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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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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Obama silent as N. Korea launches more missiles

Increasingly belligerent, nuclear-armed North Korea again flexed its muscle again today, Independence Day in the US and, not surprisingly, the White House sits in stunned silence as its desire to engage in dialogue with the rogue Communist nation is met with threats of war and continued flexing of its military might.

US allies–South Korea, Japan, Britain, and France–condemned the North’s escalation. Russia and China announced their concern for the deteriorating situation.  Obama stuck his head in the sand.  You know, see no evil, hear no evil, etc.

Armed with a teleprompter and his speechwriters’ prose, Obama inspires.  Faced with a crisis, the President has repeatedly demonstrated his consummate inadequacy.  We recently watched in horror as freedom seekers in Iran were beaten, murdered, and dragged from their homes to disappear.  It took days for the President to issue a response, an inadequate one at that.  The situation in N. Korea has dragged on for months now, and Obama has done nothing more than commend the UN for passing an unenforcable resolution.

When, in our own hemisphere, the Legislative and Judicial branches of the Honduran government ousted their wannabe radical left-wing dictator for ignoring their Constitution, Obama did act quickly.  Only then, he rashly jumped aboard the train carrying anti-US Latin American dictators Hugo Chavez and Fidel/Raul Castro.  Labeling the constitutional removal from office a “coup,” the President joined these left-wing zealots in proclaiming the ousted would-be dictator the rightful ruler of those who sought to preserve their freedom and democracy in the Central American nation.

Obama’s foreign policy consists of pandering to our historic foes.  With some convoluted sense that he can bring them to love us if he just tells them we’ve been wrong all along, and we’ve wronged them in the process, Obama seems to believe he can create some Utopian international community devoid of despotic dictators.  Only problem is, the dictators aren’t responding the way the President predicted.

They’re responding like sharks that smell blood in the water, stepping up their attacks and propaganda to cement their iron-fisted control on their repressed populations. It’s time this Ivy-League idealist President wake up and realize the real world doesn’t work the way he and his elite liberal friends believe it does.

Mr. President, your foreign policy is a failure.

John Allison III Cabot, AR US
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Obama Approval Ratings Reach New Lows

Today’s Daily Presidential Tracking Poll from Rasmussen shows fewer Americans strongly approve of the job the President is doing than at any time since he’s taken office.  His overall job approval ratings haven’t yet reached a new low, but are currently at their previous bottom.  It looks like the Iranian crisis is really taking a toll on the public perception of the effectiveness of his policies.

I posted here the other day when the strongly approve numbers reached their previous low, then the numbers spiked after his speech in Cairo.  But the upward momentum, and favorable impression, was short-lived as the public begins to realize that rhetoric has emboldened hard-line American enemies like North Korea and Iran.  We’ve recently seen other polls too that indicate the winds are changing and things don’t look really good for the President.

It’s late now, so I’ll update charts of trend lines and post them here tomorrow.

The results of Olive Branch Foreign Policy

You’ve read it here before, but the President just refuses to believe his Jimmy Carter-styled approach to foreign policy isn’t working.  Obama, and most other liberals, just may never get it–despots respect strength, not capitulation.

When one of the first things out of his mouth upon taking office was to tell the world that we will close down the detention center at Gitmo and would no longer practice harsh interrogation tactics that saved American lives, our enemies had to be heartened.  This communicated to the world, including those who wish to kill American citizens, that we are no longer fully committed to defeating our enemies.  Though the terrorists hang our men from bridges, decapitate them, and drag their bodies through their streets, Obama wants to serve them tea and make them as comfortable as possible.  Anything less, he considers human rights abuses. 

Iran and North Korea don’t respect this, they laugh at it.

When Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s promised consequences for North Korea’s antagonistic actions over the past couple of months amounted to nothing more than a resolution that can’t be enforced, the Communist rogue nation did as many of us expected and ramped up its rhetoric.  As I type, the US Navy is trailing a N. Korean flagged ship suspected of violating UN Resolution 1874, but we have no authority to board, inspect, or stop the ship and Kim Jong-Il has declared any such attempt would be considered an “act of war.”  Japanese intelligence officials are now reporting the totalitarian regime is planning to launch a long range missile at Hawaii on the 4th of July.  Obama’s olive branch has done nothing to alleviate the threat N. Korea poses to the international community.  If anything that threat is now more deadly than ever before!

Then there’s Iran.  Following the rigging of that country’s latest election by the ruling clerics, a massive pro-Democracy, pro-freedom movement was spawned.  A movement the US would have proudly proclaimed its support for at any previous point in history, but not now.  After 30 years of anti-American policies and rhetoric, 30 years of supporting terrorism targeting American interests, 30 years of identifying the US as “The Great Satan,” throngs of Iranian citizens have taken to the streets (placing their lives in peril) to demand change that would almost certainly be more prone to ally with the US than the current Islamic theocracy that rules the country.  In deference to that greatest of human rights advocates, the Supreme Leader of Iran Ayatollah Khamenei, the President won’t even express support for the pro-freedom movement taking place, because he doesn’t want to “meddle” in Iran.

 It’s absolutely unbelievable that this President refuses to express even token support for a repressed people, now standing up to demand freedom.  What happened to the Democratic Party of JFK who, in his inaugural address, stated “To those peoples in the huts and villages across the globe struggling to break the bonds of mass misery, we pledge our best efforts to help them help themselves…”  Right now the Iranian protesters would probably be satisfied with less than our “best efforts,” just some moral support might go a long way to encourage them to keep up the pressure and tear down the wall of radical Islam that has separated them from the freedoms we enjoy for these past 30 years.  Just a few words of encouragement, any show of support would be welcome.  But they get nothing, nothing but appeasement of the radical clerics who preach the duty of Muslims is to destroy Israel and the US.

In spite of the President’s continued attempts to assuage the tension between the US and Iran’s rulers, the Iranian radical clerics blamed the US for inciting the protests by “meddling” in Iranian affairs.  And today, Obama’s hands-off, mouth-closed approach paid off with Khamanei’s declaration of an impending crackdown if the protests continue.  So the olive branch Obama continues to offer has done nothing to improve our relations with Iran.  Nothing.

It’s time for Obama to admit he was wrong.  His apology tour and his offer of dialogue have not made our enemies respect us.  We become weaker each time he extends an olive branch, and our enemies become stronger.

If offenders permit, US will enforce UN resolution

From NewsMax.com

WASHINGTON – The Obama administration said Friday it is prepared to confront ships believed to be carrying contraband materials to North Korea but will not try to forcibly board them, in accordance with new U.N. sanctions.

*emphasis mine

The resolution the Obama administration finally wrangled out of the UN Security Council calls for “U.N. members to inspect all N. Korean cargo if there is information that provides reasonable grounds to believe the cargo carries nuclear or missile-related items” and “U.N. members to inspect vessels, with the consent of the flag state, on the high seas, if there is information that provides reasonable grounds to believe the cargo carries nuclear or missile-related items,” according to Breitbart.com.

The Newsmax article goes on to quote Susan Rice, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, to say the US, in cases of ships refusing inspection, will attempt to convince the nation whose flag the ship flies to divert it to an appropriate port to be inspected.  If that can’t be accomplished the US still won’t use force, but will “shine a spotlight on it.”

In other words, the administration will tell the public what it suspects the ship to be carrying, who its owner is, and “other things.”  That’s it.  Obama plans to tattle on those who don’t comply–those who supply the Communist rogue nation of North Korea with the means to destroy the world.  The most powerful Navy in the world will have its hands tied as it watches ships carrying forbidden cargo into N. Korean ports.

However, Rice calls on other nations to “uphold their obligations to inspect in their territorial waters.”  So, the administration that blames America for all the wrong in the world is calling other nations to do what it refuses to do.  What leadership!  Those nations shouldn’t expect any extra help from the US either.  Rice admits we won’t be deploying additional ships to the region to enforce the UN mandate.

She readily admits that she expects N. Korea to challenge the sanctions, but says the administration is “very pleased” with the UN resolution.  Words.  Nothing more.  An unenforceable resolution is nothing more than written rhetoric.  A dog with all bark, no bite. 

Yet she expects Iran to “take a message from how the U.N. responded to North Korea’s actions.”  Believe me they will.  Hardline President Ahmadinejad was dubiously re-elected yesterday, and I’m sure he gets the message loud and clear.  If Iran continues to pursue weapons of mass destruction, Obama will tell on him.  No substantive action will follow.  Ships loaded with the means to manufacture those weapons will be asked, “may we please board your ship?”, refuse, and sail safely into Iranian ports so Ahmadinejad can pursue his dream of annihilating Israel.

The Obama administration calls resolution 1874 “very firm and very meaningful.”  I call it virtually useless if we don’t enforce it and continue to allow N. Korea to manufacture nuclear weapons.

GOP Senators want N. Korea relisted as sponsor of terror

Senator Jim Demint (R-SC) posted the following letter, signed by himself and 7 other Senators, requesting that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton immediately relist belligerent N. Korea as a state sponsor of terror.

June 2, 2009 The Honorable Hillary Clinton Secretary U.S. Department of State 2201 C Street NW Washington, DC 20520 Dear Madame Secretary: We are writing to request that you immediately place the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) back on the State Department’s State Sponsors of Terrorism List. As you know, the DPRK has never ended the activities for which it was listed as a state sponsor of terrorism. A number of reports have demonstrated this fact. Despite this fact, under the Six-Party Talks framework that focused on “action for action,” former President Bush removed the DPRK from the State Department’s State Sponsors of Terrorism List to encourage the DPRK to abandon its nuclear and ballistic missile programs. However, in recent weeks, the DPRK has engaged in a number of nuclear and missile tests that have destabilized the region and increased the threat to U.S. national security. In addition, the DPRK has gone even further in announcing its withdrawal from the 1953 Armistice the United Nations negotiated to end the Korean War. The DPRK has neither ended its sponsorship of terror activities nor moved in the direction intended when President Bush de-listed the DPRK. In fact, the DPRK has done just the opposite. In light of Secretary of Defense Robert Gates’s announcement that DPRK is preparing to launch a long-range missile capable of reaching the United States, it is critical that the DPRK be placed back on the list without delay and that its regime is denied access to multinational loans and other financial vehicles that help fund their destabilizing activities. Sincerely, Jim DeMint John Cornyn Jeff Sessions Tom Coburn Saxby Chambliss Michael B. Enzi David Vitter John Ensign

The following day, Sen. Demint and 15 other Republican Senators sponsored an amendment to the FDA Tobacco bill that would require Sec. Clinton to place N. Korea back on the list. “Now is not the time for rhetoric,” said Jim DeMint. “North Korea’s provocative actions must have immediate consequences.”

The Bush adminstration removed the rogue nation from the list when it promised to abandon its pursuit of nuclear weapons and agreed to submit verification that its promise was fulfilled. Sen. Demint calls this decision disastrous and says the Communist regime has never stopped supporting terrorism, but exploited the Bush decision to access funds that had been frozen while the country remained on the State Department’s list of terror sponsors.

Demint goes on to say that recent N. Korean actions demand immediate consequences. “In the past two weeks, North Korea has threatened the security of the United States and the entire Pacific region. They have tested a nuclear weapon, fired multiple missiles, and are currently preparing a ballistic missile that could reach Hawaii or Alaska. And if they sell this technology, as they have done in the past, terrorist groups will finally have access to nuclear weapons to wreak havoc on free nations.”

The current administration has stated there will be consequences for N. Korea’s hostile actions, but the lack of any such consequences has emboldened the totalitarian regime to continue threatening its neighbors and even the US.

More evidence Obama’s foreign policy = failure

You remember the President’s new approach to dealing with our enemies. Let’s listen to them, talk to them, embrace them, apologize to them.

He said countries will be more apt to cooperate with the United States on tough issues, even if only on the margins. Resistance based on anti-American conceptions of the past will fall away. MSNBC

Evidently N. Korea sees things a little differently.

Last month they fired a long range missile in spite of Sec. of State Hillary Clinton’s threat of “consequences.” Yesterday, the communist country defied Obama and the international community by detonating a nuclear device. The leader of the free world says this action poses “a grave threat” to the world community. And today the defiant Kim Jong-Il fired off more short-range missiles to dispel Obama’s naive vision of a world in which all nations smoke a peace pipe and sing songs of unity and cooperation.

But what would give the N. Korean tyrant pause? Why would he feel the least bit hesitant about challenging the most powerful nation in the world?

The threat of “consequences” for last month’s missile test proved hollow when they manifested themselves in the form of a Security Council resolution condemning the launch. A mere slap on the wrist. UN spokeswoman Michele Montas claimed the condemnation “sends a unified message of the international community on the recent launch,” but that message really amounts to nothing more than hot air–no more punishing than a mild rebuke.

One would expect far more punitive “consequences” to follow the North’s most recent escalation of the crisis, but that wasn’t to be. Today’s aggression by N. Korea drew a response almost identical to last month’s–another resolution condemning the action and demanding the rogue nation honor the previous Security Council resolutions which call on it to drop its pursuit of nuclear weapons and vehicles to launch them.

Didn’t someone once say stupidity is repeating the same process again and again, but expecting different results, or something along those lines? By that definition, stupidity is regularly exhibited in the “consequences” dealt by the Security Council.

The ineffectiveness of such “consequences” was evidenced again in today’s UN reaction to the latest escalation. The UN Security Council is no more than a dog who’s all bark and no bite. Of course a large vicious dog’s bark can be an effective means of intimidation, but the more this scenario–vacuous cries of outrage not followed with punitive consequences–is repeated, the more the Security Council begins to resemble a toy poodle or a pomeranian than a German shepherd or a doberman.

Yet Obama and his followers remain convinced that his is the path to follow.  This would be understandable if there was evidence his “Kumbaya” approach was working in other parts of the world, but it’s not.

Today, Defense Secretary Robert Gates was forced to admit the Taliban has the momentum in Afghanistan.  Despite Obama’s “surge” of 21,000 additional US troops, the Taliban is gaining ground, controlling more and more territory once considered secure, inflicting heavy casualties on US troops.  The administration refuses to consider the possibility that the President’s “mea culpa” foreign policy is making the enemy stronger, but this appears to in fact be the case.

The “Blame America” policies of the current administration embolden our enemies, motivating them to step up their attacks as they sense an impending collapse of our will to maintain our commitment to continue the fight.  In Stanley Karnow’s 1990 interview with Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap, commander of Communist forces in the Vietnam War, the general emphasized the importance of “political” strategies in winning the war.  Though many dispute the internet claims that Giap’s memoirs claimed the North would have surrendered but for the anti-war movement in the US, a quote from Karnow’s article makes clear that it was a factor that provided motivation to continue the fight in the face of overwhelming losses.

“And we wanted to project the war into the homes of America’s families, because we knew that most of them had nothing against us. In short, we sought a decisive victory that would persuade America to renounce the war.”–Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap From page 6 of “Giap Remembers” by Stanley Karnow. *Emphasis mine

Can you imagine how much more invigorated the North Vietnamese forces would have been had Johnson or Nixon been repeatedly on the air saying “It’s America’s fault!”?  Obama’s habit of spewing apologies for everything America ever did, claiming blame for virtually all that is wrong in the world on his country’s behalf is providing the same motivation for our enemies today.

An old African proverb says, “Only a fool tests the depth of the water with both feet.”  Obama has placed all our chips on the table, betting he can halt the hatred in our enemies’ hearts by blaming America for their dilemna.  Thus far, the evidence is overwhelming that his approach yields miserable failure at every turn.

But still he persists.

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Update 5/26/2009—North Korea Restarts Nuclear Plant

And so it continues.

N Korea Tests Nuke

N. Korea today performed an underground test of a nuclear weapon.

President Obama had promised consequences if the rogue nation went ahead with its test of a long range rocket last month, but N. Korea received a slap on the wrist in the form of another UN Security Council resolution condemning the act.

The President’s empty threats ring hollow and appear to even embolden two-bit dictators like Kim Jong-Il. As of now, the administration refuses to acknowledge the test, referring to “N. Korea’s claims” as a cause for grave concern.

I guess Obama really believed if he took office, blamed the US for all the ills in the world, and tried to befriend every tyrant in the world, then we could all hold hands and sing “Kumbaya” or “We are the World” together. Oh so naive.

Even after last months rocket test, a rocket that could reach the western US, Obama’s $4.6 trillion budget actually reduced spending on missile defense.  That’s right, in the face of an ever-growing threat of a nuclear missile attack from a clearly unstable totalitarian communist state, the President saw fit to reduce our ability to intercept such a weapon.

It’s going to be a long 4 years of our enemies getting stronger as we get weaker if the President doesn’t wake up and recognize the naivete of his current foreign policy strategy.