Syria - Take 2

I should have known better. A generally accepted principle of negotiation is that you don't bid against yourself. Since I wrote my first blog on Wednesday about this Syria, the Obama Administration has been doing nothing but. For example, as reported in the L.A. Times:

"One U.S. official who has been briefed on the options on Syria said he believed the White House would seek a level of intensity 'just muscular enough not to get mocked' but not so devastating that it would prompt a response from Syrian allies Iran and Russia."

You have got to be kidding. They are kidding - that's the message sent to the Syrians and their allies: "Listen fellas, we ah sort of painted ourselves into a corner here and we ah have to do something that looks good, but we promise that ah you know, no one is going to get hurt and we ah, we would really appreciate it if you just look the other way and sort of, you know, just forget about it." 

This message was reinforced yesterday by Secretary of State John F. ("Friggin") Kerry who said that there is no military solution in Syria. Really? Then why the Sam Hill are we screwing around with 4 destroyers, cruise missiles, and probably some B-2s? Jiminy Christmas these guys are amateurs!

In the meantime, Assad is apparently packing likely targets with thousands of prisoners to make sure that someone does get hurt. Gee - I wonder what he will do if that happens? Cue the video..."Evil Infidels!" - take 5. Oh, and be sure and mix some kids into the scenes. 

At this point, in 3 short days we have bid ourselves right out of any useful military response in Syria. The other players all now know it's a farce. I would not now commit U.S. forces and potentially lives to the stupidity of our "position" in Syria. We don't have a position. Let's just admit it - President Obama and his minions are empty suits, have no interest or expertise in foreign affairs, wouldn't know a strategic U.S. national interest if it bit them in the keester, and just want to be left alone to continue wrecking (or "transforming" as they would say) the American economy. The world is going to get much worse very quickly and a day will come when the U.S. is faced with an apocalyptic choice because of our feckless leaders. This may well involve Israel. Elections have consequences and we are seeing them now. They are awful.

The Syrian Snakepit

The shouts are growing to do "something" in Syria. Unfortunately, it probably is but the potential for doing "something" turning into an out-of-control conflagration is daunting. First, why we need to do something - the Red Line.

A year ago President Obama issued one of his magic Mt. Olympus-o-grams that if CBW weapons were used by the Assad government in Syria, it would be crossing a "Red Line" which would trigger unspecified but presumably bad consequences. This President has a really bad habit of thinking that when he says something, it's done and he can move on and do the things he really wants to do like finishing off the American economy. Unfortunately, the rest of the world looks for consistency of actions following words and when it does not see it, they ignore the U.S. and do what they want to do. 

In Assad's case, with the active help of Russia and Iran, it meant brutally suppressing those in rebellion against his regime. Ultimately, this involved using nerve gas and killing a bunch of innocents, although there is some evidence (this is the snakepit part) to believe that it was actually al-Qaeda elements among the rebel forces that did it to drag the U.S. into the conflict. What to do? Why wring our diplomatic hands of course! The President intoned that it was a "grave" situation. Presumably no pun was intended. Secretary of State John Kerry pushed back his hair and called it a "moral obscenity." When this verbal Shock and Awe campaign failed to induce any material changes, there was the dawning realization that we might actually have to do something.

The United States is bigger than any particular President and its word needs to mean something. Even though I am convinced that President Obama had not a clue a year ago when he set the "Red Line" that he might actually have to back his words up, we now need to back those words up. The best course of action is to take apart the Syrian Air Force. The reason: it localizes Assad and if the rebels win, it also de-fangs them from causing major trouble, i.e. - Israel. I am confident that this mission is sufficiently specific that our armed forces can carry it out with dispatch. We can set a goal for when it should be done, but it is important to finish the job and not just follow a pre-set timetable. Now for the downside.

Putin and the Russians, as well as the Mad Mullahs in Iran, think Obama is an empty suit. They are probably right. This may lead them, however, to try something that will force a larger war because again, the U.S. is bigger than any particular President. A hypothetical.

We have 4 destroyers in the eastern Med sent there by President Obama. The Russians have a rather larger fleet in the same general area. We hit Syria with air strikes and the Syrians, with Russian technical support (ECW, cutting-edge anti-ship missiles, etc.) sinks one or more of our destroyers. Not only that, but after doing so, Putin gets on TV and warns us against responding - or else! Simultaneously, Iranian terror cells in this country cut loose with a series of terror attacks in support of their Syrian brothers. Service to Obama. 

If the world understands that the U.S. says what it means and means what it says, the likelihood is that the above scenario would not occur. George W. Bush may have been perceived as a cowboy, but there was no doubt in anybody's mind that he would pull the trigger if need be. There is no such certainty in the minds of world leaders today, though, and we are thus entering a very dangerous situation as a result. Pray that things do not spin out of control.

Time for a Change

Nidal Hassan was just convicted of butchering 13 of his fellow soldiers and injuring 31 more in the 2009 shootings at Ft. Hood. It was "no muss, no fuss" - "I did it so shoot me, please." I hope they oblige. Leaving that aside, however, other things have come to light in this sorry episode that are just as troubling.

Apparently the FBI's San Diego Joint Terrorism Task Force had made intercepts on Hasan's e-mails to Anwar al-Awlaki in 2008, well ahead of the massacre. Who is al-Awlaki? He is the guy that a U.S. drone greased in Yemen in 2011. The late Mr. al-Awlaki had been born in the U.S. and was known as the bin-Laden of the Internet from 2006 on as an active al-Qaeda lieutenant. Hassan was "extensively" e-mailing al-Alwaki, yet when San Diego passed on its discovery to D.C. the information sat for 2 months and ultimately was ignored. 

What is very troubling is that this is exactly what happened back in 2000-2001 when FBI field agents began sending D.C. odd reports of Arabs training as pilots in the U.S. and not learning to do things like land the plane. D.C. studiously ignored these reports and 9/11 was the horrific result. The conclusion is that the FBI will never be able to do this type of counterterrorism work well. It was true in 2001 and it's true now - we need a new agency that is tasked with nothing except Islamic counterterrorism. Until then, we can expect more terrible incidents like Maj. Hassan and even worse.

www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/08/27/Emails-Prove-FBI-Could-Have-Prevented-Fort-Hood-Attack

Observation Point

Gratitude is the mother of all the virtues.

G.K. Chesterton

Observation Point

Men must be governed by God or they will be ruled by tyrants.

William Penn, founder of Pennsylvania

It Didn't End With the Greatest Generation

Last Friday family friend Ben Cameron became Air Force Lt. Col. Benjamin R. Cameron. I am proud to know him and thankful that men like Ben and their female counterparts are guarding America's shores. Congratulations to Ben and his parents, Ed and Barb. Would that our political leaders be cut from the same cloth. 

The "Sea" of Galilee

Apropos of nothing, I was reading the Gospel of Mark and it was talking about the Sea of Galilee. When you hear the word "sea" it conjures up the idea of a rather large body of water, but I had never investigated to find out how big it really was, so it was off to Wikipidia for a little research. I used a lake with which I was familiar as a comparison, Coeur d'Alene, to give me a feel for how big Galilee really is. The answer - not so big, but big enough.

The Sea of Galilee is about 13 miles long and 8 miles wide at it widest. It's maximum depth is 141 feet. In contrast, Coeur d'Alene is 25 miles long and 3 miles at its widest and its deepest point is 220 feet. The surface area of Galilee is 64 miles compared to only about 50 for CDA. Because it is wider than CDA, theoretically the wind could increase the wave height over what might be encountered on the Idaho lake. 

I have been out on CDA in the afternoon in a 17' boat with the wind up and it can get rocking and rolling. You definitely respect the lake and stay attuned to weather changes. It helps put in perspective the Gospel stories of Jesus and the apostles coming across the lake and what they likely encountered. Doing it in a small boat with a lot of people on board must have been an interesting experience. 

It also helps put in perspective the character of Jesus and the disciples. Going out frequently on a big lake is not for pond sailors. You have to know something about boating and how to handle bigger water. A number of the disciples were fishermen from this lake. I have rarely met a fisherman that I didn't like and I know that I would have liked these guys, especially the One who called them. Maybe this was apropos of something after all. 

On the Record

For all you global warming fans out there, the new Farmer's Almanac released today predicts a bitterly cold winter for much of the Midwest and East, more mild to the West. We'll see - Mother Nature is full of surprises - but the fact remains that overall, temperatures have not climbed in the last 15 years. BTW, this hurricane season has been pretty much a bust too. Hence Al Gore comparing those who object to Global Warmism to racists, homophobes, yada, yada - he doesn't have a lot of science to back him up so name calling is the order of the day. 

www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/08/25/Farmer-s-Almanac-Predicts-Very-Cold-Winter

Coming Together

I have been on the board of a large church for 8 years and in the last several years we have noted an interesting trend. Although membership has held even or a little up, and giving has gone up, attendance at weekend services has trended down. 

One of the board members who is in a group with a lot of 30-40 year olds says that they faithfully attend the small group, but don't show the same commitment to worshiping with the larger church. Part of it is kids' sports becoming a year-round affair, including Sundays. Our church went to Saturday and Sunday services a while ago to try and accommodate this. A part of it is, though, they just don't see why they need to. Let's start with Scripture and go from there.

Paul says in his letter to the Hebrews: 

24 And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, 25 not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching. Hebrews 10:24-25. 

The context provides a partial answer - He wants us to help each other persevere in love and good deeds. There are certainly weekends when we go to church that I have got nothing left. At church I will meet someone or hear something during the service that will start to re-charge my spiritual batteries, whereas if I had stayed home, I would have stayed on empty. But what else might be behind Paul's admonition?

Perhaps Simon Sez. One of the things I like about Christ is that He was direct. He never presented loving God as some esoteric, otherworldly activity; He simply said, "If you love me, obey me." John 14:15. The premise of the children's game Simon Sez is simple - to see who is really listening.  The command to not neglect coming together may fall into this same sort of category. He can't transform us if we aren't listening. Feed the hungry, clothe the naked, come together... are you really listening? As you do these things, you begin to be transformed with compassion, with insight, with wisdom as to what is really important in life. If you love me, obey me. 

Then there is the Lone Ranger mentality. One of the common reasons given for not attending is that you don't have to be in church to fellowship with God. That is undoubtedly true, but if the Church is the Body of Christ in the world today and that means a team. If you are not a part of it, your gifts are lost to the Body and the honing of your gifts relationally with others is lost to you. Get in the game with the team! God is relational and at our deepest level, we are designed to be relational as well. Both sides suffer if we walk off and try to play the Game of Life on our own.

How about consumerism? Our culture conditions us to think like consumers and the Church needs to shape its "product" to our perceived "needs." The Church coming together is a tangible demonstration of Christ's Body to the rest of the world. This has nothing to do with what we want, but what God wants. We live in such a "Me-centered" world that rationale often never hits people's radar screens.  It's not all about me - us. Really. 

The Church coming together is also a foreshadowing. I do not believe that we just stand around in some heavenly choir for eternity. God is eminently more creative and busy and has made it clear that He wants us to partner (junior partners, of course!) in His work, so I fully expect that in heaven we shall all be seeing and doing things that we cannot now even imagine. There are times, however, when the whole family of God will assemble and worship God and doing so with millions of people of all colors and tongues and backgrounds boggles the imagination. Our corporate worship here on earth is a very pale reflection, but it is a reflection and He apparently wants us to get in the habit now. Who are we to say "no"?

There are other reasons to be sure why we as Christ-followers should not neglect coming together, but I think these are certainly some of them. I hope that they are a catalyst to thought and action. The team needs you and you need the team.

Obamacare Starts to Bite

Delta Air Lines announced that Obamacare will cost it $100 million in 2014. Any guesses where that will come from? You think ticket prices are steep now, just wait. But Delta isn't alone. Here is a list of some of the companies or governmental organizations who are either curtailing hours or benefits, or just laying people off: 

UPS (benefits)
University of Virginia (benefits)
State of Virginia (hours)
Youngstown State University (hours)
Wendy's (hours)
Subway (hours)
Forever 21 (hours)
Community College of Allegheny County (hours)

You can bet there will be more. Some unions are even saying that it's the end of the 40-hour work week. Yessir, the deft touch with the economy shown by this Administration and the Democratic Congress just keeps paying off!

www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/08/24/Delta-Obamacare-Will-Cost-100-Million

Sneak Attack

Al Gore, patriot that he is, sold Current TV to Al Jazeera, which is bootlegging this into a stealth U.S. operation. Now it appears to be actually showing up on network screens including Comcast, Dish, and DirecTV. On Dish, Current TV appears on channel 215. Check your local listings to see what is on Current and contact your network if you are not happy with the answer. 

www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Comcast-keeping-Current-TV-for-now-after-4166031.php

Church vs. State

Well, here they come. The Big Government Lefties at the Washington Post say it's time to tax churches. No more deductible charitable contributions, no more property tax exemption - no, the Government gets it all. Never mind the force multiplier that churches generate - that $1 in contributions is actually multiplied because of volunteers using it to deliver services and goods. No, Government is the way to go where $.90 or more of every dollar is used for "administration" and recipients are lucky to get $.10 on the dollar. Apparently the First Amendment means nothing to these guys. That shouldn't be a surprise because Karl Marx is their Chosen One and Che Guevara their patron saint. 

www.breitbart.com/Big-Journalism/2013/08/23/Yglesias-Wapo-non-profit-churches

King John has spoken - There shalt be no Native-American team mascots in Oregon! Thus saith King Kitzhaber while vetoing a bill passed by the Legislature. To which a spokeswoman for the for the Cow Creek Band of the Umpqua Tribe replied that the tribe questioned the need for solutions to problems that don't exist. What!!! The Great and All Powerful has spoken! Sorry, but I am with the tribes on this one. Incidentally, all the tribes in Oregon unanimously supported this bill. 

www.statesmanjournal.com/article/20130817/NEWS/308160003/Kitzhaber-vetoes-mascot-bill

Mr. Baseball

Well, at least Mr. Second Base. One of my favorite baseball players ever, Ryne Sandberg, Hall of Fame second baseman for the Cubs, was named today as the manager of the Philadelphia Phillies. I hope your managerial career is as good as your playing career. Good luck!

news.yahoo.com/phillies-fire-manager-manuel-promote-sandberg-184126516.html

The Egyptian Civil War

The Sphinx is mysterious. The current situation in Egypt is not. I wrote a blog piece on January 29, 2011 that events in Egypt have pretty much since mirrored. It said that al-Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood were going to slug it out and the military was on the sidelines but a counterweight to both of them. The Muslim Brotherhood via Morsi ran the show for awhile, but a massive revolt by the Egyptian people made it clear that they were not going to go back to the 5th century as planned by the Brotherhood without a fight. The Egyptian military agreed and it looks like a fight to the finish is now joined.

It helps to be clear about the situation. In any war, someone wins and someone loses - to the victor goes the spoils. There will not be a negotiated peace in Egypt. In our own Civil War, the South surrendered and the North ran the show for 100 years after. Japan and Germany lost and the Allies, primarily the U.S. and U.S.S.R., called the shots for decades. That is the nature of what is happening here. There will be no quarter given, it's winner-take-all, and that is why we must back the military.

Henry Kissinger once said that no great power has friends, only interests. He is right and the Western-trained Egyptian military has a worldview much closer to our own than the fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood which sees life through a feudal lens. The military just wants to run its own country; the Brotherhood wants to establish a worldwide Islamic caliphate. Which will be easier to work with in the long term? This is not a tough call. Which is why, of course, President Obama has come out for the Brotherhood. 

It is quite amazing, really, that the President can get virtually every call wrong in such a wide variety of important areas. He has sent Secretary of State off to try and re-start the "Peace Process" between the Israelis and Palestinians for the umpteenth time and which isn't going to happen. It is only a sideshow at the moment to the main act in Egypt. 

The leading Arab country in the Middle East intellectually and politically is Egypt and some semblance of peace only came to the Middle East when Egypt laid down its sword against Israel at Camp David. Some say that this happened because the Israelis told them on the QT that if there was another war like 1956, 1967, or 1973, they would nuke the Aswan Dam and flood Cairo. Leaving that aside, though, they did make peace and it has held and Egypt gradually began to orient at least little bit to a Western-way of thinking, which has been a stabilizing influence in a very unstable region. If the MB gains permanent power, this would all be lost and Egypt would begin its march back to the 5th century and probably take the rest of the Arab world with it. 

I hope that somebody comes up with a way to make supporting the Egyptian military seem trendy or cool, or whatever other basis the President uses for making decisions. If the U.S. is serious about stabilizing this part of the world in a manner consistent with U.S. interests, it needs to take strong steps now to support the Egyptian military and the millions of Egyptians depending on it to keep the would-be Islamic feudal lords at bay. 

Canine Styling

Mitt Romney had a minor dustup during last year's Presidential campaign for putting the family pooch in a kennel on top of their station wagon to take it on vacation. Apparently learning from Romney's mistakes, President Obama had the First Pooch flown in an Air Force jet to Bar Harbor, Maine. Military funding? Sorry, the Sequester. Government offices open?  Sorry, the Sequester. First Pooch? No problem!

michellemalkin.com/2010/07/17/obamas-dog/

It's a Miracle!

Filthy Filner, the sex-addled mayor of San Diego, has left in-patient treatment for sex addiction a week early. It is truly amazing what modern psychiatry and counseling can do! 

townhall.com/tipsheet/danieldoherty/2013/08/10/no-way-mayor-filner-leaves-rehab-early-n1660997

After You Gaston

The Obamacare bill provided that Congress and the Feds had to be covered the same way as the rest of America. As the effective date of this monstrosity approaches, Congress began to retch and took a shot at exempting themselves but scorching public opinion made them drop the attempt. But wait - it's Super Obama to the rescue! That's right, the Executive Branch has now announced that the U.S. Gubmint will subsidize premiums for  members of Congress, their families, and staff up to $11,000/year. Sweet! They are technically covered by Obamacare so don't have to take political abuse over that, but don't have to pay for it - the best of all political worlds! It is time to throw all the bums out in D.C. 

townhall.com/columnists/billmurchison/2013/08/06/get-the-hook-n1656918

The E-Post

Thus far, Amazon's purchase of the Washington Post has attracted some notice but not a lot of analysis. Perhaps it is taking pundits a while to digest the implications of this move, which in itself in interesting because I think this is the start of a major revolution in the news business. 

Print journalism has been stale for a long time. It has unable to deal with the internet and consequently has hemorrhaged readers and revenues. Jeff Bezos and Amazon know the internet, however, and I fully expect the Post to morph into a news delivery vehicle not seen before. 

To generate real news stories takes reporters digging into information around the world. You can't do this sitting at home in your pajamas and merely opining. Reporters cost money, as does the rapid turnover of polished website material. I suspect the final product will look more like a net-version of CNN but with no talking heads and much more in-depth reporting with advertising and tracking cookies woven into the fabric like Amazon does with its own site. We'll see - the public still has to buy it, but Amazon has done fairly well in the commercial end. If Amazon can't do it, then I am not sure anybody can. 

Isn't that Special!

This headline caught my eye in this morning's Oregon Live - "Improved Economy Leads to Pay Increase for Oregon Politicians, State Workers." Well isn't that special! I mean, why would they want to lessen the load on the private sector and cultivate an economy that is actually growing in a healthy way? Yessir, tax cuts are right up there with TB, hurricanes and nuclear war. Reward yourself first - that's the ticket!

www.oregonlive.com/politics/index.ssf/2013/08/improved_economy_leads_to_pay.html#incart_m-rpt-2

A Whimper Not a Bang

It's sad watching Alex Rodriguez's career end the way it is. The years in Seattle when he, Ken Griffey, Jr., and Randy Johnson led the Mariners into league championships were the most exciting baseball years in the Northwest. They were all tremendous natural talents and it's sad when a player like A-Rod decides to hit the Juice when there is the least sign that his talent is starting to slip. Welcome to the world of Big Money and what it can buy - men's souls. 

CIA Applies the Squeeze

Remember Benghazi? That's okay, at least half of America doesn't either. President Obama has labelled it a "phony" crisis, which begs the question why is the CIA going to such extraordinary measures to muzzle its people from testifying to Congress? 

Jake Tapper, formerly of ABC News and now at CNN, is a good reporter - one of the few in the MSM - and he broke a story yesterday that the Agency is flat out intimidating the 35 or so CIA employees who were at the annex in Benghazi when Ambassador Stevens and his bodyguards were killed. Initially a number of these people wanted to be subpoenaed to testify but have they have suddenly "gone dark" as the squeeze is applied. 

This is anything but a phony scandal and we still don't have a clear picture of what the Administration is trying to hide, but with these tactics we can reasonably conclude that it is big. As one possibility, Libyan intelligence has reputedly directly connected deposed Egyptian President Morsi with financing and high-level guidance of the plot to assassinate Ambassador Stevens. Since the Obama Administration was trying to prop Morsi up, it is more than a little inconvenient to have it come to light that he was trying to kill our people in other countries. We'll have to wait and see, but the truth however sordid will come out if good reporters like Tapper keep doing their job. 

townhall.com/tipsheet/guybenson/2013/08/02/report-cia-using-unprecedented-polygraphing-to-keep-benghazi-secrets-n1654411

An Argument That Would Fool Only a Lawyer

And a California one at that. The lawyer for San Diego Mayor Filthy Filner said that had his client received sexual harassment training from the city, his client's hitting on everyone of the XX gender that entered City Hall might not have happened. And also BTW it might mean liability to the city for claims by the women who were hit upon by his client. 

But wait, apparently FF had a rep for this in Congress too. Should Congress have had such a program? Where did this guy's parents go wrong? Keep your hand off others' stuff is a lesson normally learned in kindergarten. But wait - if only kindergarten ...

www.cnn.com/2013/07/31/us/california-filner-scandal/index.html