Positive Change in Pakistan

Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari is calling the United States' review of it's strategy in Afghanistan and Pakistan as "positive change." Anytime the president of Pakistan says that we are doing something positive is a good time to see what we are doing wrong. There are positive things that President Obama is doing in Afghanistan, for example since becoming president Obama has ordered 21,000 troops to Afghanistan and recently announced that he was going to send 4,000 more troops into Afghanistan. This is all good. He said, "I want the American people to understand that we have a clear and focused goal: to disrupt, dismantle and defeat al-Qaida in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and to prevent their return to either country in the future, that's the goal that must be achieved. That is a cause that could not be more just." It seems that President Obama is taking the right steps in Afghanistan, but what about Pakistan?

President Obama has also had some positive action inside Pakistan. He has continued the same policy as President Bush regarding drone attacks inside of Pakistan killing al qaeda members. On the other hand, President Obama has called on Congress to give Pakistan $7.5 billion in military and economic aid over the next five years. He says that Pakistan will not receive a "blank check." President Obama has warned that al qaeda is planning attacks against the United States from secret havens in Pakistan. Last month Pakistan allowed the Taliban to institute Islamic Law in Swat, Pakistan. It seems that Pakistan surrendering part of its territory to the Taliban could be a good haven to not only launch attacks in Afghanistan, but also to plan attacks against the United States. It's a good haven, and not even a secret one. Not only is Pakistan allowing the Taliban a safe haven, they are also pay the Taliban $6 million in compensation for members of the Taliban who were killed by Pakistan. The United States has privately backed the peace deal with the Taliban while publicly criticizing it. This means that the United States has supported Pakistan in giving millions of dollars to the Taliban and allowing them to institute Islamic Law, the very same Islamic Law that they were exercising in Afghanistan before September 11th.

Below are some good videos about the Taliban in Swat.





Real positive change would be for the United States to not support Pakistan until Pakistan stops supporting the Taliban.

Welfare for Undocumented Jihadists

It is obvious that undocumented jihadists have every right to jump ahead of the estimated (as of last year) four million people outside of the United States waiting for visas. The Obama administration has promised to release 19 of Gitmo prisoners free into the United States. Let's forget for the sake of tolerance the fact that 17 of the jihadists that are to be released went to training camps in the al qaeda/Taliban stronghold of Tora Bora. You may be thinking to yourself, "yes we are a very compassionate nation for allowing these poor jihadists to live amongst us, but how will they take care of themselves in their new country?" Don't worry, Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair has the answer. He says, "If we are to release them in the United States, we need some sort of assistance for them to start a new life. You can't just put them on the street. All that is work in progress." What a relief, they will be taken care of. Don't worry, I'm sure the President Obama will come out with more specific details in how the United States will make sure that the jihadists are taken care of. He should immediately urge Congress to pass the Please Don't Hurt Us Act of 2009. In this law he could show the jihadists all the nice things he is willing to do for them in exchange they won't hurt us. It's a perfect plan. Even with the expectations that I had for President Obama, I did not expect this much change.

Most Transparent Administration in History Buries a Gitmo Report

During the campaign President Obama promised to have "the most transparent administration in history." Like almost all of his promises this was a lie. When Obama is speaking it is more likely that he is lying than telling the truth. The Weekly Standard has a good article about President Obama burying a Pentagon report on former Guantanamo Bay detainees who returned to the jihad after their release. Read it here. President Obama has criticized President Bush in doing a poor job in determining which Gitmo detainees should be released. Now Obama wants to release 20% of the remaining 250 detainees. 19 of them he wants to release into this country.

Change Ahmadinejad Can Believe In

President Obama has extended an olive branch to the Iranian leaders. Below is the video of him reaching out.



The Iranian leadership responded to this video in the most predictable way. Saying it was a positive step but the U.S. needs to "realize its previous mistakes and make an effort to amend them". At the same time announcing "Iran will finish and operate the Bushehr nuclear plant by the end of this year." Don't worry it's for peaceful purposes. I guess we'll just take their word for it. Iran urges Obama's positive message to be followed by "positive action."

It is important to remember that Iran's idea of "positive action" is different from ours. In fact it is the opposite. Last month Ahmadinejad told a crowd that he was willing to talk to America, at the same time the crowd chanted "Death to America" while state-run TV showed rallies across the country with the primary emphasis being "Death to America." In the minds of the Iranian leadership, any action that would bring about the death of America would be a "positive action." Ahmadinejad said, "It is quite clear that real change [from the US] must be fundamental and not tactical. It is clear the Iranian nation welcomes real changes," he said. "The Iranian nation is ready to hold talks but talks in a fair atmosphere with mutual respect." Ahmadinejad also said the U.S. must apologize for its many "crimes" against Iran, end sanctions, and remove all troops from the region. If President Obama did all these things, that would be the real change Iran is looking for. These "positive actions" by President Obama would allow Iran would get a nuclear weapon and have unchallenged domination of the region.

Politicians AIG Hypocrisy

Here is a good video on Glenn Beck which shows the hypocrisy and dishonesty of politicians in their fake outrage over the AIG bonuses. AIG has received $182.5 billion from the government. Never mind that the government already knew of the $165 million in bonuses that were to be paid to AIG executives before they got the money. Never mind that Democratic Senator Chris Dodd now admits that he added the bonus loophole (despite the fact that he lied on national TV the day before.) to the bailout that allowed the executives to get these bonuses. Chris Dodd coincidentally had more money donated to him from AIG than any other senator. He says Tim Geithner made him do it. Here is the video. Tim Geithner has been continually lying as if he just found out about these bonuses. It is ridiculous that $165 million of tax dollars go to pay the bonuses of people running a failed company. But that's not the worst of it. Since getting bailout money AIG has given $13 billion to banks in the U.K., $17 billion to banks in Germany, $19 billion to banks in France, $5 billion to banks in Switzerland. A total of $62 billion given to AIG by the government went to foreign countries. This is all the government's fault, not AIG's. President Obama and company know that the American people are mad, and they are trying to shift the blame from their own incompetence to AIG.



Now the House has passed a bill putting a 90% tax on bonuses of companies that receive government money. This is a crappy solution to a problem caused by the government. It is dangerous for the government to have the power to steal money from private citizens because they want to appease the people. The solution is to stop giving failed companies business. It is ridiculous for the government to be making retroactive conditions to receiving bailout money.

Hope for a Successful Jihad

Ever since President Obama announced that he would close Guantanamo Bay, I have been curious about what he is going to do with the prisoners. I have heard the different bad options of sending them through the federal court system or we could send them to foreign countries. Eric Holder has announced a plan that I hadn't heard yet. He said that there are seventeen Chinese Muslims and two or three other prisoners who could be released free into the United States. The U.S. government cannot find a country to take them and they cannot return them to China because they would face persecution.




Don't worry, they would only release people who are no longer a threat. Like Said al-Shihri and Mohammed al-Awfi, two of the leaders of al qaeda in Yemen who were both released from Guantanamo Bay. Like Abdullah Ghulam Rasoul who was released from Guantanamo Bay and is now a leader of the Taliban in southern Afghanistan. The Pentagon says that as many as sixty Guantanamo graduates have resurfaced on foreign battlefields. It will be nice to have some former Guantanamo Bay detainees living freely on American soil. I don't see what could possibly go wrong with the idea of undocumented jihadists living amongst the population.

Islamist Community Organizers for Change

President Obama has decided to stop calling terrorists "enemy combatants." Just like how Obama decided to shut down Guantanamo Bay with no plan about what to do with the jihadists, he decided to get rid of the term "enemy combatant" without having any word to replace it. Andy McCarthy suggests "undocumented freedom fighters." Another suggestion is "Islamist Community Organizers." Enemy combatant isn't the only term that we should stop using. Obama's Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano says she doesn't use the word "terrorism," instead she uses "man-caused disasters." The purpose of this is to demonstrate that we are moving away from the politics of fear and towards a policy of being prepared for all the risks that can occur. That's a good strategy, just don't say the word and maybe the problem will go away on its own.

Gift giving... not the strong suit of Liberals

Last week, Gordon Brown came over to visit President Obama. Gordon Brown is the prime minister of the UK. I will give you from now until the end of time to come up with a country that has been a better ally to us over the last 60 years.

This was Prime Minister Brown's first official visit with the new administration. He brought several gifts to Barack Obama, including a pen holder that was made from an anti-slavery ship. Very thoughtful for obvious reasons.

Obama was also thoughtful, he gave Prime Minister Brown 25 DVDs. Nice. I seriously doubt that people in the UK would have ever seen something like "Star Wars". Of course the UK press is outraged, but hey, this is they guy you wanted, so enjoy the next four years of snubbery. (My only attempt at Britishizing a word.) Let's just hope that he gave him region 2 DVDs, compatible with DVD players in the UK.

If this is how we treat one of our most loyal friends, I can't wait to see what goes down when the President of Nauru shows up for a visit.

Also last week, Hillary, our esteemed Secretary of State visited with some Russian dignitaries. Obama has vowed to "reset" relationships with Russia. Why the Bush administration would be angry at Russia I won't go into here, but needless to say, the Bush Family thinks it's inappropriate to invade small countries for no reason.

So Clinton presented the Russians with a giant red button. It was the "reset" button, akin to Staples' "easy button". Yes, very original. Problem was, the word "reset" was misspelled, and instead said "overcharge".

So Obama is the most powerful man in the world, he has thousands of people at his beck and call. How could he not get the right word for reset? Seriously, it would take me less than two minutes to figure out the word for reset in Russian.

Of course, if Bush had done either of these things, we'd never hear the end of it. I felt I needed to add this entry, because even most conservatives I've talked to hadn't heard these stories.

Thanks media, you're doing a bang up job.

From Jihad to Rehab and Back Again

I am currently writing a paper for school on militant Islamism in Yemen. Two of the leaders of al qaeda in Yemen are graduates of both the Guantanamo Bay prison program and the Saudi jihadi rehabilitation program. In rehab they color pictures which apparently has the effect of no longer wanting to kill the infidel. Here is a link to a video that shows the softer side of jihadists. Yemen views the Saudi jihadi rehabilitation program as a model to follow. Half of the remaining prisoners in Guantanamo Bay are from Yemen. It would be very unwise for President Obama to return these prisoners to Yemen. Which is why he will probably do it. The recidivism of dead terrorists is 0%, it is also very difficult for terrorists who are locked in high security prison to commit future acts of terrorism. Maybe we should keep them locked up instead of hoping that they are cured with crayons. After all "war is deceit" according to Muhammad. Is it at all possible that the jihadists just pretend like coloring is way more awesome than jihad, then once they are free they continue the jihad?

Our patriotic duty

My wife showed me a great video the other day. I think everyone should take the time to watch it. It is only about 30 min. long. I will discuss it below, but I've linked it here.

This was a BYU devotional, or a talk given in a similar setting. The title of the speech is "Why Giving Matters". The speaker is Arthur Brooks, the president of The American Enterprise Institute. He starts off by talking about several entrepreneurs that he's known and some in history who believed that they were rich because they were so good at giving money away.

As an economist, he set out to disprove that notion with numbers. What he found was the exact opposite.

He found that Americans gave to charity about 300 billion dollars in 2006. This is much more than other countries. Average Americans, for example give about 11 times more than the average Italian, and that is after correcting for income.

Utah is the most charitable state in the union, by almost double. I would imagine that the reason for this is because the heavily LDS population would pay a lot in tithing, which is considered charity.

After he finished his study, he found that for each dollar you give to charity, you get about $3.75 back.

Further, he found that as our nation becomes more generous, our nation prospers more, and grows better economically.

He found that if each American increased their charitable giving by 1%, the GDP in this country would go up by $39 billion.

He also mentioned how government can't substitute for private giving. According to his data, we'll get poorer, unhappier and unhealthier if we let the government tax us more in order to spread the wealth around.

Joe Biden said that paying taxes is a patriotic duty. But Joe's wrong. Taking our place as charitable givers is our patriotic duty. Teaching giving to those we know is our patriotic duty. Serving others by our own free will and choice is our patriotic duty. Our patriotic duty is not to give our hard earned money to a government that will effectively waste it on more government, only allowing pennies of every dollar to reach the intended target.

That is one of the fundamental differences between conservatives and liberals. Conservatives generally feel that government should keep hands off hard earned money, and people will give of their own free will to others. Most liberals believe that the government should forcibly take money from those who earn it and give it to those who don't as a matter of fairness.

The data backs this up somewhat. Conservatives, even though they earn slightly less, give about 30% more to charity. This shows that conservatives really believe in using charities as a way of helping people instead of using the government.

So that begs the question: Do liberals believe in happily paying their taxes? Not if you look at Obama administration apointees. In fact, it could be said, after looking at who Obama has running the government now, that liberals only believe in paying taxes to help others if it's somebody else paying the taxes.

So give to charity and serve others, it's your patriotic duty.

The United Nations Fights Against Free Speech

Found this video on Jihad Watch. The United Nations has already passed a non-binding resolution supported by the 57 nations that make up the Organization of the Islamic Conference. The U.N. is now attempting to make the resolution binding making it a crime to criticize Islam all over the world including in the United States. Lou Dobbs suggests bulldozing the United Nations building because it is a totalitarian organization. Christopher Hitchens points out that Islam claims to be the last and final revelation from God to man and now they say that if you have any doubts about this claim you are not allowed to express them. This resolution basically tells the world to submit to Islam. The United States should state publicly that if this resolution passes we will leave the United Nations and take our money with us. We should not be supporting an organization that crusades against free speech.