"although I think it will help America's image in many parts of the world)..."

Yes! As Prof Walt has eloquently stated before, public diplomacy is a crucial element to the war against Al-Qaeda.

And without question, Judge Walker's ruling that Prop 8 is unconstitutional will go a long way to restoring the world's image of the US that has been badly damaged by the neocons' and George Bush's idiotic war in Iraq and the bungling of things in Afghanistan. Those wars have never been about the promotion of democracy and human rights in a country that possessed neither. But now instead we have a district court ruling that shows the world that the US really does stand for human rights for all. We didn't before when Bush was President but we sure as heck do now!

Thank God for this forward thinking, "realist" thinking federal judge and his foreign policy interpreter, Stephen Walt. Here is a list of countries that I would include in Prof Walt's "many parts of the world" where our image will be instantly helped:

1. Iraq 2. Afghanistan 3. Iran 4. Pakistan 5. Saudi Arabia 6. Egypt 7. Syria 8. Yemen

I read the section in that Oxford piece on the possible Iranian response to an Israeli attack against that nation. I have a question for a policy/military wonk. I understand that the Iranians are armed with a class of Russian designed antiship cruise missiles that have so far never been used in war. They are based on what are called the sunburn-22 (with mach 1.8 speed) and yakhoonst (with mach 2.4).

It is my understanding that these missiles are too fast to be stopped by any antimissile defenses on US warships. My question is why in devising possible Iranian responses the possibility that Iran might respond by attacking US warships? If these cruise missiles are as ferocious as they seem, wouldn't that be a rational Iranian response?

I have a second question about that Oxford analysis. Why would Azerbaijan ever allow itself to be used as an Israeli base against Iran.? It is a very small country completely surrounded by countries that could cause them considerable harm.

Judge Walker got it completely wrong: Until there are laws and practices in place which protect the religious freedom of those individuals and religious groups which do not accept homosexual marriages, then Prop. 8 is necessary to protect their rights.

Likewise, until there are laws and practices in place which protect the rights of parents to raise their own children in a system of faith and morals of their own choosing, free from interference by the state through the public schools, then Prop. 8 is necessary to protect their rights.

The way "gay marriage" has been approached so far in California (and elsewhere) violates the constitutional seperation of Church and State, religious liberiy, as well as parental rights. For all of California's talk about acceptance and ending bigotry, its so easy to see that this is really just a manifestation of liberal bigotry against religious communities, especially Roman Catholics.

Until there are laws which adequately protect religious freedoms rather than strip them away, anyone who opposed Prop. 8 doesn't deserve to feel "proud to be an American."

Judge Walker got it completely wrong: Until there are laws and practices in place which protect the religious freedom of those individuals and religious groups which do not accept homosexual marriages, then Prop. 8 is necessary to protect their rights.

Likewise, until there are laws and practices in place which protect the rights of parents to raise their own children in a system of faith and morals of their own choosing, free from interference by the state through the public schools, then Prop. 8 is necessary to protect their rights.

The way "gay marriage" has been approached so far in California (and elsewhere) violates the constitutional seperation of Church and State, religious liberiy, as well as parental rights. For all of California's talk about acceptance and ending bigotry, its so easy to see that this is really just a manifestation of liberal bigotry against religious communities, especially Roman Catholics.

Until there are laws which adequately protect religious freedoms rather than strip them away, anyone who opposed Prop. 8 doesn't deserve to feel "proud to be an American."

Evidently Adams and WIlliams' book isn't getting much traction inside Washington. Former Defense Secretary William Perry and former National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley just came out with a new report arguing more even more funding and resources into our national security establishment. The U.S. Military needs more advanced missiles that can go at higher speeds and longer distances, and they need more of a naval presence in the Pacific to counter the Chinese. You know...because having the world's largest military fifteen times over is simply not enough.

Maybe both Adams and Williams should consider a brand new stint of government service

http://www.depetris.wordpress.com
http://www.atlanticsentinel.com

Most countries do not allow gay marriage. What evidence do you have that this would help America's reputation more than hurt it? Just say you approve of the decision and leave it at that, don't try to tie foreign policy into it.

- in an otherwise quite sensible speech. But politics could be at play here; he want to appeal to the opponents of thge mosque, and may have judged that this is not done by challenging their view of why 9/11 happened, whch is, as he said:

It was exactly that spirit of openness and acceptance that was attacked on 9/11, 2001.

“On that day, 3,000 people were killed because some murderous fanatics didn't want us to enjoy the freedoms to profess our own faiths, to speak our own minds, to follow our own dreams, and to live our own lives . Of all our precious freedoms, the most important may be the freedom to worship as we wish.

But nevertheless it is written no where that he hadto include 9/11 in it - and IT MAY WELL BE, yhat he himself agree with those words.

------

9/11 explained

[First internationally inspired, political motivated terror-attack on US soil - first time US got attacked on its own soil - this made them over-react -- but pushed by cunningly acting individuals with ties to the Israel lobby. 3000 got killed -- 40.000 Americans are killed on the roads each year]

9/11 was a political protest intented to give Americans a wake-up call, abput how loppsided its Middle East Policy had been for three decades. The two biggest mortivating factors both have relations to Israel - - US support for Israeli policies in the occupied areas, and US troops continued stay on holy Saudi soil following the first Gulf War, where King Fahf had been promised that they would be withdrawn immediately after Sadaam's troops had been thrown out of Kuwait, which happened in early 1991.They were withdrawn in 2004. The man responsible for their continued stay was the Australian born super-zionist and -lobbyist, Martin Indyk, US citizen from 1993 and later US ambassador to Israel.

Did the Americans get the message? Many certainly haven't grasped it yet.

Shaq is so big that it's easy to miss his lateral quickness and his quickness at getting to a rebound. That stuff is difficult to see on TV but if he still has any quickness left, it may worth a look. Just because someone is big doesn't mean that they can perform.

The Celtic are an interesting story anyway. I like it when old guys can do it. After mid season, they were pooped, but they got it together. How did they do that? It's almost as much fun as watching youth development on other teams.

Bob Spencer

From PajamasMedia's "Works And Days" Weblog
August 7, 2010

A Rather Angry America

By Victor Davis Hanson

Unemployment is still high, growth low, deficits huge. States are cutting out everything from streetlights to paving. Public pensions are exploding everywhere.

A class war looms between retirees who want their sweet-heart obligations honored, and strapped, poorer taxpayers who feel about those bloated payouts as they do their underwater mortgages.

What Did You Expect?

In a progressive culture, where ads blare hourly about skipping out on credit card debt, shorting the IRS, and walking away from mortgages, did the public employee unions really think they were exempt from a Chrysler-like renegotiation?

In the age of Obama, there is no real contractual obligation: everything from paying back bondholders to fixing a BP penalty is, well, “negotiable.” When the money runs out, the law will too. Law? There is no law other than a mandated equality of result.

The Talkative Crowd

On the Internet recently appeared the pictures of the JournoList bunch, who at least between themselves gave up their usual pretense that the media was unbiased. With all due respect (confession: I was briefly mentioned by the list as someone that the racist card might work on in connection with the illegal immigration debate), they appear to the eye as a sort of nerdish group.

They remind me of what we used to call the “wimp table” at a pretty tough Selma High around 1970. It was there that the high school’s handful of geeks, toadies, and picked-upon used to eat, under the protective eye of yard-duty teachers. The assumption was that with a few steps further onto the grounds, the entire sorry bunch was fair game for every bully on campus. And that sad outfit filters, disseminates, and arbitrates our news? Most from their writing and appearance seemed either neurotic overachievers or twenty-something bloggers who confuse calling someone something with erudition.

Up Is Down

No wonder aristocratic golf became needed presidential relaxation, the old first lady hysteria over things like Nancy’s china cooled when Michelle hit the Costa del Sol, and Guantanamo became A-OK. The news now for these guys is sort of like writing boilerplate race/class/gender oppression papers for a Yale undergrad gut class.

Populism Is Now Bad?

In contrast, the proverbial people seem angry. A book will have to be written explaining how in 19 months Obama blew a 70% approval rating and is headed for under 40% — something that took Bush six years. A handful of judges nullified what millions voted for in Arizona and California, apparently on the premise that wanting federal immigration law enforced, and seeing marriage as a traditional bond between a man and woman as it has been for 2,500 years in the West, was bigoted, analogous to the racism of the Jim Crow South, and thus in need of judicial intervention.

A guy in Bakersfield might think it prejudicial that a gay judge struck down an amendment to the Constitution passed by a majority of voters and opposed by the gay lobby; a guy in DC would think the guy in Bakersfield prejudicial for coming up with that preposterous conclusion.

Meanwhile, in our postracial age, race is everywhere: Charles Rangel, who won’t follow the tax laws he writes, whines about an “old-English, Anglo-Saxon procedure.” Maxine Waters (under the cloud of insider bank influence peddling) and the Black Caucus (recipient of federalized GM donations) cite racism as the source of their ethical dilemmas (at least Larry Craig did not cite gay-bashing and Duke Cunningham reverse discrimination and Chris Dodd ageism and the late John Murtha girthism).

A mass murderer at a beer distribution center (so much for Van Jones’s assurances that such mayhem was a white thing) is portrayed on the airwaves as an aggrieved victim of racism lashing out. Not a word about the shattered lives of those gunned down and their families. Welcome to the post-racial Obama age — with much more to follow. (Nemesis gives no quarter: once Barack Obama years ago went down the patronize-and-use-Rev.-Wright path, the payback was only a matter of when, not if.)

History Is Negotiable

We sent our first delegation to the services marking the bombing of Hiroshima. Fine, but will we do the same with the Philippines, Manchuria, South Korea, and all the other places where the Imperial Japanese Army by early 1945 was killing on average well over 5,000 a day in its occupied co-prosperity sphere? To understand why Hiroshima, understand 50,000 American casualties, 100,000 Japanese dead, and 100,000 Okinawan dead at the conclusion of Okinawa ten weeks earlier, and then multiply it by a factor of 10 for the upcoming Japanese homeland invasion.

The Rising

At home, a huge mosque near Ground Zero in Manhattan will rise up before the new World Trade Center (maybe Bruce Springsteen can do a sequel to “The Rising”?). To suggest this is bad taste is bigoted. To suggest that we don’t know the where, how, and why about the funding, or why a self-proclaimed ecumenical group of Muslims wants to build ties by picking this provocative spot, or who exactly is behind the idea (or where exactly the promoter now is) is the worst sort of Neanderthal right prejudice.

No problem. We can assure the 3,000 dead that their passing was marked by the enlightened harmony of a mosque preempting a new tower. What we do know is that in about a year, all over the Middle East, al-Qaeda videos will have photo-shopped “strong horse” posters and CDs of the ruins of 9/11 in the shadow of a towering mosque, with the accustomed boilerplate about how Atta et al. knocked down the looming towers in order to have Islam’s shrine rise up in their place. It all sort of reminds one of the nasty reception the president’s envoy on Islamic outreach just got from a Muslim audience in India. He was “shocked” at his reception — or translated into Valley Girl parlance: “Like, I can’t believe this is happening to me.”

I don’t think the polls quite capture the present public anger, which in not abating. Everything seems to channel into a general furor: Michelle’s movable feast from Costa del Sol to Martha’s Vineyard; the president suing Arizona and counting on a judge to nullify the public will, as part of a larger effort either by judicial nod or administrative fiat to get amnesty for 15 million future voters who will reciprocate at the polls; politicians bragging about handing out another $100 billion of someone else’s money here, another $200 billion there; the constant assumption that popular expression is retarded, and those who go to a tea party rally, vote to enforce immigration law, want to see marriage as it has been for millennia, want to cut federal spending, or are tired of identity politics are Palinesque clingers.

The Best and the Brightest

The common denominator? If one were to survey the elite campuses around 1975 and talk to those in law school, poly sci, or the humanities, then imagine them 35 years later as our elite leaders in government, the media, the universities, the foundations, and the arts, one could pretty much expect what we now have.

The present symptoms that characterize both our popular culture and current governance — shrill self-righteousness; abstract communalism juxtaposed with concrete pursuit of the aristocratic good life; race/class/gender cosmic sermonizing with private school and Ivy league for the kids; crass and tasteless public expression; a serial inability to take responsibility for one’s actions; the bipartisan mega-deficits; the inability to cut pensions and social security for the baby boomers — from the trivial to the fundamental, all derive from a bankrupt cohort that came of age in the sixties and seventies.

We see the arrested adolescence and hypocrisy that come from that sermonizing generation, whether in Al Franken’s puerile face-making, the ideologically driven suicide at Newsweek, the steady destruction of the New York Times, John Kerry’s tax-avoiding yacht, the Great Gatsby Clinton wedding, Michelle on the Costa del Sol, Nancy Pelosi’s jet, Tim Geithner’s tax skipping, or the constant race-card playing of a Charles Rangel and Maxine Waters. Yes, one walk across the Yale or Stanford campus circa 1975, and one could see pretty clearly what sort of culture that bunch would create when it came of age and was handed power. If that is reductionism, so be it.

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