China Confidential
Sunday, September 07, 2008
Obama's Powerful Personality Cult
Dateline USA....
It's not Obama's personality that concerns his opponents and critics; it's his personality cult.
Back in February--which seems like a year ago, already--Lisa Lererwrote:In Chicago, a recent art exhibit showed works depicting the candidate on canvas, paper and even in animated videos.
Some of the posters are vaguely reminiscent of classic Soviet propaganda, with a large, benevolent-looking Obama staring out from the paper. The artists plan to tour their "independent political propaganda campaign" across the country.
Four months later, in case you missed it, the aging Arabist and disgraced journalist Judith Miller wrote:Obamamania has definitely infected the “beating heart of Arab nationalism,” as it once called itself. During my recent visit to Damascus, Syrian officials and the political elite seemed captivated by Barack Obama, well before it was clear that the Democrats’ charismatic young superstar would be the party’s presidential nominee...
Syria’s enthusiasm for Obama, so widely shared among Muslim Arabs, is not surprising, given his endorsement of directly engaging states like Syria through creative diplomacy. Obama has repeatedly said that the United States should not speak only to its friends, but also to its enemies—in most cases, without the onerous “preconditions” that the Bush administration has laid down and that Syrian officials reject as tantamount to preemptive surrender. This prescription is most welcome in Syria, which despite its oil is a relatively poor nation of some 19 million people, squeezed by American-led economic sanctions and hemmed in politically between more powerful states.
Saturday, September 06, 2008
Radical Left Fears Obama Sell-Out
Dateline USA....
The far left of the left-leaning Democratic Party is boiling with anger--at Barack Obama.
The extremists are accusing Obama of lurching to the right, even though he is the party's most left-wing-ever candidate for President of the United States.
Former Weather Underground terrorist group member Bill Ayers, in whose home Obama's political career was launched, is said to be livid. The aging radical has reportedly told friends that he smells a sell-out.
The left's lunatic fringe is enraged by Obama's interview on Fox television. He told talk show host Bill O’Reilly that the troop surge in Iraq had “succeeded beyond our wildest dreams.”
Obama also referred to Iran as a threat and said that its acquisition of nuclear arms was "unacceptable."
Consumed with hatred for the US and Israel, which they would like to see destroyed, left-wingers have allied themselves with Islamist Iran and Islamism in general. Like the Iranian leftists who joined with the Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran to overthrow the pro-US Shah, only to be butchered and betrayed by the medieval mullahocracy that replaced the modernizing monarchy, US and European leftists stupidly see right-wing political Islam as a tiger they can cynically ride without being eaten.
They're wrong, of course, dead wrong.Back to Carter? Democrats' Windfall Profits Tax Would Increase US Dependence on Foreign Oil
Dateline USA....
Anti-energy, no-drill Democrats are proposing a windfall profits tax (WPT) on American oil and gas companies. The Democrats claim a WPT would increase energy independence and stimulate development of (nonexistent) alternative energy sources.
They're wrong. If history is a guide, a WPT would actually increase dependence on foreign oil, as the Congressional Research Service (CRS), the non-partisan research arm of the House and Senate, found when it looked at the measure.
Examining the 1980 WPT--an excise tax that was a product of a compromise between the catastrophic Carter administration and Congress--the CRS concluded the WPT "had the effect of reducing the domestic supply of crude oil below what the supply would have been without the tax. This increased the demand for imported oil and made the United States more dependent upon foreign oil as compared with dependence without a WPT." [Salvatore Lazzari, CRS, "The Crude Oil Windfall Profit Tax of the 1980s: Implications for Current Energy Policy," March 9, 2006.]
"In the long run however," the CRS pointed out, "all taxes distort resource allocation and even a corporate profit tax (either of the pure type or the surtax on the existing rates) would reduce the rate of return and reduce the flow of capital into the industry, adversely affecting domestic production and increasing imports."
The WPT was repealed in 1988 under President Reagan.
POSTSCRIPT: In a February 12, 2008 editorial titled "Record Profits Mean Record Taxes," Investor's Business Daily said that regular income taxes already take into account the high profits, and that there's no need to do anything extra to tax or punish the oil companies. As an example, the editorial states "Consider the magnitude of the contributions from Exxon alone. On those 'outlandish' 2006 profits, the company paid federal income taxes of $27.9 billion, leaving it with $39.5 billion in after-tax income. That $27.9 billion was more than was collected from half of individual taxpayers in 2004. In that year, 65 million returns — which represent far more than 65 million taxpayers because of joint returns — paid $27.4 billion in federal income taxes."
In an August 4, 2008 editorial titled "What Is a 'Windfall' Profit?" the Wall St. Journal wrote, "What is a 'windfall' profit anyway? ... Take Exxon Mobil, which on Thursday reported the highest quarterly profit ever and is the main target of any 'windfall' tax surcharge. Yet if its profits are at record highs, its tax bills are already at record highs too... Exxon's profit margin stood at 10% for 2007... If that's what constitutes windfall profits, most of corporate America would qualify... 51 Senators voted to impose a 25% windfall tax on a U.S.-based oil company whose profits grew by more than 10% in a single year... This suggests that a windfall is defined by profits growing too fast.... But if 10% is the new standard, the tech industry is going to have to rethink its growth arc... General Electric profits by investing in the alternative energy technology that Mr. Obama says Congress should subsidize even more heavily than it already does. GE's profit margin in 2007 was 10.3%, about the same as profiteering Exxon's."Muslim Website Calls for 'Forest Jihad'
Foreign Confidential....
A Muslim Website has singled out Australia as an initial target for "forest jihad."
The site urges Muslims to deliberately light forest fires as a weapon of terror.
US intelligence experts earlier this year identified a website calling on Muslims in Australia, the United States, Europe and Russia to "start forest fires", claiming "scholars have justified chopping down and burning the infidels' forests when they do the same to our lands."
The Website, posted by a group called the Al-Ikhlas Islamic Network, argues in Arabic that lighting fires is an effective form of terrorism justified in Islamic religious law under the "eye for an eye" doctrine.
The posting, which instructs Muslims to remember "forest jihad" in summer months, says fires cause economic damage and pollution, tie up security agencies and can take months to extinguish so that "this terror will haunt them for an extended period of time".
Many Nations Targeted
"Imagine if, after all the losses caused by such an event, a jihadist organisation were to claim responsibility for the forest fires," the website says. "You can hardly begin to imagine the level of fear that would take hold of people in the United States, in Europe, in Russia and in Australia."
With Australia heading into another hot, dry summer, intelligence agencies are treating the possibility that bushfires could be used as a weapon of terrorism as a serious concern.
China Confidential has learned that Australian authorities have also sought help from Israel, which has had to cope with Muslim arsonists attempting to burn forests planted under the country's acclaimed reforestation programs.More Murder and Rape in Muslim Pakistan
Foreign Confidential....
The so-called religion of peace has been especially active in Pakistan, as shown by the following news items.
In the first incident, a 17-year-old girl was shot dead by her brothers and father while in police custody in Sahiwal on Wednesday.
Sara alias Nusrat Bibi had appeared in the Sahiwal Sessions Court to seek the dissolution of her marriage. She was married in 2001 when she was just a 9-year-old. However, she had subsequently filed a petition in the court seeking to dissolve her marriage, against the will of her brothers and father.
The court had given the decision in her favour.
Her brothers and father shot and killed her as she left the courtroom.
Muslim 'Master' Rapes 11-Year-Old
Elsewhere in Pakistan, a Muslim "master" allegedly raped his 11-year-old Christian domestic servant on September 1, 2008, a day ahead of the advent of Ramadan.
Sana, the alleged rape victim, told reporters that the man she was working for had been making attempts to sexually abuse her since she started working at his house.
A resident of Gunnianwala, Sana said she had confided to her mother, Mumtaz, about the unease she was experiencing while working at this house.
Economic worries, however, forced the impoverished girl to continue working for her master amid fears of being sexually assaulted.
“He continued to harass me even though I told him that I would tell his wife if he did not stop harassing me,” said the alleged rape victim.
Sana said the accused raped her in the afternoon on September 1. She claimed that the man and his wife threatened her with dire consequences if she ever revealed the truth.
Police have arrested [the man] and are investigating.Iranian Official Says Israel Too Weak to Attack
Foreign Confidential....
An Iranian cabinet official said on Saturday that Israel is too weak to dare to strike Iran. His comments reflect (a) an escalating psychological war between Iran and Israel, and (b) Iran's actual belief that its formidable arsenal of ballistic missiles--combined with the missiles of its Lebanese proxy, Hezbollah, and closest ally, Syria--constitute a deterrent to an Israeli attack.
“The Zionist regime is not in a position to even think about attacking Iran,” government spokesman Gholam Hossein Elham said in response to remarks by the French president who had said Iran might be attacked by Israel if it continues its nuclear program.
During a visit to Damascus on Thursday, Nicolas Sarkozy said Iran is “taking a major risk in continuing the process to obtain a military nuclear capacity…Because one day, no matter which Israeli government is in power, one morning we will awake to find Israel has struck.”
“Is Mr. Sarkozy a spokesman for the occupying and counterfeit regime?” Elham asked. “If so, we advise him not to proceed in that direction,” he told reporters during a news conference.
“These threats are because of weakness…it only reflects the warmongering and terrorist nature of the Zionist regime,” Elham said.
Separately, a senior commander of the regime's elite Revolutionary Guards was quoted as saying that new long-range missiles had strengthened Iran's defensive capabilities.
"Today, the enemy does not dare to attack Iran, as it knows that it will receive fatal blows from Iran if it ventures into such a stupid act," Nour Ali Shoushtari said in the city of Qazvin, Iran's Press TV station reported.
The Islamist nation has vowed to destroy Israel, promising to "burn Tel Aviv" if its nuclear installations are attacked by either the United States or Israel.
EDITOR'S COMMENT: Iranian missiles appear to have changed the balance of forces in the Middle East. The key question is this: absent use of nuclear weapons by Israel, can the Jewish state wipe out Iran's known and suspected nuclear sites without suffering unacceptably large losses on the home front? Iran is apparently betting that the answer to that question is no, that the possible bombardment of Israel's population centers will deter Jerusalem and Washington from attempting military action to end the nuclear standoff.On Obama, JFK and FDR
Dateline USA....
Democrats who want voters to view their Presidential candidate, Barack Obama, as the next JFK (John F. Kennedy) or the next FDR (Franklin D. Roosevelt) should be thankful for the traditional American aversion to the serious study of history. A critical look back at the two towering leaders suggests some eerie--and scary--parallels with current crises and problems.
While it is true that the charismatic JFK inspired millions of Americans and foreign admirers with his optimism, style, and vigor, he also botched the Bay of Pigs invasion of Communist Cuba and stumbled into the Cuban Missile Crisis, which brought the United States and the Soviet Union to the brink of nuclear war. Kennedy's poorly prepared summit meeting with Soviet leader Nikita Krushchev paved the way for the worst confrontation between the two superpowers during the Cold War. in the eyes of the Soviet premier, the young, inexperienced American President was weak and naive, long on style but short on substance.
One wonders: how would Mahmoud Ahmadinejad view Obama? The Democrat has vowed to meet unconditionally with Iran's Holocaust-denying president. Critics fear their summit would embolden Ahmadinejad and encourage nuclear-arming, Islamist Iran to accelerate its plans for Israel's destruction and America's expulsion from the Middle East.
Critics also fear that Obama's oxymoronic call for "aggressive diplomacy" towards Tehran's turbaned tyranny reflects a fundamental misreading of Iran's intentions--akin to the failure of the European powers to read Hitler's intentions in the years leading up to the Second World War. Hoping to preserve the peace, they failed to recognize that the Nazi leader had committed Germany to an imperialist foreign policy and really intended to act on his dreams of world dominance.
Unlike the Europeans, FDR was clear-eyed. Seeing Germany plain, he rejected European and US isolationist calls for appeasement, understanding that it was impossible to appease a rising totalitarian power bent on overthrowing the status quo. FDR was a great wartime president.
Before the war, FDR's progressive political rhetoric and New Deal programs gave people hope during the darkest days of the Great Depression of the 1930s that had begun under Herbert Hoover.
But FDR's economic policies prolonged and deepened the depression. It was the war--not the New Deal--which finally ended the depression. The retooling of the US industrial sector put millions of people back to work, providing powerful proof of the linkage between wealth creation and productive capacity.
A few forgotten facts....
Unemployment during Hoover's last year in office was not as high as it was during each of the first five years under FDR. During the eight years of FDR's first two terms as president, there were only two years in which unemployment was lower than it had been under Hoover; and the difference was marginal.
FDR also exacerbated rather than solved the problem of bank failures by failing to change obsolete banking regulations that blocked the advent of branch banking. Limited to a single office, US banks were prevented from diversifying their loan portfolios and sources of funds. In contrast, Canada allowed nationwide branch banking, and did not experience a single bank failure during the Great Depression.
In FDR's Folly: How Roosevelt And His New Deal Prolonged The Great Depression, author Jim Powell makes the point that FDR's major banking 'reform,' the second Glass-Steagall Act, actually weakened the banking system by breaking up the strongest banks to separate commercial banking from investment banking."
"Universal banks (which served depositors and did securities underwriting) were much stronger than banks pursuing only one of these activities, very few universal banks failed, and securities underwritten by universal banks were less risky," Powell writes.
FDR also built trade barriers with the aim of protecting American business and industry. Unfortunately, the measures helped to wreck world commerce. Instead of helping Americans, the barriers increased business failures--and prolonged unemployment.
At best, Obama's wealth transfer-taxation policies would prolong the current recession. At worst, an Obama administration would turn the recession into a depression.
His anti-energy program, which depends on inefficient or non-existent alternatives to oil and gas, coal and nuclear power, would cripple an already weakened economy. The no-drill Democrats' commitment to a hoax--manmade global warming--is a death sentence for the economy as there is no way renewable energy sources such as wind or the cruel scam known as biofuels--which uses government mandates and subsidies to drive up food prices in order to enrich giant agribusiness companies and handfuls of green energy hucksters--can begin to replace conventional power in the near future.
Sunday, 7 September 2008
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