There Are Some Things To Remember When Viewing The Truce In Afghanistan

Hot Air (and many other places on the Internet) are reporting today that America has signed a peace treaty with the Taliban in Afghanistan.

The article notes:

The United States is set to sign a peace deal Saturday with the Taliban, its adversary in Afghanistan’s 18-year war. The deal marks a major turning point in a conflict marred by years of both military and diplomatic stalemate.

One provision of the agreement is the full withdrawal of American troops that is “heavily conditions based,” according to two U.S. officials who have been briefed on the deal. The officials declined to elaborate on what exactly those conditions are. They spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to discuss the deal publicly.

The article concludes:

This is something I was venting my frustrations about on Twitter yesterday. While I would be very pleasantly surprised to be proven wrong, I can’t believe that the promises of the Taliban are worth anything. Also, even if they were being sincere, they don’t control all of the fighters in their country, so their ability to maintain a ceasefire is dubious at best.

I realize I’ve preached this line to all of you in the past, but I’ve not seen anything to sway my opinion much. The Taliban is just waiting for us to leave. If they have to wait another 14 months or another 14 years, they will. They’re very good at waiting for invading armies to grow frustrated and go home. They’ve been doing it forever. And as soon as we’re gone, they will tear now the new government and return to being a primitive, seventh century nation just as they’ve always been. At this point, we should probably just face up to that reality, use this deal as a ticket to pull our troops out and leave them to their own devices.

There are some things to remember when considering the war in Afghanistan. We made two major mistakes in that war that essentially cost us the moral high ground. Because we did not have the courage to face the problem of pedophilia in the country or to eliminate the poppy crop. Both would have been very difficult, but both would have had a positive impact on the blatant corruption in the country. Unless we were willing to overwhelm the population and stay long enough to change the culture, we were not going to be victorious there.

We also need to remember two of the basic concepts found in Islam–hudna and taqiyya. Reliance of the Traveller, which is a classical manual of fiqh for the Shafi’i school of Islamic jurisprudence, states the following:

If the Muslims are weak, a truce may be made for ten years if necessary, for the Prophet (Allah bless him and grant him Peace) made a truce with Quraysh for that long, as it related by Abu Dawud. It is not permissible to stipulate longer than that, save by means of new truces, each of which does not exceed ten years.

The purpose of a truce (hudna) was to give the Muslims time to stockpile weapons and become stronger.

In Islamic law, an obligation to lie exists if it is the only way to achieve an obligatory goal in Islam. Al-Taqiyya is based on a concept in Quaran 3:28 and 16:106. It is also found in the hadith,  the embodiment of the sunnah, the words and actions of the prophet and his family the Ahl al-Bayt (The Twelve Imams and the prophet’s daughter, Fatimah).

We are leaving Afghanistan. Under present conditions, that is a good thing. However, to believe that this will mean that Afghanistan will no longer be a disjointed terrorist state is naive. Afghanistan has never really experienced freedom under a central government. It is naive to believe that we can superimpose a central government that espouses individual freedom over what is currently there. We need to learn the lessons of the American revolution–unless the people are willing to fight for their freedom and respect the Laws of Nature and the Laws of Nature’s God, they will never be free.

Note: the information in this article about the principles of Islam are taken from Stephen Coughlin’s book Catastrophic Failure. It is recommended reading for anyone who wants to understand the Muslim plan for worldwide Sharia Law.

 

Where Are We And Where Are We Headed?

Politics in America right now is disturbing. It is becoming obvious that the resources of government were used for political purposes against a presidential candidate. Now that the candidate is in office, the ‘deep state’ continues to oppose him. During the next year and a half, we are going to be subject to endless investigations of everything Donald Trump has ever done combined with a media that wants to recapture the power they had during Watergate (the ability to drive a President from office). So what are we to do about it?

American history tells us that during the American Revolution, it is estimated that only 3% of the colonists were actively fighting in the field against British forces at any given time. These 3% were people who saw what was going on and chose to be involved. We need that 3% now. We need people who are willing to look past the lies being told in the mainstream media and do their own research. We need people who don’t believe the constant drumbeat of the major media that says “Orange man bad” and are willing to look at what the Trump administration has accomplished.

Next November there will be an election. President Trump will run again. A lot can happen between now and then, but even a casual glance shows that currently almost all of the Democrat candidates have wandered away from the mainstream of America. It’s up to voters to do their homework, decide what they want for America, and vote. The plans of the Democrat candidates will negatively impact our freedom and our economy. All of us who care about our country should fight those plans with everything we have. Study voting records of those in office, and study campaign contributions (opensecrets.org lists campaign contributions of all candidates).

Get involved. You future, your children’s future, and your grandchildren’s future depend on it.

 

Losing Our History–One Flag At A Time

This is the origin of the Gadsden Flag according to the Gadsden Flag History website:

By 1775, the snake symbol wasn’t just being printed in newspapers. It was appearing all over the colonies: on uniform buttons, on paper money, and of course, on banners and flags.

The snake symbol morphed quite a bit during its rapid, widespread adoption. It wasn’t cut up into pieces anymore. And it was usually shown as an American timber rattlesnake, not a generic serpent.

We don’t know for certain where, when, or by whom the familiar coiled rattlesnake was first used with the warning “Don’t Tread on Me.”

We do know when it first entered the history books.

In the fall of 1775, the British were occupying Boston and the young Continental Army was holed up in Cambridge, woefully short on arms and ammunition. At the Battle of Bunker Hill, Washington’s troops had been so low on gunpowder that they were ordered “not to fire until you see the whites of their eyes.”

In October, a merchant ship called The Black Prince returned to Philadelphia from a voyage to England. On board were private letters to the Second Continental Congress that informed them that the British government was sending two ships to America loaded with arms and gunpowder for the British troops.

Congress decided that General Washington needed those arms more than the British. A plan was hatched to capture the cargo ships. They authorized the creation of a Continental Navy, starting with four ships. The frigate that carried the information from England, the Black Prince, was one of the four. It was purchased, converted to a man-of-war, and renamed the Alfred.

To accompany the Navy on their first mission, Congress also authorized the mustering of five companies of Marines. The Alfred and its sailors and marines went on to achieve some of the most notable victories of the American Revolution. But that’s not the story we’re interested in here.

What’s particularly interesting for us is that some of the Marines that enlisted that month in Philadelphia were carrying drums painted yellow, emblazoned with a fierce rattlesnake, coiled and ready to strike, with thirteen rattles, and sporting the motto “Don’t Tread on Me.”

It is a symbol of the fight for freedom in the American Revolution.

Yesterday The Daily Wire posted the following story:

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has now taken the position that displaying the Gadsden flag (AKA the “Don’t Tread on Me” flag) constitutes racial harassment.

As UCLA Professor Eugene Volokh points out in The Washington Post, the EEOC decided the case of Shelton D. [pseudonym] v. Brennan two months ago: The complainant, “Sheldon D,” argued that as a black man he had been racially discriminated against because a coworker wore a hat with the Gadsen flag emblazoned on it to work.

There is nothing racial about the Gadsden Flag. If I feel discriminated against because a coworker who wears pink socks, can I file a complaint? This is ridiculous. We are losing our freedom. You can no longer purchase Confederate flags on Amazon, but you can still purchase an ISIS flag on Amazon. This is how upside down America has become. Hopefully this ruling can be appealed and the idiots who made the ruling removed from their positions. It’s time for some common sense.

Anyone Can Make A Difference

NewsMax reported yesterday that the initiative to stop the automatic gasoline tax increases in Massachusetts has made it onto the November ballot. The effort to get this on the ballot was a true grassroots effort.

The article reports:

Having secured a position on the fall ballot and with little money to propel it, the initiative to thwart an automatic rise in the gas tax by linking it to inflation could have an impact on other states if Bay State voters pass it this fall.

As Barbara Anderson, executive director of Citizens for Limited Taxation, told Newsmax, “Any time a tax cut passes in blue-state Massachusetts, it gives hope to taxpayers everywhere. In other words, if we can do it, so can they.”

Veteran Massachusetts political consultant Holly Robichaud told Newsmax: “You have to remember that Massachusetts is the birthplace of the American Revolution and citizen outrage against ‘taxation without representation.’ And that’s about what happened here last year.”

She was referring to a vote in the overwhelmingly Democratic Massachusetts Legislature for a $500 million tax package. Buried within the package was the 3 cents per gallon tax increase. But far more significantly, the package also included language stating that the gas tax would now be linked to inflation.

“That means when inflation goes up, so does the gas tax — automatically, and without a vote by elected representatives,” Robichaud explained. “Theoretically, it could rise to infinity and beyond.”

Her view was strongly seconded by veteran tax battler Edward F. King, chairman of King Information Systems, founder of Citizens for Limited Taxation, and a Republican candidate for governor in 1978.

This is good news for Massachusetts residents, but it also an example of how ordinary citizens can undo the mischief that politicians do.

The article reports how it was done:

Although the potentially explosive linkage of the gas tax hike to inflation was largely ignored in the press, Robichaud, with her political ear to the ground, called a meeting at her Scituate home. Over Chinese food, activist Republicans, including former U.S. House candidate Marty Lamb, state Rep. Geoff Diehl, and GOP State Committeeman Steve Aylward plotted how to stop the tax link to inflation from becoming law.

Out of the meeting came language for a proposed statewide initiative that would not repeal the gas tax increase, but decouple it from inflation. As Robichaud explained, “We wanted the debate to be about automatic tax hikes. I think the debate on the principle is more important than 3 cents.”

Without this initiaitve (and hopefully a victory in November), the gas tax would have risen automatically without any legislator having to take responsibility for the increase–a politician’s dream and a taxpayer’s nightmare.