Political News Updates

In response to Justice Breyer’s comments that Koran-burning may be likened to yelling “Fire!” in a crowded theater, I’d like to indulge in a bit of dime-store psychology. Typically, American hecklers will merely shout down speakers, throw pies at them, issue largely empty threats, and vandalize. True political violence is (thankfully) quite rare. Consequently, when courts condemn the “heckler’s veto,” they’re simply codifying constitutional common sense. How can your speech be free if petty disruptions can silence you? Why not use law enforcement to protect free speech? The violence from Islamic radicals, on the other hand, shocks the conscience. Thousands rioting? Dozens dying? Beheadings? Torture? This level of violence is terrifying. It’s orders of magnitude beyond heckling. The manageable heckler’s veto becomes the unmanageable beheader’s veto, and judges have trouble formulating a response that protects speech and human life. But here’s the sad reality: The violence exists no matter what we do (or don’t) say. When thousands rioted in Kashmir — ostensibly because of Terry Jones — and 18 men died , can anyone argue that the region would have been peaceful but for the threatened Koran-burning? Islamic terror has existed through virtually every American administration since Truman. It is our very existence that inflames Islamic radicals, not any given act by even the crankiest citizens in our 300 million–strong community. Bill Clinton had Yassir Arafat in the White House more than any other foreign leader, and radicals bombed the World Trade Center, bombed our embassies, attacked the USS Cole , and hatched the 9/11 plot. George W. Bush went out of his way to portray Islam as a religion of peace, and Hamas, Hezbollah, the Mahdi militia, Fatah, al-Qaeda, and the Taliban launched violent campaigns in Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel, Gaza, Indonesia, Britain, Spain, the West Bank, and Lebanon. Barack Obama “changed the tone” in Cairo, and we still face the same radicals with the same intentions while fending off attempted bombings in Times Square and in the air over Detroit. If we can’t possibly appease the enemy, why even contemplate giving up our freedoms? If heads will roll even if Korans are handled with kid gloves ( literally ), why preemptively surrender a core part of our constitutional identity? No court ruling can stop Islamic terror, but court rulings can limit our liberty. Let’s leave our constitutional doctrine alone and trust our military to protect our lives. David French

Read more:
The Beheader’s Veto

It’s not the economy, it’s the war, stupid! I’m talkin’ to you, Democrats in the House and Senate. Scores of you are about to lose your jobs, while the rest forfeit coveted committee chairmanships because you don’t realize the way to avoid defeat is to appeal to your base with an anti-war message. No smoke and mirrors in the next seven weeks will convince Republican, independent, and conservative-leaning centrists—the motivated voters of 2010—that President Barack Obama and the congressional Democrats have a plan to restore home equity and retirement savings, stimulate investment, and reduce unemployment. Those are functions of the business cycle, impacted by the irrational exuberance that fueled the illusion that real estate and stock values could rise forever. Tea Partiers may irrationally blame Democrats for most of that pain, but they’re certain big government—especially ObamaPelosiCare—is making things worse. The left-liberal political consultant-driven neo-populism, which Democrats have been trying to sell to a dwindling number of the Industrial Era (it’s over!) “working class” voters for decades, is folly. Waging class warfare against “the rich”—foolishly defined as anyone earning over $250,000—will do next to nothing to inspire the Democratic base, while refusing to extend the George W. Bush administration’s tax cuts only stokes the election day fury of Tea Party activists. Every election is about energizing the base while winning over independents. But mid-terms, particularly for the House, have more to do with firing up loyalists, because most districts have been gerrymandered as Democrat or Republican. The Democratic base is in despair and inclined to stay home, just as it did in 1994 after HillaryCare gave Newt Gingrich the opening he needed to energize Clinton-haters and cultural and economic conservatives. We usually see reelection rates over 90 percent for incumbents. This is due to Baker v. Carr (1962) demanding equal population districts, computers making it possible to configure districts block-by-block to determine partisan outcomes, and politicians waging year-round campaigns with taxpayer-financed staffs. So, Democrats, if you can’t control the anger of Tea Party activists, who are mad as hell about losing economic security, what can you do? You can motivate your base by taking on your own president , energizing those voters who are mad as hell that the leader they elected to end a war decided to ramp another one up instead. In a matter of months, Obama succumbed to the military-industrial-congressional complex and placed thousands more young men and women in harm’s way in the corrupt non-state and graveyard of empires known as Afghanistan. The very year Obama was born, in fact, Dwight Eisenhower warned us of the threat to liberty posed by a huge standing army and the arms profiteers who fuel a perpetual state of war. Ike echoed James Madison, who helped found the Democratic Party with Thomas Jefferson, and who alerted us two centuries ago, “No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.” A former constitutional law professor, Obama apparently never internalized that observation by the architect of our Constitution. As they face doom, congressional Democrats need to show guts—and political intelligence—and tell their base they intend to fight like hell to end the madness in Afghanistan, and bring home the 50,000 “advisors” Obama left in Iraq. Democrats, like Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, abdicated responsibility when they made no principled case against the Iraq War in its run-up, just as the Democrats of the 1960's proved gutless by allowing President Lyndon Johnson to sacrifice thousands of young men in Southeast Asian jungles. Congressional Democrats have averted their eyes once again, remaining all but silent last year when Obama gave a George W. Bush-style war-making speech at West Point. If Democrats need polls to stiffen their spines, the Associated Press-GfK survey last month reveals 58 percent of Americans oppose the war in Afghanistan, while only 38 percent support it. More significantly, the numbers of those most likely to vote based on the issue rests resoundingly with opponents, with 35 percent strongly opposing the war while only 17 percent strongly favor it. The numbers on Iraq are even more anti-war, with 65 percent opposing and only 31 percent supporting. (For the few politicians who prefer sound arguments to polls, they can cite Andy Bacevich’s excellent new book, Washington Rules: America's Path to Permanent War .)  Democrats, give your base a reason to vote this November. Not so Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid can keep their jobs, but because you have a duty to oppose the “American exceptionalist” militarism that typifies the Republicans—and which has unfortunately seized the mind of still another Democratic president. A former press secretary for the Democratic National Committee, Terry Michael now teaches college journalists about politics and writes at his “libertarian Democrat” web site www.terrymichael.net .

Follow this link:
It’s Still the War, Stupid!

Today's Between the Covers podcast is with our old NRO friend James S. Robbins , author of This Time We Win: Revisiting the Tet Offensive . We discuss why the Vietnam War's Tet Offensive remains controversial four decades after it happened, what role Walter Cronkite and the American media played in forging public opinion about the conflict, and what the Tet Offensive should teach us about military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. John J. Miller

See more here:
Tet Offenders

AFP – US President Barack Obama’s top aides have concluded they need to refrain from promoting US-style corruption fighting in Afghanistan because of the rift it has caused with President Hamid Karzai, The Washington Post reported.

Original post:
Obama aides suggest going soft on Afghan corruption
(AFP)

AP – The first living service member from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq to receive the Medal of Honor said Saturday the award honors more than a dozen fellow soldiers who were part of a deadly ambush three years ago.

See the original post:
In first for Afghan war, award goes to living vet
(AP)

In his first press conference since May, President Obama championed a new set of economic proposals and announced that a current White House economist, Austan Goolsbee, will head the Council of Economic Advisers. This was President Obama’s eighth press conference since taking office. Reporters questioned the President about Afghanistan, reports of military setbacks against insurgents, and a recent threat to burn the Qur’an, the Muslim holy book, in Gainesville, Florida. Length: 1

AP – The top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan is asking for 2,000 more soldiers to join the 140,000-strong international force here, NATO officials said Monday. It was unclear how many would be Americans.

Here is the original post:
NATO asks for more troops for Afghanistan
(AP)

AFP – President Barack Obama and NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen will meet Tuesday at the White House to discuss the situation in Afghanistan, the president’s spokesman said Friday.

Continue reading here:
Obama, NATO chief to discuss Afghanistan on Tuesday
(AFP)

McClatchy Newspapers – KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — As the last of the 30,000 additional troops that President Barack Obama dispatched to Afghanistan arrived, top American military leaders here conceded Friday that the country’s pervasive corruption threatens to undermine the effort to clear communities of insurgents and hand them over to governments that Afghans consider legitimate.

Here is the original post:
Officials: Afghan corruption undermines anti-Taliban campaign
(McClatchy Newspapers)

KABUL, Afghanistan | Afghanistan’s central bank tried to shore up confidence in the country’s biggest financial institution Wednesday after its top executives resigned amid allegations of mismanagement and corruption. “The bank is solvent,” Abdul Qadir Fitrat, governor of the central bank, told reporters at a hastily called news conference to …

Excerpt from:
Afghan central bank says Kabul Bank 'solvent'