Gracious in Defeat; Still Proud of America

I had contemplated writing my first post the morning after an Obama win and discussing why Obama will be a disaster, how McCain lost the election, how this election was wholly based on emotion and not issues, and how I think the country will be in a worse way for the next few years.  There will be plenty of time to write about things, things I will begin to write about shortly, including getting Mitt elected in 2012.  But for this post’s purposes I want to really speak from the heart and express the pride I feel as an American.

Indeed this is an historic election for the United States and even the world.  Last night American’s overwhelmingly elected out first Black president.  This accomplishment is nothing to push aside considering America’s history with Black’s.  150 years ago slavery was still prevalent and was only about to be defeated by Lincoln in the civil war, yet even after the emancipation proclamation race continued to be a major issue and the Blacks had little opportunity for success and integration into American society.  It was not until the mid-1900’s and the great civil-rights movement that broke down most of the barriers to Black progress in America.  I have longed believed that true-racism has largely been eradicated in most of America for the last 20 years; certainly there are pockets of bigots and racists throughout the country, but this holds true for whites being racist against Blacks and Blacks being racist against whites (see Jeremiah Wright).  But largely the it seems to me that race has been an overblown issue of late, driven largely by Black activists who need charges of racism to drive there personal agendas.  (I should write a full post about this, because we could even get into the actions of Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson regarding Obama’s campaign, but I digress).   Finally, my belief has been validated.  The election of Barack Obama as President of the United States should eradicate the overblown charges of widespread racism in America.  Issues of race will never be fully gone.  There will always be whites killing blacks because they are black and there will always be blacks killing whites because they are white; sadly, that is reality.  But race is no longer a systemic issue and problem in our country and Barack’s election is the culminating event in Black progress.  I think it reflects great maturity and progress in the U.S. and for that, and that alone, I applaud the election of Barack Obama and the American people.

So congratulations to President Obama and his family on his victory.  I now plan on spending the next four years fighting to get you out of the White House.  That being said, you have a great opportunity to win a lot of McCain voters, like myself, over if you govern as a moderate and pragmatically.  If you show that you recognize the importance of maintaining processes that made America great, like capitalism and small government, freedom of speech, freedom or religion, etc.  I highly encourage you to avoid moving full speed ahead and implementing a large left-wing agenda and socialist policies.  Doing such will alienate many of the people who voted for you (and in 2012 expect the GOP to nominate someone who is not near as terrible a candidate as McCain was).  You and your party have the opportunity to accomplish what the GOP failed to do in last decade when they had all the power, that is to uphold American ideals such as limited government.   A left-wing agenda is the surest way to defeat in 2012, even you had to run to the right to win this election – every Democrat does.   Best of luck for you and your cabinet, I will be praying for your Presidency.

The Dream is Over: Clinton Withdraws

Well, Hillary Clinton is reportedly withdrawing from the Democratic race for President, thus ending the most historic nominating season in at least the last 50 years, if not the nation’s history.  The saddest thing of all is that the Dem race will not continue on through the convention in August, and as a result, we will not be able to witness a truly meaningful convention.  Gone are the days when the convention meant something; when delegates would show up and have to be convinced of who to vote for and the nominee was chosen there.  While, I prefer the current process of allowing party voters to choose the nominee, it would be fantastic to see the race head all the way to convention and see real drama there.

So our dream is over.  We now have Barack Obama vs. John McCain.  I may just stay home on election day.  With Barack, I see socialist Europe becoming the norm in America.  A stagnant economy, massive taxes, and more government controls over our lives.  Barack is the most left wing of all the candidates and that will really hinder him in the general.

All that being said, there is still a strange draw about Obama.  Certainly, America needs a fresh, new face in the International Community.  John McCain is anything but new and fresh.  Also, it is healthy for the nation to switch between right and left leadership.  Nevertheless, the likelyhood I will be voting for Barack come November is slim to nil.  I am not a fan of Marxism.

However, things aren’t so kosher McCain either.  With McCain I see the same old.  More war and a worse economy.  For McCain, his choice of veep will mean far more than Barack’s.  McCain needs someone who can draw in a few moderates, help in swing states, and rally the base.  Sarah Palin is the best choice there and would provide McCain the best shot for victory.

A McCain/Palin or McCain/Romney ticket would secure my vote for McCain.  Other than that there are no guarantee’s. (Although I really like Jindal, but he needs to stay in Louisiana and rescue that state.)  McCain/Huckabee is the only ticket that guarantees that I will not vote for McCain and could push me over to Obama.

But what it really comes down to with McCain is that I just have this gut feeling that he would be a bad president and would not help the GOP at all.  I would almost rather suffer through 4 years of a Democrat, even as liberal Obama, than have the GOP further dragged down by McCain and digging the party’s burial site further.  If Obama wins in November in 2012, we Republicans will have a lot of great choices for President, namely: Romney (please oh please), Huckabee (ugh), Pawlenty, Sanford, Crist, and maybe even Petraeus (the only guy who could maybe pull me away from Romney, Jindal, and Palin.   The party would be smart to recognize what would be the long-term benefit for the party is, and I can’t say that is having McCain as President.  But I probably feel this way because I simply don’t like the guy.

An Absolut World Through the Reconquista

No, what you see above is not part of an underground La Raza goal planning briefing, it is part of the new advertising campaign for Absolut Vodka in Mexico.  Obviously playing on Mexican nationalist sentiments, Absolut implies that in a perfect world, about 1/2 of the United States would be Mexico.  This advertisement completely makes a mockery of national sovereignty and potentially only feeds the building sentiment in the SW U.S. and in Mexico about the re-conquering of “Mexico territory”. 

I am not one that typically calls for boycotts or silly actions aimed at making a political point.  I thought the call for a French boycott in 2003 was ridiculous and changing the name Frech Fries to Freedom Fries was even more so.  Even in this instance I do not call for the absolute boycott of Absolut, although I would fully support someone who made that decision on their own.  For me, the choice is easy, I don’t drink so I basically boycott all alcohol. Nevertheless, whether or not one chooses to boycott Absolut, at the least all consumers should contact Absolut and vent their disgust at such an ad campaign.  It is completely inappropriate. 

Now I recognize that this is just an ad campaign.  I seriously doubt Absolut vodka actually support the reconquista.  I also would not be so concerned about an ad campaign such as this if it were not playing on a real issue with a real movement behind it.  If they did the exact same ad with Canada claiming the Pacific Northwest or with Norway claiming Sweden, I wouldn’t really care because they are not really issues with any movement. But the reconquista movement is moving forward and is a real threat. 

I recognize that anyone that dares make such a claim is automatically labelled as racist.  Fine, call me racist.  Personally, I couldn’t care less what race, color, creed you are;  I just care about my country and preserving her sovereignty.  But even there I am not as hard core when it comes to illegal immigration or border control as many off my peers on the right.  However, I do believe that groups like La Raza have the ultimate goal of seeing SW U.S. return to Mexico.   Signs of the reconquista movement are everywhere, they were around back in the mid-1990’s as well. 

One of my favorite bands and perhaps the largest influence on me becoming politically minded was Rage Against the Machine (even though we disagree on practically everything).  They regularly sang about revolution and dropped jabs about reconquista and Mexican nationalism. 

In addition to La Raza, who tries to downplay their nationalist tendencies, there is also the Mexica Movement, who calls for the complete reconquest of North America by her indiginous people and the National Will Organization that calls for the standard reconquest of the American Southwest.  

While I personally think the reconquista movement is not a major threat at the moment, the more I read about it the more I think that there is the potential for trouble in the future; almost Islamic-fundamentalist like trouble.  Since the 1970’s and 80’s people have been talking about flooding the American SW with hispanics from Mexico in order to facilitate such a revolution.  While I think that on an individual basis, legal and illegal immigrants from Mexico come here with the intention of providing a better life for themselves and their families, there are well-organized organizations who are encouraging these movements for more sinister purposes. 

Ultimately, I am not ready to make the full leap into the conspiracy of the Reconquista, at least as a major movement, but it is something to be watched and monitored.  Controlling our borders is essential, but not to keep Mexicans out, but simply because we have laws about entering our country and they need to be upheld.  For me the issue isn’t immigration it is legal sovereignty.  As many hispanics, Mexicans, Europeans, Arabs, Asians, etc can come to our country as can make it for all I care, I just want them to do it legally. We have a process for a reason, use it.

 Hat Tip: Michelle Malkin

P.S. The people living in the American SW would likely fight to death before allowing Mexico to take it over.  The SW is prosperous, modern, and generally well governed and free.  The last thing they want is a country with the poor leadership and infrastructure of Mexico taking it over.  Mexico can barely run the land they have, let alone attempting to take over a huge swath of the United States.  What a joke.

The Hypocricy of the Left; More Mass Graves in Iraq

There are many reasons that I have stated in the past for why I think we need to stay in Iraq and not leave until the job is done. All of the reasons I have stated are valid and legitimate and make compelling arguments, but none is more important or compelling than the simple obligation we have to protect and provide a measure of stability to the Iraqi people.    This one reason alone is why it is essential to stay the course in Iraq and I find it extremely hypocritical of the “anti-war Left” to demand that we withdraw our troops out now.

The Left is suppossed to be the champion of civil rights, of peace and freedom, they are anti-torture, anti-totalitarianism, they criticize the West for not doing enough to protect people in Sudan or Rwanda.  They yell and scream over injustices as the U.S. pursues it’s interests over the interests of the developing world.  And they try to guilt us into spending untolds amount of dollars to “save the environment” and save us from global warming, a theory that is still widely disputed in academia.  Yet they have the gall to not only accept, but seemingly welcome, the inevitable horrors and, dare I say, genocide that would likely occur if the U.S.-led coalition withdrew from Iraq today.   Why?  All because they hate George Bush and, let’s be honest, the hegemony of the United States. 

So why am I so riled up about this today?  Because yet again mass graves of innocent people have been uncovered in Iraq.  Mass graves filled with at least 50 bodies of average, everyday Iraqis who were killed by Al Qa’eda in Iraq (AQI).  Not only have 50 bodies been found but that is only 1/3 of the orchard where likely more bodies yet remain and there are at least two more orchards that are believed to be burial grounds as well. 

So how did this happen?  Why did AQI do this? Read the following:

In 2006, al Qaeda in Iraq declared Diyala province the center of its Islamic State of Iraq caliphate. The Himbus area, with its fruit orchards providing cover from aircraft, became a major weapons storage area and training center. And it ruled with an iron fist.

“When they first came into the area, they said they were mujahideen fighting the occupation forces. But later they started forcing people to give them money and forcing them from their homes. People who worked for the Iraq Army or the Iraqi Police were punished,” said Sheik Abbas Hussein Khalaf, the leader of nearby Taiyah village.

“They imposed their rules: no music, no smoking, the woman had to wear the veil, and there were no wedding celebrations allowed. No one was allowed out after 5 p.m.”

Some people were shot in front of the people in the street, others were kidnapped, killed and put in the mass graves.”

One of them was a cousin, he said, the brother of the man who had escaped and told U.S. troops about the graves.

Mass executions, once associated with Saddam Hussein’s regime, became a tool of terror used by al Qaeda as it took over vast swaths of Iraq following the 2003 U.S. invasion.

So what makes you folks who are so oppossed to our continued presence in Iraq so confident that this same thing would not occur if we were to leave now?  or is it that you aren’t sure, but are so mad and ticked off at Bush and the U.S. that you don’t care or are blinded to the realities?  I suspect the latter. 

Do you think that AQI only did this because we are there and they are trying to get us out and once we leave they will be benevolent rulers?  If you do you are ignorant and stupid.   AQI was acting precisely as the Taliban acted in the 1990’s and there is no reason to suspect AQI would not do the same in future. 

Granted, things are going relatively well in Iraq right now.  It is far more stable that it was a year ago or in 2006 when these killings occurred.  But the security situation is still unreliable and uncertain, as evidenced by the recent upswing of violence in Basra. 

If the Left-wing of our country and around the world really cared about human rights, peace, and freedom they would stop demanding that we pull our troops home immediately.  They would stop and think about the humanitarian situation on the ground and the likely humanitarian crisis that would arise out of a result of our early exit.  

Now, I don’t care if you want to complain and hate on Bush, fine.  Do that all you want.  Blame him for getting us in to Iraq in the first place and criticize him all you want.  Even feel free to criticize our military commanders for poor strategy and planning at the beginning of the war if you want.  I don’t mind your criticism of the process or the initial decision making issues, but results are what matters now, especially when we are talking about life and death.  The left should be leading the call for us to see it through to ensure human rights and safety for every Iraqi person, those issues, so core to the current situation in Iraq, is what the left wing preaches everyday for the rest of the world, but apparently they consider the Iraqi people unworthy of the same support that is so freely given to the people in Darfur or other ravaged areas.  The left needs to do some real soul searching and refine their message in a manner that condemns the mistakes and ‘punishes’ those that made them in the whole Iraq process, but also call for whatever needs to be done to prevent a genocide in Iraq; starting with the maintainment of our troops to root out extremists like those associated with AQI.

Part II-War, National Interest, and Iraq

Last week I wrote about the first part of the following quote.  In the piece, I discussed reasons we went to War in Iraq, why we are still there, so on and so forth.  It came to my attention that it was really long and so with Part II today, I will attempt to keep it considerably shorter.  Now let’s address the 2nd sentence of the comment below. 

I guess my problem is I can’t honestly justify attacking a country for its oil when there are so many worse countries and regimes around the world. The situation in Darfur is much worse than it ever was in Iraq, and we don’t do something about it why?

There are two ways to address this sentence about Darfur and that is to discuss why we don’t get involved in Darfur due to interests (or lack thereof) and also to address the utter hypocricy by those who use this as a counter argument for Iraq.

First, let’s answer the question.  The hard and cold truth is we aren’t going into Sudan militarily because we have no interests there and because Sudan poses no threat to the outside world.  If you think that justifying war in Iraq was difficult, wait until you have to justify war in Sudan.  The reality, as cold and sad as it may be, is that Iraq and the Middle-East is of great interest and value to us and to the civilized world.  First and foremost they provide the world’s energy needs.  That is the only reason we have any relationship of a significant value with that part of the world.  If they didn’t have oil or natural gas we would treat and view them no differently than we do Mali or Chad. 

Today, admitting the fact that oil is a national interest and adding that it should be draws the gasp of millions people.  But why shouldn’t it be, we need it, the world needs it, and the middle-east has it.  But, people say, we are exploiting those people and making their lives worse. B.S., they and their governments are what determines whether or not their lives suck; how that money is used and spent is entirely up to them. I don’t see the UAEers or Kuwaitis complaining.  But I digress.

I completely understand the desire some have for more action in Darfur.  I have a great fascination for Africa, it is my favorite region to study.  I wish so much that we had the means and justification to use force to end genocide and ethnic cleansing. I remember studying the Rwanda genocide and then watching Hotel Rwanda and just being so disgusted with the actions of the western World and the inaction of the UN.   As I pondered those things, I realized the catch-22 the United States is in.  On the one hand, we are the world’s most powerful and prosperous nation.  Our people enjoy immense freedom and partake of democracy, don’t we have an obligation to help and defend those who can’t help and defend themselves?  I wish the answer were ‘yes’ and in a perfect world, we would do so.  But unfortunately, we just can’t do it.  First, if we did start getting involved militarily, where does it end?  Are we going to attack Sudan, then Uganda, Nigeria, Somalia, Eritrea, Myanmar, Zimbabwe, etc?  We would be involved everywhere and undoubtedly, both sides of the conflict would wish we would go home.

Second, we have limited resources, just because we have the largest military in the world, doesn’t mean we have the ability to fight multiple wars on multiple fronts.  Third, the entire world would be outraged and we would have no support.  We can’t force democracy through the barrell of a gun, no matter how much we may want to.  The sad reality is that there is only so much we have the ability to do and only so much we can legally do. 

This brings me to the hypocricy of those that make comments like this.  There are two hypocricies herein.  First, they imply the argument that that we should leave Iraq to go stop a genocide in Africa, they try to come across as so compassionate and caring about human rights, yet they they either fail to realize or blatantly ignore the fact that if we leave Iraq too soon, we would inevitably have a human rights crisis created in Iraq.  All of these people who say we need to get out of Iraq also claim to care about freedom and human life, yet are ok with us pulling out to make a political point and indicting Bush, all the while creating a major humanitarian crisis.  Fixing one humanitarian crisis while creating another one does not sound like a productive move to me.

The second hypocricy is that people who make comments like this want us to think they would actually support military action in Sudan.  This is utterly ridiculous.  These people will yell and scream for us to leave Iraq and say that we should be helping in Sudan, if we actually did it and sent our military in there, they would call us murderers, empirialists, etc.   Straight hypocricy. 

Finally, as I said earlier I have great affinity for Africa.  What is occurring in Sudan and other parts of that continent break my heart and is very sad.  The U.S. does need to do more, but we also need to do more smartly.  Throwing money at it won’t help.   I personally believe that this should be a EU and UN matter.  It was European countries who colonized that continent and they have a significant amount of blame on their shoulders.  The UN needs to allow their peacekeeping forces to use force when necessary, just minor force.  Peacekeepers are worthless if they can’t do anything to keep the peace.  We also need to put much more pressure on the African Union.  Most of the responsibility falls on the backs of those people and countries who surround Sudan.