Japan, Entitlements & Libya
The Japan Disaster
Fatality estimates continue to rise into the tens of thousands in the wake of the monster 9.0 earthquake in Japan, and resulting tsunami. Our prayers and relief efforts need to go out to them. And consider that they are probably the most prepared of any nation on earth for those types of disaster. The Haiti earthquake was 100 times weaker, but deaths tens of times higher. Clearly the buildings did very well against the quake, but coastal villages and sea walls could not withstand the tsunami.
There are lessons for us here, of course – especially L.A., and the Pacific Northwest (Washington/Oregon) with their earthquake/tsunami threats. The civility and orderliness in Japan contrast markedly with New Orleans after Katrina. But even in the developed nation of Japan, there were problems for many days with food, water & energy supplies, and real hardships. A testament that everyone should have some emergency storage. And keep gas tanks full for possible evacuation (witness the long gas lines). And have a plan for reuniting/communicating with family after.
Then there is the Fukushima nuclear plant crisis, where even the backup power supply to the cooling system was knocked out by the quake. The media almost immediately focused on the potential for disaster there over the other already realized much greater disaster from the tsunami, etc. Not a single death due to the nuclear incident after 3 weeks. Hysteria over the possibility of another Chernobyl was fueled by the media coverage, no doubt influenced by the green, anti-nuclear activists, which apparently has already set back German nuclear power, and likely will the U.S. Although our plants are newer and safer, and not located near potential 9.0 magnitude faults.
I heard multiple experts every day without exception saying the design of the Fukushima plants and current status did not warrant concerns of a Chernobyl. Of course the other shoe has not completely dropped, although experts say that the design and all of the efforts so far have paid off in cooling the cores to the point that there is no possibility of a catastrophic explosion and dispersal like Chernobyl. There is possibly a bit of a crack in one of the cores that needs to be dealt with. But news reports of a radiation “plume” already reaching the U.S. were completely irresponsible – finally after weeks of hysteria and runs on iodine pills in California, I saw an ABC report acknowledging that the minute amounts detected here were much less than the amount of radiation one normally gets eating a banana, and much, much less than taking an airplane flight.
Dennis Prager had multiple nuclear experts daily on his program, and points out that he is batting 1,000 in pointing out how every Liberal/Left/environmentalist scare over the past 40+ years has washed out, including heterosexual AIDS, Biden saying he wouldn’t go anywhere in public transportation during the flu scare, etc. He therefore has healthy skepticism for the disastrousness of anthropogenic climate change, contrary to Gore.
Spreading Post-Entitlement Riots
London saw massive protests that turned riotous against cutbacks in entitlements, similar to Greece, Wisconsin, etc. As government budgets reach the breaking point everywhere due to bloated entitlements, and austerity becomes a survival necessity, these outbreaks will apparently become more commonplace. As Mark Steyn observed in London, the collapse of the entitlement state will not be pretty. Once people get used to perks, it’s very hard for them to give them up without a fight – they come to be thought of as a basic “right” instead of a perk. Which argues for never giving them so many unaffordable, government-dispensed, special-interest perks in the first place.
But the Democrats don’t seem very concerned at all, defending Obamacare, etc. to the end, offering miniscule token budget cuts, and they sound (according to Schumer) willing to go to the point of a government shut-down over it. Harry Reid continues to say there is no Social Security concern in the next 40 years. And they think climate change skeptics are oblivious to hard data? Harry’s credibility is hardly noteworthy – “the war in Iraq is lost.”
Left/Liberal Consistency is one of the First Casualties of War
I give President Obama a mixed review on Libya. It is a tough call, and clearly there is much diversity of opinion on it on both the Right and Left. Some arguments used by both seem bogus or hypocritical.
Obama said today that we faced a humanitarian disaster on a horrific scale, under Qaddafi’s threatened mercilessness against the rebels in Bengazi, etc. Somewhat true, although it would pale in comparison with the humanitarian disasters we completely sidestepped in Congo, Darfur Sudan, etc. And other threatened massacres in other Arab nation uprisings. So much for his statement that while some nations can turn a blind eye to atrocities, we can’t. Although he does appear to begin to show some reassuring hints of American exceptionalism (vs. his customary apologetics) – when it can provide a supporting argument. And doesn’t this argument also justify the Iraq war? Saddam after all killed hundreds of thousands of his own people (Shiites, Kurds with poison gas, etc.), tortured many more, and attacked and killed many more of his Iranian, Kuwaiti & Israeli neighbors. And the Syrians have killed tens of thousands of their own people.
All things considered, there now seems to be a new, lower standard for committing our forces. No longer “vital national interest,” or “imminent threat,” which Secretary Gates acknowledged this is not, to what Obama called “National interest.” A threshold that could potentially include several other nations, including Syria, Iran, .... Iraq was arguably much more in our vital national interests with the threats it had been and continued to be to a vital region, and WMD (which he provably had and used against the Kurds & Iranians). The lack of vital interest becomes more important considering we’re already heavily engaged in Iraq & Afghanistan, and, as Secretary Clinton has acknowledged, our national debt and poor economy weaken us and our ability to project abroad.
He said today that Libya and the world would be better off with Qaddafi gone. Yes, but mixed messages with his earlier statement that Qaddafi must go, and then our military commander’s mission statement of nothing more than protecting civilians. Which civilians, by the way? How about the Qaddafi supporters in Tripoli, now that the tide has turned in favor of the rebels, and they march on Tripoli – many apparently Al Qaida supporters? And doesn’t hinting at getting rid of Qaddafi as part of a rationale give legitimacy to the “evil” Bush’s clearly stated objective of getting rid of the even more evil and ruthless Saddam at the outset of the Iraq war? That in itself may have saved many Iraqi military (and other) lives in the invasion, as many simply gave up rather than fight for Saddam’s worthless skin.
By not sticking by the objective to get rid of Qaddafi as part of a military objective, we could in the end be supporting another post Gulf War I scenario. That is, after the first Gulf war that stopped short of ousting Saddam, there was a long, drawn out (several year) no-fly zone enforcement while on the ground Saddam ran amuk killing and persecuting Shiites and Kurds who rebelled (which Clinton really did nothing about). We could have a long civil war in which many more civilians are killed than would have otherwise died if we’d left things alone (or gone in quickly to take out Qaddafi). And with no political objectives supported (e.g., free elections, etc.), and ignorance of the makeup of the rebels, we could just be supporting a fundamentalist Islamic (Taliban-style, or Al Qaida) takeover. Which is apparently now becoming more clearly the endgame in Egypt, with the Muslim Brotherhood now asserting itself much more strongly than the young twitter/blogger crowd that got things rolling.
Qaddafi had attacked & killed many Americans by terrorism in the 1980’s, unlike Saddam. That is a long time ago, however, and we had somewhat normalized relations by now, in large part because Qaddafi did openly give up his WMD, also unlike Saddam. In fact one reliable source quotes Qaddafi’s motivation at the time as that he didn’t want to end up like Saddam, in a spider hole. Suddenly now saying he must go, or be tried, seems inconsistent and opportunistic.
Obama cited the international mandate and large coalition. Fine and good, but doesn’t that all the more justify the Iraq war, with all the UN resolutions, and even larger international mandate and coalition? And they complain of the “rush to war” in Iraq, after 12 years of putting up with Saddam’s defiance of UN resolutions, but on the drop of a hat they’re willing to go into Libya?
And speaking of rushing to war, have you seen the video of then Senator Biden threatening Bush with impeachment if he didn’t first get Congressional approval (which he did)? Where is Obama’s Congressional approval for this “kinetic action” (or “overseas contingency operation,” or whatever)? Maybe Biden should initiate the impeachment.
The old Leftist accusation of “blood for oil” -- the supposed reason we were in Iraq. Couldn’t that now be applied to Libya, which is oil-rich? How much free oil did we end up getting, by the way (answer: none)? And how much has the war cost us? We complain of indications that Britain’s release of the Pan Am bomber to Libya may have been for oil.
Obama seems once again unwilling or hesitant to take initiative or show decisiveness, leadership or clarity. The French once again appear as the leaders of the Free World, and they’re not even part of NATO that is nominally the brunt of the alliance. There is lack of clear military objectives or endgame – like Iraq after Gulf War I.
Liberals seem to love surgical, “clean” air wars without ground troops that get their hands dirty – Bosnia, Libya, Clinton’s missiles to Afghanistan, etc. But look at the genocide that occurred on the ground in Bosnia despite air forces, and under the nose of the worthless UN.
The Arab League first pleads for us to go in and stop Qaddafi, then when we do, and Qaddafi claims some civilian casualties (no proof, in fact there’s evidence he put cadavers of people he’d killed at bombed military sites) they change their minds and say no. And they provided none of their own forces (later Qatar & UAE sent a few planes) – we’re expected to do the dirty work. Of course many of the Arab nations are embroiled with problems of their own, like Egypt, and unrest in Yeman, Bahrain, Syria, etc.
I’m curious if part of Obama’s “conversion” to many of the same rationales that Bush used, isn’t due to the greater knowledge he now has with intelligence briefings, etc. And the weight of responsibility of the office, in contrast with the ignorant Left loud-mouths (including Farrakan, etc.). All the more reason to ignore those idiots.
Fatality estimates continue to rise into the tens of thousands in the wake of the monster 9.0 earthquake in Japan, and resulting tsunami. Our prayers and relief efforts need to go out to them. And consider that they are probably the most prepared of any nation on earth for those types of disaster. The Haiti earthquake was 100 times weaker, but deaths tens of times higher. Clearly the buildings did very well against the quake, but coastal villages and sea walls could not withstand the tsunami.
There are lessons for us here, of course – especially L.A., and the Pacific Northwest (Washington/Oregon) with their earthquake/tsunami threats. The civility and orderliness in Japan contrast markedly with New Orleans after Katrina. But even in the developed nation of Japan, there were problems for many days with food, water & energy supplies, and real hardships. A testament that everyone should have some emergency storage. And keep gas tanks full for possible evacuation (witness the long gas lines). And have a plan for reuniting/communicating with family after.
Then there is the Fukushima nuclear plant crisis, where even the backup power supply to the cooling system was knocked out by the quake. The media almost immediately focused on the potential for disaster there over the other already realized much greater disaster from the tsunami, etc. Not a single death due to the nuclear incident after 3 weeks. Hysteria over the possibility of another Chernobyl was fueled by the media coverage, no doubt influenced by the green, anti-nuclear activists, which apparently has already set back German nuclear power, and likely will the U.S. Although our plants are newer and safer, and not located near potential 9.0 magnitude faults.
I heard multiple experts every day without exception saying the design of the Fukushima plants and current status did not warrant concerns of a Chernobyl. Of course the other shoe has not completely dropped, although experts say that the design and all of the efforts so far have paid off in cooling the cores to the point that there is no possibility of a catastrophic explosion and dispersal like Chernobyl. There is possibly a bit of a crack in one of the cores that needs to be dealt with. But news reports of a radiation “plume” already reaching the U.S. were completely irresponsible – finally after weeks of hysteria and runs on iodine pills in California, I saw an ABC report acknowledging that the minute amounts detected here were much less than the amount of radiation one normally gets eating a banana, and much, much less than taking an airplane flight.
Dennis Prager had multiple nuclear experts daily on his program, and points out that he is batting 1,000 in pointing out how every Liberal/Left/environmentalist scare over the past 40+ years has washed out, including heterosexual AIDS, Biden saying he wouldn’t go anywhere in public transportation during the flu scare, etc. He therefore has healthy skepticism for the disastrousness of anthropogenic climate change, contrary to Gore.
Spreading Post-Entitlement Riots
London saw massive protests that turned riotous against cutbacks in entitlements, similar to Greece, Wisconsin, etc. As government budgets reach the breaking point everywhere due to bloated entitlements, and austerity becomes a survival necessity, these outbreaks will apparently become more commonplace. As Mark Steyn observed in London, the collapse of the entitlement state will not be pretty. Once people get used to perks, it’s very hard for them to give them up without a fight – they come to be thought of as a basic “right” instead of a perk. Which argues for never giving them so many unaffordable, government-dispensed, special-interest perks in the first place.
But the Democrats don’t seem very concerned at all, defending Obamacare, etc. to the end, offering miniscule token budget cuts, and they sound (according to Schumer) willing to go to the point of a government shut-down over it. Harry Reid continues to say there is no Social Security concern in the next 40 years. And they think climate change skeptics are oblivious to hard data? Harry’s credibility is hardly noteworthy – “the war in Iraq is lost.”
Left/Liberal Consistency is one of the First Casualties of War
I give President Obama a mixed review on Libya. It is a tough call, and clearly there is much diversity of opinion on it on both the Right and Left. Some arguments used by both seem bogus or hypocritical.
Obama said today that we faced a humanitarian disaster on a horrific scale, under Qaddafi’s threatened mercilessness against the rebels in Bengazi, etc. Somewhat true, although it would pale in comparison with the humanitarian disasters we completely sidestepped in Congo, Darfur Sudan, etc. And other threatened massacres in other Arab nation uprisings. So much for his statement that while some nations can turn a blind eye to atrocities, we can’t. Although he does appear to begin to show some reassuring hints of American exceptionalism (vs. his customary apologetics) – when it can provide a supporting argument. And doesn’t this argument also justify the Iraq war? Saddam after all killed hundreds of thousands of his own people (Shiites, Kurds with poison gas, etc.), tortured many more, and attacked and killed many more of his Iranian, Kuwaiti & Israeli neighbors. And the Syrians have killed tens of thousands of their own people.
All things considered, there now seems to be a new, lower standard for committing our forces. No longer “vital national interest,” or “imminent threat,” which Secretary Gates acknowledged this is not, to what Obama called “National interest.” A threshold that could potentially include several other nations, including Syria, Iran, .... Iraq was arguably much more in our vital national interests with the threats it had been and continued to be to a vital region, and WMD (which he provably had and used against the Kurds & Iranians). The lack of vital interest becomes more important considering we’re already heavily engaged in Iraq & Afghanistan, and, as Secretary Clinton has acknowledged, our national debt and poor economy weaken us and our ability to project abroad.
He said today that Libya and the world would be better off with Qaddafi gone. Yes, but mixed messages with his earlier statement that Qaddafi must go, and then our military commander’s mission statement of nothing more than protecting civilians. Which civilians, by the way? How about the Qaddafi supporters in Tripoli, now that the tide has turned in favor of the rebels, and they march on Tripoli – many apparently Al Qaida supporters? And doesn’t hinting at getting rid of Qaddafi as part of a rationale give legitimacy to the “evil” Bush’s clearly stated objective of getting rid of the even more evil and ruthless Saddam at the outset of the Iraq war? That in itself may have saved many Iraqi military (and other) lives in the invasion, as many simply gave up rather than fight for Saddam’s worthless skin.
By not sticking by the objective to get rid of Qaddafi as part of a military objective, we could in the end be supporting another post Gulf War I scenario. That is, after the first Gulf war that stopped short of ousting Saddam, there was a long, drawn out (several year) no-fly zone enforcement while on the ground Saddam ran amuk killing and persecuting Shiites and Kurds who rebelled (which Clinton really did nothing about). We could have a long civil war in which many more civilians are killed than would have otherwise died if we’d left things alone (or gone in quickly to take out Qaddafi). And with no political objectives supported (e.g., free elections, etc.), and ignorance of the makeup of the rebels, we could just be supporting a fundamentalist Islamic (Taliban-style, or Al Qaida) takeover. Which is apparently now becoming more clearly the endgame in Egypt, with the Muslim Brotherhood now asserting itself much more strongly than the young twitter/blogger crowd that got things rolling.
Qaddafi had attacked & killed many Americans by terrorism in the 1980’s, unlike Saddam. That is a long time ago, however, and we had somewhat normalized relations by now, in large part because Qaddafi did openly give up his WMD, also unlike Saddam. In fact one reliable source quotes Qaddafi’s motivation at the time as that he didn’t want to end up like Saddam, in a spider hole. Suddenly now saying he must go, or be tried, seems inconsistent and opportunistic.
Obama cited the international mandate and large coalition. Fine and good, but doesn’t that all the more justify the Iraq war, with all the UN resolutions, and even larger international mandate and coalition? And they complain of the “rush to war” in Iraq, after 12 years of putting up with Saddam’s defiance of UN resolutions, but on the drop of a hat they’re willing to go into Libya?
And speaking of rushing to war, have you seen the video of then Senator Biden threatening Bush with impeachment if he didn’t first get Congressional approval (which he did)? Where is Obama’s Congressional approval for this “kinetic action” (or “overseas contingency operation,” or whatever)? Maybe Biden should initiate the impeachment.
The old Leftist accusation of “blood for oil” -- the supposed reason we were in Iraq. Couldn’t that now be applied to Libya, which is oil-rich? How much free oil did we end up getting, by the way (answer: none)? And how much has the war cost us? We complain of indications that Britain’s release of the Pan Am bomber to Libya may have been for oil.
Obama seems once again unwilling or hesitant to take initiative or show decisiveness, leadership or clarity. The French once again appear as the leaders of the Free World, and they’re not even part of NATO that is nominally the brunt of the alliance. There is lack of clear military objectives or endgame – like Iraq after Gulf War I.
Liberals seem to love surgical, “clean” air wars without ground troops that get their hands dirty – Bosnia, Libya, Clinton’s missiles to Afghanistan, etc. But look at the genocide that occurred on the ground in Bosnia despite air forces, and under the nose of the worthless UN.
The Arab League first pleads for us to go in and stop Qaddafi, then when we do, and Qaddafi claims some civilian casualties (no proof, in fact there’s evidence he put cadavers of people he’d killed at bombed military sites) they change their minds and say no. And they provided none of their own forces (later Qatar & UAE sent a few planes) – we’re expected to do the dirty work. Of course many of the Arab nations are embroiled with problems of their own, like Egypt, and unrest in Yeman, Bahrain, Syria, etc.
I’m curious if part of Obama’s “conversion” to many of the same rationales that Bush used, isn’t due to the greater knowledge he now has with intelligence briefings, etc. And the weight of responsibility of the office, in contrast with the ignorant Left loud-mouths (including Farrakan, etc.). All the more reason to ignore those idiots.
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