Archive for category Military 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
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
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
Ft. Hood Massacre-What Have the PC Liberals Wrought!
Posted by Tom in Military Policy, National Character, Press on November 10, 2009
Poor Major Nidal Malik Hasan the “victim” who gunned down 42 Americans killing 13 and wounding 29! He must have flipped but we don’t really know his motives proclaimed the MSM; and Dr. Phil, popular psycobabalists, suggested that he must have been “far out of touch with reality.”
No one in the MSM would call him a terrorist. Few wanted to admit he was Islamic. Diane Sawyer said someone was wishing that his name was “Smith.”
Nidal Malik Hasan associated with radical Islamic mosques and shouted anti-American tirades, all of which was ignored by his superiors. He yelled “Allah Akbar” as he gunned down unarmed innocent Americans.
The FBI averred that the killing was not terrorism, nor was it Islamic terrorism! This was merely mass murder. And Barack Hussein Obama said “we shouldn’t jump to conclusions.”
What has our liberal political class wrought with its political correctness, moral relativism and multiculturalism? Other than to pervert our language and abandon common sense! As Dorothy Rabinowitz suggests, “how far out of touch with reality” is Dr. Phil and the rest the PC commentators? Andy McCarthy adds, “Dare to Call I Terrorism.”
Weak, Dithering President, Dithers Away Democratic Opportunity
Posted by Tom in Defense, Foreign Policy, Military Policy, National Character on November 4, 2009
From a foreign policy standpoint our young untested president understands only applause and adulation, which he gets by apologizing for America’s past and equating his country with the lowest of the low in the obsessive, Israel-bashing Human Rights Council of the United Nations. Yep, our tax money is going to these fools!
Hey, Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize with his rock-star status, so who can fault him? Certainly not the European socialists he tries to emulate, forgetting that American protection and blood spilt in two world wars and beyond gave his fellow-travelers the luxury to become socialists.
But there are some who may find fault. I suspect the GIs in Afghanistan waiting for support and some decision from his seemingly constant vacillation may be a bit anxious and perhaps nervous in the leadership shown so far by their commander-in-chief.
Then the Eastern nations, Hungry, Poland, the Czech Republic may shudder a bit at Obama’s abandonment of the nuclear shield they so courageously agreed to host, abandoned so Obama could curry favor with Russia which continues to play him like a fool.
Without a doubt there are the Iranian dissidents who had the courage to protest the fraudulent elections sponsored by the mullahs and Amadinejad. Their ranks are being tortured, beaten, raped, imprisoned and killed on a daily basis without a word of support from Obama. There is a telling piece in the November 4th WSJ by Akbar Atri who in his younger days participated in the Iranian Hostage crisis thirty years ago. He tells of his maturity and realization that Iran must embrace modernity and freedom. He tells of how he became one of the leading voices in democratic opposition. And, sadly, he tells of how the Untied States under Obama has failed democracy.
Now a rational American perspective suggests four alternatives with Iran: 1. Allow Iran to have nuclear arms and export them to terrorists. 2. Sit back and wait for Israel to strike unsuccessfully. 3. Attack Iran’s leadership and nuclear installations, or, 4. Support the democratic dissidents and foster an overthrow to a more democratic, modern and rational regime. If a rational, brave and proud American president and leader of the free world were to make the decision which decision would you expect and hope for him to make?
Would he continue to seek applause and adulation from his European sycophants or would he make the hard choice and do what is best for America? Obama is weak, he continues to dither, and our adversaries are playing him like the fool that he is.
God save us!
Tom Motherway
Paper Tiger, Whimpering
Posted by Tom in Foreign Policy, Military Policy on October 15, 2009
We were once a great nation, leader of the free world. We are no longer. Obama is taking us down more rapidly than demographics would ultimately accomplish. He apologizes for our past leadership, he apologizes for our strength and diplomacy, he apologizes for our arrogance. He abandons Israel, Poland, and the Czech Republic. He curries favor with Iran, Venezuela and Russia.
Charles Krauthammer’s NRO October 16th post, Debacle in Moscow, says it very well, calls it “amateurish…wrapped in naivete.” When describing the soft leftist criticism of his Nobel Peace Prize as “premature,” he hits the nail on the head: ” If the Nobel committee had waited a few years Obama’s Nobel worthiness would have been universally acknowledged. “National self-denigration–excuse me, outreach and understanding–is not meant to yield immediate results; it simply plants the seeds of good feeling from which foreign-policy successes shall come.” (Now for you Peter Sellers fans:) “CHAUNCEY GARDINER COULD NOT HAVE SAID IT BETTER.” (Emphasis added!)
That we will eventually yield world leadership is inevitable, I think. The course, though, and the end results are not. The novice in the White House puts us on a very risky course with more dangerous end results assuredly in the mix.
The American electorate can, and hopefully will, change the composition of the Congress in 2010. It cannot change the composition of Obama’s foreign policy. Whether that policy is to pick unnecessary protectionist fights with our largest creditor while facing national debt approaching 100% of GNP or that policy is to abandon Israel, disarm in the Mideast and leave the critical region to Russia, we are stuck with that policy until 2012.
In short, we are stuck with Chauncey Gardiner. God save us!
Tom Motherway