Guest Contributer: Tom From NJ

Tom replies to my post entitled: "Massacre At Mazari-i-Sharif: It's A U.S. Pastor's Fault."

"We even tolerate the intolerant."

All too true, Peter; at least if the tolerated intolerant hail from one of PC's Most Favored Victim groups. That this is largely PC-driven is proven beyond doubt by the grotesque fact that Muslims as a group -- including the most radical, violent and, yes, intolerant among them -- have achieved full-fledged MFV status among the Liberal Establishment of both parties and the MSM. The latest stomach-turning development here is General Petraeus' mealy-mouthed apology for the Koran burning staged by self-proclaimed Christian minister Terry Jones and his huge throng of tens of like-minded haters.

The good General is no doubt a fine and dedicated officer but he has apparently fallen victim to the military professional's most prevalent occupational malady -- fighting the last war. Petraeus has been trying to adapt the deference to Islamic mores and traditional tribal structures that powered the successful surge in Iraq to a very different situation in Afghantistan, where the shorthand for Islamic mores and traditional tribal structures is most often spelt T-A-L-I-B-A-N. In Iraq, the Sunni elders had their own excellent reasons to morph into active foes of al-Quaeda; in Afghanistan, the incentives for tribal leaders vis-a-vis the Taliban seem almost 180 degrees opposite.

Unfortunately, the response of the General, and the Obama Administration, has been to double-down on an increasingly expensive and ineffective strategy, with his public reaction to the Florida Koran burning being the latest example. Petraeus rightly condemns the Koran burning as an offensive and intolerant act, but he never even mentions, must less denounces, the murderous temper-tantrums of Afghan Muslims that resulted in the deaths of innocent people, even the beheadings of a pair of UN mission officials, nor does he call any attention to the fact that the worst of these tantrums have been whipped up by lying imams who claim repeatedly that burning Korans by the dozen is virtually routine in Great-Satan America.

Now Senator Lindsey Graham, John McCain's poodle, is joining in with a strange and dangerous doctrine that the "loose lips sink ships" ethos of World War II be applied to the "war" that the USA is currently engaged in. Senator Graham, may we dare ask -- what war are we now engaged in, exactly? None has been declared, certainly not in the same way as WW II, and wouldn't we want such a clear legal basis before we limit our traditional American free speech, which in your statement you damn with faint praise as "a good idea, but . . .?"

Never one to miss an opportunity for working a scam, Hamid Karzai is also jumping in on this Koran-burning issue. Admittedly Karzai -- unlike General Petraeus -- condemns the murders as well as the book-burning, but how he and his well-respected, wildly popular regime is going to investigate to describe and explain what really happened. Can anyone doubt, based on the slippery Karzai track record, that the results of this "investigation" will be heavily couched in terms of "blame America first?" Followed by an even larger bill presented to Wash-DC by Karzai for his invaluable and selfless services in "opposing" -- ha, ha! -- the Taliban?

In any case, Petraeus, Karzai, Obama, Graham, the MSM, and all the rest of our dhimmis-in-training will sooner or later blame alleged American "intolerance" as the root cause of murderous anti-Western protests in Afghanistan and elsewhere in the Ummah. None will question why, after all the sacrifices in blood and treasure Americans and their Western allies have made to benefit or "protect" -- today's buzz-word -- various Muslim populations, significant percentages of those same populations seem fully prepared to believe any outrageous charge that those same Westerners are nothing more than tools of the Jews and/or Crusaders in sheep's clothing waging war on Islam. Which is to say, could these murderous tantrums actually be the result of MUSLIM intolerance? But to say so is not PC and is, therefore, taboo, unlike willingly undermining our Constitutional protection of free speech, the better to tolerate the intolerant. God save America!
--------------------------------------------
My comment: They engage in 'murderous tantrums' because it works for them. Can you blame them? Like children, the more they act out, the more we allow. Tolerance only works up to a point.

Al Green

Smooth!

B. Raman: WE ARE ALL TEAM INDIA TODAY

Team India!

Can you hear me cry?

I have been crying since I saw our captain Dhoni score the winning six last night.

I have been crying even more since I saw Harbhajan and other members of the team crying after the victory.

Till the moment of victory, they were men of steel, men of determination.

Once the moment of victory came, they became like you and me and like millions of others in the country.

They cried, they wept, they sobbed like children.

How many of us saw Harbhajan being interviewed by a journalist who asked him how it felt like in the moments of victory.

"Great", he said, "but it is not just our victory. It is the victory of all those people in the stands. It is the victory of all the people across India. It is India's victory."

Team India!

Could you sense my feelings of jealousy, my feelings of envy in the morning as I saw all of you lined up and singing the National Anthem.

Millions of people across India shed tears of pride and wished enviously they were there with you singing the National Anthem and playing for India instead of sitting before their TV sets and computers.

Team India!

You made us all Team India---- whatever be our religion, our language, our age.

You were the privileged eleven, but you made us part of you.

Team India did not have just 11 players. It had over a billion. You made us all play with you. You made us all achieve greatness. You made us all climb to victory with you in the lead.

Team India!

You made India shine last night. Like it has never shone before. You made us all shine in every nook and corner of India. You gave us moments of glory, moments of pride.

The glory and pride were yours, but you shared them with us----so readily, so generously, so humbly.

Team Sri Lanka!

How you fought! Every inch of the way, every ball!

Your country must be proud of you. So are we. After all, you are our cousins of history. Our own flesh and blood.

Team Pakistan!

You too. Our cousins of history, our flesh and blood.

You might have lost a hard- fought match. But, you and Team India jointly won the battle for the hearts of millions of people in the sub-continent.

Afridi became a household name in India---a name every Indian, young or old, knows and loves. He is our Afridi. Not just yours.

What mixed feelings at the end of the semi-final! Could you sense them?

Feelings of joy that we won it. And feelings of sadness that we had to win it against a brave team like yours.

Team India, Team Pakistan.

There is spring in the air across our two countries. You together brought that spring. I hope like millions of others we have the wisdom and foresight to preserve it.

Team India! Team Sri Lanka, Team Pakistan!

May God continue to be with us as He was throughout the series and make us better human beings by being better sportsmen. (3-4-11)

Bleatings From The Leper Colony

Ever since George Washington, we have always had presidents with some overarching vision of where they want to take the nation. They might have gotten bogged down in the minutia of governance, or they might have made mistakes that would eventually require retreat. But the basic vision nevertheless remained and focused on bringing America to a better place.

We, the people, more or less accepted the fact that we were not policy wonks; that we were not necessarily privy to all the things that our presidents were privy to – nor would we want to be. We could more or less assume that our president was doing his best to move us forward while keeping our best interests in mind.

We always accepted a certain amount of change – even downturns in our personal and collective fortunes - as being an integral part of life. We even accepted small, incremental deviations from the principles on which our nation was founded. We accepted the slow creep of socialism to accommodate the needs of the poor, the sick and the otherwise unfortunate.

All this changed with the election of Barack Hussein Obama. As the continuing controversy about his birth certificate suggests, there is now a growing concern as to just who this man actually is. Are we better off now than we were just two years ago? The resounding answer is no.

The tea parties were the first to sound the alarm. They were summarily rebuffed and dismissed. As more and more people dared to raise questions, more and more people were labeled ‘extreme’ and, therefore, illegitimate. Everybody knows at least a part of the threat our nation faces. And yet, every citizen is treated as guilty – at airports, for example – while the obvious culprits are excused from our scrutiny in the interest of maintaining a veneer of tolerance – tolerance for whom? The only ones not tolerated are us! It almost seems like our world has been turned upside down where a declaration of obvious criminal intent somehow provides immediate immunity.

Meanwhile, the rest of us must carefully maintain our resumes, and closely monitor our words and actions lest we stand accused of racism, hate crimes and various sundry sins that might well result in our exclusion. A natural bent towards conservatism in some precincts would practically confine one to the modern equivalent of a leper colony.

Meanwhile, too, we watch our fortunes fading, even as the media celebrates great strides toward some unspecified unknown. Should we venture to connect the dots and project our path to some seemingly alien experience, we are slapped down by harsh voices laced with severe accusation and ridicule. Since when, in America, has anyone not been allowed to speak openly without having to fear intimidation; especially, when what we say, points out gross contradictions in policy objectives; and particularly as these might relate to the fundamental contract we have with our government?

It has not gone unnoticed that this contract is now in serious jeopardy; that our government has gone rogue; that our own leadership is now on the brink of labeling us as illegitimate. We, of course - now that the contract has been broken - can say the same.

We never thought it could come to this – not in America.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

Crosby, Stills & Nash

Give credit where credit is due.

Massacre At Mazar-i-Sharif: It’s A U.S. Pastor’s Fault

In order to bring back any semblance of sanity to our public and private affairs, our people have to be re-educated, all the way from basic math to an understanding of right and wrong. In the absence of any standard - which is where we are now - who is to pass judgment? For far too long we’ve been drifting. Every issue has become existential; a tug of war, pulling our nation apart. We have yet to learn that our near paralysis in responding to events stems from being so utterly disorganized; that the most organized – not the most powerful, not the most tolerant, not the kindest – invariably win the day. The storming of the UN (do-gooder) compound in the Afghan town of Mazar-i-Sharif earlier today drives this thought.

It’s hard to imagine any outrage building in the West over the burning of a Bible or an American flag. In fact, this would likely be applauded by untold numbers of our own. We even tolerate the daily shredding of our own Constitution. We tolerate gross incompetence in leadership. We tolerate insult. We tolerate the erosion of our living standards. We tolerate decline. We even tolerate the intolerant.

At this point we lose. We declare ourselves ‘good people’. Why? Because we are tolerant, of course. At the same time, we have no idea that ‘good’ actually means standing for something. Without any discernable standards to go by, who is to say? We are fruit, ripe for the picking. We will not defend ourselves because we have nothing to defend. A man robs us on the street and we say, “He probably needs it more than us.” And, once again, we fall for the ruse of equating tolerance with virtue.

Our enemies have noticed. They are advancing without feeling the need even to disguise themselves. The drama of vultures feasting on a corpse is unfolding right before our eyes. Despite our considerable arsenal of bombs - which is larger than all the bombs in the world combined - no one respects us.

It’s open season. Libya is not the arena to demonstrate our roar – like Iraq was, and (to a lesser extent) Afghanistan. In Libya we lose no matter who wins. Our immediate focus should be on Iran. Instead we ignore it.

The world wonders and waits, vying for position for the privilege of driving the final stake through America’s heart. At this point, it’s no contest. Anyone can do it. Buried up to our necks in our own justifications for our limitless tolerance, anyone can throw the stone that will put out the lights.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

At The Roman Colosseum

As we agonize about all the various groups and tribes that might or might not emerge from the upheavals throughout the Middle East, we tend to lose sight of the central issue. What we are seeing is basically a food fight among the lions. Our interference in it essentially amounts to ‘the kiss of death’ for whichever side we are seen as favoring. Any fallout will be magnified exponentially should ‘our’ chosen party end up losing.

I’ve noticed that from the very beginning of what started with the so-called ‘Twitter revolution’, there has been virtually no mention of Israel; arguably, a nation that has the most to lose should things turn sour. Israel has remained largely silent while murder is raging all around it. This is because virtually any outcome can only serve to compromise Israel’s security further. Even regime change within its long-time nemesis, Syria, is fraught with danger for Israel which has over time amassed a great deal of data detailing the strength and weakness of the Assad regime. A new hand in Syria would represent the wiping clean of that slate.

The one issue uniting all the disparate factions of the Arab Street is its hatred for Israel. Even as we try to pick winners and do our best to demonstrate our support, the central conflict that puts us at odds with the Ummah is not apt to go away. Our status, even if we should get lucky and pick a winner, will not be enhanced as long as we claim to support Israel (which we don’t). The barb remains: We have supported Israel in the past. That alone condemns us in Arab eyes.

The only way to redeem ourselves (again, as far as Arabs are concerned) is to bomb Israel ourselves, which is not yet politically possible. And although we have done everything just short of that, it has not been enough to convince the ‘Arab Street’. Besides, it will still be advantageous for them to maintain an adversarial relationship with us for purposes of cohesion.

Oil has already been jettisoned as an incentive for good relations between us. Indeed, we have gone to great lengths to show that we are no longer interested. As such, Arab oil will be flowing primarily to the east. This theme has further crystallized in the willingness of Mahmoud Abbas to forego U.S. aid entirely in favor of unifying the factions under his supposed control.

What we are watching unfold in the Middle East will never touch us directly. For us, any outcome is as good as any other. Israel, on the other hand, is not so lucky. Any outcome for them is likely to be dire. The status quo was the best they could ever have hoped for. It’s crunch time for Israel. She will soon have to decide whether or not to stand and fight to defend her modern-day version of the Alamo.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/