Politics

So what would a conservative Mennonite care about mere earthly politics? And why?

West Coast Sunset

No, I’m not posting any of my spectacular sunset pictures. Not in this post, anyway.

License to Kill:

Most inhumanities start small, like the beginning of a tsunami, but then build, as they head toward inevitable and unstoppable destruction.

It is difficult to pinpoint the precise beginning of the cultural tsunami that has devalued human life. Did it begin with the subjugation of women? Did it begin with slavery? The Nazis made their contribution with the Holocaust and Josef Mengele’s hideous human experiments. Surely unrestricted abortion added to the growing list of inhumanities.

Now we have the next wave. Randy Stroup is a 53-year-old Oregon man who has prostrate cancer, but no insurance to cover his medical treatment. The state pays for treatment in some cases, but it has denied help to Stroup. State officials have determined that chemotherapy would be too expensive and so they have offered him an alternative: death.

Adds new meaning to what Governor Tom McCall famously said on national TV way back in the 70s:

“Come visit us again and again. But for heaven’s sake, don’t come here to live.”

Yup, we’re the Pacific Wonderland, alright.

Nukes for Radicals?

Brace yourself: Pakistan’s Musharraf said ready to quit

Pakistan’s President Pervez Musharraf is ready to resign rather than face impeachment but is seeking immunity from prosecution and agreement on a safe place to live, coalition government officials said on Friday.

Speculation has been mounting that the former army chief Musharraf and firm U.S. ally would quit since the ruling coalition, led by the party of assassinated former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, said last week it planned to impeach him.

A spokesman for the president has repeatedly denied media reports that he was about to quit, and he did so again on Friday, saying “baseless and malicious rumors” about the president’s plan to resign were damaging the economy.

“They” have said for the last several years (or longer) that if Musharraf goes, Pakistan will likely become a radical Muslim nation. And it already has nukes.

Maybe “they” will be wrong.

Either way, enjoy today. And make today enjoyable for others.

Oh, and where is this verse fragment found?

“I will trust and not be afraid.”

To Start Your Day

Russia Says Ceases Fire

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev ordered a halt to military operations in Georgia on Tuesday, saying Moscow had achieved its objectives by punishing Tbilisi.

Just before meeting French President Nicolas Sarkozy for peace talks at the Kremlin, Medvedev issued instructions to Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov to “stop the operation to force Georgian authorities to peace.”

“The aim of the operation has been achieved,” Medvedev said in televised remarks. “…The aggressor has been punished and has suffered very considerable losses.”

Close U.S. ally Georgia entered conflict with Russia last week after launching an offensive to retake the pro-Russian region of South Ossetia, which broke away from Georgian rule in 1992. Moscow responded with a huge counter-offensive.

In other good news:

Update: Russia vs Georgia

US military surprised by speed, timing of Russia military action

The US military was surprised by the timing and swiftness of the Russian military’s move into South Ossetia and is still trying to sort out what happened, a US defense official said Monday.

[…]

That the two countries were on a collision course was no surprise to anyone, but the devastating Russian response was not expected, officials said.

“We were tracking it earlier in that week and we knew that things were escalating,” said a military official, who asked not to be identified. “I can tell you it moved quicker than we anticipated that first day.”

So the US military was surprised. Was the CIA or any other intelligence agencies? If you’re among those that put your trust in these institutions, you’ve misplaced your trust. Look to the Lord Jesus!

Read it all

Russia vs Georgia

And it’s not at the Olympics:

Russia seizes South Ossetia

Russian troops backed by tanks and fighter jets seized control of South Ossetia on Sunday as fears grew of a wider conflict with Georgia over the separatist region.

Georgia said it had withdrawn most of its troops from South Ossetia in the face of a build-up in Russian firepower and that it had lost control of the near-destroyed regional capital, Tskhinvali.

[…]

“We’re being driven away. The place was in flames and we couldn’t stay,” Pavlik, an elderly man travelling by foot, told AFP as he fled from the conflict zone.

[…]

Russia backs the separatist government in South Ossetia and sent in tanks and troops on Friday in response to pro-Western Georgia’s military offensive to take back the province which broke away in the early 1990s after a separatist war.

[…]

“We have left practically all of South Ossetia as an expression of goodwill and our willingness to stop military confrontation,” Georgian National Security Council Secretary Alexander Lomaia told AFP.

[…]

The movement of Russia’s naval fleet from their base in Ukraine to positions near Georgia also threatened to destabilise the region.

Ukraine’s foreign ministry threatened to prevent the warships from returning to their base in the Ukrainian port of Sevastopol.

[…]

Georgia’s army of less than 25,000 men is confronting a Russian force which can count on more than one million troops and has dominance of both skies and sea.

On the diplomatic front, a meeting of the UN Security Council on Saturday failed to agree on a call for an immediate ceasefire.

Russia on the move. Imagine that.

Georgia may be an ally of the US. But the US is rather occupied elsewhere these days.

Next thing you know, we’ll hear Iran moved against Israel. And China against Taiwan. And North Korea against the South. And Iran against the US.

Or something.

Wars and rumors of wars, you know.

You can run, but you can’t hide.

So face it.

Well, anyway. What shall we Christians in America do?

Another Reason for a Fence

As someone who grew up in Mexico (I lived there close to 22 years), I don’t understand the logic behind unmarked and/or unfenced boundaries.

Makes no good sense to me at all.

Border patrol agent held at gunpoint

A U.S. Border Patrol agent was held at gunpoint Sunday night by members of the Mexican military who had crossed the border into Arizona, but the soldiers returned to Mexico without incident when backup agents responded to assist.

Agents assigned to the Border Patrol station at Ajo, Ariz., said the Mexican soldiers crossed the international border in an isolated area about 100 miles southwest of Tucson and pointed rifles at the agent, who was not identified.

It was unclear what the soldiers were doing in the United States, but U.S. law enforcement authorities have long said that current and former Mexican military personnel have been hired to protect drug and migrant smugglers.

In a Roth Administration, both US borders would be well-fenced and well-monitored and well-enforced.

In the period up to the completion of a secure physical structure, two spy satellites would be “parked” over each border and fully-authorized-to-detain-or-repel agents would be exclusively assigned to the most troublesome areas. Wherever there is an incursion, drone aircraft would supplement satellite coverage.

It took me less than two minutes to figure that out. 😯

Maybe I have more common sense than’s required to be one of them there run-of-the-mill political types. 🙄 😆

All that aside, how about some good news?

Good news keeps pouring out of the epicenter. Oil prices are falling (20% of record highs earlier this summer). Domestic gas prices are falling. Violence in Iraq continues dropping steadily. Moqtada al-Sadr, head of the Mahdi Army, is telling his forces to lay down their arms. And the U.S. just convicted one of Osama bin Laden’s closest aides in the first military trial in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Are more tough times ahead? Undoubtedly. But let’s take a moment to say a prayer of thanksgiving.
Above all, love God!