Thursday, December 13, 2012

Thursday, December 13, 2012

Handbook For Cultural Surrender

The Wall Street Journal broke a truly shocking story this week about the latest draft Army handbook on how our troops should conduct themselves in Afghanistan. According to left-wing Army bureaucrats, the recent attacks by our Afghan “allies” against U.S.-led coalition troops, that have left 63 of our troops dead, are our fault! Consider this excerpt:

“Many of the confrontations occur because of [coalition] ignorance of, or lack of empathy for, Muslim and/or Afghan cultural norms, resulting in a violent reaction from the [Afghan security force] member.”

The handbook goes on to advise our troops to avoid the following when speaking with Afghan security forces: “making derogatory comments about the Taliban,” “advocating women’s rights,” “any criticism of pedophilia,” “mentioning homosexuality and homosexual conduct” or “anything related to Islam.”

In Afghan society, buggering little boys is widespread and women are treated like cattle. But, according to the authors of this draft handbook, the REAL problem is that U.S. soldiers, being good men and women, despise injustice and are inclined to be critical of such disgusting “traditions” like molesting little boys and treating women like slaves.

Thankfully, the commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, Marine Gen. John Allen, is refusing to endorse the handbook.

A Shift In The Blame Game?

For weeks, the media have been obsessing over polls showing that the public would overwhelmingly blame congressional Republicans if the country goes over the fiscal cliff and taxes go up dramatically next year. A new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll out today questions the media’s prevailing narrative.

If no deal is reached and the automatic tax hikes go into effect, 19% of the public would blame President Obama and the Democrats more, while 24% would blame Republicans more. But 56% of the public would blame both parties equally.

Suddenly no one has the advantage in the blame game. More importantly, it may reflect a shift in public opinion.

As the days pass and we get closer to the fiscal cliff, the public is paying more attention to this debate. While it’s true that taxing the “rich” polls well, the American people strongly support spending cuts too. For example:

67% of respondents in the NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll supported spending cuts.

61% of voters in a Fox News poll released yesterday said that major spending cuts were necessary.

In a recent Politico poll, 76% favored across-the-board spending cuts.

By the way, the Politico poll also found that 69% of Americans opposed raising taxes on small businesses that earn more than $250,000 a year. It was one of the few polls that asked about raising taxes on small businesses. This is a critical point because many small business owners pay their taxes as individuals, not as corporations. The income tax hikes currently under consideration would be a hard hit to these struggling job creators.

The Fox poll also asked voters, “Which do you think is the BEST way to deal with the country’s budget problems?” Fifty-seven percent of registered voters said “mostly with cuts in government spending.” Just 20% said “mostly with tax increases.”

Speaker John Boehner held a press conference today. He firmly stood his ground against higher tax rates on small businesses and aggressively made the case that spending is the real problem.

State Still Stonewalling On Benghazi

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is set to testify before Congress on the Benghazi attack later this month. But members of Congress are still being stonewalled by the State Department as they try to investigate the attack.

Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) has tried to meet with survivors of the attack, but the State Department has denied his requests. According to Chaffetz, he cannot get any information regarding their names, how many survivors there are, or even what state they are from.

Meanwhile, Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA) is demanding that the State Department cut off funds to the government of Tunisia. In October, Turkish officials arrested Ali Harzi, the only known suspect in the Benghazi attacks to be held in custody. He was then deported to his native Tunisia.

But Tunisian officials have refused to let the FBI interview him. Wolf is demanding that the State Department cut off $300 million in aid that we have provided to Tunisia unless the country cooperates more fully. Kudos to Rep. Wolf!

On The Hill

I went to Capitol Hill yesterday and sat down with Senator Jim DeMint. I congratulated Senator DeMint for all he has accomplished for the values we cherish. It is sad to see him leave the Senate, but I know he will be in a position to advance our values at the Heritage Foundation.

By the way, I’ve always known that Senator DeMint was a man of faith. But in the time I spent with his staff, it was clear that virtually everyone on his team is a strong Christian. While Jim DeMint has been primarily identified with economic issues, he and his staff are solid on all the issues we cherish.