Category Archives: morality

Obama’s War? Part I

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We are now seeing the outcome of President Barack Obama’s foreign policy.  While he’s never actually articulated any policy, its tenets are clear.  Obama first began implementing it shortly after his inauguration four years ago with his World Apology Tour.

An additional tenet was made manifest with his “leading from behind” practice first employed when he voted “Present” during the Iranian people’s uprising later in 2009.  This was made explicit as the people of Libya struggled for so long to throw off a bloody despot and to achieve their freedom.  Europe was quickly supportive of the Libyan rebels in concrete ways, but they had to drag the Obama administration kicking and screaming to even background support.  In Syria, Obama stretched this aspect of his policy into “leading from nowhere at all,” sitting timidly by, tsk-tsking over the butchery of al-Assad’s murder of, now, 40,000 of his people, but doing nothing serious about it.

We got another tenet made clear as Obama elevated the UN, and through them Russia and the People’s Republic of China, to final arbiters of American foreign policy, particularly with regard to the Iranian nuclear weapons program.  This policy aspect granted Russia and the PRC the power to veto any meaningful action by the US.

The final leg of the Obama Doctrine appeared with Obama’s walk away from Israel—berating them for aggressively defending themselves (“they have a right to defend themselves” in the present Israeli-Hamas terrorist conflict rings hollow indeed); insisting that the Israelis withdraw to the 1969, and indefensible, borders as a precondition to negotiating with Hamas; refusing to meet with Israel’s Prime Minister while both he and Benjamin Netanyahu were in New York for a UN conclave and refusing a meeting in DC that later week or the next, to which Netanyahu volunteered to travel.

With this doctrine of rejection of American power and influence and its withdrawal, our and our allies’ enemies have grown ever more aggressive.  Rather than being a continued source of influence and stability in the Middle East, for instance, now we have the danger and open warfare.

The first overt event of the coming conflagration may have been merely a probe, a test to see whether this new American policy was real.  Our timidity vis-à-vis the Libyan revolt let that civil war go on for longer than it should have; a brittle, top-heavy, hated regime should have fallen far faster than it did.  The dragged-out civil war, though, left the new Libyan government weakened even more than new governments normally are, with far too many well-armed factions, both friendly and inimical to that government, in being.  The government’s weakness relative to the terrorist organizations (Ansar al-Sharif and the Libyan branch of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, for instance) was exacerbated by these terrorist organizations’ opportunity to use that extra time to accumulate vast amounts of arms alongside the legitimate rebels’ arming.

So, the test.  These terrorists were encouraged to take on the US, and taking advantage of the weakness of the Libyan government, they attacked our Benghazi consulate and succeeded in murdering an American Ambassador and three other Americans, potentially collecting valuable intelligence material, also, from the items so poorly secured through the fighting that for weeks after the attack private individuals and journalists (among others) were able to collect documents lying in the rubble.  The weakness of the Obama’s administration’s responses during and after the terrorists’ assault have been documented here, here, and here, among other places.  Given the success of Benghazi by the terrorists, and the lack of material response since then, abetted by the Obama administration’s confused cover-up of that attack’s parameters, there’s been a five-fold increase in terrorist Web sites inciting attacks against US allies and against the US.

Having seen the outcome of this probe, we get the following, and it’s more concrete than mere Internet chatter:

Egypt expelled the Israeli ambassador on a manufactured beef, froze diplomatic ties with Israel, and lifted several restrictions at Egypt’s border with the Gaza Strip.

Our enemies have not limited themselves to talking, however.  Having satisfied themselves with the outcome of the Benghazi test, the terrorists wasted little time moving forward, and we are now seeing the first overt blow struck against the US and our allies in response to the Obama Doctrine.

The Hamas “government” of Gaza greatly increased their terror rocket fire against Israeli civilian targets, finally forcing Israel to respond militarily: we now have Israeli air and artillery strikes against these terrorists’ rocket sites and specifically targeted personnel.  This war already is spreading in its scope and its participants.  Hamas is firing rockets at Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, reaching distances these terrorists had been unable to achieve heretofore, but now Iran is supplying them with the longer-ranged rockets.  Rockets are being fired into Israel’s Negev area from the Sinai—from within Egypt.  Of course, this could not occur without the active acquiescence of, if not outright participation by, the Muslim Brotherhood government of Egypt.

During this fighting, Egyptian Prime Minister Hisham Qandil travelled to Gaza and had this to say:

It isn’t a matter of individuals, not a matter of community. It is a matter of a nation. The Arab nation, the Islamic nation.  We are all behind you, the struggling nation, the heroic that is presenting its children as heroes every day.

Leading into that visit, in a demonstration of the fecklessness of the Obama Doctrine, US officials said that they’ve “been confused” by Morsi’s messaging but remain(ed) hopeful.

Further, while the Israelis had agreed to a cease fire during Qandil’s visit, Hamas continued their rocket fire on Israel.

And this:

Tunisian Foreign Minister Rafik Abdesslem visited Gaza on the heels of Qandil.

The decision by Mr. Abdesslem, like Mr. Qandil, to literally wade into the midst of fighting presents a bold—if symbolic—challenge to Israel’s government.  The political brinkmanship has diplomats worried that a new generation of Arab leaders, who are beholden to their voting publics for the first time, may feel compelled to take action against the Jewish state.

Neither men visited Israel; both nations are bent on Israel’s destruction and the removal of all vestiges of American influence in the Middle East.

And this from Israel’s Ambassador to the US Michael Oren:

Clearly, Hamas has felt emboldened by the changes in the region generally and that has redounded to their benefit.  The major problem as far as the Arab Spring’s issues impacts the ability of Hamas to import missiles is the greater accessibility to Gaza from Sudan and Libya.  And the flow of arms from Libya has been significant.  We’ve encountered arms already that have been fired at us that have been brought in from Libya as well as on the Sudanese route.  And the general situation in Sinai and the loss of effective controls in Sinai have facilitated the flow of advanced arms into Gaza.

Meanwhile, under the Obama Doctrine, we are turning our backs on Israel while continuing to send billions of dollars to Egypt.

 

Hamas and Egypt (to say nothing of Iran) are emboldened by the Obama administration’s first-term timidity in dealing with freedom in Libya, supporting freedom in Iran, responding to the al-Assad butchery of those 40,000, and his withdrawal from overt support for Israel.

Now that Obama has been reelected and, by his own words, is no longer accountable to the American people, those who’ve begun attacking Israel from Gaza over the last week plainly consider that they now have free hand with an isolated Israel that the United States no longer will support in any meaningful way.

American timidity in dealing with the Arab Spring, which originated as a series of rebellions against despotic governments in favor of freedom, has through our decision not to try to engage the region and help the rebels shape a truly free and peaceful collection of governments, facilitated terrorist groups’—Ansar al-Sharif, al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, et al., —ability to shape the region to their own ends.  This has made arms flow throughout the region far easier, and, with the Libyan situation as an illustration, created a new source of arms, also: those arms flowing to Hamas about which Oren is so concerned.

What can we expect from the future under the Obama Doctrine, given the events to date and the Doctrine’s continuation?  I’ll make some predictions in Part II tomorrow.

Obama’s Benghazi

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Here’s a chronology of the Obama administration’s…conflicting…statements about the terrorist attack on our consulate in Benghazi that included the murders of our ambassador and three other Americans.

11 Sep:

  • the terrorist attack went in, resulting in the murders of an American Ambassador and three other Americans
  • real-time com is established between the defenders and the State Department, during which the defenders clearly identify both the lack of any disturbance at all prior to the attack and the presence and use of weapons consistent with an organized terror attack
  • surveillance drones (in sequence) arrive on scene, also returning real-time data to the US government which confirm the defenders’ information

12 Sep:

White House:

  • President Barack Obama makes a statement in the Rose Garden:

Yesterday, four of these extraordinary Americans were killed in an attack on our diplomatic post in Benghazi.

  • subsequently, Obama, in response to a CBS interview question about whether he thought the attack was terrorism, Obama said “it’s too early to tell exactly how this came about.”

State Department: Secretary Hillary Clinton said the US was “working to determine the precise motivations and methods” of the attackers, while citing the protest in Cairo over the anti-Islam film.

13 Sep: State Department: Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said the department was “very cautious about drawing any conclusions” about who was behind the attack and what the motivations were.

14 Sep:

White House:

  • Press Secretary Jay Carney said “we have no information to suggest that it was a preplanned attack,” continuing, instead, to link the attack to protests over an anti-Islam film.

Intelligence:

  • CIA Director General David Petraeus briefed lawmakers, stressing a link between the anti-Islam film and the Libya attack.

16 Sep: State Department:  US Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice went on five Sunday talk shows to claim the Benghazi Consulate attack was a spontaneous response to a video.

17 Sep: State Department: Nuland, asked if State regarded the strike as terrorism, insisted “I don’t think we know enough.”

19 Sep:  White House: National Counterterrorism Center Director Matthew Olsen, in sworn testimony before the House Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, testified that the strike was a “terrorist attack.”

20 Sep: White House:

  • in an interview with Univision, Obama refused to label the attack terrorism. “I don’t want to speak to something until we have all the information.”
  • Carney, during the usual noon press conference, said of the Benghazi attack that it was “self-evident that what happened in Benghazi was a terrorist attack.”
  • Obama then claimed he had labeled it as a terrorist attack all along, including as he claimed in an October debate, in his Rose Garden statement.

21 Sep: State Department: Clinton described the attack as a terrorist attack.

28 Sep: Intelligence:

  • Director of National Intelligence James Clapper’s said initial information led the office “to assess that the attack began spontaneously following protests earlier that day” in Cairo, and that information was provided to members of the Executive Branch and Congress.
  • but, “As we learned more about the attack, we revised our initial assessment to reflect new information indicating that it was a deliberate and organized terrorist attack carried out by extremists.”

19 Oct: Intelligence: An intelligence official circulated a revised version: “extremist” elements were likely involved, but “the bulk of available information supports the early assessment that the attackers launched their assault opportunistically after they learned about the violence at the US Embassy in Cairo.”

16 Nov: Intelligence: Petraeus, in testimony before the House Intelligence Committee,  said that he suspected from the start that the attack was terrorism.  Congressman Peter King (R, NY) said Petreaus told the committee that the CIA’s original assessment pointed to “Al Qaeda involvement,” but that the line was removed after it left the Intelligence community’s hands.

Hmm….

Progressives and Taxes

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Not only do they still not get it, they’re already operating in bad faith.  Here’s more, via Damien Paletta of The Wall Street Journal.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner on Tuesday said higher tax rates on upper-income Americans were a central part of the White House’s deficit-reduction proposal because there was no way to raise enough revenue by only limiting tax breaks.

No doubt.  But that just means it’s a bad proposal.  Notice that this plan proceeds from a couple of false premises.  One is that the Federal government needs more money.  Another is that the only way to cut the deficit is to raise taxes.  (Putting on my best cheesy-ad voice) but wait—there’s more!

Mr. Geithner said there was a lot of “magical thinking” about the amount of revenue that could be raised by capping or eliminating tax deductions and exemptions.  He said this approach wouldn’t come near the roughly $1.5 trillion in revenue the Obama administration believes is necessary as part of a broad deficit-reduction package.

There he goes again, and with his own “magical thinking.”  Geithner’s magic is to repeat the fantasy that the Feds need $1.5 trillion in revenue in order to reduce the deficit.  In the first place, taking that much money out of the private sector will reduce economic output, which will continue, if not increase, the current unemployment rate.  In the second place, taking that much money out of the private sector will lower the amount of tax revenue flowing to the Feds, both directly and through that continued/increased high unemployment rate.  If the government wants to increase revenue, it must support a vibrant, growing economy—which it cannot do when it starves that economy of its fuel, which is money.

Then Geithner says, without a trace of irony,

When you take a cold hard look at the amount of resources you can raise from that top 2% of Americans from limiting deductions you will find yourself disappointed to the relative magnitude of the revenues we need[.]

I won’t repeat myself on his underlying false premise; I’ll just point out the equal truth of his statement from substituting “raising tax rates” for “limiting deductions.”

In the end, the only way to eliminate the deficit (and so to begin paying down the national debt) is to spend less than is collected in revenue, as any third-grader on an allowance understands.  The only way to do this is to spend less.  Only that third-grader would insist on an increase in his allowance.

Tax Rate Cuts and Economic Prosperity

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Stephen Moore, writing in The Wall Street Journal, makes anew a number of points about the effect of taxes on a free market economy.

1920s: the Coolidge administration reduced income tax rates across the board, including cutting Woodrow Wilson’s WWI top rate of 73% to a peacetime rate of 25%.

  • Tax revenue to the Federal government doubled: the share of taxes paid those making more than $100,000/year ($1 million in today’s terms) rose from 28% to 51%.
  • Minor point: the economy boomed into 1928, raising the income and standard of living for all Americans.

1930s: the Franklin Roosevelt administration raised the top income tax rate to 63%, then to 79%, during the Great Depression.

  • This extended the Depression.
  • Post-war, those continued high rates (with the top rate now at 90%, a level reached during the war) slowed down the recovery and conversion from a war economy to a peace economy.

1960s: the original supply-sider, John F Kennedy, cut tax rates across the board by 30%, saying the lower rates would “boost the economy, produce revenues, and achieve a future budget surplus,” and be “an investment in the future.”

  • Tax revenue to the Federal government rose by 8.6%/year.
  • Unemployment fell to an historical low of 3.4%.
  • Those making $50,000/year (Obama’s $250,000-ers) saw their share of those tax revenues rise to 15% of the total from 12% prior to the rate cuts.
  • Those making $50,000/year also saw their tax payments, in absolute terms, rise 40%.
  • Those especially evil Americans making more than $1 million/year saw their tax payments in absolute terms rise from $311 million to more than $600 million.

1980s: the Reagan administration cut tax rates across the board, lowering the top rate first to 50%, then to 28%.

  • The economy roared.
  • Unemployment fell from the Carter administration’s historic highs to 5.3%.
  • Inflation fell from the Carter administration’s peak of 13.5% to 4.8%.
  • Tax revenue to the Federal government doubled from $517 billion to above $1 trillion.
  • The share of total income taxes paid by the evil top 1% of Americans rose from 18% to 25%.
  • The share of total income taxes paid by the evil top 5% of Americans rose from 35% to 44%.

2000s: the Bush the Younger administration (re)lowered tax rates across the board, this time, for instance, from 39.5% to 35% at the top.  The administration also lowered taxes on capital gains and dividends significantly.

  • Tax revenue to the Federal government rose by $780 billion.
  • Tax payments by millionaires generally doubled: the booming economy both created more millionaires and sharply increased their incomes.
  • The share of total income taxes paid by the evil top 1% of Americans rose from 35% to 41%.

The problem is, though, that President Obama and his fellow Progressives are fully aware of these data.  One has to wonder at Obama’s motives for demanding to raise tax rates.

Progressive Free Speech

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Here’s an example of Progressive free speech.  Todd Starnes, of Fox News, reported last week that two public school teachers are being investigated for posting messages critical of President Barack Obama on social networking sites.

A Rock Hill, SC, junior high math teacher is now on forced-leave because she disparaged, on her personal Facebook page, Obama and his food stamps:

Congrats Obama.  As one of my students sang down the hallway, “We get to keep our food stamps….”  [W]hich I pay for because they can’t budget their money…and really, neither can you.

School officials said that some folks had had their feelings hurt by this personal speech, so the school forced her onto leave and to apologize.  Though, with her having done nothing wrong, I’m at a loss to understand why she apologized.  I also am mystified by the teacher’s union’s silence on the matter.

The school’s spokeswoman said,

Sometimes you just can’t speak out publicly about what you’d personally like to say, about anything….

And she said that with a straight face, too.

A Columbus, OH, high school teacher is in similar hot water.  His evil message:

Congrats to those dependent on government, homosexuals, potheads, JAY-Z fans, non-Christians, non-taxpayers, illegals, communists, Muslims, planned murder clinics, enemies of America, Satan You WON….

Stupid, to be sure, but free speech, in some circles, means being free from having one’s thin skin pricked.