Saudi Arabia

The Saudis have facilitated the construction of a secret IAF forward base, five miles outside the city of Tabuk, Saudi Arabia. The Saudis and Israelis, as usual, pretend not to know each other. The Saudis have closed Tabuk airport for civilian flights for several days as the Israeli Air Force landed jet fighter aircraft and military supplies. Civilians were not told of the purpose of the closure, but were accommodated by the Saudi government elsewhere.

The base outside Tabuk, according to unconfirmed sources, is a ‘forward’ operating base for combat assault helicopters along the ‘corridor’ that has been created for the free passage of IAF combat assets on their way into Iran… greatly reducing the distance that Israeli aircraft would have to travel to reach their targets in Iran. There can be no greater indication of the fear that Iran has caused among the middle east Arab states than that there is not one word of invective or protest against the ‘zionist occupiers’, which is an Islamic catch-word for all things Israeli.

It is ironic in the extreme that scrappy little Israel is not only in the position of having to save itself, but will be existentially carrying the banner of the crescent into combat for the solidly anti-Israeli, but timid, Arab states who seriously fear an Iranian hegemony over the region enforced by an Iranian thermonuclear threat. This is the latest in a long series of preparations that have resulted in Iran quickly shifting large numbers of combat troops from the home guard, tanks, artillery and missile assets closer to the north-western border and into the Caspian region, in what is described by the Iranian high command as a state of war.

Israel’s recent additions to its defensive/offensive capability include a new secret combat satellite system launched into low earth orbit on June 24. The Israeli military would only say that the new satellite, Ofek 9, has unprecedented military capabilities. Ofek joins two other Israeli satellites presently in orbit and has Tehran in a quandary, as the resolution from the orbiting satellites is said to be less than a meter. You can run but you can’t hide, seems to be the message.

The United States has several naval carrier strike forces including an anti-submarine strike group and amphibious landing ‘Expeditionary Strike Group 5′, which includes elements of the United States Marine Corps 15th Expeditionary Brigade from Camp Pendleton, California, said to number some 6,000 Marines and sailors. With American, German, Israeli and Canadian Naval assets now in position and Israeli land air and sea assets at the ready, it would seem that hostilities are imminent. Combat-ready troops cannot be kept at an extreme state of alert for long periods in advance of an assault… it tends to take their edge off.

Further, I don’t think that at this point the Mullahs could get off the hook if they rolled over and said they’d make nice… it’s gone much farther than that now. In addition, the government has lost control of the country’s nuclear weapons programs which have been taken over by fanatical home guard units, as the Iranians rush to the finish line for their Islamo-bomb.

Can they be as blind to their situation as Saddam Hussein was during the American preparations for taking out his regime? Only time will tell, but time is running out for the Iranians. God bless America, Israel and our other allies in this ugly but very necessary task.

Semper Vigilans, Semper Fidelis

© Skip MacLure 2010

Saudi Arabia is afraid. It’s afraid enough to give Israel a safe corridor through their airspace. The prospect of a nuclear armed Iran has not only the Saudis, but virtually every other country in the region in a panic. Clearing the way for the Israelis, the Saudis ran several drills to ensure that their air defenses would stand down in the event the Israelis decide to go.

The question would be whether Israel wishes to waste valuable time waiting for Washington’s latest lame foray in placation policy. Israel may not want to give the go to the operation to remove Iran as a nuclear threat without the blessings of Washington, but the way Obama drags his feet, the Israelis should really consider going with or without Washington’s approval. Lead, follow, but get the hell out of my way. Maybe if Israel goes ahead they’ll drag the very timid Barack behind them. Not a likely scenario. What is apparent is that Obama will favor Islamists over his allies and countrymen. In fact it just begs the question again, just who or what is Barack Hussein Obama working for?

I heard Tom Marr of WCBM, Baltimore, refer to Obama as having to defer to his ‘inner muslim’. Sadly, I think it makes a lot of sense in view of Obama’s barely concealed dislike of Israel and Jews. Regardless of what Mr. Obama wants Israelis to do, they must do what they have to do to ensure the survival of their nation. We owe them that. The world owes them that.

Semper Vigilans, Semper Fidelis

© Skip MacLure 2010

The following subject is not fully matured, but we push it out into public cyberspace anyway, because it touches a news item that simply cannot wait.

Yahoo!News: "Saudis on hunger strike to demand judiciary reform"

A group of Saudi activists began a rare public hunger strike Thursday to demand judiciary reform and draw attention to the detention without trial of 11 political reformists. The 65 mostly male protesters plan to continue the strike they are holding in their homes on Friday. Their action in a country that bans public gatherings, protests and political parties could land them in jail.

Mohammad al-Qahtani, one of 13 activists who called for the protest, said the group resorted to the strike after the government failed to respond to letters sent to influential officials asking them to release the reformists, improve prison conditions and reform the legal system (...) The jailed reformists include Matrook al-Faleh, a human rights activist who was detained in May for advocating constitutional reform, and 10 other activists jailed in Jiddah in 2007. The 13 men posted a statement on the social networking site Facebook to announce the strike and urge other Saudis to participate. Fifty-two people have so far signed up to join the 13 activists. They include writers, lawyers and college students (...) >>>

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Humans in their primitive stages, had to survive in a wild and hostile natural world. Danger lurked under every stone and in each and any shrub. A sole individual, thrown back on his own devices, could hardly hope to live long enough to tell the tale. A lone existence was a constant existential threat. So humans sought security in numbers and shelter with each other, within the safety of the tribe.

Random individual acts, which could endanger the survival of the community as a whole were not just discouraged, but severely punished by exile, shunning and worse. Morality consisted in the common good, the well-being of the tribe, the lone tribes man or woman, was dispensable.

Since the collective security is the tribe's entire reason of being, these were what we would term today, small totalitarian communities. Individuals were not supposed to have private lives, or undertake 'rogue' actions. Even today there are many peoples who do not even have a word for 'privacy', or for 'individual'.

Humanity has come a long way. In the Western world, with the onset of the Renaissance and the period of the Enlightenment, we discovered person-hood and what it means to be a man or woman. We discovered that our prime instrument for survival in a cultivated world, are our own wits. Morality shifted from collective survival, to what constitutes survival of the individual.

It is not always appreciated how far this development has helped human progress. There are forces in the Western world today that prefer humans with tribal minds. They say, some person's wits can be insufficient, that they can break down or can be fooled, so we should not use them.

Some even say wits do not exist at all, and that humans live by instinct, or by synapses and secretions, or that they are secretly steered by God, or by the fate of some parallel universe.

They say that in our hearts of heart we are still tribes-people and should share whatever we have, just as in olden days. Some say we should only share things which ensure common security, others advocate sharing the things with which we make other things. And there are those who come for people's souls. Their morality is altruism. They say, an individual's only use consists in his utility to be tribe.

Peoples in other parts of the world walked other historical paths. They quietly wandered off the reservations in droves, other tribes held it together. Sometimes new ones were created, based on common religion, for example.

In Islam the whole of the faithful - the Ummah - is such a new tribe, replete with tribal justice to ensure its survival, and death for whoever dares to wander off, or pledges loyalty elsewhere.

The painful process we see playing out before our eyes are the death throes of the new tribe called Islam. Muslim men and women are discovering their person-hood. They're fighting for the rights that a sole individual requires to survive: inalienable, universal, human rights. Since the discovery of individualism took place in the Western context, this process from collective to person-hood is often understood as "Islam being besieged by the West".

The Reform process which would ensure the continuation of Islam as a faith, would have to consist in practicing it as a collection of individuals, rather than as the oppressive 'living organism' of the Ummah.

The liberties are the negative rights. They lie at the foundation of the United States of America, the only country founded on the philosophy of individual rights. The Founding Fathers said these rights were given to man by God. They have two corollaries: free market capitalism and democratic government.

For some, as we saw in "2001: Obama's Principles for a Socialist State (Analysis)" - these negative liberties are not enough; they cast them aside as "just the stuff that government cannot do to you", or - in our paradigm - what the tribe cannot do to its members to prevent them from surviving on their own wits as free spirits.

The positive rights as advocated by President Elect Barack Hussein Obama, are the rights the tribe generously bestows upon its members, in lieu for their promise not to wander off the reservation on their own.

We see that the principles of negative and positive rights are markedly different in nature and in principle. They are opposites. Negative rights liberate individuals from the suffocating oppression of tribal existence. Obama's positive rights on the other hand, newly enslave individuals to the collectivism of the tribe.

We don't appreciate by half how rare and specious our individual liberties really are. Wherever they exist, they are lone stars in oceans of collectives that seek to enslave free spirits to the suffocating risk-free safety of the tribes.

Each nation and each generation has its own battle with the tribes. Today, it is the brave Saudi intellectuals with their hunger strike. As Thomas Jefferson said, "From time to time, the tree of liberty must be watered with the blood of tyrants and patriots."

We wish the Saudi defenders all the strength they need to win their battle with the tribal collective. Long Live Liberty! 

Facebook group "48 hours hunger strike in Saudi Arabia: solidarity with detainees in KSA"

- Filed on Articles in "The Dystopia of Paradise" -

Every poll taken and every conversation with a real person outside of DC shows gas prices as the number one issue in the country... and today Senate Democrats schooled us on it.  “Republicans Defend Big Oil” is the basic message we sent the country after the energy debates in the Senate today, we'll really win elections on that one.  Here’s the AP’s opening paragraph:

Saved by Senate Republicans, big oil companies dodged an attempt Tuesday to slap them with a windfall profits tax and take away billions of dollars in tax breaks in response to the record gasoline prices that have the nation fuming.

Anything that even gives a reporter the excuse to write that is political insanity.  So how do we win on this issue instead of getting ourselves pegged as special interest shills?  Stop doing anything that can be portrayed as defending oil companies, start shining the spotlight on the Saudis and shift the debate further towards production.    

First, I don’t see any reason at all we need to keep getting stuck with the “defending tax breaks for big oil” charge over and over again.  Subsidies are not a free market principle.  Let’s cut ‘em and get the issue off the table.

Second, start talking about the Saudis.  The Democrats are winning this debate because they’ve offered domestic oil companies up as a handy scapegoat.  We’ve got to change the narrative and start focusing criticism on, gee I don’t know, the international cartel of terrorist funding despots that actually controls the oil supply?  Of course, the legions of lobbyists and public affairs shops that the Saudi’s have retained around DC have absolutely nothing to do with why they haven’t been the subject of criticism.

Doing both of those things makes it easier for us to shift the spotlight back onto all the pro-energy production policies we want to pass and the Democrats insist on blocking.  Republicans are much more serious about increasing production and making the U.S. truly energy independent, but we’ve let the Democrats turn the debate into a fight over “big oil company profits.”  To be fair to the Senate Republican leadership, they have been trying to talk about production, but without pivoting away from the “big oil” narrative, the Democrats were able to use their procedural levers as a way to control the terms of the public debate.

So practically, what should Senate Republicans have done differently?  Let the bills come to the floor, drop the objection to cutting the oil company subsidies, offer amendments to strip out the windfall profits tax (letting senators vote their conscience on it) and then start offering amendments for a week straight on production-increasing measures that will “free us from our dependence on terrorist-funding despots.”