Arab Spring, My Ass...

We should buy these people some Irish Spring, and then maybe they wouldn't smell so bad.

Here's the recent record of Obama foreign policy, vis-a-vis the Middle East:

Egypt - The Muslim Brotherhood is in power, after a popular uprising against a by-comparison benign dictatorship.New Egyptian 'President' Morsi attempts to take dictatorial powers and pronounce a theocracy despite all assurances from the White House and State Department that the Muslim Brotherhood is a peaceful, democratic organization that hasn't the slightest intention of setting up a brutal, thuggish, reactionary regime of religious and political repression that supports terrorists.

Egyptians who took to the streets in the name of reforming the previous regime of President-for-Life Hosni Mubarak didn't sign up for this MB bullshit, so they're back in the streets attempting to reform or overthrow this regime before, it too, ossifies into an Iranian-style dictatorship. Obama backed the wrong horse. Why? Who knows?

Douchebag of the Week: The Arab Street...

This is the first time in the history of the prestigious Douchebag of the Week Award that an entire ethnic or religious group has won the big prize.

Mind you, this is no simple accomplishment given the normally very low standards of mindless behavior that are required to even be nominated. In this case, something unprecedented has occurred, and an entire people has displayed such egregious behavior that I am forced to conclude that what was once (wholesale douchebaggery) the exclusive domain of only the worst of  individuals -- a politician, a media figure, perhaps a denizen of Hollywood -- has gone viral, and infected an entire ethnicity.

Never Retreat in The Face of Ignorant Savages...Just Kill Them...

I haven't talked about Islam for some time now. Probably because on a good day, it's hardly worth talking about; it is, after all, a system of thought and behavioral control imposed by force upon perhaps the most insanely inbred population on Planet Earth. Seventy generations of inbreeding have conspired to create in the Modern Arab something that evolutionary scientists would say is impossible; a modern day Neanderthal, only with a smaller brain and greater capacity for irrational violence.

With regards to the recent attacks on American embassies in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia and Yemen, and ahead of those that are about to occur in Iraq and Afghanistan, it would do well to finally understand what the Israelis have been telling us for 60 years, already; it does not pay to treat Arab Muslims as human beings, for any gesture of friendship, any offer to peacefully co-exist, any attempt to negotiate in good faith, is axiomatically taken by them as a sign of weakness.

Hillary Clinton Pelted With Tomatoes...

...which is a waste of perfectly good produce, if you ask me. Don't they have bricks in the Middle East?

Secretary of State Hillary "the Hildebeest" Clinton was greeted in the new "Moderate" "democratic" Egypt this weekend by a hostile crowd of people-who-wouldn't-dream-of-voting-for-the-Muslim-Brotherhood with taunts of "Monica!", "Monica!", and a shower of airborne salad components.

Couldn't have happened to a nicer person! One wonders if there was also a complementary Islamically-approved vinaigrette served with this humiliation.

Guess all that Smart Diplomacy is paying dividends, eh?


I applaud this "Moderate, modern, democratically-inclined, Islamic youth". They certainly seem smarter than our own!

UPDATE: Word has it that George W. Bush has been quoted as saying "At least they weren't throwing size-12 sandals, still covered in goat shit from the last orgy. Count your blessings, Little Lady! Welcome to my world, Bitch! Not so funny now, is it?"

Necrophilia, Egyptian-Style...

The next person who recycles that Leftard-approved trope about “all cultures being equally valid” within earshot of me is gonna get punched in the fucking mouth.

News from Egypt, Fountainhead of that New-Fangled, Oxymoronic Islamic Democracy Thingy we learn today that what passes for a Parliament there is considering a law that would make “Farewell Intercourse” with your wife a legal right.

Our Government is Out to Kill Us....

There is no other explanation.

$60 billion dollars wasted on intelligence agencies which seem incapable of telling people what they need to know, but then can -- with a straight face -- point to a single sentence, with no relevance whatsoever and after the fact, which purports to "prove" that the Obama Administration "was on top" of the whole Egypt debacle all the time. The entire thing a sad-but-necessary bit of political theatre. Barack Obama, the Lightworker, Savior of the Universe, must be seen as infallible and all-knowing -- even if he is dumber than a sack of hammers, and some General has to ruin his reputation trying to convince you of it.

Sorry, but it doesn't look like Obama knows a damned thing about anything from here. But then again, that's perhaps not so much his fault, as it appears the people who are supposed to know seem incapable of telling him. Maybe The One wants it that way; no unpleasant news which might interfere with his fantasy world where Communism can be made to work. Perhaps people are just afraid to approach the Right Hand of God and utter non-politically-correct blasphemies to him. Maybe, just maybe, there's so many goddamned Czars, Special Advisers, Special-Assistants-to-the-Special-Advisers, Special-Advisers-to-the-Special-Czar-Assistants, that by the time information percolates up to the Resident of the United States, it's been cherry-picked, mangled, garbled, folded, spindled and mutilated to such an extent that he can't make any use of it, or it leaves him badly misinformed.

I will remind Gen. Tapper -- and I really dislike his cavalier defense of what appears to be indefensible --of something that he should already know, assuming he's read any history whatsoever; when the intelligence services are no longer interested in providing badly-needed facts, especially inconvenient and politically-painful ones, and are instead committed to ensuring that a certain political point of view is presented and advanced, then the term "intelligence service" becomes an oxymoron, and the threat to our citizens increases one-hundred-fold. If that was an example of what we're paying for -- something that read like a 5th-grade book report, only with fewer facts and fewer reasonable conclusions, to judge from the excerpts -- then it's no wonder that the Obama administration hasn't clue fucking one about how to fight a war against terrorism (then again, GWB didn't either), and seems to always be two steps behind the curve on every foreign policy issue of the day.

I'll tell you all you need to know about how to deal with the Middle East and international terrorism, Mr. Obama, and I don't need expensive satellites, eavesdropping equipment, spies, a great big expeditionary force, or fifty douchebags in government gray three-piece suits carrying James Bond briefcases, and Cereal-box Batman Decoder Rings. I don't need $60 billion bucks, either; I'd settle for $1 billion (tax free) if and when my ideas are tried and found to work.

Here's how you treat any issue arising from the Middle East;

1. Start killing Muslims by the tens of thousands, right in the shitholes where they breed, at the first sign of trouble. Make them suffer horribly, and if and when they beg for mercy, kick 'em in the teeth, and repeat the process. Once the Muslim World has been reduced to a smoking wasteland of ashes, pulverized concrete, and starving dogs feeding on rancid corpses, you won't need to spend a whole lot of money spying on anyone there, because the survivors (if there are any) will be far too busy trying to remember how to walk upright and gathering insects for subsistence to entertain thoughts about bombing anyone or shouting "Death to America!"

The reasons why we haven't followed this surprisingly simple strategy are easy to understand:

a. We are afraid, as a culture, to face the truth about the nature of the enemy, and his motivations. This (War against Radical Islam) is not about some minuscule band of nutjobs that simply 'give Islam a bad name', nor is it just some politically-motivated movement of really-excitable people; it is a fight against a poisonous cultural and religious imperative that is inimical to every value we hold dear. These guys can't be negotiated with. They can't be bought off. They can't be democratized, and then traded with. Their goal is nothing less than our death as a culture, and if they can't arrange that, they'd be happy to settle for our enslavement.

Instead of recognizing the obvious -- the leaders of this crusade (not afraid to use that word!) have only been telling us what they intend for the last 50 years -- we chose to be willingly deaf, and to advance with Eyes Wide Shut. Why is it that no one is listening, or takingnote of the obvious? Because if you took the Ama-dada-doo-dads of the world at their word, someone might expect you to actually do something, and who the fuck wants to take action? Taking action means possibly making mistakes, and when you make mistakes, they talk badly about you in the newspapers and on FoxNews.

b. There is a streak of cowardice which runs through the political leadership of the West. Doing what is necessary, in this case fighting a war of annihilation, is simply something too terrible for them to contemplate. In European capitols this is understandable; they've been -- excuse the expression -- Ground Zero for two World Wars, and they are, literally, on the front lines in this fight; the Muslim populations of a good number of European cities is absolutely staggering. War is already on their doorstep, but their cultural memory of war is such that they shrink from the prospect of further violence.

I have news for you; these guys (the Terrorists and Islamonazis) aren't afraid to die, like we are. In fact, they're eager to die; when you kill them, you're doing them a favor and sending them to Heaven and hooking them up with the false Paradise their stinking excuse for a religion promises them. Killing them by the tens of thousands, in this regard, is not as terrible, as say, the useless and bloody experiences of the Somme, Verdun or Ypres, the mass slaughters on the Eastern Front or the Hurtgenwald, it's actually an undertaking which would make both parties happy: we get to continue our way of life, they get Martyrdom. Everybody's happy!

But, bearing that sort of history in mind, it is easy to see just why Europeans would shrink from the sort of violence necessary to win a war of this nature.

There is no excuse for such a cringing attitude in this country, however, which makes the campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan so confusing. No American city has ever been bombed flat...or at least not yet, and one would assume we'd be less squeamish than pansy Frenchmen and Panty-wearing Belgians. It appears as if the original strategy for both wars was to give the appearance of a strong response to Islamic terrorism without actually responding strongly at all. Considering the length and apparent meager returns of both campaigns, one is left to wonder just when it is that the real war is going to begin in earnest. From my viewpoint, there hasn't been a War on Terror as much as there has been a Public Relations Exercise With Guns in the Middle East, and a steady assault upon the liberties of Americans at home. All excused and justified by the threat of a future terrorist attack.

Two consecutive Administrations have talked a good game about a War on Terror, but there's been very little useful action, all the purple thumbs not withstanding.

c. The people who hold and exercise political power in this country are committed, insanely, to an unworkable program of encouraging democracy in a part of the world where that term has no meaning -- unless it means that the people get to vote for Sharia Law and expanded Jihad, implemented under the auspices of the dictator of their own choice -- and where the institutions to create what a Westerner would recognize as a pluralistic, free-market democracy simply do not exist, and cannot be created swiftly. Not without a long-term, and probably-bloody, super-expensive and difficult occupation of the Middle East.

This should not be surprising as it has been evident for a very long time in the Western world that our own political institutions have been overrun and infected by a multitude of people who poorly understand both the nature and origins of democracy, themselves. Their attempts to democratize the Middle East, and their repeated, weak justifications for their hard-to-fathom (in-)actions to date, remind one of some new-and-improved-and-vaguely-defined version of the White Man's Burden; only this time the program is being handled not by the energetic and clever individuals who built, say, the British Empire, but by a bunch of drooling doofuses who can't articulate just what it is they do hope to accomplish, and who are too busy playing domestic politics with the issue to be bothered with such petty distractions like winning the war before claiming victory for this or that piece of it.

d. Let's be clear; these wars are about Oil and access to it. The terrorists are funded by the proceeds of petroleum, and the West, for a variety of insane and often-contradictory reasons, is addicted to the Middle Eastern variety; but we could shrug off the worst of this addiction in a relative heartbeat, if we really tried. Doing so, however, is politically impossible at present because neither Right nor Left is either honest about it's true motivations, nor ready to jettison most of it's own Sacred Cows. So, we're locked into a strategy of trying to negotiate with madmen, dangling the trinkets of democracy, diplomatic niceties, commerce, and friendship -- none of which they want or understand -- all the while denying that the true engine of this conflict is the Right's requirement of Middle Eastern oil to maintain it's technological and economic dominance (while crowing about Free Trade), and the Left's motivation which is to ensure that all the pollution, dirt, danger and poisons that come from drilling and refining crude oil -- and which make possible their cushy lifestyles -- to be the problem of some brown-skinned people so that we can posture about saving endangered fleas and have nice, clean parks. And this all happens while Leftists paradoxically crow about their concern for both the 'environment' and the welfare of the 'Third World'.

The first step in winning this war is to be honest about why we're in it, and exposing the bullshit political pathologies which guide and inform the people who supposedly run it.

2. Since international terrorists do not respect the distinctions between innocents and combatants, or the niceties of international borders and sovereignty, neither should we. If it becomes necessary, for example, to chase a terrorist from Afghanistan and into Pakistan, it should be done, and fuck the Pakistani government; if they were truly an ally, they would be going after these guys themselves.

This is a war where there is no battlefield, no well-defined and recognizable front lines, unless you remember that London, Madrid, and New York were made such by the enemy. In this war, the enemy has the initiative; he chooses where to strike, he chooses where to fight, and when we chase him from one battlefield (say Afghanistan), he quickly melts away to another (say, Somalia). This isn't the same bunch of ragheads hopping from country-to-country every time, either; it's a world-wide movement that springs up in another place just as soon as we're occupied elsewhere, and this is by design.

Al'Qaeda, much like McDonald's, is a franchise; you don't have to have met Usama Bin Hidin' personally, or been given orders from his own mouth, to open up a branch of Al'Qaeda...only a press release, and an atrocity. Which is why it is imperative to stop this nonsense about building schools, and bringing clean water to a guy who is your friend this week, and planting IED's the next; start doing some truly horrific violence to people, and the romantic allure of becoming a Junior Al'Qaeda quickly wears off. String together a series of truly-disgusting incidents of violence, and pretty soon either no one wants that McBomb Franchise anymore, or, even better, there's no one left to join the Jihad.

Being nice to these folks is not going to deter them. Recognizing their borders and sovereignty is a courtesy they certainly don't extend to us. Being sensitive to their feelings is tantamount to surrender. It should be the policy of this country that it will reserve the right to beat the piss out of terrorists wherever we find them, and we fucking double-dog-dare-you to stop us.

3. Since the terrorists, and the states which support them, don't give a damn about UN resolutions, international law, cultural sensibilities, etc., neither should we. The only way to win this thing -- permanently -- is to be just as ruthless as the enemy, and often, thrice as ruthless. This is not a war over some line on a map; it's about ridding the planet of a pernicious evil that is every bit as dangerous and deadly as any we've ever known.

This is not a rabble of discontented people fighting for their freedom or rights; it's the mass psychosis of an entire culture reaching it's boiling point and erupting all over the world, committed to the idea that it is a chosen group, born to rule, promised dominance by God. It will use unspeakable violence to achieve that goal, and it is aware of the fact that it cannot achieve it's victory in one fell swoop; it is prepared to spend decades, perhaps centuries, to achieve it's divine destiny. For this culture, perpetual warfare is something that will just have to be accepted as the price of success. That many will die, and good number of them will be committed to suicide as a tactic, is something they actually embrace. With enthusiasm.

Along the way, they will engage in the worst crimes a Westerner's fevered imagination can come up with; slavery, mass rape, genocide, mass destruction, looting, pillaging, beheading, floggings, mutilations, burning down entire cities, destruction of cultural icons (art, architecture, literature, etc.), theft and dislocation. Their motto, to paraphrase the Caliph who ordered the destruction of the Library of Alexandria, is "if it agrees with the Koran, it is not needed; if it does not agree with the Koran, it is not wanted...".

These assholes are not interested in our quaint notions of law, justice or diplomatic discourse; they want nothing less than to erase everything we hold dear or recognize as decent from human memory.

The West has dealt with enemies of this sort before. These are the New Huns. The New Nazis, Vandals, Visigoths, and Mongols. They are the New Breed of the Emperor-worshiping, fanatical, Kamikaze Japanese Militarists who had to be dug out of a hundred island strongholds, subdued by firebombing, bloody direct assaults, and atomic blasts. They are the Modern Day equivalent of the Aztec who had a perpetual need for slaves, flowing blood, and the beating hearts of their enemies -- a gift to their insatiable gods who gave them the imperative to conquer and kill in their names.

And while we dither, while we argue over the financial costs of wars we're barely fighting, as we argue about how to give free boob jobs to senior citizens and illegal immigrants, while we pretend to know what's in the hearts and minds of Muslims while blissfully ignoring the evidence of our eyes and ears to the contrary, while we pretend that we're dealing with people who are just like us, and who want the same things we do, and who are just jealous of our freedoms, they're arming themselves with intercontinental ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons; establishing contacts and alliances with the Enemies of Decency, the international drug cartels (Mexico, Columbia), the rogue states (North Korea),the criminal dictators of the world (Chavez, Khadaffi, Castro, Putin, et. al.), that will enable them to strike at us so much more easily and decisively when they're finally ready to do so -- all of it financed by The West itself, in the form of oil and drug money.

They've also infiltrated our societies, mostly because they were invited to do so, and work from within to weaken our resolve, tie us up in our own laws and pieties and suicidal need to be seen as 'nice', and if they can manage it, score a Trifecta of Insult by building a Mosque at Ground Zero, with federal funds, and with Western politicians and courts defending every overtly obnoxious, antagonistic gesture they make in the process. They laugh at us while they sap our morale and plan to kill us with our own money and institutions.

I promise; if you follow my plan, you'll see guaranteed results within 30 days, Mr. President...or your money (or rather, OUR money) back..

Mubarak Falls...

If you believe this leads to "democracy" in Egypt, keep your powder dry; if what emerges in the near future is a one-party police state in which Islam is enshrined as the national religion, and Sharia Law becomes the Rules of the Road, then democracy is in the Middle East is even further away from becoming a reality than it was before.

Stay tuned.

Why The Office of President of the United States Isn't an On-the-Job-Training Exercise...

Barack Obama is a badly-flawed man. When I say that I don't mean to imply that he's an evil person who stomps puppies and raises kittens for their meat and hides. I'm certain that on a personal level, he's rather an amiable gentleman, and by all appearances is an excellent husband and father. He just isn't smart enough to know what he doesn't know, and doesn't really know what he claims he does, and never seems capable of getting the proper help when he needs it, or to be even capable of recognizing when he needs that help.

Look about you. Does it look like someone who knows what he's doing is in charge? Do you feel that your political leaders grasp the reality of your life and the world around us?

When this country is facing economic crisis, exploding unemployment and is teetering on insolvency, Barack Obama spends his time devising federal giveaways disguised as "Stimulus"; Cash-for-Clunkers, Mortgage-Renegotiation Schemes, Green Energy boondoggles, a Healthcare program that somehow puts 30 million deadbeats into the insurance/health systems without raising costs, spouts the usual claptrap about "Education", fosters a Soak-the-Rich , anti-business, anti-growth mentality, recycles liberal (small 'l'' intentional) boilerplate policy that has been historically-proven to be about as useful and efficacious as mammary glands on a bull.

He turned the business of governing over to a cabal of Rahm Emanuel, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, and what they wrought was too terrible to contemplate -- a harbinger of the collapse of the federalist system, an assault upon the personal liberties of the individual -- and Obama spent 15 months polishing that turd, trying to convince you that a series of programs that even he couldn't adequately explain were somehow manna from Heaven.

He couldn't explain any of it because he didn't understand it, either, mostly because he had nothing to do with it, of course. Why do you think Nancy Pelosi had to resort to extra-constitutional means to get Obamacare passed, and Harry Reid had to bribe Senators (members of hi sown party, no less!) to make it a reality?

When the Gulf of Mexico was poisoned by BP, and millions had their livelihoods destroyed by an uncontrolled gusher of crude oil, Obama went on vacation. But he did, at least, file a lawsuit, bless his heart.

When the nation is at war with Radical Islam, Candidate Obama announces that it's a war we cannot win (The Surge has Failed, Guantanamo Bay is an affront to the concept of Human Rights, referring to terrorism as a "Man-Made Disaster", etc.), and makes various pronouncements calling GWB, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, et. al., War Criminals, Obama goes to Cairo and makes a speech apologizing for America defending itself while Al'Qeda expands into Yemen and Somalia, home-grown Jihadis shoot up Army bases, attempt to blow up Times Square, and try to bring down airliners with TNT boxer shorts. President Obama then repeats and extends the very Bush-era policies he previously decried, and then pretends as if he's still -- somehow -- on the higher moral ground that his predecessors could never occupy.

When the country needs firms, committed, reasoned leadership, Obama reminds us that he's a multi-and-post-racial Messianic figure who should be worshiped and obeyed, rather than held accountable for his actions, or lack thereof. If you criticize him, you're racist. If you disagree with him, you're a Redneck-Bible-thumping-Gun-Clinger. If you point out the glaring disconnect between his rhetoric and reality, you are accused of wanting to "turn the clock back to when the Republicans drove the car into the ditch".

At a time when economic recovery should be the paramount concern of the political establishment, Obama instead ordains newer restrictions on commerce. He imposes new taxes. He nationalizes the automobile industry, attempts to do the same to the healtchcare industry, bullies the banks, and sticks his cronies on a myriad of economic advisory boards.

He wags his fingers at Corporate America for their unbridled greed, their lavish, expensive trips to, and conventions in, Las Vegas, and then jets himself and the Missus on taxpayer-funded "date nights" to see Broadway shows and the best resorts, or plays golf on the best courses in America on a regular basis, or takes 10 vacations in the span of 12 weeks. He sends his wife on a junket to Spain that requires several hundred hotel rooms. He travels to India with an entourage of thousands.

When clarity of purpose and intent is necessary, when people need to be held accountable for the mistakes that were made which put the country in the dire straits it finds itself in, Obama creates a myriad of "czars" who's purposes are nebulous, and who aren't accountable to anyone...except him.

These are either the actions of a man who is determined to implement a New System which is certainly un-American...or they are the scattershot, clueless, hard-headed stupidity of someone who doesn't know what the fuck he's doing, and has even less of an idea of how to do even that much.

I would tend to believe it to be the latter, rather than the former. Being a"community organizer" and a temporary, half-term Senator, who never held a private sector job in his life, and was probably patted on the back, unduly lauded, and socially-promoted for being"special" without having to distinguish himself in any meaningful way, doesn't exactly prepare one for the job of President of the United States.

Barack Obama is making it all up as he goes along. He's a second-rate actor playing a part.

And if you needed even more proof that Barack Obama, the President-of-last-Resort, was totally unprepared for this job, and is unequal to the task of performing it at even a satisfactory level, we see all of his shortcomings and lack of experience manifested in the response to the crisis in Egypt.

You didn't need me to tell you this if you have eyes in your head and at least three working brain cells, but it bears repeating every day. If you don't believe me, just ask Professor Hanson. He's smarter than I am, you know.

I don't think Barack Obama is a bad man. Just a very bad President.

About Egypt...

For over a week now, my television screen has been poisoned by the pictures of tens of thousands of Egyptians in the streets of Cairo demanding the removal of their President-for-Life, Hosni Mubarak. If there's a silver lining in this particular set of Muslims-rioting-in-the-streets footage, it is this: at least I haven't had to look at or listen to President Marriot-Suites 500 times a day (again) making the case that Reparations-for-Slavery-Disguised-as-Wise-Economic-Policy has been an absolute godsend for the American people.

(I watched some of that much-vaunted Bill O'Reilly vs. Barack Obama interview prior to the Super Bowl, and I will say this about it: Obama hasn't any real core principles. He simply says whatever he thinks he needs to say at any given moment. That has been obvious for the last three years to anyone with basic brainstem functions, so it wasn't as if O'Reilly got anything new out of him, and if it wasn't already crystal clear to you before, it should be after yesterday's tour-de-force of bullshit: Barack Obama has no answers to whatever question or problem is put before him).

What is happening in Egypt at the moment was, up to a point, entirely predictable. Which is why our government, press, intelligence and diplomatic services all seem to have been taken by surprise. Even the dumbest people on this planet, given time, will eventually get fed up with some situation and then decide to do something about it, even if they're not quite certain as to what they're pissed about, or what to do about it. I'm not going to pontificate on whether or not Mubarak is a prince amongst Men, or the worst sort of douchebag, because I have no first-hand experience, and because I know that at least 80% of what passes for information on the nightly newscast is someone's opinion, rather than facts. Mubarak's record, so far as I'm concerned, is not germane to the argument I'm about to make. I'm fairly sure that given the mold from which the typical Middle Eastern potentate is cast, he's probably the second-biggest Dick in the Universe, it being a toss-up as to whether Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, or Micheal Bloomberg deserves that title.

Egyptians are fed up with slowly starving to death. They are fed up with a country that is a police state in all but name. They have tired of a President who's appearance of a democratically-elected term of Office seems to have run nearly one third of his lifespan. He's an old man, now, which in the rough-and-tumble of what passes for politics in that part of the world, makes him vulnerable. Like the aged jackal which can no longer hunt or scavenge and which becomes vulnerable to the hyenas all around it. Yeah, yeah, spare me thee-mails; I did just compare the entire population of the Middle East to predatory canines. It fits. They certainly smell like offal-scavenging, predatory canines.

Anywhoo, the one thing that becomes painfully clear to anyone who is watching and paying attention is that despite all the lip-service being paid to "democracy" by some of those protesters, it's that no one in Egypt actually knows what democracy is, and it's even more apparent that no in in the White House knows what it is, either. So, all you talking heads on television can shut the fuck up about whether Obama makes a "powerful" statement in support of the Egyptian "democracy" movement. For a start, no such movement exists (more on this in a second), and secondly, because Obama talks so much that no one actually gives a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut about anything he has to say. There is no "statement" -- "powerful" or not -- that does any good in this situation. More than anything, the moment requires action more than grand elocution, and when it comes to action, well, that's not Obama's strong suit; he's not a doer.

And his elocutions are usually written by somebody else, too.

As to what actions I would take -- since I've opened my mouth -- you don't want to know what I would do. Suffice to say, the only way you'd ever be able to know there was such a place as Egypt when I was done, would be a visit to a museum. The same for Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, et. al. But, I digress.

For those of you who are beginning to buy the "democratic movement arises in Egypt" theme the American Press so fervently hopes to spin you with no actual facts to back that assertion up, I say this: you are engaged in wishful thinking, for there can be no democracy -- as we would understand it -- in the Middle East. There are no democratic institutions, for a start, and they could not be magically created overnight (see: Iraq). Sure, Egyptians could vote, but that's not the same thing. Purple fingers do not a democracy make, despite what George W. Bush and Barack Obama have told us. In fact, if given the chance to vote in fair, democratic elections, Egyptians are likely to do what the Palestinians and Lebanese have done, and....vote for the Terrorists and Islamonazis amongst them.

It's predictable. It's inevitable. It's what their culture compels them to do, because they don't know any better. When the smoke clears, and Mubarak and the other despots in the region who are also under threat from this nascent "freedom movement" are gone, we're likely to see even worse forms of government arise. "The Shah always falls", the saying goes, and what usually follows him is likely to be our worst nightmare. That part is always unspoken.

When someone speaks of "democracy" in the Middle East, what they're really talking about is the means by which people will willingly vote to destroy any vestiges, or possibility, of Freedom. At the moment, all the talk about "Freedom" in Egypt is little more than people using this month's new buzzword. A society which has no history of Freedom, which has gone from Pharaohs, to Caliphates, to Foreign Occupation, to Presidents-for-Life, all of it overshadowed by the threat of force, is a land totally devoid of even the simplest idea of what freedom is.

Primarily, Freedom is the ability to ask the simplest of questions -- Why? -- without getting a less-than-social visit from the Death Squads, Gestapo, or Clerical Authority intent on stamping out heresy. Heresy, in this case, being not strictly limited in it's scope to strictly religious subjects. In a place where it is illegal, perhaps even deadly, to question secular authority as well as religious, Freedom cannot exist. The foundation of Freedom is that ability to ask "Why?", and then get an answer from an authority which is compelled by force of Custom and Law to provide an answer that doesn't involve firing squads or false confessions signed under threat of continued beatings in a dank basement cell.

A very interesting aspect of this whole "What Happens in Egypt Now?" drama being played out on the television is the differences in point of view between so called Conservatives and so-called Liberals. The ersatz-Conservatives worry about "what comes next", while the ersatz-Liberals openly question why their Great Man of History, Barack Obama, has been relatively silent. The differences are mainly between people who;

a) wish to convince us that they're intellectuals, in all ways smarter than we,

b) wish to give the appearance of substance to their act of pretending to be intellectuals

And in neither case does either side come close to accomplishing their goal.

For Conservatives, the question "What Happens in Egypt Now", revolves around a binary star of Right-Wing bugaboos; the fate of Israel, and the need to prove that George W. Bush was right, all along. The Israel question is a difficult one, because it requires that a Right-Wing intellectual balance his Reason while never telling the truth about his real attachment to Israel. On the one hand, he has to argue that Israel is a Western-style, pluralistic society in a region where no others exist, and that on that basis it is the task of the United States to do everything in it's power to protect and support such a state, because in so doing, we live up to our ideals about freedom. Intellectually, this is a powerful argument, and in my opinion, absolutely true.

However, there is a strong element in American Right-Wing politics which sees Israel not so much as a democratic flower in a desert of despotism, as much as it sees in Israel the fulfillment of God's Prophecy, for without the State of Israel to build that Third Temple, the primary requirement for the Rapture cannot occur, and these religious idiots will be stuck here on Earth with all us sinners for eternity. For them, the preservation of Israel is a means by which to bring about Armageddon. Any threat to Israel threatens to delay what God hath ordained. They can't come out and say it, because these are largely the same people who decry the Islamic Theocratic states, and people in glass houses, etc, etc. It's why Mike Huckabee broadcast his weekly dreck from Israel this weekend, you know, when there was apparently no reason to do so (guess who is running for the GOP nomination in 2012, and just burnished his Godbot credentials on the backs of Egyptian protesters?)

Conservatives have a third reason for giving a turd about what happens to the sandy little buttholes in Egypt, too. This has to do with proving the point that George W. Bush was essentially correct without having to tell the truth about how half-assed his efforts truly were, that the Reverse Domino Theory (topple Saddam Hussein, watch the entire Middle East go democratic) works, and that The War, it's expense and it's sacrifices, Guantanamo, Renditions, all of it, was justified; we were on the side of the Angels all along -- even if we didn't find WMD's or direct links between Saddam and Al'Qaeda. The end result of the American invasion and occupation of Iraq would automatically be Democracy, and "stability", and therefore, less terrorism, more Freedom (vaguely defined) and more commerce. What Conservatives of this ilk never tell you, though, is that so far as they're concerned, "Stability" means nothing more than the free flow of Middle Eastern oil to Western Industry. If you've ever needed proof that even fire-breathing-Freedom-for-Everyone Conservatives will deal with the Devil, here's a short list of them: The House of Saud, The Shah of Iran, Saddam Hussein, The Jordanian Monarchy, Hosni Mubarak.

"Stability" (meaning there is no "trouble") often trumps the call to Freedom, it seems.

For Liberals, the question of "What Happens in Egypt Now" is more about what their self-described Elitist figures of the Mentally-Deranged Cult of Personality do and say. Appearances are always more important than substance in Left-Wing Circles, which is why a great many Liberal Flapping Rectums on the Idiot Box have been gravely disappointed with Obama on this issue. Where are the grand pronouncements from the Oval Office? Why hasn't there been a U.N. Resolution condemning this, but supporting that, and making it perfectly clear that while it apears as if somebody is being admonished and someone is being praised, no one is really taking sides? Where is the Shuttle Diplomacy between Washington and Geneva? Where are the grand-but-empty gestures of Treaties, and Memos and White Papers?

Where are the Kennedyesque, Cuban-Missile-Crisis-Quality, dramatic black-and-White photos of Obama in the White House Situation Room, surrounded by grave-faced dolts who have even less of a clue than he does, passing papers, looking all stern and concerned and Statesmanlike, feverishly "working" to solve a problem they neither understand, or have any workable solution to.

Great Men of History do these things. Whether they achieve anything of consequence is besides the point; they at least have the appearance of Great Men of History, with all the suitable backdrops -- the White House, the U.N. General Assembly Hall, the huddled masses of useless diplomats and sycophantic journalists enthralled by the oratory pearls of a Man Who Speaks Much But Says Little. They go through the motions, only with Drama, and most of that has to be manufactured for strictly domestic consumption.

Liberals don't actually expect Obama to be able to do anything (doing requires action, and ultimately, responsibility, neither quality is in Obama's, nor in the Libtard's in general, character, for that matter), but they wish to be seen as being effective, as being strong, capable, smart, on top of things, when the truth is that they're really just pretending.

Neither Liberals or Conservatives has an answer for Egypt, primarily because they don't understand, or cannot admit to themselves, the reasons why what has happened has happened. Egyptians are dissatisfied with their lot in life, as people usually are, and what they are crying and bleeding for in the streets of Cairo (just as they did in the streets of Tehran, Beirut, and Damascus) is that they at least want to have the opportunity to choose which demented douchebag inflicts their misery upon them, whether despotic secular or despotic clerical, or a combination of both. This is not, strictly speaking, democracy.

The answer both Libtards and Godbots come up with is essentially the same: a newer, kindlier-and-gentler version of the White Man's Burden, in which "enlightened" Westerners gently nudge (on the one hand with bombs and infantrymen, on the other with grand-but-empty gestures and words) our Islamic-nutjob-retarded-cousins in the "right" direction. Both sides ignore the real problem because the means by which it can be solved is too terrible to contemplate and leaves too many open questions which our so-called Elites cannot answer; how does one change an entire culture?

Because that is the real problem. Islamic culture, an oxymoron if ever there was one, is like a disease. Terrorists and despots are merely the visible signs of it, the pustules or the bad rash that occurs upon infection. The Terminal Phase of this affliction begins with shouts in the streets and ends with airliners being plowed into office buildings. One side believes the disease can be dealt with by simple comparison and learning lessons from with the West and calls to reason, and the other believes that it can be cured with good intentions, greeting card slogans, and dreams of Rainbows, Pixie Dust and Purple Unicorns.

Ultimately, the best solution lies in something far more sinister and destructive, which is a Pan-Islamic Asswhipping followed by a 200-year Cultural Enema, delivered by a strong, untied, and determined West. George W. Bush was correct in this assumption, but he didn't follow through and make his War on Terror a Terrible War, which might have begun the process of radically changing Islamic culture (just ask Japan and Nazi Germany how that worked out for them in the long run). Neither side in this Great Debate has to courage or the intellectual honesty to speak that truth, or even to acknowledge it, because in so doing they both trip all over their most cherished dogmatic beliefs, and would have to, necessarily, reveal their true motivations.

Whatever happens in Egypt is none of our business, insofar as Egyptians have the right to be led astray and given the shaft by anyone they chose. So far as I can see, if the protesters are successful, and Mubarak is chased from office, all they will have accomplished is a choice between Bad and Worse; another dictator-for-life, or another version of the Khomeini Revolution, but they will not have fundamentally altered either the source or the severity of the cancer which eats away at them. They will not have changed themselves or their culture.

When the American punditocracy (a.k.a The Flapping Rectums) asks the question in another decade, "Who Lost Egypt?", the first people they'll look to blame will be the American political class, but the real culprits will have been the Egyptians themselves.

Personally, I hope they all turn on each other and spend the rest of the century killing one another (their only real talent), because it saves us the trouble of having to do it ourselves. However, if I'm wrong (it's been known to happen from time to time) and there is a glimmer of hope that what is now happening in Egypt can evolve into something approaching a true democratic nation, then by all means, let it happen. Stay out of it. We can't do it for them; they have to figure this out -- and even perhaps fight it out --for themselves.