Democrats will frequently bristle when I say they frequently bet on “the other side”, usually whenever a Republican is in the White House.
Can’t say as I blame them.
Just As Explanation
4
Category Archives: World
Iran
Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:
My Fellow Americans,
I’m pleased to announce a major foreign policy accomplishment. There will be peace in Iraq for the first time this century. By this time next year, there will be no American troops in Iraq.
Americans went into Iraq because our intelligence agencies assured us Saddam Hussein as stockpiling nuclear material to use against us. The invasion was a preemptive strike, but it was self-defense, fully justified by the evidence known at the time.
We stayed in Iraq to repair the damage we had done, to rebuilt roads and bridges and schools, to protect innocent Iraqis from opportunistic neighbors and militant troublemakers. America is not an imperialist nation. We don’t conquer territory. We don’t occupy it longer than we must.
Iraq is now a fully functioning liberal democracy, with an elected parliament and civil liberties assured by its government. They no longer need us to hold their hand. The’re ready to take their place on the world stage as a proud nation.
I’m ordering all US military forces in Iraq to submit plans to withdraw from Iraqi territory no later than December 31st.
Some may say our withdrawal is premature, there are still militants, terrorists, neighbors, troublemakers. But there always will be. Iraq’s troubles are not our troubles. The territorial, religious and cultural causes of conflict go back millennia. An American president can no more solve them than he can order the seas not to rise. The best he can do is get out of the way so the people involved in the conflict – Shia and Sunni, Kurds and Persians, Christians and Muslims – can solve their own problems.
Therefore, I declare to you: the war is over, and we won. My strongest congratulations go out to every man and woman who served: you made the world a better place. I’m proud of you all.
Thank you, may God always bless America, and good night.
Men In England Now A-Bed…
The tale of the Brits who, despite their government’s best efforts to neuter them, dealt with the terrorist attack in London over the weekend:
Of course, the Brits are lucky it’s a story that’s gone ’round the world; if it were regular street crime, they’d be prosecuted more seriously than the thug.
It’s something to celebrate – and take as a warning. “Progressive” government – in this case, one that strips citizens of their means and right to self-defense, rendering a citizen a subject – is a bigger danger than terrorism.
Poison, Picked
Who am I talking about?
- A group with a political point of view gains control of the means not only of disseminating the nation’s history – its very story.
- The official story is made to comport with that dominant group’s narrative – in schools, journalism, academia, even museums.
- They even bring the apparatus of the state to bear to enforce that narrative, squashing freedom of speech.
Am I referring to America’s universities and public education system!
Well, yeah – but not just them. It’s not quite that simple.
Freedom to Talk Freedom: If you’ve read this blog any length of time, you know I’ve had a longstanding fascination with the history of underdog nations and peoples – the land of most of my forefathers, Norway, as well as Israel, Finland, the Baltics (particularly Estonia), Denmark, Taiwan, and of course Poland.
Now, in Poland’s case, it’s not a story of absolutely unalloyed heroism; the Communist reign in Poland was administered and run by Poles – and there were wartime observations that some of the rural Poles living around the extermination camps were every bit as antisemitic as the Nazis themselves. And antisemitism didn’t end there; after the war, waves of antisemitic violence killed many of those who’d survived (including the leader of a heroic extermination camp breakout); in 1968, the Communist government of Władysław Gomulka expelled many of the remainder. While many Poles are represented among the “Righteous Among Nations”, they truly did face an uphill battle in large, rural swathes of the country.
Like all collections of humans, there are good ones and evil ones, and a whole lot in the middle that just wanted to survive, let along prosper, under atrocious circumstances.
That being said, Poles have for for freedom – theirs and others – since the 1700s. Poles were among the first Europeans to fight for what we now call liberal democracy, in their own homeland and ours (the American Revolution owed a debt to Kosciuszko and Pulaski). And the first tangible cracks in the Iron Curtain happened in Gdansk – in 1956 as well as 1980. There is much in the Polish heritage to balance the evil that popped up, here and there.
Poland is currently ruled by an electoral majority for the “Law and Justice” party – a party the media call “right wing”, although along with their rather fervid nationalism they have established one of the most expensive social welfare states in the European Union – which doesn’t protect them from the hatred of the Big Media, who links them, not completely inaptly, to Orange Literal Hitler Man.
And, as befits a nationalist party, they’re leading with the things that make their nation proud, and de-emphasizing the parts that don’t. Law and Justice is exerting political clout on controlling the narrative about Polish history that gets presented – via some means that should give First Amendment supporters critical pause. They’re not above a little Polish jingoism.
“On the Media” – which is to New York’s “elite” media what Pravda was to the Politburo – “tackled” the story over the weekend, with a series by reporter Laura Feder on the rise of Law and Justice, and the way they’ve exerted their control over the official history.
And it’s not all bad – it certainly helps that it’s not produced by the show’s usual hive enforcers, Bob Garfield and Brooke Gladstone. There are certainly some questions worth asking of Law and Justice, if one is a Polish voter (as I definitely am not). And a few that could be asked of “On the Media” and Ms Feder; while she covers Gomulka’s forced expulsions, she softpedals the notion that that was as much Communist policy as Polish nativist bigotry.
I actually recommend giving the pieces, above, a listen, albeit a critical one; the progsplaining and the “liberals wear the white hats” schtick gets a little galling at times.
But here’s my real question: It’s a bad thing that Law and Justice is blocking free speech to spread their preferred narrative, squeezing out the honest, complete telling of the story.
So when will “On the Media” report on the very similar effort on the part of the American Big Left in media, academia and politics to similarly control, and dishonestly skew, their own narrative?
The mainstream media – specifically, the New York Times’ – coddling Joseph Stalin, including the genocide in Ukraine? The Times’ embrace of Hitler, and the burying of the origins of the Holocaust? Their extended french kiss of the Soviets during the Cold War? The modern left’s strong-arm take-over of the American narrative in academia?
It’s a rhetorical question, I know.
That “Exploding Heads” Sound In Dinkytown Last Friday…
Actual anti-fascists coming to the U of M:
A global debate over democracy and Hong Kong’s relationship with China boiled over at the University of Minnesota on Friday, as Hong Kong protesters marched through campus in the state’s first known organized event.
The organizer of the march, a Hong Kong native and university student who remained anonymous due to fear of retribution, said he hopes to raise awareness in Minnesota about Hong Kong’s democratic struggle. The demonstrators spent the afternoon chanting and carrying signs that read “FIGHT FOR FREEDOM, STAND WITH HONG KONG” and “SUPPORT THE HONG KONG HUMAN RIGHTS AND DEMOCRACY ACT.”
Amazingly, the counterprotest wasn’t actually upper-middle-class white kids with “Anti”-Fa banners, but rather students from the “Peoples’ Republic”. Never mind them, they’re on the payroll for just that sort of thing.
Flip
Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:
Remember the case of the dog that didn’t bark? How come nobody is asking Democratic candidates for president what they would do about Syria, Trump, and the Kurds?
If everyone in the Washington establishment is correct and withdrawing is such an obvious blunder, then what’s the correct strategy? How many troops, where, for how long?
Tell us your plan: how many American kids will you kill to protect the Kurds?
Joe Doakes
The interesting part, for me, is watching Minnesota Democrats suddenly pretend they ever cared for the Kurds.
This Year’s 3AM Call
Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:
I’d like to see Democrat candidates for President asked to comment on this article.
Free people threatened by an oppressive regime beg for American help to resist. What should America do?
Liz? Joe? Pete? Anyone? Anyone?
Joe Doakes
They’ll do what Saint Barack did; equivocate and hedge and deflect away.
Hagiography
I was listening to NPR on the way to work this morning when I first heard the news of Robert Mugabe’s passing.
And I listened to the story, waiting for them to get to the bits about the organized thuggery, the North Korean mercenaries, the hyperinflation, and the collapse of the economy with its attendant hypermisery.
I waited through hagiographic hosannas about his “pan-africanism” and “anti-colonial vision”.
And I waited.
And I waited.
Eventually – two minutes into the story – it popped up. For a bit.
Even the NYTimes couldn’t see fit to bury the lede on this one.
Entitled
Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:
Illegal immigrants who snuck into Mexico detained at the border, angry because they aren’t allowed to continue to the United States.
Did I mention they’re illegal aliens from Africa? Desperately trying to get into the most racist nation on Earth, founded on slavery, hoping – no – demanding the opportunity to be oppressed by White Americans.
“Assembly of African Migrants.” If they ever get here, I’m sure they’ll make good little Democrats. They’ve already formed a union.
Joe Doakes
When the entire world believes being in America is an entitlement? The Progs have won.
Cold War II
Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:
Trump winning the cold war against China using a variation of the Reagan strategy: make them compete against our economy.
Liberals don’t understand our economy, so they don’t understand why the strategy worked last time and can’t see it working this time. Only someone with a lifetime of experience in capitalism can see it.
So any small business owner or self-employed person gets it. Whether that’s enough people to carry him to re-election, remains to be seen.
Big Left has done a good job of making sure there are a smaller proportion of people who understand much of anything, anymore.
Cold War II
Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:
President Reagan won the Cold War. The Soviet Union collapsed. He did it by ramping up American military spending, knowing the Soviets would have to try to keep up. They spent themselves into oblivion.
America is finally waking up to the fact it has been engaged in a Cold War with China for years, but we weren’t really fighting, perhaps because some of our leading lights were making a ton of money off China (looking at you, Joe Biden).
President Trump is fighting the Chinese Cold War using tariffs. And it’s working.
Earlier this year, China threatened to fight back by dumping US debt, which they claimed would destroy our economy. It wouldn’t and both sides know it, that’s a bluff and dis-information for Democrats to use to beat Trump for fighting a war they don’t want him to win. At worst, the US would repudiate the debt, cleaning up our books and leaving China with no leverage and no asset.
Now, President Trump has exercised his power to ban certain companies from doing business with Chinese.
Here’s the quandary for Democrats: do they acknowledge the war and help the President fight it? Or do they bring down the President to install their own party which will rule over the rubble of the country they sold out?
Joe Doakes
The answer to Joe’s last question? They go for power. Whatever that means.
Sovereign
Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:
Joe Biden, reacting to Israel’s decision to deny entry to people who advocate its destruction, said:
“I have always been a stalwart supporter of Israel—a vital partner that shares our democratic values. No democracy should deny entry to visitors based on the content of their ideas—even ideas they strongly object to. And no leader of the free world should encourage them to do so.”
But Joe, if you support Israel’s right to exist as an independent nation, then you concede it has the right to manage its own internal affairs, including deciding who to admit and who to deny. Otherwise, if Israel lacks that power, then it’s not an independent nation, it’s a colony and you’re playing the role of emperor, telling the locals what they can and cannot do. Which is precisely what you accuse President Trump of doing.
So why should I vote for you, and not for him?
Joe Doakes
The extent to which the Democrats need their supporters to be uninformed morons is frightening.
Just Like Australia…
For the past couple decades or so, anti-gun hamsters have been chortling that “Australia cured its mass shooting problem by banning guns”. They “Hadn’t had a single mass shooting!” since they banned most semiautomatic firearms.
The response for most of that decade, was “so far”.
At least four people were killed in the city of Darwin and several injured when a gunman opened fire with a pump-action shotgun late Tuesday night in several different locations, police said. A suspect was apprehended soon afterward, and has been identified as 45-year-old local Ben Hoffmann, according to CNN affiliate 9 News. Hoffmann was on parole at the time of the killings.
It is the worst spree shooting in Australia since the 1996 Port Arthur massacre, which resulted in the country radically overhauling its gun laws, and the worst gun-related crime since a murder-suicide last year in Western Australia, in which a grandfather killed his entire family and himself.
But…but…guns were banned!
Police confirmed the alleged weapon, a pump-action 12-gauge shotgun, “may have been stolen as far back as 1997.” Authorities are now trying to piece together how the alleged Darwin shooter acquired his weapon and any motivations he may have had for the shootings, which made front pages across Australia Wednesday.
Pass the word to your gun-illiterate friends: a 12 gauge pump action shotgun isn’t “semi-automatic”, there are likely at least half a million of ’em in Minnesota alone, and inside a room they may be even deadlier than an AR15.
The problem is, the enemy isn’t the right of the law-abiding citizen to keep and bear arms – even if that gun is an AR15, or a fully-automatic machine gun, artillery or flamethrowers, for that matter.
The enemy is human nature.
Touched By The Concern
Big Leftymedia is concerned that former ISIS fighters who defected from France to the Caliphate aren’t getting due process:
[Human Rights Watch spokesman Belkis] WILLE: The trials of ISIS suspects in Iraq are fundamentally unfair. We say this based on sitting through many of these trials over the last two years. And what we see is that defendants do not get any of their basic due process rights granted to them under international law, as well as under Iraqi law. There is absolutely no presumption of innocence when they walk into the courtroom. And many times, defendants are alleging that they have been tortured.
[NPR Middle East correspondent Jane] ARRAF: France doesn’t have a death penalty. In a statement, the Foreign Ministry said it would relay its opposition to sentencing the men to death. But it also said it respected Iraqi jurisdiction. The men were handed over by Kurdish Syrian forces to Iraq because the alleged crimes were committed in Iraq and Syria.
Due process is a human right, and it’s be disingenuous of someone who supports Western Civilization to say otherwise.
I’m just wondering where the concern was when ISIS was on the ascendant?
Minnesota’s Ongoing Humiliation
Ilhan Omar on the little matter of the barrage of rockets that’ve been raining down on Israel since the weekend:
How many more protesters must be shot, rockets must be fired, and little kids must be killed until the endless cycle of violence ends?
— Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) May 5, 2019
The status quo of occupation and humanitarian crisis in Gaza is unsustainable. Only real justice can bring about security and lasting peace.
Gaza is not occupied.
It’s not occupied because Ehud Barak decided to “give peace a chance”, and to give the Palestinians pretty much what they asked for. He pulled Israel – and thousands of Israelis – out of Gaza and gave it to the Palestinians. The hope was that it’d be a first step on a road to a lasting peace.
And – nobody could have possibly seen this coming, honest – Hamas and Hezbollah played it as a sign of weakness and poured weapons into Gaza, and have been using it as a staging ground for wave after wave after wave of aggression.
Ilhan Omar sits on the House Foreign Relations committee.
(That was normally the part of the post where I’d try to write something pithy or scary. And I guess “scary” qualifies).
Cultural Cleansing
While I agree with Sarah Hoyt that crimes against taste shouldn’t literally be prosecuted as crimes, and here in the US there might even be a First Amendment issue (justifiably so), I’ll admit I’m not gonna rip on the Poles too hard for this.
Venezuela Libre
Rep. Dan Crenshaw gives a better speech in Spanish than most Congresscritters give in English
So Proud To Be A Minnesotan
Ilhan Omar – perhaps the most powerful person in Minnesota today in terms of foreign policy – twote:
A US backed coup in Venezuela is not a solution to the dire issues they face. Trump’s efforts to install a far right opposition will only incite violence and further destabilize the region. We must support Mexico, Uruguay & the Vatican’s efforts to facilitate a peaceful dialogue.
— Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) January 25, 2019
She was basically parroting the Maduro regime line – that the Trump administration was imposing a “far right” government on the “democratically elected” government of Venezuela.
A congressman who isn’t actually an active disgrace to his state, Carlos Curbelo, responded:
.@jguaido is actually from a center left party. He supports human rights & the fair treatment of all people. He was also legitimately & democratically elected. You’d think a progressive would be a little more supportive. But no, the sick obsession w @realDonaldTrump is blinding https://t.co/Eh96qanAE4
— Carlos Curbelo (@carloslcurbelo) January 25, 2019
In her own way, Omar may be a dumber, more toxic sign of the times than Tide Pod Evita.
Priorities
Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:
Trump plans to withdraw the 2,000 US military members from Syria. Neo-Cons are upset. Defense Secretary Mattis is resigning. The establishment consensus is Trump is making a horrible mistake. Is he?
George Washington warned against entangling alliances. That’s pretty good historical precedent for Trump to bring our troops home. Yes, the neo-cons reply, but the world has changed since Washington’s time. We need to police the world. Failing to do so is isolationist. Failing to fight every battle means people will die, nations will fall.
So? The world, to Americans, means Christendom. True, that world has changed. Rome ruled for 500 hundred years before it fell. A thousand years later, England, France and Spain were the great powers; then the Axis Powers for a decade; then the nuclear nations calling themselves the Security Council; power constantly changing.
But England is no longer a great power (despite having nuclear weapons). It contributes a few hundred people to each global conflict, not enough to tip the scale. As a power, they’re a has-been. So are France, Spain, Rome.
We’re headed their direction. The economic and military domination we enjoyed after WW II is gone. We should stop pretending, stop over-extending. We should pull back to our own shores, fortify against the coming global crash, hope to ride out the long night while the rest of the world burns.
Socialism is a disease and we’re facing an epidemic. The treatment for an epidemic is quarantine: save the ones you can, let the rest die. Isolation is not a bad thing for a nation, it’s the responsible thing. Put America First.
Joe Doakes
I’m starting to think we’ll need that internally.
Build a wall around California, Illinois, and the mid-Atlantic states. And make them pay…
…well, no, let’s not get fancy . Just build it.
Un Proposicion Modesto
Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:
The government controls the lives of everyone living under its jurisdiction, so everyone in the community should have a voice in electing the government, right?
Hey, what’s the problem? Everyone residing in the community is affected by local government, we all have “skin in the game.” Why should the accident of birthplace give citizens special privileges not afforded to resident aliens, border jumpers, students who overstayed their visas and even tourists?
However you got here, you ARE here, so you should have a say in the rules you’re living under. Anything less would be un-American.
Joe Doakes
Take the Democrat approac to borders and the rights and privileges of citizenship to its logidal extreme and they really shouldn’t be barbering about Riussian “interference” in our elections, since the Russians have exactly the same rights as illegal Salvadorans have to steer our democracy.
Chefs On The Battlefield, Generals In The Kitchen
[SCENE: Mitch BERG is at his county elections office getting an early primary voting packet. He looks around and notices Avery LIBRELLE walking in. He briefly considers fleeing out the fire exit, but just tries to make himself look small and inconspicuous. It doesn’t work.]
LIBRELLE: Merg! Donald Trump is a traitor!
BERG: No he’s not. We’re not at war with Russia.
LIBRELLE: Yes we are!
BERG: How do you figure? Be specific.
LIBRELLE: They’ve been attacking our society and election system.
BERG: They’ve been attacking our society and election system since the 1930’s – ours and every one in Western Europe, with a brief break during the early nineties, maybe.
LIBRELLE: Espionage is a form of war.
BERG: Then we’re “at war” with every nation on earth, including all of our putative allies.
LIBRELLE: Merg! Merg! Trump’s performance in Helsinki was a threat to national security!
BERG: His press conference was a fairly awkward display of ego over common sense. But since you brought up national security, if you favor open borders…
LIBRELLE: STOP BREAKING UP FAMILIES! ABOLISH ICE!
BERG: …or ignoring the perils of untrammeled migration from Wahhabi-dominated regions…
LIBRELLE: RACIST XENOPHOBE!
BERG: …or getting real about China’s ambitions…
LIBRELLE: MCCARTHYITE!
BERG: …while obsessing about the Russians…
LIBRELLE: Dire threat to our security!!!!!
BERG: …but only in re Trump, and not Obama’s fairly shameful upsucking to the Russians…
LIBRELLE: RACIST!
BERG: Naturally. But when it comes to Trump…
LIBRELLE: LITERALLY HITLER!
BERG: …you all turn into George Patton?
LIBRELLE: Who?
BERG: [theatrically snaps fingers] Wait – this is Ramsey county? I’ve got the wrong election. Gotta go!
BERG leaves.
And SCENE.
Edge Of Our Seats
On the one hand, few stories have cranked my claustrophobia to 11 quite like the story of the Thai boys trapped in a cave for…
…gulp…
…two weeks.
But as this is written, the staggeringly tricky rescue is finally underway:
Senior officials told Reuters and AFP that six boys had been rescued, but this could not be confirmed.
Rescuers will now need another 10 to 12 hours to get ready for the next stage of the remarkable operation, Narongsak said..
The plan is to take the rest of the group out in batches of four within two days according to the Journal.
All of the rescued were examined and found to be in good health, according to local outlet The Nation.
The governor confirmed this, saying the health of the four boys is “perfect.”
Another local outlet, Kahosod English, said one of the rescued soccer players was being “closely monitored.”
The Thai Navy Seals posted on their Facebook page that four of the boys had been rescued.
Am I the only one who thinks “well, this is the 21st century” on learning the Thai SEALS have a website?
And of course, in a world that venerates vacuous celebrity, it’s elevating to know that the world still has some real heroes
Sgt. Major Saman Gunan wasn’t abiding by any orders when he joined the effort to rescue a boys soccer team trapped in a cave in northern Thailand. The 38-year-old retired Thai Navy SEAL did so by choice.
Gunan, who was working as a volunteer, passed out underwater during an overnight mission placing extra air tanks inside the cave, along the route divers use to reach the cavern where the 12 boys and their coach remain stranded and the oxygen in the air is depleting. He couldn’t be revived and was confirmed dead early Friday morning, according to Thai officials.
Hopefully this story will be over, with a happy ending, today.
Common Sense Gun Laws!
Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:
Gun control advocates insist that if we could have all firearms registered, and government permits for every transfer, then crime would be non-existent. Everyone would register their firearms, non-registered firearms would be confiscated, no guns on the street means no crime. Easy.
In the entire country of Mexico, there are only 3,153 firearms. That’s the total number registered for private individuals to legally own. I suspect that number does explain the violent crime rate in Mexico. But not the way gun controllers believe it does.
Joe doakes
And every decade or so, some of them figure it out, and move on to greener political pastures, to be replaced by a new generation that thinks they’ve discovered the holy grail with “common sense gun laws”.
Cultural Genocide!
Donald Truimp proposes to separate children of legal immigrants from their parents for 25 hours a week for instruction in American values – including traditions like Christmas, Easter, and of course fluency in English. Spokespeople for the proposal say that if immigrants won’t willingly assimilate to American life, they – or at least their next generation – should be forced to assimilate.
The proposal would also hike sentences for crimes committed in immigrant neighborhoods, and impose potential prison terms on parents who send their kids on extended trips back to the home culture for de-assimilation.
The left is rolling out its big guns against this latest Trump atrocity.
Durantied
Dennis Prager is fond of describing cases of especial daftness by saying “It takes an elite education to be this stupid”.
I couldn’t help but think of that in reading about this “Human Rights Law” professor
Daniel Kovalik, who teaches international human rights law at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, argues in a recent op-ed for The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that U.S. media coverage of Venezuela “ignores the fact” that the U.S. is the “greatest impediment to democracy” in Venezuela and “throughout Latin America.”
Kovalik asserts that the “true patriots” of Venezuela “resent” the “devastating economic sanctions” imposed by the U.S., claiming that a vote for current socialist President Nicolás Maduro “was a vote against U.S. meddling” in the country’s affairs.
“Venezuela’s electoral system…is an inspiring process that guarantees one person, one vote, and includes multiple auditing procedures to ensure a free and fair election,” Kovalik claims.
Liberalism: Credulity wrapped in illogic dunked in outrage disguised as virtue .