This Is How Wars Get Started #2: Obama Still Determined To Sell Out The Falklands

The man is a venal idiot, a resentful child in an adult's body who won't be satisfied until he has burned the world down around him.

Nile Gardiner tells the sad tale, again. Argentina is in chaos, again, so what do they want to do? Ramp up a crisis in the South Atlantic! Sweeeet!

November cannot come soon enough.

Hugo Chavez's Campaign Playbook: OS Wonders How Much Of This We Will See Between Now And November

HT Devil's Excrement.

Things are not going well in revolutionary Venezuela, and political opposition is growing from those who believe that freedom and might be a better approach than socialism.

Thus the Chavez regime published a list of '10 Commandments', techniques to employ to disrupt the opposition candidate's campaign appearances:

You can, for example (Commandment #1) coordinate sports, cultural or social activities to compete with Capriles’ visit.

Or, you can use Government resources to have a National ID campaign (Commandment #2) that same day, once again, the idea is not have people show up at Capriles’ rally.

Better yet, you can have an “open air” Mercal, selling cheap produce purchased by the Government (Commandment #3), as the text says: “This activity “captures” a large segment of the population”. Of course, people are scraping by in the revolution.

Then there is Commandment #4, which is somewhat cryptic: “Coordinate with the Francisco de Miranda Front (Chavez campaign organization) and with the Socialist Youth, “political agitation activities”. I am not sure what those activities are, but it does not sound like they will hold a mass or anything like that.

Some of the rest are somewhat lame, like placing women in places to tell Capriles they would vote for him if he had not “take over” the Cuban Embassy in 2002 (which is a lie) or if he had not participated in the “coup” against Chavez in 2002. Or to place people in strategic places to chant: ” Capriles Fascista, Oligarca Imperialista”

But the true Jewel in the commandments is the tenth:
“Provoke situations of political agitation with the security personnel and the bodyguards of the “majunche” candidate”

And then, there is the note:
“All of these activities will be backed by fellow countrymen of alternative media, independent reporters  (??)and members of the national public media (read: Government media). As well as intelligence organizations of the State which will be there dressed as civilians”

Hmmm...bread and circuses. Hire thugs to break up events (SEIU, Black Panthers anyone?) or hold violent rallies on the day, coordinate with the media outlets who have drunk your Kool-Aid and live on your dole. Use plainclothes law enforcement types to assist in creating havoc, all in the cause of 'maintaining order', you know. Shield the thugs, arrest the opposition supporters. 


Nahhh...this is America...can't happen here...

Apparently, Even The YewNorkTimez Has Had Its Fill Of Himself

For those of us, like OS, old enough to remember the dark days of the Nixon years, one of the darkest was the day it was disclosed that Mr. Nixon maintained an 'enemies list', a list of people who he and his felt had crossed him, made life miserable, opposed him, or even expressed opinions that contradicted his. The New York Times bellowed its disapproval, its righteous indignation, that such a thing could possibly exist, etc. etc. WorldWithoutEndAmen.

Amongst certain of the literati, it even became a badge of honor to have been named on the Nixon Enemies List, sort of like getting your Leftist props, don't-cha-know. OS remembers Gore Vidal getting a lot of mileage on the literary circuit thereby.

And, the Times, hypocritical and corrupt as it was and is, was correct to raise unshirted perdition on the matter, because it cut at the heart of civilized life, and was a portent of a totalitarian state.


Now, we have Barack Hussein Obama, WinnerOfTheNobelPeacePrize, President of the United States, in the White House, calling in drone strikes on his own personal list of terrorists.

It has been clear for years that the Obama administration believes the shadow war on terrorism gives it the power to choose targets for assassination, including Americans, without any oversight. On Tuesday, The New York Times revealed who was actually making the final decision on the biggest killings and drone strikes: President Obama himself. And that is very troubling. 

Well, yes, it is troubling, gentlemen. You're just now catching on?

It is too easy to say that this is a natural power of a commander in chief. The United States cannot be in a perpetual war on terror that allows lethal force against anyone, anywhere, for any perceived threat. That power is too great, and too easily abused, as those who lived through the George W. Bush administration will remember. 

Mr. Obama, who campaigned against some of those abuses in 2008, should remember. But the Times article, written by Jo Becker and Scott Shane, depicts him as personally choosing every target, approving every major drone strike in Yemen and Somalia and the riskiest ones in Pakistan, assisted only by his own aides and a group of national security operatives. Mr. Obama relies primarily on his counterterrorism adviser, John Brennan.

To his credit, Mr. Obama believes he should take moral responsibility for these decisions, and he has read the just-war theories of Augustine and Thomas Aquinas. 

 Damn. That last bit of information should make us all feel better, right? This is what Lyndon Johnson was doing in the Oval Office during the Vietnam war, personally calling in and choosing airstrike targets--this little bridge here, that village there. This one lives, this one dies, this pilot gets to get shot down, this one goes home--all on the whim of Lyndon's mercurical moods.

Of course, right around the corner from this sort of thing (just down that slippery slope over yonder) lie the Salvadoran death squads, the Disappeared of Argentina, the Chinese and Vietnamese 're-education' camps. 

We are closer to that corner and slope than ever.

OS is happy discover that the editors of the YewNorkTimez have finally located their bollocks, if ever so tentatively. What he truly awaits is the editorial that indicates they have located their consciences as well, the one that states:

It is incumbent upon the editorial staff of a large urban paper, when lending its support to a Presidential candidate and regime, to actually investigate what manner of man they intend to endorse. In the case of Barack Obama, we failed in our duty, so carried away were we with his charisma, his skin color, and our unshakeable faith in the politics of The Left. This man is unfit for office, and whatever ideological reservations we may have concerning Mr. Romney, we have had enough experience with him over the years to know that he is a sober adult possessed of a conscience. The same cannot be said of the current occupant of the Oval Office, and we urge his removal via the electoral process this November.

OS will not be holding his breath waiting for such an editorial.