Will Someone Please Tell The Speaker To Shut Up

Nancy Pelosi decided to once again open her big mouth in an interview aired today on NPR. Pelosi, once again over-stepping her position as Speaker of the House, took a turn at being Secretary of State. She denounced Afghan President Hamid Karzai as an "unworthy partner", undeserving of a big ramp-up of troops or civilian aid.

Madame Speaker, since when is foreign policy made in the House? I think you need a refresher course in the Constitution! Policy is made at the Executive Branch ... the Legislative Branch decides the funding.

Now I have no doubt that the Speaker is well aware of what she is doing, and have a strong suspicion that her stupid comments were cleared by the White House. As our Ditherer-N-Chief is still several weeks away from a decision on troop levels in Afghanistan, perhaps San Fran Nan is setting a base from which a "No New Troops" movement can grow.

As for the President, the excuse of it will take 3 or 4 months to get the troops to Afghanistan, so there is no need to hurry is getting a little thin. If you had made your decision when the troop request was made ... the troops would already be starting to arrive and our young men and women in the combat zone would already be a little safer ... or do you even care?

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Arianna Huffington Is Right! ... Sort Of

Recently on her hate-filled web-site, Arianna Huffington wrote that Vice-President Biden should resign if we give General McChrystal any more troops for Afghanistan.

Ms. Huffington did not go far enough. I think that Secretary Clinton should resign if General McChrystal does not get the troops he needs.

And while we are at it, can we get resignations from Speaker Pelosi, Harry Reid and the President too? By now they should have realized that they have gotten in too far over their heads and resign before they do serious damage.

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The Dutch Get Pissed Off

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is having a meeting in the Netherlands this week. As host, Dutch Defense Minister Eimert Van Middelkoop welcomed the 26 countries to the meeting and immediately launched a jab at about 22 of the countries. It seems the Dutch are getting pissed off a bit perturbed about the fact that they, along with Canada, Great Britain and the United States that are fighting in the dangerous South and Eastern portions of Afghanistan, while the other countries hang out in the relatively safe North. Well Mr Defense Minister ... welcome to our world. For years the US and Great Britain have been doing the dirty work heavy lifting for the world. I guess it's not as fair when your countrymen now must help shoulder the burden.

But let's be fair to the Dutch ... they have earned the right to complain, because they are actually there, bleeding with the Canadians, Brits and Americans. Our attention should be turned to those that are shirking their responsibilities. First on the list is of course the French. They have volunteered now to send 50 troops to the south to help with training the Afghani forces there ... of course the other 1,000 troops will remain hiding in the north. The German contingent of 3,100 troops have never ventured out of the north.

On a positive note, Slovakia said it would double its' contingent to 111 troops (do they now have 55 1/2 troops in country?), some of which will be sent south to help the Dutch. The Czech republic will increase its' forces from 225 to 415, but have not said where they would be sent. The country of Georgia, which is not in NATO, is reportedly considering sending 200 troops to help the Dutch in an attempt to suck up prove themselves worthy of NATO membership.

A proposal has been put forth to rotate the troops of all participating NATO units, so that no one Nation unfairly shoulders the burden of all of the combat. In a perfect world, this would be both fair and just ... let's see if NATO can accomplish this.

My thanks to Lime for teaching me how to do the cross-outs on this post.

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Mullah's Dilemma

Okay ... has everyone stopped snickering at the cartoon yet? C'mon, get it out of your systems ... the rest of this post is serious.

A very important subject has been left out of the debate on Iraq, by the very people who purport to strongly defend human rights. That's right the Democrats have overlooked the situation in the Middle East in respect to women's rights. Even Hillary Clinton, the first viable female candidate for President of the United States has remained mum on this subject (sorry Shirley Chisholm ... you were the first, but you were a long way from being viable).

In most middle-eastern countries women are denied basic human rights. They are treated like cattle, bought and sold for the highest dowry. Men can have multiple wives, but the thought of a woman having multiple husbands ... or of even having sex outside of marriage can bring grave penalties. Honor killings are not only practiced but encouraged (the youngest son is usually the one to put the woman to death). Women must be covered head to toe in order to leave the house. Though I have never worn one, these "burkhas" look to be terribly uncomfortable and hot. When they leave the house, women must be accompanied by a male member of the family. In some societies, women are not allowed to work or attend school past a certain age. When they travel by car, they must ride in the back seat. It is possible to see a man driving a car, alone in the front seat, while his four wives are stuffed in the back. When out in public, women are segregated from men in restaurants, theaters and even while attending mosque. Women legally have no say in how to raise their own children, where to live, or the household finances. All this and we haven't even started on the right to vote or run for office.

As long as Islamic fundamentalists are in charge of nations, or even villages or towns in those nations ... the plight of women will never improve. As a secondary result of the US occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, women are experiencing more freedom than they ever had (it is a bigger difference in Afghanistan than in Iraq).

It is my sincere hope that during this period of greater freedom for women, Islamic men will come to recognize the value of women ... and not in just how many cows or chickens they may be worth. These women need to take advantage of this chance to get an education and a good job and especially to vote and run for office.

Hillary needs to be in front of this issue and start praising the changes in Iraq and Afghanistan instead of just jumping on the Democratic bandwagon of everything in Iraq is bad. The rest of her colleagues in the Democratic Party need to get behind this as well, and if they don't, the GOP needs to start hammering it till they do. Folks, this is a no-brainer ... can't we decide to get behind at least this one thing?

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