*Update 3/19/11 4:19pm. Brasilian oil giant Petrobras awarded deep-water drill permit in US Gulf off the coast of Louisiana while many other rigs sit idle or US companies await permits. This one really chaps my behind.

President Obama is in Brasilia as this article is written paying a visit to President Dilma Rousseff. With much pomp and circumstance he arrived in a motorcade of 51 vehicles.

There has been much speculation for the reasons of the trip. He has with him Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, Commerce Secretary Gary Locke and Energy Secretary Steven Chu to name just a few.

Yes, we hear about the trade issues, hence Locke being with him. From an article back in February Geithner is tagging along because Brasil is in the market for a new fleet of F-18s for her air force, and Boeing is in the running. But the person who immediately caught my eye was Steven Chu so I did some digging.

All of us are aware of the Gulf drill moratorium after the BP spill, the lack or new oil, gas and oil permits being issued and the myriad of new EPA regulations which caused Shell to become fed up and give up drilling for oil in Alaska’s Beaufort Sea. We are all aware of the thousands of people out of jobs in the energy area and the oil and gas companies who have declared bankruptcy, been sold to larger companies or simply pulled up stakes and went to a friendlier regulatory atmosphere. Not in the US.

There is nothing on the White House blog that tells us the reason for the visit, so I decided the best source was the people on the ground in Brasil, namely the newspapers and blogs. The following caught my eye bigtime:

In a time when record oil prices and record-producing nations in the Middle East and North Africa are in crisis, U.S. President, Barack Obama, arrives in Brazil on Saturday with an eye on Brazil’s potential to become a major supplier to the United States in the future.

Obama himself also announced last week that oil imports will be one of the themes of his agenda with President Rousseff in Brasilia. The U.S. government seeks to reduce its dependence on oil, but also diversify its portfolio of suppliers.

“Brazil will become a major player in global energy markets with its recent oil discoveries in deep water,” said deputy national security adviser for international economic affairs from the White House, Mike Froman. In addition to ministers of the energy sector, Obama also travels with dozens of entrepreneurs.

According to the executive director of the Brazil Business Council, U.S. Chamber of Commerce American Steven beepers, after passing Brasilia, these entrepreneurs will go to Rio to consider the prospect of investment in the oil and gas. “Given the current circumstances facing the Arab countries, Brazil is a candidate very important supplier of U.S. oil in the medium term,” he said on a visit to Washington the president of the American Chamber of Commerce for Brazil, Gabriel Rico.

Hmmm…we have billions of barrels of oil in the US, trillions of cubic feet of natural gas, and millions of tons of coal, yet Obama may be seeking to buy oil from Brasil? President Obama, if you would just allow us to get ours out of the ground, the US could become energy independent. The experts tell us so.

But wait! There’s more. Back in August of 2009 Obama “loaned” Brasilian oil giant Petrobras $2 billion dollars. Why? That is the $64,000 question. They don’t need it. Brasil is oil independent thanks to Petrobras, who has the third largest deep-water rig in the world, #52. Petrobras is the largest company by revenue and market capitalization in Latin America. It’s a world leader in drilling technology, has assets in countries all over the world and in 2008 its reported assets were $133.5 billion.

But here’s another little interesting tidbit. Several days before Obama made the announcement of the “loan” George Soros dumped 22 million shares of US listed Petrobras common stock and bought 5.8 million of the 10% dividend-paying preferred. Hmmm..

And one more little fact for you all, back in December of 2010 Obama’s cozy pal Jeff Immelt of GE bought UK company Wellstream for $1.3 billion.

Wellstream expands GE’s operations in Brazil, where Exxon Mobil Corp., BG Group Plc and state-controlled Petroleo Brasileiro SA may need to spend more on the U.K.-based company’s flexible pipes and risers to ramp up energy production. The deepwater Tupi and Libra fields, discovered in the past three years, together may contain more than 20 billion barrels of oil.

Nicholas Heymann, an analyst with Sterne Agee & Leach Inc. in New York had this to say about the purchase:

“Importantly, Wellstream has little Gulf of Mexico exposure, a region where development has slowed sharply.”

Yes, Mr. President. Development has slowed sharply in the Gulf, thanks to your drill moratorium. And oh, by the way, when is Interior Secretary Salazar going to be hauled off to jail in handcuffs for being in civil contempt of court for refusing to obey a Louisiana judge’s order to lift said moratorium?

Not drawing any conclusions from all the above, just throwing it out for thought.

Obama will travel to Rio later today where he’ll be staying at the ultra-luxurious J.W. Marriott Hotel in Copacabana ( he was originally scheduled to be at the Sheraton Rio, but security changed his location at the last minute.)

Wanna see pics of you dancing the samba, sir.

I’ll keep you posted on what develops.

Y’all know the drill. When the story first broke regarding General Stanley McChrystal supposedly “committing an act of insubordination” by trashing President Obama to Rolling Stone magazine, the conventional wisdom was to say that “he should be fired”. Well, then, after reading Michael Rulle’s excellent article titled, “Has Anyone Actually Read the Rolling Stone Article?”, it became apparent to me that A.) most of the general public and the mainstream media had not read the infamous article, and B.) that it is foolish to take anything that the MSM says at face value. In other words, this whole story began to stink as though a skunk had scurried across the backyard. Read the rest of this entry »

Abu Ghraib is a distant memory, waterboarding is limited to U.S. armed forces training exercises and Guantanamo Bay detainees held without charge are being sent to the Big Apple for show trials. Yet, al Qaida was still able to find and utilize a “tool” in the Age of Obama to recruit a silver spoon Nigerian to blow up a plane bound for Detroit.

Could it be that the Cowboy recruited jihadis to die by the tens of thousands in Iraq while Obamassiah apology tours actually book more suicide bombing tours to the Fruited Plain?

It now seems clear to this observer that the Bush war on terror killed more terrorists than it created what with Iraq’s murder rate below that of Chicago and Iranians in the streets demanding the rights enjoyed next door from the ruling Mullahs rather than chanting death to the Great American Satan.

Could it be that the Arab and Persian streets, over time, saw the stark difference between U.S. enabled Liberty and the Saddams, Talibans and bin Ladens of the world and chose Liberty? It seems so in Pakistan and Afghanistan as well, where the citizens have repeatedly been ahead of the curve in wanting al Qaida out of their neighborhoods.

Would that the Western Left, including the Democratic Party could see as clearly.

It never was the Left’s Great Satan George W. Bush that recruited Osama bin Laden’s agents for their September 11, 2001 non-apologetic tours to NY, PA and DC, nor was it National Guard sadists that caused Baathists to fight on in Iraq.

The main recruiting tool that led to 9/11/01 is the same as the one that led to 12/25/09: weakness invited aggression.

The Left never understood that the Soviet Empire was evil and ignored Saddam’s hundreds of thousands slaughtered at Abu Graib before the late Ted Kennedy’s immoral equivalence saw nudity where dead bodies once flourished, and  pronounced it merely under new management.

But let’s give it another shot. Maybe Democrats will pay attention this time since their Chosen One now has the Watch.

Pat Buchanan was always wrong when he suggested that “they” (Muhammed Atta et al) were Over Here because “we” (US trade, Exxon et al) were Over There. And even if that were the case, would that mean that the Zawahiris of the world speak for Saudi and Indonesian trade deals? But I digress.

We have a source that told us why they came over here in the Third Millenium after attacking us over there in the Second. The source is none other than Osama bin Laden himself whose first recruiting tool, as documented in Lawrence Wright’s The Looming Tower, was the jihadist, kill the infidel literalism of the Koran of Islam, preached by Sayyid Qtub in the 40s-60s with a special shout out to resentment at Attaturk’s Turkish secularism.

The Koran says what it says, and after playing an integral role with us in pushing Russians out of Afghanistan before the Berlin Wall fell, the message resonated more in Arab coffee shops. Osama bin Laden considered the U.S. to be a “weak horse” when we left Saddam in power after the first Gulf War.

The recruiting accelerated after UBL had an eye-witness view of Clinton fleeing Somalia and after Khalid Sheik Mohammed’s blood kin almost knocked down the Twin Towers in 1993.

UBL dubbed us a Paper Tiger and declared war on America after Clinton’s response to the acts of war in leveling two U.S. embassies in Africa was to kill a nightwatchman in an abandoned terrorist camp in Afghanistan while UBL continued to appear in public in that country.

UBL thought George W. Bush was made of the same weak stuff and expected the response after 911 to be another pinprick.

Osama miscalculated.

I don’t know whether he is alive or dead, but I question the value of his continued life or a martyr’s death as a recruiting tool given his now 9-year slump in achieving successful terrorist attacks against the United States.

Enter Obama and the return to the Clintonian pre-911 treatment of acts of war as mere domestic crime, complete with Miranda rights and OJ trials.

Since Osama can’t appear live on TV for fear of being bombed, why not let KSM and Nigerian silver spoons deliver the message?

To be fair, President Obama actually bombed Yemen twice in the weeks leading up to the Christmas Day attack, yet neither he nor the press have mentioned this in all the reports I have seen since Detroit was targeted. I applauded the bombings soon after.

Moreover, we now learn that Obama is going to  get tough (read: act rational) and profile airline travellers from “terror” states. But since his name isn’t Bush, this isn’t racial profiling and also not a recruiting tool?

Maybe Obama can be “coerced” into protecting America much like Jimmy Carter was transformed to “ordinate” fears of Communism after the Afghan invasion and when he was “betrayed’ by Ayatollah the Pious in Iran.

FDR, JFK and HST acted to defend America based on American values. Carter is said to have become angered due to what he perceived as “personal” affronts.

We know that Obama doesn’t share most American values given his apology tours and campaign to “transform” America. So I challenge Barack to take this attack personally and get mad at jihadists for not accepting his apologies for America. Get focused on winning re-election in 2012. After all, killing terrorists worked pretty well for Bush’s re-election bid.

Come to think of it, given the public’s view of health care reform, he might want to change that policy.

But then again, Obama may not care about re-election. He may be acting on principle to transform this country. His principles now have us in a deep recession and one Dutchman away from 300 less Americans in Detroit.

Think maybe the prospect of failing in his attack and then getting his own show trial could have been a recruiting tool for Farouk Abdul Mutallab?

Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer, Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Minority Report columns

“One man with courage makes a majority.” – Andrew Jackson

Originally published @ Examiner.com, where all verification links may be accessed.

Iran has invaded Iraq

This is an act of war by Iran against the United States:

Begin AFP story

NASIRIYAH, Iraq (AFP) – Iranian forces took control of a southern Iraqi oil well on a disputed section of the border on Friday, US and Iraqi officials told AFP.

“There has been no violence related to this incident and we trust this will be resolved through peaceful diplomacy between the governments of Iraq and Iran,” a US military spokesman told AFP at Contingency Operating Base Adder, just outside the southern Iraqi city of Nasiriyah.

“The oil field is in disputed territory in between Iranian and Iraqi border forts,” he said, adding that such incidents occur quite frequently.

An official of the state-owned South Oil Co in the southeastern city of Amara, and west of the field, said: “An Iranian force arrived at the field early this morning (Friday).

“It took control of Well 4 and raised the Iranian flag even though the well lies in Iraqi territory,” the official added.
 

End AFP story

It appears that the Obama Administration doesn’t get it. America can expect escalating aggression against us in the near future  so long as President Barack Obama continues to send a message of weakness abroad.

What we need to hear is Bugs Bunny’s that, “of course you know, this means war” refrain.

But Obama isn’t Bugs. He’s a Dumbo.

More later on the Iranian threat since 1979 and especially the seeming blindness to the gravity of the threat  today, here, over the weekend.

On the 68th anniversary of the day President Franklin Delano Roosevelt said would live in infamy, let us look see if any September 11, 2001 infamy lives in the cold heart of President Barack Hussein Obama.

Based on Obama’s Afghan War address last week, with West Point cadets as props, the only infamy I could detect was for the men and women who kept us safe after 911, especially including his predecessors in office named President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney.

But I’m not surprised, after all, Obama is a Democrat, and not one of the FDR variety. No, he is a post 1963 variety. He is no JFK that would bear any burden for Liberty. Rather, He is of the Blame America first crowd. I’m sure if he had finished the (Marxist) Dreams of his Father and Hate America Church Rev. Wright’s Audacity of Hope before December 7, 1941, he would have asked the question former President Bill Clinton asked soon after the 911 attacks, i.e. “Why do they hate us?”

After all, in his supposed surge speech this week, consider this attack on actions by presidents Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan that led to the first defeat of the Russian army in history and our eventual victory in the Cold War:

Al Qaeda’s base of operations was in Afghanistan, where they were harbored by the Taliban — a ruthless, repressive and radical movement that seized control of that country after it was ravaged by years of Soviet occupation and civil war, and after the attention of America and our friends had turned elsewhere.

Ah yes, its the old bait and switch of liberals. America either causes all the bad in the world by our actions, or we are at fault for the rest of the bad in the world by “allowing” bad to happen due to inaction. In any event, Blame America First.

Secondly, you will search in vain in Obama’s first address as Commander-in-Chief for any reference to our enemies as enemies or terrorists. For example:

On September 11, 2001, 19 men hijacked four airplanes and used them to murder nearly 3,000 people…

As we know, these men belonged to al Qaeda — a group of extremists…

I set a goal that was narrowly defined as disrupting, dismantling, and defeating al Qaeda and its extremist allies

Our President speaks of “men” that belong to a club (al Qaeda) that is “extreme.” Sounds like he speaks of the Shriners on a bad alcohol weekend, or Kiwanis when the pancakes got cold. They just like a little innocent blood with their meals. I guess the kamikazes just like to fly their planes a little too close to…mere extremists.

Most of Obama’s oration was reserved for diatribes against President Bush and his own country, praises for himself and condescensions against the military as he explains the cost of war and that we have an economic crisis at home. Who knew?

FDR had a little crisis of his own on the Day of Infamy we commemorate today, but he didn’t speak of exit strategies or tiptoe around the fact that we faced evil enemies. He spoke of total victory and the unconditional surrender of the Kamikazes.

And neither did President Bush equivocate about his Day of Infamy. Which is why we hadn’t been struck since 911 until Obama’s Fort Hood “extremist”, mentally ill, Muslim effected the worst, dare I say, terrorist attack on American soil since 2001.

I just hope that we don’t have to add a further days of infamy due to Obama’s weakness, with the main day of infamy being his Inauguration.

Obama is no FDR. He isn’t even a Jimmy Carter. In fact, it is to former President Carter’s credit that Obama includes him in his diatribe against this country.

God bless those that lost their lives on December 7, 1941 and those that avenged that infamous sneak attack.

God bless America!

 Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer, Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Minority Report columns

“One man with courage makes a majority.” – Andrew Jackson

Originally published @ Examiner.com, where all verification links may be accessed.

ObamaDems don’t care about winning wars, honoring the troops, deterring terrorists, creating non-government jobs or allowing anyone to secure a loan in this country without their prior approval.

This is the first in a series, focusing on the governing concept of President Barack Obama that we identified early in his Administration and dubbed “expostfactObamalism”, due to ObamaDems’ attempts last Spring, to retroactively tax AIG-bonuses at a 90% confiscatory rate and to criminalize the enhanced interrogation techniques and the giving of legal advice justifying same, that CIA agents and Justice Department lawyers used to keep us safe after 911.

The recent decision to provide Khalid Sheik Mohamed (pictured, courtesy of TMR) with a civilian trial and return to the scene of his horrific handiwork near Ground Zero in New York City inspired the need to return to this issue, given its departure from fundamental American principles and comparability to the the regular criminalization of politics by Third World banana republics.

Actions of this kind so violate fundamental fairness that  the U.S. Constitution and state constitutions explicitly state, for example, that:

No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed. – US Const. Art. 1, sec. 9

No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, retroactive law, or any law impairing the obligation of contracts, shall be made. – Texas Const. Art. 1, sec. 16

U.S. Supreme Court precedents have severely limited the applicability of these concepts to criminalization of deeds deemed legal at the time, but have allowed their applicability, at least in the criminal realm to similarly-situated groups rather than just named individuals. However, our culture and traditions have, until the rise of the ObamaDems, have mostly followed the concepts embodied by the most detailed language of the Lone Star State’s language cited above.

Our purpose today, is to re-introduce the concept of expostfactObamalism in a number of contexts, which we will revisit over the coming week in more detail, as indicated below:

KSM trial in NYC

Possibly the most vile and cynical action taken by the liberal Democratic Administration, the decision to refuse to accept a guilty plea from the mastermind of 911 is a direct assault on previous administration. Such a trial serves no useful purpose as Attorney General Eric Holder (in the role of Janet Reno as Bill Clinton’s Waco raid foil) admits that KSM can be held indefinitely as an enemy combatant.

KSM was about to be convicted and executed under the rights-sensitive, U.S. Supreme Court-demanded, Democratic Party majority passed and signed  by Obama into law, military tribunals at Gitmo. The result of civilian trial in NYC can produce no better outcome, and promises to be a show trial that indicts President George W. Bush et al, with KSM and the other four terrorist defendants testifying essentially as witnesses corroborating the “testimony” of candidate Barack Obama’s campaign criticisms of the United States at war.

As we have oft repeated, Dems say and do for free, what the terrorists would gladly pay them to say and do. We suspect the irony of Mohamed echoing the words of ObamaDems, including Barack Hussein Obama and other ObamaDems, will not be lost on the American people.

Jobs summit fraud

The stimulus wasn’t, but could have been. Even the Keynesian part wasn’t. We know this because now ObamaDems are post-2009 Election Day in Virginia and know that they don’t have enough wealth to spread around to cover the stench of the fact that Dems Don’t Care about the poor and middle class.

If ObamaDems cared about actual people having actual jobs (save for government and union jobs), they would have front-loaded the recovery act with shovel-ready jobs. That they didn’t is an admission that they only care about the perception of progress on jobs leading up to Election Day 2010.

If they cared about creating jobs, they would celebrate the cooling Earth of the past 11 years, breathe a sigh of relief that we discovered the fraud of the global warming/climate change claim, and accept the reality of oil as the now and indefinite future fuel of prosperity and liberty. Read George Will, here.

We will have extensive coverage of this issue after the President’s address to the nation on Tuesday, but suffice to point out for now that:

• Obama is whining about the deficit and consequent lack of resources after his $1.8T first budget deficit, squandered the moment and our currency on a government growthulus bill posing as a stimulus;
•  ObamaDems reject any and all of the proven supply-side policies that produced the Reagan-Clinton 25-year recovery and tie all proposals for tax relief to crony capitalism that requires investors to follow the advice of federal bureaucrats;
• Seeks to monopolize mortgage, student and small business loans within the federal government’s discretion in order to enforce the above; and
• Creates two Americas that John Edwards never hinted at, i.e. One Union, One Non-Union, and guess which gets the shaft.

The non-surge in Afghanistan is expost facto pre-911 mentality

West Point address admits ObamaDems’ Bushlied Era and campaign claims that the Afghan war was one of necessity was a fraud

Charles Krauthammer’s paraphrase of Winston Churchill as Obama:

We shall fight in the air, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields, we shall fight in the hills — for 18 months. Then we start packing for home.

President Obama’s cynical use of West Point cadets as props for his diatribes, insults and lies against his predecessor as Commander in Chief (and oh, btw, I am sending 30,000 more of you chumps into war) showed just what a small man he is. I got through two pages of the eight-page transcript before having to write this column, the main follow-up to which will detail the vile hurlings from Obama’s mouth later in the week. For now, consider:

1. No mention of victory
2. Enemies of liberty described as mere ”extremists”, never terrorists
3. No praise for Iraq victory
4. Blames Cold War muhajadeen strategy that defeated the Evil Empire, for 911. We “allowed” 911 to happen
5. Blames Taliban resurgence on Iraq War
6. Lies concerning supposed denials of Afghan Theater troop requests by then Defense Secretary Don Rumsfeld
7. Ad nauseum ad infinitum….in next column

 The AJC’s Jim Wooten Thinking Right:

It is tacky and disrespectful of the Office of the President for the Commander-in-Chief to assemble his troops, as Obama did at West Point, and use the occasion to trash their former Commander-in-Chief. This is the action of a small-bore leader.

We were told during the Bushlied Era, that we had to get Usama bin Laden, but now, not so much. But a war tax? We need that.

More later, every day this week…

But before we conclude part one, one comment on the relatively strong support the President has received from prominent Republicans, like Newt Gingrich, for his decision to send 30K troops to Afghanistan. Newt, like Karl Rove and Bill Kristol, disagree with exit strategies that telegraph to allies and enemies alike that we haven’t the stomach to finish the job, but do think that General Petraeus can win the war with the extra troops.

I was asked by an Astute Conservative Political Observer in Alabama is Newt had gone over to the dark side due to his praise of Obama’s decision on the increase of troops in Afghanistan.

No, he hasn’t, although some of his actions on climate change, support for moderates in contested GOP primaries and other actions do show he has been inside the Beltway too long.

However, the main lesson to be drawn from this exercise as contrasted with the behavior of Democrats (including then Senator Obama who refused to vote the fund the troops as a campaign game of chicken with Hillary) is the consistency of Republicans in supporting Commanders in Chiefs and troops in the Field.

By contrast, Democrats use war and the troops as political issues and pawns.

Dems are vile.

Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer, Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Minority Report columns

“One man with courage makes a majority.” – Andrew Jackson

Originally published @ Examiner.com, where all verification links may be accessed

Hoping, like DeVine Law Gamecock to hear a Commander-in-Chief tonight, for the first time since President George W. Bush’s farewell?

Don’t count on it.

It appears that President Barack Obama already leaked the warrior-related details Monday, before the Charlie Brown Christmas preemption speech in prime time tonight:

President Obama issued orders to send about 30,000 additional American troops to Afghanistan as he prepared to address the nation Tuesday night to explain what may be one of the most defining decisions of his presidency.

Mr. Obama conveyed his decision to military leaders late Sunday afternoon during a meeting in the Oval Office and then spent Monday phoning foreign counterparts, including the leaders of Britain, France and Russia.

Mr. Gibbs told reporters at the White House that Mr. Obama would discuss in the speech how he intended to pay for the plan — a major concern of his Democratic base — and would make clear that he had a time frame for winding down the American involvement in the war.

No mention of victory as more troops get sent into a war zone. Oh no, merely ending “involvement”. Sounds like Obama thinks America was mere bystander as Afghans on horses scared Obama into Pakistan.

As we discussed yesterday, when Democrats speak of “exit strategies”, they really mean surrender/cut and run. They give the enemy a time schedule so they can better prepare their supply lines and plan their next attacks.

Why overdo it now, when the Great Satan is telling you when attacks will be more fruitful.

And oh yes, we finally get to the real crux of this speech: Taxes.

Let’s raise taxes and call it exit strategy.

For the Democratic Party, taking the fruits of one’s labor trumps all other issues, even including, ah hell, especially including war.

President Obama, would you please surprise us and your advisers tonight and deliver a Commander-in-Chief call for victory in this war against those that put holes in Manhattan, the Pentagon and the Keystone State?

Isn’t winning this war and thus deterring enemies from more attacks at least as important as socializing America health care for everyone but you, fellow D.C. politicians, federal employees and unions?

Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer, Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Minority Report columns

“One man with courage makes a majority.” – Andrew Jackson

Will we look back on the President’s first address to the nation as Commander-in-Chief as just another Democratic party cut-and-run?

*["HinzSight" reference is a tribute to the loss of a great journalist, athlete and friend of DeVine Law Gamecock, David Hinz, who was killed in a traffic accident this past Thanksgiving weekend. Our obituary is here, with other tributes at The Minority Report (which company merged with Dave's original HinzSight Report) and Many Faces of Barack). Dave's journalistic love was of foreign affairs and the war on terror, and so we will use the HinzSight nomenclature from time to time to categorize some of our writing and as a tribute to our dear friend.]

Since JFK’s death in 1963, no Democratic Party president has been feared by enemies of the United States and the party seems to go out of its way to lose wars and betray allies.

From the 1975 congressional Democrat majority betrayal of the Hmong, thru Carter’s 1979 betrayal of the Shah of Iran; thru John Kerry’s open collusion with Nicaraguan communists and Ted Kennedy’s secret alliance with Gorbachev against U.S. missiles in Europe and for the nuclear freeze in the 1980s; thru Clinton’s cut and run in Somalia, law enforcement approach to the 1993 WTC bombing thru the feckless bombing of night watchman after the African embassy act of war bombings in the late 90s; and thru the “Bushlied Era” of the mid-2000 decade, the Democratic Party has been all about exuding aggression inviting weakness to enemies abroad.

Now comes Barack Obama after:

1. A campaign echoing the Democratic Party (fake warmongering) mantra that Afghanistan is the “good war” of necessity (as opposed to that war of “choice” in Iraq, that most all the Dems voted for with the same intel Clinton and Bush had, but I digress);
2. A March 2009 declaration that the Afghan War had to be won with a directive to General McChrystal to come up with a strategy; and finally,
3. After retreating from the strategy presented by his generals and a scare from his left on health care and the 2009 election disaster, with a Tuesday evening prime time speech to the nation now wanting to “finish the job” in Afghanistan.

For the record, neither DeVine Law Gamecock, nor Cockstradamus ever believed any of the Elected to serve in D.C. Democrats not named Lieberman, ever were all in for victory in Afghanistan after the first 72 hours, but only used the mantra to separate themselves from Bush and the Iraq War. Bob Shrum admitted this.

We didn’t need an admission to know that Democrats haven’t the stomach nor the smarts to win wars.

President Obama has left the troops hanging for a year as he has continued to blame Bush for “drift”, despite the fact that they adopted the Bush strategy and yet have not implemented it during their 11 months in office.

Now we are told that since Obama will request and deploy 39,000 troops that he is “essentially” meeting McChrystal’s request? Huh?

General McChrystal requested 80,000 troops and “no less than 40,000″.

It looks like what Obama has “essentially” done is slap this fine warrior down in public again (40K-1K=39K), much as his administration has been doing since the 80,000 request was made public weeks ago. Or has it been months ago!

Afghanistan is not Iraq

I have said since soon after 911 and even more so after the invasion of Iraq, that I favored the Rumsfeld small footprint strategies, especially in Afghanistan given its tribal nature, geography and history of large footprint failures by the UK and USSR. The only defeat of the Russian army in history was in Afghanistan.

Yes, let us kill all the Taliban and al Qaida that we can; remove the safe nation-state haven; keep troops enough to prevent all but deadly havens for al Qaida and the Taliban; give the Afghans (90% of whom loathe the Taliban and al Qaida) a chance at a republic; and keep watch over Iran and Pakistan.

This is not Iraq sitting on vast oil reserves in Persian Gulf. I was for the surge after the necessary stay the course so we could get intel for a surge. I was for making Iraq into Connecticut, which it essentially is now. Pray God don’t let Democrat Obama snatch defeat from victory in Iraq like his counterparts did in Vietnam.

But Afghanistan is not Iraq, and so I am receptive to a lesser surge strategy that mainly keeps the country from becoming a safe haven for launching attacks on the US and keeps troops close to Iran and Pakistan for deterrence and rapid response reasons.

Dems like to end, not win wars

But when I hear a Democrat President that has never acknowledged the great victory in Iraq, speak of “ending” the war in Afghanistan; and of not wanting to “hand off” Afghanistan to a successor, I hear that familiar limp-wristed Democrat loser refrain that sounds like fingernails scratching a chalkboard. Specifically, this statement:

“My preference would be not to hand off anything to the next president.”

Kind of like Clinton didn’t “hand off” anything on Somalia and Afghanistan? Usually when Democrats speak of no handoff, they mean that they have already lost the last war, with no mention of the ones they make inevitable.

These people giggled when Ronaldus Magnus called the Soviet empire, evil.

This is what we are dealing with, but, I am an American and Barack Obama is my President and the ONLY Commander-in-Chief we have. If a strategy is to succeed in foreign affairs, it will be Obama’s and no other.

And, like I said, I am receptive to a less than Connecticut strategy there. But it is essential that we not betray our freedom loving allies and that we are not SEEN as cutting and running.

Obama’s apology tours give me no solace that he doesn’t WANT us to be seen as cowardly losers, but maybe Election Day 2009 concentrated his mind to understand that at least for the next 3 years, HE IS AMERICA and maybe his manhood will insist that he be feared.

I just hope that a few years down the road, we can say in HinzSight* that Obama did right by our troops and this nation’s national security.

Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer, Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Minority Report columns

“One man with courage makes a majority.” – Andrew Jackson

Originally published @ Examiner.com, where all verification links may be accessed.

Actual words of Koran justify murder, the Bible does not

Strict Constructionism is civilization’s friend when applied to the U.S. Constitution and the Bible. Not so when applied to the Koran and other authoritative writings of Islam.

The latter fact is a major factor in the rise of Islamist terror, as the plain and obvious meaning of the actual words of Allah in the Koran lend credibility to those the extremists in the Muslim and Arab worlds and at the same time put peace-loving Muslims on the defensive. It appears that the only thing that reverses their respective roles in their homeland is when a liberty loving Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces of the United States is provoked to defend America, and post-regime change, empowers those that have “re-interpreted” Islam’s admonitions of “jihad”.

It appears that when American power kills enough of those that are actually faithful to the words of the book shared my all Muslims as Holy, the “reformationists” choose soccer and pizza over burka-garbed teen suicide pizza-parlor bombing as sport.

Three Blind Mice and/or See, Hear and Speak no Evil Monkeys?

Since 911 concentrated this Baptist mind, I have long contended that one can’t be a good Muslim and a good American, that is, if the actual words of the Book matter to you. For instance, consider these passages from a column that suggests that those who deny the clear import of the words are “Still Willfully Blind”:

At his blog today, Andrew Bostom, a scholar of jihadism, cites the following passage from “Reliance of the Traveler,” a widely distributed manual of Islamic law produced by al-Azhar University in Egypt, the most authoritative interpreters of theology and sharia jurisprudence in Sunni Islam, the dominant tradition among the world’s Muslims:

Jihad means to war against non-Muslims, and, is etymologically derived from the word, mujahada, signifying warfare to establish the religion [of Islam]…The scriptural basis for jihad is such Koranic verses as “Fighting is prescribed for you” (Koran 2:216); “Slay them wherever you find them” (Koran 4:89); “Fight the idolators utterly” (Koran 9:36); and such hadiths [sayings of the Prophet] as the one related by (Sahih) Bukhari and (Sahih) Muslim that the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) said: “I have been commanded to fight people until they testify that there is no God but Allah and that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, and perform the prayer, and pay zakat. If they say it, they have saved their blood and possessions from me, except for the rights of Islam over them. And the final reckoning is with Allah”; and the hadith by (Sahih) Muslim, “To go forth in the morning or evening to fight in the path of Allah is better than the whole world and everything in it.”

As Dr. Bostom points out, the first hadith referred to in the passage — the one in which Mohammed explains that Allah has commanded the Muslims to fight non-Muslims — was cited by Nidal Hasan in slide 43 of the June 7, 2007 presentation that Jonah discusses in his excellent column today.

How long will the Three Blind Mice of moderate Muslims, the political left (see liberals and Democrats) and our Commander in Chief keep their hands over their eyes and ears and refuse to speak of evil by its name? Must Hyde Park in Chicago of Honolulu be vaporized before the Apologizer-and-Inappropriate-Bower-before-Potentates-and-Emperors-in-Chief gets reality?

It is these same leftist mice and monkeys that spew a political correctness (see cowardly liars) of violent tendency equivalence between the Koran and the Bible; Christianity and Islam; and Osama bin Laden and Timothy McVeigh. The blindness required for such dismissive scoffing would render Stevie Wonder 20/20, as once has to ignore the actual words of the respective holy books; travel back centuries to find Christian church leaders justifying anything approaching justification for murder; ignore the disconnect between what authorities within the respective churches say and don’t say about individuals’ self-justifications for murders vs the position of the respective churches (Christian church leaders and neatly ALL Christians denounce all murder and especially including forced conversion based murder or infidel extermination. Islams leaders are mostly mute); and the exponentially large disparity in the numbers of victims.

In fact, when the left cites those non-Muslim terrorists that they say prove equivalence with Islam, they really help prove my point as the exceptions prove the rule. All they have are the OKC bombing, a few (2-3 incidents since 1973) of abortion clinic bombings and 1-2 murders of abortionists, with victims numbering less than 200. All this despite the fact that a majority of Americans are pro-life. The non-violence of the pro-lifers is self defining.

What of the numbers of victims of Islam, in the name of Islam, with mostly cricket chirps in protests from Mosques? 3000 on 911. Thousands of others since since Sirhan Sirhan gunned down RFK in 1968. Billions spent by the peace-loving to defend against terror. Israel under constant siege and the threat of extermination by Iran’s Mullahs in search of the end of time.

The Books

But DeVine Law, why so much emphasis on the words of the Koran, and how about those village genocides in the Old Testament? After all, look at all those years before the latter half of the 20th century when the Arab and Muslim worlds were mostly benign?

I could mention that America was born partly due to the refusal of Americans to pay tribute to Barbary Pirates (see Islamist terrorists). I could mention that the oil to fuel terror was not discovered in the Muslim world until well into the 20th Century. I could bring up the Cold War between two superpowers that kept the Islamists at bay (but at too high a price given the exponential evils and slaughter of Communism).

I do thank God that most Muslims eschew the real Prophet Muhammad and the actual words of the Koran in favor of a “reformed” Islam that makes kill mean pray and holy war mean strive to do right. Thank God for blind mice, up to a point.

But words matter, both in Holy Books and Constitutions. Men are flawed. Men have, at times twisted the words of the Bible to justify heinous acts. Yes, the numbers of religiously justified heinous acts are dwarfed by the numbers killed by godless Kaiserism, Hitlerism, Fascism, Socialism and Communism, throughout history. But one murder is one too many, no matter the justification, and given the civilization-essentials provided by faith, and especially the Judeo-Christian version, it is quite dangerous for the truth to be transmogrified.

The fact is that the actual words of the Bible, Old and New Testaments, are not only the eternal, spiritual soul-saving truth for believers, they also form the basis for the principles that have made Western Civilization the tolerant and prosperous miracle of history that it is.

No admonitions to murder in the Bible

Nowhere in the Bible will you find admonitions from God or anyone else to prospectively kill. You will find some history of past admonitions at particular times and places in the OT. Moreover, nowhere in the Bible will you find any calls to convert or be killed.

The Koran can make no such claim. For this reason, Islam will always be a danger. Words matter.

So, we conservatives, who properly insist that contracts of all kinds, from home mortgages, up to including Constitutions, be interpreted by the plain meaning and intent of the actual words, must pray that Muslims choose the equivalent of “activist judges” to call black, white for us to have peace.

The better alternative, of course, would be for them to convert to a Book whose strict construction produces peace. Let us pray. But in the meantime, I would be willing that some of our liberal friends that have re-written the US Constitution to justify abortion and the Bible to justify Government loving my neighbor with my money, apply the same logic to the Koran and make jihad mean scoring Goal in the World Cup.

God bless.

Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer and Minority Report columns

“One man with courage makes a majority.” – Andrew Jackson

Originally published @ Examiner.com, where all verification links may be accessed.