Archive for the ‘Foreign Policy’ Category

We Donated Money to Iran to Build the Bomb

Tuesday, March 31st, 2009

Oh God, this is terrible.

Four countries designated by the U.S. as terrorism sponsors, including Iran and Syria, received $55 million from a U.S.-supported program promoting the peaceful use of nuclear energy, according to a report by Congress’s investigative arm.

Iran received more than $15 million from 1997 to 2007 under the International Atomic Energy Agency’s Technical Cooperation program, according to the Government Accountability Office report set to be released Tuesday. An additional $14 million went to Syria, while Sudan and Cuba received more than $11 million each, it said.

The U.S. is the largest funder of the United Nations body’s program and provided $20 million in 2007, or about a quarter of the budget, the report said.

Obama Flaps Gums in Sudan’s Direction

Tuesday, March 31st, 2009

Considering that the Arab leaders won’t even shut this guy down I don’t think Obama is going to have much luck.

President Obama on Monday repeated his request for Sudan to let more than a dozen expelled humanitarian aid groups back into the country and suggested that if it did not, he would “find some mechanism” to get food, water and medicine to the people of Darfur.

Mr. Obama did not specify what that mechanism might be…

Speaking of this Arab Conference in Qatar, these dictators are acting like junior high girls.

And here’s a tax-dollar-funded shoulder to cry on.

The War on Terror Is Dead

Monday, March 30th, 2009

Just as I said, the Global War on Terror is over.

The phrase “global war on terror” is finished, at least as far as U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is concerned.

The top U.S. diplomat told reporters Tuesday that the Obama administration has quit using that line to describe the effort to fight terrorism around the world.

Interesting Comparison by Schlussel

Monday, March 30th, 2009

Debbie Schlussel has an interesting look into that unseemly event with the Palestinian youth violin group playing for Holocaust survivors and how the media covered the group’s dismantling.

Full article here.

Reuters quoted Palestinian authorities as saying that acknowledging the Holocaust existed was against their goals, AP’s coverage–by two Muslim reporters–was softened from that statement.

Multiple Personalities on Iran

Sunday, March 29th, 2009

What is wrong with this administration? They’ve collectively failed to pull together into a united front on several issues. Robert Gates cuts Obama off at the knees today.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates says that he thinks economic penalties rather than diplomacy are more likely to bring success to U.S. efforts on Iran.

Gates says that if enough economic pressure is placed on Iran, diplomacy might provide what he calls “an open door” for Iranians if they choose to change their policies.

Gates says economic penalties are likely to get the Iranians to the table.

If you’re keeping track it’s been about nine days since Obama poured his heart out in diplomacy to the Iranian regime. This also flies in the face of Obama’s “no preconditions” promise from the campaign. Obama’s diplomacy got shot down and now the administration has to backpedal.

There is a secondary failing in this strategy, beyond the revisionism. It completely ignores the failure of the UN sanctions on Iran that  specifically target the nuclear program, now almost three years old, despite continued intensification by the Security Council. In the face of the West Iran has accepted fuel from Russia and is now testing the first reactor at Bushehr, in southern Iran. With the Russian’s help. This plant is going online.

Check this out.

The defense secretary says Iran is not close to obtaining a nuclear weapon. He says Tehran lacks the capability at this point to enrich enough uranium to the levels needed for a weapon.

They don’t need to capability because they can a) buy the equipment to do it from the Russians or b) buy the proficiently enriched uranium from the Russians.

Iranians are also hanging out with our other allies, the North Koreans. You’ll remember that the North Koreans supposedly have a moderately advanced nuclear program. Now they’re teaming up and Obama has no plan to dissuade them outside of the same horribly ineffective sanctions.

Missile experts from Iran are in North Korea to help Pyongyang prepare for a rocket launch, according to reports.

Amid increasing global concern over the launch, which the US and its allies consider to be illegal, Japan’s Sankei Shimbun newspaper claimed today that a 15-strong delegation from Tehran has been in the country advising the North Koreans since the beginning of March.

Elsewhere we have administration officials playing down expectations for Obama diplomacy. When the promises of peace fade into a landscape lacking in miracles to avoid addressing that Obama is devoid of any foreign policy experience the damage control must begin. As disastrously as the economy has been handled by Obama and Co. I think they might be glad the nation’s attention is drawn away from terrorism.

Richard Holbrooke is the U.S. envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan. He says that 30 years of bitter disagreements between the U.S. and Iran won’t be erased in one meeting.

For all the thundering about peace, love and understanding the administration is consistently playing down their hopes for Iran. Meeting without preconditions has already faded into increasing sanctions and we rational voters will likely have to wait until 2012 to see someone tackle the Iran situation with a worthy strategy. Hell, at this point I would accept any consistent strategy for Iran.

Meanwhile…

If Obama Isn’t a Muslim He Might As Well Be

Saturday, March 28th, 2009

Revelation: I’m not entirely trusting of public officials, especially the messianic Obama. It follows that I am less than stupefied with the current events within his administration. Which events are these? I’ll reveal some dots and whether or not you see them connected, as I do, will be left to your own discretion.

Obama is closing Gitmo - officially old news. What awaits a clarifying (and in all likelihood, terrifying) development is the process by which these imprisoned terrorists will be released and where they will ultimately go. In this vein I present some enlightening remarks from Dennis Blair, our Director of National Intelligence.

Blair said the former prisoners would have get some sort of assistance to start their new lives in the United States.

“We can’t put them out on the street,” he said.

While I would agree that we simply cannot release terrorists onto main street, I doubt this is what the man is saying. He is arguing that our tax dollars should now be spent supporting extremists that were actively engaged in activities to bring down our way of life or halt that freedom from coming to others. Before, at least, our money was going to locking up these men to keep them away from us but now what can be said? Such a reversal in policy is tantamount to a betrayal of the public trust. We didn’t capture them in an effort to assimilate them into our greater community. These folks will refuse our freedom wholesale and plant seeds of hate. For some ungodly reason these liberal madhatters can’t recognize the danger.

Blair said this during a “media roundtable” on Mexico and our immigration policies. While I think this remark is both telling and frightening enough in the context of Gitmo, allow me to expand the horizon a bit with a Mexican segue. Hezbollah is permeating through our border with Mexico.

Hezbollah is using the same southern narcotics routes that Mexican drug kingpins do to smuggle drugs and people into the United States, reaping money to finance its operations and threatening U.S. national security, current and former U.S. law enforcement, defense and counterterrorism officials say.

As we all know, Hezbollah is Shi’a and, according to Obama, the only Muslims that wish “death to America” are the Sunni al-Qaeda and they’re primarily focused on Afghanistan and Pakistan. Wait… “Death to America?” Where have I heard that before?

Oh yeah, Iran and the "Marg bar Amrika"

Oh yeah, Iran and the "Marg bar Amrika"

You can’t avoid Iran when discussing the global struggle with terrorism and Islamic extremism. Obama is attempting feverishly to extend a hand to Iran but I suspect he will find it cut off. Khamenei, the Supreme Leader of Iran, has explicitly stated that he wants nothing to do with the US until our policies change. Policies change? I’d say the President of the United States drooling like a fool in front of your entire nation to commemorate a pagan holiday is a “progressive” change in policy.

Now, Hezbollah, which is funded by Iran, focuses on “wiping Israel off the map.” In Obama’s entire speech yesterday morning concerning the direction of the Global War on Terror (which is being renamed so that Obama’s impending cancellation can’t be labeled defeat or failure) he avoids mentioning both Israel and Hezbollah entirely. He is leaving our ally high and dry. It is incredibly rude or at best absent-minded to not mention Israel, which recently engaged in an all-out offensive with the terrorist enemy, Hamas. How can Obama simultaneously abandon them and betray our trust again?

The worst comes last. Obama seems to desire to contribute a delicious helping of injury to the aforementioned insults as he hurdles this smacker our way.

In a bid to get more Muslim Americans working in the Obama administration, a book with resumes of 45 of the nation’s most qualified — Ivy League grads, Fortune 500 executives and public servants, all carefully vetted — has been submitted to the White House.

Apparently the Obama administration has run out of the standard qualified candidates for their high-level positions and must now look to an incredibly small minority in our country, Muslims. More concerning is the laughable statement that the candidates have been “carefully vetted.” This hopefully means they’ve all been paying their taxes but I’m betting the administration could easily miss something else, like a history of Islamofascism. Recently it’s become apparent that seemingly even-keeled Muslims are susceptible to the violent leanings within their religion.

Here we can surmise Obama’s actions as disturbing. What is he planning? Is this really an administration trying to be more inclusive for inclusion’s sake, as he would like us to believe about these Muslim candidates for administration jobs? It is something deeper than that, an all-out assault on traditional American institutions by replacing the foundation of this country which has stood since the forging of the Constitution.

Or perhaps Obama is so utterly spineless that in attempts to appear understanding to the Muslim world he only comes across as weak.