The British Telegraph has utterly discredited itself.

The British Telegraph has utterly discredited itself by posting a list of “the 100 most influential US conservatives”. On that list of purported conservatives, they posted liberal Republicans such as Bob Gates (ranked 5th), George Bush (ranked 12th), John McLame (ranked 16th), David Brooks (ranked 25th), and David Frum (ranked 33rd).

Not only did they label these liberals as “conservatives”, they also lied in their biograms. For example:

“Aides protested that history would vindicate him [Bush] and already there are signs that this is happening. The Iraq “surge” of 2007 unquestionably won the war and has helped establish a viable democratic state in the heart of the Middle East.”

Gibberish. The surge unquestionably FAILED, and Iraq is not a viable democratic state, nor a viable state of any kind. Kurdistan is a de facto independent state with its own government, flag, currency, and anthem. Terrorist attacks and civilian casualties are back to pre-surge levels. Iraq is so decrepit that Robert Gates flew there last year to try to convince the Kurds, the Sunni Arabs, and the Shia Arabs to maintain a coherent Iraqi stated. He failed, because his mission was “Mission Impossible.”

Nor is Iraq a democracy – unless a country that has legalized spousal rape and female genital mutiliation counts as a democracy. The truth is that Bush’s Iraqi policy FAILED. As a historian, I can tell you that historiography will NOT judge Bush favorably.

“the former Vietnam prisoner of war came through with his honour substantially intact, not least because he declined to go strongly negative against Obama and raise issues like his relationship wth the Reverend Jeremiah Wright.”

Gibberish. His decision not to go strongly negative against Obama and not to expose Obama as a follower of Jeremiah Wright was one of his worst mistakes. He should’ve told the American people that 1) Obama is a vile man; 2) Wright hates the US and called on God to damnate America; 3) the fact that Wright had been Obama’s pastor for 20 years, by itself, disqualifies Obama from the Presidency.

“Plenty of fellow moderate Republicans have privately and publicly questioned the wisdom of picking Sarah Palin as a vice-presidential candidate, but in the end it was perhaps no more than a gamble that didn’t pay off.”

Gibberish. Palin has made her share of mistakes, but she was an asset. As Steve Schmidt admitted, without Palin, McCain would’ve been defeated by an even larger margin than he actually was.

“His objections to Obama’s July 2011 to start bringing home troops from Afghanistan had a credibility rooted in his long foreign policy experience and advocacy of the successful surge in Iraq.”

Gibberish. Obama did announce a date for a drawdown of American troops from Afghanistan (as he should have), but not a date of withdrawal. McCain’s policy of opposing this date for drawdown is not credible, and McCain himself is not a credible foreign policy wonk. McCain knows NOTHING about foreign policy. He has learned nothing during the 22 years he spent as a sailor, and nothing during his 27-year-tenure as a member of the Congress. And the Iraqi surge – as I wrote above – failed. No intelligent person would credit McLame.

Toby Harnden (who wrote the list) couldn’t even write accurate biograms of genuine conservatives. For example,  here’s what Harnden wrote about Ed Feulner (the President of the Heritage Foundation): “Founded by Feulner, Heritage has grown in Washington from a nine-member staff working out of a rented office on Capitol Hill in 1977 to a 242-person organisation occupying two huge office buildings close to the US Capitol.” That’s true – except that the HF was established by Paul Weyrich, not by Ed Feulner.

The USA is the most generous country of the world.

A UN apparatchik, Jan Egeland, claimed that America is stingy.

Recently, Haiti was devastated by an earthquake. Who made the biggest financial aid contribution to Haiti?

Answer: America. The US donated $100 mn, whereas the EU (as a federation), Germany, the UK, and other countries donated only a few million euros each. One euro is ca. 1.4 USD.

Even before the Haitian earthquake, America devoted a larger percentage of GDP to foreign aid than any other country.

America is the most generous country of the world.

China is a mortal enemy of the US.

China, an ally of Iran, shields Iran from all sanctions, including UN sanctions. (It voted for the damnating IAEA report because it was not legally binding and contained no obligations for any country.) China is enabling Iran to become a nuclear-armed state, and its rulers WANT Iran to arm itself with nuclear weapons, because they (China’s rulers) believe that “what is bad for America is good for China”.

China is a mortal enemy of the US.

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2010/01/china_continuing_to_play_diplo.html

Hollywood is a treasonous conglomerate.

Hollywood is a treasonous, pacifist, anti-military institutions which regularly slanders the US military and American troopers.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-12-07/why-does-hollywood-hate-our-troops/?cid=bsa:moreauthor3

The bailout of WS has failed.

During the last months of 2008, the Bush Administration, the media, pundits and members of the Congress (including John McCain and Barack Obama) threatened the US with an economic doom unless the Congress would vote for the bailout of Wall Street (which cost $700 bn). Sarah Palin and Mitt Romney urged the bailout of WS. Mike Huckabee opposed the bailout of Wall Street, to his credit.

The bailout of Wall Street was supposed to prevent an economic disaster. Guess what happened after the Congress voted for it? An economic disaster. The economy receded and the unemployment rate skyrocketed to 10%, the level at which remains today.

Proponents of the WS bailout, including Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and the BBC, claimed that American taxpayers would earn money if the Congress would vote for the bailout because, supposedly, Wall Street would repay it. But it didn’t. This means that the bailout of Wall Street represents $700 billion down the drain.

The REAL reason why the bailout was proposed by the Bush Admin was that Paulson (a former Goldman Sachs CEO) wanted to bail out his Wall Street pals.

http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=517874

The Japanese people don’t want American Marines on their soil.

The Japanese people don’t want American Marines on their soil.

http://www.heritage.org/Research/AsiaandthePacific/bg2352.cfm

I’d say, withdraw all Marines from Japan, and tell Japan to defend itself. No free-riders! The US military should protect America, not parasitic client states like Japan.

Palin opposes school vouchers.

Sarah Palin claims she’s a conservative. But she opposes school vouchers, without which most American children cannot afford private schools nor parochial schools. McCain’s decision to select Palin as his veep was praised by the NEA.

http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/34928

What would the money be spent on?

My Defense Reforms Proposals Package (DRPP) was published on this blog 5 times (the 4 newest editions are revised editions). I’ve calculated that my proposals, if implemented, would result in huge annual savings. I cannot calculate the exact total annual savings because I do not have sufficient data, but just several of my reforms, if combined together, would yield a total annual saving of $60.269 bn dollars. That is $482.152 bn over an 8-year administration, assuming that a future US Administration would implement these several proposals. Additionally, replacing all MH-60 helos and all UH-1 Huey helos with the same helicopter type would yield a one-time saving, $600 mn.

These huge savings beg the question: what would they be spent on? My answer is: if I was the USSECDEF, I’d spend 100% of these savings on equipment (specifically, equipment procurement and equipment RDTE). I’d spend the exact calculated savings on the following purposes:

1) 1340 additional F-35s (on top of the 2443 planes already ordered by the US military) (including 45 F-35s to replace 45 F-16s that were retired in 2005, 55 F-35s to reconstitute 2 squadrons, 55 F-35s to reconstitute a fighterplane wing that was retired unreplaced, 635 F-35s to replace 635 obsolete aircraft (224 F-15Es, over 120 F-15C/Ds, and hundreds of A-10s), and 550 F-35s to expand the USAF. The cost: $111.22 bn.

2) 85 additional C-17s (to replace all the retired C-141s and to replace all C-5s, which were deployed during the 1960s, not to expand the cargoplane fleet). The cost: $17 bn.

3) 9 new warhead types (assuming that the NNSA and the American nuclear arsenal, as well as their budgets, would be transferred from the DOE to the DOD). The cost: $1.152 bn.

4) 50 additional MMIII ICBMs to replace the 50 MMIII ICBMs that were retired unreplaced in 2008. They were cannibalized for spare parts, which the USAF desperately needed to maintain the rest of its ICBM fleet. Their 50 silos are empty.

5) 5 additional SSBNs to rebuild the number of SSBNs back to 19. The cost: $7.5 bn ($1.5 bn per submarine)

6) 203 (141+62) Chinook helicopters to replace all MH-60 CSAR helos and all Huey helicopters. Such a common replacement type would yield a saving of $600 mn. The cost would be $2.71411 bn.

7) 40 additional Arleigh Burke class BMD vessels to defend America and its allies (including Israel and Arab states) from ballistic missiles (including Iranian ballistic missiles). This would be undisputably my biggest weapon order. The cost: $60 bn.

8) 3 additional hospital ships which could be used e.g. during hurricane seasons. The cost: $2.1 bn.

9) 129 Super Hercules planes to expand the cargoplane fleet. The cost: $8.5785 bn.

10) 23 additional CV-22 CSAR planes to replace the 22 MH-53 CSAR helos which were retired unreplaced and 1 CV-22 plane that crashed in 2010. The cost: $1.564 bn.

11) 35 additional San Antonio class LPDs (to retire the 35 LPDs which will retire unreplaced because the treasonous politicians on capitol hill severely reduced the orders for San Antonio class LPDs). The cost: $24.5 bn.

12) 35 submarines to replace the 35 submarines (of the LA class and the Seawolf class) that will retire unreplaced unless orders for submarines are increased. The cost: $61.25 bn.

13) 402 additional F-18E/Fs to replace the 2 F-18s that crashed last year and the 400 F-18s that will retire unreplaced because of Obama’s defense cuts. The cost: $22.1904 bn.

14) 14*15 + 14 additional ground-based interceptors. The cost: $15.68 bn.

15) 55 additional MH-47 helos to expand the CSARH fleet. The cost: $715 mn.

16) A program to modernize all C-5As (including a sub-program to replace all engines of all C-5As). The cost: $9.990 bn.

17) 39 additional CV-22s to replace 39 C-2 Greyhound aircraft. The cost: $2.652 bn.

18) The submarines SSN-21 and SSN-22 should be modified (by adding a Multi-Mission Platform to them) to become able to launch Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROVs) and commandos. The cost: $1.774 bn.

19) All RG-31s should be replaced with RG-33 MRAP vehicles. The cost: $600 mn.

20) Many additional weapon programs.

The total cost would be just $351.18001 bn over 8 years, and 100% of it would be paid for with the known savings that would be yielded by my defense reforms ($482.152 bn). The procurement costs mentioned above (all stated in 2010 dollars), if spread over 8 years, would amount to only $43.89750125 bn per year (plus an additional $2.4 bn dollar annual cost of maintaining additional 20 USAF wings, including 12 fighterplane wings, 1 CSARH wing and 7 Super Hercules wings), whereas the savings would amount to $60.269 bn per year. That means I could invest sufficient funds in 14 different procurement programs and replace many obsolete weapons at no additional cost to American taxpayers. I wouldn’t even need an above-inflation-rate budget hike from the DOD.

Sadly, terrorists have already won the war.

We’ve surrendered our civil liberties. This means that terrorists have already won the war.

http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2009/12/is-this-anyway-to-fight-a-war.html

http://www.kltv.com/Global/story.asp?S=11743893

http://www.kltv.com/Global/story.asp?S=11745705

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/jan/03/brown-airport-security-full-body-scanners
The US, Britain and Holland have instituted virtual strip searching machines (which show naked people with their genitals). These machines violate civil liberties (and in the USA’s case, they’re unconstitutional). A key EU legislator is now urging the EU to make such machines obligatory at all airports across the EU.

Across the EU and the US, bottles (except 1 small bottle per passenger) are banned on aircraft, and hand baggage is restricted to 1 small bag. Even books are banned. Intel agencies around the world are permitted by governments to eavesdrop on their citizens (and review their library records and medical records) and they don’t need any court warrants. They’re not supervised by anyone and can use the data they have however they wish. They can spy on anyone.

Under the false pretext of a “Global War on Terrorists”, the governments of European countries, as well as the Bush Administration and the Obama Administration, have abolished most (or, in the case of European countries, all) of the civil liberties of their citizens. (Traditionally, as a bastion of civil liberties, America still guarantees some of them to its citizens, but Obama might abolish them someday.) Thus, they’ve allowed  terrorists to win the war. This means that terrorists have ALREADY won the war. They’ve blackmailed various nations, which have surrendered their civil liberties to their governments under a false pretext (http://threatswatch.org/rapidrecon/2010/01/my-safety-and-security-versus/). European governments and Washington have used the GWOT as an opportunity to significantly expand their prerogatives.

Terrorists didn’t need to eliminate the Western civilization or kill all Europeans to win the war. They just needed to blackmail the European populace and the Americans so that the would surrender their civil liberties. And that’s exactly what they did.

What do these things have in common?

Guess what do the following things have in common?
The melody of the Soviet anthem, God (who replaced Lenin and Stalin, who were earlier praised under the same anthem), Lenin’s mausoleum, 9th May parades, the Red Banner with the Hammer and the Sickle, the WW2 Logo (with the Hammer and the Sickle), Ulyanovsk, Ulyanovskaya District, Sverdlovskaya District, the Russian Orthodox Church, the Tsarist flag (with the Tsarist Eagle), and the seal of the Russian Empire?

The answer: a common ideology. Specifically, an imperial(ist) ideology reinstated by Vladimir Putin.

Yeltsin changed the names of many towns and districts, changed the anthem from the Soviet Anthem to the Patriotic Song, and tried to dismantle Lenin’s Mausoleum.

Putin reinstated the melody of the Soviet anthem (although now God, rather than Lenin and Stalin, is praised to the Soviet tune) and the imperial ideology of the Soviet Union.

Putin is busy rebuilding the Soviet empire. The 2008 Russian aggression against Georgia was only a signal. Russia is busy rebuilding its alliances with China, North Korea, Cuba, Nicaragua, Iran, Syria, and other countries. Putin is also rebuilding the Russian military after the Yeltsin defense cuts. On some counts, the Russian military is still inferior to the US military and the PLA; but by some measures, it is superior to its rivals. For example, Russia has more bombers and more tanks than the US or China; Russian AK-47 rifles are superior to M16s and M4s (which failed in Afghanistan); Russian S-300, S-400 and S-500 SAMs are lethally dangerous for American aircraft; Russia’s hackers frequently attack Western computer networks.

Putin is also using oil and NG as “weapons” – countries that don’t have large strategic oil reserves or strategic NG reserves can be blackmailed by Moscow anytime. (Moscow couldn’t blackmail them for a long period of time, so they should accumulate big oil reserves like the American SPR.) Moscow also has many dependent countries like Poland, which is dependent on Russian NG. And if the Nord Stream and South Stream pipelines are built, Russia will practically make the entire European continent a province of the Russian empire, a mere satellite of Russia.

American and European politicians should heed this warning: Putin is an enemy of the West.