Ralph Peters on the Islam Haters:
In our own country, we should respect our fellow citizens who happen to be Muslims - instead of implying that they're all members of a devious fifth column. More than 3 million Americans profess Islam. How many have strapped on bombs and walked into Wal-Mart?
Sure, bad actors will emerge. But every immigrant group has produced its gangsters, demagogues and common criminals. Fools who insist that "Muslims can't be good Americans" insult both Muslims and America - whose transformative genius should never be underestimated.
The problem isn't the man or woman of faith, but cultural environment. Once free of the maladies of the Middle East, Muslims thrive in America. Like the rest of us.
We are in a knife-fight to the death with fanatics who've perverted a great religion. But those who warn of Muslims in general are heirs of the creeps who once told us Jews can never be real Americans and JFK will serve the Vatican.
Obviously, there's a moral reason for not condemning all Muslims. Real Americans judge men and women by their individual characters and actions, not by the color of their skin or the liturgy they recite on their respective Sabbaths. Sorry, all you bigots: You'll never get the Wannsee Conference, Part II, at Lake Tahoe.
But even for our inveterate haters, those whose personal disappointments have left them with a need to blame others (sounds like al Qaeda to me . . . ), there's a Realpolitik reason not to insult all Muslims: In the serious world of strategy and the military, you don't make unnecessary enemies.
We've got our hands full in the Middle East. Why alienate the Muslims of Indonesia or West Africa (or California)? A wise strategist seeks to divide his enemies, not to recruit for them. Some of the bigots out there might like to try to kill a billion Muslims, but I'm not signing up for their genocidal daydreams - nor will my fellow Americans.
Ultimately, our military actions can only buy time. The long overdue liberal reformation within the Islamic world can only be carried out by Muslims themselves. Those who believe in Islam with all their hearts will have to be the ones who defeat those who hijacked their faith.
Do we have to fight? Yes. But let's fight our true enemies, not the innocent.
Amen. Read this too from Conrad de Quiros.
Neal Cruz: "THERE are many reasons why we should not change the Constitution now, but the two most compelling are (1) the motives of the proponents and (2) the total lack of respect of the proponents for the rule of law."
jb baylon on mike Arroyo:
If Mike Arroyo has a problem, it is simply this: he has failed to pass the so-called "Caesar’s wife" test. That is, that Caesar’s wife must be above suspicion; else, as in Caesar’s case, he had to get rid of – divorce, actually – his wife Pompeia for her being involved in a scandal concerning a ritual.
In Mike Arroyo’s case the consequence is not divorce, no matter how so many people wish that were an available option in the Philippines. In Mike Arroyo’s case the consequence is becoming the "usual suspect" in whatever corruption scandal is bruited about in the country!
Wags can even say that Mike Arroyo has apparently failed even to pass the "Caesar’s mistress" test, if ever there was one!
And then again, if Mike Arroyo has a problem, he too has an advantage. And that is, that he is a public figure in the country like the Philippines, and not in a country like the United States. Or South Korea. Or Germany. Or Singapore.
Can you imagine all these allegations about Mike Arroyo happening in a country like any of those mentioned above? In the United States, for example, Mike Arroyo would have been subjected to intense scrutiny by the FBI that he would wish he just hadn’t been born a descendant of Jose Pidal, Why? Because if the Jose Pidal accounts – accounts that, if I remember right, he disowned by saying he didn’t know who owned them and didn’t even know who Jose Pidal was. Never mind that he actually had a grandfather by that name. And never mind that his brother later on admitted – or should we say claimed? – to being the Jose Pidal account owner.
Even his brother, too, would have felt the heat of the FBI. Why? Because he would have been asked to explain how someone paying so little in income taxes would have so much money in what was apparently unexplained wealth. And then again, that would have been the case in America if it happened to the spouse of an American president. Heck, if the authorities could subject a sitting president like Clinton (or Nixon before him) to a withering investigation, what more a spouse (and an in-law?).
In South Korea, on the other hand, we’ve seen how the authorities have not only jailed former presidents, but even children of an incumbent president. Has the fiscal who would dare investigate a sitting president, his or her spouse or his or her kids already been born? I suspect the Second Coming will happen first before such a fiscal emerges.
Can you imagine, under present conditions, some fiscal daring to file a case against a First Gentleman or a First Lady? That would be cojones worthy of the Guinness Book of World Records.
Not to mention a Justice secretary who would dare sanction an investigation of his boss or of close associates of his boss! I suspect that Jose W. Diokno was the last one who dared, and we know what the president of the Philippines did. That president, by the way, was Diosdado Macapagal.
More on the Harry Stonehill case here. Read this old article too from TIME Magazine: Smoke in Manila (aug. 10, 1962)
2nd Update: Stealing Elections: How Voter Fraud Threatens Our Democracy. that's the title of WSJ John Fund's new book.
Michelle Malkin in a bikini! Yowza! Not Safe For Work. ;) UPDATE: Fake yung photo.
Malaya Editorial on Arroyo's intolerance for cheating.
And the Tribune Editorial on Erap for his policies:
The very groups that derided then President Joseph Estrada for being a college dropout and an unfit president and even actively worked to have him ousted unconstitutionally, are now seemingly in praise for his wisdom and the policies he and his Cabinet have come up with during his brief term in office.
Many business groups, among them the Makati Business Club, whose officers and members were at the forefront in creating political and economic turmoil in the country to force Estrada out of office on trumped-up charges of plunder, corruption and even his alleged lack of work ethic, now say Executive Order (EO) 138, which Estrada issued and which has been repealed by Gloria Arroyo with her EO 558, was cited for its effectiveness and “earned for the Philippines accolades from the United Nations for having the best microfinance policy in the world.”
More faint praise was made when it referred to Estrada’s EO as it is now being said by these business groups that EO 138 was a carefully studied, well reasoned out articulation of a wisdom gained from accumulated experience of about 30 years of numerous failed government experiments.
“That a policy so steeped in wisdom, and one that is the product of many lessons learned from experience, and that has achieved so much, done so much good and has earned for the country international admiration should be scrapped with no justification, and contrary to all logic, is a setback of monumental proportion. What makes it more baffling is that this is being done by a government that understands the negative implications of such a major policy shift,” the business sector now says.
If the business groups are honest about it, they can well admit that government — whether for business and investments or the economy or even politics — was managed a whale of a lot better under the Estrada government than it is today, under Gloria Arroyo, whom they supported twice over; once in her power grab in 2001, and again in 2004 during the presidential polls, where these same civil society groups closed their eyes to the massive poll cheating and diversion of public funds by Gloria to buy the votes and cheat some more — and all because they wanted to prevent another movie star and one identified with Estrada from becoming president.
In Estrada’s time, international agreements were honored and even onerous sovereign guarantees and loans incurred by the previous administrations were being paid for faithfully by the Estrada government. And public funds were not diverted for personal use. There was neither bribery on Estrada’s part to any congressman to kill a trumped-up impeachment complaint against him. He followed the law and the Constitution and played by the rules of the game.
Business groups, as well as everyone else in this country know just why Gloria is bent on repealing Estrada’s EO 138. This is being done by Gloria for election purposes and to buy off more of her allies.
Estrada never cheated to win the polls.
It will be no different from the P3-billion fertilizer funds scam, which funds were diverted to the campaign kitty of Gloria to ensure votes for her from various mayors, governors and congressmen she bought off.
But even if the business groups continue refusing to acknowledge that Estrada was a better chief executive than Gloria can ever be, despite his different management style and his candor, as he is no hypocrite, surveys from various international organizations such as Transparency International and the World Economic Forum, or even the World Bank data, all point to Estrada’s government performance as the better performing government, compared to Gloria’s. Even in business competitiveness, the country was, during Estrada’s time, ranked at 35th place, where it is now down to 72 in ranking.
There is also no question, given the official data, that under the Estrada government, there were more direct foreign investments pouring in. Even in the matter of upholding the freedoms of a people, Estrada followed the law and the Constitution, something which Gloria does not do.
And in the corruption index, the country’s ranking under Gloria is dismal, as it is now up there in the category of one of the most corrupt governments while her regime continues to be scandal-wracked and corruption-ridden.
The economy is in bad shape, despite her claims of the country’s economy doing so well that we have gotten out of the Third World stage to the Second World status and soon to become First World.
They know she is full of manure. Estrada never fed the nation with manure.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment