good news

while the administration continues to set up the country for a financial implosion, i do want to give some credit for for some of their other moves.

specifically, the relaxation of the trade restrictions with cuba is a great idea.  i'm not exactly sure what the thinking was when the embargo was put in place, but clearly it has not worked on any level.  people in cuba suffer because of a mostly insane government, but they suffer more so because of our misguided embargo that keeps their economy in shambles and keeps things as basic as simple medicine out of reach.  hopefully this is a pre cursor to something more sweeping with cuba.

additionally, while i understand that his hand was forced and the military deserves most of the credit, it still happened on his watch.  and the rescue of the ship's captain, at least at this point, seems like it was a perfectly executed operation.  hopefully, as i mentioned earlier, this will cause the US to take a larger role in policing that region of the world.

finally, i want to give props to obama for hosting a seder.  not only does this show a general open-mindedness and kinship with another faith, but i believe the lessons of the story of passover are important ones for the current administration.  now, which kind of son do you think obama was?

foreign policy reagan style

with the government and the country transfixed by the economic meltdown, the world is taking advantage of the very real weakness of our country to do things that would have been unheard of us during our more robust times. i am far from a reagan-phile, but you have to give the guy credit for taking down the soviets. here's how i think the gipper would have reacted to the following issues facing our country.

1. north korea is about to launch a missile - reagan decision: attempt to shoot down missile with SDI. if that didn't work, don't tell anyone.

2. russia about to plant its bombers in venezuela and cuba - reagan decision: blockade those countries. get the UN and NATO behind us on this. there is no way russia should have bombers in this hemisphere. even the lefty kennedy knew enough to do this.

3. mexico losing drug war - reagan decision: nancy reagan would have helped ronnie on this one. if we weren't stuck in iraq, it would have already been done. he would have put troops on the mexican border to stop the flow of drugs from mexico. i realize the drugs will come in from elsewhere but it will at least stop the border violence and may be even settle down mexico as a whole.

4. somali pirates running rampant - reagan decision: keeping the oceans safe off somalia is something the navy could easily do and give us pretext to keep more warships near the middle east. and it's something the whole world would appreciate(even russia would be happy with us).

5. darfur ravaged as president al-Bashir thugs around - reagan decision: send in lots of humanitarian aid. we say we are the last superpower but we do nothing for these people. it is really disgusting how little our country has done. we did more for the starving ethiopians under reagan. what's happening in darfur is even worse than the famines.

6. china is expanding its military capabilities - reagan decision: unfortunately, i think reagan would have turned this into another cold war. he would have done a show of force (see #1) and expanded our military budget. our economic dependency on china makes this thornier, but reagan showed us how to defeat the communists - bankrupt them into spending too much on their military.

there are many other foreign policy issues facing our country but these are some of the top. unfortunately, i think this is what our current administration will do on all them obama decision: rhetoric.