Voters are Distracted in a Dangerous World

By Alan Caruba

It is natural that Americans would be focused on the November 2nd elections, but it is worrisome that they are also distracted from a world that grows more volatile and dangerous by the day.

Just across the southern border, Mexico is disintegrating into anarchy with mass murders occurring all the time. The government gives little evidence of being able to gain control because, as often as not, holding a position in its government will get you killed. A recent CNSnews.com article reports that 1,200 children have been killed by cartel violence in Mexico since 2006. Overall, more than 28,000 Mexicans have been killed as the result of drug trafficking related-violence between December 2006 and July 2010.

At what point must Mexico be put under martial law to crush the drug cartels or cease to be a modern state? At what point would the U.S. have to invade militarily to impose security on our shared southern border?

While Americans ponder the elections, the U.S. has moved a second carrier group to the Persian Gulf, perhaps because military intelligence has picked up signals that the Iranian leadership which normally works through proxies like Hezbollah and Hamas is preparing for either an offensive or defensive state of war.

Iran has managed to stir the cauldron of the Middle East for decades now. Closely allied with Syria and the main support for Hezbollah, Lebanon is poised for yet another civil conflict and no matter what the outcome it will not bode well for Israel. A huge arsenal of rockets and other weapons have been moved into Lebanon since the 2006 conflict with Israel.

The failure of the Iraqi elections to result in a ruling coalition in its parliament is a sign of instability and it is known that Iran has played a massive role in the provision of weapons that were used against U.S. forces following the 2003 invasion.

Economic sanctions against Iran are having some effect, but not enough to destabilize the ruling junta of ayatollahs even in the face of major protests in the streets of Tehran following the rigged reelection of Mamoud Ahmadinejad.

Afghanistan has proven to be a total loss for U.S. policy and the exercise of its military efforts. Participating nations are withdrawing from the NATO military coalition there. General Petraeus has noted that the Taliban are safely harbored in Pakistan, a nation into which the U.S. has poured billions to no obvious effect.

China is achieving hegemonic ambitions as its economy continues to grow, keeping Japan on edge and manipulating North Korea, always a potential trigger for conflict. While many see it as a military enemy, its real strength is the enormous U.S. debt it owns in the form of our treasury securities. Its human rights record is dismal and it continues to hold a recent Nobel Peace Prize winner in jail.

Europe is only just beginning to recognize the threat posed by a huge population of Muslims in its midst. Germany’s Chancellor, Angela Merkel, has recently declared that “multiculturalism has failed.” In France, there are areas in its cities that are “no go” zones controlled by their Muslim population and this is true in other European cities as well. In England, the most popular name for new baby boys is Mohammed!

South America is a patchwork quilt of nations either friendly to the U.S. or led by communists like Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez who continues to seek alliances with Russia, Iran, and South American neighbor states.

A visit to a website of Freedom House.org provides a map illustrating that much of the world; in particular Russia, China, the Middle East and large portions of Africa do not offer any freedom to their vast populations.

Foreign relations are a duty allocated to the president of the United States. The midterm elections which are mostly about domestic issues will not likely affect the policies of the remaining two years of President Obama’s first and hopefully last term. He is weak on Middle Eastern affairs, seemingly indifferent to Mexico and illegal immigration issues, and has alienated many leaders in Europe.

A fragile U.S. economy and, in particular, its dollar, leaves America vulnerable to its enemies.

Depending on the outcome of the midterm elections, we may either see an energized Republican Party, supported by the Tea Party movement, take dramatic efforts to end wasteful spending, repeal Obamacare, and ensure the Bush tax cuts do not expire, or we will enter upon a period of political gridlock and compromise that will endanger the nation’s future in ways that defy the imagination.

© Alan Caruba, 2010

Faisal Shahzad Warns America

By Alan Caruba

Faisal Shahzad was sentenced to life in prison on October 6th for trying to kill a lot of innocent Americans in Times Square on May 1, 2010. He was completely unrepentant and we need to understand the funhouse-mirror mentality of Muslims who believe that Allah, through the Koran, has granted them, not just the right, but the duty to kill infidels who offer any defense against their outrages.

There is no question that the U.S. has had to be active militarily in the Middle East ever since the former Iraq dictator, Saddam Hussein, invaded Kuwait on President George H.W. Bush’s watch.

The former director of the CIA, ambassador to China, and then leader of the free world understood that, if no action was taken, Saddam would be into Saudi Arabia next. Saddam had previously spent eight fruitless years in a war with Iran. It is one of history’s ironies that his son, George W. Bush was president on September 11, 2001 when the homeland was attacked by Muslim terrorists.

According to Iran’s president, Mamoud Ahmadinejad, and most of the people in the Middle East, 9/11 was an “inside job”, staged by the CIA or even the White House for the sole purpose of justifying the invasion of Afghanistan and later Iraq. You have to be able to believe the unbelievable to be a Muslim and the more absurd the better.

That’s the background to the story of Shahzad who was born in Pakistan in 1979 and, on December 22, 1998, was issued a student visa in Islamabad to come to America. In a stunning article by Jessica Vaughan, “Faisal Shahzad: So Easy, Anyone Can Do It”, the author spells out why America, before and ever since 9/11, has been allowing Middle Easterners to come here and plot to kill us.

Vaughan, a former U.S. consulate officer who dealt with the issuance and denial of visas, spelled out why Shahzad was a poor candidate for the bounties America would bestow upon him. To begin with, he failed to demonstrate that he had the academic qualifications to study here.

“He was applying as a transfer student, and his transcript from his correspondence course with Southeastern University, a now defunct fourth-rate academic program, show a GPA of 2.78, including several D’s and an F in basic statistics.” Moreover, there has been no information released regarding how Shahzad claimed he would pay for his education, “another common deal-buster for student visa application.”

Vaughn speculates that since Shahzad’s father was “supposedly a prominent military officer” the consulate did not want to deal with his or his government’s complaints if his son was refused a visa. Oddly, the visa was for four years when two would have sufficed for him to complete his degree requirements.

What emerged was a pattern of behavior that should have gotten Shahzad on the next plane home to Pakistan, but did not. In 2001 he began working for a temporary staffing agency even though his student visa did not include permission to work. A year later he was issued a H-1B visa. This particular visa is intended to bring in the best and the brightest to work here, not some middling, ordinary worker.

For reasons unknown, in 2004, Shahzad came under the scrutiny of the local Joint Terrorism Task Force. Despite this, his U.S. born wife filed a green card petition for him and it was approved in January 2006 even though the marriage was quite sudden, a red flag as some foreigners marry to establish grounds to stay.

Vaughn notes that “the green card application process is firmly rigged in the alien’s favor, with few applications refused or challenged, especially those involving marriage to a U.S. citizen.” In October 2008, Shahzad applied for U.S. citizenship. The fact that most immigrants wait six to ten years before applying didn’t raise any suspicions seven years after 9/11. And this one was from Pakistan, a hotbed of jihadist activity.

The U.S. is in a virtual state of war with Pakistan. It is blocking a major supply route to ours and NATO troops in Afghanistan and it is harboring the Taliban. It is a nuclear state so the stakes are quite high.

On April 17, 2009 Shahzad was sworn in as a U.S. citizen. In the vast bureaucracy of the immigration process, the fact that he had earlier aroused some suspicion was lost.

After that, it gets very dicey. On June 2, 2009, Shahzad left for Pakistan and did not return until February 3, 2010. Three months later, he attempted to kill Americans in Times Square.

At his sentencing, he told the court, “Brace yourselves, because the war with Muslims has just begun. Consider me the first droplet of the blood that will follow. We are only Muslims trying to defend our religion, people, homes and land, but if you call us terrorists, then we are proud terrorists and we will keep on terrorizing you until you leave our lands and people at peace.”

This does not, of course, explain why Muslims have been committing acts of terror worldwide in London, in Madrid, in Mumbai, in Bali, and everywhere else they seize the opportunity to use terror to advance their ultimate goal of global domination. Claiming to be victims is bizarre.

Every step of the way, the U.S. made it easy for Shahzad to betray a nation that offered him an opportunity that countless thousands around the world want; the chance to become an American.

We need to pay attention to the warning Shahzad gave us. Somewhere in the huge bureaucracy of our immigration, our homeland security, and our intelligence services, those issuing visas and those charged with protecting us need to make it far more difficult to permit anyone from the Middle East to arrive, to blend in, and to plot the next terrorist act.

We are all just that much more vulnerable because in 2008 we elected a president who has made it clear that one of his objectives is to “reach out” to the Middle East in order to convince Muslims we are their friends. They are not our friends, nor even friends to one another.

© Alan Caruba, 2010

A Mosque is Not a Synagogue, Church or Hindu Temple

By Alan Caruba

Despite the fact that former President G.W. Bush said we are at war with “terrorism” and Obama says the U.S. is “not at war with Islam,” it is more than apparent to anyone paying attention that Islam is at war with America and has been for several decades.

Take, for example, Obama’s endorsement of the Ground Zero mosque—formerly called the Cordoba mosque to honor the Muslim conquest of Spain for seven centuries and then renamed Park 51 to mask its true intent.

During his most recent press conference, Obama compared a mosque to a synagogue, a church, or a Hindu temple. In doing so he ignored fourteen centuries of Muslim history in which, wherever they conquered, they went out of their way to build their mosques where former churches or temples existed. In India alone, they did this more than two thousand times to obliterate Hindu temples or shrines.

The Muslim conquest of what was then known as Palestine resulted in the Al Aqsa mosque on arguably the most holy site in Jewish history. Its gleaming golden dome dominates the skyline of Jerusalem to this day.

There is an important reason why the proposed mosque should not be built near Ground Zero and that is because mosques around the world are often places where hatred of unbelievers is preached and where attacks are planned.

Obama counts on American’s general ignorance of Islam and on the nation’s long tradition of tolerance. By contrast, in practice Islam has no tolerance of religions other than Islam.

A case in point is the way "Cordoba House" changed its name to Park 51 which is odd since the address of the location is 45–47 Park Place, but look to the Koran, the battle plan for Islamic conquest, to understand the new name for this project. Koran chapter 51, verses 45-47 suggests the real story:

51:45 And they were unable to arise, nor could they defend themselves.
51:46 And [We destroyed] the people of Noah before; indeed, they were a people defiantly disobedient.
51:47 And the heaven We constructed with strength, and indeed, We are [its] expander.

Obama, a former student of Islam when he was a boy living in Indonesia, has never made a secret of his affinity for Islam and, as his first actions following his inauguration revealed, he was intent on “building bridges” to Islam in the Middle East.

His first television interview was with Al Arabia and his first major international speech was in Cairo. Recently we learned that the director of NASA was given a new priority that has nothing to do with the exploration of space, but rather as “outreach” to Muslim nations.

Little wonder, then, that many Americans believe Obama is a Muslim, especially since his first endorsement of the Ground Zero mosque occurred in a speech given at a White House dinner celebrating Ramadan.

There have been more terrorist attacks and attempted attacks in the United States during Obama’s first year and a half in office than in the preceding Bush administration.

The Ground Zero mosque is intended to be a demonstration to Muslims throughout the world that they achieved a great victory with the destruction of the Twin Towers.

Does New York City and its boroughs need another mosque given the fact that over a hundred already exist? More to the point should New York sanction a mosque near ground regarded as hallowed by the deaths of the Twin Towers victims and first responders?

So, to repeat myself, a mosque is not a synagogue, is not a church, and is not a Hindu temple. Those places are devoted to faiths that do not preach that unbelievers should be slain or enslaved. Those places do not represent an international campaign of terrorism.

If Obama does not know that, someone should explain it to him.

© Alan Caruba, 2010

Weekend Cartoon Roundup

The Absence of Competence

By Alan Caruba

Is it too much to expect the Attorney General of the United States, the Secretary of Homeland Security, and the President to have actually read the law that the State of Arizona passed regarding illegal aliens?

Is it too much to expect the President not to use that law—-the same as a federal law—-as a lame joke at the recent White House Correspondents dinner?

Does anyone really think President Obama has a clue about the actual facts concerning the BP oil rig accident? When all the reports are written, here’s what they will say. It was an accident.

How can we expect the Obama administration to respond to terrorist attacks on America when they will barely use the word “terrorism” and almost never link it to Islam? Even wars are called “overseas contingencies.”

When words mask reality, reality has a nasty way of intruding.

We’re told not “to jump to conclusions” about the Fort Hood shooter even though he was a deranged Muslim fanatic. The Christmas day attempted airline bombing? Everybody did their job says Janet Napolitano of Homeland Security. Well, no, everyone except the bomber. Time Squares bomber? AG Holder wants to hold a trial of the 9/11 planner a couple of blocks away.

The whole Obama administration is shot through with people who got their tickets punched at various elite Ivy League and other universities, but who hold beliefs that are so mind-boggling that you wonder why the nice men in the white coats haven’t shown up to take them to a rubber room.

The Secretary of Transportation dislikes cars and makes no secret of it. Meanwhile, the government owns General Motors and is still trying to find ways to make selling their cars more difficult by raising mileage standards.

The Secretary of Energy thinks we should paint the roofs of our homes white to reflect back the light from the Sun in order to avoid the dreaded global warming. Apparently nobody has told him the Earth has been in a cooling cycle for the past decade.

The President’s science advisor thinks it would be a good idea to put chemicals into the water supply to reduce fertility. Too many people eating, breathing, and—-Oh my God—-exhaling the dreaded carbon dioxide that will kill us all! NOT!

The President pushed hard for his healthcare bill that was intended to reduce the costs of Medicare and, surprise, it will cost more if implemented. Around the nation, doctors are dropping out of the Medicare program. Try buying health insurance from any company other than the government in a few years. How stupid and Marxist is it to take competition out of this process?

As for the President himself, he is just an endless source of gaffs and pratfalls. Recall those early months when he couldn’t say a word without a TelePrompter? Remember Steve Croft of “Sixty Minutes” taking him to task for laughing inappropriately? “Are you punch drunk?” asked Croft. Or Fox News’ Bret Baier trying to get him to give a straight answer to ANYTHING?

We are now nearly a year and a half into Obama’s first and only term in office. He is still trying to blame former President George W. Bush for EVERYTHING. I half expected to hear him say that George W was seen fishing nearby the BP oil rig shortly before it blew up. It took Obama nine days to even fly over and look at the busted rig. Katrina, anyone?

Just call him President Kiss-of-Death. So far, every Democrat candidate that Obama has endorsed for election has lost. I hope he keeps it up.

Meanwhile, I pray that we last until November when we can throw the whole useless, crazy bunch of Democrats out of office and then slow down Obama’s mad race to “transform” America into something more closely resembling Fidel Castro’s Cuba or Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela.

His ultimate goal is to totally undermine the American system of governance along with the financial structure that maintains it. That is theis administration's greatest threat to the nation and is being relentless pursued.

(c) Alan Caruba, 2010