Posts Tagged State Department

Native Americans Cannot Return to America?

 

“All the problems we face in the United States today can be traced [back] to an unenlightened immigration policy on the part of the American Indian.”
               

         - Pat Paulsen (comedian, satirist and Presidential candidate 1968-1996)

So most White Americans oppose illegal immigration?

The Native American Indians really screwed up when they let the White Man set foot on their continent – and the rest, as they say, is history.  Revisionist history, if you read the tidily scrubbed Anglo-Saxon school books.  You know, Manifest Destiny, The White Man’s Burden, and all of those other inane Christian rationalizations for why it was God’s divine plan for the White Man to conquer North America, and take the continent away from Native Americans.

Gives a whole new meaning to the term “white washed”.

Now the Iroquois Indian Lacrosse Team – ranked fourth in the world – cannot even leave their own continent in order to compete in the sports World Championship tournament beginning this week.  Why?  Because the U.S. Department of Homeland Security will not officially recognize the Iroquois Nation as a sovereign entity for purposes of carrying their own passports.  When the U.S. State Department offered to secure expedited U.S. passports for these “foreigners”, they respectfully declined; as one spokesperson for the tribe said so poignantly:

“It would be like saying the Canadians are having travel difficulties and the U.S. says we’ll make you U.S. passports and you can go over.”

For now, the team is stuck in a bureaucratic limbo in New York City, while awaiting a decision on whether they will be “allowed back into the United States” – you know, that land we stole from their ancestors - upon their return from playing in the lacrosse tournament scheduled to commence tomorrow in England.

Can you imagine the outrage if Mexico started telling U.S. citizens that they would not officially recognize a U.S. passport when trying to leave Cancun?  But they will give you a Mexican passport so you can continue on your way.

This land is your land. This land is my land” . . .

Someone needs to strike one of those lines from Woody Gutherie’s lyrics.

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Sarah Palin Nuked Her Own Brain

It’s obvious Sarah Palin must have put her head in the microwave oven somewhere along the way.

In her most recent comments regarding President Obama’s nuclear weapons policy, Palin tried to belittle Obama by claiming that his only knowledge of the topic was gained through “his vast nuclear experience that he acquired as a community organizer and as a full-time candidate.” 

Excuse me?  Palin sees a full-time candidate every morning when she looks in the mirror.

But more to the point.  What Palin obviously does not even know is that as a first-term junior U.S. Senator with a coveted seat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Obama introduced his first major piece of legislation in 2005 with Republican co-sponsor Senator Richard Lugar, Chairman of the committee.  Known as the  Lugar-Obama proliferation and threat reduction initiative, it was designed to limit proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), as well as expand the State Department’s ability to find and interdict weapons and materials designed for this purpose – particularly nuclear weapons.  

Betcha didn’t know that one, Sarah?!?

Moreover, when she stated that the Obama Adminstration “treated the Afghan President poorly”- referring to President Obama’s direct and unambiguous criticism of Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s unwillingness to root out corruption and fraud within his own government – she explicitly ignores the fact that his government is financed by and exists only with the support of the United States taxpayer; that Afghanistan has virtually no Gross Domestic Product – as in an economy, Sarah; that Afghanistan’s largest export – opium - directly provides the world with an unending supply of heroin, while simultaneously financing the Taliban and Al Qaeda; and last, but not least, there is strong evidence that President Karzai’s brother is heavily involved in this game of drug trafficking and revenue-sharing with the terrorists organizations.

Yet she maintains that we should continue to finesse Afghanistan, but not Iran.  She thinks we should finesse Pakistan, but not North Korea.  She believes we should “quit coddling our enemies”, and that we should “respect” our allies –  in spite of their unwillingness to respect our own national security interests.  Sarah, here is what happens when you coddle an ally too much:

1)  As you keep throwing more and more money at them – $21 Billion to be exact, in U.S. foreign aid given to Pakistan from 2001 through 2008 - you perpetuate their willful impotence and institutional corruption.  The Bush Administration kept former Pakistani leader General Musharaff propped-up with U.S. taxpayer’s money for seven years with a promise from Pakistan that it would root out and pursue terrorists operating in its own territories.  They did little or nothing.  It was only after the Democrats had taken back control of Congress in 2006 and then threatened to pull the plug on Pakistan’s foreign aid, that Bush reluctantly decided it was time to “get tough” with Musharaff.  

2)  You cannot allow your ally’s sovereignty to be paramount to your own national security.  Republican Presidential candidate John McCain – do you even recall who his V.P. running-mate was, Sarah (?) –  stated that he (McCain) would not violate Pakistan’s sovereignty by going after terrorists in it’s territory if elected President.  In deep contrast to that “coddle your friends” policy, President Obama made it clear on numerous occasions while on the campaign trail that if Pakistan would not do the job, he would!  Shortly after President Obama took the oath of office, he made good on his word.  And guess what, Sarah?  Our terrorist enemies in Pakistan do not sleep well at night anymore – as this blog noted some 90 days ago.  

3) When the U.S. taxpayer funds $21 Billion in foreign aid under the pretense that it is going to make our country safer, they want a President who is going to make sure that the recipients give us our money’s worth.  President Obama immediately recognized that Pakistan’s government was full of graft and corruption, and that it was doing nothing about ousting the terrorists, so he pressed them very hard on the issue - unlike Bush and Cheney – and Pakistan has demonstrated a whole new attitude about going after the Taliban and Al Qaeda. Moreover, they have kept their damn mouths shut about the U.S. “violating their sovereignty” with our incessant and terrifying drone attacks – thus giving the terrorists a taste of their own medicine after seven years of U.S. impotence.

President Obama is now sending the same message to Afghan President Karzai  – PUT UP, OR SHUT UP!

HMMMMMMMMMMM . . .

Amazing how that all works, eh Sarah???

If Palin thinks – and I use the term “think” very loosely in her case - that she has any standing to criticize President Obama’s foreign policy experience, let’s look at the facts.  In the previous Presidential election campaign, Palin couldn’t even identify the Bush Doctrine when asked by Charlie Gibson of ABC news - damn those “gotcha journalists”, Sarah.  Moreover, that she is not even aware of President Obama’s own prior nuclear proliferation legislation introduced in the U.S. Senate back in 2005 speaks for itself.

Here is the reality for Sarah Palin’s political supporters:  well-timed platitudes and folksy quotes are not going to make this country more secure.  To the contrary.  And our enemies would be more than happy to exploit such blatant foreign policy inexperience and unprecedented ignorance of publically available information.  The information contained in this post is not rocket science, and easily accessible to even a 5th grader, Sarah. 

Most glaring though, is The Anchorage Daily News’ – as in Alaska’s largest newspaper – recent acknowledgement that “she has little or no foreign policy experience.”.  If  she cannot even get an endorsement from her own home state newspaper on this very important issue . . . well, that speaks volumes.

Which all leaves no doubt that the terrorists are just drooling at the prospect of her being elected President in 2012.

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