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Signs of Desperation on the Left

-East Syracuse, NY–

We’re doing some more railfanning, today, sitting just outside the old Amtrak station in East Syracuse. This facility is an intermodal facility… not a very large one, but the biggest in the area, and along the old NYC water route, meaning 100-150 trains per day is not unusual, here. Too bad the weather’s less than optimal for photographs. I’ve managed to find a pic of the spot I’m sitting in… well, close, anyway.  As I write this, I’m parked just to your right at the end of the guardrail.  We come here often.. it’s a nice break for us and for the kids if we’re traveling to the east along I-90 or to the north or south along I-81.

I’ve found this pic on Geno Daily’s site, which can be found here [1]. His site shows quite a bit of the Water Route along through New York… a nice bit of work, and worth the visit. This picture is taken from on board the passing train. Essentially, you’re standing in the near track looking at the station. The building’s use as was discontinued in 1998 when a station was put up in Downtown Syracuse, about 15 miles west of here.

At the moment, the front lot of this building is being used to store new cars for a neighborhood Ford dealer. The building is looking a bit forlorn, though. Sad, really. A sad footnote in the annals of the excess of government in general and Amtrak in particular.

As I sit here, taking a break with a cold Root Beer, I’m reading the news in the local paper, and particularly the editorials they try to pass as news, I come to the conclusion that there’s a lot of desperation on the left and in the press today. (OK, let’s save time and space; we all know that with only a few exceptions, the press IS the left.)

The more I watch the leftists making noise about the reported Abu Ghraib prison abuse, the more I understand just how desperate for power they have become. And make no mistake, here, that’s what this is all about. You’ll hear a lot of wailing about ‘honor’ and so on. But that’s not what this is about. All this noise about Iraq, has in fact little to do with Iraq, and more… in fact all, to do with power here in the US, and who gets it.

What this is, is Un-American leftists understanding that without the absolute worst happening in the Middle East, they stand no chance whatever of defeating the Republicans, and regaining the power they lost. To that end of regaining that power, the Democrats will stop at NOTHING. including fanning the flames of whatever Arab hatred that comes along, heedless of the longer-term consequences to America, or for that matter, to the world as a whole, to further that quest for power.

Some perspective allows for much in the way of backing for these statements. Let’s look at several points:

Where has all the outrage from the left, over Daniel Pearl been? You do remember Mr. Pearl, right? Ah, yes, the one who had his throat cut… Some new info about that killing has come out in the last week; Apparently, Mr. Pearl was given the option of being sedated before he his throat was cut… which he refused. He knew for hours before his death he was to be killed. Apparently, the outrage for that has disappeared, even among his fellows in the press.

How about the four people dragged through the streets and hung from a bridge after being burned and decapitated? Where has the outrage gone for them? It has all but disappeared.

Of course we should not forget the unfortunate Mr. Berg. Where, again, is the outrage for that killing?  As with the others, it has become, for all intents and purposes, non-existent.

The supposed mainstream US press has been as silent on these topics as the Arab press has been.  But never let it be said that the the US press does not keep up the breast beating on prison abuse. Is the prison abuse of greater import than the islamo-facists crowd? One would think so, given the way the press is dealing with it.

For that matter, where is the feeling in the Arab world on these issues? Yes, you’ll hear some on the Arab street complain as well about prisoner abuses, but stop and think for just a minute, here. Do you suppose there’s anything that would get them to STOP complaining? I don’t, short of capitulation, and a reinstatement of the Baathists. Do you?

(In fairness, perhaps it should be said about the Arab street that given the anti-American leanings of our own press, the true picture of the Arab street isn’t making it to us, here in the States, and thereby to the rest of the world.)

About the only thing starker than the silence about abuses by Arabs on the rest of us by the left (and in this I include the press) is the utter lack of a plan to deal with the problem.

Oh, sure, John Kerry and the Democrats claim they have a solution. But here’s a question you’ll not get an answer to when you ask a Democrat: Do we have any evidence that what Mr. Kerry advises us to do… IE; turning it all over to the UN, will put us in any better shape? It’s a question I can answer. No. In fact, the evidence if anything, suggests the situation would get worse if we follow his advice.

Ignoring, of course the fact that it was UN inaction and in fact UN corruption that brought us to this pass in the first place, there’s two major problems with turning it over to the UN. First, the UN has it’s own abuse issues.

Oh, I know… you’ve been busy, and not focused on such matters. Apparently, Mr. Kerry share your pain on that point; he’s apparently as unaware of this story as you; and it doesn’t help that it seems to have gotten by the so-called mainstream press as well.  The source for this is the UN site itself.

“7 May 2004 – The United Nations Organization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUC) has launched a comprehensive investigation into reported instances of sexual exploitation and sexual abuse of civilians, including minors, by its personnel in Bunia, in the northeastern part of the country.

The Mission is determined to enforce Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s policy of zero tolerance of any sexual misconduct, in accordance with his bulletin on special measures for protection from sexual exploitation and sexual abuse of last October, a UN spokesman said in New York.”

According to some sources, the UN has been aware of this abuse since last October, yet took no action. On this basis alone the UN deserves no trust in the Iraq matter. But let’s remember, that the releases coming out of Iraq these days are targeting the UN in no uncertain terms. Small wonder, with their history. Let’s take just a few examples:

Since North Korea is hot on the griddle these days,let’s recall that North Korea starved to death about 2 million of its own people, while the UN did nothing.

Speaking of killing millions, let’s recall Saddam Hussein’s gassing of the Kurds and Marsh Arabs, and screwing up their ecosystem so badly they will never be able to return.

And the business in the Sudan continues to this day. Ah, yes, the Sudan. Lovely vacation spot, that… Where something on the order of 2 million of Sudanese Christians have been killed in the last 15-20 years. At this moment, millions are under threat form the Sudanese government, and have been driven from their native lands under threat of mass murder.

Another UN vacation spot; Rwanda, where the UN witnessed the slaughter of around 800,000 Hutu and Tutsis, and did nothing.

Need I mention the UN’s strong pro-terrorism stance, basically supporting attacks against Israel?

And since John Kerry likes to rattle on about his time in South East Asia, perhaps a mention of the genocide of an estimated two million souls by the Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge.

No, I don’t think we can trust the UN to deal with the issue of Iraq and prison abuse, or in fact much of anything, for that matter. So much for Mr. Kerry’s statements on the issue. There’s just no way Kerry can really mean what he says about his ideas for the Middle East, assuming he’s not utterly insane, or that he’s got the defeat of America and the west as a goal, or both. In which case of course, he has no business whatever in government at all, much less as the President.

Of course there’s the Democrat rank and file who are just ticked that we removed the tyrant Saddam from power, and freed all those people.  Clearly these folks ARE insane. I’ve provided many examples of this type of idiot over the last few months.

Now that I think on it; the people all bent out of shape about our removing Saddam, including the UN, are also the ones who seemingly are not all that unhappy about the deaths of Americans Pearl, Berg, and all the rest. And guess what? They’re all John Kerry supporters. That point alone tells us why the anti-war crowd is so very, very desperate, and why the deaths of these brave people mean so little, and why the name Abu Ghraib will be in the headlines until election day. Unless of course someone who has the power calls the press on their leanings.

Like, YOU, for example.