Author: Mark Noonan

Gaddafi Hiring Mercenaries

Mark Noonan

From International Business Times:

Moammar Gaddafi has reportedly hired the services of hundreds of Tuaregs from the nation of Mali and Niger as mercenaries in Libya.

A BBC report stated that members of the Tuareg community in Mali confirmed that a large number of their fellow tribe journeyed to Libya in the past week to help Gaddafi fight protesters.

“About 200-300 have left in the last seven days,” said a senior elected Tuareg official from the Kidal region in northern Mali where many Tuareg live, according to BBC. “They are being paid about $10,000 to join up and then I’ve heard they are being told that they will get $1,000 a day to fight.”…

I’ve suspected this for a while – its hard to get soldiers to gun down their own and if Gaddafi is really determined to hold power, he’s going to need someone who won’t be squeamish about massacring Libyans. Foreigners willing to fight for pay would do the trick – and if he’s really offering $1,000.00 a day for killers, then he will never lack for troops, as long as the money doesn’t run out.

More than ever, this is the time for us to intervene – to demonstrate that $1,000.00 a day won’t do a corpse any good. The Libyans can clear out Gaddafi, but they probably won’t be able to withstand well armed men who simply don’t care who or how many they kill…but our forces in the area can provide the disincentive necessary to keep the mercenaries out. We just need the will to act.

Meanwhile, I heard that Obama is out golfing today…

Saudi Arabia Cracks Down

Mark Noonan

Worried about the spreading, global revolution:

Saudi Arabia said Saturday it would ban all protests and marches after minority Shiites staged small protests in the oil-producing eastern province.

Security forces would use all measures to prevent any attempt to disrupt public order, the interior ministry said in a statement carried by state television…

Can they keep a lid on it? Perhaps – but it is balanced on a knife edge at the moment. One of the dirty, little secrets of the oil States is how not everyone shares in the fabulous riches…if your a member of the royal family in Saudi Arabia or among their close friends, you’re doing very well. If you’re not connected like that, then its a bit more dicey…and for those who hew the wood and carry the water for the Ruling Class, its not very good at all. And here’s the real kicker – most of those doing best out of Saudi Arabia are members of the Sunni majority; the Shiite minority doesn’t come off nearly so well and that Shiite majority mostly lives where Saudi Arabia’s oil comes from. Its a powder keg, and there are lit matches flying around like mad.

Personally, I don’t think that the Saudis will be able to keep control of the situation. You’ve just got to figure that Shiite Iran is stirring the pot (the Iranian and Saudi governments very much dislike each other). We’ll just have to wait and see – but if it blows up, then we’ll be pining away for $4 a gallon gas before too long.

UPDATE: China’s anti-human tyrants chime in with condemnations of the protests in the Arab world. Got them scared spitless, that is for sure…

The De-Educating of America

Mark Noonan

Lost in the Wisconsin fracas is one very important fact about American education: it sucks. I mean, it has got to be the worst education system any Great Power has ever had. If an enemy was seeking to slowly destroy us over time, they could do no worse than to impose upon the education system we have today. We expend an astounding amount of resources on education and get very little in return.

One wonders – how many 20 year olds know what happened at Lepanto? Have heard of Metternich? Are familiar with what de Gama did? These are just three very important bits of information – lack of which would leave any person of our society with a flawed understanding of why things are they way they are. To me its not so much a matter of test scores but a matter of just how little they know when they get through the public school system. If you’re scoring high on a test which doesn’t really indicate knowledge, what is the point?

Not knowing things is pretty bad, but if the school were at least imparting good character then the deficiencies of education could be made up. The trouble is that the formation of worthwhile character is frowned upon in school. Teaching kids to be honest, sober and hard working can’t be fitted in to a scheduled filled with self esteem building and instructions on the finer points of sexual acts. There is a definite air of slipshod morality among our youth – and only those lucky enough to go become soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines seem to escape it. While there is often generosity on the part of young, there is little concept of sacrifice, while such things as respecting someone enough to not have sex with them until marriage is increasingly alien.

I have all kinds of respect for teachers. Often they are burdened with trying to fix kids who have been wrecked by indolent parents and/or kids who have been so polluted with popular culture sex and violence that its hard to hammer any sense in to them. Budgets are tight for the class room – supernumerary levels of administration taking first priority in funding in all too many schools (out here in Clark County, Nevada, about half of all school district employees are not teachers). In this fight over education we must remember to not belabor the teachers. There are some stunningly bad ones out there, but the general run is pretty good – and they are doing a job most of us would run away screaming from.

And yet, the system is broken – and it didn’t just get broken yesterday. We started the process of wrecking our education system about a century ago, though the real work of destruction didn’t hit until the 1970s. We, the people, got it all wrong. We allowed people who wanted to live off the education system to run the show, while teachers, students and what is learned are allowed to rot. Lots of ideas have been and will be put before the American people – but in context of today’s debate, the best move we can possibly make is to get the unions out of the education picture. It is unions which provided the muscle and the (mostly Democrat) campaign donations. In large measure, what has happened to American education is the result of having union bosses call the shots – just as they are in Wisconsin.

The whole of education must be reformed from top to bottom, and this cannot be done while unions retain their collective bargaining power outside of wages. Keeping the unions around means we’ll have a large, well-funded and decidedly Democrat organization undercutting the needs of educating – and prohibiting the rest of us from trying to fix it.

Walker and the Wisconsin GOP are simply doing what is necessary. It is the only way to clear out the union-created cobwebs which both destroy education, and prohibit anyone form fixing it. Well past time to get done with this and get on with the real issue – educating the kids.

House to Defend DOMA

Mark Noonan

If Obama won’t carry out his oath, then someone else will have to step in – from NRO’s The Corner:

As he previously indicated, Speaker of the House John Boehner has officially announced that the House of Representatives will defend the Defense of Marriage Act.

In a statement, Boehner says: “I will convene a meeting of the Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group for the purpose of initiating action by the House to defend this law of the United States, which was enacted by a bipartisan vote in Congress and signed by President Bill Clinton. It is regrettable that the Obama Administration has opened this divisive issue at a time when Americans want their leaders to focus on jobs and the challenges facing our economy. The constitutionality of this law should be determined by the courts — not by the president unilaterally — and this action by the House will ensure the matter is addressed in a manner consistent with our Constitution.”

The lawlessness of the Obama Administration is astounding. It seems that they just don’t care what the law says, and figure that we’re too distracted to punish them for their actions. Obama probably believes that comes 2012, no one will care whether he enforced the laws, or not – we’ll be back to the razzle dazzle of Hope and Change and substantive issues won’t carry any weight. They think they can fool us, at least long enough to re-elect Obama.

Perhaps they are right, but I don’ think it will come out that way. A gigantic quantity of lies are abroad in the Republic, deforming our debates. But it appears to me that a plurality are fully awake to what is going on, and their enthusiasm to bring the Obama Administration far outstrips any lingering Obamania on the left. We will win in 2012 because we are simply more determined to do so – after all, our motivation the knowledge that if Obama is re-elected, it will be a catastrophe for the United States and the world (one just has to think how utterly contemptuous of us a re-elected Obama, who never has to face the voters again, would be).

Boehner and the House GOP must be pressed to really make this an issue – not just on the merits of DOMA, but on the very fact that law is law, and must be obeyed even if the law is unpopular. The only answer to a law you don’t like is to seek its repeal, not just pretend it doesn’t exist (imagine if we all decided that the income tax was unconstitutional and stopped paying…how would you liberals like that?). Enough of the petty tyrants of the left – enough of the rule of liberal men/women/other…time for us to once again be under the rule of law.

While Obama Dithers, Gadhafi Counter Attacks

Mark Noonan

From the WSJ:

Forces loyal to Col. Moammar Gadhafi put down protests in Tripoli and fought deadly battles for control of rebel territory, as opposition forces sought to advance toward the capital in their efforts to take down the Libyan leader.

In the western rebel-held city of al-Zawiya, a large force from a brigade led by one of Col. Gadhafi’s sons led an attack on rebel forces, the Associated Press reported. The AP reported nearly 37 people killed in Libya Friday…

Here we have the results of a US policy to consult with the international community and proclaim, in advance, that we don’t want to intervene militarily. It means that Gadhafi knows no one will stop him if the Libyan people – leaderless and disorganized – don’t. It could still work out that the rebels win, numbers and spirit are on their side…but history is replete with stories of large, disorganizes masses of rebels being disposed of by small, tightly organized forces of repression. If one had to bet, the best bet right now is that Gadhafi hangs on.

This the time to use American power. Strictly speaking, the time was two or three days ago when Gadhafi was only in partial control of Tripoli – but now is the very last moment. If we intervene right away and provide leadership and a bit of extra force to the rebels, they will swiftly prevail as those forces willing to stand up for Gadhafi will be unwilling to do so when faced with rebels backed by American power. If we don’t intervene, then we’ll probably get a bad result. Even worse, it could turn in to a drawn out civil war, with its continual impetus to more disruption and consequent rise in death and destruction…and an increasingly bad effect on the global economy.

Courageous leadership is called for – and we simply do not have it.

UPDATE: Charting the impact of oil price hikes. It isn’t a pretty picture.

Obama: Racism Motivates the TEA Party

Mark Noonan

Boiled down, that is what he’s saying – from US News and World Report:

…But Obama, in his most candid moments, acknowledged that race was still a problem. In May 2010, he told guests at a private White House dinner that race was probably a key component in the rising opposition to his presidency from conservatives, especially right-wing activists in the anti-incumbent “Tea Party” movement that was then surging across the country. Many middle-class and working-class whites felt aggrieved and resentful that the federal government was helping other groups, including bankers, automakers, irresponsible people who had defaulted on their mortgages, and the poor, but wasn’t helping them nearly enough, he said.

A guest suggested that when Tea Party activists said they wanted to “take back” their country, their real motivation was to stir up anger and anxiety at having a black president, and Obama didn’t dispute the idea. He agreed that there was a “subterranean agenda” in the anti-Obama movement—a racially biased one—that was unfortunate. But he sadly conceded that there was little he could do about it…

Uh, Barry, its not quite like that. You see, we really don’t care that you’re black. What bothers us about you is not your skin color, but the fact that you are a fool who is running the nation we love up on the rocks. We’d swap you out for a differently abled, transgendered person of color if we could provided that person had a modicum of competence to recommend them for the job. You don’t have that – you coasted to victory on a wave of euphoria with your reality hidden behind a fog of feel-good propaganda. And it also helped that you were running against a man who proved he would rather lose gracefully than win by getting down and dirty in the political trenches.

Hatred does, of course, stalk our land. But the hatred emanates from the left – those who compare Governor Walker to Hitler, or who blame Sarah Palin because a lunatic went on a shoot spree in Arizona. The hatred comes from those who want to butcher unborn children, even in the last days of pregnancy. There is hatred in those who want President Bush charged as a war criminal, but never make a move to take out a beast like Fidel Castro. There is the most evil and wicked hatred in those who blame the United States for the misery spawned by wicked men who hate the United States.

President and Obama and his liberals don’t see it like that. They see a world in which they are exemplars of mercy, justice and love…and if they are such, then those who oppose them must have base motivations. And, so, you get a topsy-turvy world in which the President believes that hate-filled racism motivates his opponents, while his own minions daily slander and attack. This will not change. If we beat Obama in 2012, then there will be a whole slew of stories and books written about how the latent racism of the United States rose up to drive Obama out of office – in fact, if you want to pre-position yourself to make a fast buck, write that book today and just have it ready for the publisher…be the first off the mark with it and you’ll probably have a million-seller.

As usual when dealing with liberal, the answer is to beat them so badly at the polls that they don’t matter any more – and then defund them so that they’ll dry up and blow away. Until such time, we’re just going to have to put up with monstrously stupid, liberal statements.

HAT TIP: The Other McCain.

Death of Civilization Watch

Mark Noonan

From the Daily Beast:

It was bizarre, say students—even for a professor who gets off (excuse the pun) on controversy. On Feb. 21, after a lecture on sexual arousal, students in Northwestern University psychology Professor J. Michael Bailey’s human-sexuality course were given the option to stay for a guest presentation. Most were used to these sessions: With topics like “The Gay Guys Panel” (gay men talking about their sex lives) and Q&A sessions with transgender performers, the optional add-ons were part of what made Bailey’s class one of the most popular on campus.

But this particular lecture was, shall we say, different. Led by a man whose website describes him as a “psychic detective and ghost hunter,” it was called “Networking for Kinky People,” and began with a towel placed neatly on the auditorium stage. Next, a woman took her clothes off, and—with an audience of around 100—lay down on her back, legs spread. As students moved forward from the theater’s back seats, for a closer view, “The girl grabbed the mic,” says Sean Lavery, a Northwestern freshman. “She explained that she had a fetish for being watched by large crowds while having an orgasm.”…

You can read the rest, if you have a mind to – I stopped a bit further down as there is nothing in the actual story worthy of attention. And, of course, there absolutely zero reason to have a class – any class, anywhere – on sex. Trust me on this one, boys and girls, long before anyone ever started having classes on sex, people managed the act. Some how or another, propagating the human species never required a girl to spread her legs in public for a demonstration.

What is worthy of attention is what this story says about us – of course the college is officially deploring the event, but one wonders, why? What has this professor done which is not implied in a score of other events on college? It certainly is in keeping with the general pornification of our society. And our kids waste vast amounts of time – what is one more hour wasted on a sex demonstration? That the kids only have a limited number of hours to accomplish their goals in life isn’t that important – what is important, to those who decree these things, is that the kids be desensitized to decent behavior.

The wages of sin is death – and death will take us all, and I mean as a people, unless we call a halt to this nonsense. The entire waste of lives and resources on something as stupid as a sex class is just a tip of the iceberg of what is causing us to collapse. We’re wallowing in filth and wondering why things look so bad. Here’s a clue for all you out there – especially our liberal Sherlocks who think a sex class a grand thing – it is because we’re engaging in idiotic twaddle like sex classes that we can’t even make a pair of shoes in the United States.

Decline is a choice, and we have chosen to decline for several decades, now. We can, though, choose again – we can, that is, choose to stop declining and start rising. Will we do it? Only time will tell.