Republicus

"Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me. I lift my lamp beside the golden door." The Statue of Liberty (P.S. Please be so kind as to enter through the proper channels and in an orderly fashion)

Name:
Location: Arlington, Virginia, United States

Friday, April 14, 2006

Capt B Comes Home



In the commentary section of the April 12 post "Antiwarriorology," a guest appeared by the name of Capt B.

He's a Marine captain, and one of the excellent milbloggers (i.e. "military bloggers) on the Web today.

Milblogs like his should be read by every American, as you see the front lines through their eyes and get first-hand accounts of the environment they're in, the action they face, the progress, and how they feel about what they're doing and the mission at hand.

Reading them, you will realize the disconnect between, on the one hand, the reality on the ground and what resides in the hearts and minds of our elite warriors, and, on the other hand, the "debacle" that is portrayed by an elitist media and decried--if not mocked-- by Bush-hating, "antiwar" liberals everywhere who shamelessly presume to speak on the former's behalf.

You will realize how truly out-of-touch the latter is, both in regards to the mission and of the soldiers seeing it through.

And you will realize that the fine-tuned intelligence of the soldier is insulted by the Left's "We support the troops!" charade, knowing it to be a mock-patriotic cover for the actual undermining of the mission's success.

They're trained professionals who know all about devious strategems and can see right through theirs (as they overwhelmingly saw through John Kerry's masquerades).

And they're men and women who grew up very quickly way back in boot camp, and don't appreciate being referred to as "our boys and girls" or "our kids" or "our children" by the simpering Left who are simply trying to exploit and manipulate the emotions of their parents and other Americans for political gain.

And they don't appreciate the insurgent-like, character-assassinating attacks on their Commander-In-Chief.

Above all, you realize what kind of soldiers--what kind of people--are fighting for you and me:

The Best kind.

In the ancient world, solders said: "We want to learn how to fight like Greeks."

In today's world, soldiers on the Iraqi security forces say: "We want to learn how to fight like the Americans."

But their fierceness in battle against America's enemies is matched by their gallantry towards their fellow Americans:

Republicus visited the blog of Capt B to welcome him home from Iraq, as did many others.

And the good captain found the time to grace this blog with a visit.

For that, Republicus is honored and, once again, welcomes him home.

Republicus would like all of his readers to drop by the blog of Capt B and also welcome him home.

All you have to do his click here: http://shepherdaway.blogspot.com/

It is highly recommended that you read his posts, and this soldier's, as well: http://www.michaelyon-online.com/

Also, in the December 18, 2005 post "Support the Troops," Republicus provided a link to information on how we civilians can do our part to aid and abet our soldiers and make life a bit easier for them while they do their work away from their home and families, and here it is again: http://www.americasupportsyou.mil/americasupportsyou/index.aspx

Here is another good link just provided by guest chtrbx: http://www.anysoldier.com/

Our soldiers are the best trained and most effective and fiercest fighters in the world today.

The U.S. Army--despite being vastly outnumbered-- would beat the largest army in the world--the Chinese Army-- on the field of battle (and the Chinese know it).

The only way they can lose a mission is if we lose it for them (and the "antiwar" crowd knows that).

Support the troops.

And support their missions.

Western Good Friday (April 14, 2006)




THE SCAPEGOAT OF SIN AND SAVIOR FROM DEATH (a.k.a. The Paschal Lamb)

THE LORD SAID TO MOSES and Aaron in Egypt: This month is for you the first of months; you shall make it the first month of the year. Speak to the whole community of Isreal and say to them: On the tenth day of this month let each man take a lamb or a kid for his family, one for each household...

Your lamb or kid must be without blemish, a yearling male. You may take equally a sheep or a goat. You must have it in safe keeping until the fourteenth day of this month, and then all the assembled community of Israel shall slaughter the victim between dusk and dark. They must take some of the blood and smear it on the two door-posts and on the lintel of every house in which they eat the lamb.

[...]

And as for you, the blood will be a sign on the houses in which you are: when I see the blood I will pass over you ; the mortal blow shall not touch you, when I strike the land of Egypt.

EXODUS 12:1-8, 13 (NEB)

The Institution of Passover (April 13-April 20, 2006)


THE LORD SAID TO MOSES and Aaron in Egypt: This month is for you the first of months; you shall make it the first month of the year. Speak to the whole community of Isreal and say to them: On the tenth day of this month let each man take a lamb or a kid for his family, one for each household...

Your lamb or kid must be without blemish, a yearling male. You may take equally a sheep or a goat. You must have it in safe keeping until the fourteenth day of this month, and then all the assembled community of Israel shall slaughter the victim between dusk and dark. They must take some of the blood and smear it on the two door-posts and on the lintel of every house in which they eat the lamb.


[...]

It is the LORD'S Passover. On that night I shall pass through the land of Egypt and kill every first-born of man and beast. Thus will I execute judgment, I the Lord, against all the gods of Egypt. And as for you, the blood will be a sign on the houses in which you are: when I see the blood I will pass over you ; the mortal blow shall not touch you, when I strike the land of Egypt
.

EXODUS 12:1-8, 12-13 (NEB)

Van Helsing Goes After Dr. Frankenstein


Pope Benedict XVI Will Deliver A Blistering Attack On The Mores Of Modern Society
(by Ruth Gledhill)

THE Pope will deliver a blistering attack on the “satanic” mores of modern society today, warning against an “inane apologia of evil” that is in danger of destroying humanity.
In a series of Good Friday meditations that he will lead in Rome, the Pope will say that society is in the grip of a kind of “anti-Genesis” described as “a diabolical pride aimed at eliminating the family”. He will pray for society to be cleansed of the “filth” that surrounds it and be restored to purity, freed from “decadent narcissism”.

Particular condemnation is reserved for scientific advances in the field of genetic manipulation. Warning against the move to “modify the very grammar of life as planned and willed by God”, the Pope will lead prayers against “insane, risky and dangerous” ventures in attempting “to take God’s place without being God”.

The Pope has not actually composed the prayers for the traditional Way of the Cross, but is certain to have given his blessing to the Good Friday meditations at the Colosseum.

Their author is Archbishop Angelo Comastri, Vicar General at Vatican City. The tone of the meditations is striking in its contrast to the contemporary fashion for feel-good religion.

While some will regard their emphasis on sin and the dark side of human nature as retrograde, others will welcome them as a sign of the strong and conservative leadership that Pope Benedict XVI was elected to provide. All Roman Catholic churches and many others, including Anglican churches in the Anglo-Catholic tradition, celebrate a liturgy around the Stations of the Cross on Good Friday.

The 14 stations begin with Jesus’s condemnation to death, take Christians through meditations of the “Way of the Cross” and the Crucifixion and end with the laying of Jesus’s body in the tomb. The Pope wrote the meditations himself for last year’s Way of the Cross in Rome. But today’s Catholic prayers, published in Italian this week and in English on the Zenit website yesterday, go further than most in their thorough denunciation of contemporary culture.

At the Third Station of the Cross, where Jesus falls for the first time, Archbishop Comastri has written: “Lord, we have lost our sense of sin. Today a slick campaign of propaganda is spreading an inane apologia of evil, a senseless cult of Satan, a mindless desire for transgression, a dishonest and frivolous freedom, exalting impulsiveness, immorality and selfishness as if they were new heights of sophistication.”

At the Fourth Station, where Jesus is helped by Simon the Cyrene to carry the cross, Pope Benedict and his followers will pray: “Lord Jesus, our affluence is making us less human, our entertainment has become a drug, a source of alienation, and our society’s incessant, tedious message is an invitation to die of selfishness.”

One of the strongest meditations warns against the attack on the family. “Today we seem to be witnessing a kind of anti-Genesis, a counter-plan, a diabolical pride aimed at eliminating the family.”

There is a moving meditation for the Eighth Station, where Jesus meets the women of Jerusalem, describing the “River of tears shed by mothers, mothers of the crucified, mothers of murderers, mothers of drug addicts, mothers of terrorists, mothers of rapists, mothers of psychopaths, but mothers all the same”.

The Pope will also confront the question of evil in the world in a meditation that asks: “Where is Jesus in the agony of our own time, in the division of our world into belts of prosperity and belts of poverty . . . in one room they are concerned about obesity, in the other, they are begging for charity?”



[Note by Republicus: Are you sure, Jeff, that you're a "practicing Roman Catholic" (as you once boasted in a commentary section to "prove" that you're not a satanically-driven, anti-Christian theophobic liberal), that therefore believes in papal infallibilty? Because his staunch, conservative position sure sounds a lot like the kind of "anti-science," "Christo-fascist" positions you've written many diatribes against.]

Wednesday, April 12, 2006

Antiwarriorology



(above: Mirror-Universe Spock, Bizzaro Superman)

Gadzooks. Trying to decipher the logic of the liberal/Democratic, Clinton-loving/ Bush-hating, "antiwar" mind is like trying to translate Egyptian hieroglyphics with a Chinese dictionary: You look at one set of words, then the other, scratch your head and squint, then labor in vain to find relations or consistent patterns until your eyes begin to spin and you feel compelled to place a horizontal forefinger against your lips, rapidly shake it up and down, and hum.

It's like they live in the negative world of Star Trek's mirror universe, or the upside-down one of Bizarro Superman.

There the resilient American economy was, bouncing back and having already begun to aggressively expand in the fall of '04, and there's lefty antiwar/warrior (huh?) Presidential-Candidate Senator John Kerry characterizing it as the "Worst Economy Since The Great Depression."

And, just last week, Republicus trumpets one fine recovery and continuing expansion and the 4.8 unemployment rate (hey, that rhymes) and an anonymous, Bush-hating guest explains how this is actually the worst expansion in the past half-century, and nothing to trumpet for.

And then there's the belligerent Antiwarrior element who cook up, inflate, and exaggerate (hey, that rhymes too; where's Jesse Jackson?) High Crimes and Misdemeanors to justify regime change here and draw up plans and concoct propaganda strategems and alarm the populace that the President and his minions are brutes and terrorists who are a threat to the American people, projecting I mean alleging that the president cooked up, inflated, and exaggerated the high crimes and misdemeanors of Saddam Hussein to justify regime change there by drawing up plans and propaganda strategems to alarm the populace that he was a brute and terrorist and a threat to the American people.

(That's right, place a horizontal forefinger against your lips, rapidly shake it up and down, and hum.)

Okay, Republicus got the part about them getting angry at President Bush because they felt like he tricked them into supporting the invasion of Iraq under false pretenses-- i.e. Saddam's presumed possession and/or pursuit of WMD-- but what Republicus doesn't get is why, then, do they exempt the hee-hawing former-President Clinton from their calumnious wrath since, less than five years before, he justified his own bombing of Iraq in his own Shock & Awe spectacle called Operation Desert Fox on the same grounds:

Earlier today, I ordered America's armed forces to strike military and security targets in Iraq.

They are joined by British forces.

Their mission is to attack Iraq's nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs and its military capacity to threaten its neighbors.

[...]

Saddam Hussein must not be allowed to threaten his neighbors or the world with nuclear arms, poison gas or biological weapons.


Commencement of Operation Desert Fox, December 16, 1998
The spectre of "nuclear arms" was conjured in President Bush's own reference to the "nucular" threat when he uttered the infamous "Sixteen Words" of the January 2003 State Of The Union address, which referred to a tip from British Intelligence (who were tipped by French agents who in turn had been tipped off by Italian ones) that, in February of 1999, an Iraqi official (who was stationed in Italy at a Vatican post, which was related to why PJPII came out against the war) had gone to Niger to--presumably-- talk and *wink-wink* about new uranium purchases.

Iraq had just been pummeled by Operation Desert Fox, but it would be a reasonable presumption, based on the observation of the well-demonstrated character of Saddam Hussein, that the pummeling would compel him not to learn his lesson and stop playing with matches, but, infuriated, to immediately start looking around for a flame-thrower once the pummeling stopped.

That would be the responsible presumption in a post-9/11 world.

Iran's defiance of the international community's wishes are similar in character to Baathist Iraq's, that is, they don't care, and neither did Saddam.

Saddam had gotten uranium before, in 1981, compelling Israel to bomb the reactor that same year.

He got it from Niger.

The tip from British Intelligence that an Iraqi official had gone to Niger is documented fact, and the presumption that the official was sent by Saddam to sniff around there for uranium yellow-cake--one of diverse and sundry examples about Saddam's clandestine pursuit of WMD itemized in the SOTU-- was a justified one.

The president said: "Here's what we heard from British Intelligence," and gave a sixteen-worded non-descript summary of the report (among a list of plenty more).

However, before the SOTU but during the obvious build-up to war, CIA staffer Valeri Plame gets her husband--Joe Wilson IV-- an assignment to Niger to find out what's up with that (i.e. Iraq and uranium yellow cake from Niger) so as to vet it for inclusion in the SOTU.

Wilson claims that he came back and reported that no, the Nigerans had no uranium deal with Iraq (as if they'd tell him if they did), but British Intelligence stood--and still stands-- behind their belief that it was a run for yellow cake, so the President decided to apprise the American people of that in the SOTU, anyway, to bolster the long-listed rationales for armed conflict even more.

Wilson freaks out that his personal assessment was rendered irrelevant, and tattletales to all of the Bush-hating, antiwar outfits that the president lied in the SOTU because he--Joe Wilson IV--had submitted a report that concluded that the intelligence was bunk.

Zoinks! The senate report on the CIA's intelligence gathering concluded that Wilson's own report strengthened--not weakened--the case that Saddam was looking for yellow cake in Niger!

Nevertheless, Wilson lying about the president lying caused the magpies to jerk upright and raise a cacophonic hubbub and so began the "Misleader-In-Chief!" the "Bush-Lied-&-Kids-Died!" the "Liar-Liar-Pants-On-Fire!" and "The Lying Liars And The Lies They Lie About!" childish insanity that raised a collective snickering and "Allah Akbars!" in terrorist enclaves the world over.

Meanwhile, Wilson also lied about who got him the assignment to Niger. He said it was the vice president, when it was really his own wife, so the vice president's men saw fit to set the record straight by leaking that it was an inside CIA job, as arranged by his CIA-employed wife, Valerie Plame (who was not named).

The magpies CAW-CAWED "TREASON!" because Northern Virginia's own Super-Duper-Secret-Sleuth Valerie Plame had her Top-Secret cover blown and her surveillance missions to Gucci, Tiffany's, and suburban N.VA. cocktail parties and baby-showers dangerously compromised.

All of that, of course, dominated years of left-wing punditry and "antiwar" blogosophies which took great pains--ad nauseum-- to explain why the president's "Sixteen Words" in the SOTU as well as the "Treasonous" outing of America's own James Bond (i.e. Valerie Plame) are an impeachable offense worthy of regime change here (while Saddam Hussein's Sixteen Violations of UN Resolutions on the heels of 9/11 did not merit regime change there-- after over a decade of spiteful defiance on his part, and appeasement on ours).

Meanwhile, mum on Clinton's spectacular but cosmetic bombing of Iraq on the justification of WMD capabilities by referring to the same intelligence apparatus.

And mum on the recent report that Saddam's own generals assumed--and counted on--the availabilty of WMD to keep an angry Uncle Sam at bay.

And mum on the self-evident terrorist element in Iraq and the established link between Saddam and Al Qaeda after all.

And complete obliviousness (if not actual mindfulness) of their own treasonous aiding and abetting of the enemy in a war wherein we must fight anti-American propaganda as much as armed combatants.

The dangerous liar who deserved regime change was Saddam Hussein, people, but to begin to understand the logic and world-view of the Clinton-loving, Bush-hating "antiwar" liberal mind, all you have to do is invert everything by turning the tables and everything upside down:

It's not the 16 violations of UN Resolutions and Saddam Hussein, no, but "The Sixteen Words!" and George W. Bush (and "Valerie Plame!" and "Abu Ghraib!" and "Gitmo!" and blah-blah-blah!) which should compel every good American patriot to oust this "criminal" administration (and give the liberal Democrats a chance to "Take Back" the "America We Remember!").

Meanwhile: "War? What war? The only one worth fighting is the Culture War against the anglo-Christo-fascist-lying-imperialists who hijacked the federal government and are the world's greatest terrorists!"

Republicus is not making this stuff up.

Anyway, with all of that being said--and magnanimously granting the lefty, unhinged, Bush-hating mind with some logic and consistency in principle-- it stands to reason that one could assume that if Iraq did, in fact, make a deal with Niger for uranium transactions (ignoring all other intelligence about unaccounted for WMD stockpiles), and if David Kay just happened to fall through a trap-door while flashlighting his way around a darkened, abandoned factory and suddenly found himself in a brightly-lit, underground complex full of thousands of spinning centrifuges cooking uranium, then the "antiwar" Bush-haters would assent to the sagacity of the invasion, apologize, and shaddup, would they not?

Not.

Iran has just the other day announced and bragged about its success in enriching uranium and its intention to keep enriching while warning of dread consequences if the centrifuges were attacked and destroyed.

That was in the face of international objections to its nuclear ambitions, and spiteful of the UN's finger-wagging against them.

It was a brazenly unilateral move.

"What?" the lefty, Clinton-loving "antiwar" Bush-haters would be expected to gasp collectively, since they spent how many years of vehement venting about the international coalition's "unilateral" invasion of Iraq, which spited the desires of the corrupt, pocket-pooling Saddamites on the UN councils and European allies like France and Germany alike?

Wasn't that "unilateralism" itself a cause to villainize President Bush?

Of course it was. Republicus read many writs and manifestos complaining about Bush's thumbing his nose at the civilized world and alienating everyone by his unilateral rejection of the Kyoto Treaty and his "unilateral" attack on Saddam.

But it's okay if Mahmout does it!

And weren't the "lies" about Iraq's nuclear capabilities and ambitions the main reason--along with the "lie" about Iraq's relations to Islamic terrorism-- why we shouldn't have attacked Iraq, which logically means that if Iraq did have the capabilities, and did have a working nexus with organized terrorism, then--but only then--would an attack have been justified?

Certainly, if the gripes and conniptions are to make any sense at all.

And yet, it is now okay for Iran-- which has an Islamic fundamentalist regime ostentatiously hostile to the United States, has a working nexus with uber-terrorist groups like Hizbollah, and has expressed an explicit desire to annihilate a U.S. ally-- to possess enriched uranium?

And President Bush is, once again, accused of mongering for war for the same reasons that indeed would have justified an attack on Iraq if the reasons were true, but now that they are in regards to Iran, they are insufficient, after all, and Bush is just still being a war-mongering imperialist ready to shed American blood for the sole sake of a foreign country (i.e. Israel) while simultaneously trying to corner the petroleum market, or monetarily help his buddies in the military industrial complex, or some such mischaracterization?

Why does Republicus feel like Dr. McCoy in the top pic being mind-wormed by mirror Mr. Spock everytime he listens to the bizzaro arguments of the Bush-hating, "antiwar" crowd?

Enough's Enough

1) Round up all illegals in jail or prison and send them back where they came from without any further ado.

2) Build that wall along the Mexican border to ensure that they don't come back.

3) Begin penalizing--with draconian fees--all busineseses that hire illegals henceforth, with a grandfather clause allowing current payrolls to continue.

4) Subject all illegal immigrants protected by the grandfather clause to the same standards for citizenship that all legals must abide by.

5) Expedite the processing of legal applicants as needed by demand (but subjecting them to the same standards for citizenship).

6) Tell President Fox that if he doesn't cooperate on his end, Bill O'Reilly will call for a boycott of Cancun.

7) Drop the Spanish language prompts and redundancies everywhere to force the learning of the English language and facilitate proper assimilation.

And welcome to America.

Update (4/12): The reasoning of this post has been compromised by emotion (i.e. irritation/frustration). What is lost in the debate between right-wingers concerned with issues of security, sovereignty, and good ol' fashioned law & order and left-wingers who hate "anglo-fascist" America (including her so-called and ill-gotten "borders") and Aztlanists alike is the practicality--and growing necessity-- of cheap labor so that we can compete globally with rising, exporting nations that don't have to deal with labor unions, health insurance for their workers, minimum wages, overtime, etc.

These people--the majority of Mexican immigrants-- are grateful just to be able to make a living (and a fine one), and there's demand for their services, so Republicus understands the wisdom of a "Guest Worker" program as opposed to the granting of either citizenship ("amnesty") or deportation (very costly).

But the unmitigated and unregulated flow of migrants across the border must be stopped, so Republicus supports the Pink-Floydization of the border (i.e. Build a Wall), as well as the immediate deportation of all illegals who are incarcerated, and a one-strike rule for "guests."

Republicus must concede, however, that--aside from the conviction that a wall be built and that all incarcerated illegals be deported-- he has not studied the economics sufficiently enough to swear by his prescriptions (or give them a vote of confidence at the polls, for that matter, pending proper research).

However, the people at the top--love 'em or hate 'em--are smart people who are privy to all sorts of economic data that has given them the laissez faire attitude, and although that attitude has been condemned as apathetic "incompetence" (and contributes to Bush's disapprovals eating into the conservative base), it's a good bet that the attitude has very much to do with competition against other nations that have a cheap labor force and have not been infected by liberal, profit-killing activism.

Within a year or two the United States will be a net-importer of food.

Think about that.

Anyway, it's a messy situation, both socially and economically, and we're damned if we do or damned if we don't, in many of its aspects.

Tuesday, April 11, 2006

Bad Day For President Bush



*Iran has enriched uranium.

*U.S. crude futures rose 24 cents to $68.98 a barrel, bringing prices within striking distance of the all-time high $70.85 hit last August after Hurricane Katrina leveled U.S. oil platforms and refineries.

*Italian elections may strip the president of another Iraq war ally in Silvio Berlusconi (who is calling for a recount), with staunch US partner Tony Blair barely holding on in Britain.

*The latest Washington Post-ABC News poll found that 38 percent of the public approve of the job Bush is doing, down three percentage points in the past month and his worst showing in Post-ABC polling since he became president. Sixty percent disapprove of his performance.

*A loud mixture of cheers and boos greeted Vice President Dick Cheney on Tuesday as he threw out the ceremonial first pitch at the Washington Nationals baseball game.

Iran Goes Nuclear


April 11, 2006
Foxnews (Associated Press contributing)

TEHRAN, Iran — Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Tuesday Iran had successfully enriched uranium for the first time, but insisted that his country does not aim to develop nuclear weapons.

"I am officially announcing that Iran has joined the group of those countries which have nuclear technology," Ahmadinejad said in a televised address from the northeastern city of Mashhad.

The crowd that included top military commanders and clerics broke into cheers of "Allahu akbar!" or "God is great!" many times during the speech. Some stood and thrust their fists in the air.

"Our nation does not get its strength from nuclear arsenals," Ahmadinejad said, adding that the West must respect Iran's right to peaceful atomic technology.

Ahmadinejad said Iran sought to operate its nuclear program within its rights under the regulations of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

He called on the West "not to cause an everlasting hatred in the hearts of Iranians" by trying to force Iran to abandon uranium enrichment.

"At this historic moment, with the blessings of God almighty and the efforts made by our scientists, I declare here that the laboratory-scale nuclear fuel cycle has been completed and young scientists produced enriched uranium needed to the degree for nuclear power plants Sunday," Ahmadinejad said.

The U.N. Security Council has demanded that Iran stop all uranium enrichment activity by April 28. Iran has rejected the demand, saying it has a right to develop the process. The head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency, Mohamed ElBaradei, is due in Iran this week for talks to try to resolve the standoff.

The White House denounced the latest comments from Iranian officials, with spokesman Scott McClellan saying they "continue to show that Iran is moving in the wrong direction."