Monday, September 1, 2014

Is Obama our Boabdil?

Apologies for the very long delay in blogging. I had to deal with some boring health issues. The lab results were, well, what can I say? Just this: as with most of what happens in life, the results were worse than I hoped, but better than I feared. So, as one does in response to the majority of life's events, one muddles on and through. As the Brits, back when Brits were Brits, used to say, "Keep Calm and Carry On," or was it "Keep Clams with Curry On"? One or the other . . .

This will be a minor rant. I don't have the energy for a full-blown one. Besides, I have said so much of this before that I don't know whether it bears repeating anymore.

I won't link to all the Diplomad postings on the disaster that is Obama's foreign policy. You might want to entertain yourself on a very dull evening doing that. Suffice it to say, that the disaster was foreseen. One did not have to be Nostradamus to see that Obama's sneering disregard for American and Western interests, and the institutions and principles which maintained those, would have dire consequences for the West and the world. We see those consequences in the arc of insanity that runs from Mauritania to Iran; in Putin's gleeful mocking of the West and in his drive to rebuild the empire of the Tsars; in China's growing aggressiveness; in the collapse of our foreign policy in Central and South America epitomized by the wave of illegals blatantly crossing our southern border and the increasingly bizarre politics of Argentina, Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, and Brazil. Everywhere we look around the world, the interests of the West--not just of America--are in retreat or collapse.

We see the disaster that has become Iraq. Obama has thrown away a stunning military victory and done so in exchange for what? Well, the same folks for whom just a few short months ago we were going to go to war in Syria (remember the "red line" days?) are now on a Jihadist rampage in Syria and Iraq; known as ISIS they vow to set up a Muslim caliphate and exterminate all the infidels. It now seems that we are discovering that the pencil-necked dictator of Syria, the very one we were preparing to attack, is now our possible ally against the Islamist murder machine. We are now conducting a desultory bombing campaign against the very people we were preparing to defend with a desultory bombing campaign. Orwell must be having a laugh, "We were never at war with Eastasia." And, at the State Department, the NSC, and the CIA? Nobody gets fired, nobody resigns, nobody stands up and says this is wrong.

The saddest, most frustrating matter of them all is that the opponents we face today are weak. They are nothing compared to Nazi Germany or Imperial Japan or even the old USSR. They should present no real challenge for the United States and the West. Russia is a gangster state kept afloat by oil money and bluff. China is largely bluff and kept afloat by our tolerance for their trade practices and the cupidity of Western governments and businesses willing to give, "lend," sell, and turn a blind eye to the theft of technology and industrial processes in exchange for, in essence, cheap or even slave labor. Islam is a hoax when it comes to warfare. Despite its chest beating and violent language, its "warriors" are good at killing the unarmed, the defenseless, and the weak. They do not do well when confronted by a determined Western army. These Jihadis, too, benefit financially from our refusal to become fully energy independent and to develop realistic and, yes, self-serving immigration laws.

When discussing Obama and his foreign policy, the range of options are that he is stupid, uninterested, or an evil little worm out to destroy the West. I think, others might disagree, that he is, in fact, all three. I will discuss that further in a subsequent post.

One of the things I have been doing on my down time these past weeks, has been  brushing up on one of my favorite topics, Spanish history. I am surprised that Hollywood has not done more with the amazing, at times, even unbelievable history of Spain. I was re-reading, in particular, accounts of the final days of the once great Muslim empire in Spain. The war to retake Iberia from the Muslims lasted nearly 800 years from a small but important victory in Covadonga to the final dramatic capitulation of Granada in 1492--an event, supposedly, witnessed by Christopher Columbus.

It was on reading the accounts of Granada's surrender to the forces of the Catholic Monarchs, Isabel and Fernando, that I thought a good name for Obama is Boabdil. Bear with me. I know there's football on the tube. Boabdil, aka Mohamed XII, was the at-times confused, somewhat hapless, and at others conniving and always desperate last Muslim Emir of Granada. It fell to him to surrender Granada when it became clear that help was not on the way from the rest of the Muslim world and that he was facing alone the rampaging and victorious Christian forces of the Catholic Monarchs. The story, perhaps apocryphal, is that as Boabdil, his family, and his reduced band of hanger-ons left Granada, he paused on a hilltop to look back at the magnificent city he had just lost. The story goes on to relate that he began to cry on viewing that sight. His mother, Sultana Aixa, who had been urging a fight to the death against the Christians, reportedly said to the son who had so disappointed her, "No llores como mujer lo que no supistes defender como hombre" ("Don't cry like a woman over what you could not defend like a man.") There are slightly different versions of what she supposedly said, but the thought was the same.

Is Obama the Boabdil of the West? Nah, he won't cry when the West collapses, he'll play golf . . .

104 comments:

  1. Glad you are back. Sorry to hear of the health problems. Hope you can sort them out successfully. We all feared the worst.
    Michael in Maine

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    1. Likewise, I'm glad you're back and hope for a good long time.

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  2. Welcome back.

    -Blake

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  3. Glad to have you back!

    You have the order wrong for the Maladministrator Obama. He is first an evil little worm, then concerned with his golf game (uninterested), and lastly working on being merely stupid. That last is annoying to him, as it takes time from his drooling.

    Green Bear

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  4. Wonderful to hear from you Dip, as one of your readers from the v1 days, I feared the worst of State Oppression by Lawyer Over Your 1A Rights to Tell Truths.

    Now I wish it were that simple- and prayers for swift resolution of the health challenge.

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  5. Glad to hear from you Mr.Mad!

    What the Obama administration now needs is a committee to look at the social justice issues in the middle east. That will fix things.

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    1. That's delicious. Maybe an ambassador?

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    2. How about Angelina Jolie?

      A common complaint is that there aren't enough women in the peace process and she also has experience as a UN ambassador!

      That'll fix it!

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  6. Checked the blog everyday and was beginning to think the worst. Glad that you are back and are muddling through the health problems.

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  7. Marx proved, with scientific certainty, that Capitalism would lead, inevitably, to the immiserization of the proletariat, causing violent revolution and resulting in communism. The standard of living actually rose for everyone. This was a problem for communists, and all the other varieties of socialists. Lenin solved the problem by taking the theory of imperialism, filing off the serial number, and incorporating it into his theory. The fight for socialism is now the fight against imperialism. Progressives believe that any foreign action by the US in particular and the west in general is an example of imperialistic exploitation causing poverty in the third world. This includes actions before capitalism existed and despite the third world having always been poor.

    Capitalism is the root of all evil, similar to the church’s idea. Obama, being a good Progressive, believes this. He wants to take no actions in foreign policy but he does agree with Progressive governments that lead the fight against imperialist exploitation. Most of the country does not believe this so he does not want to say it. This is why his foreign policy seems so confused.

    We are the leading capitalist country in the world. Obama is not anti-war. He is on the other side.

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    1. Well, let's see. Under President O., the proleos are in fact becomming a bit miserable. Such violent flare-ups as we have (e.g. Ferguson) have other causes, also not unrelated to His Oliness. If communism is coming, it is coming the usual way--top-down, after having been voted in by stealth.

      Diplodocus -- welcome back. Glad you're not extinct!

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  8. Mighty glad to have you back Diplomad. Sorry to hear of the health challenges, but maybe they are of a kind where holding forth on this blog can be healing. When I got a cancer diagnosis 6 years ago, there were periods where I couldn't do too much. Blogging was a life saver in some ways.

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    1. Right. Wall, you know you would say anything to get him back.

      Good to see you.

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    2. Good to see you too a6z. I have been watching for you. And poof!

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  9. I am glad that you are back at the keyboard, and I truly hope that your health issues can be well resolved.

    The behaviour of Obama is difficult to understand; from the outside at the least he just looks and behaves as if he really doesn't care. I suppose that one price of being a moral vacuum who stands for nothing is that it is difficult get excited about anything. I have always thought that Joseph de Maistre was correct when he said 'Toute nation a le gouvernement qu’elle mérite', but I really cannot imagine what America has done to deserve this President. That said it might all be explicable by the analysis of Alexis de Tocqueville. Obama and the Democrats have fully exploited that flaw by refining a strategy that has taken that thesis to ever greater heights.

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    1. Help me with this. Isn't this phrase metaphysically absurd: "one price of being a moral vacuum"?

      I mean, a metaphor has to work not only at the level of the tenor, but also at the level of the vehicle, doesn't it?

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  10. Whew and double whew...somehow, I had a strong feeling that when I logged on tonite..you were going to be there....so glad you are back..and sending you all sorts of healing thoughts !!!! lost you once, not letting it happen again~~~

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  11. Great post! Glad you're back!

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  12. Ditto above comments!

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  13. Glad to have you back posting, you have been missed. Sorry to hear there have been health issues, prayers UP.

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  14. Blogging is therapeutic both for the Diploscribe as well as his concerned readership. Hang tough!
    As for the Sultan of (golf) Swing, he has always desired to diminish The West, and his cabal of 'useful idiots' blindly stagger onward to that aim.

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  15. You say "As the Brits, back when Brits were Brits". Nowadays, we say we are English, but otherwise we are more or less the same.

    Glad to see you back, take care.

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    1. English, Irish, Scott and Welsh are all Brits because they occupy the archipelago of the British Isles. Remember, it was the British Empire, not the English Empire.

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    2. Thank you for that interesting information! It doesn't alter what I said - nowadays we say we are English. This is because our government hands out British citizenship to all and sundry. Anybody can be British, but only people like me can be English.

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    3. Soon to be without the Jocks I wonder? I know its off topic but I keep asking myself how did Cameron put this up to a vote when our friends across the Atlantic spent over four years fighting a war over secession and this fool gives them a vote - and you think Obama is useless!

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    4. I have nothing against any individual Scot I have met... however I have had to listen to the Scots for my entire adult life telling everyone how much they hate us English and how much we oppress them and how everything wrong with Scotland is somehow our fault. As far as I can see it, most of England won't be shedding any tears if they decide to leave the Union. It's a shame, because the Scots of older generations that I've met have been some of the most polite, decent people you could hope to meet; it very much tends to be Scots under about 40 years old who have adopted an obnoxious brand of nationalism that's as much (if not more) about hatred of England as pride in Scotland.

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    5. The Scots need to go back to memorizing the Westminster Shorter Catechism by the time they reach the age of 10.

      Kepha

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  16. I wonder how many in the Administration were for sitting out the Caliphate builders terrors in the hope that ISIS/ISIL could get their act together long enough for the Administration to recognize the Caliphate territory as a country.

    Davod

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  17. So glad to see you are back. You were greatly missed!

    We are so screwed. It's not enough to hope to wait out our disengaged president because of the nameless, faceless slugs deeply entrenched in Foggy Bottom and the other alphabet agencies who are never voted out of office, regardless of who wins on the first Tuesday in November. Going to Fundraisers and playing golf is the equivalent of turning your back to the oncoming train so you don't have to look at it.

    Anyway, welcome back :)

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  18. This is the first time in my 62 years that I have ever commented on a blog. I am so glad you're back and I hope you are aware how respected and loved you are by so many people. How I wish you would be regularly interviewed by main stream news organizations in order to reveal your wisdom and experiences to a wider audience in these United States. I eagerly look forward to future articles and wish you the best in regards to your health.

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    1. The earliest blogs are generally dated to 1994, so you will be excited to know you get 42 of those years for free!

      Welcome. We kind of kid around here. Helps lighten the gloom. It might help if you used a handle other than, you know, "Anonymous."

      Delete
    2. The media will silence ten of your friends so take the personal responsibility to awaken twenty in response.

      But remember that the chains sit lightly on those self-enslaved. Expect many figurative or literal repeats of the fight scene in They Live as you try and wean people off the lapdog media lotus blossoms...

      Delete
  19. Welcome back, Dip - sorry to hear of the health problems. I was worried, likewise.

    Boabdil - in one of the last summers I was stationed in Spain we did a long camping trip through the south, and stayed at a campground near Granada, at the pass where Boabdil was said to have paused and looked back. IIRC, it's called "The Sigh of the Moor". But I don't think our Boabdil will look back with regret. as he leaves. He'll look at the smoking wreckage with smug pride.

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    1. paul vincent zecchinoSeptember 6, 2014 at 5:49 PM

      Absolutely correct, Celia. The street agitator cons others into setting the city ablaze as he slinks out of town by the back roads to a promontory from which to gaze self-satisfied upon the inferno, experiencing a sort of frisson as he so does.

      The smirk, always the smirk, betrays the Left's endless pretensions to altruism.


      The Left is hate. Revenge is its pastime. Genocide is its legacy.

      Delete
    2. You know what I think, Celia?

      I think he will be disappointed that America didn't give him the support he required--for of course it will have been all our fault.

      And you know why: because America is racist.

      Delete
    3. Hi, Paul. Good to see you, too.

      As always, you are understating your case, but not unreasonably so.

      Delete
  20. What? No forthcoming pastry chef recipes? Guess I'll just have to settle for insightful, articulate, discerning DiploMadic commentary. Navigating health problems is no luxury cruise. From personal experience I am thinking it's more like a fully loaded river barge stuck on a shoal with waters rising. Keep on keeping on and never give up!!
    It is very good to hear from you again.

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  21. Interesting that you are studying Spanish history, especially the Reconquista. My memory of my reading was that Moorish Spain was more or less militarily finished after the battle of Las Navas de Tolosa in 1212, but that the emirate of Granada hung on by becoming a vassal state of Castille, which lasted until Ferdinand and Isabella decided to recover all of Spain not held by Castille and Aragon, so that the fall of Granada in 1492 was a foregone conclusion.

    The part of Spanish history that was hard for me to read was the story of how they went from the sudden rush of power in the early 16th century to their collapse by the end of the 17th. For a while they were the first power in Europe and the world's most powerful empire, then a steady decline started until they were a backwater.

    I didn't like reading that and thinking of possible parallels with my own country.

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    1. Some view Spain as the first America, the British Empire as the second America, and the USA as the third America.

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  22. Hmmm - the great victory of 1492 was followed by decades of persecution of both Jews and Moors, expropriations, expulsions, forced conversions and the inquisition.

    No great surprise then that Spain subsequently flopped; even more than most, their brief supremacy was based on violence and theft.

    But the parallel is curious - fundamentalist religious maniacs obsessed by a perverted interpretation of their holy works attacking the decadent dominant culture, and burning all their books.

    Quite disturbing actually.

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    1. cuffleyburgers,

      Are you personally expert enough to say whether today's fanatics' obsession is a *perverted interpretation* of their holy works? Neither am I?

      Are the experts you are relying on? Are you sure? Because there's a lot of bullcrit around on the subject. I'm just sayin'.

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  23. Is it time to consider the 25th amendment? Dangerous move, but perhaps not as dangerous as leaving Obama in place. Inability to lead is an unacceptable mental deficit in a President.

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    1. Too true. It would require half of the cabinet members to concur, and they are such a sorry lot that it doesn't look hopeful at the moment. Biden, I think, would not be hard to convince to use the 25th!

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    2. Hi, chuckR. May I call you chuck?

      Without a 2/3 majority in the Senate, it isn't possible to more than "consider" any amendments whatever.

      And with one, lesser and more appropriate remedies are available.

      But go ahead, consider away.

      Delete
  24. Welcome back, Diplomad! Had us all a bit worried there, you did. Glad to hear you're OK, and I will join in the prayers for your increasing good health!

    Eskyman

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  25. Welcome back, Dip! Glad to read your wise words once again. You had a lot of us worried. I trust a mechanism is in place to notify your 12 readers when there will definitely be no more posts?

    Regarding Obama, my take on his maladministration is this is what it looks like when affirmative action meets the Peter principle. And now that he knows he doesn't like what he is doing, the rest of the country (and the world, for that matter) is left to flounder like a ship without a rudder. I foresee a time when Obama, Holder, Hagel, Kerry, Biden, Jarrett will all become synonyms for heedless destruction.

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  26. I am glad you are back. Hope all is well on the health front. I would like to know what you think the Chinese will do in the next two years while "the iron is hot"?

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  27. You're back are you?!?! Great, now what am I going to do with these party favors, confetti, and cake?
    Glad you're still in the land of the living! Hang in there, hell of a lotta fun getting old isn't it.
    James the Lessor, but Happier

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    1. Hi, James. I recommend eating it.

      The cake.

      Not sure what to do about the confetti.

      Delete
  28. Glad to see you back, Dip. Prayers incoming for your health. I hope all is well. Please let us know if there's anything these 8 or 10 readers can do as a group to assist in your well being and recovery.

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  29. I will give Obama credit for one result - our Allies realize that they must help share more of the burden for maintaining international order.

    Rather, they can fund more military expenditure NOW or will spend a LOT more later.

    Betcha dollars to doughnuts that Japan is busy assembly nuclear warheads now. The Philippines are getting their military house in order, Poland must be planning for more defense, The UAE and Egypt are bombing Libya, and so on.

    The good news is that Israel's defense industries are seeing a growing export market.

    And, of course, welcome back and best of luck with the health issues. I checked for your return every day.

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  30. Welcome back, Dip. To state the obvious, you were missed.


    ISIS just beheaded another journalist (Steven Sotloff). ISIS is daring Obama to do something, IMO. It will be interesting to see what the Boy King does, if anything.

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    1. So, if I understand you correctly, ISIS isn't all bad.

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  31. Blimey! If you can write like that when you're unwell I tremble at the thought of your prose when you are A1 fit - which I very sincerely wish you become as quickly as possible.

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    1. Hello, Mr. Duff. I don't think we've met before.

      As to your point, Lincoln and Churchill were each the savior or their respective nation while suffering from major depression. It makes you think.

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  32. I hope you are in tip top condition in no time. I had this thought: it took only 6+ years to fully dismantle our foreign policy and our ally relationships. I would have thought the foundation was stronger and would have lasted longer.

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    1. I think it actually started in the Clinton administration. Remember when Clinton recognized the Taliban and invited its foreign minister to the WH?

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  33. Oh Dip! I am SOOO relieved to finally hear from you! I was really getting worried. I was checking the site twice a day just to see if you'd issued just a peep. Lots of prayers went up for you my friend. Funny how we get all wound up about the crap growing ever deeper around us until we are blindsided by something very personal, like a health crisis. However, as a health care practitioner, I have confidence that you'll be fine in the long run. Just take good care.

    Missed your pearls of wisdom very much. Guess I can take myself off the Xanax how that you're back.

    Oodles of affection on top of heaps of relief,

    LibertyGrace'sGrandma

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    1. An oodle or two for you, too, LG's G'ma.

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  34. Glad you are back, thank you for your years of service, and your continuing service here.
    Fieldwalker

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  35. Yeah, what Fieldwalker says.

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  36. I can't figure out whether that's racist or the beast with two backs.

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  37. A Labor of Love of Country on Labor Day!
    Good to see you back in harness,
    hope you'll take even better care
    of yourself Mr. Dip~~"Let's Roll"
    yourself then you did

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  38. Dip., good to see you back. You're in my prayers for the best of health.

    Re China as all bluff dependent on our cupidity, willingness to overlook unfair trade practices, prison labor for export items, etc.: It's all true, unhappily,. However, some of the stolen technology has been put to work building land-based ship-busting missiles. These would certainly be a game-changer in any US-China confrontation in the East or South China Seas.

    I myself noticed both child labor and corvee while vice consul in Guangzhou back in the '90's, yet our last Democrat POTUS before the O pushed for Beijing getting permanent MFN status. It's always made me wonder what a careful audit of the Clintons' income might reveal.

    As for the O as Muhammad Abu Abdallah (Boabdil): I shudder to think who it is who might play the role of Los Reyes Catolicos in this little drama.

    Further, I'm another who's reached the unhappy conclusion that we indeed have a malevolent wrecker in the Oval Office. My suspicion is that he'll be succeeded by an open cleptocrat in Shrillary Shroooo.

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    1. Hi, Kepha. Let's give Shroooo her due: she's an ideological fanatic *and* a kleptocrat. Where is it written that you cannot be both at the same time?

      As ol' Larry Beria showed, there's no reason you can't be a top commie and serial rapist at the same time. (If feminists can look away from Rotherham, they could look away from a modern-day Larry.)

      So a little big-time stealing should be as nothing.

      Delete
  39. So glad to have you back!

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  40. welcome back, have missed your words for way to long. take care of your self. prayers are with you.

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  41. There are three sites that I so enjoy: YOU, Daniel Greenfield, Legal Insurrection. You sir add so much pleasure to this old man each time I log in.

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    1. I looked up Greenfield thanks to your recommendation. Just excellent. Thank you.

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  42. Glad to hear from you. My daughter, who speaks and reads Arabic, spent a year in Grenada and I took her back to Madrid four years ago to attend a meeting held every decade on the Muslim period. We are in one of those "interesting times." We need a Charles Martel. Obama isn't him.

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  43. I recommend Prescott's "History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella." It includes full citations and bibliographic notices to his original Spanish sources. All of his work is compelling reading.

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  44. Good to see you back! We all missed you as I'm sure your site counter has proved. Hope all keeps well with but take care.
    Reader129

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  45. Glad you're back!

    You may find the Spanish TV series Isabel interesting, http://www.rtve.es/television/isabel-la-catolica/

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  46. Considering the subject in the title of this Post, may I suggest changing "He" to lower case "he".

    Cheers

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    1. Your site was suggested. I pulled it up this week for the first time. I look forward to reading more of your articles, and points of view.
      How often do you post?

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  47. "the results were worse than I hoped, but better than I feared”

    So too in my house. Live well, or as best you can.

    "Everywhere we look around the world, the interests of the West--not just of America--are in retreat or collapse.”

    Especially in our media, arts, universities, and political parties.

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  48. Wow! Who would have thought that nine readers could generate so many well wishes under so many different names? Only the best come here! Thanks to one and all for your kind words and thoughts.

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    1. Each of us can operate many different keyboards at one time.

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  49. Um... Dip-ster? I think you should Windex™ that crystal ball in the library.

    So glad you are back. Now, about that Lavrov fella...

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  50. As much as I agree with just about everything you write, O Esteemed Señor Diplomad, I have to disagree with your choice of Boabdil as a representative historical figure for Obama.
    Boabdil had the grace to weep at the loss of his empire; Obama will just shrug and head off to the golf course.

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    1. Did you stop reading before the end of the post?

      "Is Obama the Boabdil of the West? Nah, he won't cry when the West collapses, he'll play golf . . ."

      ****

      Glad to see you back, Diplomad.

      Thworg

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  51. A reminder to everyone, Mother Nature is not Bambi and cute furry bunnies. No, Mother Nature is trying to kill you 24/7 in so many different ways that you cannot keep count. It is only by fighting back that we can reach three score and ten in reasonable condition, four score still mobile and somewhat with the program and four score and ten for the really tough tenacious ones. I say, fight with every weapon available and better, longer living through chemistry! Marvelous to have you back Diplomad from a fellow fighter for longevity!

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  52. DiploMad,

    Welcome back, and the best of wishes for good medical outcomes for you.

    Speaking as an Aussie, you are the kind of diplomat that the US needs more of - sensible, pragmatic and loyal to the Constitution of The United States and its citizens under its protection. The news coming out of the US regarding the insidious domination of personal and party self-interest combined with a slavish devotion to political correctness and 'social justice' by the government, the judiciary and the police makes me worry about the state of this great nation. How long it will be before someone writes the definitive set of volumes, "The History of the Decline and Fall of the American Republic", as Gibbon once did for the Roman Empire after its death.

    The barbarians are at the gates, and we are throwing open the gates of Civilisation to welcome them in, handing them spears and swords, and prostrating ourselves on the altar of multiculturalism in an attempt to keep them from running amok.

    Welcome back, for you provide us with a hope that the US can regain its position of dominance in the world and again be the shining example of what the American Republic should be. Hope that the US has competent people who could run the country instead of letting it be be dictated to by thugs, tyrants, despots, plutocrats, and the UN (ah, but I repeat myself).

    Welcome back.

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    1. At the moment, Australia is one of the few places in the world that makes some sense. I wish the new PM the best of luck as he continues to try to introduce common sense back into world politics.

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  53. Calif was not elected. Obama was. From similarly unappealing choices. Does it say something about the electorate?

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  54. It was such a relief to see you post again... I was getting more and more concerned.

    - reader #1482

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  55. > China is largely bluff and kept afloat by our tolerance for their trade practices and the cupidity of Western governments and businesses willing to give, "lend," sell, and turn a blind eye to the theft of technology and industrial processes in exchange for, in essence, cheap or even slave labor

    A touch of xenophobia in that comment I'm afraid. I work for a large American software company that has developers in China. Having met these guys I can tell you that they are as smart, if not more so than us, and there are an awful lot of them. Certainly in software they are not stealing anything as far as I can tell. Anyone can buy an Android license and develop software for it. There are dozens of Microsoft Office clones out there.

    It's true that for now they earn less than us, but that will change. The Chinese middle class is rapidly expanding, you now find them on the streets of London. And for every American politician who will tell you Chinese devices are spyware, there's a Chinese politician who will tell you Windows 8.x is the same thing. With the revelations of Snowden, and recent legal ruling which I've seen interpreted as meaning any American company can be compelled to hand over any data it holds anywhere in the World to the American government, it's hard not to have some sympathy with their viewpoint.

    That's not to say everything is rosy in China of course, it certainly isn't, and it's be foolish to think some of those old trade practises and copying don't still go on. But you're kidding yourself if you don't think they have the intellectual capital to at least match us, and probably soon overtake us.

    BTW glad to have you back. I agree with you on most other things.

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  56. Poor Boabdil, all he did was give up a portion of Spain, where as the halfrican queen has given up Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Tunisia, Egypt, Texas, California and Arizona and is quite willing to give up a lot more territory including Israel, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon. Why should Boabdil be compared to such a loser?

    The halfrican is the biggest loser in history and his term is not up yet lots more time to sellout Ukraine and several iother Eastern European countries.

    Welcome back Diplomad, hope your recent travails can be overcome, I was perhaps the least concerned reader but it is certainly good to hear from you again.

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  57. Glad to see you are back.
    Here's hoping that your health issues improve more quickly than you hope.
    I look forward to more of your insightful blogging.

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  58. paul vincent zecchinoSeptember 6, 2014 at 5:56 PM

    Glad you are back, best wishes for a complete recovery.

    A pleasure to read this article. He's all three, indifferent, incompetent, and out to destroy the West, in reverse order.

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  59. At last Fox are broadcasting actual news about what happened at Benghazi, the details are every bit as bad as one suspected.

    The ha-ha-halfrican so-called commander-in-chief abandoned his ambassador and military support at their time of need, this is surely an impeachable offence.

    I hope the Diplomad is well enough to give us the benefit of his experience in interpreting this news.

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    1. I agree with you regarding the airing of these three men. I don't understand why it took so long for them to speak. I want to know why the other MSM is not interveiwing these men as well. I want them to explain why! The MSM is insulting all of our military, and all of our citizens that work away from home, by not interviewing them as well.

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    2. Hi, Cascadian!

      Yes, at last!

      No surprise in what happened. I confess to being a little surprised this much of it came out so soon.

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  60. Commandante Zero may be Boabdil, but Michelle is no Aixa. She’d never say "No llores como mujer lo que no supistes defender como hombre"

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  61. On page 261 of Ayers books "Dreams", he writes: “I will stand with the Muslims should the political winds shift in an ugly direction.” By this I don't think he means he will stand with the Muslims, but rather against the U.S.

    Watch it, Mr. Mous. I recommend you banish "I don't think he means" from your vocabulary.

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  62. Hi, Dipomad. Glad you survived.

    I wonder where Dave from Oz is.

    (I wonder if that depends on what the meaning of Oz is.)

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    1. I know where David from Oz is. He is well and knows of Diplomad.

      D&N

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    2. Thanks, Wall. Give him my best.

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  63. Hi Diplomad, noting the further long radio silence, hope you are ok, very best wishes.

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  64. My week always seems less without your insights and stories Dip. Hope whatever was ailing you isn't.

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