A Worldwide Tax?

(This post first ran on January 29th, 2005!)


A Worldwide Tax? Not so many weeks ago, there was talk at the UN of a worldwide tax for something or other. We laughed it off. The UN is so puffed-up with it’s own self-importance nothing much surprises us coming from that crowd of international scalawags.Now our old friend (Well, he SAYS he’s our Old Friend!) Jacques Chirac, of France, is proposing much the same thing. This time it is to alleviate the Aids situation in Africa. Ostensibly.Look, “Ole Jack” is so far over the top he is verging on the “pitiful”. His ambition to become the President of the United States of Europe is fogging what little brain he has left. He spews forth these idyllic hallucinations as a matter of course these days. Ole Jack needs help. Serious help. His inferiority complex, and that of his nation, France, is getting out of hand… again.The socialism of Europe is not going to fly in America, as the Democratic Party is learning… much to their chagrin. The Southern States will not allow it. The northern states will most likely slip away, at some point in the future, into the cesspool of socialism such as that of Jacques Chirac and the Old Europe. So, when Chirac, or the UN, begins talking about a worldwide tax, we Southerners laugh. I mean… a “body shaking” belly laugh. The ridiculous proposal is, in fact laughable, but it is also a façade for danger. The danger lurking behind it is encroaching Socialism and One World Government. We Southerners are not “Globalists”. Even today we want ”to be left alone”. We are not interested in becoming a part of any “One World Government”. We will be on the front lines in the fight to stop such proposals as a worldwide tax, proposed by Mr. Chirac, or the push for Global Government.It is always good to remember that Thomas Jefferson said: “The price of Freedom is eternal vigilance.” These days we must watch even those who call themselves “our friends”.

Your Obedient Servant,

“Longstreet”

The Dishonor of "Cutting and Running".

Why doesn’t the Democrat party just go ahead and admit that they are scared “witless” of the terrorists in Iraq and, really, just want to run and hide?’

After the President’s speech at Annapolis, they nearly trampled each other to get to a “hot” mike and announce that nothing had changed, they still want to cut and run!

This “Run and Hide” Strategy, of the Democrats, is bound to backfire… and in a big way… soon. They are simply cementing the public’s image of them as a Party that is anti-war, and anti-military, and… cannot be trusted with the nation’s security.

I disagree with the President on a number of his policies, mainly his lack of a policy on illegal immigration. But, on the war, he’s right. Stand and fight! I cannot imagine how the Democrats can actually BELIEVE that running away from an aggressor will WIN the fight! I cannot believe that THEY believe the majority of Americans stand WITH THEM on this policy of “national cowardice”, for that is what it is, pure and simple!

The men and women of our military, all volunteers, ask nothing more than that their country back them. That’s all. They’ll do the fighting… and the dying, if necessary. They’re committed to repaying an obligation, owed by all Americans to their country, but actually paid only by those who wear the uniform and make themselves available to fight her wars.

The Democrat Party today is so different from it’s earlier self, especially during the Second World War. Why, this bunch of Democrats, today, would be calling for the impeachment of Roosevelt… their own President! However, in the ‘40’s, the kind of behavior demonstrated by modern Democrats, toward the war, would be treated as it should be…beneath contempt, as well as un-American.

I grew up in a solid Democrat family. My grandparents had FDR’s Portrait prominently displayed on the wall of their home. He was revered. So was America. No one would dare cast aspersions upon the Democrat Party, or America, and expect to remain in my family’s home. This was true of many, if not most, of the Southern homes of that day. No longer.

Today the South is very nearly “totally” conservative Republican. You can see islands of blue in the municipal areas, but once you leave the city limits of our cities, you are in a sea of red.

Most Southerners cannot agree with the Democrats, simply because they cannot fathom their demonstrated lack of love, and respect, for their own country. I do not foresee a change in the Southern attitude toward the Democrat party any time soon. And that, Dear Reader, is why it is folly for the Democrats to expect a Democrat candidate for President to win the South.

Southerners are fiercely patriotic and they do not see that same patriotism in the Democrat party of today. When the President says we will stand and fight, then, by God, that’s what Southerners will do. Why? Honor, Dear Reader! Honor! Some of you may have to look that word up in the dictionary. But, down South … we know what it means. I mean… we REALLY know what it means.

Down here, when a National Guard Unit, or a Reserve Unit, marches away to war, the whole town turns out to bid them farewell and Godspeed. And, that same town turns out to welcome them back, upon their return. Likewise, the entire town mourns when one of its sons, or daughters, is lost in service to our country. Patriotism is no abstract here.

The President’s speech, at Annapolis, was “spot on”. We understood what he said and… what he meant. It’s a shame to even debate “cutting and running”. Worse… it is dishonorable!

“Longstreet”

NATION BUILDING... ANYONE?

For as long as I can remember Republicans, in general, and Conservatives, in particular, have been dead set against Nation Building.

What happened?

We’re into Nation Building in Iraq! Big time!

Now, I know it is not the popular thing to say these days, but we won the war in Iraq. We invaded, completely destroyed the military of Iraq, overthrew the government of Iraq, and captured the Iraqi Dictator-in-hiding. Now he is on trial, at least it’s supposed to be a trial although it resembles a circus more.

I’m not a Neo-Con. If anything, I’m an old moss-backed Paleo-Con. I do not believe in Nation Building… at all. I’m from the old school in which you invade a country, and destroy it’s military, it’s government, it’s infrastructure and … then you leave. A very important part of the punishment of that enemy country is to leave it a smoking pile of rubble!

This is an important part of any victory. The ability to point to a former enemies pile of rubble and say, hey, you mess with us and you, too, will wind up like that!

It has something to do with the “fear factor”. Scare the living daylights out of any potential enemies.

Granted, it’s not pretty, but it is effective. You see, I’m not into trying to win friends and influence people. Never have been. I’m into winning.

See, I told you it was not pretty.

This Nation Building is costing us treasure and blood. I’m sorta averse to contributing either one!

The US has to make attacking us too costly for any country to even contemplate. To demonstrate that cost, we need to completely obliterate a country or two, sort of as examples, don’t you see?

But, so long as we go into countries and knock them down, and them help them back up, and rebuild their country, where’s the cost to them. Iraq will be in better shape when US forces finally DO leave than it has been since, well, I don’t know when.

I think Genghis Khan had it about right. Hit fast, hit hard, destroy everything in sight… and leave!

Did anyone ever ask “ole Genghis” what HIS exit strategy was? Huh? Guess not. You see, everybody knew, already!

No, our politicians have to get out in front of our Generals, and the troops, and prevent them from performing the jobs they were trained to do. Kill and destroy. Instead, they want the troops to all sit in a circle, hold hands, and sing “cum baya”.

It’s utter nonsense. It should be as simple as one, two, three:

One: Deploy to the enemy country

Two: Cream the enemy (and his country)

Three: Re-deploy home.

In the meantime, keep the troops razor sharp, and leaning forward, so that next time a troublemaker sticks his head up, he knows what’s coming.

Our troops have won the war. Now the politicians, in Washington, are so uncomfortable with victory, they feel this overpowering urge to “kiss and make-up” by rebuilding that which we have just destroyed. Makes no sense to me.

It’s not very diplomatic, I know. But then, again the French are credited with inventing diplomacy. That’s all I need to know about diplomacy!

Yeah, the more I think about it, the more I think “ole Genghis” was on to something there.

Longstreet

Is The Greatest Generation Ashamed of Us Today?

The Pearl Harbor of this Generation!

Around 8 AM, 64 years ago today, the Japanese swooped in, out of a brilliant blue sky over Hawaii, and bombed the port of Pearl Harbor to smithereens. Much of the muscle of our Navy was destroyed. Two thousand and four hundred US servicemen were killed.

I was seven months old.

In the next four years, as my consciousness grew, I became aware of all the activity around me. I saw soldiers in uniform. I saw my grandmother crying when the telegram came that her baby boy had been "Killed in Action" somewhere in Europe.

And finally, I remember guns being fired into the air, people running through the streets, of our little South Carolina town, hugging and kissing each other. I remember folks saying: “It’s over!” And it was. But it left an indelible mark on my family and an even deeper mark on me.

Those first 4 years of my life, the formative years, were experienced under intense stress. I learned the cost of war right from the beginning stages of my life. I lost one uncle, in Belgium (the Ancestral homeland) another was machine gunned through both thighs and lay in a freezing stream, in France, all night until American troops found him the next morning. The icy water of that frozen stream saved his life. He suffered ”shell-shock” (referred to as "Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome" today) the remainder of his life. A summertime thunderstorm became an instant German artillery barrage. He would race for cover. The flashbacks were ever with him.

Others of my family were in the Pacific fighting the Japanese. They, too came home with stories of Japanese Kamikaze planes hitting their ships and in one case finding a woman… yes, I said a woman, pilot in one of them! She was alive. For whatever reason, the plane with the bomb attached, did not explode.




























When we could get those veterans to talk, which was not often, I was spell bound by the stories of their experience. I soaked it up like a sponge.

You see, I learned, both from personal experience, and the second hand experience of my family members, who were in the hell of the Second World War, what war really is. And, I learned that you have no choice when the enemy brings the war to your doorstep, you must fight back, and you must prevail, no matter the cost.

Today, we find ourselves in another war, which was brought to our doorstep. In doing so, the enemy killed many more people with their sneak attack than the Japanese did with their sneak attack on Pearl Harbor.

I don’t suffer fools lightly. My generation shares that quality. Today we have people in our government who are advocating a policy of retreat for the United States in our war against terrorist in Iraq. If does not seem to matter, to those folks, that an enemy which has brought war to our shores will not quit, and go home, just because we do. They will follow us back to our own country and continue to wage war against us here... in our land.

It makes no difference how many medals hang from a man’s uniform or suit jacket. For all the times he was right, represented by those medals, there are times when he is wrong.

Had the United States listened to the “doves” after Pearl Harbor, I would most likely be writing this missive in German rather than English. It was that serious then, and it is that serious now.

So, as we think, today, of the men and women who gave everything they had, including their lives, to insure that you and I would have a free country, let us think of the men and women serving today for the same reason.

On December 7th, 1941 the Japanese, and the Germans, wanted nothing less than the conquest of the world. Today the Islamofacists want the same thing.

You have to ask yourself… as an American… are you going to stand down, ground your weapon, and allow this evil from the deepest, darkest, depths of hell, to take your country? That is the question all Americans must ask themselves. For, understand, they will not stop with America. Once America is out of the way, the remainder of the world will fall to them as easily as dominoes.

The Men and Women (Caps Intentional) of 1941 had to ask themselves the same question. We had better thank Almighty God they answered in the affirmative.

Today, we honor them for it. But they will tell you, those who survive to this day, that there was no real question about what the people of America would do. It was simply understood that freedom was far to precious to allow the forces of evil to take it from us. And so they marched forth to stop it and preserve this country for you and I. And they did!

We can never thank them enough. Not only did they save America, they saved the world!

Are we, as Americans, prepared to give up our freedom today after that generation gave so much of their blood to preserve it for us?

I pray to God that America will finally awaken to the danger that threatens us and take the painful steps to preserve this country, and again, the world.

Longstreet

Saddam's Three Ring Circus!

The Saddam Hussein trial is turning out just as many of us expected. It has already become a 3-ring circus, complete with clowns.

As soon as Saddam was yanked from that spider hole in the ground, the play began.

For the next few months we will see the play unfold upon the world's stage of the various TV networks all across the globe. Saddam will milk it for everything it’s worth… and then some.

The prancing and preening of his “Defense Council” will be nearly equal to the boisterous braying by the old bull himself, Hussein.

Islamofacist propagandists and the political Left’s propagandists, as well as some brain dead American Leftist propagandist will shovel their own piles of manure onto the heinous crimes of Hussein in an attempt to sell them to the public as though they were French perfume.

The Islamofacists will proclaim the unfairness of the proceedings and will tell the world how the EVIL US is destroying the wonderful legacy of the Great Leader of Iraq. All the while the mainstream media of the world, print and broadcast alike, will lap it up and present it to the world in such a way as to make it seem, as nearly possible as they are able, that Hussein is, in fact, being tried unfairly and should be released and returned to power in Iraq. The palpable fear emanating from the common man, and woman, in Iraq has it’s source in that belief. They fear Hussein will be released.

The trial itself is a farce. It is a necessary farce, however. It is a foregone conclusion that Hussein will be executed at the end of these trials... whenever that may be. But in the meantime, this public spectacle provides a stage from which the political left and the Islamofacists will spew their doctrine of hate for the US and all things democratic and, let us not forget, all things Christian. Any number of us, on the political right, could have written the script for this play. For that is what it is… pure stagecraft.

The trials themselves will serve only to inflame the followers of Hussein and the Islamofacists to even more dread deeds of lawlessness aimed at intensifying fear in the masses of Iraq and the surrounding nations.

The US has played right into their hands.

There is only one way to remove this soapbox from the Islamic extremists and that is to immediately close the court to only those participating in the trials themselves. No cameras, no microphones, and absolutely… no press.

The instant the judge’s gavel dropped the Pandora’s box was opened. There is no way to close it again without damage to the democratic process in Iraq. It would seem that our diplomats have yet to learn there is simply no way to play fair and win in this war. Every extended hand will be pushed aside and the raw hatred, of our Islamic foes for America, will roll right over any effort to be just and merciful.

There is no need for this charade to ever have been forced upon the people of the world.

Justice could have been served quickly, and quietly, and only the body of Mr. Hussein produced for a quiet funeral with only witnesses present to confirm the identity of the deceased.

But no, the magnanimous nature of America has again stirred a hornet’s nest that need not have been disturbed.

Now, the whole world will be subjected to the awful, awful, theatre from the Middle East.

We just never learn… do we?

Longstreet