This Isn't How to Fight a War

I listened to President Obama's speech yesterday about the Underpants Bomber and to his credit, he clearly said that we are at war with al Qaeda on a global scale. So far, so good. But then he blamed Yemen becoming a birthing center for terrorists like the Underpants Bomber on Arab reaction to the Abu Ghraib prison scandal in Iraq. Sigh. One of the key components in winning a war is knowing your enemy. He doesn't.

The U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003. The reports on Abu Ghraib began coming out in 2004. If the President is right, then Yemen became a terrorist center after 2003-2004. Well, not exactly.

On November 7, 2002 a Predator took out some high level al Qaeda operatives. Where? Yemen.
www.commondreams.org/headlines02/1108-05.htm

In October, 2000, al Qaeda operatives blew a large hole in the USS Cole, a destroyer, killing 17 sailors. Where? Yemen.
www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/military/july-dec00/cole_10-12.html

And has al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations been operating in Yemen well before 2003-2004, sometimes with the cooperation of the Yemeni government. Well, yes.
www.cfr.org/publication/9369/

So what are we to conclude? Probably that the President's head is slowly coming to the right conclusion but his heart definitely isn't there. His first impulse in response to the Underpants Bomber was to call him an "isolated extremist." Even the President has now backed away from that. When you capture an enemy combatant in war (his words), the first thing you do is interrogate him for useful intelligence about your enemy. But what did the Obama Administration do? It Mirandized him and gave him a lawyer, at which point he quit talking to us. Can you imagine doing the same thing with a Nazi commando in WWII? Probably not.

Austin Bay, a retired Army colonel, has coined a useful distinction: lawfare vs. warfare. Organized criminal activity requires lawfare, i.e. - Elliott Ness, Justice Department strike forces, etc. Warfare requires soldiers. If we really are at war with the Jihadists, and we are, then it's time we turned from lawfare to warfare - we need the soldiers and not the suits.

Coulter and Hume in the Lions' Den

Ann Coulter is a bomb thrower. I like her writing because she can be funny as all get out and antagonizes liberals in a single bound, but she is like rich chocolate - a little goes a long way. In this piece, though, she comes to Britt Hume's defense and presents as clear an exposition of the Gospel as I have read in a long time by a journalist. Hume has been trashed for having the temerity to suggest on the air to Tiger Woods that the way to start putting his shattered life back together is to turn from Buddhism and to Christianity. www.youtube.com/watch?v=szVYlDSb7nM Hats off to Mr. Hume for publicly standing up for Christ and to Ms. Coulter for her ringing defense of him and using it as an opportunity to so clearly lay out the great news of Jesus Christ!

townhall.com/columnists/AnnCoulter/2010/01/06/if_you_can_find_a_better_deal,_take_it!

Thanksgiving - Part Deux

In the last year, daughters of two friends of ours each delivered very premature babies of 1# 8 oz. and 2# 2 oz. respectively. The last of the two went home today with "no monitors, tubes, alarms or medications" as related by his ecstatic grandmother. Thank you Lord and thank you all you neonate specialists - doctors and nurses! Great work by all concerned!

Medicare Need Not Apply

President Obama has cited the Mayo Clinic as an example of cost effective medical care. Now one of its clinics will no longer accept Medicare patients because the reimbursement rate is too low. This is before Congress implements further Medicare cost cuts to pay for the new health care bill.
At the local level, private practice internists are abandoning their practices for the same reason and going to work for providers like Kaiser Permanente. These are precursors of the massive changes in health care that are about to occur courtesy of the Democrats. Please securely stow all movable items and fasten your seat belts - we are about to enter severe turbulence.

www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aHoYSI84VdL0

Oregonian Recommends "No" Vote on 66 & 67

I am shocked, shocked. Really. The Sunday Oregonian ran an editorial urging a "no" vote on Measures 66 - 67. I have the link below, but I am heartened that finally Oregonians may be coming together to deal with fiscal reality and seeking to improve the climate for business and employment rather than slowly killing the goose that laid (lays?) the golden egg.

www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2010/01/wrong_time_wrong_tax_hikes_vot.html

Measures 66 & 67

We just got our official Voter's Pamphlet on these measures and I assume that you did too. Here is an interesting analysis done by an Intel engineer on state spending since 2001 that may shed some light on the necessity for voting "no" on these measures and putting the brakes on state spending. The graphs are self-explanatory. Since the 2001-2003 biennial budget, state spending has gone up 64.2% while population has only grown 10.8%. There is some interesting back and forth with a pro-spending blogger, but the essential point is made: Oregon has been spending too much for too long and for the benefit of the state as a whole in this recession, it's time to leave more money in the private sector.

thinkoregon.squarespace.com/news/2009/11/28/state-of-oregon-budget-growth-versus-population-growth.html

What Goes Around Comes Around

Science is losing credibility because it has been hijacked by a bunch of dilettantes running around yelling "The end is near!" There is a crisis du jour, or at least per decade. Think I'm kidding. Consider this, as reported by the redoubtable Mark Steyn:

"According to the CIA’s analysis, “detrimental global climatic change” threatens “the stability of most nations.” And, alas, for a global phenomenon, Canada will be hardest hit. The entire Dominion from the Arctic to the 49th parallel will be under 150 feet of ice.

Oh, wait. That was the last “scientific consensus” on “climate change,” early seventies version, as reflected in a CIA report from August 1974, which the enterprising author Maurizio Morabito stumbled upon in the British Library the other day. If only the impending ice age had struck as scheduled and Scandinavia was now under a solid block of ice. Instead, the streets of Copenhagen are filled with “activists” protesting global warming, some of whom torch automobiles in the traditional manner of concerned idealists."

www.steynonline.com/content/view/2760/

Science is going to have to clean its own house if it doesn't want to become just one more arena for ideological conflict with no credibility with half the populace. There are very real problems out there that need objective scientific analysis and reliable answers for policymakers. Right now, though, it is debatable whether that is the case.