Libyan Soldiers Bring Mayhem to Cambridgeshire

Great and greatly funny article by my friend, the brilliant author Alexander Boot. Below is part of it.

An update. Now 300 soldiers are guarding out 240 Libyan cadets. Cameron insists we won't grant them asylum.

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But God forbid our leaders utter a single word suggesting they realise that the West and Islam are irreconcilable – that even in its present debauched state our civilisation simply can’t accommodate Islam as a dynamic force within our borders.

Yet our electorate has been corrupted to such an extent that, for any ‘statesman’ to be politically successful, he has to be politically correct. Hence the respect, both preached and practised, for any religion or civilisation, provided it isn’t Christian.

Hence also the criminal stupidity of our leaders who destroyed the demonstrably un-Western but still workable power balance in the Middle East to plunge the region into a blood-filled abyss of violence and unrest.

Now that the violence looks as if it’s about to spill over way beyond Iraq, Syria and Libya, our governments are reviewing their options.

One of them is yet another direct military intervention, and we all know how hugely successful this has proved so far.

Another is to intervene by proxy, using Iran (what with the Nato member Turkey refusing to play) to do the fighting for us. Ancient Rome had that kind of arrangement with the Vandals, remember how that turned out?

We may suffer the same way, since the inevitable price for Iran’s involvement will be the opportunity to acquire nuclear weapons, and you aren’t getting three guesses to figure out how they’ll be used.

The third option is related to the second: arming and training those local groups we perceive as our friends. ‘Perceive’ is the operative word: there are no groups in the Islamic world that are genuinely friendly to the West.

Some, however, are ready to fake amiability for tactical reasons, something we accept as the real thing. Both sides are perfectly aware of the ad hoc nature of any such alliance, invariably underpinned as it always is by background hostility.

They pretend to be our friends, we pretend to believe them. However, the two sides still diverge in one important area. They have a long-term strategy, we can’t think beyond the next election.

That’s why we refuse to recall that every time we trained and armed Muslim soldiers in the past they eventually turned their weapons against us. Who do you think armed the Taliban? Al-Qaeda? Saddam? Gaddafi? Isis?

Training thousands of Libyan soldiers at our Cambridgeshire base is a sign that we’re as ever prepared to equip our future enemies while pretending they’re our present friends.

We simply refuse to admit that our quarrel isn’t with this or that Islamic faction but with Islam as such. Well, if we still haven’t realised that there’s a clash of civilisations under way, we ought to be thankful to the Libyan soldiers for clarifying the point.

Since arriving in June they’ve succeeded in turning their corner of sleepy Cambridgeshire into a scaled-down version of Tripoli’s outskirts.

The Libyans went on an alcohol-fuelled rampage and there I was, thinking Muslims were supposed to be teetotal. A few of them spent £1,000 on booze in a single visit to a supermarket, an amount that buys a lot of mayhem.

Two of the soldiers have now been charged with raping a man, who presumably was wearing a provocative business suit. Not to discriminate, three others are being held on remand for several counts of sexual assault against women.

These peccadilloes were augmented by attendant charges of theft and threatening behaviour towards a police officer, which is legalese for head-butting. (Since no one has suggested that ‘Glasgow kiss’ be renamed ‘Tripoli kiss’, I’m hereby putting this initiative forth as my own.)

Anyway, this is where our MoD officials unveiled their comedy routine, and I thank them for making my morning so much more upbeat for it.

In a nutshell, the training programme, originally supposed to last until the end of the month, is being terminated effective immediately, and no future training will be done in Britain, what with the UK’s surfeit of tasty men and women roaming the countryside freely.

Instead of describing this simple development in this kind of language or, as would be my preference, more colloquially, the MoD spokesman delivered his first knee-slapping line:

“We have agreed with the Libyan government that it is best for all involved to bring forward the training completion date”. (“We can’t have too many raping and thieving Muzzie soldiers about…”)
Encouraged by the outburst of laughter, he continued in the same vein: “There have been disciplinary issues.”

I suppose homosexual rape, sexual assault on women, theft and head-butting a cop could be described that way for comic effect, but, playing it straight, I’d have settled for ‘crimes’ instead.

And then came the kicker, having punters rolling in the aisles: “As part of our support for the Libyan government, we will review how best to train Libyan security forces – including whether training further tranches of recruits in the UK is the best way forward.” (“…and neither do we want them to darken our doorstep ever again.”)

To add a few delicious touches to the stand-up gig, several Libyan soldiers, presumably not the defendants, have requested political asylum in Britain. And their government has so far failed to pay for the programme, while not offering much hope it’ll do so in the future.

Oh well, we’ve made our bed of nails, so we must lie in it – and it’s no laughing matter.

GOP Trilemma: Compromise, Stand Firm, Go to the Right

This interesting video sums up, better than many words and in-depth analyses, why Obama won. This has truly become a client state. I like the following definition of client state, applied to Scotland:

Keep spending more and more money on more and more voters, and you've built a client state. Those in receipt of the largesse will want it to continue. One day the money will no longer be there to spend (see technical note from Liam Byrne for details), but by that point you will have engineered a situation where any modulation of public spending will cause pain to such a large proportion of the electorate that the chances of the Conservatives winning a straight fight will be much reduced.

Although I am not American, I am very, very sad that Romney did not win the election.

I had got to like him, a Christian, obviously good, warm and gentle person. I liked the way he spoke during the presidential debates, firm but always polite, compared to the impersonal and arrogant Obama.

I can easily believe what popular radio talk show host and political commentator Rush Limbaugh said of him, that “Mitt Romney is one of the best people, human beings I’ve ever met.”

Limbaugh also said:

None of it makes any sense! Mitt Romney and his wife and his family are the essence of decency. He's the essence of achievement. Mitt Romney's life is a testament to what's possible in this country. Mitt Romney is the nicest guy anybody would ever run into. Mitt Romney is charitable. He wouldn't hurt a fly. He doesn't hate. He's not discriminatory in any way, shape, manner, or form.

This is about Romney as a person. But the reasons why I would have voted for him, if I had been American, are obviously political and I've blogged extensively about them before the election, from the economy to abortion, from Marxism to the presidential debates, from totalitarianism to the Benghazi attack.

Romney's policies were not perfect, but infinitely better than Obama's. Barack Hussein is also someone who has been very shady about his life as well as mendacious about his politics, which makes it unwise to trust him as President of the world's most powerful country.

Exactly because I am European, I've considered the US as something to look to for upholding the western and Christian values that are being eroded so rapidly in my continent.

I'm seriously saddened now to see that the US is going the European way too. But I am still hopeful: this is not the last election, and things may happen before the next that might change America's current political and economical course towards socialism, big government, welfare state, poverty and loss of moral compass.

Looking at the election results, there has clearly been a shift much more pronouncedly to the political left in US voting patterns, strongly determined by minority votes like blacks and Latinos, groups that probably made the difference about who of the two candidates got elected.

Some commentators, on the BBC for instance, said that the Republicans must acknowledge the democraphic change produced by the much higher percentage of Latinos in several states and, if they want to woo these voters, should make changes to their policies, prominently on immigration.

We have to remember this: "As Doug Ross has pointed out, Obama is – among many other things – the lawless president: the first one to sue states for enforcing laws Congress had passed".

The state in question is Arizona, and the law is the immigration law:

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that one key part of the Arizona immigration law, known as Senate Bill 1070, is constitutional, paving the way for it to go into effect. Three other portions were deemed unconstitutional in a 5-3 opinion.

The part ruled constitutional is among the most controversial of the law's provisions. It requires an officer to make a reasonable attempt to determine the immigration status of a person stopped, detained or arrested if there's reasonable suspicion that person is in the country illegally.

The three parts ruled unconstitutional make it a state crime for an immigrant not to be carrying papers, allow for warrant-less arrest in some situations and forbid an illegal immigrant from working in Arizona.

The long-awaited decision was a partial victory for Gov. Jan Brewer and for President Barack Obama, who sued the state of Arizona to keep the law from taking effect. By striking down the portions they did, justices said states could not overstep the federal government's immigration-enforcement authority. But by upholding the portion it did, the court said it was proper for states to partner with the federal government in immigration enforcement.

This may help explain why Latinos tend to vote for Obama. But should the Republican Party make concessions of this sort and risk going against the Constitution? Is this just a small compromise, or is it damaging what America, since its foundation, really is and stands for?

On immigration, Obama was accused by Bush administration counsel John Yoo of executive overreach:

President Obama’s claim that he can refuse to deport 800,000 aliens here in the country illegally illustrates the unprecedented stretching of the Constitution and the rule of law. He is laying claim to presidential power that goes even beyond that claimed by the Bush administration, in which I served. There is a world of difference in refusing to enforce laws that violate the Constitution (Bush) and refusing to enforce laws because of disagreements over policy (Obama).

Under Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution, the president has the duty to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.” This provision was included to make sure that the president could not simply choose, as the British King had, to cancel legislation simply because he disagreed with it. President Obama cannot refuse to carry out a congressional statute simply because he thinks it advances the wrong policy. To do so violates the very core of his constitutional duties.

There are two exceptions, neither of which applies here. The first is that “the Laws” includes the Constitution. The president can and should refuse to execute congressional statutes that violate the Constitution, because the Constitution is the highest form of law. We in the Bush administration argued that the president could refuse to execute laws that infringed on the executive’s constitutional powers, particularly when it came to national security — otherwise, a Congress that had a different view of foreign policy could order the military to refuse to carry out the president’s orders as Commander-in-Chief, for example. When presidents such as Jefferson, Jackson, Lincoln, and FDR said that they would not enforce a law, they did so when the law violated their executive powers under the Constitution or the individual rights of citizens.

The president’s right to refuse to enforce unconstitutional legislation, of course, does not apply here. No one can claim with a straight face that the immigration laws here violate the Constitution.

The second exception is prosecutorial discretion, which is the idea that because of limited resources the executive cannot pursue every violation of federal law. The Justice Department must choose priorities and prosecute cases that are the most important, have the greatest impact, deter the most, and so on. But prosecutorial discretion is not being used in good faith here: A president cannot claim discretion honestly to say that he will not enforce an entire law - especially where, as here, the executive branch is enforcing the rest of immigration law.

Imagine the precedent this claim would create. President Romney could lower tax rates simply by saying he will not use enforcement resources to prosecute anyone who refuses to pay capital-gains tax. He could repeal Obamacare simply by refusing to fine or prosecute anyone who violates it.

So what we have here is a president who is refusing to carry out federal law simply because he disagrees with Congress’s policy choices. That is an exercise of executive power that even the most stalwart defenders of an energetic executive — not to mention the Framers — cannot support.

On the other side of the debate, there are those who say that Romney was not conservative enough. Romney was chosen as Republican candidate because he covered a kind of moderate middle ground in the GOP, in the hope that this would appeal to middle America's voters come Election Day.

Some commentators now say that a more consistent conservative approach would have been the way forward.

British political journalist Melanie Phillips is one of them:

Britain and the Europeans love Obama because they think he will end American exceptionalism and turn the US into a pale shadow of themselves. What they don’t realise is that, all but lobotomised by consumerist rights, state dependency, victim culture, sentimentality, post-religion, post-nationalism and post-Holocaust and Empire guilt, Britain and Europe are themselves fast going down the civilisational tubes.

Romney lost because he refused to provide an alternative to any of this for fear of being labelled a warmonger, flint-heart or social reactionary. He refused to engage with any of the issues that made this Presidential election so truly momentous. Up against the bullying of the totalitarian left, he ran for cover. He played safe, and as a result only advertised his own weakness and dishonesty. Well, voters can smell inconsistency from a mile away; they call it untrustworthiness, and they are right.

Rush Limbaugh is another:

“If there’s one option that hasn’t been tried in a long time, it’s called conservatism with a capital C,” he said. “This was not a conservative campaign.”

This is the trilemma facing the GOP: compromise, stand firm, or go the full length and be more consistent in its conservative principles.

Should Obama Be Impeached for Treason?

Many American voices are rising to say that Obama, far from being re-elected, should resign or be impeached for high treason.

"He should resign!" Giuliani told a revved up crowd of Mitt Romney supporters in Ohio. "He told us he would resign if he did this poorly! Do you remember that?"

"'He lied!' Giuliani continued. "He has been a disaster. The worst president for our economy in our lifetime. He doesn't want a second term. He wants a second chance, because he screwed it up the first time."

Former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, affectionately called "America's mayor" for the way he handled the terrible aftermath of Sept. 11 when he was Mayor of the city, knows a thing or two about both Islamic terrorism and disaster crises.

Bravely he called for Obama's resignation, doing what many other people in politics and the media should have done.

Obama did make that promise. As with many others of his promises, he broke this one. Actually, he broke two: that of mending the economy in his first term, and that of resigning if he din't. He lied on both accounts.

The video above shows a February 2009 interview in which Obama promised to turn the economy around in three years. At 4.15 minute of the video, in answer to a question whether he should change course, he says that he is at the beginning of his office, but if he hasn't fixed the economy in 3 years his will be a "one-term propoposition", and that he will be held "accountable".

Giuliani is right in holding Obama - in the President's own words - "accountable", although unfortunately not many have dared do the same.

Giuliani attacked Obama for his "incompetence" over his management of the economy, his handling of the assault on the U.S consulate in Benghazi, and for putting his own campaign ahead of managing the fallout from Superstorm Sandy.

Obama's treatment of the Benghazi crisis, about which Obama supporters turned out to know knothing (which may go some way to explain why they are his supporters), has been so serious to warrant calls for impeachment for high treason.

Former five-term congressman Tom Tancredo says: "Benghazi amounts to giving 'aid and comfort' to enemy".

Radio, TV and press veteran Barbara Simpson, in her piece Liar or Traitor? writes: "In a just world, he would be impeached and tried for treason; he would not be re-elected. I hope you know that."

As we've known for many days now, CIA sources said they had reported to Obama "within 24 hours" that the fatal Benghazi assault was carried out by Islamist militants, and had nothing to do with the Muhammad video which for weeks he spinned was the caue of the attack.

More recently, documents obtained by former Muslim Brotherhood member Walid Shoebat have emerged.

These documents reportedly show that the Obama administration is responsible for the deaths of four Americans in the Benghazi consulate assault because it empowered the Islamic terror group al-Qaeda to take control and rule over Libya.

Barack Obama’s claim to election fame – that Al-Qaeda has been destroyed – needs a reality check, according to a group of anti-Al Qaeda Libyans in exile. “We beg to differ,” they exclaimed. “Obama gift-wrapped Libya, handed it over to Al-Qaeda, and we can prove it.”

...These documents include evidence of highly sophisticated weaponry provided to jihadists which leads them [anti-Al Qaeda Libyans in exile] to doubt that any solutions will take place under what they called “The Obama regime”.

We have come into the possession of an array of records obtained from top-level sources inside the Libyan government. They include passports of Al-Qaeda operatives and identifications of terrorists from many nations—Chad, Egypt and Pakistan to name a few—which are now all camped in Libya as they enter by crossing borders guarded and managed officially by what they called “government appointed Al-Qaeda leaders.”

This explains why the drafts of two letters on September 11th expressing worry that the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi was under ‘troubling’ surveillance and that the Libyan government failed to fulfill requests for additional security. “It wasn’t failure,” these pro-U.S. agents said, “but the Libyan government’s mafia-like system, subordinate to Al-Qaeda and installed with the blessings of the Obama administration that is responsible for the deaths of Americans in Benghazi,” they said.

And this also explains why Obama preferred to blame the Youtube video rather than the terrorists for the fatal Benghazi attack.

Romney Beat Obama and Crowley on Libya. Crowley Video

This are the exact words of Candy Crowley during that infamous TV second presidential debate:

"CROWLEY: He -- he did call it an act of terror. It did as well take -- it did as well take two weeks or so for the whole idea there being a riot out there about this tape to come out. You are correct about that."

Her wording is confused and ambiguous, but to me it sounds like she was so anxious to save Obama's face when the discussion reached the hot-potato topic of the President's farcical - and tragic - treatment of the Libyan consulate assault, that she rushed to confirm that Obama did call it a terror attack before adding, as an afterthought, "it did as well take two weeks", which was the whole point of Romney's statement.

The media did not carefully listen to her words, they just picked up her attitude which was clearly on Obama's side as if that meant anything more than a bias on her part, as if instead that solved the issue in Obama's favor.

At first I doubted if I had heard correctly, since nobody else seemed to have heard or paid attention to those crucial words: "it did as well take two weeks or so".

When I saw the above video in which Crowley herself confirmed what she had actually said, I realized that I was right the first time around.

All this post-debate obsession with who won and who lost, as if this were a football or boxing match, is missing some of the most important points.

Being in England, I watched the presidential debate on Sky News, left-leaning as nearly all British mainstream media. The minute the debate ended Sky News jumped to the conclusion that Obama had won, among other things because - and this is hard to believe but true - the moderator Candy Crowley of CNN confirmed Obama's lie that the President had called the attack on the US consulate in Benghazi an act of terror the day after it occurred, whereas the truth is what Romney said, i.e. that Obama's first response to the attack and murders had been to blame them on 'spontaneous' protests against the Youtube Muhammad video and it took him several days to admit the truth.

Do these mean scoring points, a moderator wrongly taking a candidate's side on a point of fact, like a referee determing the result of a soccer match with a wrong decision, really matter more to our deranged media than the substance of what the debaters, potential future US Presidents, said? This is not a game.

I do not fault Romney with anything in the Benghazi violence part of the debate, except that he could have attacked Obama's policies in the Middle East much more forcefully than he did, explaining that Muslim-raised Barack Hussein's support for the 'Arab Spring' was in fact aiding and abetting the very wintery rise of Islamists like the Muslim Brotherood and strengthening of Al Qaeda in North Africa, the very same people behind the Benghazi attack.

I realize, however, that the time he was given may have been too limited for him to do that in full.