Random rants about random Presidential candidates

I have an extreme distaste for trial lawyers. It was trial lawyers who robbed me of a very good career in electronics and the retirement benefits that went with it, for something that happened sixty years ago at the bequest of the government, and for which nobody who worked for that company, or administered it at the time I worked there, had any blame or responsibility. Trial lawyers are all about greed, and personal gain, often taking up to 60% of the jury awards for themselves. They have no conscious when it comes to taking jobs away from people and causing them to suffer as much as their clients.
John Edwards is one of these trial lawyers, who made hundreds of millions of dollars off of the victims of his lawsuits. He has made it clear that, if he would become President, he would continue to rob people of his jobs by attacking "Corporate America" with more taxes and regulations. He has made a personal precedent to put corporations out of business, and to help make the middle class as dependent on the Federal government as are many of the poor.
As a Libertarian, I think it is laudable that Ron Paul has exposed the public to Libertarian answers to social and economic issues, and has received an overwhelming positive reaction to such. However as far as foreign policy is concerned, Dr.Paul is either naive or totally ignorant. For one thing, he has said that it is "ridiculous that America would be attacked because we are too rich or too free." I agree with that statement, such a thought isn't only ridiculous, but is outright propaganda promulgated by the extreme left to make their "hate America first" point. What Paul is missing, when he addresses the war on terror this way, is that the fanatics who would attack America are not attacking us because we are too rich or too free, but because the majority of Americans and Europeans worship God on Saturdays and Sundays. These religious fanatics, such as Ayman Al Zawahiri and Osama Bin Ladin, have convinced their followers that in order for the Seventh Imam, the Islamic Messiah, to come to earth, that the earth must be cleansed of infidels, that is those who do not follow Sharia Law the way it is interpreted by the Wahadi school of thought. Ignoring this threat, or pulling out of the Middle East, as Dr. Paul suggests we do, will allow these extremists to gain power, possibly taking control of an entire nation in which they can expand their resources. Isolationism, Ron Paul's foreign policy, will not make them or their jihad go away.
A question I would like to ask Dr. Paul, Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, and Barak Obama, is based on the following scenario, which is a legitimate projection considering the situation in the Middle East:
If the United States leaves a weakened government in Iraq, Iran, Al Qaeda, Saudi Arabia, and other foreign powers will find it in their interest to support and step up insurgency in that country. Eventually, Iran will invade Iraq with Iraq's oil resources as its goal, and Saudi Arabia will join in battle against Iran. The Straits of Hormuz will undoubtably be closed, and there will be no Middle Eastern oil exported anywhere. To the above mentioned candidates, I ask:
"With practical energy alternatives twenty or thirty years down the road, with restrictions on domestic oil exploration and drilling, how do you propose to get groceries on the shelves of the markets with the severe oil shortage caused by the inevitable world war in the Middle East, and how will you respond to the wrath of the rest of the world putting the blame on America for creating the situation."
I will bet that they would not even be able to answer the question.

Would they have laughed?

Mahmoud Ahmadinijad, Iran's president found common ground with the students at Columbia University as he spoke about Science coming from God. Of course, he did, because we know Albert Einstein believed the same, as does Stephen Hawking, as do many Christians who are not on the Creationist fringe. Because we believe science is part of God, doesn't make us Islamic.
Once he did find common ground, he managed to avoid the questions he had been charged to answer by using rhetorical questions and talking about what amounted to political responsibility.
When he was asked if he called for the destruction of Israel, he refused to answer "Yes" or "No"
When he avoided the question of the murder of homosexuals in Iran, he denied that Iran had homosexuals. The students of Columbia laughed, finding mass murder hilarious. Would they have laughed if, say, President Bush had made that kind of statement about the United States?
While Mahmoud was speaking about the respect of women in Iran, and of the humanity of Iran's rulers, would they have swallowed that line of malarky if they had seen this video?
Warning: the video you see when clicking the above hypertext is extremely violent, and should not be viewed by children It depicts the stoning of two women in Iran, and I do not recommend it being viewed by anyone who may be emotionally effected by violence. I could only watch about seven minutes of it, and the images still haunt me. Click at your own risk.

The Dilemma

The Democratic Party has spent so much time politicising the Iraq War, they find themselves in a bit of a quandary. General Petreaeus, the coalition commander in Iraq, is due to report to Congress, next week, on the progress of the reinforcement strategy in the conflict. It is expected that there will be good news and bad news.
The good news will most likely be that the "surge" is working; Anbar Province, an Al Qaeda stronghold less than six months ago, is nearly cleansed of the insurgents, the Iraqi military is stepping up and is more able to carry out operations on their own, and violence in Baghdad has declined over the last six months.
This good news is bad news for the Democratic Majority in Congress, and they are already planning ways to spin it, as pointed out by Libertarian radio personality Neal Boortz.
Boortz reports that, if there is good news, the Democrats will spin it as being "Bush's report," and therefore compromised. They will embrace and emphasize the bad news--that the Iraqi Government isn't meeting its benchmarks--using it as an excuse to surrender. There are other Democratic members of Congress who will say success means we can pull out of Iraq, now.
The sad part is that many of these politicians understand the need for success in Iraq, but they have dug themselves into a hole filled with denial and ignorance. If they don't understand the need for success, they haven't been listening to Al Qaeda leaders who have said that Iraq is the main battleground for Al Qaeda. They do not understand that victory over Al Qaeda in Iraq is important, not just to Iraq and America, but to the entire region.
Michael Ledeen, the author of The Iranian Timebomb, points out in his book, and explains in his blog, that the dangerous and deadly Iranian Supreme Council can be overthrown from within Iran, much like what happened in the Soviet Union, unless we fail in Iraq. Failure in Iraq will be touted as a victory by the Iranian mullahs, and regime change there will be much harder. If a regime change without war can be effected in Iran, it will prevent a future war over Iran's nuclear weapons, and, possibly, nuclear conflict between Israel and Iran.
Success in Iraq is important, because it will show the people of Iran that they can trust the Americans for help, rather than seeing us as cowards and quitters, as the mullahs characterize us.
But the Democratic politicians won't acknowledge this. Nor will they acknowledge that, if the US leaves Iraq prematurely, that there will be millions of Iraqis killed, that there will likely be a much more widespread war in the region involving Iran and Saudi Arabia five to ten years down the road, and that the entire world would be cut off from the oil resources of the region.
The Democrats know that history will hold them responsible for the disaster, which is part of the dilemma they face. They cannot answer such questions as "how will we react to the Iraqi genocide," or "how will Western civilization survive without Middle Eastern Oil," or, even, "how do we prevent Iran from building a nuclear bomb?"
Like it or not, the future of the world depends on what happens in Iraq. Everything is tied to that conflict. It is time that Congress should stop politicising the war and get on with the issues they really need to work on. Otherwise they can only dig their way in deeper.

How to talk to Iran

Photo copyright Associated Press

"I don't see why the most powerful nation in the world can't talk to the leaders of Iran (and) put some pressure on (them)...When I was in Europe, I talked to (Yugoslavian President) Slavodan Milosovich and told him that if he didn't get in line he would be bombed"

Thus spake General Wesley Clark, former commander of NATO, former Democratic Party Presidential candidate, and political pundit. He was criticizing the State of The Union Address and the current administration's refusal to talk to the leadership of Iran to find a solution to the dual wars in Iraq. Of course, we know that NATO went to war with Yugoslavia, and Milosovich's country was bombed incessantly after Clark's talks with the wayword President. Clark's talks didn't amount to much.
It sounds to me as if Clark, who has expressed fear that the United States may engage in armed conflict Iran, is advocating war. This wasn't the only comment in which General Clark seemed to be contradictary. "We don't have to talk to (Iranian President Ahmadinejad), there are other elements in Iran we can talk to."
But none of these "other elements" are in a position to make or influence national and international policy in Iran. Certainly, as did the Iraq Study Group, individual "moderate" ayatollahs on the Supreme Islamic Council, can be spoken to, but not in the element of official policy. The Supreme Islamic Council, as the ruling body of Iran, cannot, by their perception of their religion, speak to representatives of the United States in any official capacity, because such representatives are "dhimmis" and not of the correct standing to speak to in such capacity.
Nor can the dissident or shadow government of Iran be a viable party in such talks. Those who are not in prison or in exile may be allowed to speak to representatives of the United States, but they dare not go contrary to the government's policy for fear of imprisonment or death. Besides, what purpose would that serve?
There is a glimmer of hope for future relations with Iran in that there has been some talk about impeaching, or at least reigning in President Ahmadinejad. This may mean a more moderate stance on the part of Iran, and, if it does, then it could be possible to have meaningful talks with that government. However, the Supreme Islamic Council will most likely not change its stripes, and the US will still be "The Great Satan," and untouchable in the minds of the ayatollahs.
That does not mean that Iraq can't establish relations or agreements with Iran. It should be up to that government to establish relationships with its neighbors. The Iraqi government first needs to be secure, though, before it can do so, otherwise it has no leverage.
We don't have to fear war with Iran. It is very possible that within forty minutes of the moment that Iran announces that it has a nuclear weapon, it will be green-glassed by Israel. Israel is the target of threats by Iran, and Israel, with a reported two-hundred warhead nuclear arsenal, will not hesitate to strike preemptorily to prevent its own annihilation. Hopefully, the ayatollahs realize that, and, eventually, will give in to the rest of the world and accept the light water nuclear technology which has been offered them.