Archive for category Defense
Russia and the New World Order
Posted by Tom in Defense, Foreign Policy, Military Policy on February 20, 2010
Mark Steyn’s column, Keeping You Safe, in the February 20th NRO is too important not to highlight. He starts out lightly, panning the nanny state protections foisted by the western governments on their citizens.
He gets to the heart of the matter quickly: Iran is going nuclear rather quickly. Last year it had 400 centrifuges enriching uranium to 3.5%; this year it has 8,000 enriching uranium to 20%. Dirty bomb quality, yes; but warhead quality, not quite, not yet. Mark doesn’t fail to point out the brilliant intelligence agencies over paid and all too prone to failure reported two years ago that Tehran had ended its weapons program in 2003! CIA director Leon Panetta now concedes this may be wrong!
To the heart of the matter, the consequences of a nuclear Iran, Steyn is intelligent and forward thinking: “But even without launching a single missile, Iran will at a stroke have transformed much of the map — and not just in the Middle East, where the Sunni dictatorships face a choice between an unsought nuclear arms race and a future as Iranian client states. In Eastern Europe, a nuclear Iran will vastly advance Russia’s plans for a de facto reconstitution of its old empire: In an unstable world, Putin will offer himself as the protection racket you can rely on. And you’d be surprised how far west “Eastern” Europe extends: Moscow’s strategic view is of a continent not only energy-dependent on Russia but also security-dependent. And, when every European city is within range of Tehran and other psycho states, there’ll be plenty of takers for that when the alternative is an effete and feckless Washington.” This article is a must read.
Sleep safely folks, your government and Obama’s “open handed” world view is protecting you!
Tom Motherway
Ugly Fact For “People of the Book”
Posted by Tom in Defense, Foreign Policy, Law, Morality & Religion in the Public Square, Terrorism on January 21, 2010
Mohammed started successfully consolidating Islam from Medina by raiding caravans heading to Mecca. Then, he started spreading Islam from his Medina base with conquests, eventually throughout the Mediterranean world .
For a time, he tolerated “people of the book.” This, the term given to Abrahamic religions, namely Judaism and Christianity, of which Islam claims to be one. Late antiquity through medieval times to modernity the Islamic-other, religious battles and tolerance shifted to and fro. Today, the civilized norm would seem to be benign tolerance in secular, neutral or tolerant environments, certainly to minorities within Islamic dominated societies.
Not so, as set out in Clifford May’s January 21st NRO post, The War Against the Infidels. In it he enumerates this century’s minority persecutions: dynamiting of the Bamiyan buddhas, desecration of the tomb of the prophet Ezekiel, this week’s Christian killings in Nigeria, the murder of Egyptian Coptic Christians, Pakistan church bombings, and the attacks on Malaysia Christian churches.
Very little reporting from Western journalists. Silence from academics, diplomats and politicians. We are too politically correct. We don’t want to offend. Our president goes around bowing and apologizing in the Middle East, but never condemning.
Clifford May sums it up well: “When the dots are connected, the picture that emerges is not pretty: An “Islamic world” in which terrorists are regarded often with lenience, sometimes with respect, and occasionally with reverence, while minority groups face increasing intolerance, persecution, and “cleansing,” and where even their histories are erased. And we in the West are too polite, too “politically correct,” and perhaps too cowardly to say much about it.”
Don’t look for socialist Europe, the UN or the Democratic administration to raise any objections.
Tom Motherway
Obama Sneaks In A Dangerous Christmas Package Under Our Tree
Posted by Tom in Constitution, Defense, Foreign Policy on January 4, 2010
The White House manages news release for maximum effect and in this case MINIMUM exposure:
Executive Order Granting Immunity from US Law to INTERPOL released December 17th. We are one of the 188 member countries in this international police force which is relatively autonomous. In 1983 President Reagan recognized it and granted it some privileges extended to foreign diplomats, but INTERPOL was still subject to our laws of search and seizure and its records subject to the freedom of information act. Obama’s executive order exempts INTERPOL property from search and confiscation and makes its archived records inviolable. Thus, INTERPOL has more power, greater secrecy, and greater immunity than any law enforcement agency in the US including the FBI!
One of the great dangers here is the arrest and prosecution of US citizens, including political office holders, members of the military, and intelligence officers for “crimes against humanity” for doing their duty in service of this country. Obama is seeking to bring make the US subject to the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court.
Yes, Obama would forego our sovereignty and void the legal principle of primacy of American law on American soil! In November we saw an Italian court convict 23 CIA agents in absentia for grabbing Osama Nasr with Italian security co-oeration! And in May Spain’s top investigative judge launched a new criminal investigation into allegations of torture at Guantanamo Bay! Both of these were mentioned in my November 6th post. Are we now to see this happen here?
As Andy McCarthy asks in his December 23 NRO Corner post: “Why would we elevate an international police force above American law? Why would we immunize an international police force from the limitations that constrain the FBI and other American law-enforcement agencies? Why is it suddenly necessary to have, within the Justice Department, a repository for stashing government files which, therefore, will be beyond the ability of Congress, American law-enforcement, the media, and the American people to scrutinize?” Steve Schippert has a complete analysis on his Threats Watch post.
Barack Hussein Obama has traveled the world bowing and apologizing for the United States as he seeks to Europeanize us. Now without any press briefing or explanation he has relinquished some of our major rights and protections to an international nongovernmental organization. Is it curious that he issued this order the week before Christmas when it was unlikely to get any press attention? He is a danger to our security.
Tom Motherway
“Not all Muslims are terrorists, but pretty much all terrorists are Muslim.”
Posted by Tom in Defense, Foreign Policy, Terrorism on January 2, 2010
That truism, complements of an Israeli security officer, is something Barack Hussein Obama refuses to recognize. Can the man be so intellectually stubborn as to not see this simple truth? Is he so dense as to put his obsessive, leftist political correctness over the security of the nation?
Bloomberg reports his feeble attempt to assure US citizens he will protect them, he used the word “war” in his recent pronouncement: “Our nation is at war against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred,” Obama said. Yes, he swallowed hard and used the word “war” instead of “overseas contingency operation!” But against whom or what, Mr. President? Terrorists, terrorism, perhaps? No, he still can’t bring himself to use the word “terrorist;” thus he leaves the “man-caused disaster” joke hanging in the air, marking his administration’s posture on defense.
That defense posture is well illustrated by treating the act of war as a mere crime: not interrogating the enemy combatant as to future attack plans, but giving him miranda rights, a defense attorney, discovery rights, and a trial by jury. All rights, hard won rights, of a US citizen! No wonder the nation is insecure. Charles Krauthammer said is well in his post today: “From the very beginning, President Obama has relentlessly tried to downplay and deny the nature of the terrorist threat we continue to face. Napolitano renames terrorism “man-caused disasters.” Obama goes abroad and pledges to cleanse America of its post-9/11 counterterrorist sins. Hence, Guatanamo will close, CIA interrogators will face a special prosecutor, and Khalid Sheik Mohammed will bask in a civilian trial in New York–a trifecta of political correctness and and image management. And just to make sure even the dimmest understand, Obama banishes the term “war on terror.” It’s over–that is, if it ever existed.”
It’s time to drop the PC crap, start profiling and stereotyping as the Israeli security officers do and stop frisking 80 year old grandmothers. We are looking for muslim terrorists, Islamic terrorists. These people come from certain countries, certain ethnic groups, certain religions. They have typically traveled to certain places as their passports well illustrate. Barack Hussein Obama, please learn this well and see that is is implemented in our security procedures.
Tom Motherway
Three Security Threats
Posted by Tom in Defense, Foreign Policy on December 29, 2009
THESE PERSONS ARE SERIOUS THREATS TO THE SECURITY OF THE UNITED STATES:
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano was confident in her Spiegel Online interview that there would be no worries about future “man-caused” disasters since her policies would be guided by “authoritative information” that makes us “much better to keep track of travelers coming into the US than we were before” 9/11. To buttress her belief she said that “the system worked” when referring to the foiled Christmas explosion on Northwest Flight 253.
But never fear she is focusing on the real threats to the US, “rightwing extremists.” Yes, that’s right, she is the same bozo whose department report, “Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment” singled out troops returning from the Iraq and Afghanistan “overseas contingency operations” as at risk for being recruited by rightwing extremists.
Napolitano is indeed a “man-caused disaster,” and a dangerous one at that.
Attorney General Eric Holder is a political animal of the first order but not much of a lawyer. He’s the bozo who decided to forego a guilty plea by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed before a military tribunal in Gitmo and award this 9/11 “man-caused disaster” planner all the rights of a United States citizen in a criminal trial in New York City in a civilian courtroom just blocks from Ground Zero. Notwithstanding this magnanimity he will try other terrorists before military tribunals in Gitmo. Why is Holder talking out of two sides of his multi-sided mouth? Why wouldn’t he save money and accept the KSM guilty plea before the military court?
Simple answer: Holder puts his leftist politics above the safety of this country. Holder is granting citizenship rights to a non-citizen, an enemy combatant. In a criminal law these include, discovery, exclusionary rules of evidence, confrontation, cross examination, counsel, and freedom from self-incrimination. Holder’s attorneys will be able to expose US intelligence and interrogations. They will be able to expose interrogation techniques so that “torture” can be shown and evidence excluded. Al Qaeda will have an international publicity stage that couldn’t otherwise be attained. All so Holder and his boss can play to their antiwar leftist base.
So, what happens to the Nigerian jihadist, Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab, is he treated as the enemy combatant he is so that he can be questioned and intelligence gained on future attack plans? No Holder’s precedent is followed and he is turned over to civil authorities and given the rights of a US citizen, gratis!
Eric Holder too is a “man-caused disaster” bent on harming the United States.
President Barack Hussein Obama, the community organizing Chicago supernova has an internationalist world view that denies the greatness of this nation; he is bent on weakening that greatness and plunging us into mediocrity. Thus he travels the world bowing and scraping and apologizing. He abandons our allies who courageously stood up to Russia and Iran and curries favor with Russia and Iran. He embarrasses us with his “Mi Amigo” embrace of Chavez and threats to forego diplomatic recognition to a duly elected Honduran government.
But like his minions Napolitano and Holder, he is a political animal. To gain sway with his leftist base in America and Europe and to appease our enemies abroad he quickly ordered the closure of our military detention facility at Guantanamo Bay. His order issued with so little thought or planning presented a problem, what to do with the detainees! Unfortunately, part of his solution was to release some of them, in fact six were just repatriated to Yemen! We now know that the young jihadist Mutallab who tried to bomb Northwest Flight 253 was trained in Yemen. Al Qaeda has hailed him a hero. (NRO has a good editorial posted today, Stop Releasing Terrorists!)
Hopefully the country will survive this team of incompetents.
Tom Motherway
Spirit of 1776 Lives-in Iran, This Time With Bits & Bites!
Posted by Tom in Constitution, Defense, National Character, Statism on December 10, 2009
Don’t let anyone ever tell you the spirit of freedom is dead. It lives on and is healthy in Iran. Technology is its weapon, twitter, texting, blogging, video, stills, Facebook, and sundry websites chronicle the fight against tyranny. AND IT IS GREAT, HEART WARMING!
Christopher Rhoads pens an article in Tuesday’s WSJ that references one Mehdi Saharkhiz, the 27 year old graphic designer, son of an imprisoned Iranian journalist, saying of the techies, “they have become their own news agency!” Indeed, they have figured out a way around the government stops, filters, and goons! Some of his videos can be seen on YouTube here.
Two points are worth making: One, Obama and his minions missed their chance to support a potential overthrow of this vile and dangerous statist regime. Obama seeks instead to curry favor with that regime. He is betting on the outcome and practical in that regard but wholly without the values that made this country great. He’d rather take the easy “mi amigo” course that he does with Chavez. Learn that lesson well.
Two: School yourselves on the latest technology. As was often true in the events leading up to 1776, the pen was indeed mighty, and indeed necessary. Today technology is the ink. It would be wise to learn that lesson as well!
Tom Motherway
Afghanistan Was the Easy Decision
Posted by Tom in Defense, Foreign Policy, National Character on December 3, 2009
After months of agonizing meetings Obama made the decision to send 30,000 troops to Afghanistan in support of General McChrystal’s request. Give him credit he made an unpopular decision–unpopular with his base; yes he offended his leftist base. I believe this is the first such decision of his presidency. Hopefully it will not be his last.
Yet the decision was fraught with compromise the most devastating part of which was his announcement to begin troop withdrawal in 18 months, mid-2011. This compromise was made no doubt to placate the same leftist base he offended. It unfortunately took away some of the firmness of his resolve and commitment. Yes, and this showed.
Ralph Peters in his December 2nd New York Post article, Setting Up Our Military To Fail, details the problems with the 2011 withdrawal just before the 2012 election. He characterizes the bait-and-switch as not just stupid but immoral, listing the following messages the speech sends: ”To our troops: Risk your lives for a mission I’ve written off. To our allies: Race you to the exit ramp. To the Taliban: Allah is merciful, your prayers will soon be answered. To Afghan leaders: Get your stolen wealth out of the country. To Pakistan: Renew your Taliban friendships now (and be nice to al Qaeda).” Let’s just hope Obama with subsequent firm action corrects some of these impressions.
And firm action along with unpopular decisions will soon be needed indeed. Afghanistan despite all the agonizing was the easy decision compared to what will be needed in Iran. Here we have a radical Islamist regime in illegitimate control. Soon it will have nuclear warheads for its missiles. It has vowed to destroy Israel and has as its ultimate goal the destruction of the United States. It freely exports terrorism in the region and to our own soil.
With regard to Iran Obama has not made any decisions unpopular with his base. On the contrary he has gone around apologizing for the US. He has curried favor with Ahmadinejad. He has all but abandoned Israel. And instead of supporting and encouraging the democratic Iranians contesting the mullahs and the rigged election, he has ignored them.
Ahmadinejad continues to refine nuclear fuel to weapon grade levels; he continues to build nuclear facilities; he laugh in the face of the useless UN inspectors; and he toys with Obama’s “tough talk.” Every time Obama draws a line in the sand, Ahmadinejad crosses it. Line-step, line-step, line-step, ad infinitum! Even France has suggested that Obama show some backbone to Iran. There have been so many lines in the sand crossed that the US no longer has any credibility with allies or foes. Anne Bayefsky in a December 3rd National Review Online post, The Iran Timeline, counts 13!
The real fact is that Islamists are a serious threat bent on controlling the world and not by democratic means. They have a gigantic worldwide presence. Europe will be Islamic within a generation and Sharia Law will rule. So far high birth rates and terrorism have been the tools of conquest. Intimidation both at the individual and societal level has also been used. The multiculturalists and internationalists have been their allies; and political correctness as we have recently have seen at Ft. Hood has been their protector.
But to date no Islamist state has nuclear weapons. Iran will change that within months. Then intimidation and terrorism will take on a whole new ugly character. Experts say that the hollow threats of sanctions, indeed sanctions themselves will not work to change Iran’s course. It’s pretty clear that Obama has wasted whatever credibility the US had with his smiles, bows and idle lines in the sand.
Thus one option is left, the military option. This is not a boots-on-the-ground option but an all out missile strike at the Iranian nuclear installations. It can either be preemptive and quick or as a counter attack in defense of Israel or other regional ally and prolonged. Barbara Lerner has posted a long and well reasoned article on National Review Online, The War for 21st-Century Freedom, December 3rd. Despite its length, I commend a full and thoughtful reading.
The front page of todays WSJ reports on an Iranian-American engineering student here receiving an email threat that if he didn’t stop criticizing Iran on Facebook, his family in Tehran would suffer; he thought it a joke until his mother called saying that his father had been arrested!
Yes, Obama’s Afghanistan decision was easy compared to those that lie before him on Iran. I pray for the sake of our country that he has the courage to make the hard ones.
Tom Motherway
Guns and Butter–We’ll Have Neither
Posted by Tom in Centrally Managed Economy, Defense, Financial Policy, Foreign Policy, Welfare on November 19, 2009
When Jerry O’Driscoll the other evening cited President Eisenhower’s belief that a strong economy was the basis for military strength, I questioned whether this was a chicken-egg issue. Jerry held his ground that economic strength was the foundation–it came first. On later reflection, I agree that this was logical at least since late medieval history. The reason is that it costs money and plenty of it to maintain a strong military which per se is uneconomic. The military produces nothing, save security.
In ancient times one could argue that armies would fight, kill and conquer for booty and spoils. That started to change in Roman times. The change continued in medieval times. But by Napoleon’s time, “an army travel(ed) on its stomach,” as Russia learned to its advantage.
What the military does produce though is critical to economic strength. Without security the economy cannot be maintained; without security innovation will not flower; without security economic risk will not be undertaken. There’s a symbioses here. QED, military strength is a good investment!
Since WWI American military might has been the protector of the free world. Our blood, lives, and treasure have pulled Western Europe out of two world wars and maintained the power balance needed to drive the Soviet Union into bankruptcy. They have also kept the Pacific Basin free from Japan in WWII and with the Truman Doctrine maintained the line in East Asia against the Chinese Communists until in recent times capitalism is beginning to take roots in China.
In essence we have paid with blood, lives and treasure for the free world’s economic protection. We have paid for its luxury to produce enough to institute welfare states–to become socialists! Yes, our blood, our lives, our money have given France the ability to look down its nose on us as money-grubbing capitalists with no appreciation of culture and no concept of leisure. While France takes the month of August off, has a 35 hour work week, and is guaranteed 30 annual holidays, we–at least those with real jobs–have settled for two weeks vacation and worked overtime, paying taxes all the while.
Where are we going from here? Obama is traveling the world bowing and apologizing for our past. He is abandoning our military commitments and our allies. He is ruining our economy for generations to come. And, he is logically disarming our nuclear capability and dithering on whether we should try to win–in his words–the “war of necessity” in Afghanistan. He wants to make us European. He’s a multi-nationalists. He would cede sovereignty to the UN. In short, he would rather be liked than right. In his morally-relativistic world, “being liked” is the measure of success!
Victor Davis Hanson penned an excellent litany November 19th on National Review Online, appropriately titled: Circling Sharks Smell American Blood. One paragraph worth note: “France, of all nations, is now warning us to get a backbone with the Iranians. So far the theocracy has snubbed our new outreach efforts aimed at stopping its nuclear proliferation. Iran’s Russian patrons now talk more nicely to us — but mostly because we caved on land-based missile defense in Eastern Europe, and got nothing really in return.” Yep, you heard that right, France is telling us to get a backbone!
Back to “guns and butter.” Past history shows that it is difficult to have a welfare state (butter), a strong military, and a vibrant economy. The strong economy can support the military but not the welfare state at the same time. Obama is bent on wrecking the economy by borrowing against our grandchildren’s future to create a more encompassing, more invasive welfare state. So in the end we will have neither guns nor butter. Come to think of it, we won’t have much of a country either.
Tom Motherway
Rights of US Citizens Cheapened
Posted by Tom in Defense, Military Policy, National Character on November 16, 2009
Obama’s DOJ minion Eric Holder has demeaned and cheapened the rights of US citizens. These are hard fought rights gained by our forefathers with risk, blood, life and intellect. Constitutional rights including, confrontation by accuser, trial by jury, representation by counsel, strict evidentiary standards. These are rights unavailable to the majority of the world population and envied by those who don’t have them.
So why you may reasonably ask, would we give them to people who seek to destroy them and everything they stand for? Why would we take the risk that our intelligence sources would be exposed by the rules of discovery and evidence granted by these rights? Why, in fact, would we allow the exercise of these rights by the 911 terrorists-confessed terrorists–to use them to escape punishment?
The dynamic Obama-Holder duo makes a mockery of our heritage and of the sacrifices made to secure it. They do it intentionally because they put no value in it. Ever-bowing Obama travels the world apologizing for America. This elitist president has never served, never contributed; but he has sucked at the public trough for his short meteoric career. His trashing of America sadly is in many ways a self-fulfilling prophesy.
I subscribe to and recommend Stratfor Global Intelligence (www.stratfor.com) which today has an excellent article on wartime trials. Republication is permitted so I insert a portion here:
It is important to consider how wars are conducted. Enemy soldiers are not shot or captured because of what they have done; they are shot and captured because of who they are — members of an enemy military force. War, once launched, is pre-emptive. Soldiers are killed or captured in the course of fighting enemy forces, or even before they have carried out hostile acts. Soldiers are not held responsible for their actions, but neither are they immune to attack just because they have not done anything. Guilt and innocence do not enter into the equation. Certainly, if war crimes are in question, charges may be brought; the UCMJ determines how they will be tried by U.S. forces. Soldiers are tried by courts-martial, not by civilian courts, because of their status as soldiers. Soldiers are tried by a jury of their peers, and their peers are held to be other soldiers.
International law is actually not particularly ambiguous about the status of the members of al Qaeda. The Geneva Conventions do not apply to them because they have not adhered to a fundamental requirement of the Geneva Conventions, namely, identifying themselves as soldiers of an army. Doing so does not mean they must wear a uniform. The postwar Geneva Conventions make room for partisans, something older versions of the conventions did not. A partisan is not a uniformed fighter, but he must wear some form of insignia identifying himself as a soldier to enjoy the conventions’ protections. As Article 4.1.6 puts it, prisoners of war include “Inhabitants of a non-occupied territory, who on the approach of the enemy spontaneously take up arms to resist the invading forces, without having had time to form themselves into regular armed units, provided they carry arms openly and respect the laws and customs of war.” The Geneva Conventions of 1949 does not mention, nor provide protection to, civilians attacking foreign countries without openly carrying arms.
How much damage can Obama do before his term expires?
Tom Motherway
Obama AWOL-From Celebration of 20th Century’s Victory
Posted by Tom in Defense, Foreign Policy, National Character on November 9, 2009
Nile Gardiner calls it correctly as, “shameful when the US president can’t even be bothered to show up at a ceremony marking one of the most momentous events of modern times.” He attributes it to: 1. Obama’s discomfort with American greatness, 2. His attachment of little importance to the advancement of human rights on the world stage, 3. His disregard of the transatlantic alliance, and 4. His desire to appease Russia. See Daily Telegraph post here.
I as well as others have previously treated Obama’s apologies for American greatness, his embrace of dictators, his gravitation to statism, and his penchant to curry favor with the old Soviet economic model. Obama is indeed the antithesis of American greatness, in fact the anthesis of America. He wants to remake it as a socialist welfare state. He wants it to be totalitarian with him in control. Thus understood, his domestic and foreign policies are logical. Thus understood, his absence from what should have been an American “victory lap” in Berlin should indeed have been expected!
Tom Motherway