Archive for category Military Policy
Unprotected Against Jihad
Posted by Tom in Defense, Foreign Policy, Homeland Security, Individual Freedom, Law, Morality & Religion in the Public Square, Military Policy, National Character, Terrorism on June 1, 2010
Hussein Obama’s counterterrorism tzar, John Brennan trivializes the danger of Islam according to Andy McCarthy in today’s NRO post, An Islam of Their Very Own. The article is a must read with only two conclusions possible: Obama is stupid or naive or he is converting the U.S. to sharia, that is Islamic law. In essence, become Muslim or die, so ruled Mohamed after his militant successes.
“Brennan admonished that we must not “describe our enemy as ‘jihadists.’” Why not? “Because jihad is a holy struggle, a legitimate tenet of Islam.” Right again. There is no gainsaying that jihad is deemed to be a divine injunction in Islam. If one regards all forms of Islam as “legitimate,” then jihad, too, must be legitimate. Yet “legitimate” is a slippery concept. It could mean that something is good. Or it could just mean that something is authentic — something that really exists, for good or ill.
“Islam falls into the latter category. It exists. In many of its iterations — not just al-Qaeda’s ideology but Islamist ideology, which is quite mainstream — Islam means the West existential harm. This is why we are supportive of reformist Muslims, however pessimistic some of us may be about their prospects. The point, though, is that Islam is not going away. It is part of the hand we are dealt, like it or not. We don’t need to trash-talk it gratuitously, but neither should we pretend that it is an asset on our security ledger. It’s not.
“Alas, the Hope administration doesn’t see it that way. For Brennan, as for Obama, Islam is immovably in the first category: “legitimate” as in “good” — end of discussion. To sculpt this alternative reality, two things are required. First, we must ignore Islam’s many troublesome elements — e.g., its supremacism, inequality, intolerance, denial of freedom of conscience, endorsement of violence, etc. Second, to the extent that the resulting atrocities can’t be ignored, we must pretend that what ails the Islamic world is our fault, not Islam’s.”
Andy’s point echos the points made during Herman Pirchner’s presentation and discussion at our last Reno Hayek dinner, namely that radical Islam and its Jihad is closer to the Koran than any reformist/secular branch of that “religion.” I put that in quotes to denote that it is more than just our concept of “religion;” it is government, society and religion in the sense that Mohamed imposed upon his conquests.
Here’s my empirical observation: not many, if any, Moslems have condemned the Jihads, the terror, the 911 carnage, the call to exterminate Israel.
These people are backward, immoral, intolerant, and violent. They advocate or tolerate “supremacism, inequality, intolerance, denial of freedom of conscience, endorsement of violence, etc.” For them, the end justifies the means, no matter how distorted either end or means in reality are. They blow themselves up in hopes of “virgins in heaven.” Pity those few virgins in number! But, that is the level of their intelligence.
Hussein Obama apparently ignores “man caused disasters.” Islam is good because he wishes it so. This is contrary to the reality that we witness every day. Islam is bad.
“Our political leaders can continue to trivialize jihad as if it were some benign struggle to brush after every meal. They can continue to ignore the core tenets that make sharia antithetical to a free, self-determining society. But they can’t do that and do the only job we need them to do: protect our lives and our liberties.” Andy McCarthy’s article is a must read.
Hussein Obama is hell-bent-for-leather to “hope and change” the United States into an Islamic nation under Sharia law. Be very fearful for our nation.
Super Power to Super Wimp
Posted by Tom in Defense, Diplomacy, Foreign Policy, Military Policy, National Character on May 20, 2010
How weak can we be? Charles Krauthhammer answers the question in today’s NRO post, The Fruits of Weakness. The Iran-Brazil-Turkey nuclear deal is a ruse. Iran retains more than enough enriched uranium to make the nuclear bomb and continues accelerated enrichment. Even the French say the deal will help Iran continue its nuclear program. The joint hands up photo is the collective finger to the weak Hussein Omama.
“That picture — a defiant, triumphant “take that” to Uncle Sam — is a crushing verdict on the Obama foreign policy. It demonstrates how rising powers, traditional American allies, having watched thisadministration in action, have decided that there’s no cost to lining up with America’s enemies and no profit in lining up with a U.S. president given to apologies and appeasement.”
Iran Obama overtures and appeasements rejected, Obama acquiescence to Russia’s reformation of its USSR sphere of influence, Obama appeasement of Syria even as it tightens its grip on Lebanon, are all examples of our weakness, our desire to withdraw and disarm.
“This is not just an America in decline. This is an America in retreat — accepting, ratifying, and declaring its decline, and inviting rising powers to fill the vacuum.”
“Given Obama’s policies and principles, Turkey and Brazil are acting rationally. Why not give cover to Ahmadinejad and his nuclear ambitions? As the U.S. retreats in the face of Iran, China, Russia, and Venezuela, why not hedge your bets? There’s nothing to fear from Obama and everything to gain by ingratiating yourself with America’s rising adversaries. After all, they actually believe in helping one’s friends and punishing one’s enemies.”
U.S. Foreign Policy: Provocative Weakness
Posted by Tom in Diplomacy, Foreign Policy, Military Policy, National Character, Terrorism on May 19, 2010
Our kudos and thanks go out to Herman Pirchner, Jr. President of the American Foreign Policy Council in Washington DC for an excellent presentation and discussion last evening on America’s foreign policy. Herman took us around the world with using radical islam as the unifying link. It was truly enlightening and very sobering to hear his observations. Among them:
- Russia is extending its “sphere of influence” toward former satellites to counter radical islam and re-assert itself by keeping the U.S. off balance in the Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan. In some respects our interest are aligned like controlling radical islam, and in others they are opposed like reforming the white USSR.
- China is due for a generational change that leaves a big question-mark. Unlike the current leadership which grew amid the turmoil of the cultural revolution, the next generation is being raised in relative wealth and security and being educated in the best universities around the world. It thus understands world values. China is the only major nation without a significant islamic population.
- Europe will have a majority islamic population within two generations. Already there are community pockets of society governed by Shia law. There is a distinct possibility that Europe will break apart financially.
- Israel is gravely at risk since the U.S. has permitted Iran to go nuclear. The odds are against its survival.
- Arab world nations fear Persian hegemony and will thus arm themselves with nuclear weapons.
U.S. foreign policy under Hussein Obama has been one of being nice rather than right. We have given up numerous positions without getting anything in return. We have shown ourselves to be weak, frustrating our allies and emboldening our enemies. We are inviting trouble in both aspects.
The doctrine of “provocative weakness” enunciated by Fritz Kraemer in the Nixon years is that the only effective foreign policy was one backed by the realistic threat of using military force to achieve its goals; the failure to use this realistic threat was a provocative invitation to our enemies to use aggression against us. This variation of Teddy Roosevelt’s “speak softly and carry a big stick” is antithetical to Hussein Obama’s administration. Obama is disarming and withdrawing from defensive alliances. He relies on bowing, scraping, apologizing and addressing dictators like Chavez as “mi amigo.” Here’s a picture to refresh memories:
Yes, provocative weakness is Obama’s order of the day!
One chilling observation brought up during the discussion was that the radical islamic version of Islam was more true to the Koran than the secular, passivists’ version. In either version the goal is to conquer non-believers and convert them either peacefully by out populating them or violently with the sword as Mohamed did from Medina. So we will see more September 11ths. Obama has invited them.
Again we wish to thank Herman Pirchner for the excellent presentation and discussion.
Hussein Obama Is Anti-semitic
Posted by Tom in Defense, Foreign Policy, Military Policy on April 16, 2010
Investors Business Daily editorializes on Obama’s bullying of Israel today in a convincing piece, Israel Or Terrorists. “Are we Israel’s staunch ally? Or, do we blame the Jewish state for Islamist violence? An increasingly anti-Israel U.S. government cannot have it both ways.”
The article goes on to show Obama’s attempt to make the West Bank and Gaza the equivalent of the Nazis’ Buchenwald. A grossly false comparison, which unfortunately our president is wont to do.
But the real punch is the stupidity of the Obama policy. Instead of returning the Mideast to a Garden of Eden, a Palestinian settlement would only embolden terrorists to push harder for a Sharia world.
Again, our Neville Chamberlain president shows his true bias. He is anti-semitic.
Obama: the “peace in our times” president
Posted by Tom in Defense, Foreign Policy, Military Policy, Terrorism on April 14, 2010
Like a broadway scripted play Obama is into his foreign policy-defense act. (This, the act that follows Obamacare!) It is, to paraphrase Shakespeare’s Macbeth, a policy “Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” (Act 5, Scene 5)
No, that is to naive but not too harsh. As I think Clifford May’s tax day NRO post, The Obama Doctrine, points out well, Obama has showcased his photo-op national security initiatives: the Nuclear Posture Review (NPR), a new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (STARTT), new National Security Strategy (NSS) and his international Nuclear Security Summit with 40 heads of state.
- STARTT: Reduce US/Russian nukes by 30% for good example to others. “That’s a lovely vision, but which do you think is more likely: that rogue regimes will see these reductions as virtuous and emulate them? Or that they will see these reductions as an opportunity and exploit them?”
- NSS: We pledge not to use nukes against non-nuclear nations. But we fail to define our non-nation enemies. Obama strips terms like “islamic extremism” from the document for fear of offending! We’re back to “man-caused disasters” and “overseas contingency operations.” ” Imagine if President Roosevelt had decided not to speak about German Nazism, lest he offend Germans who were not Nazis, nor utter the words “Italian Fascism” since not all Italians were of the Fascist persuasion, and of course refrained from mentioning Japanese militarism . . . you get the idea.”
- Obama’s Nuclear Security Summit made little progress on cleaning up “loose nukes” and ignored Iran and North Korea.
- NPR: Obama will not modernize our nuclear weapons nor will he use nukes against enemy attacks against us with chemical or biological weapons. In other words, deterrence is a thing of the past. The policy will “actually provide our adversaries with an incentive to accelerate development of offensive capabilities. They clearly do nothing to strengthen deterrence.” Deterrence is what has kept us safe since 1945. The concept that attacks on us or our allies will not bring measured response but extreme, disproportionate devastation is what prevented such attacks. In this regard, Obama is the equivalent of the Russian in Dr. Strangelove who kept the doomsday machine secret, Obama wants to eliminate deterrence–really dumb!
Finally, our own Neville Chamberlain has decided to eliminate necessary missile-defense! “President Obama has scrapped a missile-defense system for eastern Europe, cut the number of planned deployed ground-based interceptors in Alaska and California from 44 to 30 (these provide the only protection to the U.S. homeland against long-range ballistic missiles), cut $1.5 billion from the missile-defense budget (then, curiously, restored about $600 million), and nominated a missile-defense opponent, Philip Coyle, as his top missile-defense adviser.”
In sum, the “Obama Doctrine” postures against non-existant threats, fails to treat real threats, and removes and reduces our defense capability. He’s an articulate empty-suit and a danger to our security.
Afghan Failure Easy To Predict
Posted by Tom in Defense, Foreign Policy, Military Policy on April 7, 2010
Tony Blankley’s post in today’s RCP, puts it on the line, Replace Karzai, or Get Our Troops Out. Essentially as has been well reported there has been a break with Karzai which itself was easily predictable, given that we are without a necessary local partner, and given the fact that we are unable to replace him, we should get our troops out of there. If 911s occur in the future, we use extraordinary means to show the Allah can send a thunderbolt using the U.S. as his agent. That means heavy payback with heavy but unavoidable “collateral damage.” Think in terms of Tokyo during the final days of WWII. This is my take not Blankley’s.
That said, Blankley railes as others have on the poor Afghan troop decision that there would be a withdrawal in 18 months. If the superpower is not going to stay the course, the locals make new–or in this case old–friends! That is what has happened.
My December 3rd, Afghanistan Was the Easy Decision, post quoted a Ralph Peters article calling Obama’s troop decision a “bait and switch.” He said it send the following messages: ”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).” This is pretty close to what is happening, and easy to predict.
With all the credit Obama deserves for his predator assassinations at the Pakistan boarder, he messed up the opportunity to secure some of Afghanistan’s warring tribes. By telescoping an 18 month withdrawal to appease his leftist base he unnecessarily subjected our troops to risk, death and worse. He should get out. Set up a strong Pakistan relationship and make that the line of regional defense.
He has recently embarked on a dangerous voluntary nuclear disarmament which will hurt us after the next 911 when we need to show that Allah is mad at Al Qaeda and the Taliban.
Cover-Up With Diversion
Posted by Tom in Defense, Diplomacy, Foreign Policy, Military Policy, Terrorism on March 22, 2010
Why has Hussein Obama single handedly created a crisis with Israel? He has ordered Secretary Clinton to present Netanyahu with a detailed ultimatum! All over some trumped up building plans in East Jerusalem. In effect he’s blaming Israel for all that is wrong in the Middle East.
Caroline Glick in her RCP post, Obama’s War on Israel, speculates on some intriguing answers:
- His assault on Israel is related to the failure of his Iran policy. He has residential construction to blame for Iran’s bad behavior and nuclear nose thumbing!
- He hopes to bring down Netanyahu and replace him with the leftist Tzipi Livni as more of an Obama puppet.
- He prefers dealing with the unelected Arab dictators in Iran and Syria to the democratically elected Israeli government and downgrading relations with the latter is a condition to better dealings with the dictators who want to exterminate Israel.
Since his election Hussein Obama has been on a world-wind tour bowing, scraping and apologizing for America. He denies the country’s greatness and exceptionalism. It was telling that in doing so he equated America to Greece, that bankrupt PIIG and member of “club Med.”
It is obvious that Obama has failed in Iran and failed generally in the region. He has demonstrated his personal weakness to ally and for alike and now seems to prefer kissing up the Arab dictators. I suspect that there is a reason his middle name is Hussein.
It would be one thing if Obama were simply an embarrassment to his countrymen, but his policies in the region have truly put American security at greater risk. 2012 can’t come too soon; we need a strong president who will keep this country safe.
Net Neutrality, Empowerment Nevada, NV4CFE.org, and the Cato Summit
Posted by Tom in Constitution, Democrats, Economics, Energy Facts & Policies, Environment, Government Regulation, Military Policy, Politics, Statism, Yucca Mountain on March 17, 2010
What a great Reno Hayek Symposium Dinner last evening. I want to thank Susie Evans and Manny Martinez of Charter for the excellent discussion of net neutrality and its potential impact on our First Amendment freedoms and the free-market functioning of our economy. Broadband pipes are not free they require invested capital on which a return is expected. Demands for priority use of those pipes must be compensated. In essence, the “net neutrality” free loaders, with no investment at stake, are demanding priority use of those pipes without adequate compensation. Note that the pipe owners are not monopolies they are subject to free market competition; cable, phone, satellite all compete in a non-common carrier environment.
George Gilder points out in his recent WSJ article, Cap and Trade for the Internet, since 2001 the U.S. has led the world in internet deregulation with some $4 Trillion of investment increasing residential bandwidth 54 fold. But new attempts to promote regulation including net neutrality will turn this on its head. Economics-abundance or scarcity-in a free competitive market is regulation enough. Of course that’s not the tack the Obama statist are taking. FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski is moving to expand government control of the web. The WSJ editorial, Broadband Trojan Horse, discusses Obama’s “national broadband plan” including reclassification of the web as a “telecom service” subjecting it to “common carrier” status regulation and “open access” regulation. This solution in search of a problem is emblematic of Obama’s Soviet style control freaks. If implemented, it will destroy private investment. Thanks again to Susie Evans and Manny Martinez.
Ryan Costella and Dana Andrus gave a brief presentation on Empowerment Nevada a grass roots community action program they are initiating that basically promotes community problem solving without government involvement. Ryan hopes to enlist concerned citizens to re-ignite the spirit that founded this country and this state. He sees this as a springboard to other communities, other states and eventually the nation. “We want people who raise their hands to help, not hold their hand out.” His argument is that both left and right can agree on one thing: grass roots problem solving works. We wish Ryan luck in his efforts.
John Dunn gave us an update on Nevadans 4 Carbon Free Energy’s recent publicity campaign. The two Reno public meetings and attendant press reports have been well received. Politically the concept of a Yucca Energy Park including storage, reprocessing, power generation and research, seems to be a non-starter. The group has concluded that grassroots support is the key. This may, in fact, include a ballot initiative to let the voters decide. One thing for sure, jobs and money for Nevada and safe storage nationally are real necessities. I’ll keep updating as the occasion arises. Meantime check out: NV4CFE.org.
Finally, Jerry O’Driscoll briefed us on the recent Cato Summit in which he participated as a panelist. There were two presentations that particularly impressed him: Afghanistan-we need to win enough of the inter tribal wars to get the Taliban in charge so we can negotiate an exit. Climategate-the wounded scientific community caught in their phony research and conclusions appears to be as rough as Chicago politicians. My current issue of the Weekly Standard summarizes the reason on the cover!
Tom Motherway
Ready, Aim, Shoot…….Yourself In The Foot
Posted by Tom in Defense, Foreign Policy, Military Policy, Terrorism on March 14, 2010
These guys are really stupid. This week we saw Biden, Clinton, and now Axelrod jump all over Israel for zoning additional residences in Jerusalem. Jennifer Rubin pens the latest today in her Commentary post, It Gets Worse. She quotes Likud Party’s Danny Dandon who called Clinton’s “meddling in internal Israeli decisions regarding the development” of Jerusalem “uninvited and unhelpful. In fact it is sheer chutzpah.” After all these are zoning decisions regarding Jerusalem’s primary city!
Let me recap Hussein Obama and his three stooges, Biden, Clinton, and Axelrod are dissing our only reliable ally in the Middle East, a nuclear power, the only democracy, and a staunch supporter of the United States. The illegitimate Iranian government is fomenting unrest in Palestine and at the same time developing nuclear weapons which will destabilize the region, at the very least. Open-hand Obama is kowtowing and apologizing for America in the Middle East.
WHAT’S WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE? Do we really have an American president? Commander in Chief?
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