Ahmadinejad: ‘Yep, I’m Nuclear’

by Ann Coulter at Human Events

The only man causing President Obama more headaches than Joe Biden these days is Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (who, coincidentally, was right after Biden on Obama’s short-list for V.P.)

Despite Obama’s personal magnetism, the Iranian president persists in moving like gangbusters to build nuclear weapons, leading to Ahmadinejad’s announcement last week that Iran is now a “nuclear state.”

Gee, that’s weird — because I remember being told in December 2007 that all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies had concluded that Iran had ceased nuclear weapons development as of 2003.

At the time of that leak, many of us recalled that the U.S. has the worst intelligence-gathering operations in the world. The Czechs, the French, the Italians — even the Iraqis (who were trained by the Soviets) — all have better intelligence.

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Once again, the US to the rescue…

After a year of listening to our President blame the United States for all the troubles in the world, a year of watching him bow and grovel at the feet of foreign potentates, a year of watching him embrace enemies of America like Hugo Chavez, a year of watching him destroy our way of life in the name of “fixing” it, I received an email with nothing but a link to the video below.

As you listen, think about the $100 million the United States immediately pledged to ease the suffering and help in reconstructing Haiti after the devastating earthquake that left the country in shambles. And ask yourself how much foreign aid the US received when hurricane Katrina destroyed New Orleans.

Almost 40 years ago, a respected Canadian recognized what our President and so many of his followers can’t seem to see. The United States has long been the most generous, most charitable of all the nations in the world.

The following is a recording of Tex Ritter reciting the remarks first uttered by Canadian broadcaster Gordon Sinclair on June 15, 1973. A time when anti-war sentiment ran high in the streets of America. When our sailors, soldiers, airmen, and Marines were spat upon when they returned from the jungles of Southeast Asia. Rampant inflation, rising debt, and political scandal tore at the fabric of American society.

The parallels of now and then make Sinclair’s words as appropriate today as they were in 1973. Our nation is locked in a prolonged war that has our nation divided along ideological lines. Over the past decade, floods, tornadoes, wildfires, and hurricanes have scarred our landscape, our cities, and our towns. The political crevasse separating the right and left has never been so wide, and so deep.

Liberals and conservatives will join in the Haitian relief efforts, donating time, money, and material to help rebuild a country in ruins. And we will once again heal from the wounds inflicted by foreign and domestic enemies of our way of life.

And, just like the 1980s, we’ll be stronger than ever.

For now, we pray for our own nation and that God will have mercy on those suffering in Haiti.

For those who have trouble loading videos, the text of Sinclair’s remarks follows.

“The United States dollar has taken another pounding on German, French, and British exchanges, hitting the lowest point ever known in West Germany. It has declined there by 41% since 1971 and this Canadian thinks it’s time to speak up for the Americans as the most generous and possibly the least appreciated people in all the Earth. “As long as 60 years ago, when I first started to read newspapers, I read of floods on the Yellow River and the Yangtze. Who rushed in with men and money to help? The Americans did, that’s who. “They’ve helped control floods on the Nile, the Amazon, the Ganges, and the Niger. Today the rich bottomland of the Mississippi is underwater and no foreign land has sent a dollar to help. Germany, Japan, and to a lesser extent, Britain and Italy were lifted out of the debris of war by the Americans who poured in billions of dollars and forgave other billions in debts. None of those countries is paying even the interest on its remaining debts to the United States. “When the franc was in danger of collapsing in 1956, it was the Americans who propped it up and their reward was to be insulted and swindled on the streets of Paris. I was there. I saw it. “When distant cities were hit by earthquakes, it’s the United States that hurries in to help. Managua, Nicaragua was one of the most recent examples. So far this spring, 59 American communities have been flattened by tornadoes. Nobody has helped. “The Marshall Plan, the Truman policies, all pumped billions upon billions into discouraged countries. And now newspapers in those countries are writing about the decadent, warmongering Americans. I’d like to see just one of those countries that is gloating over the erosion of the United States dollar build its own airplanes. “Now c’mon, let’s hear it. “Does any other country in the world have a plane to equal the Boeing jumbo jet, the Lockheed Tri-Star, or the Douglas 10. If so, why don’t they fly ’em? Why do all international lines except Russia fly American planes? “Why does no other land on Earth consider putting a man, or a woman, on the moon? “Talk about Japanese technocracy and you get radios. You talk about German technocracy and you get automobiles. You talk about American technocracy and you find men on the moon. Not once, but several times. And, safely home again. “You talk about scandals and the Americans put theirs right in the store window for everybody to look at. “Even the draft dodgers are not pursued and hounded. They’re right here on our streets in Toronto. Most of them, unless they’re breaking Canadian laws, are getting American dollars from Mom and Dad at home to spend here in Canada. “When the Americans get out of this bind, as they will, who could blame them if they said, ‘The Hell with the rest of the world. Let someone else build or repair foreign dams, or design foreign buildings that won’t shake apart in earthquakes.’ “When the railways of France, Germany, and India were breaking down through age, it was the Americans who rebuilt them. When the Pennsylvania Railroad and the New York Central went broke, nobody loaned them an old caboose. Both are still broke. “I can name you five-thousand times when the Americans raced to the help of other people in trouble. Can you name me even one time when someone else raced to the help of the Americans in trouble? I don’t think there was outside help even during the San Francisco earthquake. “Our neighbors have faced it alone and I’m one Canadian who’s damned tired of hearing them kicked around. “They will come out of this thing with their flag high and when they do, they’re entitled to thumb their nose at the lands that are gloating over their present troubles. “I hope Canada is not one of these. “And another thing. Recently the American Red Cross was told at its 48th annual meeting in New Orleans that it was broke. This year’s disasters, with the year less than half over, has taken it all and nobody, but nobody has helped!”

Clueless

by Linda Chavez at Townhall.com

Clueless. It’s the word that best describes the Obama administration’s first year in office. They’ve proven themselves clueless about creating jobs; clueless about handling growing nuclear threats from Iran and North Korea; and now, most devastatingly, clueless about protecting Americans from terrorist attacks on our own soil. And with nearly one year under the belts, they can’t keep blaming the Bush administration for everything that goes awry.

It is hard to imagine a more incompetent handling of the thwarted Christmas Day bombing of a U.S. jetliner. First, the commander in chief was too busy enjoying his vacation in Hawaii to do much more than issue platitudinous assurances that he was “actively monitoring” the incident, while dispersing White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano to the weekend talk shows to downplay the significance of the event.

When the news media began uncovering evidence that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was exactly who he claimed to be when taken into custody — a terrorist tied to an al-Qaida network in Yemen — the administration began backtracking on its earlier statements that the incident was not part of a larger terrorist plot and that “the system worked.” But it took the president three days to appear before the American public to insist on a thorough investigation. By that time, everyone knew that the would-be suicide bomber’s own father had alerted U.S. intelligence officials of his son’s threat to American security. But the warnings didn’t keep Abdulmutallab off a jetliner headed to the United States.

Even the words the president used in his press conference Dec. 28 suggest how clueless he is. He described Abdulmutallab as a “passenger (who) allegedly tried to ignite an explosive device,” repeatedly referring to Abdulmutallab in his comments as a “suspect.” These are the weasel words we use when talking about ordinary criminals, which is no accident. The Obama administration’s anti-terrorism philosophy is to treat terrorist attacks like criminal actions, not acts of war.

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US Apologist Obama wins Nobel Prize

I think I’m going to be sick. Our Dear Leader has now been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

With peace in Afghanistan nowhere in sight, with American troops pulling out of Iraq as bombs continue to explode, with two of the world’s most roguish nations flexing their nuclear muscles, our President (whose policies encourage all of these threats and violence) receives this prize?

The Committee says Obama is this year’s winner because  “for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.”

Here are some remarks I believe the Committee should have included when they announced this award:

For apologizing for everything America has done…

For ignoring those who died in pursuit of freedom in Iran…

For ignoring his commanders in the field who want more American troops to stem the violence in Afghanistan…

For embracing Socialist dictators like Chavez and Castro…

For refusing to pursue “victory” in the Afghan War…

For proclaiming”America is not a Christian nation”…

For encouraging Kim Jong Il and Ahmadinejad’s pursuit of nuclear weapons

For abandoning the Eastern European countries that formerly suffered as part of the Soviet Bloc…

Obama’s French Lesson

By Charles Krauthammer at Townhall.com

“President Obama, I support the Americans’ outstretched hand. But what did the international community gain from these offers of dialogue? Nothing.” — French President Nicolas Sarkozy, Sept. 24

WASHINGTON — When France chides you for appeasement, you know you’re scraping bottom. Just how low we’ve sunk was demonstrated by the Obama administration’s satisfaction when Russia’s president said of Iran, after meeting President Obama at the U.N., that “sanctions are seldom productive, but they are sometimes inevitable.”

You see? The Obama magic. Engagement works. Russia is on board. Except that, as The Washington Post inconveniently pointed out, President Dmitry Medvedev said the same thing a week earlier, and the real power in Russia, Vladimir Putin, had changed not at all in his opposition to additional sanctions. And just to make things clear, when Iran then brazenly test-fired offensive missiles, Russia reacted by declaring that this newest provocation did not warrant the imposition of tougher sanctions.

Do the tally. In return for selling out Poland and the Czech Republic by unilaterally abrogating a missile-defense security arrangement that Russia had demanded be abrogated, we get from Russia … what? An oblique hint, of possible support, for unspecified sanctions, grudgingly offered and of dubious authority — and, in any case, leading nowhere because the Chinese have remained resolute against any Security Council sanctions.

Confusing ends and means, the Obama administration strives mightily for shows of allied unity, good feeling and pious concern about Iran’s nuclear program — whereas the real objective is stopping that program. This feel-good posturing is worse than useless, because all the time spent achieving gestures is precious time granted Iran to finish its race to acquire the bomb.

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Surrendering U.S. Sovereignty at G-20 Summit

by Dick Morris and Eileen McGann at Townhall.com

While all eyes were on the rantings of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at the United Nations, the United States — under President Obama — was surrendering its economic sovereignty at the G-20 summit.

The result of this conclave, which France’s president Nicolas Sarkozy hailed as “revolutionary,” was that all the nations agreed to coordinate their economic policies and programs and to submit them to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for comment and approval. While the G-20 nations and the IMF are, for now, only going to use “moral suasion” on those nations found not to be in compliance, talk of sanctions looms on the horizon.

While the specific policies to which the U.S. committed itself (reducing the deficit and strengthening regulatory oversight of financial institutions) are laudable in themselves, the process and the precedent are frightening.

We are to subject our most basic national economic policies to the review of a group of nations that includes autocratic Russia, China and Saudi Arabia. Even though our gross domestic product is three times bigger than the second-largest economy (Japan) and equal to that of 13 of the G-20 nations combined, we are to sit politely by with our one vote and submit to the global consensus. Europe has five votes (Britain, France, Germany, Italy and the EU), while we have but one.

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With Obama, Too Much Nuance, Not Enough Power

by Michael Barone at Townhall.com

“It is my deeply held belief,” Barack Obama told the United Nations General Assembly, that “in the year 2009 — more than at any point in human history — the interests of nations and peoples are shared.”

That is, of course, the year Obama became president, and he wasn’t shy about referring in his second paragraph to “the expectations that accompany my presidency around the world,” though he assured us they “are not about me.”

Before Obama’s speech, I wrote that he seems “stuck in a time warp in which the United States is the bad guy.” Not any more, he seemed to say in his U.N. speech. He has ordered the closing of Guantanamo. He has prohibited the use of torture. He is “responsibly ending” the war in Iraq (no triumphalist talk of victory). He is promising substantial reductions in U.S. nuclear weapons. He has invested $80 billion in clean energy. The U.S. has joined the United Nations’ Human Rights Council.

All of which is a way of saying that nasty George W. Bush is no longer around with all his self-righteous swagger, and that with (as Obama did not fail to note) the first African-American installed in the White House, America is now on the same page with the rest of the world.

Much of the speech seemed to be an exercise in what Sigmund Freud called “projection,” assuming that others think the way you do. Obama spoke as if the mullahs of Iran, the Kim Jong Il clan of North Korea, Vladimir Putin and his gang of oligarchs, and the rulers of China had the same gripes against the Bush administration as Obama and the liberal Democrats in Congress. Hey, if we just close Gitmo, they’ll realize that we’re all in sympathy now.

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To Lose a War

by Pat Buchanan at Townhall.com

While America was consumed this summer with quarrels over town-hall radicals, “death panels,” the “public option” and racism’s role in the plunging polls of Barack, what happens to health care is not going to change the history of the world.

What happens in Afghanistan might.

Gen. Stanley McChrystal has done his duty. He has bluntly told his commander in chief what he must have in added combat troops and warned that if he does not get them, America faces “mission failure.”

Translation: a Taliban victory and U.S. defeat, as in Saigon 1975.

Not only does President Obama face the most critical decision of his young presidency, this country is facing a moment of truth. Obama, now the Decider, has four options.

There is the Biden option of drawing down troops, drawing away from Hamid Karzai, and focusing McChrystal’s men on what they do best — running down and killing al-Qaida, be they in Afghanistan or Pakistan.

Second is the option of indecision — holding off on more troops until the 68,000 already committed have arrived by December, and seeing how McChrystal does with them until spring.

The third option is to give McChrystal some but not all the tens of thousands he says he needs.

Final option: Give Gen. McChrystal the blank check George W. Bush gave Gen. David Petraeus, with the surge of 2007 in Iraq, which radically reduced the violence and set the stage for U.S. withdrawal beginning in 2010.

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New Obama Foreign Policy: Abandon Eastern Europe

Today President Obama took another great leap toward destroying the security of America and her allies when he abandoned a planned missile defense system in Eastern Europe. Planned installations in Poland and the Czech Republic are being abandoned.

I’m no longer sure his actions are the result of the naivete I once believed. His recklessness in exposing our nation and our interests to the dangers in our world reeks of a far worse odor than that of naivete. I’m about ready to concede that his irresponsible actions are part of an elaborate plan to destroy our superpower status and dismantle the structure of our society.

His inaction to the threats and belligerence of North Korea this spring, his refusal to stand up for (or even speak on behalf of) freedom fighters in Iran earlier this summer, his blaming America for every wrong in the world and apologizing to corrupt dictators around the world on behalf of our country, and now his bending to the will of Russia to ensure their missiles will have no problem reaching us and our NATO allies if they ever decide to launch, are evidence enough that only a blathering fool could believe all this is good for America.

And Obama’s no fool. I’m more inclined to believe this is a planned destruction of America’s superpower status. An attempt to level the world playing field by bringing us down to the level of our adversaries.

The Heritage Foundation points out several reasons this decision makes absolutely no sense at this time.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the Obama administration is justifying its decision on their determination that Iran’s long-range missile program hasn’t progressed as rapidly as previously estimated. This despite the facts that: On February 2nd, Iran successfully launched a satellite into orbit using a rocket with technology similar to that used in a long-range ballistic missile. On May 20th, Iran test-fired a 1200-mile solid-fueled two-stage ballistic missile. On July 15th, Germany’s foreign intelligence service, BND, announced that Iran will be able to produce and test a nuclear weapon within six months. BND also stated that it has “no doubt” that Iran’s missile program is aimed solely at the production of nuclear warheads. On August 3rd, The Times of London reported that Western intelligence sources concluded that Iran has not only perfected the technology to build and detonate a nuclear weapon, could assemble a weapon in just six months, and could deliver the weapon on Iran’s Shebab-3 ballistic missile. Just yesterday French President Nicolas Sarkozy said: “It is a certainty to all of our secret services. Iran is working today on a nuclear [weapons] program.” The only country other than Iran that is happy with President Obama’s decision is Russia. State Duma foreign affairs committee head Konstantin Kosachev told the Associated Press: “The U.S. president’s decision is a well-thought (out) and systematic one. Now we can talk about restoration of (the) strategic partnership between Russia and the United States.” But, in fact, the missile defense capitulation is just one in a long line of Obama surrenders to Russia.

That’s bad enough, but an AP story out today creates more doubts as to the wisdom of the President’s decision.

VIENNA — Experts at the world’s top atomic watchdog are in agreement that Tehran has the ability to make a nuclear bomb and is on the way to developing a missile system able to carry an atomic warhead, according to a secret report seen by The Associated Press. The document drafted by senior officials at the International Atomic Energy Agency is the clearest indication yet that the agency’s leaders share Washington’s views on Iran’s weapon-making capabilities. It appears to be the so-called “secret annex” on Iran’s nuclear program that Washington says is being withheld by the IAEA’s chief. The document says Iran has “sufficient information” to build a bomb. It says Iran is likely to “overcome problems” on developing a delivery system.

There’s no doubt the White House is aware of this if the IAEA is, yet still Obama abandons our ability to defend against it! And just for good measure, let’s point out yet another White House lie concerning this issue. The Moscow Times is reporting, “The decision to shelve the project is linked to Iran’s slower than expected progress in developing long-range missiles, the Pentagon said.”

Now it’s obvious somebody’s lying, either the AP story is completely wrong and The Heritage Foundation was mistaken when it reported on Iran’s advances in securing nuclear weapons and their delivery systems or the President is lying. Based on his recent track record and proven willingness to lie to get his way, I’m betting the White House has ordered the Pentagon to lie for it.

And how about Obama’s promise to improve our relations with our neighbors in the world. From The Moscow Times article, “The decision to shelve the missile defense plans angered many politicians and statesmen in Poland and the Czech Republic, who had fought for the bases despite public disapproval.” Add to that the insult of the President making the announcement on the anniversary of the Soviet Union invasion of Poland in 1939, and we can see a distancing of ourselves from our relatively new alliances with the old members of the Eastern Bloc that crossed over to NATO when the Iron Curtain fell.

It’s almost as if Obama is setting the stage for a return to the Cold War.

Once again, this President believes we make ourselves stronger by displaying weakness. Or does he? It’s beginning to look more and more like he really just wants us to be weak.

BHO Encouraging Qaddafi Return to Terrorism

A quarter century ago, Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi served as the Osama Bin Laden of the time. Brazenly sponsoring acts of terror against the US and other Western countries, he was responsible for the deaths of many Americans. Ronald Reagan described him in these terms, “…Qaddafi was an unpredictable fanatic. He believed any act, no matter how vicious or cold-blooded, was justified to further his goals.”

Any head-of-state embracing the recently released convicted killer in the Pan Am flight 103 bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland would have been offensive to those of us who remember the wave of terror attacks against the US that culminated in 9/11. But for Qaddafi, who sponsored the killings, to publicly embrace Abdel Baset al-Megrahi upon his release is even more disturbing, especially when one considers how the Libyan leader had been distancing himself from terror against the US for decades.

After Qaddafi sponsored the bombing of a Berlin night club in an attack targeting US servicemen, President Ronald Reagan ordered the bombing of military targets in Libya that included the leader’s compound. Though he didn’t renounce terrorism at that point, he was humbled to say the least. He retreated to the desert, living in a tent as a Bedouin after he realized how vulnerable he was to American military power.

Following the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the toppling of Saddam Hussein, Qaddafi almost immediately volunteered to give up his age old pursuit of nuclear weapons and renounce terrorism. Though the dictator hadn’t been a prominent director on the terrorism stage since Reagan nearly obliterated him, he had never given up his pursuit to make Libya a nuclear power. US willingness to stand up to those who threaten or attack us convinced him.

Though it was a long, slow process, Qaddafi was clearly retreating from sponsoring or embracing terror and had come a long way in the process of bringing his country to a respectable status. Then this. The embrace of a convicted terrorist on camera for all the world to see.

Talk about turning back time! How did this happen?

Just last year, then-Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice paid an historic visit to the north African country and announced the relationship between Libya and the US “has been moving in a good direction for a number of years now.” Now the dictator of 40 years honors the convicted killer of innocent women and children in an obvious show of respect for the murderer and his crime.

Weak-kneed liberals won’t understand how this happened, but bullies and dictators can only be controlled when they know there’s a real danger of their being defeated. Reagan’s flexing of American muscle sent Qaddafi to ground, hiding in his desert tent surrounded by his camels and goats. He popped his head up once in a while to rail against the US, but didn’t show it long for fear of having it shot off. Bush II made a believer of the Libyan leader when the US overthrew Hussein. For all of Qaddafi’s bluster, he always knew he didn’t stand a chance against us if we ever made up our minds to take him out. So he opted for self-preservation by turning from his evil ways that had made him our enemy for so long.

All of the respect built over the past three decades may now be fading fast as President Obama grovels at the feet of two-bit dictators around the third world, bows to foreign kings, and even denigrates our country abroad. Obama claims his foreign policy will result in better relationships with countries around the world. However, Qaddafi’s reversal and renewed support of a known terrorist lends credence to the hypothesis of the President’s critics–that demonstrating weakness will only embolden those who wish to do us harm.

After all, since Obama took office, Qaddafi has not only watched the US President wreak havoc on respect for America in the world, but he’s seen previously controlled tyrants slap the world’s most powerful country square in the face and get away with it. The Libyan dictator must have wondered why he’d acquiesced on the weapons of mass destruction issue when Kim Jong-Il’s nuclear tests and missile launches earned him nothing more than a slap on the wrist. And Qaddafi likely regretted turning his back on his terrorist allies when he watched Obama ignore those who stood and died in an effort to bring democracy and freedom to the world’s best known state sponsor of terror.

In short, he’s lost the respect for the US that previously encouraged him to give up his evil ways and tow the line that had begun to earn Libya a place among lawful nations.

Thanks to President Obama and his feeble foreign policy, we may once again suffer at the hand of a Libya that aids and abets those who seek to destroy us.