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Streetcar Line
A World Full of Troubles
The bad guys make gains around the globe.
We’re in a heap of trouble.
I write this while sitting in Colorado, on break from a superb seminar on defense and foreign policy sponsored by the Heritage Foundation and the El Pomar Foundation. The seminar is remarkably free of political finger-pointing and direct criticism — or even mention — of the Obama administration. Most of the material is descriptive and neutrally analytical, rather than politically prescriptive and hypercritical. But the picture being painted of a growingly dangerous world makes any sentient person question the administration’s performance in getting us into such a fix.
Our defense forces are being precipitously and unwisely hollowed out. Our capabilities in intelligence and diplomacy are inadequate. Our policies in several regions of the world are conducive not to American strength and peace, but to weakness and instability.
Take Syria. Patrick Clawson, director of research for the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said it is “a mess and it’s going to get worse.” It’s awful already, and if Assad the dictator falls, “it will get even worse than it is. And it is unlikely that trouble in Syria will stay in Syria. It’s going to be hard to stop this process from escalating.”
The problem is that our intelligence agencies still don’t know who’s who among Assad’s opposition, or really what their capabilities are either. And the administration did not do enough, early enough, to figure out which opposition leaders were potentially constructive, and which were the dangerous Islamists. Amazingly, said Clawson, his institute has a better idea of who’s who than the CIA does. One reason: The CIA frowns on using social media such as YouTube. But just by watching YouTube, analysts can see hundreds upon hundreds of videos of actual action on the ground — what the weapons are, who the people are, that sort of thing.
Tom Donnelly, director of the Center for Security Studies at the American Enterprise Institute, was no more encouraging. “The entire Levant region is in a period of greater instability than it has been for a long, long time,” he said. “It’s almost as if the administration’s approach is to ‘let it burn.’ What we see is a multiplying of the number of potential conflicts, and there is a huge opportunity for instability and violence.”
The problems aren’t just in the Middle East. Steven Bucci, Heritage’s Senior Research Fellow for Defense and Homeland Security, a longtime Army Special Forces officer, and a former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, put it plainly: “The world is not safer today than it was a few years ago.” Russia is “resurgent.” China, Iran, North Korea, and terrorists all cause major problems. And organized crime’s worldwide reach is “nearing capabilities of some nation states.” Meanwhile, cyber-threats are growing and growing, and “most of our leaders just don’t get it.”
In another eye-opening presentation, José Cardenas of VisiónAméricas, former chief of staff for the Assistant Secretary of State, outlined a list of challenges in the Western Hemisphere, led by the toxic designs of Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez. The radically leftist anti-U.S. stances of Chavez are not news, of course, but the degree and nature of his alliance with Iran and Iranian-backed Hezbollah terrorists are surely not enough known and appreciated — or feared.
“Chavez is the fulcrum for Iran in the Western Hemisphere,” Cardenas said. Venezuela already has laundered $30 billion for Iran; 70 Iranian companies operate “suspicious” facilities in Venezuela; Venezuela sends weapons to Hezbollah and refined fuel to Iran and Syria; and Venezuela had provided thousands of false passports to Iranians and other Middle Easterners, while Margarita Island serves as the principal safe haven for Hezbollah in the Americas. The U.S. Treasury Department has identified Venezuela as a haven for and sponsor of drug kingpins as well. But, said Cardenas, the United States has “no comprehensive policy” for dealing with Venezuela or Latin America as a whole.
Ecuador also is a problem. Its president, Rafael Correa, is “auditioning for the role” of Chavez for when the latter dies. Correa suppresses the independent media, runs roughshod over his nation’s constitution, has expelled the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency, and has completely lifted all visa requirements, resulting in a proliferation of transnational criminal organizations operating there. In short, drug trafficking is up in Ecuador, counter-terrorism down.
And I haven’t even touched on what is being done to hollow out the U.S. military, even if “sequestration” does not take an even worse bite from the Pentagon budget. Plus, I’m only halfway through the seminar.
This is not to say that all is doom and gloom: I also haven’t touched on some of the opportunities (there are only a few) also highlighted by various panelists at this conference. But those opportunities are dwarfed by the dangers.
None of this is to say that all the difficulties can be blamed on Barack Obama. Clearly, the world would be a perilous place no matter what policies he had pursued. Nonetheless, while none of the panelists have said as much, almost no evidence suggests that Obama is doing anything other than worsening the situation. We’re in for a rocky four years.
Thank goodness we are the United States of America: We’ve survived bad presidents before, and we will again. In the interim, though, Obama seems to be putting to severe test the purported Otto von Bismarck remark that “God watches over children, fools, and the United States of America.” When it is the fool who is leading the USA, God is required to do double duty.
Photo by: Sammy.aw (Creative Commons 2.0).
About the Author
Quin Hillyer is a senior editor of The American Spectator and a senior fellow at the Center for Individual Freedom. Follow him on Twitter @QuinHillyer.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (63) | Leave a comment
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Joellen| 11.20.12 @ 7:17AM
GOD watches over children, fools and the United States of America. Yes, but that was when we adhered to GODs Laws. Unfortunately Mr. Hillyer, the left are the fools and they have denounced GOD. So, I would humbly change your headline to "We're in Trouble NOW"!
Von Mises Jr| 11.20.12 @ 7:37AM
The left led by Obama and Hillary do not need God. Don't you remember Joellen; they told us proudly "we are the ones we have been waiting for."
Now that they fixed the health care system with ObamaCare, Wall Street with Dodd Frank and implemented a wildly successful energy policy called "green energy" sustainable development, all that is left is to implement Agenda21 "One World Socialism."
I especially like the way Obama "stopped the seas from rising and healed the planet." Imagine what would have happened if Obama didn't command the seas to stop at 13'8" that flooded the tunnels and trains in Lower Manhattan and swept away people's lives on the coast. Why it might have really been bad.
Bloomberg and Cuomo congratulated Obama for giving such a fine speech after they congratulated each other, and Christie gave Dear Leader such a big bear hug before he went on SNL and told jokes to make everyone feel better. Now that's compassion.
TLP| 11.20.12 @ 1:08PM
He's right, Joellen.
The Party that took 3 Votes to get God's name put back in their Platform, has little need for God.
It's no more Complicated than that.
SUBVET| 11.20.12 @ 6:31PM
Von Jr. ......A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious, but it can not survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and he carries his banners openly. But the trator moves among thoes within the gate freely.
Cicero
Alan Brooks | 11.20.12 @ 7:11PM
Why is it you can hate Islam, but Jack can't dislike Israel?
Oldefarte| 11.21.12 @ 1:31PM
This is WHY:
http://www.newsmaxworld.com/Gl...../id/464879
John786| 11.20.12 @ 7:27AM
Folder full of troubles. Where do you people keep finding these folders?
CJW| 11.20.12 @ 8:10AM
It is easy. Just look at the Middle East countries led by the radical muslims, and all the terrorist attacks since RFK was murdered in 1968 by a Palestinian terrorist.
John786| 11.20.12 @ 8:48AM
Ah the poor Palestinian ( I'll also add Muslim): the root of all evil in distopian world of neoconservatism & evangelical Zionism.
CJW| 11.20.12 @ 10:51AM
The widow and family of Bobby Kennedy will agree with you.
Alan| 11.20.12 @ 7:28AM
At least Venezuela HAS an independent media! Over here they are bootlickers, enablers, and schills of the party.
chuck| 11.20.12 @ 7:32AM
We, as a nation, abandoned God a long time ago. We're screwed. Save yourself and your loved ones, there is no saving those who've abandoned Him.
Martin kzovich| 11.20.12 @ 8:00AM
We did not survive Bush ii because look who we got --O--and will we do better ?
Martin kzovich| 11.20.12 @ 8:00AM
We did not survive Bush ii because look who we got --O--and will we do better ?
Grzmlyk| 11.20.12 @ 8:42AM
I'll channel the liberal trolls who frequent this site, since they're not out of bed yet (guess the welfare checks don't arrive till noon).
1) Whatever Obama does is the right thing to do. If he were to walk up to a bystander in a crowd and stab her in the chest, the person clearly deserved it, and, in any case, the next day's headline would be, "Crowd's Enthusiasm Shows Obama's Still Got the Mojo."
Anyone who has any problems whatsoever with anything Obama does is a) racist; b) stupid; c) an ideologue. Helloooo! What syllable in the word "god" don't you conservatives get?
3) Socialism is the religion of the Truly Good in America. Or are you evil, stupid, bigoted conservatives trying to tell us GOOD liberals that lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy and pride are, like, deadly sins or something?
Don't you LIKE destruction, chaos, hatred, theft and utter dependency on central planning and corrupt bureaucrats? Stupid conservatives!
No, Quinn, we will not survive Obama. We have not survived Obama. Partly because Republicans are utterly feckless (they'll NEVER undo 95% of what he's put in place), but also because Obama really is only a symptom of a far greater, far more terminal illness: The American character. Look at the twisted, hateful, self-gratifying, ignorant, bigoted, propaganda-marinated screeds these trolls write daily. They represent perfectly the pathology that is just beneath the skin of your average American today.
Ted R.| 11.20.12 @ 9:28AM
Correction: YOU have not survived. YOU mock the very IDEA of Equal Opportunity and Social Justice. YOU subscribe to Social Darwinism. You CLING to the Ancien Regime - i.e. Conservatism - and to quote one of the greatest liberals of all time (and a Frenchman, no less) there is only one thing to do about such a Regime: "CRUSH THE WICKED THING!"
CJW| 11.20.12 @ 10:52AM
Tell us what you mean by Social Justice.
Tom Kyba| 11.20.12 @ 11:03AM
Thank you for making Grzmlyk's point professor.
Grzmlyk| 11.20.12 @ 11:54AM
I mock what you call equal opportunity which is neither equal nor opportunity. You believe in quotas that support racism, which help neither society nor the people you are propping up with your bigotry. YOU believe that everybody who calls themselves a "victim" deserves a fantastic standard of living just because they were born - paid for by somebody who is not you, of course. Tell me again how insisting I give my money to someone else confers virtue on you? Or how your putting a gun to my head to give YOU money is not theft?
You cling to the "ancien regime" of Marxism and socialism - which has never, ever worked in the history of mankind. Socialism requires capitalism for nutrition, and always bleeds it dry. But I suppose history doesn't matter to you, because you think that, as long as we get the right dictator, surely it's going to work THIS time.
Since you're a fan of the French Revolution, can you tell me what followed? I'm a little fuzzy. I seem to remember someone named Robespierre and something called the Reign of Terror. Who got crushed again? Oh, that's right - whomever the tyranny wanted to crush; there was no law, only state-sponsored mass murder. Gee, right up your alley, you bloody fool.
Tell me, sport, what government agencies are YOU tapping?
Grzmlyk| 11.20.12 @ 12:07PM
BTW, moron, there is no such thing as "social justice," which is most certainly in the eye of the beholder. What that translates into is "GIMME GIMME GIMME!"
You ought to know. The fact you even repeat such vacuous terms - let alone think they are the height of an advanced society -proves your ignorance. Or maybe you're one of the corrupt ones.
RJ| 11.20.12 @ 11:23PM
Thank-you, Grzmlyk for your commentary on "social justice." The term is an offense to honesty. It seeks to justify using government to steal from others. Whoever uses it cannot be trusted.
fmm| 11.20.12 @ 12:24PM
Quoting a frenchman is an immediate loss as they are the most feckless creatures on earth.
Grzmlyk| 11.20.12 @ 12:33PM
WW1 bled every last ounce of courage from the French character.
WW2 bled every last ounce of intelligence from the French character. I mean, the Maginot line? Really?
Now they are feckless socialists who voted for national suicide in the person of Hollande.
They honestly believe that, as long as they still have checks in their checkbooks, they can't possibly be overdrawn.
They're going to insist that the government teat keep them all fat and happy lying in their cribs even after the government teat has dried up and blown away.
Then the Muslims can emerge from the Ghettos and occupy Paris. Vive la France!
Simon Templar| 11.20.12 @ 1:18PM
Grzmlyk, allow me to add....
As a former liberal, it is time to make a confession of sorts that might illuminate and effectively describe the mind of most liberals, particularly the mindless foot soldiers like our trolls.
Here it goes...
As a liberal, I live in an industrial society that frightens me as it is not the Old America where independence and self reliance was more common and achievable. So, in my fear, I look to government as the only alternative as I distrust the private sector and others in my community to provide me with a safety net and look at guvmint as the only viable force to protect me from the ravages of a highly competitive society that I see as a zero sum game and one built on scarcity of wealth and resources. My understanding of capitalism and economics is scant as well as my understanding of history relative to the truth of actual outcomes and results of human philosophies, events, and actions. Complexity intimidates me. I see a world where many are poor and many are rich and see many examples of war, theft, exploitation, and discrimination. But rather than spending the time and energy required to fully understand this "unfairness", it is easier to simply accept the explanations given to me from people who seem to side with the underdogs and blame those that create wealth and are wealthy.
Simon Templar| 11.20.12 @ 1:30PM
continued...
As a liberal, I want immediate results and have a sincere desire for a "fair" world and dislike those that might question my understanding of what I think is responsible and who is responsible as I see them as only attempting to keep these unfair social constructs and status quo in place. So, I turn of my ears and "defend" my world view as I perceive it as the true, moral, and just and all other philosophies and arguments as only representing forces that are immoral or self serving. As a liberal, emotions, intentions, and the world of the heart supersede everything else and are that which matter above facts, circumstances, history, and experience as I see the latter fluid and the former static and critical and superior.
Simon Templar| 11.20.12 @ 1:41PM
continued...
As a liberal, I see my self as a special person who believes that America is only special in that it contains intelligent and enlightened people like myself and those I admire who 'care about people' and the affairs of the heart. It is these people that I believe can get it right with enough money, good intentions, and desire for correcting the perceived wrongs. All others that have attempted to achieve this social just society have failed because they mishandled situations, moved too quickly, or were too extreme in their methods. As a liberal, I am an angry person who has been hurt by someone and has indeed suffered at someone 'unfairness' as the world is unfair. This hurt and this unfairness is what I rebel against and rail against, as I seek revenge rather than justice for all. Vote revenge.
Simon Templar| 11.20.12 @ 2:03PM
I live in a small closed world where I really do not know any wealthy, conservative, or traditionally oriented people well enough to actually understand them or listen to what they have experienced, know, and have learned. I have met some ignorant, racist, and stupid people and have equated them with all these 'conservatives' and representing all that is bad and all that is not liberal and good. Like many people I attempt to make sense of the world and search for a simple explanation as most humans attempt to move from the complex to the simple. So, it is understandable that when I see and grow up with thousands of simple explanations that present narratives and images of underdogs being exploited and crushed by those that have power, money, privilege, materials, and success, I must assume this has been acquired through nefarious means. This is easy to do as there are actual example of this to bolster this conclusion. My understanding is narrow and I am ignorant of the big picture that shows quite a different story that also includes exploiters but also contains an overwhelming number of other examples of opportunity, achievement, benevolence, charity, and success built on hard work, persistence, honesty, and cooperation. I do not see these, however, but rather focus on the minority of examples that bolster my world view.
RJ| 11.20.12 @ 11:25PM
Excellent commentary, Simon. Thank-you. Modern day liberalism = fear + dependence + letting others think for you.
Drunken Sailor| 11.20.12 @ 2:28PM
Simon, you just described the hormone soaked mind of a teenager. Explains a lot about their mindset.
Al Adab| 11.20.12 @ 4:52PM
Just as we watched while under Carter the Soviets gained ground all around the world, so now we watch as under another great delusional "peace at any price" president the Islamists ( I distinguish them from Moslems) gain ground and bring destruction to country after country. The results are bad for people on every side.
Grzmlyk| 11.20.12 @ 1:32PM
Thank you, Simon, for the confession of a former liberal. However, I think you may have been a thinking man's liberal; I would have thought the typical liberal today would be this:
My teachers told me capitalism is bad, so I believe them. My teachers told me individual achievement is bad, so I believe them. My teachers told me that everybody is exactly the same and deserves the same outcome, so I believe them - but my teachers also told me that I am special and deserve to have unlimited self esteem, and whatever I want, so, while that is contradictory, I believe them. My teacher told me that white males are the source of all the world's problems, so I believe them. My teachers told me I am a victim, so I believe them. My teachers told me that it's ok for ME to be greedy as long as I point my finger others, sO I believe them. My teacher told me that corporations are bad and government is good, so I believe them. My teachers told me that there IS such a thing as a free lunch, but evil Republicans are hiding it in a fort somewhere, so I believe them.
My teachers told me that reality is subjective, and if enough of us get together and decide the law of gravity no longer exists, then it will be so. My teacher told me human nature would be good except for evil Republicans, so I believe them.
Simon Templar| 11.20.12 @ 2:10PM
Yes, there are these types of liberals as well. I think you accurately describe the 20 something generation that was taught by the sixties liberals in the last 20 to 30 years. The first generation to have been completely enculturated by the counterculturalist. The same demographic responsible for the frauds reelection.
Kwan| 11.20.12 @ 9:35AM
Obama is too busy trying to sabotage the American economy to be worried about international threats. Obama's Marxist brain-washing didn't prepare him to defend the country, it trained him to fundamentally transform the country into a Communist People's Republic. The murder of Ambassador Stevens and three other Americans in Benghazi may well be a preview of what we can expect both internationally and here at home, as al-Qaeda launches terrorist attacks on American interests around the world knowing that they have nothing to fear from Commander-in-Chump Barack Obama.
TLP| 11.20.12 @ 10:11AM
Q
TLP| 11.20.12 @ 10:23AM
You presume that there actually IS a Problem. A Threat. When, in truth, if you go buy the three names - Barack Hussein Obama, Berry Soetoro, and Abu Hussain? Nothing could be further from the Truth.
Hamas believes that YOU are The Deliverer. YOU have been Sent by their Pagan Moon God of Death, to Destroy the Jews, and Deliver Jerusalem back in to the Hands of the Moon God's people.
Mubarak is Finished. Khaddafi is Dead. Tunisia is in the hands of the Muslim Brotherhood, as are the other two. Israel is under attack, as we speak. And, all the while, The Prince of Lies is running around Asia, running his hands all over the Pretty little Asian Girls, instead of that Hulking Black Man that he's Married to.
The Free West is on it's back, while the Communists in the East, are on the Rise.
What could be better than this?
Life is good, if you are THE ONE.
Paul McGrath| 11.20.12 @ 2:02PM
I find it remarkable and rather sickening to see the liberties Obama took with the prime minister of Thailand and especially with Aung San Suu Kyi, the Burmese dissident. Whether Aung San Suu Kyi likes him personally or politically is irrelevant, because so much of what she is trying to do is potentially dependent on our help. She MUST put on a good front, and endure Obama's shameless familiarity.
And then the oaf repeatedly refers to Burma as Myanmar, which is what the despots over there now call it; the very despots she is trying to replace. Oh yeah, diplomacy and all that, but for once in your life can you please take a stand President Obama? Can you please for maybe the first and only time in your life show some courage?
Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi has more character in her left pinkie than Obama ever had or ever will have, and I suspect in her heart of hearts, she loathes our weak, ignorant president.
TLP| 11.20.12 @ 3:52PM
I'm thinking that he just had a Flashback of all of the Asian Boys he met while frequenting the Gay Bathhouses in Chicago.
He just couldn't help himself.
Oldefarte| 11.21.12 @ 1:18PM
TSK,TSK,TSK; you obviously aren't ware of the charitable nature of these Muslims!!!! :
http://www.newsmaxworld.com/Gl...../id/464879
Oldefarte| 11.21.12 @ 1:25PM
"Abu Hussain"? WTF is that? When it's bedtime, and he is propped up reading THE MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD TIMES with a Marlbrough dranggling from his substantial lips, does Moochel yell out, HEY ABU, TURN OUT THE GD LIGHTS SO I CAN GO TO SLEEP?
Alex Feltham | 11.20.12 @ 9:42AM
America's military capability being "hollowed out" is not the problem. It's the hollowing out of American will.
See "It's the Zeitgeist, Stupid" at:
http://john-moloney.blogspot.com/
Hardcard| 11.20.12 @ 9:48AM
msm reports billary is on the way to the middle east, problem solved!!!! she's on a mission from the one. next problem????
Occam's Tool| 11.20.12 @ 9:49AM
Wel, 786, when you let me know of another group of people that throw acid in little girls' faces for going to school or shoot teenage girls in the head for advocating for same, I'll be glad to switch my focus of evil to others. Until then, YES, Political Islam and its religious Islamic supporters are pretty much the majority of violent evil in the world right now. Or, to put it differently, without them, we would be dealing with a much more restrained sort of evil much less frequently.
Or, to put it even more simply, I never want top see you within a State's length of my children. You are not to be trusted around children. To me, that makes you human filth.
Occam's Tool| 11.20.12 @ 9:49AM
Sorry, "to see you." The human filth statement stands. Never come near my boy or girl.
Oldefarte| 11.21.12 @ 1:15PM
OT, how dare you impune the morality of these distinguished and charitable Muslims:
http://www.newsmaxworld.com/Gl...../id/464879
nathan| 11.20.12 @ 10:50AM
You know, why not just cut and paste comments from a month ago? Nothing is changing right?
Hallowed out military? Once again we spend around 45 % of what the entire world spends on defense. Even with "sequestration" it won't drop to much less than 40. We spend more than the next 10 countries combined including Russia, China, all of Europe, you name it. How that gets defined as "hallowed out" is beyond me. Coburn, no liberal has demanded DOD pass an audit. Why not? Do all of you believe all this money is being spent wisely? REALLY? Don't you think that maybe necessary reforms should be put in place BEFORE we go increasing the budget?
Again justify bases in more than half the countries in the world. Just like during the cold war, neocons think EVERY conflict has global implications. No. Local in most situations means local and doesn't threaten us in the least no matter what this guy says. Did intervening in Libya improve our security? Yeah right.
Justify remaining in NATO. Justify having any troops in Korea 60 after a war we didn't need to be in to start with. Those of you who agree with him, if 45 % of the world's spending isn't enough, tell us how much is. 80?
Tom Kyba| 11.20.12 @ 11:08AM
So I assume you mean all those other freeloaders should take care of their own and stop waiting for the Americans to protect them? And when it hits the fan? Please stop stroking your ego and state what the world will look like if the U.S. hunkers down into itself. otherwise you are just another self-serving Utopian.
nathan| 11.20.12 @ 12:20PM
Go back and look at y0ur copy of the Declaration. Jefferson says when people are reduced to despotism, they have a right and an obligation to deal with the despot. I don't see any thing there that says they have a right and an obligation to demand others do it for them.
We don't have the funds to do this. Europe has a bigger GNP/GDP than we do. Their freedom/security should mean at least as much to them as it does to us? And if social welfare means more to them, that sir is THEIR problem. I do not believe in the neocon imperialist white man's burden go democratize everyone vision of the world. In part because it doesn't work. You don't like the muslims coming in and telling YOU what to do right? Well based on every poll taken every story written, other countries don't like us telling them what to do either. They don't like having "democracy" (which Madison called the vilest form of government anyway) rammed down their throats at the point of a gun. Suggested to them, maybe. Demanded of them? NO. We need to see ourselves not as Sean and Rush talk about us but as the rest of the world sees us. And they don't see the exceptionalism, they see human rights abusers (read "Torture and Impunity" sometime) who don't walk it the way we talk it.
So to answer your question, stay out of fights we really don't need to be in and we'll be more, not less secure.
Stkman| 11.20.12 @ 1:55PM
"We need to see ourselves not as Sean and Rush talk about us but as the rest of the world sees us."
Okay, I'm up to it, here's tha analogy. When we fed the world after WWII, the world hated us.
When we supported the Jews right to a homeland, the world hated us.
When we stopped the Soviet Union without a shot being fired, the world hated us.
When terrorist flew planes into building our enemies and many of our so-called friends cheered and laughed.
I don't give a damn what anyone thinks about the United States. If it were not for the United States there would be no free people on this earth. There would be no unified China, the would be no one in Europe speaking English and the population of the Earth would be about a third of what it is right now. Our governments obligations are not to worry what anyone thinks of us, but what should be doing for us.
Bob K| 11.20.12 @ 11:22AM
Good idea, cutting and pasting.
Nothing is ever really accomplished at these conferences except to make fodder for the pundits who convert it to the B.S. they have been giving us since WWII ended.
And would that be "hollowed" out hallowed military? Or hallowed military "hollowed" out?
And to be sure, not all of this is Obama's fault but he surely is making it worse! I will agree with that! Thank Quinn for throwing us readers that bone to chew on while he and all the bright journalists go about solving the worlds problems.
Walter Lippman believed that the purpose of Journalism was not to encourage public debate but to provide experts with information on which to base their "intelligent" decisions.
John Navratil| 11.20.12 @ 12:01PM
"we spend around 45 % of what the entire world spends on defense"
B.S. The entire world does not spend on defense. If everyone was spending on defense, we would not need to spend so much. Defense is expensive, offense is comparatively cheap.
How much is enough? You can get four or five years of military spending for the cost of one 9/11.
JD| 11.20.12 @ 12:32PM
That "money spent on defense" stat is another Leftist lie that needs to die. North Korea, China, et al do not accurately report their defense spending to the rest of the world. Period.
Al Adab| 11.20.12 @ 4:55PM
...and frankly, much of the world depends on the US for their defense. Now we can argue the efficacy of that position, but it is a fact. Many nations need not maintain a large military as the US protects them.
TeaPartyNow| 11.20.12 @ 11:30AM
People the world over are just as lethargic as the American People. Just as the American People oppose nothing that their governments do in any way that would actually have an effect, so goes the world.
Liberty matters. America is a wasteland of tyranny because of the American People. Sure, our medias are no help. But the American People right now will take anything. World wide tyranny, sure why not?
If the American People could stand up & do something, things would get better. But until we do, things will only get worse.
Mark Levin predicted that things will get bad enough to make the American People up. But I'd add that until that happens, it's all snowballing.
Who Knows?| 11.20.12 @ 11:55AM
Karma karma karma.
Actions have consequences, as well as non-actions. In Obama, we have BOTH---and, they are bound to bring or allow destruction.
How about God?
“’I’ is the body (or the total body-mind). There is no ‘I’ inside, other than, or separate from the body-mind (or conditional self).
‘I’ is contraction---a separative (self-defining and other-defining) effort added to That which is always already the case. As an ordinary or foundation discipline (to maintain psycho-physical equanimity and release energy and attention from entrapment by the conditions of the body-mind), THE ‘I’ (or psycho-physical self) should be relaxed, surrendered, and expanded beyond its own knot or gesture of contraction.
When the self-contraction is utterly re-cognized, it becomes clear that it is only a transparent, or merely apparent, unnecessary, and non-binding modification of Nirvanic, Transcendental, or Divine Being, Consciousness, or Love-Bliss. Such is radical intuition, or the ultimate basis of the Way that I Teach.” Da Free John, Nirvanasara, page 241
Dimitry_Aleksandrovich| 11.20.12 @ 3:42PM
Bashar al Assad is 100 times the man of Obama, Cameron and Netanyahu put together. It is the Western degenerates and their Wahhabist and Zionist allies in the Middle East that are responsible for the Civil War in Syria. When Christians were ethnically cleansed from Iraq while US troops secured oil pipelines who took them in...it wasn't the good ole U.S.A. and George W. Bush...No it wasn't America it was Bashar al Assad. In Assad's Syria Christians are free to worship at their churches and keep their customs and traditions while the good ole USA and their inbred English and Eurotrash allies, along with the Zionist Jews in Israel team up with homosexual Turks and the dirty child rapist Wahhabists from Saudi Arabia and Qatar to arm little Osama Bin Laden's in Syria who will murder my Christian brothers and sisters in Syria should Assad fall. I cannot be anymore blunt than that and shame on you Quin Hillyer for siding with Salafist Terrorist scum, then again the CIA has always loved Sunni Islamist scum.
Hardcard| 11.20.12 @ 4:29PM
so many experts !!!
Oldefarte| 11.20.12 @ 5:22PM
God may be watching over us, but HE also gave everyone what is known as FREE WILL. We exercised same on both 11/4/08 and 11/6/12 and did so very very """""STUPIDLY""""". God does not get involved in politics, but HE does expect us to exercise the Forrest Gump philosophy of STUPID IS AS STUPID DOES. So because of our collective stupidity on both occasions, we deserve everything that will happen to us beginning 1/1/13!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Oldefarte| 11.20.12 @ 5:27PM
PS: Correction above that He expects us to avoid [not exercise] FG's philosophy. As to the ME, I hope that the 69% of US Jews who once again stupidly voted for this POTUS' election are now enjoying the misery and pain that they have brought upon their friends and relatives in Israel by doing thus [from the apparent ganging up on Israel of these Muslim Arab nations in support of the Palestineans in Gaza!!!!!!
Oldefarte| 11.21.12 @ 1:09PM
As an indication of this, read the following:
http://www.newsmaxworld.com/Gl...../id/464879
Rifleman| 11.20.12 @ 11:39PM
If you're the kind of person who believes in the Biblical end-times it sure looks like we're heading toward it rapidly...
Bill8472| 11.21.12 @ 10:03AM
I hope you're enjoying Colorado Springs (since you're attending an El Pomar function, I assume you're in Colo. Spgs.). As a city, it's not all that pretty, but the setting it's located in is GREAT, don't you think?
Bill8472| 11.21.12 @ 10:04AM
Have a German dinner at Uwe's. It's the best German restaurant in the Springs, I promise you.
sdfhlk | 11.22.12 @ 4:58AM
A World Full of Troubles:please do not did it ,protect with it