From the New York Times:

…So far, oil-rich Saudi Arabia has successfully stifled public protests with a combination of billions of dollars in new jobs programs and an overwhelming police presence, backed by warnings last week from the foreign minister to “cut any finger that crosses into the kingdom.”

Monday’s action, in which more than 2,000 Saudi-led troops from gulf states crossed the narrow causeway into Bahrain, demonstrated that the Saudis were willing to back their threats with firepower.

The move created another quandary for the Obama administration, which obliquely criticized the Saudi action without explicitly condemning the kingdom, its most important Arab ally. The criticism was another sign of strains in the historically close relationship with Riyadh, as the United States pushes the country to make greater reforms to avert unrest…

I don’t think we’re going to get anywhere with urging Saudi reforms – the fact that they are furious with us for not backing Mubarak plus the fact that they are sending their goons in to suppress dissent in neighboring Bahrain is a clear indicator of Saudi intentions: no change; not now, not ever. The Ruling Class of Saudi Arabia is holding firm in defense of its largely un-earned privileges (they get their wealth, after all, because westerners drill for their oil and then they pamper themselves by importing other foreigners to do the hard labor in Arabia). If there was ever a good moment for a shift in US policy, this is it – we don’t want to be seen as tied to the Saudi regime any longer.

I realize that breaking with the Saudi’s is a gigantic shift with unknown consequences, but the brute fact is that we should never have made common cause with them. The Saudi government is really no more than a gang which gained control of a State which turned out to float on oil. They represent no one but themselves – if a different gang gets in it might prove difficult for us, but the new gang also might be easier to work with. And good or bad, having no ties to the past or commitments to the future in Arabia will at least allow us to develope policy entirely in line with what is best for us. In the end, whoever runs that corner of the world will want to sell oil and as we control the seas, we control the major part of that traffic at will (we always think of the Saudis having us over a barrel – no pun intended – but the fact of the matter is that they are at our mercy, should we merely choose to exercise our absolute command of the seas in that area).

The rule must be: no more tyrants. We are Americans; we hold to the self-evident truth that governments derive their powers from the consent of the governed. No nation governed otherwise should in any way, shape or form think of the United States as its friend. American policy should be supremely one of justice – and it can’t be as long as we’re tied to something as corrupt, cruel and incompetent as the Saudi regime.

From The Telegraph:

The arrival at the newly-established Patrol Base Shamal Storrai (Pashto for “North Star”) in late August 2009 of Serjeant Tom Potter and Rifleman Mark Osmond marked the start of an astonishing episode in the history of British Army sniping.

Within 40 days, the two marksmen from 4 Rifles, part of the Welsh Guards Battle group, had achieved 75 confirmed kills with 31 attributed to Potter and 44 to Osmond. Each kill was chalked up as a little stick man on the beam above the firing position in their camouflaged sangar beside the base gate – a stick man with no head denoting a target eliminated with a shot to the skull…

Why is this important? Here’s why:

…On one occasion they killed eight Taliban in two hours, ‘I wasn’t comfortable with it at first,’ said Osmond, ‘you start wondering is it really necessary?’ But the reaction of the locals soon persuaded him. ‘We had people coming up to us afterwards, not scared to talk to us. They felt they were being protected’…

It is rough business, make no mistake about it – and while these two Brits do seem a prodigy, I’ll bet that plenty of American sniper teams can tell similar tales. I don’t envy these men their job – it is a terrible thing to take another man’s life and while the troops will do it and, likely, tell us that they don’t worry about it the fact of the matter is that decent men always agonize over such things. But the enemy they kill, especially the leaders, are not like the men who kill them.

It was once said, I believe, that if you really can’t argue someone out of doing evil, then you must put a sword through him as far as it will go. Think about that – I’m not talking about trying to argue someone out of having more more drink than necessary: but trying to convince someone that, say, setting off a bomb in a civilian setting is wrong. If you can’t convince a man of the hideousness of his desire, then you’d better do something before innocent people get killed. That is what these snipers are doing – the Taliban are bent on killing the innocent and it seems that nothing short of the sword – in this case, a well-aimed sniper bullet – will do the trick.

And the payoff is in what happens – the innocent people come forward with a sense of relief. That is, in my view, the ultimate truth of radical Islam…whether or not most Moslems feel this or that way about it all, I am convinced that most Moslems just want to be left alone to live their lives as they see fit. Sure, we can expect that these people will not want to have the rank immorality of the West imported to their lands (and who can blame them for that?), but at the end of the day the Moslem father wants his sons and daughters to live; to grow, to have families of their own. Not have the lives cast away in suicide missions, or be executed because the strayed over some Taliban line in the sand. By killing the perpetrators of the evil, the snipers are giving the innocent the chance to express their real desires.

And this is why I’m still certain that we must see Afghanistan through to victory. There must be, by the time we leave, some reasonable approximation of democracy in Afghanistan and a general sense that the Afghans, themselves, can mind their own affairs without being used as tools by ambitious men. This is not to say that a post-war Afghanistan will become a vacation destination for Americans – in fact, I can’t imagine any possible Afghan government which I would be ok living under, even as a tourist…but that is their business. And as long as they aren’t harboring people who wish to kill my fellow Americans and as long as the average Afghan is just living his life, then that is all the victory we need…and more than enough to put paid to the Islamist lie that only Islamo-fascism can bring happiness to the Moslem people.

A sniper’s bullet is not a lovely thing – but the effect of brave men fighting for justice, is. And we owe it to these men – American and allied, and including those Afghans who do fight along side us – to see this trough to victory.

Just wow:

An early decline in Japanese shares picked up speed Tuesday afternoon, with the main index skidding 14.4% as the country’s prime minister warned of a high risk of elevated levels of radiation from a reactor at the Fukushima nuclear-power plant after another explosion earlier in the day…

Meanwhile, Mish notes that all major world stock exchanges are an ocean of red at the moment – and the US futures for Tuesday are looking pretty grim. We can expect a bit of bounce back from this, but clearly things are turning to the worse…and at a time when a fragile US and global economy just can’t take the strain.

The Bank of Japan is firing up the printing presses to try and staunch the flow and, naturally, central banks around the world will follow suit. We’ll see how long this holds – it may weather this crisis, but until genuine wealth creation resumes, doom stalks the economic landscape. And the really bad news is that only a very few governments around the world are working on that wealth creation thing – most are just borrowing and printing and crossing their fingers.

UPDATE: Really, really bad news about those nuclear reactors. I hope to God that all this turns out to be a mistake…that early reports are just over-reactions. But it looks pretty darn bad…

Graciously hear us, O Lord, when we call upon You,

and grant unto our supplications a calm atmosphere,

that we, who are justly afflicted for our sins,

may, by Your protecting mercy, experience pardon.

Through Christ our Lord.

Amen.

From White House Dossier:

President Obama’s conference on bullying Thursday was deeply ironic to some in the White House press corps. That’s because every reporter who regularly covers the place knows that President Obama’s staff has a policy – an actual, pre-conceived policy – of bullying.

It’s a tactic that amount to no less than suppression of speech. By the “openness” administration.

The White House bullies reporters to try to ensure favorable coverage. When White House officials, particularly members of the press office, see a story they don’t like, they often call and verbally abuse the reporter who wrote the piece.

In diatribes often peppered with obscenities, they complain of profound injustice, bias, lack of relevance – anything they can think of to get reporters to back off their story…

Surprised? Of course you aren’t. This is just par for the course – not just from Obama and Co, but from all of the liberal leaders. Liberals don’t like dissent. It infuriates them – and it doubly angers them when the dissent is scoring points.

On the other hand, the MSM pretty much just lays down for this. For the most part, they know their job – slavish devotion to liberalism in general and Obama in particular. The MSM’s task is to spin reality in a manner which makes the continuation of Obama in office seem palatable. But every now and again a story comes up which is both unflattering to Obama and so clearly vital to know that the MSM has to cover it…and that, it seems, is when Obama’s troops go ballistic. And one has to wonder – if you are a White House reporter your whole existence is based upon access to White House personnel…if they are screaming bloody murder at you, you don’t have access. So, the next time a negative story about Obama comes up, what do you do? Risk your career to tell the truth, or suppress the truth so that you can at least report about the White House?

Gangster government is what we get when we fill our Executive branch with people from Chicago…where the ethos of Al Capone still dominates in what amounts to a corrupt, one-party State. This will not change and, indeed, will probably get worse as time goes on. The only cure for it is to ensure that Obama is sitting down and listening the next time someone takes the oath of office.

From the NY Daily News:

Seventeen U.S. Navy crew members have been contaminated with low-levels of radiation during disaster relief missions in Japan, military officials said Monday.

The radioactivity was detected when the service members returned to the aircraft carrier Ronald Reagan aboard three helicopters. They were treated with soap and water and their clothes were discarded.

“No further contamination was detected,” the military said…

The good news is that the contamination was slight; the bad news is that it could have been much, much worse. The aircraft carriers of the United States Navy are the most valuable military asset of the United States. While they are made to be put in harms way, they should only be placed in that position for reasons of vital national security. To have them loitering around an area where nuclear meltdown is possible and, additionally, there is a very real risk of of yet another massive quake and subsequent tsunami is not worth the risk. Even the temporary disabling of an American carrier battle group is a high risk, while the loss of such would be devastating.

This is not to say that the United States should not provide aid – it is our moral duty to help where we can. But we can, perhaps, recondition retired aircraft carriers to serve as floating hospital/rescue platforms. In mothballs, right at the moment, are the carriers John F. Kennedy, Forrestal, Ranger, Independence, Kitty Hawk and Constellation. All of these ships, relatively modern, can probably be made usable with a minimal expenditure of resources and can be crewed by retired or reserve naval personnel. These should be the ships – never to be hazarded in battle and, indeed, kept almost completely disarmed – which should step in when a platform is needed for rescue work. Probably be more effective, anyways – rather than storing large amounts of weapons and fixed-wing aircraft, such re-conditioned ships could have large hospitals and carry many more of the helicopters more usable in rescue work.

The United States armed forces are designed to break things and kill people – their job is war and any time spent away from war training is that much less readiness for war. And less readiness means more risk of war, as well as losses in war. It is time for the military to be made just that – and humanitarian actions taken over by organizations specifically trained for the task.

I know, I know – I put one of these up yesterday and thus its a bit lame for me to do it, again. But, seriously, there is so much poop hitting the fan right now that (a) I don’t know what might be the most hot topic on Monday morning and (b) its not easy to fully digest stories when they are coming at you this fast. Just between Japan and Libya, there are a host of geopolitical issues. Add in Chinese inflation, renewed US economic softening, the possibility that Bernanke might go for “QE3” in his quest for the Bankrupting of America and we’ve just got a lot on the plate.

So, an open thread.

Going to be some rough times, boys and girls, but with faith in God, mercy and generosity towards each other and a determination to do our duty, we’ll come out ok, in the end.

Not at all good news from the AP:

Moammar Gadhafi’s forces swept rebels from a key oil town Sunday with waves of strikes from warships, tanks and warplanes, closing on the opposition-held eastern half of Libya as insurgents pleaded for a U.N.-imposed no-fly zone.

Gadhafi’s troops have been emboldened by a string of victories in the struggle for Libya’s main coastal highway but their supply lines are stretched and their dependence on artillery, airstrikes and naval attacks makes it hard for them to swiftly consolidate control of territory, particularly at night…

That last is very important – one might recall the way Rommel’s Afrika Corps and the British 8th Army see-sawed back and forth across that very terrain for years…with advances and retreats measured, at times, in hundreds of miles. Just because Gadhafi is advancing it doesn’t mean he’s won – but he’s just as clearly not losing, at the moment.

What is most terrible about this is the way President Obama is refusing to lead. Even if one wants to subscribe to the absurd theory that US intervention causes hatred of the United States, in this case the Arab League has given the go-ahead for a no-fly zone. Meanwhile, Defense Secretary Gates’ assertion that imposing a no-fly zone means a systemic campaign against Libyan air defense is just a dodge – Libya doesn’t have much of an air defense and, at any rate, all we’d have to do is shoot down a few to make the rest wary of even going up in the air. Additionally, Libyan naval craft are causing all manner of trouble for the rebels (naturally in a campaign which is coastal in nature – there isn’t much in Libya once you get a couple dozen miles from the coast) – and I defy anyone to tell me that the US Navy can’t make short work of the Libyan navy.

And just imagine if Gadhafi wins! Goodness, after he’s done massacring the rebels he’ll then figure that the United States really is a paper tiger. It will be back to terrorism-sponsoring and nuclear weapons-building for Gadhafi. There is no upside to US policy if Gadhafi prevails; there is also no upside if there’s a stalemate between Gadhafi and the rebels. The only possible good outcome is Gadhafi out of power – even at the risk of an Islamist regime replacing him (a distinct possibility we cannot ignore…but, even so, better than Gadhafi at this point…he’s a mad dog, now). And getting rid of him is not that difficult – almost all the fighting would be done by Libyans. All we need do is provide some logistic support and keep the Libyan air and naval forces off the rebels’ back.

But I don’t think we’ll do it. Word is that Hillary will meet with some rebel leaders in a day or two. By that time Gadhafi might be in Benghazi. This is not the time to consider options and attempt to find consensus – now is the time to decide: get rid of Gadhafi, or not? If its “not”, then we should say so…if its “get rid of”, then we must act, today, to make it so.

The world watches to see if Obama’s America is capable of action on the side of justice.

A bunch of complete idiocy noted over at Zero Hedge:

Contrary to expectations that the BOJ (Bank of Japan) would injected “only” JPY2 trillion in its emergency operation earlier, Shirikawa came out with a stunner, putting in a whopping 7 trillion yen into Japanese money markets…

…In the meantime, after the Nikkei has plunged over 5%, and the Topix down by 7%, circuit breakers have been activated on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. Elsewhere, the US plunge protection is hard at work, sending futures surging from the overnight drop, after reality threatened to impose itself…

Japan is suffering a massive catastrophe. Lives and hard-earned wealth have both been swept away by a disaster of epic proportions. The things to do right now are, first, save as many lives as possible and then get to work cleaning up and rebuilding…one thing the hard-pressed Japanese people didn’t need was someone picking their tattered pockets to bail out bankers. But that is what the BOJ has done – presto! 7 trillion yen appear to sustain the markets. And that means the Yen the Japanese people had yesterday are worth less today. Its like breaking your leg in a fall and then getting mugged.

And as noted the rest of the world’s central banks are desperately trying to ensure that no matter how bad the event, bankers remain rich. There is simply no way to plug the hole made by Japan’s disaster: so much productive capacity has been lost and so much real wealth destroyed that the world must suffer a hit…and the world will suffer it. Trouble is, the hit won’t be equally distributed…it will be regular folks (first in Japan, then everywhere else) who will be asked to pay a price…and not a price to help our Japanese brothers and sisters rebuild, but price to ensure that the banksters come out of it unscathed.

Just disgusting – let the bankers fall where they may. Its not like we’ll run out of them. Those who are in good shape due to wise management will survive all perils – those who actually need a bail out should fail. And once the cretins are wiped out, the rest of us will have an easier time rebuilding because we’ll have that many fewer idiots running the financial system.

From Roger Simon:

…Another story, smaller in scale, but no less horrific, has received scant notice. Late Friday night, some yet-to-be-identified people — the sort of people President Obama would doubtless describe as “lone extremists” — cut their way through a security fence and entered the Israeli town of Itamar in the West Bank. They then broke into the house of Udi and Ruth Fogel (36 and 35 years old, respectively), and stabbed them to death along with their 3-month-old daughter, Hadas, and two sons, Elad (3 years old) and Yoav (11)…

A little girl, two small boys, a mother and a father…murdered in quite brutal fashion…and further reports indicate there was celebration in Palestinian areas over this despicable deed.

Make peace? Sure, but how? How do you make peace with people who murder little girls? I’m all ears if anyone has got a plan which would ensure that the murderer of a little girl can be made reasonable.

Did you remember to set your clocks forward?

Lots to talk about this Sunday morning – but as I went out to paint the father-in-laws deck yesterday, I didn’t have a lot of time Saturday night to write about it. But, trust me on this, had I not been delayed you would have been treated to the most sublime bit of writing I’ve ever done…pity it’ll have to wait another day.

Meanwhile…

The growing Moslem persecution of Christians actually, in my view, signals the eventual downfall of Islam.

It continues to be really bad in Japan. Our hearts go out to the dead and injured…and it is wondered: just how will Japan rebuild itself? They have bankrupted themselves trying to stimulus their way out of recession for the past 20 years…where is the money to rebuild going to come from?

This family is asking Blessed Mother Theresa to intercede for their cancer-stricken toddler. But, hey, you guys reading this can help out with your prayers, too.

A couple of Anwar Sadat’s assassins have been released in Egypt. True, their sentence is up…but as the Moslem Brotherhood killed Sadat, this is a bit nerve wracking…

Iowahawk wishes to inspire our kids.