.

"She rolled her eyes and said, "You must be a Republican."

"I am," replied the man. "How did you know?"

"Well," answered the balloonist, "everything you told me is technically correct. But I have no idea what to do with your information, and I'm still lost. Frankly, you've not been much help to me."

The man smiled and responded, "You must be an Obama Democrat."

"I am," replied the balloonist. "How did you know?"

"Well," said the man, "you don't know where you are or where you are going. You've risen to where you are due to a large quantity of hot air. You made a promise you have no idea how to keep, and you expect me to solve your problem. You're in exactly the same position you were in before we met, but somehow now it's my fault."

Improve your body image

I saw this ad while looking up guitar tabs at ultimate-guitar.com and, well, I guess there's nothing to add to this, is there?

'She's with me'

During a town hall meeting to pimp his health care plan, Barack Obama gave 10-year-old Kennedy Corpus something she'll never forget:

Her father, John Corpus of Green Bay, stood to ask Obama about health care during the president's town hall-style meeting at Southwest High School on Thursday. He told Obama that his daughter was missing school to attend the event and that he hoped she didn't get in trouble.

"Do you need me to write a note?" Obama asked. The crowd laughed, but the president was serious.

On a piece of paper, he wrote: "To Kennedy's teacher: Please excuse Kennedy's absence. She's with me. Barack Obama." He stepped off the stage to hand-deliver the note -- to Kennedy's surprise.

"I thought he was joking until he started walking down," Kennedy said after the event, showing off the note in front of a bank of television cameras. "It was like the best thing ever."

Young Ms. Corpus declined to comment on what actually is the best thing ever.

Anyway, this is very cool for young Kennedy. Her share of the national debt is already $546,668 so in 10 or 20 years, she can sell the note on eBay and pay down her share. Or if she finds herself with health issues, she can use the money to go to some other country for treatment.

War of choice

In President Obama's speech to "the Muslim world" in Cairo, he perpetuated the notion that Afghanistan was a just war while Iraq was a bad one because it was a "war of choice". Since the invasion of Iraq in 2003, this has been the term used by those who opposed the invasion to suggest that it wasn't justified or necessary.

But setting aside for now the question of which of the two wars were justified, aren't all wars wars of choice? President Bush could have chosen not to invade Afghanistan and drive out the Taliban just as he chose to invade Iraq and rid the world of one more despotic dictator. The fact that one choice may have been more evidently wise than the other is not relevant -- they were both wars of choice.

In the months preceding the invasion of Iraq, I wasn't convinced that the time was right for running Saddam out of town. The Bush administration, as well as that of Britain's then-PM Tony Blair, justified the action almost exclusively on the basis of Saddam's weapons of mass destruction program. I never doubted (and still don't) the existence of Iraq's WMD program at the time, but I also didn't doubt that, given the time allowed, Saddam had ample opportunity to erase the evidence. I gradually concluded by early 2003, though, that removing Saddam was necessary for a host of other reasons, not the least of which were his demonstrable ties to international Islamist terrorists*, even if those terrorists weren't directly connected to Osama Bin Laden and al Qaeda.

Ultimately, Iraq would have to be dealt with in the broader context of fighting and Bush appears to have asked the question "if not now, when?", to which one might add "at what cost of delay?". Bush knew he had a small window of opportunity to move against Saddam, the alternative being to leave the problem for his successor. Had Bush chosen to do so, what would his obsessive critics had to say if in the intervening years there'd been a terrorist attack on the US traced back to Saddam, or a situation forcing Barack Obama to deal with him?

* See, for example, Abu Nidal, killed in Baghdad in August 2002 by Iraqi agents, and Abu Abbas, captured by US troops in Baghdad in April 2003, right after the invasion.

Fail?

Hey, I want Barack Obama to succeed. I just don't think "success" means what he thinks it means.

Apology reflex

Obama's trying to make nice with the "Muslim world" so they have a better perception of us. He doesn't get it. The 5-10% of Muslims we're worried about aren't going to like us and stop trying to kill us because of his Muslim roots and flowery words.

The abortionist and the soldier

Over the past week, two high-profile murders took place which would have otherwise been almost not worthy of national news. In one case, a guy in Wichita was gunned down in church. In the other, a guy was shot to death at a Little Rock strip mall.

But Dr. George Tiller in Wichita ran one of three remaining clinics in the US which still administered late-term abortions and was killed by an anti-abortion activist, and Pvt. William Long in Little Rock was a US Army soldier, murdered by a recent convert to Islam.

My views on abortion aren't shared by most self-described conservatives. I'm opposed to abortion as a method of birth control and I'm dead-set against late-term abortions, but I do think abortion is an option women need to have in the very early stages of pregnancy. While late-term abortion may still be legal, I consider the practice immoral and reprehensible, and I don't mourn Dr. Tiller's death. But the "service" he offered is still legal, and even if it wasn't, his murderer, Scott Roeder, is still a murderer...vigilante murder is still murder.

In the case of Pvt. William Long, his murder was also ideologically motivated, here by Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, an American convert to Islam who'd studied jihad in Yemen, and possibly Somalia. Mujahid, by the way, is the singular form of Mujahedeen...holy warrior.

And yet the pro-abortion crowd holds candlelight vigils for Tiller. They blame right-wing commentators for Tiller's death, yet ignore left-wing anti-military and pro-jihadi propaganda while they studiously ignore Pvt. Long's death.

Blowing off the cobwebs

Yeah, I know I've been neglecting this blog lately. Work's been killing me and when I haven't been traveling (Seattle, WA and Portland, OR this week) I've been trying to play catch-up.

The hell of a recession...those of us still working are doing the work of three people. But I'll have some brief, almost Twitter-length posts coming up.