Archive for category Foreign Policy
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
Obama’s Wishes He Had the Power His “Mi Amigo” Has!
Posted by Tom in Centrally Managed Economy, Foreign Policy, Press, Statism on January 25, 2010
Hugo Chavez caused a series of protests in Venezuela by shutting down the anti-Chavez TV Station. (See Fox News post of January 26th here.) Now we know Comrade Obama is cozy with Comrade Chavez. Hopefully Obama will avoid adopting his friend’s ways! At least not the one that closed all the golf courses.
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
Why Did Obama Finally Wake Up To Google?
Posted by Tom in Foreign Policy, National Character, Politics on January 15, 2010
Google initially ask for U.S. government help in it protest to China hacking. This was denied. Other U.S. companies who were victims of the hacking also declined to stand up. After Google’s decision to go it alone and stand up to China, the U.S. State Department declined to comment saying it would wait to see how China responded.
Lo and behold, this morning Obama and Clinton decide to issue a formal demarche expressing U.S. concern about the incident. See Bloomberg report.
Could it be that our post partisan president sees political capital in finally getting on the right side of freedom? He certainly didn’t have any great independent motivation before. Perhaps his philosophy doesn’t include First Amendment concepts, but, without a doubt, it does relish political applause!
Tom Motherway
The Moral High Ground-It’s Not All About Money!
Posted by Tom in Constitution, Foreign Policy, Individual Freedom, National Character on January 14, 2010
I count 7 separate articles in the first section of today’s (1-14-10) WSJ on Google’s stand for individual freedom in China. Quick summary:
- U.S. Holds Fire in Google-China Feud.
- A Heated Debate at the Top.
- Web Is New Front Among Cold War Foes.
- Levi’s Left, Too-And Came Back.
- Pullout Threat Jolts Chinese Users.
- Clash on the Great Firewall.
- Google Gets on the Right Side of History.
The last of these is rather frightening linking what is going on in China to what was going on in East Germany with the rat-on-your-neighbor system set up by the Stasi, only recently discovered with the release of Stasi files.
We all realize that freedom will one day come to China, just as modernity will one day come to Islam. The question in each case is what it takes to get there. How much pain, how much protest, how much bloodshed, and how much money sacrificed.
We see with Google that principle overcomes profit. It recognizes that our First Amendment rights, freedom of speech, press, and religion are the basic rights of a democracy. Google stands up. The United States government sits by.
A follow-up in Bloomberg this evening reports that Google tried to enlist other companies to help draw attention to the cyber attacks from China without success. Since that failure of support three U.S. companies have stepped up and said they were the subject of cyber attacks, Adobe Systems, Inc., Juniper Networks Inc., and Rackspace Hosting Inc.
We should be justifiably proud that Google leads and other American companies follow to exercise their voice for individual freedom in the face of loss. The Founding Fathers’ spirit lives, thank God!
It’s not all about money!
Tom Motherway
Hooray For Google
Posted by Tom in Foreign Policy, Individual Freedom, National Character, Statism on January 13, 2010
Today’s WSJ front-page, six-column, lead headline: “Google Warns of China Exit Over Hacking.” No, it’s not a slow news day but the Journal gives this story its appropriate position to all those who champion individual rights and freedom. The story: Google was hacked last month apparently by government sources seeking to break into the email accounts of civil rights activists and 20 foreign firms. Google has notified the government that it is prepared to leave this gigantic market rather than to continue to submit to its censorship and hacking. No other major company has taken this step. Google has made the decision to forego revenue, market share, and profit and stand up for individual rights and freedom.
What’s interesting to note is that an American company is taking this hard stand. The leftist Democratic government in control of the United States did not take this stand. Hillary Clinton has made it clear that human rights would be on the back burner. Barack Hussein Obama’s uber-liberal golf buddy, Thomas Friedman of the New York Times wrote: “One-party autocracy certainly has its drawbacks. But when it is led by a reasonably enlightened group of people, as China is today, it can also have great advantages…(by imposing) the politically difficult but critically important policies needed to move a society forward in the 21st century.” This from the brilliant editorial in NRO today, “Google Stands Up to Beijing.”
Again, this just shows the lack of foundation, lack of principle of these leftist Democrats. The one principle they seem to share is perpetuation of control. And this is mainly fostered by entitlement addiction and regulatory excess. The perfect examples of this today are Obamacare and cap and trade where they have manufactured crises to initiate addiction and control.
So while Google plays hard ball in business and is sometimes a rent-seeker of the first order, it should be loudly applauded for today’s stand. Would that our government had such values.
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
Victory Through “Three Cups of Tea”
Posted by Tom in Education Facts & Policies, Foreign Policy, Military Policy on December 14, 2009
My friend Gene Humphrey, not short of combat experience or U.S. intelligence work, sent me an engaging little book, “Three Cups of Tea” by Greg Mortenson. It opens with the heartbreaking defeat of an attempt to summit K2 and continues with the comparable struggles to build schools in the dauntingly remote Himalayas of Northern Pakistan but these are victories indeed. Gene picks his reading recommendations well; “Three Cups of Tea” has become required reading for U.S. commanders and troops deploying to Afghanistan.
“We can drop bombs and hand out condoms and build roads or put in electricity but if we don’t educate children, and especially girls, nothing will change in society….I find it somewhat amazing how very nimble and small, poor organizations are able to exploit the lack of education very quickly and use ignorance to feed their own agenda. I think that’s why I feel that educating girls is so important. If you educate a boy, you educate an individual but if you educate a girl, you educate a whole community. There is a proverb in Afghanistan that, roughly translated, says that the ink of a scholar is holier than the blood of a martyr. And I believe that. Education is our greatest weapon.” Greg Mortenson author of “Three Cups of Tea” in an MSNBC interview on December 3rd.
This is an interesting concept. Is there any validity to it? According to an article in Pars Times by Golnaz Esfandiari, Dr. Said Peyvandi who follows Iranian education from Paris said the number of Iranian girl in the educational system is growing dramatically even following the 1979 revolution and Islamization of the educational institutions. “The remarkable educational progress of Iranian girls is the last decade should be considered a social phenomenon, because its implications for social relations, the labor market, and the status of women in society and in the family are very, very important in determining the future of Iran.” A good argument can be made that we are seeing the results of that societal progress in the current demonstrations and uprising against the illegitimate regime in control of Iran, Ahmadinejad and his mullahs.
It’s good to know that the U.S. continues its support of education in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Perhaps victory will eventually come.
Tom Motherway