:: The Pentavirate ::

The Former Mayor of New York, Ed Koch, wrote an op-ed on Real Clear Politics a couple of days ago. Mayor Koch’s basic premise is that we cannot continue the War on Terror in Iraq by ourselves. We absolutely need our NATO allies along with allies in the Middle East to come in and take part in the defense against Islamist terror. He also wants the Iraqi government to pass a resolution asking us to occupy Iraq and continue the fight.

And what if NATO and the Arab neighbors refuse? Koch thinks we need to give them 30 days and then leave. Now Koch is for the war. He’s not one of those anti-war Democrats who are looking for a way for us to bail. He wants us there to finish what we started. Koch thinks that with the threat of not having the US to bail out our European and Middle Eastern allies, it will give them a kick in the pants to stand up and defend themselves.

Koch is absolutely right. We need Europe and the Middle East to wake up and take responsibility for themselves. With the exception of Tony Blair’s administration, all of Europe seems they’d rather slowly and sleepily give into the Islamisists rather than fight the tide. Now that might be changing. There seems to be a changing tide in Europe with the recent French elections, but it remains to be seen what we get in terms of real help. Koch is also right that we have to kick our Arab allies off the fence and get them to pony up support. No longer should Arab leaders be able to call us a friend to our faces and then call us enemies behind our backs. Koch is also right that the Iraqi government needs to formally ask us to be there and continue the fight. That forces the Iraqi government to take ownership of the fight for their very survival.

What I don’t agree with Koch about is the threat of leaving. I believe that we are committed to be there until the fight is won, regardless of of the help we receive. If we were to pull out, regardless of the reason, there would be a blood bath in Iraq and a major civil war. Also, there’s no way we can return to our shores and let the world go on its merry way. Long gone are the days of isolationism. I just don’t think it’s reasonable to threaten with leaving.

Also there’s that thing with Iran. If we were to leave Iraq, it’d put us in a terrible position in pressuring Iran with regards to their nuclear ambitions. We can’t afford to not have a strong military presence in Iraq.

But there has to be other ways to force the hand of these other nations. We could force NATO nations by threatening to leave NATO. NATO doesn’t seem to be much on supporting us anyway. I think Europe likes the benefits of NATO (ie US protection) but doesn’t much like the requirements of it (ie come to the aid of other NATO nations). We can withhold aid money to the Arab nations we’re allied to. We can withhold promised protection. There has to be a dozen ways we can play hard ball with these Arab nations. Likewise, the Iraqi government can be pressured to give us that resolution. The only reason the Iraqi government is in power is because of the strong US military presence and they know it.

I think we haven’t been getting strong allied support because we’ve let them get away with it. It’s time to play some hard ball and get it. We need to take advantage of some of these new more conservative governments getting elected around the Western World and force these nations to put up. The word should go out that their free ride has ended and they need to do their part.

Rep. Nancy Pelosi and Rep Steny Hoyer are saying that they are going to “aggressively pursue the “fairness doctrine”

Throughout the history of the FCC until about 1985, their “fairness doctrine” forced radio and television to give equal time between opposing view points. Even though it had been upheld by the Supreme Court because of the restricted nature of the public airwaves, more and more people began viewing it as an unconstitutional restriction of the first amendment. In 1985, Mark Fowler, then head of the FCC, repealed the doctrine because he felt it was in the public’s interest. In 1986 Congress tried to reinstate it but it was vetoed by President Ronald Reagan. In 1991 Congress again tried to reinstate it but ditched the effort under the threat of veto by President George HW Bush.

Now yet another Democratic Congress is trying to reinstate it. The reasons are very obvious. The Democrats have failed miserably to get their opinions out on the radio while Republicans practically own the AM dial. With the failure of Air America, they want to take away a powerful tool of their opponents by silencing them.

Of course it won’t work. President Bush would veto any such bill. Even if they could pass the bill, it’d cause everyone to simply stop listening to the new fair radio shows. Then again, that’s exactly what they would want. The problem is, it’s too late. The open airwaves aren’t the only place to get information anymore. It would simply force people off the public airwaves and onto satellite radio or the cable channels. People would get their information from Internet radio stations as well as pod casts and blogs. There are too many alternatives out there to do much, if any, damage. The only people it would hurt would be the broadcast networks that are already fighting to keep their news divisions in the black.

In the end, the only thing this would do would make the Democrats look like they’re trying to take away the free speech rights for simple political gain. That can’t be a very good image to portray. A new law like the “fairness doctrine” could very well have the opposite effect and cause them to lose elections. They just need to leave things alone.

In the interest of full disclosure, I’m a Mormon. I’ve been one my whole life. I served a proselyting mission for 2 years. I attended Brigham Young University. I was married in a Mormon Temple. I’ve lived in Utah off and on for the last 10 years of my life. So obviously this discussion about Mit Romney’s religion hits close to home for me.

As reported by the AP, Al Sharpton made a comment during a debate with Christopher Hitchens, an atheist with a new book out, concerning Mit Romney and his ability to be elected President because of his Mormon faith. Sharpton said,

“As for the one Mormon running for office, those who really believe in God will defeat him anyways, so don’t worry about that; that’s a temporary situation,”

Now Sharpton has tried to recant…I mean “clarify” what he said.

“What I said was that we would defeat him, meaning as a Republican,” Sharpton said. “A Mormon, by definition, believes in God. They don’t believe in God the way I do, but by definition, they believe in God.”

I have a real hard time reading Sharpton’s clarification into what he originally said, but it is important that he recanted it even if he didn’t admit that he was wrong.

Here’s the thing. Obviously Sharpton doesn’t believe in God the same way Mormons do. Most protestants don’t believe in God the same way Mormons do and we Mormons don’t believe in God the same way protestants and other religions do. So? What’s truly important is values. What values does Mit Romney hold? It doesn’t matter whether they come from a Mormon tradition, Catholic tradition, Jewish tradition, or a humanist tradition. If Mit Romney holds the kind of values that you’d like to see in a President, then he has a right to be considered for President. If he doesn’t, then someone else should be voted into office.

If a person will not vote for a candidate simply because of where his values come from regardless of what those values are, then that person is a religious bigot. Do we have enough religious bigots to make it impossible for Romney to be elected? I hope not. I like Romney for his positions and his values and I don’t care what religion he belongs to.

Everything we do here in our government is broadcast all over the war and we send messages all day, every day. I wish our politicians would remember this as they grandstand and take advantage in their pursuit of power. As Democrats have taken a more blatant stand against the war, I’ve worried how this is perceived by our allies as well as our enemies. Everyone in the new Iraqi government risks their lives to be a part of the new democratic Iraq yet how can we ask them to put their trust and confidence in us when the Senate Leader, Harry Reid, has already announced that we’ve lost the war in Iraq? How can we demoralize and defeat our enemies when Democrats force the president to veto the war spending bill in a political move to distance themselves from the war in Iraq?

This past weekend Al Qaeda’s number two man, Ayman al-Zawahiri, released a video tape mocking the US for its lack of resolve. He was practically crowing and bragging that he’d like to make sure the timetable is far enough out to give them a chance to kill “200,000 to 300,000″ more Americans before we leave. This video was released on Islamist websites all over the world.

What are they thinking when they play politics with our soldiers’ lives for mere political gain? Do they have no soul? Give our soldiers the money they need and let them fight the war we’ve given them to fight and let them win it. I believe that the vast majority of Americans do not want to lose this war. Unlike in the 70’s we don’t have the luxury of leaving and being left alone. If we lose this, the enemy will bring the war back against our civilian men, women, and children instead of just against our soldiers.

Democrats sent the new emergency war spending bill to President Bush yesterday. It’s interesting that they waited 5 days to send it just so it would arrive at his desk on the 4 year anniversary of Bush’s “Mission Accomplished” speech. Isn’t it great to know that they aren’t politicising the war? Anyway, President Bush had given them the guidelines of a bill that he’d sign. He said the bill had to have no time line and no pork. This bill contained plenty of both so he vetoed it.

So why did they even bother? Why spend a month drafting and debating a bill that will get vetoed the second it’s finished? Meanwhile the fighting men and women, Americans over in Afghanistan and Iraq, are running out of money for the things they need to effectively fight this war. The thing is, they wanted the bill to be vetoed. Democrats wanted to show their base, the far left, that they’re giving it a best effort to end the war but big, bad, Bush won’t let them. They’re trying to wash their hands of the war completely and place it squarely in Bush’s lap even though most of them are the very representatives and senators that authorized the war. They want to make it Bush’s personal war and not theirs.

How can any American in good conscience think that this is OK? If they truly thought that this war was wrong then they should simply end it and bring all the troops home. If they think that the war is worthy, then we should fight it with everything we got. You can’t sit on the fence with this one. Strapping our troops with these political games is immoral and will lead to American deaths. The left is constantly chanting how the War on Terror is another Vietnam. Is it any wonder when they are the very ones making it so? Politicians have no place forcing artificial time tables and overly restrictive rules of combat. Let the generals fight it and get out of the way. Only then will we have a chance of winning this thing. If you don’t want to win it, then bring the troops home tomorrow and stop killing them. There is no other patriotic option.

It’s been a long break. Life seems to be getting busier and more complicated all the time. Unfortunately the blog seems to have fallen by the wayside for the past many months and as well as for my partners in crime. I’ve decided to make a new effort. I’ve had several moments in the past few months where I’ve wanted to comment on something and I haven’t done it. So now it’s going to happen. We’re gearing up for the new election (can you believe the Democrats have had their first debate 17 months before the election?!?!?), nothing’s been done to close the border, funding the troops has become a political game, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are becoming increasingly unpopular, and Iran is thumbing their nose at the whole rest of the world. There should be plenty to comment on. So here I go. I’d also like to invite my partners in crime to come back and start posting once again. Just remember: We’re good enough, smart enough, and doggone-it, people like us!

I’ve been on a very long break. I’ve moved a couple of times and have sold a home and bought one and have started a new job and have had a million things happening in my life. Because of all this, I haven’t been writing in the blog for ages. I knew this midterm election was big but I just had to sit this one out.

Now it’s the day after the midterm election and the Republicans lost big. I just couldn’t let it all go without commenting on just what happened. Democrats ran a successful campaign based on “change”. They never really defined what “change” meant but that didn’t seem to matter to most of the Americans who voted this time around. In the last month or so when it became apparent that Republicans were going to lose the House and possible the Senate, the Democrats started trying to re-frame the election. Once they felt victory was assured, we started hearing about how this election was a referendum on the war in Iraq. This was a nice tactic for them. They, with the help of the news media, had the opportunity to make their victory mean just about anything and they chose to make it mean that the American people wanted us out of Iraq.

But is this claim really accurate? Was the election really a referendum on the war? I tend to not think so.

Republicans were brought into power in 1994 based on a conservative platform. The Contract With America nationalized the House elections and gave Americans conservative promises to vote for and Americans overwhelmingly approved. Conservative ideals were what people wanted and Republicans gave them a way to vote for them in their party.

In the last six years, most Republicans feel that those ideals have taken a back seat. During Bush’s time as President he has passed tax cuts and appointed great judges but that’s it. Spending is still going crazy. The border is as insecure as it ever has. The tax cuts were not made permanent. The private option for Social Security was squashed. Medicare ballooned with the addition of prescription drug coverage. Republicans haven’t stuck to the conservative ideals that brought them into power over 10 years ago.

In the last 2 elections the war was enough to carry Republicans. Now we’ve settled into being at war and the ignored domestic issues are being looked at once again and most Republicans are appalled at how little they’ve been addressed. On top of that, Republicans weren’t giving the people reasons to vote for them. They weren’t promising less spending. They weren’t promising a fix for Social Security. They were promising too little for border security. Republicans were giving their base nothing to vote for.

So did Republicans decide that it would be better to vote for the Democrats this time around? Of course not. They didn’t give their base anything to vote for so they stayed home.

So was this election a referendum on the war? Nope. It was a referendum on the lack of conservatism within the Republican party. Unless the Republicans return to their conservative base, they’ll continue to lose power and they’ll lose the White House as well.

Now here’s the silver lining. Having Democrats back in power, we’ll have an acute reminder of what we’ve brought upon ourselves. The people will be reminded that the Democrats don’t stand for anything. Republicans will have another opportunity to again embrace conservatism and give the people a real choice in the next election. If we can create a new contract with America, we’ll be swept back into power come next election and maybe we’ll finally get what we’re voting for.

UPDATE

Just a thought. If this was supposedly a referendum on the war, than why did Joe Lieberman, a pro-war Democrat that was his own party try to deep-six, win by about 10 points?

LINKS:

Scribeguy rightly pointed out that many of the Dems that won against Republicans were on the conservative side. I wonder how much of a voice they’ll have in their party now that they’ve served their purpose.

Blue Crab Boulevard noted: “I haven’t seen anyone saying the election was stolen. Had the outcome been different, we had already been informed what the reaction on the left would be. Nancy Pelosi and numerous left leaning bloggers had informed us of that.” - This is what gives me hope that the Republicans aren’t lost forever and that we can regroup and come back!

I received this over e-mail. I checked it out on snopes and got some more information on it.

Apparently 800 to 1000 students from Whittier and El Rancho schoot districts marched on Montebello High School intending on collecting more students before moving on to an official protest in Los Angeles. Montebello High School was under lockdown and so no students came to join them. Angry by this, the protesting students threw bottles and descimated the school. Then a group of students lowered the American and Californian flags from the flag pole and placed a Mexican flag on top and inverted the American flag underneath. The Californian flag was stolen.

Here are the pictures:

In other reports from around the country there were thousands of people protesting immigration reform and flying the American flag as they did so. Afraid that this might anger Americans (ya think?) for the official protests that happened on March 26th, organizers collected the Mexican flags and handed out American flags instead.

Does this kind of thing really make you angry? It’s just simply indicative of who these illegal immigrants are. Are they people that have come to America to become Americans and to make it great? Or are they Mexicans here to make some money to send back to Mexico that will remain Mexicans at heart? I think it’s obvious by these protests that have been happening all over the country. It’s not that I don’t feel for Mexicans that come here to make money because they’re starving in their own country. A guest worker program may be the answer for this and I’m all for a path to citizenship for those who truly want to become Americans but we need to stop the constant stream of illegals coming into this country every day. Until that happens, we’re just putting lipstick on the pig.

President Bush has been talking a lot about immigration lately. Immigration seems to be the hot topic this year. Thousands of people took part in an highly orchestrated protest 2 weeks ago against a bill that would take a hard line against illegal immigrants. Today, in the Washington Times, President Bush is quoted as coming out in favor of a path to citizenship for the 12 million illegal aliens currently in the country.

President Bush yesterday ruled out deporting the estimated 12 million illegal aliens in the United States and also praised a plan that offers a path to citizenship for many current illegal aliens.

“Massive deportation of the people here is unrealistic. It’s just not going to work,” he told the Orange County Business Council. “You hear people out there hollering, ‘It’s going to work.’ It’s not going to work.”

Many have characterized this as being a strawman put up to divert the discussion.

“Straw-man alert,” warned Will Adams, spokesman for Rep. Tom Tancredo, Colorado Republican. “There are so many straw men in the immigration debate that you think it’s taking place in Nebraska, not Washington.

“No one is talking about mass deportations,” he said. “Our approach is one of attrition where you make it difficult for an illegal alien to get a job in this country or to access our social services, so that over time, illegal aliens stop coming to this country and the ones already here go home.”

Here’s the deal. Frankly it doesn’t matter what Congress decides to do. Until they can reduce the flow of illegal immigrants into this country, nothing can fix the problem. First and foremost we need a barrier on the US-Mexican border. Operation Gatekeeper in San Diego would be a great model. We need 3 rows of fences with soft sand between them. We need to employ Unmanned Air Vehicles (UAV) like the Predator flying along the border at hot spots to direct border patrol agents to where people have crossed. We need to get them silent helicopters so they can approach them before they have a chance to run and duck.

Next we close off all services to illegals. You get no Social Security. You get no unemployment. You get no free education. You get nothing unless you can show you are legal.

Finally, once you can show that the inflow is down, you can provide a path to citizenship for those that have been here. Bush is right that we can’t deport everyone but an amnesty will do nothing unless we can stop more from coming illegally. They should set a threshold of illegals entering during the course of a year. Once we get down to that threshold, only then would the part of the bill that allows current illegals have their path to citizenship go into effect.

Patrick Moore, co-founder of Greenpeace, has written an op-ed piece for the Washington Post where he, surprisingly has now come out for moving our power from fossil fuels to nuclear energy.

In the early 1970s when I helped found Greenpeace, I believed that nuclear energy was synonymous with nuclear holocaust, as did most of my compatriots…. Thirty years on, my views have changed, and the rest of the environmental movement needs to update its views, too, because nuclear energy may just be the energy source that can save our planet from another possible disaster: catastrophic climate change.

Moore goes on to dispel some very common myths about nuclear power. These are myths that I’ve heard my whole life and I’ve seen them disputed but it’s surprising seeing someone from the extreme environmental movement making the same arguments. Moore makes excellent points and it gives me hope that we can come to a more sane balance between human progress and its need for energy and our responsibility to be stewards of this planet.

After reading this article, I can’t help but wonder: If after 30 years the environmentalists can be wrong about nuclear energy, what else could they be wrong about?