Friday, April 26, 2013

The Thick Red Line


Chuck Hagel speaking to reporters about Syrian use of chemical weaponsOn August 20th 2012, the President of the United States stood up and gave the following stern warning to the Syrian regime: "A red line for us is we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilized. That would change my calculus."
Now let’s fast-forward eight months and six days to today. The Obama administration now says that there is proof that Syria has used the chemical weapon sarin on its own people. British and American officials have confirmed that there were at least two incidents of civilians being gassed.  Although the SECDEF minimized the use of the weapons by the use of the following statement: "The Syrian regime has used chemical weapons on a small scale in Syria, specifically the chemical agent sarin." The use of the words “on a small scale” is carefully crafted to not only minimize the deaths of many, but it allows the Administration to drag their feet on any type of military response. The official response so far, is that there are varying degrees of confidence on whether or not there were weapons used and if they were, who used those weapons.  Therefore the “red line” has not been crossed.
The administration is using the miscalculation of GWB and the WMDs to invade Iraq as an excuse not to take some sort of action against Syria. On Thursday the US said that we would not take our allies reports and that we must do our own. Then less than a day later, Hagel states that we have evidence of the weapons being used, as well as Israel, France, and Great Britain have all concluded the same via there own investigations. So, how is it that four allies have all conducted their own investigations and have come to the same conclusion but we are still not sure whether or not these weapons have been used? So I ask, what does it take to cross the “red line?”
The President of the United States made a promise to the people of Syria that if the Syrian government were to attack the rebels or civilians with chemical weapons, then the United States must take some sort of action. Now that is has been confirmed that the same weapons have been used, the US is now backtracking on promises made.
Keep in mind, I do not advocate for an invasion of Syria, but there are other options that could be used to ensure that more chemical weapons are not used. Put up a no fly zone over the areas where the weapons could be launched. Place an aircraft carrier group or two in the area and ensure Syria knows that there are several thousand US Marines ready at a moments notice to stop any further use of chemical weapons. Or even make a public statement about the use of Chemical Weapons (as of this writing Obama has made no such statement instead he is speaking at a Planned Parenthood event. I guess abortion rights are more important than people being gassed in their own homes).
No action by Obama is just more proof that Obama has yet again weakened the world’s view of the United States.  

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Thursday, April 25, 2013

Honoring the Iron Lady

This was my guest post that originally posted yesterday on Tripping Over My Tongue:

Margaret Thatcher, conservative, political, politics, current events, death 
With two major incidents recently occurring in the news, the Boston marathon bombing and the ricin letters, we may have forgotten that the world lost a pioneer for women’s rights and conservatism on April 8th, 2013. Margaret Thatcher’s death was a blow to many who grew up in the 1980s. Whether you agree with her politics or not, you must admire the way she went about her business with the same tenaciousness as any man. She was so effective as a politician; she held the office of Prime Minister for 11 years, the longest of anyone, and to a generation of Americans, she was the ally that could be counted on as the United States and the UK fought against the “evil Empire”, USSR.  I will always remember her as the “Iron Lady” and the strong ally of the United States that she was.
Instead of treating the death of a significant leader of our biggest ally in the world with the respect due her, the Obama Administration decided that they were too busy with other affairs to send someone from their administration to pay the respects of a nation. Instead, Obama opted to leave it up to the former presidents and the civil servants who had worked with Thatcher.
I can understand if the President doesn’t want to take time away from his arm twisting and plotting the demise of the 2nd amendment of the Constitution to go himself, but what was VP Biden up to, or even better yet, where was the Secretary of State? This falls directly under the responsibility of the SOS, so what was Secretary Kerry doing on Wednesday that he couldn’t travel to UK to attend the funeral? He was testifying on Capitol Hill about the Benghazi attacks on 9/11. This could easily have been moved to another day so that Kerry could have made a showing at the funeral.
The White House said they were too busy to attend but I believe that they did not want to attend the funeral of one of the longest serving conservative leaders in the world. The left does not like Thatcher for her standing up to the labor unions in England and helping England come out of the financial crisis they were in when she took office. Not to mention the close relationship between Thatcher and Ronald Regan, whom in the eyes of the left, does the younger President Bush only match in his evilness.
Politics is why America did not have an elected official or a high ranking member of the Administration at the funeral. I, as an American, am embarrassed by the blatant disrespect this president shows to all conservatives.

Repercussions of the Boston Marathon Bombings

This was posted on Tuesday on Tripping Over my Tongue, a specail thanks to Trishaj for allowing me to use her site :)

 
                  In the week (and a day) since the Boston Marathon bombing, the country has gone from extreme lows to a euphoric high by the time Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was captured late Friday (4/19/13) night. Not since shortly after 9/11 have I seen a community come together and support its first responders with such reverence. It was an amazing sight to see when people were cheering on the local police and other agencies as they were leaving the scene for hours.
                  However, now that several days have passed and it looks like the bomber is going to survive the injuries sustained during his shoot out with the police, we now have to get down to the business of prosecuting Dzhokhar Tsarnaev for the crimes he and his brother (allegedly) committed.  The first couple of acts have been put in place. To begin with, the White House has decreed that the United States will not treat this guy as an enemy combatant and will prosecute him instead in US Civil Court. Usually I would be up in arms with this ruling. Any Muslim that comes to the US and causes the death of three people and wounds a hundred or more should have a one-way ticket to Gitmo. However, these guys came here over ten years ago and used the system. They applied for and received political asylum and from what I can see, did everything that they were supposed to do. The Tasrnaev’s received their green cards and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev became a naturalized citizen on September 11, 2012, ironically enough.  My entire reasoning is that once you are a US citizen, the government should not be able to try you in a military court for any reason. James Homes is not being tried in a military court, nor are the Sandy Hook shooters and they killed many more people than did the Tsarnaev brothers.
                  There is one big difference between the Tsarnaev brothers and the other mass shooters of the last few years; they are not natural born US citizens and they are subject to lose their citizenship status. As I mentioned earlier, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev became a US citizen seven short months before he (allegedly) took part in this bombing plot. I have a very hard time believing that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was 100 percent truthful in his interviews and applications during the naturalization process and he certainly was not honest about the oath of citizenship when he raised his hand and swore his allegiance to the United States. It is not believable that he went from wanting to be a citizen to wanting to kill Americans en mass in just seven months. With the level of fraud and deception that he had to use to become a citizen, the State Department should ensure that his citizenship is revoked. Once it is revoked, then he should be immediately re-categorized as a terrorist and be moved to a military court.
                  I am not an advocate of trying Americans in military court nor am I an advocate for revoking a natural born/naturalized citizen’s citizenship, that is unless he takes arms up against the United States for a militaristic purpose, which is what I believe happened in this case.