Cat wash

 

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Herman Cain wins straw poll in Florida

Perry 2nd.

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Fwd: Recent Articles

Dear Friends,

Please find below three recent pieces. The first is a dispatch for Weekly Standard about my recent trip to Egypt. The second piece, in the Washington Post, regards the announcement by the dictator of Belarus that he will release the last of his political prisoners. And the third, for the iPad-only newspaper The Daily, imagines a "what if" scenario had NATO not intervened in Libya.  

Best,

Jamie

http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/people-no_594152.html

The Weekly Standard
The People, No
Egypt's populist problem.
James Kirchick
October 3, 2011, Vol. 17, No. 03
 
Cairo 

On September 9, a mob of Egyptian protesters stormed the Israeli embassy here, necessitating the emergency evacuation of the ambassador, most of his staff, and their families. The attack represents a significant downturn in relations between Egypt and the Jewish state, a relationship that was bound to get more complicated when President Hosni Mubarak—steadfast American ally and mainstay of a three-decade cold peace with Israel—stepped down on February 11 in response to massive protests and pressure from the military. 

The military rulers who succeeded Mubarak would not pick up the phone calls of frantic Israeli officials until President Barack Obama—at the urgent request of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu—intervened. This matters because it is the army—recipient of more than $1 billion in annual American aid, overseer of the country, upholder of the Camp David accords—whose interests, at least according to conventional wisdom, require it to prevent conflict with Israel. 

I received a foretaste of the attacks in late August, when I attended a protest at the Israeli embassy. The demonstration was ostensibly a reaction to Israel's counterterror raid in the Sinai Peninsula several days earlier, which had unintentionally left several Egyptian border guards dead. Two things struck me about the demonstration. The first was that the vast majority of the protesters were not Islamic extremists, but precisely the sort of young, middle-class, Twittering revolutionaries who had taken to Tahrir Square earlier in the year demanding liberal reforms. The "new" Egypt they want is one which seeks confrontation with Israel. The second thing that struck me was that there was no military presence outside the embassy. It was only a matter of time, I thought, before the embassy was besieged, as happened just two weeks later. 

Even if there is broad agreement in Egypt that the Camp David treaty should be amended, Egypt's liberals and Islamists have competing visions for the future of their country, which will determine the upcoming parliamentary and presidential elections. But much of the groundwork for the post-Mubarak order has already been set, and the emerging picture is not reassuring to those wishing to see a secular, democratic, liberal Egypt at peace with its neighbors and itself. On a whole host of issues—from containing Iran to the advancement of liberal values in the Arab world, as well as peace with Israel—the situation in Egypt today is a far cry from the high expectations so many had invested in it after the revolution.

Essam el-Erian is the most charismatic man I've met in Egypt. A senior leader of the Muslim Brotherhood who was imprisoned eight times by the Mubarak regime, Erian is the vice president of the Freedom and Justice party, the nominally independent faction running in the parliamentary elections as a Brotherhood front. Typically characterized as a "reformist," Erian seems to fit the bill, telling me that "all Egyptians are invited now in building the country" and dispelling any notion I might have that Egypt will ever become a "clerical regime." 

There are signs pointing to a massive Brotherhood electoral victory. In the 2005 parliamentary elections, when they were under significant repression, the Brotherhood's candidates won a respectable 20 percent of the seats. Now that the organization is free to campaign, estimates that many liberals offer of a 20 to 25 percent Brotherhood share of the vote seem optimistically small. 

Reformist or otherwise, Erian and the group for which he speaks have a disquieting vision of the future, and his views on regional politics pose a defiant challenge to the American-led order. "The Iranian regime says all the time it wants nuclear knowledge for peaceful issues. And I trust this," he tells me. When I say that other Arab governments have long warned about an Iranian nuclear weapons program, and that those concerns were seen most clearly in diplomatic cables released via WikiLeaks last year, he suggests that these were not authentic documents but forgeries orchestrated by "the West to isolate Iran." As for Hamas, the State Department-listed terrorist organization is, according to Erian, "a resistance group fighting for freedom and liberation of their lands from occupation." 

Some in America and Europe argue that the seed for the Arab Spring was planted with the Iraq war, which created the space for the first free elections in the Arab world. Erian agrees that Iraq played a role in Egypt's revolution, but he sees it differently. "The failure of importing democracy in Iraq after the invasion and the millions killed by Americans and the torture of people in Abu Ghraib was a very big and strong message to the Arab world to revolt," he told me, turning the premise of my question on its head. The ongoing revolts, while ostensibly directed at Arab leaders, he says, have really been pointed towards "the overwhelming strategy of America in the region." When I ask him what that strategy is, he lists three tenets. "Support [for] dictatorships. Having oil at low prices. Supporting Israel." 

The Brotherhood, long held up by Mubarak as the bogeyman that would rule the country should he be deposed, seems at first to have been taken by surprise by the uprising that toppled the former Egyptian president. Yet that has hardly stopped the organization from asserting itself, to the consternation of the liberals who believe, correctly, that they were the ones who brought down Mubarak. 

In late July, tens of thousands of Islamists held a demonstration in Tahrir Square calling for an Islamic state. It was the biggest protest by far since the initial ones in late January and early February. In addition to the Brotherhood, the other major faction in the square that day were Salafists, more overtly extreme Islamists who reject the Brotherhood's preferred strategy of a patient and nonviolent approach to establishing a Muslim state. Salafists are not organized under one banner, though at least one official Salafist party, El Nour ("Light"), will be competing in the elections. They will cooperate with the Brotherhood in parliament, adding to the Islamists' collective electoral strength. 

"The traditional thinking in the Muslim Brotherhood is close to being a more conservative state, not like the Iranian model but not also a model like Turkey, something in between," Abou Elela Mady, a former Brotherhood member who is now leader of the relatively moderate Islamist El Wasat ("Center") party, told me. 

Mady left the Brotherhood 17 years ago because he disagreed with its "mixing" the "preaching job and political job." This critique has become more pronounced in the wake of the Brotherhood's formal entry into politics, with the most vocal, internal critics found amongst its youth wing. They speak of a group that polices its ranks in a highly authoritarian manner, which doesn't bode well for how it might govern the country. Mohamed el-Kassas is another critic. A thirtysomething businessman who joined the Brotherhood as a college student, he was expelled from the organization earlier this year after he advocated that members be allowed to join political parties other than the Brotherhood's front group. Kassas is now trying to form his own party, which would keep religion and politics separate. Like many, he praises Turkey as an example of the sort of Muslim democracy Egypt might become. "I believe in a civil state, secular democracy, modernization. But at the end," he says, "you have to remember that we respect religion."

While the Brotherhood's quest for power has disappointed some of its members, it's unlikely to play any significant role in weakening the organization as a force in Egyptian politics. After all, political power is what it has always sought. It's doubtful that the number of members who have left the organization in frustration over its hegemonic intentions is significant. And whatever numbers the Brotherhood has lost as a result of its aggressive politicking, it has more than made up for them through the establishment of the National Democratic Alliance for Egypt, an electoral coalition of over 30 parties, including one of the most prominent liberal parties in the country, El Ghad. 

That El Ghad ("Tomorrow") has entered into an alliance with the Brotherhood will probably discomfit some of the Western observers who have long admired its leader, Ayman Nour, a former member of the Egyptian parliament who challenged Mubarak for the presidency in 2005 and whose subsequent imprisonment made him a cause célèbre. But Nour has always been a skilled political operator, and sees his electoral fortunes as being boosted by riding the coattails of the Brotherhood. 

I met with Nour in his elegant, wood-paneled office, which sits above the popular Groppi café and patisserie in downtown Cairo. A large man with jet-black hair and an infectious smile, he sits behind a big wooden desk. It is late in the evening, and political office hours are being extended because of the daylong Ramadan fast. A line of people are waiting to see him in the lobby of his office; the whole affair has the whiff of the ward-heeling, local party boss. 

When I ask Nour what is the biggest problem facing Egypt, he laughs. "What problem isn't facing Egypt?" Like most of the secular political leaders in the country, he's light on the details of economic policy, and his rhetoric heads in a populist direction. He believes in "free markets" but also that the "government should take the side of poor people." One way to boost the economy, he says, would be to increase tourism from Iran. Egypt has not had relations with the Islamic Republic since 1979 when its revolutionary government cut ties to protest Cairo's recognition of Israel. While wariness towards Iran's Shiite clerical regime is widespread in Egypt, the end of the Mubarak era has already seen a shift in Egyptian foreign policy. Perhaps most significantly, Cairo brokered a reconciliation deal between the rival Palestinian factions, emboldening the Iranian-backed Hamas. In March, the Egyptian foreign minister met in Cairo with Iran's chargé d'affairs, pledging to open a "new page" with the Islamic Republic. 

Nour tells me that Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has twice invited him to visit Iran since the revolution, but that he has declined both invitations, "not only because I'm busy now but because I believe there are steps in relations." Nour is well aware of the good reputation he has in the West and would not want to risk being portrayed as an Iranian stooge. Nonetheless, he is a sharp critic of American Middle East policy. From his perspective, Washington, however well-intentioned, has perpetually made the wrong decisions by backing autocratic governments in the Arab world. "If the Americans from the very beginning took the path of justice, they wouldn't need to pay all this money in Iraq, because they didn't choose the principles," he says. 

A press conference in August announcing the formation of the "Egyptian Bloc," an alliance of 15 secular parties, ranging from liberal to socialist to union groups, underscored a fundamental problem with the secularists and liberals—they are too dispersed. On the surface, the explosion of political parties since the liberalization of the country's electoral law has been a positive step; but it has also exposed the fissures and narcissism of Egypt's liberals. Many secularists wave off this concern. "It is impossible to have a smaller number [of parties] after a revolution," Ehab El Kharrat of the Social Democrats assures me. "The Spanish had 140 parties after the fall of Franco." That may be the case, but while there are a wide variety of options through which non-Islamist Egyptians can dilute their electoral power, Islamists will mostly be voting for one party: Freedom and Justice.

It has been said that Egypt is a "military with a country." Through vast land holdings and ownership stakes in private industries, the army is believed to control, formally and informally, some 40 percent of the economy, extending everywhere from agricultural production to kitchen appliances. The military's primary concern right now is to preserve its station in Egypt. In order to do so, it must remain committed to upholding a widely disliked peace treaty, which renders its widespread popularity something of a paradox.

The respect that most Egyptians hold for the military is predicated upon the heroic narrative constructed around it, namely, the myth of the 1973 defeat of Israel. However, since taking power earlier this year, the army has arrested and tried over 12,000 people in military tribunals, more than the number of civilians put before military courts throughout the whole 30-year period of Mubarak's rule. Still, Field Marshal Mohamed Tantawi, the country's de facto ruler as chairman of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), has a 45 percent favorability rating among Egyptians—higher than the 38 percent registered for the April 6 Youth Movement (which led the anti-Mubarak protests) or the 37 percent for the Muslim Brotherhood.

Rumors regarding a behind-the-scenes deal between the Brotherhood and the military abound in Cairo, premised mostly on the fact that both supported a March constitutional referendum that called for an accelerated election schedule. Such a prospect is not inconceivable. The idea is that the military will cede domestic politics to the Brotherhood, which will in turn allow the generals to maintain control over foreign affairs and their vast economic assets.

The reality is that the military has already softened in its approach to the Islamists whom it once portrayed as threatening Egyptian stability. Since February, the army has gradually released over 100 Islamist prisoners. Many of these men are members of the Salafist organization al-Gamaa al-Islamiyya ("the Islamic Group"), believed to have played an ancillary role in former Egyptian president Anwar Sadat's 1981 assassination, and responsible for over 1,000 terrorist attacks in the 1990s, including an attempt on Mubarak's life. Some 25,000 of its members were imprisoned during the Mubarak era. While the release of Islamists from prison may appear to represent some sort of modus vivendi between the military and religious extremists, it is merely a continuation of a policy adopted during the late Mubarak years, when thousands of Islamist prisoners were sprung from jail provided they renounce violence. 

Nageh Ibrahim was a founding member of al-Gamaa al-Islamiyya, and was sentenced to jail in 1984 for his role in the Sadat assassination. A dermatologist by training, he has written over two dozen books about religion. While in prison, he was one of the leading figures to argue that the group should adopt nonviolence as a strategy. The gambit worked, and in 2003, the Egyptian government released 900 of its members from jail. In 2006, after serving more than two decades in prison, Ibrahim walked free. 

Today, Ibrahim lives in the ancient city of Alexandria, about a five-hour drive north of Cairo on the Mediterranean. I met with him in the living room of his high-rise apartment, where he reiterated his organization's denunciation of violence. 

"Killing civilians is haram (illegal)," he says. "Killing children haram, killing women haram, killing civilians haram," he adds for emphasis. He cites the seventh-century Medina Charter, the constitution drafted by Muhammad that granted rights to non-Muslims, as an example of Islam's tolerant foundations. He even goes so far as to say that religious minorities would have more freedom in a proper Islamic state than they do in secular ones. "Secularism gives one law that everyone should obey," he says, whereas "Islam is more flexible" in making allowances for various religious practices that liberal societies might proscribe. There should be "no compulsion in religion," he says, and no woman should be forced to wear the hijab. But he doesn't think Christians (who represent about 10 percent of the population) should be allowed to become president of Egypt. When I press him on this, he responds politely, "In France, have you ever heard of a Muslim ruling, or in Britain a Muslim ruling? Even in the United States, no Catholic ruled except Kennedy, and he was killed."

Putting aside his peculiar interpretation of the Kennedy assassination, Ibrahim offered, to my surprise, some of the most reasonable words about Egypt's relationship with Israel. "Some left-wingers and socialists and Nasserites say all the problems we have now are because of Camp David," he said. "This is totally wrong. For example, Israel signed Camp David and that caused progress in the industry and science fields. Our collapsing is not because of Camp David. It's because of dictatorship, which was before and after Camp David." As this is an Islamist talking, it's unclear whether he's sincere or has tailored his position to what he thinks an American journalist wants to hear. But it was certainly more reasonable than what the secular youth trying to destroy the wall outside the Israeli embassy were shouting. 

It is to be expected that in a post-revolutionary atmosphere political factions will make appeals to "the people," a phrase I hear from the mouths of Islamists and liberals alike.

One of the more heartening aspects of the debate in Egypt is that political leaders, at least in theory, are trying to speak to the nation as a whole, not to narrow constituencies. The secular parties go out of their way to express their respect for Islam, and stress that they have no intention of removing it from the public and cultural life of Egypt. The Muslim Brotherhood's ostensible moderation suggests they recognize that many Egyptians are wary of their project and are therefore engaging in the sort of compromise that political parties in all mature democracies must undertake.

But there's a negative side to this constant rhetoric of "the people," which is that deference to popular will can lead to mob rule. Some participants in the storming of the Israeli embassy, according to a recent Voice of America story, contended that the "security forces in front of the embassy should not have intervened to protect it, because it is the people's will to tear down the wall." That is, for a government truly to be "governing in the name of the people," it must do whatever "the people" requires of it. This is so if it means answering to the demands of a violent mob and contravening international law stipulating that it is the Egyptian government's duty to protect the sovereign Israeli territory that is the Israeli embassy in Cairo.

Few Egyptians seem seriously to advocate war against the Jewish state. For its part, the Freedom and Justice party condemned the attacks on the embassy, stressing that Egyptians "must learn to differentiate between condemning Israeli actions and destroying property and attacking security forces." But what if a nonviolent majority of the Egyptian people wants their government to end its diplomatic relations with Israel? There are other steps, far short of war, that Egypt can take to frustrate bilateral relations. In response to popular sentiment, Egypt could gradually reduce its security cooperation with Israel, leading the way to increased weapons smuggling to Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Closer relations with Iran, right when Washington is trying to isolate Tehran, would seriously damage American interests across the region. 

Egyptians feel that theirs is a great nation whose full potential as a regional power has been repeatedly squandered by venal leaders. It is too soon to say what role post-Mubarak Egypt will play in the Middle East, but the events outside its neighbor's embassy do not augur well. As any honest appraisal of the region will confirm, far worse outcomes have been borne of revolution.

*   *   *

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/in-belarus-alexander-lukashenko-is-playing-at-reform/2011/09/13/gIQANwaxSK_story.html

The Washington Post
In Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko is playing at reform
James Kirchick
September 15, 2011

The man known as Europe's last dictator made a startling announcement last week: Come early October, he will release all of the political prisoners in his jails. For 17 years, Alexander Lukashenko has ruled Belarus in much the way that it was run as a Soviet socialist republic: Most of the economy is state-owned, independent journalists are routinely harassed, opposition political activists are beaten and arrested, and the secret police — still known as the KGB — maintain a massive cadre of loyal informers.

On the surface, Lukashenko shows signs of reform. He recently pardoned four political activists who were jailed as part of the crackdown that followed Belarus's rigged presidential election last winter. To avoid any appearance that their release was a concession to outside pressure, the regime announced that all four had "recognized their guilt and the unlawful character of their actions."

Such moves should be seen in the context of the cat-and-mouse game Lukashenko has long played with the West. The European Union and the United States imposed sanctions on Belarus after December's electoral farce. With the country enduring a massive financial crisis — consumer prices have almost doubled since January, and inflation is near 50 percent — Lukashenko desperately needs outside assistance, which the West has made contingent upon political liberalization. Releasing political prisoners, including detained presidential candidate Andrei Sannikov, is a tacit attempt to improve chilly relations with Europe and the United States and should not be mistaken for genuine change within the regime.

Consider Lukashenko's history of such actions: After he closed the Minsk office of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe in 2002, the European Union and the United States imposed sanctions — and after six months, Lukashenko allowed the multilateral organization back into the country. (He expelled it again after last December's vote.) In 2007, in the aftermath of a rigged presidential election and arrests of political prisoners, Washington froze assets of the state oil-refining company; two months later, the regime did the first in a series of prisoner releases. As recently as last month, on the very day that the State Department announced additional economic sanctions on four state-owned Belarusan enterprises, Lukashenko pardoned nine people who had been arrested for protesting last December.

Lukashenko essentially operates a revolving door to his KGB prisons, jailing dissidents when they step too far out of line and letting them go once Western sanctions become burdensome. Releasing political prisoners is a cheap, cynical move that Lukashenko uses to wend his way back into the good graces of the West. Whether his political opponents are free or incarcerated, he has always maintained the architecture of authoritarian control. What's happening now, with Belarus facing its toughest economic conditions since its independence in 1991, is a particularly dramatic instance of brave individuals being used as bargaining chips.

This time, the West should avoid falling for Lukashenko's ploy. The European Union and the United States have long called for the "unconditional" release of political prisoners. Accordingly, Lukashenko should be given nothing in exchange for freeing people who never should have been jailed. The West should make clear that releasing political prisoners is the opening, not final, step toward normalized relations. Additional moves include readmitting the OSCE to Minsk and allowing the return of the U.S. ambassador, whom Luka­shenko expelled in 2008. Luka­shenko's behavior makes clear that sanctions are effective in moderating the regime; they should  be lifted only when genuinely free and fair elections are held in Belarus.

But it is difficult to believe that Lukashenko is serious about reform, given his record and what I witnessed in Belarus in June: Political activists used the Internet to attract thousands of Belarusans from across the country to weekly demonstrations that involved nothing more than clapping. At one such protest I attended in Minsk, government thugs brutally assaulted citizens and piled them into waiting police vans just minutes after they had gathered. A regime that arrests people for applauding in public is not one that will submit to free elections easily.

"There is no more possibility to haggle" with Lukashenko, one of the leading opposition presidential candidates, Vladimir Neklyayev, told me in Minsk this summer. Before the polls even closed last December, Neklyayev had been badly beaten by plainclothes security officers and imprisoned on trumped-up charges of attempting to foment a riot. He was released after five months. But last week the regime imposed a nightly curfew on him, barred him from leaving the country for two years and will not allow him to leave Minsk without written permission. Western governments, Neklyayev says, should stop allowing the dictator to "blackmail" them by perpetually incarcerating innocent people. Rewarding Lukashenko at this early stage would amount to another round in the dictator's never-ending game.

*   *   *

http://www.thedaily.com/page/2011/09/13/091311-opinions-oped-libya-kirchick-1-2/

The Daily
'What if' in Libya
Had NATO not intervened, atrocities would have been inevitable
James Kirchick
September 13, 2011

Making good on Moammar Gadhafi's promise to "cleanse Libya house by house, room by room," forces loyal to the Libyan leader entered the eastern city of Benghazi yesterday and began a wholesale massacre of the city's civilian population, putting a decisive end to the popular uprising that began there Feb. 17.

A combined Libyan military assault by air and sea laid random waste to buildings throughout the coastal city. At around 2 p.m., tank columns entered Benghazi, easily crushing the impromptu barriers that residents had set up to block their path. Soon after, according to satellite imagery, armored personnel carriers bearing thousands of Libyan soldiers from Tripoli entered the city, putting down scattered resistance from poorly armed rebel fighters.

What has followed the subjugation of the revolt, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross, is an indiscriminate campaign of rape, torture and murder of civilians in the city that has long been a hotbed of anti-Gadhafi sentiment. British Prime Minister David Cameron, who failed in his attempts to launch international military intervention against the Gadhafi regime, delivered a tearful address last night to Parliament in which he said the Libyan leader is "in the process of perpetrating the most appalling crime against humanity since the Rwandan genocide of 1994."

The ICRC has received dozens of reports from individuals who say that unarmed men of all ages have been taken from homes en masse, lined up against walls and executed by government firing squads. A mass grave with thousands of corpses — including women and children — has already been identified on the outskirts of the city. One defecting officer, who entered Benghazi yesterday, said military leaders are promptly executing any soldier who does not comply with orders to kill civilians.

Gadhafi has proven resistant to unanimous condemnation from world leaders, United Nations Security Council resolutions insisting he cease using violence, and an oil embargo that has earned the backing of over 150 governments. In a rambling speech delivered last night in Tripoli's Green Square, the Libyan dictator referred to citizens of Benghazi as "cockroaches" and "rats," pledging to "exterminate Benghazi of all infidels, traitors and oppositionists."
                  
The above paragraphs, thankfully, are an alternate history. Gadhafi did not bomb Benghazi, nor did tens of thousands of his soldiers enter the city. But that's only because the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, led by the United States, Britain and France, launched Operation Unified Protector and stopped him from carrying out his clearly expressed murderous designs.

There can be no question at this point, however, that the above scenario or something like it would have played out had NATO not enforced a no-fly zone over Libya beginning on March 19. In the four-week period between the first protests against the regime and the commencement of Operation Unified Protector, Gadhafi forces had killed hundreds of people. The dictator used precisely the sort of eliminationist rhetoric — referring to his enemies as "cockroaches" — that Hutu extremists employed. Rather than accept offers that would allow him to survive provided that he relinquish power, Gadhafi, to this day, is urging his supporters to fight to the utmost in pursuit of a hopeless and destructive cause. He is clearly willing to bring down the entire country with him.

While those who support military intervention are rightly expected to weigh costs against benefits, the same is rarely expected of those who oppose it. Their job is simple: List all the possible things that could go wrong, then criticize war supporters for their naïveté and reckless idealism when things inevitably do.

While I was visiting Libya last month, countless people assured me that, had it not been for NATO's bombs and strategic assistance to the rebels, an untold number of their countrymen would have died at Gadhafi's hands, and the regime would have become even more repressive. Though any number of negative scenarios could still play out, it is safe to say that a large-scale massacre was averted thanks to NATO military force.

In a March 28 speech to the American people, President Obama said that sitting idly by while Gadhafi slaughtered his people would have been tantamount to "a betrayal of who we are." Americans can rest assured that, in Libya, their values have not — so far — been forsaken.

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NY Times Thinks Military Pensions Are Welfare Benefits

NY Times Thinks Military Pensions Are Welfare Benefits Dr. Eowyn | September 22, 2011 at 12:10 pm | Categories: Economy, Health Care, Liberals, Media, Military, United States | URL: http://wp.me/pKuKY-9y0

The dictionary defines "welfare" as "Financial or other aid provided, especially by the government, to people in need." And according to Roget's Thesaurus, the synonyms for "welfare" include "public assistance, public works, social aid, unemployment benefits, child welfare, federal aid, poverty program, Social Security, the dole".

I have a question for FOTM readers who work for a non-government entity and has paid into its retirement system:

"Do you think of your pension as WELFARE?"

No?

I have news for the retired and serving members of the United States Military:

The New York Times thinks your pension is WELFARE.

This is what the Times' reporters James Dao and Mary Williams wrote in "Retiree Benefits for the Military Could Face Cuts," September 18, 2011:

As Washington looks to squeeze savings from once-sacrosanct entitlements like Social Security and Medicare, another big social welfare system is growing as rapidly, but with far less scrutiny: the health and pension benefits of military retirees.

Military pensions and health care for active and retired troops now cost the government about $100 billion a year, representing an expanding portion of both the Pentagon budget — about $700 billion a year, including war costs — and the national debt, which together finance the programs.

Nice to know that the New York Times thinks your military pension is synonymous with "public assistance" and the dole"!

~Eowyn

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Figures….Obama’s Boss, George Soros, involved in LightSquare Scandal

Figures….Obama's Boss, George Soros, involved in LightSquare Scandal Scotty Starnes | September 22, 2011 at 8:30 PM | Tags: George Soros, LightSquared, President Obama | Categories: Political Issues | URL: http://wp.me/pvnFC-5T8

The Obama campaign donor pay-to-play scandal gets more interesting. Now it looks like Obama's boss, and political donor, George Soros (fat-cat hedge fund manager Obama claims not to like) has monetary ties to LightSquared.

LightSquared is the latest scandal for Obama. He invested in LightSquared. His FCC granted LightSquared a waiver. His administration tried to get two generals to change their testimony about LightSquared. LightSquared executives gave money to Obama's presidential campaign.

Of course we all know what's going on but Team Obama wants the taxpayers to believe this is all just coincidence.

Timothy P. Carney writes, via The Washington Examiner:

As Republican lawmakers begin to dig into the White House's cozy relationship with a startup wireless company and the wealthy Democratic donor who owns it, a new character has appeared on the story's edges: liberal superdonor, conservative bete noire and controversial investor George Soros.

Soros reportedly invested in the telecom company LightSquared through a hedge fund, and many of the nonprofits he finances have backed LightSquared in regulatory and policy disputes.

While Soros' influence is constantly and grossly exaggerated by conservatives, it's still real. He generously funds a huge swath of the liberal movement, and has aligned his business interests with Obama's big-government policies. For instance, Obama green-energy official Cathy Zoi left the Energy Department earlier this year to help run a new green-energy (and thus subsidy-dependent) investment fund Soros was starting.

...In the LightSquared affair, Soros shows up repeatedly.

First, Soros is reportedly an investor in LightSquared. The Wall Street Journal reported in November 2010: "In 2009, while some investors were asking for withdrawals, others were lining up to put money into Harbinger. They included Soros Fund Management, which during the past year became a significant new investor, say people familiar with the matter."

I asked about this, but a Soros spokesman emailed me, "As a matter of policy, we don't confirm or deny information on our investments."

Additionally, the telecom- and tech-related liberal nonprofits Soros funds have gone to bat for LightSquared in its various policy fights. In April 2010, the Public Interest Spectrum Coalition filed a petition with the Federal Communications Commission backing Harbinger's business plans and met with an FCC commissioner on the matter. Four groups that belong to that coalition received six-figure gifts from Soros' Open Society Institute the year before.

Six months later, those four Soros-funded groups -- Free Press, Media Access Project, the New America Foundation, and Public Knowledge -- filed a joint comment backing LightSquared in a related regulatory matter.

Continue reading>>>

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EPA to property owner: ‘Your land is our land’

EPA to property owner: 'Your land is our land' Harold | September 24, 2011 at 9:46 am | Categories: Corruption, Criminal Activity, Eminent Domain, EPA, Executive, Government, Police State, Progressives, Property Rights, Sovereignty, U.S. Constitution | URL: http://wp.me/pmtmV-6BU

Bob Unruh, WND 9/23/2011 $40 million in fines pending over plan to build new home Just imagine. You want to build a home, so you buy a $23,000 piece of land in a residential subdivision in your hometown and get started. The government then tells you to stop, threatens you with $40 million in fines [...]

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Ron Paul and the Booing Teocons

Ron Paul and the Booing Teocons
by Szandor Blestman
September 21, 2011

The mainstream media tried to ignore him. They thought they could keep his message from getting out to the public. When they couldn't keep his message hidden any longer as his supporters got the word out and more and more people saw the signs waving and went to the web to sate their interests, they denounced him. They called him crazy, just like his ideas and his supporters. They claimed his ideas could never work. They claimed he was just too radical and was unelectable. All their attacks have missed their marks or backfired. The message of liberty resonates in the spirit of the common folk. Freedom has worked in the past and it can work again in the future. Our nation was built upon these principles and it became a great nation because of them, not in spite of them. The principles that have brought this nation down, that have steered us to this point in history, to the brink of economic disaster and societal collapse, are the principles of collectivism that have been slowly forced upon us by the established power and political elite, particularly in the last century or so.

Yet the established powers don't want to give up their collectivist ideals. Perhaps this is because their powers stem from those ideals. They seem almost childlike in their fear as they scramble to make excuses for their failed policies. They do all they can to make the ideas of liberty, the ideas expressed by Ron Paul, seem irrelevant. Even as their tricks become more obvious to those watching, the establishment and their media lapdogs continue to try to frame the debate in a way that favors their collectivist, corporatist, crony capitalist point of view. They just don't seem able to innovate. They seem to be almost panicking as more and more people catch on and turn away from their influence to try to find a better way.

The establishment is not going to give in easily. They have already tried to infiltrate the Tea Party to make it seem as if the grassroots movement isn't so populist as one might think. At a Republican debate sponsored by the Tea Party, Ron Paul was booed by the very movement his 2008 candidacy started. What's more, he was booed while answering a question that had been well established. Once again a candidate questioned Ron Paul's assertion that the foreign policy of the United States federal government led to the attacks on 9/11. As Dr. Paul tried to explain the concept of blowback and why meddling in the affairs of others can lead to feelings of resentment a chorus of boos cascaded from the crowd. This makes one wonder if the crowd was full of plants or if there are really that many people involved with the Republican Party and the Tea Party movement who simply haven't been paying attention for the last few years.

It was Rick Santorum who challenged Ron Paul on this issue, and I was hoping to see another lambasting like was given to Rudolph Giuliani in a 2008 debate. After all, the ex senator seems to require an education on the subject. He could have used a reading list as Dr. Paul gave to Mr. Giuliani to show just where the idea of blowback comes from. It should be understood that it wasn't Ron Paul that claimed US foreign policy caused 9/11, he is merely repeating the opinions of certain CIA operatives and foreign policy experts. Booing and jeering the messenger will not alter those facts. Trying to make it sound as if Ron Paul dreamed up the idea of blowback on his own will not make that concept any less dangerous. We as a nation don't need a president who closes his eyes to reality in an effort to gain political popularity. We don't need media outlets who obfuscate the truth for political and financial gain. We need a president who understands reality and tells it like it is, one who will offer real solutions to real problems.

They continue to question Dr. Paul's sanity and the validity of his ideas, but it seems to me that it is their ideas that are crazy. It's crazy to bomb people into oblivion and expect them to be thankful. It's crazy to occupy their lands and lay claim to their natural resources and expect them to be welcoming. It's crazy to send soldiers to foreign lands, have them shoot up the place, torture and kill without accountability and expect the people of that land to be less than resentful. It is beyond me how those who continue to make excuses for these occupations cannot see how such behavior makes enemies, not friends. It is beyond me how they can truly believe these wars are anything less than the strong bullying the weak.

Perhaps a few might truly be stuck in a World War II mindset. Perhaps they truly believe that the common folk of a nation are going to cheer our troops as they march in the streets as if they are the great liberators. But in World War II the American military was driving out occupying forces. It's different when you become the occupying force. Certainly, some of the common folk may benefit from the occupation and these people may want the forces to stay, but most will likely wish to simply be left alone and will resent the presence of foreign military forces.

The same can be said for the economic policies put in place by the collectivist powers that be. It is crazy to believe you can get out of debt by going deeper into debt. It is crazy to believe you can clear up a debt problem by spending more, or even by maintaining current levels of spending. It is crazy to believe that higher taxes on anyone will solve the problem when so much money is being wasted on interest payments and war. Somehow those who booed Ron Paul seem able to understand that there is too much spending, yet they don't seem able to understand the wastefulness of spending money on bombs, death and the destruction of war. Spending money on defense is not a bad idea, but spreading military force across the world is not defense, it is what empire does.

It is the very definition of crazy to keep trying the same thing and expecting different results. The policies that the establishment politicians keep advocating have been tried before and have failed. Their policies have led us to a place where we are less free, less innovative, less productive and less prosperous than ever before. They have led us to a place where we are trapped in fear and dependent upon them rather than independent and responsible for our own well being and flourishing in an atmosphere of tolerance and love. It has been a slow ride to get here, and could possibly be a slow ride getting back, but that ride won't even start unless we try doing something different or something that we know has worked in the past. That something is to start honoring the principles of individual freedom.

The establishment truly doesn't want the common folk thinking. They want to keep them reacting at an emotional level. They want to keep them believing the jingoistic flag waving that gives them the most control over the masses. They want to keep the common folk fearful of their shadows so that they will allow their freedoms to be trampled and violated without question. A thinking public is dangerous to the establishment who wish to maintain their power. An intelligent, thoughtful public will eventually see through their fallacious policies. An intelligent public will ask to be left alone and treated like adults to determine for themselves how to live their lives and spend their money rather than be babied and treated like idiots being told how to live their lives and spend their money from cradle to grave. An intelligent public will be able to look at Ron Paul's past, his voting record and his unwavering principles and determine for themselves that he is not the typical establishment politician. Naturally, the establishment does not want someone in power who they don't control, and so they will continue to pull out whatever tricks they can in order to keep the thinking public from flexing its muscle.

http://www.weeklyblitz.net/1818/ron-paul-and-the-booing-teocons