George Rebane

The past week is now folded into the pages of history.  Iran pre-empted Obama’s revelation that it had another major facility for producing nuclear materials for “peaceful uses”.  In response, our National Naif assembled his counterparts from Britain and France to dutifully scribble yet one more line in the sand, while the imams in Teheran worry about getting double hernias from laughing their butts off.

Our progressives applauded this stroke of brilliant coalition building against Iran – an ability, they claim, evaded Bush2.  At the same time Israel is putting finishing touches on its plan take out as much of Iran’s WMD capability as it can with its F-15s and F-16s, while working feverishly to complete its Jericho3 long range missile that can reach all parts of Iran.  Meanwhile, the price of oil and gold yawned.  I feel safer already.

Under the radar, Democrats in Congress continued compiling their packages of No-Need-to-Read legislation on healthcare and cap n’ tax.  Pelosi’s platoons are busy making sure that the “public option” is included in the final ObamaCare bill so that the federal government can take over another major portion of the nation’s economy.  The modus operandi is still quick passage – ‘no need to read, much less to comprehend’ is the watchword of this program of “fundamental transformational change” that the Left is trying to ram down the country’s throat.

The Afghanistan status report and troop request is shifting from charade into high comedy.  Obama’s strategy of last March is not working, and his hand picked leader was told to put his remediations on ice for some weeks until the Administration could figure out how to properly play the politics back home.  Then finally, General McChrystal was allowed to submit his report, and its broad strokes were made known to the world.  He said that staying on the pot will require 40K more troops and a fundamental change in strategy, but the White House is still laying low on the matter because it has yet to formally receive the report.  I suppose Obama wants to delay until he can get his fellow Democrats on the Hill – most of whom want to get off the pot – into some kind of a defendable consensus.  Meanwhile, our troops continue to fight and die in a war without objective or plan.  From inside the beltway the echoes of Lyndon leading McNamara’s Marching Band seem to be getting louder.

The G-20 adjourned stating that all agree to increase worldwide financial controls so as to eliminate the ups and downs of the business cycle.  The putative purpose of these trans-national controls would be to prevent the recurrence of the recent financial debacle, even though there is wide disagreement about what brought it on in the first place.  Few have studied enough to know that the business cycle is a natural part of how free markets and free people operate.  The inevitable dips are made shallower by following von Mises advice to meddlesome governments – ‘Do Nothing, Sooner!’  And by its nature, extraordinary government intervention has always been wrong-headed and untimely – witness FDR’s fix of the Depression.  The cold hands of socialist autocracies and outright tyrannies have given people economies with no ripples and the sameness of morbidity.  Equal and eternal misery for all except the ruling elite.

“Day of Islamic Unity” – Certain segments of Muslims in America are now gathering to “pray for the soul of America” and demonstrate their unity on the Capitol Mall in Washington.  This week’s demonstration was organized by the leading terrorist defense lawyer in the land.   The lame MSM did their part to limit coverage of this sea change in Muslim attitudes that some Islamic organizations in the country did not endorse.  Airing their reasons for staying away would have been edifying.  It requires naïveté in the extreme to believe that these folks do not have the same aims as their brethren already firmly entrenched in their settlement of Europe.  Their website proclaims “Our Time Has Come” – for what? I ask.

As a naturalized citizen, I would be happier to hear of immigrant organizations of all backgrounds coming together on E Pluribus Unum Day, a new holiday on which we recognize why we all came here, and how we expect to live together as Americans.  Truth be told, the nearby photo gives me the willies.