Jimmy Carter: Middle Eastern Terror's Bestest Buddy

Former president (my it hurts to admit that he was once our president) Jimmy Carter has become an advisor to the Palestinian terror group Hamas. These people, who seized power in Gaza by force, have an Israeli solider hostage. Carter advised them on what price to seek for his release.

Yes, this is the so-called "best ex-president." Right now he lies about on the Jane Fonda level of the patriot scale.

Carter met with Syrian as well as Hamas leaders, assuring all of us that these guys are not religious zealots, but wear suits. Well that is a huge relief. I don't trust just anyone. But if they wear a suit, well, that is a whole different story! Adolf Hitler wore a suit from time to time, as did Saddam Hussein (this ensemble came with fedora and shotgun, too!)

Carter is trying hard to win the "Neville Chamberlain Award" for the man who sold out his and other people's countries the most this decade.

Of course it could be worse. Obama could have made this jackleg secretary of state.

A Party of Neville Chamberlains

West Virginia is somewhat of an anomaly on the geopolitical landscape of the United States. In Presidential elections we vote like the Republican conservative south and on a state level we vote like the Democrat liberal northeast. We soundly rejected the liberal philosophy of Barrack Obama with 56% of the people voting John McCain, but we voted for the very same liberal philosophy on a state and regional level. So why do we have a voting split personality? Simply many conservatives in the state think like Neville Chamberlain.

On September 30th, 1938 after signing the Munich Agreement to stop German expansion through appeasement, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain declared, “Peace for our time.” A little less than a year later Germany broke the agreement and invaded Poland. The world was plunged into war for the next 6 years.

70 years later many Republican leaning, pro-business and conservative, individuals and organizations lined up behind Democrats running for office in West Virginia, candidates that in many cases openly opposed the ideas of conservatives. Their idea is to stop the expansion of bad liberal policies through appeasement rather than direct confrontation, all the while declaring “Prosperity for our time.”

It didn’t work in 1938 and it doesn’t work today. While we are not going to enter into a war, it does insure that we are continuing with the same bad economic policies out of Charleston that have been destroying West Virginia. We conservatives and business leaders need only look in the mirror to see who is to blame and I include myself in that group.

So what needs to be done? We need to stop trying to have influence in the state government through a process of appeasement of candidates that do not wholly support a conservative pro-business agenda. We can no longer pick and choose who we think will win. We must fund conservative candidates at the expense of trying to buy influence with liberal candidates we think might win. We will make mistakes at times, but more often then not we will begin to pick up seats across the state. When our funding of appeasement stops, liberal candidates will begin to fall short of funding just as conservative candidates funding begins to rise.

Many in the state fear retribution from the left if they stop funding appeasement, but consider as the balance of power shifts to the conservatives in the state, then the power of retribution shifts with it. West Virginia is a conservative state and should be a solid Red state, but it is not the liberals that keep themselves in power. It is appeasement funding conservatives that keep the liberals in power. We need to make a change.

Peace

Every sane human being in the world seeks peace. Do all understand what real peace is? The answer is a resounding no.

Peace is not simply the absence of war. One of America's greatest generals, William Tecumseh Sherman, despised war and the horror it created. He understood that achieving peace in his time did not simply mean halting the use of arms. Sherman endeavored to make war more horrible in the short term to ensure that people would shrink from it in the future. He also believed that real peace only came at the real settlement of an issue.

Vladimir Lenin in 1917 promised a crowd in Petrograd, Russia peace if he came to rule. Many people supported his rebellion against the emerging democracy because it continued to help Britain, France, and the United States fight the German Empire in World War I. Lenin delivered his land from that conflict, but Russia knew not peace. The cost of Lenin's "peace" lay in the complete abandonment of political rights and the people's ability to defend them. The way was cleared for Lenin to start a new war against the Russian people. His war, carried on more terrifyingly by Stalin, successfully stole from the Russians their religion, land, firearms, and personal security against a despotic system. The Soviet Union from the 1920s until 1939 very rarely sent its soldiers to war, but its people did not know peace.

Peace is also unknown when threats hang like a Sword of Damocles over the world. British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain infamously tried to purchase peace from Adolf Hitler by giving away parts of another country. Shortly thereafter Britain fought a war that, even though it technically won, ended with the destruction of its own empire and economic power. Again, lack of conflict did not mean peace.

We did not know peace with Iraq from 1991 to 2003. Hussein worked hard to skirt United Nations edicts, shoot down US and British planes, and make war on the Iraqi people. His sons, raised to be psychopaths, would have completely destabilized the region when they took over. We did not know peace with Iraq as it was. We will not know peace if we pull out too soon.

Trying to buy a lack of war or ignoring problems and hoping they go away is not peace. It is only war deferred. Better to address issues while they are still manageable than wait until they become dire. In the 1930s we waited too long and gave evil a chance to triumph. We are lucky that George W. Bush makes decisions for the good of the country as opposed to the good of the party or himself. Our sacrifice for peace over the past few years has been high, but not nearly as high as it would have been had we simply ignored the problem.

Peace is not war deferred. Peace only comes with a real and lasting commitment between all parties concerned.