Jihadist Jawad was caught in act

Both policy realities and military realities were shortchanged in today's Denver Post editorial, "The Reality of Closing Gitmo." Here's the link. To start with, policywise, the editors' admonition that “there should be no excuses” for failure to quickly shut down Gitmo is ridiculous, and flies in the face of both logic and international law. The Post editorial states: "The detainees should be properly adjudicated. If they can’t be charged, they must be freed." This is hogwash. The detainees at Gitmo are not simply common criminals; they are enemy combatants, subject to the laws of war (not criminal code) and may be detained until the cessation of hostilities. Holding these enemy combatants indefinitely, and the Gitmo facility itself, is fully compliant with international law, as noted in an Obama administration report (see my earlier post, It’s Official: Gitmo complies with Geneva Rules).

The Post editorial goes from debatable to irresponsible, however, in its characterization of the case of Mohammed Jawad, accusing the government of misdeeds “in the handling of the case of an Afghan held since he was a teenager on what Huvelle says is mostly hearsay evidence and on confessions gained through torture by Afghan captors. Mohammed Jawad is accused of throwing a grenade that seriously wounded two U.S. servicemen and a translator in Kabul.”

As it happens, I know a little bit about that case. I was deployed in Afghanistan at the time it occurred, just before Christmas 2002 (December 17th). The “two U.S. servicemen” wounded in the attack were from my unit at the time, the 5th Battalion 19th Special Forces Group (Airborne) of the Colorado Army National Guard.

The “two U.S. servicemen” wounded are not some faceless statistics (although Mohammed Jawad did his best to change that). They have names (and since it was reported at the time - including in Colorado newspapers - I can mention them here): SFC (Sergeant First Class) Michael Lyons, and SFC Christopher Martin. Their wounds were severe: SFC Martin almost bled to death from his leg wound, and had it not been for the alertness and skill of our unit’s medical personnel, might very well have died.

Incidentally, Mohammed Jawad was captured, at the scene, by local citizens (shopkeepers) outraged that an outsider (Jawad was not from Kabul) would attack “our” Americans (despite what you may have heard, at the time we were there, we were VERY popular with the locals for bringing peace, security, and yes, lots of American dollars to the Afghan capital city). Jawad was turned over to Afghan forces for a VERY brief period of time before being taken into custody by our Soldiers; allegations of “confessions gained through torture by Afghan captors” are baseless.

Post editors did a disservice to SFC Lyons, SFC Martin, and every Soldier in the Colorado Army National Guard with this inaccurate and misleading editorial.

Ask someone who knows

Slated on Backbone Radio, July 26 Listen every Sunday, 5-8pm on 710 KNUS, Denver... 1460 KZNT, Colorado Springs... and streaming live at 710knus.com.

As citizens in a free society, we can stay in the endless feedback loop of conventional wisdom and politically correct platitudes. Or we can equip ourselves for self-government by digging for the truth with the help of serious thinkers who know what they're talking about. The choice is up to you and me. We at Backbone Radio choose the road less traveled, believing that the other road is rapidly leading Americans to a loss of liberty, prosperity, and security. Among the questions we'll take up this Sunday are these:

** Is Islam a religion of peace? We'll ask Brigitte Gabriel, author of "They Must Be Stopped" and founder of ACT for America, and Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, VP at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.

** Do taxes make a difference for economic growth? We'll ask Jonathan Williams of the American Legislative Exchange Council, co-author of "Rich States, Poor States" with Arthur Laffer and Stephen Moore.

** Are law enforcement and other American institutions the crypto-racist embarrassments that Harvard's Prof. Gates (and apparently President Obama) think they are? We'll ask black conservative Joseph C. Phillips.

** Plus J.J. Ament on why he wants to recapture the State Treasurer job for Republicans, and Jeff Crank on what you can do to head off socialized medicine.

It's a waste of your time to ask Anderson Cooper, and it's no longer possible to ask Walter Cronkite -- assuming you wanted to. Much better to ask someone who knows. Join us for the show as we do just that.

Yours for cutting through the fog, JOHN ANDREWS

Ceding power to Congress: priceless

When I pick up the morning newspaper these days I am often reminded of that old Chinese proverb "may you live in interesting times".  I'm sure that every generation sees their "time" as interesting, and full of change. And so it should be -- with mankind's inexorable march toward the future, change (both good and bad) comes with each tick of the clock. The world moves forward, even if often the "forward" seems more like "backward". Our forward sure seems a lot like backward. Fortunately, it turns out that all this vacuous talk during the campaign about "hope and change" is now catching up to some realities:

-- A majority of the American people don't want a government controlled health care system -- A majority of the American people don't think more government is a good idea -- A majority of the American people have decided that Barack Obama is "more liberal" than they thought he was (big surprise -- not!) -- The economic "crisis" that Obama tried to capitalize on is not as bad as he would like us to think it is -- The failure of Obama to control the agenda -- by ceding power to Congress -- has unleashed the left-wing of the Democrat Party and has led to partisan, left-wing legislation -- That legislation has tanked any chance at bi-partisanship and has turned off the American people

Indeed, the American people are starting to understand that our would-be emperor is wearing no clothes. If you bothered to watch the President's prime time health care news conference this past week you saw a man grappling for answers, talking to "run out the clock" and making very little sense. Makes you long for the simple colloquiums of George W. Bush! Seriously -- the President is so in love with the sound of his own voice and the elegance of his teleprompter that he thinks what he says doesn't matter.

But it does, of course -- and though the left's basic premise is that people aren't smart enough to take care of themselves, the reality is that the American people aren't stupid. They see Congress as a partisan place with parochial interests and where transparency and honesty are in short supply. They thought that Obama would transcend this -- by pledging a "post-partisan" and "newly transparent" government. What they got was just another left-wing politician who has actually moved to strengthen Congress' role -- not weaken it. While this may be admirable for "strict constructionists" who believe that there should be greater balance between Congress and the Executive branch, the reality is that this Congress is run by highly partisan ideologues who aren't interested in consensus. On such huge issues -- like Cap and Trade and health care reform, partisan policy is never good for the country.

By design, of course, there has always been a tension between the executive branch and the Congress, and it is necessary for both branches to be active in balancing each other. But, perhaps one of the reasons why former legislators have rarely become president (and those who have are largely ineffective in the job) is because this balance is easily distorted. When you learn to think like a Senator, with the primary goal of satisfying interest groups, it is hard to put on the CEO hat and understand that your role as president is a unique one. Yes, it is about bargaining, but it is truly (or should be, anyway) about the interests of the nation as a whole and the office of the President. Thus far, Barack Obama's relationship with Congress resembles more like that of a Majority Leader and less like the Chief Executive of the nation.

I'm thankful, of course, that the President has gotten it wrong -- for it shows clearly to the American people that he is a neophyte, without true conviction. I knew that eventually his words would ring hollow, and it would be his actions that would become the focus. We are now at that point, and his actions are clearly not up to the job.

For more along this line of thought: Charles Krauthammer: Why Obamacare is Sinking

Kimberly Strassel: How Obama Stumbled on Health Care WSJ: A Better Health Reform

Taxes undo Mass. Guv & other Dems

(Wellfleet, MA - July 20) This is a small Cape Cod community –about 500 people when I was growing up- now part of Massachusetts’ National Seashore Park. It's also home to a few hardy souls with whom I shared the experience of a one-room school house presided over by a septuagenarian female teacher whose reproving glances struck abject fear in our young hearts. One of the advantages of encountering such old friends is that it is possible to discuss current events without hitting the high wall that these flinty New Englanders usually erect between themselves and nosy “outsiders”. Thus of a recent morning I enjoyed some illuminating conversation concerning Massachusetts politics- usually a good source of light entertainment if not moral uplift.

It’s been a tough week for the state’s Democratic governor, Deval Patrick. On Monday the Democratic State Treasurer Tim Cahill announced he was quitting the party and signaled pretty clearly that he would run against Patrick as an Independent. On Wednesday Charles Baker, a prominent Republican businessman with deep pockets, announced that he too would challenge the incumbent.

Illustrating a key reason for Patrick’s vulnerability was the discovery on Tuesday that the state’s budget gap- already 3.2 billion dollars- had worsened by an additional 200 million dollars owing to dismal June revenues.

The basic cause of Patrick’s plummeting approval ratings and the consequent electoral challenges is no mystery: Taxes. With the concurrence of the Democrat controlled legislature Patrick has recently done the following: a. increased highway tolls by 25 %; b. increased Metropolitan bus and subway fares by 30 %; c. imposed a first ever tax on retail alcohol sales (two dollars on a fifth of Scotch. Ouch!); and d. –causing the most outrage- raised the already high sales tax by 25%.

The use of weasel terms like “fee adjustments”, or “revenue enhancements”, or Patrick’s gem-“state income improvement measures” does not fool but does further infuriate a public that knows a tax increase when it sees one.

Also significant is that all of those taxes are regressive in nature falling most heavily on those lower income groups that have traditionally been the foundation of the Democrats’ electoral base.

All of this however is not just a Massachusetts story, but rather a template for states across the nation where Democrats are running things. The recession has put the Democratic Party under a harsh spotlight that has simultaneously exposed their deeply flawed approach to governance and their fundamental incapacity to preside over difficult economic times like the present.

The recession undermines and ultimately makes counter-productive the Democrats favorite activity: Spending. It also impels them toward the only remedy tolerated by their ruling elites: The political Kool-Aid of Tax Increases.

At the heart of the Democrats’ dilemma are three inherent defects that have long plagued their party: 1.They are constitutionally incapable of grasping the concept that lower tax rates can generate higher tax revenues (See Reagan,R., 1981); 2. They are politically incapable of any budget or policy initiative opposed by their union allies; and 3. Ideology makes them utterly blind to the fact that creating a “business friendly” climate is essential to any sustained economic recovery.

Historically, political change in the U.S. begins at the state level before going national. An excellent example is Proposition 13- California’s 1978 tax revolt that prefigured the triumph of Ronald Reagan.

A major reason for this pattern is that economically speaking reality bites earlier and harder at the state level. Economic make-believe can be sustained longer at the Federal level because it is a remote and artificial environment that prints its own money- a luxury unavailable to states where budgets must be balanced in real time.

Accordingly political retribution is swifter at the state level. Gubernatorial approval ratings nosedive faster than the Presidential variety, but in the end both are reflective of economic malfeasance, and the populist backlash it generates.

In 2006 Deval Patrick was an attractive, articulate outsider who preached a gospel of “Hope and Change”. His good friend Barack Obama even admitted in 2008 to plagiarizing a few of Patrick’s speeches.

No doubt friend Obama has noticed that Patrick’s “Hope and Change” bandwagon has collided head-on with “Reality and Disillusion”.

An increasingly restless nation waits to see what if any lessons our new President will learn. William Moloney’s columns have appeared in the Wall St. Journal, USA Today, Washington Post, Washington Times, Philadephia Inquirer, Baltimore Sun, Denver Post, and Rocky Mountain News.

New polls: "Obamacare" is not inevitable!

We should all hope and pray that Karl Rove is right in his opinion piece today in the Wall Street Journal ("Obama Care in Trouble"). Rove argues that both the polls and the political calendar are working against Obama's attempt to socialize health care in this country: On Monday, the Washington Post/ABC poll reported that 49% of Americans approve of his handling of health care while 44% disapprove. What many people missed is that those who strongly disapprove of the president’s approach on health care now outnumber those who strongly approve by 33% to 25%. That presages further decline. Already, 49% of independents disapprove of the president’s approach, up from 30% in April, a staggering shift in 11 weeks.

As I have written previously ("Are American voters finally catching on"?), this echoes general polling that shows independents and conservative Democrats -- the key swing vote that elected Obama in the first place -- turning away from Obama as well.

According to Rove, Obama's support is crumbling because of a flood of bad news about Mr. Obama’s health-care proposals.

One batch of such news came from a July 17 study by the Lewin Group that was commissioned by the Heritage Foundation. It projects that if the House bill becomes law, 83.4 million people—nearly half of those with private coverage—will lose private insurance as employers drop their plans. Mr. Obama’s promise that you can keep your plan is being left on the cutting room floor with nary a peep from the president.

Not a surprise, of course, since Obama's true goal is to provide an American version of Britain's National Health Service. Nevermind, of course, that the NHS led to substandard care, rationing and long waits for basic procedures. In the true hubris that only an American president can muster, Obama thinks "we can do it better". That same kind of thinking, by the way, has led us to ignore the disaster that befell the Japanese economy in the 1990s when it undertook government stimulus to right its massive recession -- more than 15 years of stagnation and anemic growth. But nevermind. The left has its ideological orthodoxy and let's not get bogged down in details or facts.

We should be thankful that at least somebody in Washington has the courage to tell the truth, even if he was called on the carpet afterward by the President for deigning to provide an honest evaluation of Obama's plan. Douglas Elmendorf, the Director of the Congressional Budget Office, testified last week that

"...the White House’s health-care proposals would not “reduce the trajectory of federal health spending by a significant amount.” This shattered the central claim Mr. Obama has been making: that his health-care plan controls costs. In a July 17 letter, Mr. Elmendorf added that the House’s health-care bill would result in a “net increase in the federal budget deficit of $239 billion” over 10 years. That’s likely a low-ball estimate because it assumes that Congress will increase taxes by $583 billion over the next decade."

Ahh, but of course -- new taxes. In the end, this is the heart of the Obama mission -- to tax the productive into submission so that the poor (Democrat voters, all) will have their free lunch. This is no surprise (or shouldn't be, anyhow), since Obama told "Joe the Plumber" that his ultimate goal is to "spread the wealth around". He wasn't lying about that, my friends.

I do sense that a tide is turning. Yesterday I attended a meeting of the local GOP club here in Colorado. It was a packed house on a Wednesday afternoon, and the energy in the room was palpable. Several of those who were there were Democrats who apparently have seen and heard enough of Obama, and who are now committed to seeing the defeat of his big government plans.

It's encouraging. But we must keep up the pressure. Show up at meetings. Go to protests. Write and/or call your Representatives. The time to fight is now -- before its too late.