Are the Taliban our toughest foes ever?

If you consider the entire duration of the American participation in World War II starting Dec 7th, 1941, it took the U.S. and its allies a mere 3 ½ years to secure unconditional surrender from the sole remaining Axis power, the Empire of Japan, which occurred on the deck of the U.S.S. Missouri on August 15th, 1945. The war in Afghanistan against a rag tag bunch of Muslim fanatics who call themselves The Taliban is now solidly into its 9th year of fighting. How do we compare the war making abilities of the Axis in World War II with those of these fanatics in Afghanistan? The Axis: 100,000 battle tanks, give or take 10,000, a few hundred thousand artillery pieces, thousands of naval vessels and millions upon millions of boots on the ground. The Taliban: a few thousand guys in togas and sandals (or as Mullah Omar would say, ‘sandals on the ground’), each with an AK-47. Throw in a few crew served weapons and a shoulder fired rocket propelled grenade launcher (RPG) or two, that’s about it. So begs the question of the day: how is it possible that these guys in togas and sandals fighting with small arms have fought the U.S. to a standstill (and arguably are gaining strength) over a period of nine years, when we dispatched an enormous Axis force in 3 and ½ years? The answer is simple: the introduction into modern warfare of what is now popularly called the ‘surgical strike,’ in which a relatively small team of weapons experts or highly technical combat weapon such as a smart bomb or ground attack aircraft can attack and destroy known enemy positions and combatants with precision and simultaneously minimize civilian (or what we now call ‘collateral’) casualties. The use of surgical strikes on our enemies in addition to the ability of the media using modern communications technology to instantly broadcast world wide all of the horrors of war now have most U.S. citizens erroneously believing that we can win wars just by killing the bad guys without the loss of civilians in the process. Once the liberal press picked up on these tactics, they selectively picked and chose which battles they broadcast: as many as possible when Republicans are in power, and as few as possible when Democrats hold the White House. And it is not just the press that recognizes the combination here: the bad guys also know that they can hide behind women, children, grandmothers, grandfathers and in mosques, churches and synagogues without fear of U.S. fire. They completely understand that should U.S. forces blow up a mosque and take out some innocents in the process, the news coverage world wide would be of tremendous value in their propaganda and recruiting efforts. By the length of time we have been fighting these guys, you would think they are the toughest adversaries we have ever faced. In reality, they are the biggest cowards. Accordingly, the Taliban is growing stronger and we allow them to mingle with the populations that support them in their war against the West. In days gone by, prior to the advent of the surgical strike, we would bomb, attack, and otherwise remove known areas of enemy strongholds, and simply accept the fact that there will be collateral casualties. In WWII, I don’t remember wringing our hands at the number of German civilians who died during the massive Allied bombings of German industrial areas. I don’t think there was an inordinate amount of grief paid to the 100,000 Japanese casualties after the A-bombs were dropped. Remember, these populations were not entirely innocent: they supported their country’s war effort, and many worked at the factories, turning out munitions and armaments that were the primary bombing targets. And the Taliban hide among the tribal populations, who harbor them and are accordingly aiding the Taliban effort against our troops. We need to go back to the days when winning meant killing lots of people, and worrying about innocent deaths was not paramount to the point that losing the war became a reality.

What's Sec. of State Hillary Clinton up to these days?

Possible captions include:

1. This was #1 on my job description.

2. The Under Secretary of the Interior of the Republic of Lesotho likes chocolate chip cookies, and I thought I would make a good impression during our urgent upcoming summit meeting.

3. What? I got nothing else going on.

4. ( fill in the blank)

President Obama did us all a favor by assigning Hillary Clinton a virtual 'do nothing' job. She's now out of the Senate, and can't do any further damage there, while jetting to Latvia, Lesotho and Timbuktu on official 'do nothing' business, while the functions attended to by Secretary of State incumbents of the past (such as foreign policy) are now handled by John Kerry, Joe 'Plugs' Biden and other Obama-ites.

Works for me. This move is the only thing that I can come up with that President Obama has done so far that is good for America.

Top 10 Biggest Obama Mistakes

Although he has only been in office for a little under a year, President Barack Hussein Obama (hmmm hmmm HMMMMM) has made some doosies, and here they are in descending order of stupidity: 10. Picking Joe Biden as veep. Joe 'Plugs' Biden is arguably one of the dumbest politicians to serve in this office in American history. His infamous propensity for gaffs is not just simply foot in mouth disease, it stems from his lack of intelligence. Anyone who spouts whatever is on the tip of his tongue at any time does not have what it takes to conduct foreign or domestic policy, and has no business being just a heart beat away from the presidency. 9. Sitting in the Rev. Jeremiah Wright's church for 20 years. Jeremiah Wright has been preaching Black Separatism for decades, and this is the church where Obama and his family sat for 20 years, were married in this maelstrom of hatred of whites and America in general, and had their children baptised here. Obama has picked up a great deal of this garbage over those two decades, if through nothing else other than osmosis, since he denies ever hearing the Pastor's hate filled message. 8. Selecting Eric Holder as U.S. Attorney General. AG Holder is a radical Marxist, just like Obama, and his latest decision in selecting a New York federal court venue for trying Khalid Sheik Mohammed, Ramzi Ben-al Shib and several other high profile terrorists makes absolutely no sense to anybody. The likelihood of them being acquitted, despite confessions of guilt from them all, is high. 7. Bowing to foreign heads of state. His pathetic obsequious bows to King Abdulluh of Saudi Arabia, and lately to the Emperor of Japan diminish the stature of the presidency. These stupid acts show just how inexperienced and clueless this young man is and how utterly unqualified he is to sit in the Oval Office. 6. Dithering on sending reinforcements to Afghanistan. This is truly incredible: his own hand picked general Stanley McCrystal has requested 40,000 troops lest we risk defeat, and this Ditherer-In-Chief is sitting on his hands, worrying whether supporting our troops who are in peril currently will upset his lunatic left wing base. Utterly irresponsible. 5. Packing the executive branch with 'czars.' These unelected, unaccountable dictators have enormous power to do tremendous policy damage, and yet have never been scrutinized by Congress (such as it exists today, sadly). He now has 40 of these guys (and gals), and counting, and they have been granted more power than his cabinet secretaries. And who would have dreamed a few years ago that we would have a 'Pay Czar?' Someone who arbitrarily determines what anybody should earn? This is not the America I remember. 4. Allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire. True, this has not yet happened, and accordingly is not yet a 'mistake,' but I am putting it on the list anyway. Obama has never learned any economic theory that anyone can detect, and truly thinks that the government should be the source of all economic activity. Letting the tax rates return to the Clinton-era rates is just another anchor on the already ailing economy. 3. Thinking he has a mandate to do anything he wants. Obama won the 2008 presidential election with 54% of the popular vote, and by any means this is not a mandate to change our country into a socialist state. By ignoring the public outcry against his policies, and labeling dissenters as 'extremists,' he truly tips his hand at what he thinks of the American public at large. That is to say, not much. 2. Trying terrorists in civilian court. Although he says this was not his decision but rather that of the Attorney General Holder, he is simply trying to remove himself from the blame should this backfire (which it will). He is the decider, not the AG whom serves at his pleasure. Nobody is buying this baloney. These terrorists will likely choose to defend themselves, and accordingly gain access to our intelligence, methods, secrets, and will have a world wide podium to spew their Jihadi garbage. This one comes close to being the worst mistake of all, and in my opinion rises to the level of an impeachable offense. ......AND THE DRUM ROLL PLEASE......The #1 Biggest Obama Mistake, based on the potential damage to our economy is: 1. Shoving the 2,074 page Senate Health Care Reform proposal down America's throat. He surely knows that most all Americans do not want this costly, wasteful and power grabbing bill passed, and yet he is determined to see it through even though it may cost him majorities in Congress after the 2010 elections. It will change the basic relationship between the U.S. government and its citizenry, from one mostly of government of the people, by the people and for the people to one of government over the people. And don't think that when Obama fails to win re-election in 2012 a Republican administration will roll all of this back: do we all really think that the new kids in town will just relinquish all of that newly gained power over the Great Unwashed (that's us, folks) handed over to them by the previous Democrat administration? If you sincerely believe that will happen, then I've got some undeveloped real estate near Kissimmee, FL that I'd like to show you. Sure, it's a little spongy here and there, but.....

Waterfront property is nice, BUT....

Waterfront property is a wonderful thing. I feel compelled, however, to bring up the politically incorrect and yet cold, hard and irrefutable truth about this situation that will never get brought up in the news media: Yes, waterfront property is indeed a wonderful thing, except when the ocean or river or wind driven lake waters rises above normal levels. And here is the irrevocable, inexorable, immutable truth about waterfront property: As sure as the sun rises in the East and sets in the West; As sure as the Pope is Catholic and the bear does what a bear does in the woods; As sure as a bottle of Scotch will be guzzled on the Kennedy compound within the hour; SOONER OR LATER, THE WATER WILL RISE ABOVE NORMAL LEVELS ON ANY WATERFRONT PROPERTY, AND THE MASS OF WATER WILL EITHER DESTROY OR GREATLY DAMAGE ANY MAN MADE STRUCTURES PRESENT, AND IT WILL KILL, GREATLY MAIM OR OTHERWISE DISTRESS ANY LAND LIVING CREATURE THAT CHOOSES TO BE ON THIS PARTICULAR WATERFRONT PROPERTY WHEN THAT EVENT INEXORABLY HAPPENS. This fact is not even arguable. The only issue that people will debate is WHEN something like this WILL happen, but not IF it will happen. True, it may be decades, centuries or even millenia between such events, but they will still happen given the passage of time. Columnist Steven Chapman brought up a salient point in his column in the Chicago Tribune a few years ago when he opined that the more affluent and civilized we become, the more clamoring there is among the anointed elite that we need to “live in harmony with Mother Nature.” Mr. Chapman’s point is that we have a paradox here: “Mother Nature has NEVER lived in harmony with US.” Mother Nature has killed more folks than all of the despots and tyrants, wars and other manmade calamities combined over the span of human history. Since we have emerged from the ooze, mankind has had to fight Mother Nature tooth and nail to survive. Over the many millennia, humans have largely figured out where to put down the tent stakes in our best effort in beating Mother Nature’s wrath, but there are still those who have yet to figure out that if you choose to live in the path that Mother Nature stomps on from time to time, then those souls have opted to dramatically increase their chances of removing themselves from the gene pool at worst, or greatly distressing their lives at best. I would lump everyone in this category who builds their permanent residence on flood plains, on muddy hillsides, and on waterfront property WITHOUT INSURANCE. Most of those wretches you see on TV hurricane or tsunami coverage wandering the streets with only the shirts on their backs in all likelihood had their entire life’s assets assembled in a shotgun shack near the beach, and had no backup plan or insurance. We call folks such as these either stupid idiots, or far more likely, they are the nation’s poorest of poor who cannot afford to live elsewhere, and like others of the world who find themselves in this situation, are constantly exposed to the ravages of Mother Nature and are sooner or later naturally selected to be excluded from the gene pool. Sadly, and I wish it were not so, but this is the way it always has been, and it is the way it always will be, much to the dismay and disbelief of the utopian imbeciles that populate the news desks across the US and elsewhere. I still enjoy sipping a girly-looking drink with an umbrella in it on the various beaches in the Caribbean from time to time. And yes, I do expose myself to the hazards of this environment. Hurricane season in the Caribbean is to be avoided, and I avoid it. I still swim in the cobalt-blue water, and enjoy it immensely, even though I run the risk of being gobbled up by a man-eating shark. These are risks I willing take, and the actuarial odds of me taking a hit during these times are minimal. But should I choose to live permanently on these beaches, and even take it one step farther by sitting in the water with a pound of raw hamburger in my hand for 12 hours a day, then my odds of getting hammered by Mother Nature or her menacing creatures goes up considerably. Sometimes Mother Nature is just plain meaner than a junkyard dog, and not everyone can live in the mansion on the hill; there simply is not enough room for everybody up there. What can I do about it? Nothing, and neither can anyone else.