Conservatives should accept that they lost this war. Had Gore been elected he would not have invaded Iraq – certainly he would have had open borders and politically correct enforcement of terrorism rules –but I think he probably would have done something about Yemen and Somalia – and would have killed the radicals in Afghanistan before they left to go to Pakistan.

Earlier today, the Danish cartoonist who drew the muhammed cartoons was almost killed in Denmark by a radical muslim. In the Netherlands those who speak out against radical muslims are routinely threatened and sometimes are killed. Eurabia is totally politically correct – in the UK they ‘needed’ to ban critics of islam (totally non-violent people) to be ‘fair’ to the radical muslims they also denied entry.

Under W the Detroit underpants bomber was let into the US twice. What did the US really do under W -- W refused to profile and pushed for amnesty. Politically, neither party will not stop radical muslims – and they are demographically growing at huge rates.

8 years ago, the simple approach would have been to (1) kill/capture Bin Laden, (2) force out Saudi control of Arabia since those people attacked us – allow a secular muslim leader to take power (no democracy though – mobocracy is not a good thing – Chavez, Hitler, Mugabe and Iran are why ‘democracy’ is not a panacea), (3) spend about 100 billion on Yemen/Somalia blowing up and occupying them – this is the cradle of terrorism, (4) jointly, with India, force Pakistan to give up its nuclear weapons – if they don’t – wipe that country off the face of the earth, (5) no more open borders – deport all non-citizens who attend radical mosques or have even the remotest connection to radical islam, (6) shut down all radical mosques in the country, (7) do not allow people who come to the USA to have their children born here to have an entitlement to citizenship, (8) threaten Eurabia – tell them either they deport their radical muslims (and strip those who somehow became citizens of their citizenship) or we will have to take actions in their countries including bombing cities.

Think of how things would be different had we done those things 8 years ago. 

What did we do after Pearl Harbor – we went to war with Japan (not some other country totally unrelated to Pearl Harbor). We also detained not only Japanese – but also Germans and Italians (the outrage is always ‘racism’ – it is really pathetic given what the Japanese were doing at the time – we could not afford any risks. The Japanese were brutal, brutal people – few US POW survived their torture – and the Japs even used some POWs as guinea pigs with live experiments (not just Mengele and the Germans did this). We fought a total war – and we won – despite the fact that we had to fight on the other side of the world (Japan) and fight against the country that invented both Jet airplanes and rocket warfare (Germany). 

The GOP used every excuse in the world to justify W’s bad behavior and complete incompetence. W actually said he did not think about Bin Laden – that is treason for a president to act that way. His administration also falsely claimed that the Iraqi war would cost no money (really that’s what they said) and that we won the war in Afghanistan by 2003 prior to invading Iraq (wtf??). 

Conservatives should not excuse welfare queens OR, even worse, people who spent trillions of dollars AND did not get the job done against radical terrorism. The GOP does – they support policies like amnesty – and are afraid to profile. W actually aided the Iraqis performing a genocide of its Christian population (people on TH literally will claim that did not happen – they claim that the Christians of Iraq remained stable in numbers, that they are really not Christians – they are fake like a Potemkin Village.   Certainly, people deny the holocaust, An Gorta Mor – and now the GOP is the party of denial of genocide of Christians.

So many on TH literally claim that fighting against radical muslims is harder than it was fighting WWII – but it is remarkably easier. Radicals have no modern weapons, advertise where they are, openly recruit people – it is just that the American character has changed. Conservatives – when alleged conservatives claim that the biggest problem we face is unions and ‘Obamacare’ – they lie (in the words of Joe Wilson). Union membership is what it is – if somehow unions make a comeback – why would that really matter. A comeback would still not allow for unions to be as strong as they were under Reagan or Bush I (let alone under Carter, Ford, Nixon and Johnson – when unions really, really had power). 

Even if Obama somehow got an exact replica of the heath system in the UK installed in the USA (that won’t happen – Dems do not support that and a public option is not the same thing as a single payer) that would hardly be a tragedy. If we adopted a heath system that the public did not like – I trust that the public would demand a change.

I have been called on TH a traitor and a socialist for merely reciting facts. What is treason is letting Bin Laden off, spending a trillion on Iraq, letting terrorists train for the last 9 years in Yemen and Somalia unimpeded , and not forcing Eurabia to either (1) get rid of your radicals or (2) risk the USA doing it for you. Many of these radicals spend years in Eurabia – Bin Laden did (in the United Islamic Kingdom), the underpants guy did (same place) – many of the 9/11 bombers did too.

Sadly, the Dems are too ‘pc’ and the GOP is too stupid (and wasteful) to win this struggle.

If we are going to surrender to the radical muslims –I have an idea what we can give them. Radical muslims hate women’s rights and gay rights. So, they would love to take over places like San Francisco and radical pc campuses (like Duke in Durham NC) – certainly, that would not be much of a loss to conservatives.

Obama’s association with bigots made little difference in the election. Because of ignorance of history and blatant bigotry, statements of people like Jeremiah Wright and Barack Obama are excused – and are even given the sanction of partial truth.

Slavery and separate but equal were not “good” things – but what do they have to do with “white” people? While those who owned slaves “looked white” and those who were slaves in the U.S. “looked black” slavery really only existed in a pocket of ethic groups. That is, almost all black American slaves came from a Region in Western-Central Africa – and almost all slaveholders were from the British Isles/Spain/France/Portugal. It neither involved most “white” ethnic groups, nor most “black” ethnic groups. To suggest otherwise is to assert cultural ignorance.

The ignorant and bigots, likewise, would observe that someone who “looked” a certain way would have had to attend a separate school, or stayed in separate inferior accommodations and would be denied due process if they could be transported back to America of 50 or 100 years ago – but would forget that the Duke Campus and black on white crime places people who “look white” in a clear position of being subjected to “worse” treatment. Scholarship and employment opportunities are what they are – they mandate different standards for different “looking” people.

Post-slavery, the “victims” and “perpetrators” were largely the same as the parties between 1700 and 1860. Immigration patterns are what they are (Southern/Eastern Europeans primarily went to the North, not the South).

On a stark level, what “history” of bigotry and racism do Estonians have in “oppressing” Sudanese? The answer is a resounding “no such history.”

Whatever America ever did to black Americans, was it really worse than being complicit in the unnecessary destruction of Dresden at the end of WWII? 

The answer from Obama and Wright is that “you” white people did (fill in the black). However, history and facts tell us that Obama’s ancestors were slaveholders in America – you would be hard pressed to find a Sami, Sorb, Estonian or Bulgarian who owned black slaves in the U.S. Moreover, a large number of Obama’s ancestors were English – a ethnicity that dominated Ireland for 800 years – and much of the rest of the world for over 200 years.

Some people do not like “black people” (though some bigots will distinguish “black Americans” from “other” blacks). Some people think all East Asians are good at math – and some think the Japanese are the “natives” of Japan (they are from China, the natives are the Ainu ethnic group). Ignorance, over-generalizations and stupidity is rampant. The worse form of bigotry is violence (hands down). Sticks and stones break bones, no name does that. Yet, political correctness on campus means that certain violence is “acceptable” because of “racism” – but even questioning affirmative action is not permitted.

It was noteworthy that Bush II told the American Public, when he was asked whether he consulted with his father concerning his foreign policy decisions related to going to war with Iraq, he indicated that he consulted a higher father. Evidently, God gave Bush II guidance on his decision to go to war in Iraq.

In a way, Bush II had to say this since his father’s book “A World Transformed” co-written by Brent Scowcroft explained in detail why invading Iraq made no sense. That book was published in 1999. The pitfalls of invading Iraq were not secret or unanticipated. Prior to the war they were well documented.  Scowcroft, to his credit, was one of the few Republicans to openly question Bush II's poor policy choices.

Richard Clark’s book is even a more damning indictment since he lays out the case that Bush II’s poor policies made us more susceptible to 9/11. Most Republicans can even justify the outing of Valerie Plame as a CIA agent since her husband was a “traitor.” Forget what dangers that posed to Americans. Similarly, Abu Ghareb was a harmless fraternity style prank. No accountability whatsoever.

I wonder how many Republicans really believe that God wanted the U.S. to invade Iraq.   If God wanted this, then there is a good case that God is a Muslim (or Allah) since the group that paid the heaviest price in Iraq was the Christian community.

Oops – I forgot that “everyone knows” that “they” are all radical Muslims. So, “they” got what “they” deserved. If you question that, you obviously “hate America” and are “negative.”  

Years ago, the Republicans were (to me) the party of logic, reasoning and facts. While many liberal Democrats made excuses for Soviet Communism (and would say things like the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. are “equally bad”) and would deny the atrocities of Stalin (remember the New York times in the 1930s?).   Also, the Republicans were correct (to me) concerning the excessive power unions had in 1980. 

Things are very different now.

Immediately after 9/11, when it was clear to me (and most people) that Al Qaeda and Bin Laden were to blame, I believed that we needed to use all of our power to kill/capture Bin Laden and wipe out Al Qaeda. I thought it might be a challenge, but I believed America was more challenged during WWII and during the Cold War – and we made it through those eras.

The world and the United States both understood that Afghanistan was proving shelter to Bin Laden and had training camps for Al Qaeda in its country. I was glad when the United States moved against the Taliban and went to Afghanistan.

Soon after, I started to get concerned. I heard Axis of Evil, in early 2002, Bush said Bin Laden did not really matter. Bin Laden did not matter? No other person had planned and executed the killing of more Americans – and had damaged critical places in this country. Pearl Harbor was no New York City or the Pentagon. Republicans joined in the chorus – he did not matter.

Al Qaeda succeed in terrorist attacks in Great Britain (an ally), Spain (an ally) and in Bali Indonesia (targeting mostly Australians – another ally). Yet Bin Laden did not matter. We needed to get Sadaam Hussein and to conquer Iraq.

I have heard many different reasons for this – some people believe that Bush and neocons wanted Bin Laden free to justify intruding on freedoms. Michael Moore suggested that the Bush family had some connection to Bin Laden. Others believe that 9/11 was a hoax. I never subscribed to those beliefs (though, ironically it might have been better if one of these were true).

I believe that Cheney/Rummy and the neocons really did not think it was WMD or that Iraq was a danger to the United States (there was very little evidence of either – and if these were real justifications for war we certainly would have invaded North Korea – a place that actually developed nuclear weapons and was developing rockets – also our troops were already in South Korea and Japan). I think that the neocons really thought that the war would be easy.

It is funny that GHWB had written a book only a few years earlier describing in detail the reasons invading all of Iraq in 1991 would have been a mistake. GWB believed 9/11 changed everything – but 9/11 did not change what Iraq was. It still was an artificial country that was secular in nature – run by a ruthless strongman.

When an economic advisor in his administration broke from the Bush “line” that Iraq’s oil would pay for the war – and he concluded it could cost $100,000,000,000 (a huge understatement) he was fired. AGAIN HE WAS FIRED!   Republicans did not care.

The first Iraq war, for a variety of reasons, did not bankrupt the U.S. – it did not cost all that much and many countries helped offset our costs.

Most Republicans to this day attack people who question the wisdom of Bush landing on an aircraft carrier announcing “mission accomplished” on May 1, 2003 are traitors or “hate our troops.” With that thinking, the Republican Party will never achieve power again.

Accountability should mean something. Just like the welfare mom who continues to have children out of wedlock – people making big mistakes should not be rewarded by the government.   When Republicans criticized teen welfare moms – they were called “racists” or hateful. Unfortunately, the Republicans who called those who criticized the Iraq war “traitors” or people who “hate our troops” did the exact same thing (but even worse). Rather than examine the issue, people were called traitors and un-American.

It became clear towards the end of 2003 that we were screwing up the war, and the cost of the war would be much higher than the estimates. Again, nobody was allowed to question the war. Even few in the media would do this. It was very troubling to me.

Iraq will never be worth the $2,000,000,000,000 cost. Simply, the spending cannot be justified. People also forget that war is very messy – thousands of innocent Iraqis have died in this war because of the acts of Americans. That was true in all of our wars – but in the case of Iraq it was especially messy since it was really a civil war as much as anything (and a civil war that GHWB said would likely happen if we invaded Iraq).

No President (to date) has encouraged the outright destruction of a longstanding Christian community in a country.   The Iraqi Christians went from being treated fairly in the Iraq pre-invasion, to being hunted down, killed, forced to pray in private, forced to flee, having clergy kidnapped and killed, churches burned, etc.

You might think that the reckless actions of our government were brought about by an administration which truly hated Christianity. People blame the killing of Christians on radicals – but if this were true why did this not occur until 2003? Why weren’t Christians being persecuted in Iraq before that time? How did they survive all sorts of Muslim empires over the years?

People forget that not all of “those Arabs” are Muslims (though there is no doubt most hard-core Republicans view those terms interchangeably). The fact is that “Christians” who do not care about the Iraqi Christians (and celebrate the new “democracy” that has fostered there murder and has imposed sharia law) are not really Christians.

These Christians were brought to the faith before all of Northern Europe and most of Eastern Europe. Some of these communities have been Christian for 1500 or more years.   Well now many of them are gone forever.

As I have heard many Republicans say over the years “who cares.” Certainly, Bush/Cheney/Rummy do not care.

Many Republicans viewed the inability to accept mistakes as strength of Bush. Again, why would that be strength? It certainly aided those who would shout down those who questioned our policies.

Today, most Republicans still do not care that Bin Laden is free. He does not matter. Some even forget telling me that we had already finished the job in 2002 when we decided to invade Iraq. Another technique is to simply call those who focus on accountability “negative.” Forget focusing on points, name-calling is way easier.

Thanks to Iraq, America is not equipped to deal with our economic challenges. When interest and future costs is considered, Iraq’s costs will perhaps exceed $5,000,000,000,000. If we did not have that extra debt, we could much more easily afford to spend and cut taxes to help our economy.

I am very sad that the Republicans have destroyed us – but I admit this is the case. While my party registration has remained Republican, and I voted for the Republican Presidential candidate in 1988, 1992, 1996, 2000 and 2008 – I do not think I was part of the problem. However, I am dismayed that Republicans have not demanded accountability.

Class hatred, Federalists, Whigs and Republicans

On a recent Rush Limbaugh broadcast, Rush stated a point I have heard for the last 30 years: union members simply “get too much” when they retire.

Defined benefit pensions have literally existed for thousands of years. Humanity has always understood that as we get older, some of us are unable to continue to work, while others might be interested in pursuing family or hobby interests. Auto workers, like many other workers, have traditionally had defined benefits pensions. Like many police officers, and other public sector workers, after putting in 25 years pension benefits can rival what people earned while working full time.

I have heard countless “conservatives” including Rush state that it is unfair that someone should be able to retire at age 55. Why is that? What is wrong with that concept?

Some rich people retire at age 40 with a lot more money than auto workers or police officers. Why do “conservatives” single out auto workers and public sector workers for their earnings?

“Conservatives” could have an arguable point if benefits were going up for retired union workers – but they are not. In the past 30 years, union and public sector employees have been getting worse and worse benefits.

Why do conservatives target middle class retirees for criticism?

At the same time, these conservatives defend an SEC that does not regulate at all (it would interfere with markets) and they celebrate no-bid contracts to politically connected groups (like Blackwater) and justify the non-regulation of hedge funds involving people like Walter Noel and Bernard Madoff.

To “conservatives,” Noel and Madoff are creative people using skills – but an auto worker is a serf that should be replaced by Chinese slave labor.

Much of the Republican ideology (which is every bit as strong an ideology as strident Marxism) touts the Noel and Madoff type of people of this world. The typical response to those who question the value of these people is “class envy” and “jealousy.” 

I have the experience of being around both working class people and Noel/Madoff people – nobody should be jealous of the idle rich with vapid values. Such people refuse to do any physical labor (how many fast food workers in Greenwich are from Greenwich – few) and ridicule those who have performed physical labor.

Madoff/Noel types offer nothing to society – they distort markets and hurt many middle class people who have pension funds tied up with their phony investment scams.

These people have helped seriously damage the Republican party (yes I know Madoff is a Democrat, and Noel is a Republican). 

Read the detailed memos repeatedly sent to the SEC concerning Madoff/Noel. Nothing was done despite detailed reasoning that the funds were clearly a fraud.

It really began with the focus on Iraq after 9/11. Those who understood Iraq knew that although it was not a “great” country in the context of the Middle East, it was not too bad.

Although Sadaam Hussein was certainly violent towards many elements in the country, his political party and philosophy was fairly moderate. Thus, women had rights as did religious minorities (Christians --- Sadaam’s right hand man Tariq Aziz was a Christian). No orchestrated violence was going against Christians. The law and the political system was secular, not religious.

Radical Muslims were great enemies of Sadaam Hussein. Both radical Shiites and Sunnis were great enemies of Hussein. He treated both very harshly. Sadaam allowed alcohol and allowed women to engage in work that they wanted.

Prior to 9/11 I questioned the Iraq war. My Republican credentials were strong – but I immediately heard amazingly stupid things from people I knew for 30 years. 

I was told things like:

We finished the job in Afghanistan, so we now can turn our attention elsewhere.

We will be greeted as liberators, the Middle East will have a great ally of America as a result.

The war will not cost anything, Iraq’s oil will pay for it.

The $100,000,000,000 pre-war estimate was way too high (turns out, way too low).

You are a traitor for questioning the President.

As a result of Iraq, the Republican party has forfeited multiple positions that it could bank on. Republicans were no longer the party of fiscal responsibility (the war costs were way, way too high). The Republican party was no longer the party with military expertise (No war, Vietnam or otherwise, was planned worse than this one). The Republican party was impotent to bring Al Qaeda and Bin Laden to justice (it made Jimmy Carter look like Patten or Grant in comparison). The Republican party is no longer “Pro-Christian” (no similar destruction of a large Christian community has occurred in the same numbers – but the Republicans simply could not care less).

So, this is what we are left with. Virtually all Republicans have a long record of not questioning the President at all. They no longer believe in accountability – while they could blame welfare queens for not having a work ethic – when the Bush administration continually made ridiculous inexcusable mistakes every excuse in the world was made for them.

The Republicans did virtually nothing about real issues such as political correctness (Bush pretty much waved a white flag to this one) and immigration issues (Bush apparently believes that because he never had a hard job that there are many jobs that no American will do, so we need to import cheap labor). The Republicans were stupid enough to believe that they could somehow recruit large numbers of “Hispanics” (mostly Mexicans) to vote for them. 10 years ago, it was obvious that, at best, maybe you could reliably get about 35% of the Hispanic vote – while that is not as low as the black vote (10%) it is still a lot less than 50%. 

The Republicans were too stupid to understand that Democrats could better appeal to Hispanics because of (1) better social welfare issues, (2) more reliability on quotas/affirmative action, (3) the fact that most immigrants, being poor, would support the party that is more poised to support “the poor.”

Demographically, how in the world did the Republicans think that the immigration policies would help them? If I could go somewhere to get preferential treatment it would be pretty tempting to seek such a place and vote for a party that more strongly supported such a program.

How in the world will Republicans have more than 40% of the vote in 10 years? 

Conservatives literally would be better off to quit the Republican Party and go into the Democratic party and try to support conservative Democrats in primaries since it appears that they will be unable to secure a majority.

Obama had less experience than any recent Presidential candidate and more baggage (to me, more than anything it was the Wright issue – which showed that Obama had crazy bigotry and chutzpah [knowing his family held slaves, and were not slaves, but believing that anyone with white skin is guilty of some historical sin]).

While I sincerely hope that Obama becomes a great president – undoubtedly should that happen it will be the death knell of the party.

The U.S. Auto Industry

Many conservatives are using the problems faced by the auto industry as an attempt to trash unions. They forget that unions have lost most of their power over the past 30 years and our manufacturing base especially is now tiny compared to what it once was.

Here is a simple explanation for why the U.S. auto industry has fallen apart.

Our health care costs have increased at a level much higher than inflation.

America counts on employers to provide health care unlike most other industrial countries which rely mostly on the government.

30 years ago, it was not unreasonable for either the unions or the companies to enter into the agreements that they did. Nobody could specifically know that health care costs would rise at a level much higher than inflation. Nobody would specifically know that our auto companies would all be in peril in 2008.

30 years ago it may have been reasonable to think it would even be possible to increase employees of American owned companies – so the per employee health care cost would not have necessarily have been so high.

Today, there are way more retirees than current U.S. owned auto workers. So, the companies have an incredible burden. 

To me, it is incredible that conservatives will say how terrible that universal health care is – and believe that employers should continue to provide health care rather than the government – but when it has consequence they blame the employees. Would conservatives rather that these workers had government health care?

It is largely the fault of the republicans that we have such high health care costs.

If these companies did not have to worry about the health care costs of the retired workers, they would be in decent shape.

Conservatives are pretty stupid to claim that American auto workers earn way more than Japanese and German auto workers – they actually do not. It is totally false to claim they do. But, the health care burdens on these companies are enormous. Our health care issues are unique to the industrial world – we do not see the same issues in Germany or Japan. So, whose fault is that? Conservatives claim it is the unions? – incredibly stupid.