Rand Paul: How About We Stop Sending Money to Those Who Hate Us?

It's funny, as much as I despise Ron Paul and his wild band of zealots, I like Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY). Sen. Paul is a man of vision and common sense, the kind of man that probably only could have gotten elected in a state like Kentucky during a Tea Party revolution.

Rand Paul gets it. He gets that we spend too much money and it's not just a Democratic ailment. He gets that socialized medicine will destroy the greatest health care system ever and he is one who has had to negotiate that system as an MD.

But more importantly, he knows right from wrong and opts for right all the time. He is not afraid to tussle with anyone if he believes he's in the right and has threatened to bring the Senate to a standstill if he isn't at the very least heard out.

Today, he pens a piece in the Washington Times advocating that we shut off the spigot to Egypt, Libya and Pakistan because, well, they hate us and have been playing us for decades. Here's a portion but of course read the entire essay:

Last week, I requested that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat, provide a brief amount of time for debate and a vote on my amendment to end U.S. aid to Pakistan, Egypt and Libya. Yet, Senate Democrat leadership blocked it. I will continue my effort this week and have announced my intentions to stop all Senate business with a filibuster. 

You and I have been reminded that our enemies are relentless, but we were also reminded that our so-called allies are often not acting like allies at all. We send billions of taxpayer dollars abroad and what do we get in return? Disrespect, disdain and, ultimately, violence.  

American taxpayer dollars should not go to Libya until the murderers are delivered to justice. Nor should they go to Egypt until the Egyptians prove that they are willing and able to protect our embassy. Finally, not one more penny of American taxpayer dollars should go to Pakistan until the doctor who helped us get bin Laden is freed.

Amen, brother.

Let's start with Egypt. The Egyptians signed a peace treaty while being lead by Anwar Sadat. Sadat risked a lot and ultimately died for his actions at the hands of Egyptian Islamic Jihad or Muslim Brotherhood gunmen. As a thank you to Sadat who suffered condemnation throughout the Middle East, the US gave about a billion dollars to Egypt. This continued during the time Hosni Mubarak was in power.

Mubarak was overthrown last year and "elections' saw the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood to power. They have set Egypt back decades instituting sharia law and curtailing the rights of women. They also did nothing while our embassy was overrun last week and an al-Qaeda flag was hoisted where ours once had been before it was burned.

Libya is another animal. In the aftermath of the NATO victory over Gadaffi, money was pledged and money was sent. Last week on 9/11, armed militants murdered the ambassador and three other people in a RPG and machine gun attack.

But Pakistan is the real problem. We needed Pakistan to aid us in the War on Terror and our decade-plus conflict against the Taliban. We expected them to be straight shooters but of all the nations in that region, Pakistan is the shadiest character of all. The Pakistani intelligence service ISI was simultaneously smiling at us while hiding bin-Laden. They pledged to be nice and were allegedly behind the deadly attacks in Mumbai. Reports say they've been supporting the Taliban while cashing our checks and, as Sen. Paul notes, have tortured and jailed the doctor who helped us capture bin-Laden (partially because of leaks within the Obama administration).

So yes, as Paul notes, it's time to shut the tap off. If you can't play nice, we won';t support you. Let's see how long the Muslim Brotherhood survives without American largess.

Of course the Russians will step in and try to reclaim their place on the world stage but the Russians will not abide Chechnyan's training in terror camps in Libya or Pakistani's exporting weapons to Dagestan.

China may try to step in but they have no where near the global reach militarily that we have and it would be a difficult task to offer protection.

I agree with Sen. Paul, it's high time we offer the carrot and whack the hell out of them with the stick if they don't play nice. President Bush needed Pakistan, we don't anymore. Bring the boys home and redirect the funds we give the three nations above into our military resources at home.

More here.

See What You Have Wrought, Liberals?

To my liberal brothers and sisters:

We warned you that voting for a man with no experience because it felt good was a horrible idea. Hillary Clinton warned you that some react to the 3 AM phone call and questioned whether her opponent had the abilities needed to answer it and dictate and strategy. John McCain told us the consequences of electing a shady Chicago "community organizer" would result in chaos around the world. But many didn't listen and as one of Obama's spiritual leaders once noted "the chickens have come home to roost".  You called all of us racist and refused to stop screaming "yes we can" long enough to see how factual our statements were.

Obama's self-belief that he had the intellectual power to calm the Mid-East have been laid to waste. When the opportunity arose to assist in protecting a long-standing, mostly secular yet brutal dictator in Egypt arose, we said that to allow this man to be ousted would result in the rise of radical Islam in a crucial nation in the region. We knew that a liberalized Egypt was the only way to counter Islamofascism and the void left would be filled by the Muslim Brotherhood and local salafist's who want a pan-Muslim mega-state reaching from Morocco to Pakistan and further.

We said to do nothing but dither while a nascent rebellion began to rise in the deeply radical and destabilizing nation of Iran would result in a perception of weakness from the Muslim world you said nothing and supported your clearly unprepared president.

We said that launching another war in a country that already had a history of attacking the US but was led by another tyrant who was coming around to the concept of American power, you cheered your hero on and did not think about the long-term consequences for the US. You did however play up the conflict for short-term political game because the only thing that matters to you is to be in power and hold influence and the purse strings.

So here we sit watching our embassies attacked, our ambassador savagely murdered and the US flag burned. This is the consequences of your votes. Radical Islam is counter to everything you hold dear: gay rights, women's rights, abortion, secularism and yet, you support a man who has set the rights of millions of people back a century or more.

And please stop with the silly notion that this was all because of a poorly-edited You Tube video. You just sound inane. This was a well-planned and orchestrated attack on sovereign US territory that was carefully planned to occur on the day that many Muslims hold dear, the day they inflicted 3,000 deaths on the US. Does one actually want to argue that people who raise their children this way need any provocation other than our mere existence?

Also, just stop with the Romney bashing because your savior dropped the ball and his people instituted policies that would not allow Marines to carry loaded weapons in a deeply hostile nation. 

Please stop blaming former President Bush for this because I recall that on January 20, 2009 Egypt was stable and Gadaffi was trying to mend his errant ways in Libya. Both nations are now wastelands with numerous sects fighting to see who can be more radical and more anti-American.

No liberals, you elected a man who was easily the most unprepared for the task he won. He threw our money to his cronies, rammed through a horrible health care bill, alienated the one true ally we have in the region and actually believed that he was so gifted as a person and orator that he could meet with Ahmedinejad without pre-conditions and get him to reconsider his position. You elected a man who shirks any responsibility for anything remotely unpopular while blaming his predecessor as often as possible.

We told you that being the president of the greatest nation on Earth was difficult. It's not just meeting with Beyonce and Jay-Z but meeting with Netanyahu and Karzai and explaining the American position in straight-forward terms. We told you that security relied on intelligence and ones ability to act on it to protect our citizens. You scoffed at the notion that Obama could handle it and continue to do so even though actionable intelligence appears to have been discovered. 

No, leadership is not fundraising, making deals on the golf course and meeting Olympians. Leadership is standing out front and--using either the stick or the carrot--moving the nation and the world into the next era. Obama has never led anyone to do anything of consequence that bettered US interests and has in fact done many that have harmed them. 

I felt that another four years of Obama would cripple us both socially and economically but after this last week, I'm not really sure we can survive another four months until inauguration day. 

Arab Spring Emboldens Islamic Terrorists

Obama and Hillary Clinton praised the Arab Spring where we saw Hosni Mubarak ousted and the Muslim Brotherhood rise to power. Add to that the US-led ousting of Qadaffi and the continued instigation of Iran and you have a toxic mix for the region not seen since 1973 when Egyptian leader Abdel-Gamal Nasser rallied the Islamic states to attack Israel as a united front.

Earlier this week, a Swedish-born, ex-Guantanamo detainee attacked Israeli's in Bulgaria and killed 7 of them on a sight-seeing tour. A man who was caught by our troops in Tora-Bora in the early stages of the War on Terror and sent to Gitmo was responsible.

Mehdi-Muhammad Ghezali was a man who was not poor and raised in a Palestinian slum. Instead he was a Swede who grew up with all the comforts a socialistic society could give him. Instead he went to Afghanistan to wage jihad and was sent to Gitmo for it. Unfortunately Swedish leftists fought for his release and even flew him back to the Nordic nation on their own government-owned jet. 


Ghezali wasn't happy being just an average swede going to work and living a comfortable life. Instead he made the conscious decision to continue his jihad and the result was the death of more Israeli's who wished for nothing more than to enjoy the warm Bulgarian summer. Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu pinned the blame squarely on Iran.


So how does this fit with the new world order where an organization founded by arch-terrorist Ayman al-Zawahiri is considered a responsible part of the world community? The Muslim Brotherhood is Islamist to the bone and will open up Egypt to every terrorist group that has the money to bribe their way in. With huge swaths of desert to train in, Israeli's will never be safe and by extension, neither will the world. 


The new Egyptian junta has already secured an audience with Obama ensuring their legitimacy while meeting with terrorist group Hamas and hailed a "new era" with the organization that has but one goal; the eradication of Israel and all it's citizens. 


Add to this the potential exile of Bashar Assad and you will have a cauldron of Islamo-fascism not seen in decades. Radical Islamist's will be highly emboldened and can fight their war from behind safe borders where they will never be touched. America will not have the will or leadership under the current administration to take the battle to them and Obama will never risk alienating any leader. Said leaders will never allow themselves to be seen as an American puppet and will allow organized terror to thrive and export their power while maintaining plausible deniability. 


We are in the midst of one of those periods that history will note as crucial to world stability. Pakistan, Iran, Libya, Egypt, Tunisia and Syria will unite. Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon, Yemen and Afghanistan will have a hard slog maintaining neutrality as their radical elements will rise up and we could easily face a very determined Arab world with an initial goal of eliminating Israel and the ultimate goal of bringing the US to our knees. 


Strong leadership is needed right now and to sit back and allow the poison seed of Islamic revolt to grow and bloom will ensure 50 years of bloodshed and war.  

The Muslim Brotherhood Take Over

Hosni Mubarak is/was a son of a bitch but he is/was a known and stable son of a bitch (Mubarak's actual state of being is in dispute). He managed to keep the Muslim Brotherhood and Egyptian Islamic Jihad in check while keeping the peace treaty with Israel intact.

His ouster last year changed the face of the Middle East. With Islamist's winning in other nations such as Libya, we now have our hands full dealing with regimes who hate us and want our presence in the region curtailed. We face two very bad options with regard to Egypt: we continue to send them billions in aid and hope they stick to the agreement with Israel or we cut off the funding and watch the nation devolve into a haven for jihadi's right on Israel's southwestern border.

Either way, the region is going to become highly destabilized. The new president said he didn't want Cairo, Mecca or Medina as his capital, he wants Jerusalem and led a huge crowd in a chant saying exactly that:




Israel cannot sit idly by and see what direction this is headed. If it were up to me, I'd covertly arm Israel with whatever they need to shore up their defenses including spare parts for existing systems and increased intelligence sharing. We could very well be seeing the next pan-Arab coalition building that was last seen when Nasser was leading the charge and Israel was attacked by numerous Arab states.

On the flip side, Amir Tehiri sees some hope but that was before the election.

Why Syria Matters

American intelligence officials are now saying that al-Qaeda was responsible for recent bombings in Syria designed to further incite regime opponents. They also claim that al-Qaeda is not new to the insurgency but has been part of the uprising since the beginning.

The vengeful part of me thinks this is excellent since Bashar Assad is now fighting violent insurgents in his own backyard after assisting insurgents battling the US in Iraq. Another part says that this could be the spark that truly sets the Middle East ablaze.

A year ago, we watched as Tunisia and Egypt overthrew despotic regimes with Libya doing the same--with NATO help--later in the year. We've also watched as the vacuum created by the downfall of the dictators has been filled by hard line Islamist's with a goal of changing these states into Muslim-only nations with Sharia being the law of the land. Al-Qaeda stands to benefit from these new regimes more than any other group. Zawahiri needs state sponsorship to continue his jihad and now he may just have it in northern Africa thanks to the disarray brought on by the uprisings.

But back to Syria. If the insurgency in Syria is successful and Assad is ousted, does anyone really believe that a moderate will take over? Does the Obama administration as a whole and Hillary Clinton in particular really expect that a new Syria will become a democracy and elect a secular leader? No, al-Qaeda will push for some group in the mold of the Muslim Brotherhood to ascend and asset them in doing so. Essentially we'd see a caliphate from Morocco to Pakistan (except Shiite-led Iran) led by like-minded Muslims who wish ill-will to the US and our allies.

And what about Israel? Can Israel idly sit by while Syria and Egypt continue down the road to becoming a Pakistan clone? Of course they can't and if Syria falls, it will not be long until Jordan and Lebanon do as well. Yes, Assad is a thug and a despot but he's also managed to keep Syria stable after his vile father died and went to hell. But he's a thug and despot that we know and he's predictable. The same when Mubarak led Egypt, we knew a thugocracy was better than theocracy. Israel will have to protect itself and no one with any understanding of the history of the region can honestly say that these new regimes will be peaceful towards their only non-Muslim neighbor. The conflagration that will arise is scary as hell to consider. A massed Islamic army would be very disconcerting to Israel and once the fighting starts, the US will be forced to aid Israel while China and Russia will reap huge benefits from double-dealing and arms deals.

Am I saying we should prop up Assad? No f-ing way. What I am saying is that we should learn from what happened in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia and not be so quick to fan any flames against Boy Assad because that fire could burn us and our allies just as easily.

Exit questions: How are the Sunni al-Qaeda able to stir up so much trouble in Syria, which is a proxy of Shiite Iran? Has Iran lost that much clout in the Muslim world?