Items are posted in chronological order or order of order of
discovery.
Obama's Greatest Attribute -- Arrogance
Obama
said the Bush administration’s announcement it was bringing
some U.S. troops home fell short, calling it a "modest" step that
indicated no real change in policy.
"At this point what it appears is the next president will inherit a
status quo that is still unstable, Obama told reporters at a high school
outside Dayton. "And what’s going to be required is a
comprehensive strategy, and that’s what I’ve been offering for the last
two years...."
Mind you, Commander-in Chief Obama has never
even been a boy scout, but now he's second-guessing the combined wisdom
of the Department of Defense, the Pentagon, the Joint Chiefs, Central
Command, the Presidents National Defense Team and the real
Commander-in-Chief.
What More Do You Need To Know?
Abe Greenwald
says,
"Successful politicians aren’t just good at what they do; they’re
lucky." Obama’s being on a Hawaii vacation when Russia invades
Georgia is a stroke of luck for John McCain. (Calm down, calm
down. I’m not saying that Russia invading Georgia is lucky for anyone.
It’s the timing of Obama’s trip that’s fortuitous for the McCain camp.)
For starters, it creates an (undeserved) correlation between global
crisis and a lounging Obama. This dovetails exquisitely with McCain’s
recent push to discredit Obama as a serious statesman. Also, the timing
simply allows McCain to be the the most prepared with a comment, and
McCain has capitalized on this opportunity. Here’s a brief statement
from the Senator:
"Russia should immediately and unconditionally cease its military
operations and withdraw all forces from sovereign Georgian territory.
What is most critical now is to avoid further confrontation between
Russian and Georgian military forces. The consequences of
Euro-Atlantic stability and security are grave. The government of
Georgia has called for a cease fire and for a resumption of direct talks
on South Ossetia with international mediators. The U.S. should
immediately convene an emergency session of the United Nations Security
Council to call on Russia to reverse course. The U.S. should
immediately work with the E.U. and the OSCE to put diplomatic pressure
on Russia to reverse this perilous course that it has chosen."
As that concise and specific statement demonstrates, successful
politicians aren’t just lucky either. They’re informed and
resolute. When the world goes kablooey, as it does from time to
time, the difference between gibberish about world citizenship and the
"consequences of Euro-Atlantic stability and security" comes into sharp
focus. Here is the vague hash Obama has come up with in response
to Russian aggression:
"I strongly condemn the outbreak of violence in Georgia, and urge an
immediate end to armed conflict. Now is the time for Georgia and
Russia to show restraint, and to avoid an escalation to full-scale war.
Georgia’s territorial integrity must be respected."
Obama called for direct talks among all sides and said the United
States, U.N. Security Council and other parties should try to help bring
about a peaceful resolution.
Forget all the ads, the videos, the talking points, and the accusations.
Here’s what it comes down to: In a geopolitical crisis, you have one
candidate with a handle on the specific players and their intentions,
and ideas on specific ways to move forward: then you have another
candidate who says parties "should try to help bring about a peaceful
resolution." There’s your choice.
Strongly!
On Friday the Obama campaign issued a pathetic
statement "strongly condemn[ing] the outbreak of violence in
Georgia." Strongly! Obama found no reason to distinguish
between Russia and Georgia in strongly condemning the outbreak of
violence. Or perhaps he found it too difficult to do so.
Obama has apparently continued to deliberate on the subject. Given
some more time to think about it, one can infer from this Reuters story,
Obama has made a big decision. Obama has decided that it's better
to sound like John McCain.
Clueless
Barack Obama without a teleprompter is an accident
waiting to happen. Sometimes he reveals his ignorance of history,
sometimes he stumbles incoherently, and sometimes he blurts out what he
really believes.
That's what happened today when Obama tried to talk about Georgia, a
topic that has embarrassed him more than once already, beginning when,
in the first hours after the invasion, he parroted the Russian line, by
equating Russia's invasion of Georgia with our toppling of Saddam
Hussein.
Obama
told an audience at Purdue
University that, his administration would rid the world of
nuclear weapons.
The problem is, he wants to start in America.
Obama's plan to disarm America (01:35)
While Obama proceeds with his plan to disarm America and neuter its
military, he has a plan to establish his own private, civilian security
force.
Master Of The Universe
Kristinn, at FreeRepublic.com,
observes that Barack Obama and his team agree: At 46 years old, with no
military service or foreign policy experience, having only spent three
years as a United States senator, he is master of the universe.
Susan Rice, Obama's senior foreign policy advisor, informed the German
news magazine Der Spiegel in an
interview published today that her candidate "bows to nobody in
understanding this world."
Rice prefaced this conceit by relating his world travels: "Senator Obama
has travelled to Europe, Africa, the Middle East and South Asia many
times before. He lived in Asia."
This evening ABC News Nightline will
broadcast an interview with Obama conducted after he met with Iraqi
Prime Minister Maliki and Gen. Petraeus today in Iraq.
Obama's arrogance shone through as he dismissed Petraeus' concerns about
Obama's plans for Iraq:
"My job is to think about the national security interests as a whole
and to weigh and balance risks in Afghanistan and Iraq. Their job
is just to get the job done here, and I completely understand that."
Obama, in his arrogance, failed to recognize that Petraeus, having
recently been promoted to head up Centcom, which oversees both Iraq and
Afghanistan, would also be looking at Iraq from the same perspective.
Obama also made clear he worked to undermine President Bush's
negotiations with the Maliki government on the new status of forces
agreement:
"I made very clear to him that we have one president at a time.
And it is the job of the Bush administration to work with [the] Iraqi
government. I am a United States senator, I can present my views
as a candidate and I can present my views as a senator who believes that
we can't bind the next president to an agreement that involves us
committing troops or budget."
While Obama has not been elected yet, he and his team are acting like it
is all over but the swearing in ceremony.
His presidential-style rally being held in Berlin later this week is one
more example of the self-crowning of Obama.
Many an arrogant man who "bowed to nobody in their understanding of this
world" have found themselves to be proven disastrously wrong.
Unfortunately the world usually pays a horrendous price for their
arrogance.
Berlin is a good city for Obama to learn a valuable lesson or two.
However, the lessons of Berlin will likely be lost on him.
In the Der Speigel interview, Rice said of Obama: "He sees the world as
more complex than simply good versus evil."
For more than half a century, Berlin was the front line in the battle
between good and evil in the world -- from the rise and fall of Adolph
Hitler through the rise and fall of the Berlin wall.
However, a man who has foretold his own coming ("we are the ones we have
been waiting for") may be too far gone already.
Related:
At a morning background
briefing, reporters parried with senior advisers on the
characterization of Obama’s speech Thursday in Berlin as a campaign
rally. The outdoor speech at the Victory Column could draw
thousands of people, similar to the size of Obama events in the United
States.
"It is not going to be a political speech," said a senior foreign policy
adviser, who spoke to reporters on background. "When the president
of the United States goes and gives a speech, it is not a political
speech or a political rally.
"But he is not president of the United States," a reporter reminded the
adviser.
Weakness Or Wisdom
Scott at
PowerLine blog noted that Senator Obama's victory speech last night
turned impressively to the general election campaign. He all but
clinched the Democratic nomination last night. His speech sounded
very much like a nomination acceptance speech. I expect that the
themes he sounded in his speech last night will reappear in his speech
this summer in Denver.
I trust the American people to understand that it is not weakness, but
wisdom to talk not just to our friends, but to our enemies, like
Roosevelt did, and Kennedy did, and Truman did.
Maguire comments:
Obama's supporters are too young to know any of this, but Roosevelt led
the United States in the war against Hitler; the Allied policy was
unconditional surrender, so there was very little for Roosevelt and
Hitler to discuss, and in fact, the two did not meet at all (but they
did exchange correspondence before the war).
So my guess is that Obama is thinking of the Yalta Conference with
Churchill and Stalin as talking to "our enemies," although of course we
were still allied with the Soviet Union against Germany and Japan at
that point. Beyond that, is the Yalta Conference something Obama
and his advisers view as a success worthy of emulation? Puzzling.
And the United States has been talking with Iran right along in any
event. It's not for lack of communication that Iran has been
conducting its war on the United States.
When Obama invoked past Democratic presidents in his speech last night,
he started with Roosevelt but omitted Johnson, Carter, and Clinton.
Moving on from the Clinton era is part of the thesis of Obama's
candidacy, so the omission is understandable. Of past Democratic
presidents, none has set a better example of the pitfalls of "talking to
our enemies" than Jimmy Carter, both in his presidency and his travels
since (though Carter probably would not acknowledge that his
interlocutors are our enemies).
Obama may not be knowledgeable enough to know he doesn't want to emulate
Roosevelt at Yalta. Perhaps he believes that Roosevelt's name
sanctions whatever action he can attach to it. But Obama is smart
enough to know that he doesn't want to profess a desire to emulate Jimmy
Carter, if only on political grounds. In substance, however, it
seems to me that the president Obama most closely resembles on this
point is Carter.
Backwards
Frank Gaffney says Obama is working against our friends and for our
foes. He undermines our allies. Emboldens our enemies.
Diminishes our country. If anyone doubts these words summed up the
Obama Doctrine, look at what Obama's team perpetrated last week in
Honduras.
Assistant Secretary of State Thomas A. Shannon and the
National Security Council's Senior Director for Western Hemisphere
Affairs Dan Restrepo visited the Honduran capital, Tegucigalpa, on
Wednesday to compel the country's recalcitrant democrats to make a deal
with the man the latter had lawfully removed from the presidency on June
28.
It remains to be seen whether, pursuant to this deal, former
President Manuel Zelaya will now be -- as he claims -- restored to
power. What is already unmistakable, though, is that it is better
to be a foe of America than its friend.
The Obama administration
has been on the wrong side in this affair from the moment the Honduran
supreme court and congress acted as required by their nation's
constitution in the face of Mr. Zelaya's effort to engineer an illegal
second term.
Instead of standing with those who lawfully
protected democracy, Obama and his minions immediately joined the
region's authoritarians -- including notably Venezuela's Hugo Chavez and
Cuba's Castro brothers -- in declaring Mr. Zelaya a victim of a "coup."
When the interim Honduran president, Roberto Micheletti, a
member of Mr. Zelaya's own party, and his countrymen refused to
reinstall the latter, Team Obama unleashed their full "soft power"
arsenal upon America's impoverished ally.
Drawing upon an
opinion authored by notorious transnationalist Harold Koh, the State
Department's legal adviser, who found that the Hondurans' action was
indeed a "coup" and must be reversed, the U.S. administration and/or its
allies on Capitol Hill cut off most aid to Honduras; issued travel
warnings to discourage tourism; blocked visas for officials of the
interim government; tried to preclude fact-finding missions to
Tegucigalpa by Republican legislators; and promoted the heavy-handed,
pro-Zelaya "diplomacy" of the Organization of American States' leftist
Chilean secretary general, Jose Miguel Insulza.
As the Honduran
democrats refused to bend to such coercion, Mr. Obama's team dropped the
big one: The United States would join the hemisphere's large and growing
block of authoritarian nations in refusing to recognize the legitimacy
of the election scheduled for the end of this month.
The effect
of this power play would be to deny the people of Honduras the one
peaceful means they would have to end the nightmare Mr. Zelaya
unleashed.
Paul Mirengoff
says
the author, Scott Wilson, is pretty clear that Obama's approach to
dealing with our allies and our adversaries has come up empty so far,
whether in enlisting allies to help us in Afghanistan, persuading them
to stimulate their economies, or causing Iran to change its behavior.
How to explain Obama's embrace of an approach that seems so ineffectual?
Wilson does so by claiming that Obama's approach to dealing with
nations is an outgrowth of his days as a "community organizer." He
argues that Obama sees foreign countries, including our adversaries, as
part of a community to be organized. Wilson writes:
President Obama is applying the same tools to
international diplomacy that he once used as a community organizer
on Chicago's South Side, constructing appeals to shared interests
and attempting to bring the government's conduct in line with its
ideals. . . .
As a community organizer, Obama worked to
identify the common interests of neighborhoods suffering through the
economic aftermath of plant closings and of the politicians elected
to represent them. The role requires patience -- a word used
consistently by his advisers in regard to reviving Middle East peace
talks or reaching out to Iran -- and cultivating a lower profile
than the other parties involved.
Whether Obama is actually cultivating a lower profile than the
other parties involved in his foreign dealings -- and, indeed, whether
he did so during his ascension through Chicago politics -- is open to
question. But let's put that issue to one side. Does Obama really
believe that the relationship between the U.S. and its allies to the
likes of China, Russia, and Iran is comparable to the relationship
between aggrieved constituents and their elected representatives? If
so, then he certainly is a fool.
But the evidence is that Obama
believes no such thing. Obama has not treated Israel and Honduras with
the same "patience" he has treated our adversaries. They have not been
the beneficiaries of his "I come here to listen, not to lecture"
approach to activism.
Thus, Obama's selective use of what Wilson
calls a "cool, interests-based" approach to foreign policy should be
viewed as a matter of ideology, not one of style. After all, Jimmy
Carter was never a community organizer; yet his approach to the world
was an awful lot like Obama's.
In sum, the only relationship between Obama's diplomacy and his
community activism is the left-wing ideology behind both.
Obama In Happy Fairyland
Mark Steyn says that in years to come --
assuming, for the purposes of argument, there are any years to come --
scholars will look back at Obama's Nuclear Security Summit and marvel.
For once, the cheap comparisons with 1930s appeasement barely suffice:
To be sure, in 1933, the great powers were meeting in Geneva and holding
utopian arms control talks even as Hitler was taking office in Berlin.
But it's difficult to imagine Neville Chamberlain in 1938 hosting a
conference on the dangers of rearmament, and inviting America, France,
Brazil, Liberia and Thailand, but not even mentioning Germany.
Yet that's what Obama just did: he held a nuclear gabfest in 2010, the
biggest meeting of world leaders on American soil since the founding of
the United Nations 65 years ago -- and Iran wasn't on the agenda.
Granted that almost all of Obama's exciting, innovative "change we
can believe in" turns out to have been exhumed direct from the sclerotic
'70s to stagger around like a rotting zombie in polyester bell-bottoms
from some straight-to-video sequel, there's still something almost
touchingly quaint in the notion of an international summit on nuclear
"nonproliferation" in the 21st century. Five years ago, when there
was still a chance the world might prevent a nuclear Iran rather than
pretending to "contain" it, I remember the bewildered look from a
"nonproliferation expert" on a panel I was on after I suggested
nonproliferation was a laughably obsolescent frame for this discussion.
You could just about enforce nonproliferation back in the Cold War, when
the only official nuclear powers were the Big Five at the U.N. Security
Council and the entry level for the nuclear club was extremely expensive
and technologically sophisticated. Now it's not. If Pakistan
and North Korea can be nuclear powers, who can't? North Korea's
population is starving. Its gross domestic product (GDP) per
capita is lower than Ghana's, lower than Zimbabwe's, lower than
Mongolia's. Which is to say its GDP is all but undetectable.
Obama’s Wasteful
Spending Trumps National Security
George Landrith
says the
Obama Administration has already slashed missile defense in Eastern
Europe that would neutralize Iran's growing missile threat. The
Obama Administration has already slashed the Airborne Laser, which is a
powerful defensive tool against potential hot spots like Iran and North
Korea.
The Obama Administration's has killed a "next generation"
bomber, the Air Force's F-22, is on the verge of ending the Marine Corps
Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle, and appears ready to prematurely end
production of the most advanced carrier-based fighter in the world, the
Navy's F-18.
Meanwhile, these Obama "budget cutters" are intent
on running record-setting trillion-dollar annual deficits for the next
ten years, with no limits on government growth whatsoever -- except on
our national defense. Does this make sense to you?
The
failure to continue production of the F-18 could result in a shortage of
almost 200 F-18 Super Hornet fighter jets for our premier power
projection platform -- the aircraft carrier. Since the
strike-fighter complement aboard an aircraft carrier is roughly 50
aircraft, those cuts could shut down four of our ten aircraft-carrier
battle groups.
I've always been a budget hawk. That has
meant wanting the federal government to spend dramatically less.
And the Defense budget needs to be reviewed every year, just like
everything else.
But spending cuts have to be smart.
Despite the obvious need to cut federal spending, we will spend hundreds
of billions of dollars on so-called "stimulus" while slashing tens of
billions on vital national security programs. Why, precisely, does
everything except defense spending count as "stimulus" with the Obama
people?
Byron York
says Obama's national security strategy is to be based on education,
clean energy, and rights for terrorists.
Obama’s speech at West
Point Saturday is the most sweeping statement yet of his plan to create
a national security policy emphasizing education, clean energy, green
jobs, anti-climate change measures, the granting of full American
constitutional rights to accused terrorists, and "engagement" with
America’s enemies.
Obama is set to release his first formal
full-scale national security strategy in the coming week. At West
Point, he told the Class of 2010 that the United States must "see the
horizon" beyond the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. To reach that
horizon, he explained, "we must pursue a strategy of national renewal
and global leadership" and "build the sources of America’s strength and
influence."
In Obama administration parlance, phrases like
"national renewal" often mean far-reaching domestic programs, and at
West Point Obama linked three domestic goals to national security.
First, there is education, so American children can "compete in an age
where knowledge is capital, and the marketplace is global."
Second, there is clean energy, to "power new industry and unbound us
from foreign oil and preserve our planet." Third, there is
scientific innovation that "unlocks wonders as unforeseen to us today as
the microchip and the surface of the moon were a century ago."
As
for granting full U.S. constitutional rights to accused terrorists,
Obama said a "fundamental part" of American national security strategy
will be the support of "universal rights" abroad, which begins with a
scrupulous adherence to them at home. "We will promote these
values above all by living them," Obama said, "through our fidelity to
the rule of law and our Constitution, even when it’s hard; even when
we’re being attacked; even when we’re in the midst of war."
"We
will commit ourselves," Obama told the West Point graduates, "to forever
pursuing a more perfect union." When Obama talks about "pursuing a
more perfect union," it’s a good bet he is referring to big domestic
programs.
Finally, there is diplomatic engagement, which Obama
has stressed since the 2008 campaign. The new engagement, perhaps
best symbolized by the administration’s sputtering efforts to influence
Iran’s nuclear intentions, will help the U.S. "shape an international
order that can meet the challenges of our generation," Obama said.
Strengthening old alliances and building "new partnerships" will help
the U.S. create "stronger international standards and institutions."
There is some debate about how much of a change Obama’s speech, and
the national security strategy it previews, represents. The New
York Times
saw it as a major break with the policies of George W. Bush.
John Hinderaker of PowerLine
read it as an indication of continuity with the recent past.
But there seems little doubt that it represents a significant change in
emphasis from the Bush administration and one that sends a message to
the world that Obama is dedicated to domestic concerns and the
projection of soft power abroad. Will our adversaries see that as
a statement of strength?
The
usurper, who refuses to enforce the immigration laws of the United
States, has ther gall to say, "through our fidelity to the rule of law
and our Constitution..." -- what a joke!
Obama's National Security Advisor Called A
Disaster By Gates
Rick Moran
says that with the departure of General Jones from the White House,
America is losing a fine public servant and excellent military man.
One of the few in Washington who eschewed the limelight, Jones did his
job fairly competently and with a minimum of self promotion. Will
we get that lucky with his replacement?
The man picked to be
Obama's next national security advisor was sharply criticized by top
officials in the administration, with the Secretary of Defense Gates
saying he would be a "disaster" in the job.
According to
the new book about the Obama administration's handling of Iraq and
Afghanistan by Bob Woodward, Pentagon chief Robert Gates expressed deep
reservations about Deputy National Security Advisor Tom Donilon, who has
been tapped to be the successor to Gen. James Jones.
In the book
"Obama's Wars," Woodward writes that, "Gates felt that Donilon did not
understand the military or treat its senior leadership with sufficient
respect."
"The secretary later told Jones that Donilon would be a
‘disaster' as Obama's national security adviser," Woodward wrote.
Jones -- a former Marine Corps Commandant who served as Obama's
national security advisor since the first days of the administration --
also warned Woodward about Donilon's shortcomings, saying though he had
"organizational skills," his deputy didn't know enough about the
subjects on which he was advising Obama.
Donilon has never
bothered to go to Iraq or Afghanistan, nor is he known for his breadth
of knowledge with regard to other foreign policy issues.
Ed
Lasky adds:
Hey it might have been worse -- the deputy
NSC adviser, Ben Rhodes, was a frustrated fiction writer who morphed
into the Foreign Policy speechwriter for the Obama campaign and then
was promoted to be the deputy NSC adviser-with no, zero, military
,intelligence or diplomatic experience. He also was involved
in writing the Cairo speech.
Maybe we should count our blessings....
Thomas Lifson adds: Donilon was a lobbyist for Fannie Mae, and fought
off regulatory reforms. If he does for national security what he
accomplished for the economy, we are doomed.
Related:New Obama security adviser
clashed with military
Obama Needs To Wake Up And Smell the
Gunpowder
Ted Galen Carpenter says that while the Obama
administration worries about security issues half way around the world
in such places as Afghanistan, Iran, and North Korea, a serious problem
is brewing right on our southern border. Drug-related violence in
Mexico has claimed some 29,000 lives since President Felipe Calderon
declared war on the cartels four years ago. The situation is now
so bad that some analysts worry that Mexico could become a "failed
state."
That outcome is a relatively unlikely, worst-case
scenario, but the violence is already bad enough that it warrants far
more attention from America’s leaders than it is receiving. Yet
when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told the Council on Foreign
Relations that Mexico’s violence was reaching the point of becoming an
insurgency, Obama promptly disavowed her analysis.
But
developments just in 2010 confirm that Clinton’s concerns are not
exaggerated. This year has marked the first appearance of car
bombings in the conflict between Mexico’s security forces and the drug
cartels. Such an escalation suggests that the cartels may be
moving beyond just trying to control the profitable trafficking routes
into the United States and are now embarking on a terrorist campaign.
Other incidents reinforce that fear. Previously, most victims in
the drug violence were traffickers killed by rivals or security
personnel who ran afoul of the cartels. But over the past year
there have been several attacks on birthday parties and other gatherings
in which the dead appeared to be civilians who had no apparent
connection to the drug trade.
In addition, the turmoil is spreading far beyond
the usual danger zones in border cities such as Ciudad Juarez, Tijuana,
and Nuevo Laredo. Shootouts have occurred in Acapulco, Cancun,
Cuernavaca and other prominent tourist destinations . Monterrey, which
one business association in 2005 termed the most peaceful major city in
all of Latin America, has been convulsed by turf fights between rival
cartels. The security environment in Monterrey has become so bad
that the U.S. State Department instructed its diplomatic personnel in
the consulate there to send their dependents out of the area.
American -- and even some Mexican -- business executives are doing the
same with their families.
The overall pace and severity of the
carnage is increasing as well. 2010 promises to set a new record for
deaths -- breaking the record set just last year. There have been
several high-profile assassinations, including a dozen mayors and the
leading candidate for governor in a northern Mexican state.
Hot Air Pundit
contends that this remark by Obama is one of the most
irresponsible remarks ever heard from a president.
"It's not sufficient for the United
States, or France or other members of the nuclear club simply to
say all of you have to stop but we're not gonna do anything to
change ourselves"
So we really can't tell Iran that they can't have
Nuclear weapons if we're not gonna change ourselves? This
coming from a sitting president? In Obama's mind our
possession of nuclear weapons is no different that a rogue regime
having them. He sees America as some imperial power that has
to be cut down to size to match every other country.
I am
unaware of the United States saying it will wipe another nation off
the map like Iran has with Israel. And just exactly how do you
make nuclear weapons obsolete? Will North Korea suddenly give
up their nukes in response to another meaningless U.N. resolution?
Did resolutions work against Saddam Hussein? This is what
happens you elect a naive, inexperienced community organizer to the
nations highest office.
One thing is absolutely sure about
this guy, there's not a single solitary part of Barack Obama that
sees America as a shining city on a hill.
Obama Traded Away Missile Shield For
Russian Support On Iran
Poland's
The News is reporting that Obama cancelled anti-missile shield
plans in Poland and the Czech Republic to get Russia support for UN
sanctions against Iran, documents made public by Wikileaks reveal.
The released documents also show that out of the 251,287 cables
planned for release by Wikileaks, 972 come from US embassies in Warsaw
(970) and Krakow (2). The most recent cables from Poland are dated
February 2010 though their contents have not yet been revealed.
One of the cables from Poland is labelled "top secret," 30 "secret,"
nine "confidential," 556 "sensitive," 204 "for official use only" and
170 "not classified as confidential."
Earlier, US diplomats had
informed Poland’s Foreign Ministry that documents were to be released by
Wikileaks which could potentially compromise confidentiality between the
two sides.
The whistle blowing web site, publishing diplomatic
cables and other documents via The New York Times, the Guardian (UK) and
other media outlets, show that George Bush’s anti-missile shield plan to
station 10 interceptor rockets in Poland not far from the Kaliningrad
(Russia) border and a radar system in the Czech Republic was seen as an
obstacle by Obama in getting tougher sanctions against Iran’s nuclear
ambitions.
The diplomatic cables show that the US believes that
Iran has already received missiles from North Korea which could threaten
western Europe.
The released documents show that Russia had
intensified its campaign against the anti-missile shield in 2009, with
Moscow believing the system would be directed at Poland's immediate east
and not Iran.
Obama cancelled the anti-missile system in
September.
Three Blind Mice
Now doesn't this make you feel safe and
secure?
US Director of National
Intelligence James Clapper was asked about the
recent London terror arrests by ABC News
interviewer Diane Sawyer:
"First of all,
London. How serious is it? Any implication
that it was coming here?"
After a long pause, Clapper replied:
"London?"
The U. S. Director of National Intelligence, ,
whose office has claimed his "knowledge of the
threat streams in Europe is profound and
multi-dimensional," was completely unaware that
British police
have arrested 12 men, aged 17-28, from
London, Cardiff, and Stoke-on-Trent, said to be
involved in a plot to bomb "unspecified
targets" in the U.K., "inspired by Al Qaeda."
This appears the largest arrest for terrorism
in Britain since April 2009.
Sawyer
brought up Clapper's apparent ignorance of the
developments later in the interview, saying, "I
was a little surprised you didn't know about
London," she said.
"Oh, I'm sorry, I
didn't," Clapper replied.
You'll
notice how John Brennan,
he of passport scrubbing fame, tries to cover
for the clueless Clapper.
Yesterday,
we heard from Janet
Napolitano, who said, in the same interview,
"What I say to the American people is that…
thousands of people are working 24/7, 364 days
a year to keep the American people safe."
364 days a year? Let's hope al-Qaeda
doesn't know which day Homeland Security is
closed.
Stupidity, Intelligence, and Egypt
Jed Babbin says if you want to understand why
our power to influence world events is a shambles, you need only to
listen to what came out of the White House, the CIA and the Director of
National Intelligence last week in response to the crisis in Egypt.
Start with a point so basic that even liberals should agree with it:
if you lack timely, accurate and expertly-analyzed intelligence on other
peoples and nations, the making of foreign policy is reduced to mere
guesswork. American policymakers have -- roughly since Jimmy
Carter and his CIA director, Stansfield Turner, decided that we really
don't need spies -- been reduced to guessing what the world is doing.
With Obama in charge of the guesswork, American policy is apparently
being made in disregard of what little intelligence there is. As I
wrote on Egypt last week, Obama sided with the protesters, then with
Mubarak and then again with the protesters who he assumed were aiming to
establish a democratic government.
Throughout the crisis, Obama
was content to dramatize his pretentiousness, doing his best to imply
broadly that we had an influence on the outcome which we clearly do not.
He assumed, without evidence, that the protesters uniformly demanded
democracy and that if Mubarak fell, democracy would result. In his
statement last Friday, Obama was taking credit for Mubarak's fall and
urging the Egyptian military to accomplish a quick transition to
democracy.
In response, the Egyptian junta suspended the nation's
constitution and dissolved its parliament. It is now reportedly
forcing protesters to leave Cairo's Tahrir Square.
Too much has
been made of CIA Director Leon Panetta's prediction to a congressional
committee that Mubarak would be out of office on Thursday night.
In the open hearing, Panetta was repeating what he'd observed on
television. If he had classified intelligence that indicated
Mubarak's imminent departure, he couldn't have told the committee while
the television cameras focused on him.
Panetta -- a partisan
Democrat with no intelligence experience -- came into the CIA job at a
time when the intelligence agency was under assault by the congressional
Democrats who had followed Nancy Pelosi off the cliff in condemning CIA
interrogations of terrorist prisoners. To his credit, Panetta
defended the spy agency as best he could. His August 2009 op-ed in
the Washington Post was unprecedented. In it he condemned the
"…climate of suspicion and partisanship on Capitol Hill that our
intelligence officers -- and our country -- would be better off
without."
Panetta and Obama -- and Bush before them -- did
nothing to reform our intelligence apparatus to produce better results.
That is one unspoken problem. Another is the politicization of our
intelligence agencies, especially the CIA.
Richard Cheney and
Donald Rumsfeld were wrongfully accused of trying to politicize
intelligence to justify the Iraq war. In fact, they were trying to
push CIA analysts to justify their conclusions. What they got,
instead, was George Tenet's statement that the case on Iraqi weapons of
mass destruction was a "slam dunk."
And throughout the Bush era,
the CIA was engaged in politically motivated leaks. Remember Joe
Wilson's trip to Niger? As I wrote here in November 2005, Wilson's
mission was a CIA setup to disprove President Bush's justification for
the Iraq war. And it was only the most publicized CIA attempt to
discredit Bush, along with the long series of leaks.
Last week,
Obama's Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper's statement:
"The term Muslim Brotherhood is an umbrella
term for a variety of movements. In the case of Egypt, a very
heterogeneous group, largely secular, which has eschewed violence
and has decried al-Qaeda as a perversion of Islam."
...substantially worsened the politicization of our
intelligence community.
Yesterday, we leaned that weapons of "mass
effect" have been found in an American
port. Today, Dr. Vahid Majidi, the FBI’s assistant director in
charge of the FBI’s Weapons of Mass Destruction Directorate says the
probability that the U.S. will be hit with a weapons of mass destruction
attack at some point is 100 percent,
Such an attack could be
launched by foreign terrorists, lone wolves who are terrorists, or even
by criminal elements, Majidi says. It would most likely employ
chemical, biological, or radiological weapons rather than a nuclear
device.
As it is, Majidi says, American intelligence picks up
hundreds of reports each year of foreign terrorists obtaining WMD.
When American forces invaded Afghanistan, they found that al-Qaida was
working on what Majidi calls a "nascent" weapons of mass destruction
effort involving chemical and biological weapons.
In every other
case so far, the reports of foreign terrorists obtaining WMD have turned
out to be unfounded (what about the
one at the link?). However, Majidi’s directorate
within the FBI investigates more than a dozen cases in the U.S. each
year where there was intent to use WMD.
For example, in 2008, the
FBI arrested Roger Bergendorff, who was found to have ricin and
anarchist literature. Ricin kills cells by inhibiting protein
synthesis. Within several days, the liver, spleen, and kidneys of
a person who inhales or ingests ricin stop working, resulting in death.
"The notion of probability of a WMD attack being low or high is a
moot point because we know the probability is 100 percent," Majidi says.
"We’ve seen this in the past, and we will see it in the future.
There is going to be an attack using chemical, biological or
radiological material."
Ronald Kessler says
even a WMD attack that does not kill a great number of people
would have a crushing psychological impact.
"A singular lone wolf
individual can do things in the dark of the night with access to a
laboratory with low quantities of material and could hurt a few people
but create a devastating effect on the American psyche," Majidi says.
Barack Obama's
ignorance of America and its role in the world is making the United
States less safe and that should bar him from a second term in office,
former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum
tells Newsmax.TV.
In an interview at the NRA’s 140th Annual
Meeting in Pittsburgh, Santorum gave a laundry list of ills Obama’s
policies have inflicted on the country including higher rates of
inflation, rising gas prices and an energy policy that "says let's focus
on windmills not drilling for oil and gas."
"We have a president who has created a
vacuum, (who) suggests that we have to lead from behind -- that's
the most recent word out of the White House. What superpower
leads from behind? I mean if it’s worth leading you get out in
front and you show people it’s worth leading and making sacrifices
for."
"This president doesn’t understand …what makes this
country great, doesn’t understand our role in the world and it is
making America less safe, making our economy unstable and putting
our fiscal condition in obviously in a very precarious position."
On what is to likely to be a major campaign issue, Santorum said he
believes "we need to raise the debt ceiling, but we need to do some
things to show that this is not going to be an ever-worsening problem."
He said he has been in too many negotiations that end with promises of
future cuts.
"No more of those games," he said. "The game
has to be now. We are going to cut now, we are going to change
things now, we are going to put things in place to bend that cost curve
of the federal government to restrain its encroachment on people’s
lives. And if we don’t do that I would not vote for a debt ceiling
increase."
Obama's Missile Secrets Betrayal
Jack Rudd
says that in the
first article below, former CIA Director James Woolsey alerts us to
a major betrayal by the Obama administration regarding missile defense.
Sarah Palin comments in the second.
You ask why? Well, she has a history of involvement in
national security issues and she has long advocated a strong missile
defense. The National Guard troops who operate our
Ground-Based Midcourse Defense (GMD) missile defense ground station
and interceptors in Alaska reported to her when she was governor.
This could well be a legitimate impeachable
offense.
Giving Away The Farm
By R. James
Woolsey and Rebeccah Heinrichs, June 7, 2011
"... Congress
discovered that the administration has been working on a missile
defense agreement with the Russians and that Moscow had requested
that the United States share with it loads of sensitive U.S. missile
defense technology and operational authority as part of that deal.
In the administration's eagerness to please the Kremlin, it may just
oblige.
"The House of Representatives has given a firm 'no'
to that prospect through its decision to ignore Obama's veto threat
and approve the defense appropriations bill by a veto-proof vote of
322 to 96. The Senate may act similarly. On April 14, 39
Republican senators sent a letter to the president expressing their
concern over the administration's consideration of granting to the
Russians sensitive U.S. technology and 'red button' authority to
prevent the interception of incoming missiles headed for U.S. troops
or allies. This would allow Russia to deny the United States
the ability to intercept a missile Washington had determined to be a
threat."
In
this article Sarah Palin reacts with astonishment.
Another "WTF" Obama Foreign Policy Moment*
by Sarah Palin, June 9, 2011 at 4:16am
*As many readers
have pointed out "WTF" is for "Winning The Future," Obama's
re-election campaign slogan
Obama wants to give Russia our
missile defense secrets because he believes that we can buy their
friendship and cooperation with this taxpayer-funded gift. But
giving military secrets and technologies to a rival or competitor
like Russia is just plain dumb. You can't buy off Russia.
And giving them advanced military technology will not create
stability. What happens if Russia gives this technology (or
sells it!) to other countries like Iran or China? After all,
as Woolsey points out, Russia helped Iran with its missile and
nuclear programs. Or what happens if an even more hardline
leader comes to power in the Kremlin?
