Obama whiffs hardball, plays basketball and dithers on war

Can Obama play hardball with Iran and Russia? Robert Kagan asks the question in the WaPo this morning and gives us a scorecard on how well our Diplomatic Leader is doing thus far. It don't take a rocket surgeon to know the score on that as Obama is Oh-fer-zip.

Is the Pope Baptist? About as much as our rookie President is ready for the big leagues as our Ditherer-In-Chief makes a photo-op visit to Dover Air Force Base to salute the war dead arriving from Afghanistan.

Meanwhile back at the White House where the "debate" over developing a "new strategy" for the war in Afghanistan drags on amongst the "military experts" on staff, R. Emmett Tyrrel reports a new controversy has arisen.

These are vexed times. The country is at war on two fronts. Rogue states are edging toward acquiring strategic nuclear weaponry. We have been through a very serious recession from which we may not emerge into the bright morn of economic health for years. The dollar is frail. The future of national health care, finance and corporate governance is in doubt. Yet that is not all. Over at The New York Times, an issue that continues to torment the bien-pensants is ... Well, let me quote the first sentence of the front-page tocsin that began the controversy Oct. 25: "Does the White House feel like a frat house?"

The proximate cause for this troubling query was that President Barack Obama had hosted "a high-level basketball game with no female players."

Seriously. And speaking of females, one of my feminine heroes, young Hannah Giles, asks a few vexing questions for the so-called mainstream media, who is still studiously ignoring the ACORN scandal she exposed on camera. Here's just a couple of her "suggestions" to the media.

• Baltimore- Why no mention of the toddlers that were in the room while James and I were being counseled on how to manage our underage prostitution ring?

• San Bernardino- The content of this video was largely ignored except for the part where ACORN worker Tresa Kaelke mentions she shot her husband. What about when she told us not to educate our sex-slaves because they won’t want to work for us? Or when we talked about making money off of clients who would physically abuse the girls? What about the whole transport-the-girls-in-a-school-bus-to-avoid-suspicion discussion?

I'd like to say more, but I gotta go to work. God save our nation and our troops because Obama won't, can't and apparently don't even have a clue how to, even if he wanted to. And he don't.

How to rob the military and appease dictators: 3 easy lessons

If I didn't already believe 2010 would be a good time to throw the bums out in Congress, a news item on how Senators have robbed our wartime guns and ammo budget for soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan would really tick me off. I was already ticked and now I've moved up to pissed off.

Senators diverted $2.6 billion in funds in a defense spending bill to pet projects largely at the expense of accounts that pay for fuel, ammunition and training for U.S. troops, including those fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to an analysis.

Among the 778 such projects, known as earmarks, packed into the bill: $25 million for a new World War II museum at the University of New Orleans and $20 million to launch an educational institute named after the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, Massachusetts Democrat.

While earmarks are hardly new in Washington, "in 30 years on Capitol Hill, I never saw Congress mangle the defense budget as badly as this year," said Winslow Wheeler, a former Senate staffer who worked on defense funding and oversight for both Republicans and Democrats. He is now a senior fellow at the Center for Defense Information, an independent research organization.

Sen. Tom Coburn, Oklahoma Republican, called the transfer of funds from Pentagon operations and maintenance "a disgrace."

"The Senate is putting favorable headlines back home above our men and women fighting on the front lines," he said in a statement.

It's only $2.6 billion, which is chump change for Senators, but it's the principle of the thing that really pisses me off, $20 million to honor the late Sen. Ted Kennedy, who never saw a war he liked and never saw a war protester he didn't like? What the hell has that got do with defense?

I'm mad as hell and I'm going to tell everybody I know it's time to clean out the D.C. pig sty.

And speaking of Teddy Kennedy and the peaceniks, Wesley Pruden reports today on the recent adventures of Peacenik No. 1 and Peacenik No. 2 now in power, Obama and Hillary, and how their adventures with the big, bad Russians are working out. Suffice it so say, not too well.

The Russians succeeded in putting Mr. Obama and the Americans in their place. Nikolai Patrushev, the chief of the Presidential Security Council, manufactured an occasion while Mrs. Clinton was in Moscow to warn that Moscow reserves the right to make "a pre-emptive nuclear strike" against both small and large enemies.

In an interview with Izvestia, the important Moscow daily, he said Russian officials are examining "a variety of possibilities for using nuclear force, depending on the situation and the intentions of the possible opponent." In situations critical to national security, he said, "options including a preventative nuclear strike on the aggressor are not excluded." Even regional or "local" wars will be included in the new strategy, expected to be official policy in December.

A willingness to use any or all weapons, if the time and place is right, is nothing new, of course. If the stakes are high enough everybody will use everything, and only fools object. The significance of these remarks, which were certainly calculated for effect while Mrs. Clinton was in town, is what they tell about how the Russians regard the toughness of Barack Obama, the noble peacenik with a prize to prove it, and whether there is any "there" there.

Mrs. Clinton and her acolytes at the State Department, ever eager to seek the softest way to say nothing, tried to put a nice face on her visit to Moscow. The United States, Russia and China are "closer than before" on their policies regarding Iran's nuclear-weapons program, Mrs. Clinton told a radio interviewer. She seemed to be taking care not to say that actual positions are closer, just that everyone understands those positions: Russians tough, Americans soft.

And to make a long post even longer, I can't leave this topic without quoting Sir Charles Krauthammer, who sums up the Obama-Clinton Doctrine of International Appeasement.

Well, at nine months, let's review.

What's come from Obama holding his tongue while Iranian demonstrators were being shot and from his recognizing the legitimacy of a thug regime illegitimately returned to power in a fraudulent election? Iran cracks down even more mercilessly on the opposition and races ahead with its nuclear program.

What's come from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton taking human rights off the table on a visit to China and from Obama's shameful refusal to see the Dalai Lama (a postponement, we are told). China hasn't moved an inch on North Korea, Iran or human rights. Indeed it's pushing with Russia to dethrone the dollar as the world's reserve currency.

What's come from the new-respect-for-Muslims Cairo speech and the unprecedented pressure on Israel for a total settlement freeze? "The settlement push backfired," reports The Washington Post, and Arab-Israeli peace prospects have "arguably regressed."

And what's come from Obama's single most dramatic foreign policy stroke -- the sudden abrogation of missile defense arrangements with Poland and the Czech Republic that Russia had virulently opposed? For the East Europeans it was a crushing blow, a gratuitous restoration of Russian influence over a region that thought it had regained independence under American protection.

But maybe not gratuitous. Surely we got something in return for selling out our friends. Some brilliant secret trade-off to get strong Russian support for stopping Iran from going nuclear before it's too late? Just wait and see, said administration officials, who then gleefully played up an oblique statement by President Dmitry Medvedev a week later as vindication of the missile defense betrayal.

The Russian statement was so equivocal that such a claim seemed a ridiculous stretch at the time. Well, Clinton went to Moscow this week to nail down the deal. What did she get?

"Russia Not Budging On Iran Sanctions: Clinton Unable to Sway Counterpart." Such was The Washington Post headline's succinct summary of the debacle.

Note how thoroughly Clinton was rebuffed. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov declared that "threats, sanctions and threats of pressure" are "counterproductive." Note: It's not just sanctions that are worse than useless, but even the threat of mere pressure.

It gets worse. Having failed to get any movement from the Russians, Clinton herself moved -- to accommodate the Russian position! Sanctions? What sanctions? "We are not at that point yet," she averred. "That is not a conclusion we have reached ... it is our preference that Iran work with the international community."

But wait a minute. Didn't Obama say in July that Iran had to show compliance by the G-20 summit in late September? And when that deadline passed, did he not then warn Iran that it would face "sanctions that have bite" and that it would have to take "a new course or face consequences"?

Gone with the wind. It's the U.S. that's now retreating from its already flimsy position of just three weeks ago. We're not doing sanctions now, you see. We're back to engagement. Just as the Russians suggest.

Maybe in 2010 and 2012, we the voters can put some adults back in charge of our nation. But God help us until then because the children in charge now are giving away our future daily.

A small victory in Florida; a huge retreat in eastern Europe

Victory! Sanity broke out in a courtroom in Florida yesterday proving once again that God is in His Heaven listening to the prayers of His saints here on earth. The two Florida school officials charged with the heinous offense of saying grace over a meal on school property -- with no students present -- were found not guilty by the judge. Even the Anti-Christian Lawyer's Union spokesman in Florida had to agree that the judge made the right ruling in applying the law.

Two rural northern Florida school officials were found not guilty of violating an injunction against praying in school, a Florida judge ruled late Thursday in a contentious school prayer case that spurred a reaction from Congress earlier this week.

Hundreds of people waiting in the rain outside of a federal courthouse in Pensacola cheered just after 7:30 p.m. when U.S. District Judge Margaret C. "Casey" Rodgers ruled that Frank Lay, principal of Pace High School in Santa Rosa County, and his athletic director, Robert Freeman, didn't intentionally violate her order to not offer prayers at school-sponsored gatherings.

"We're very pleased," said Mathew Staver, spokesman for the Liberty Counsel, the Orlando-based legal group that represented the two men. "We'll now focus on getting the underlying order set aside or overturned by a higher court."

Glenn Katon, director of the Florida American Civil Liberty Union's religious freedom project, said the judge "made an honest evaluation of the facts and applied the law."

But the battle goes on. My prayers now will continue to be that the ACLU will join ACORN in the dustbin of history, along with the Communists. And speaking of commies, guess who's on the rise again? Communism in Russia may be officially dead, but the raw naked power for evil underlying the defunct Communist regime is not only alive and well, but won another round yesterday.

And guess who handed over the victory on a silver platter? President Barack Hussein Obama abandoned the missile defense shield plans for eastern Europe yesterday, effectively allowing the Russians to resume work on erecting the Iron Curtain the eastern Europeans tore down in 1989.

Wesley Pruden of The Washington Times (who unlike our rookie President and like me is old enough to actually remember the bitter lessons of the Iron Curtain and Communist rule of eastern Europe) spells out what this historic action of retreat by an American president means.

Barack Obama looked Thursday to the lesson of Hiroshima. Sometimes one bomb won't do it. Nagasaki had to follow to "reset" relations with Japan. Six decades later, the Apology Bomb the president dropped on Moscow during his visit last May didn't do it, either. He had to drop another one Thursday.

When Mr. Obama, eager to "reset" relations with Russia, decided to abandon arrangements carefully worked out by the previous administration to base missile defense sites in the Czech Republic and Poland, he dropped amends the size of the H-bomb. Surprise was so important he only told the Czechs and Poles about it in a midnight telephone call so they wouldn't read about it first in the morning papers.

Then, while the Czechs and Poles were marinating in the bitter juices of double-cross and humiliation, the president made the official announcement on the 70th anniversary of the Russian invasion of eastern Poland, the first fruit of the infamous Hitler-Stalin pact of 1939. To be fair, Mr. Obama may not have been aware of the history - important to the Poles, but to a community activist from Chicago, not so much. This president is about sweet talk, not history. Maybe the young president-to-be was home with a tummy ache the day his high-school history class learned about World War II, the Cold War that followed, why that history is so important to the Poles, or why Americans revere Winston Churchill, or the fact that America is made up of only 50 (not 57) states. You can miss a lot by playing hooky.

Accusing a president of selling out an ally is a lot more serious than merely accusing him of lying, impolite as that may be, but the Czechs and the Poles can be forgiven if they think "sell-out." What's scary about this is not how it was done but that it was done at all, that the president and his men (and women) were acting in well-meant good faith. Said the White House: "We ... welcome Russian co-operation to bring its missile defense capabilities into a broader defense of our common strategic interests."

Never before has an American president put the defense of the country's "common strategic interests" in the hands of an unreliable rival's "defense capabilities."

Those who forget the lessons of history are doomed to repeat its mistakes. And as G.K. Chesterton said, before you tear a fence down, it's best to ask "Why it was erected there?"

The eastern Europeans took matters into their own hands after 75 years of Communist rule and tore down the Iron Curtain. President George W. Bush led the way to getting the Czech Republic and Poland into NATO and started the process of building a missile defense shield that would deter primarily Iran with it's growing nuclear ICBM capability, but also future Russian evils.

Ask Georgia and the Ukraine about future Russian evils. Georgia has already been invaded by the Russians and the Ukraine is staring down the muzzles of Russians tanks today. And history is getting ready to repeat itself as BHO becomes the Chamberlain of our time, appeasing the Russians. But I'm sure BHO has no idea who Neville Chamberlain was, the prime minister of England who appeased a dictator named Adolf Hitler, green-lighting his launch of World War II.

Take two minutes of your time to consider how important this issue is for our national security.

President Obama's World Diplomacy Amateur Hour Show

In case you haven't been paying attention, and the mainstream media certainly hasn't, President Obama's amateur hour on world diplomacy is making V.P. Joe Biden look like a genuine prophet.

Sir Charles Krauthammer has been paying attention to world affairs and gives the rundown:

WASHINGTON -- The Biden prophecy has come to pass. Our wacky veep, momentarily inspired, had predicted last October that "it will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama." Biden probably had in mind an eve-of-the-apocalypse drama like the Cuban Missile Crisis. Instead, Obama's challenges have come in smaller bites. Some are deliberate threats to U.S. interests, others mere probes to ascertain whether the new president has any spine.

From Russian to Iran to Pakistan to Venezuela, America's enemies have been firing shots across Obama's bow and so far his response has been his trademark "cool" which means either he's not paying attention, is so inexperienced and amateurish he doesn't know how to respond or is so full of overblown ego and bravado he thinks the famous Obama smile and diplomacy will make it all go away before one of these tryants kicks off a full-blown international incident with the U.S.

I suspect it's all of the above. And to add to Krauthammer's list of pending international crises, Obama's "seasoned" Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announces that North Korea is in the midst of a succession crisis. This may be true, but talking about it publicly is almost guaranteed to set off a row with the notoriously paranoid North Korean commies. Nicely played Hillary.

She's bringing her diplomatic skills to bear like she did as First Lady in bringing peace in the midst of Kosovo sniper fire and between the Northern Ireland Catholics and Protestants. And as suspect as those credentials she boasted of during the campaign are, Obama's credentials on foreign policy are even worse. They're nonexsistent. This President needs some training wheels.

And Ollie North reports in today that the war in Afghanistan ain't looking too rosy either as President Obama gives the general in charge there only half the troops he asked for in a "Stealth Surge" that seems to be at best a half-measure for a worsening situation.

And guess what Glenn Beck was predicting on Fox News this morning? A full-blown depression worldwide touching off riots and civil unrest not seen since the Great Depression -- or worse.

I don't know about you, but I'm thinking about digging a hole and pulling it in after me.

Two "Joes" outranks one "Colin": McCain-Palin win!

Out of commission on my home blogging computer for almost a week and I missed blogging. Hopefully all is fixed now. Did some "troll" hit me with a bug? Possible. You're not paranoid if folks really are out to get you. And Obama and his trolls and leftwing nuts are playing very dirty.

Question: Do two "Joes" outrank one "Colin"? Out here in redneck country, the answer is HELL yes! Between Joe the plumber and Joe the Biden (Charles Krauthammer said Biden is a Republican plant and I think he's right) the two "Joes" have been playing havoc with Obama's coronation. Joe the plumber is a hero because he doesn't want Obama spreading his hard-earned wealth around to the 40 percent of folks who don't pay taxes in the first place. And Joe the Biden is the unlikely hero who opened his big mouth and admitted Obama ain't ready for prime time. Vote for Obama and get your international crises early and often! Who's up first? Ahmanutjob in Iran? Chavez-Khrushchev in Venezuela? Big Daddy Kim in North Korea? Putin-Stalin in Russia?

And what's a Colin Powell endorsement worth? Not squat to us rednecks who never liked him in the first place since he talked President Bush the 1st into pulling the plug on the first invasion of Iraq just when we had Saddam Hussein by the short hairs and shoulda finished him off.

If not for Colin Powell getting squeamish about victory, there would have been no war in Iraq.

And tell me just one thing the man accomplished as Secretary of State in President Bush the 2nd's first term. I'm waiting. Just like I'm also waiting for someone to tell me exactly what kind of executive experience Barack Obama has. Still waiting. Time's up. Same answer. Big zero.

So liberal pollsters and liberal media keeps on lying like a rug and Sarah and John are gonna shock 'em all in two weeks. I love the smell of burning nutroots rage on the morning of Nov. 5.

Sarah's answers left on the cutting-room floor

Mark Levin has the entire interview transcribed that Sarah Palin gave Charlie Gibson of ABC, including the parts that didn't make the airwaves. Of course, it's her strongest answers left out.

Like this lovely little exchange, with the boldface, underlined parts that did not get aired:

GIBSON: Have you ever met a foreign head of state?

PALIN: There in the state of Alaska, our international trade activities bring in many leaders of other countries.

GIBSON: And all governors deal with trade delegations.

PALIN: Right.

GIBSON: Who act at the behest of their governments.

PALIN: Right, right.

GIBSON: I’m talking about somebody who’s a head of state, who can negotiate for that country. Ever met one?

PALIN: I have not and I think if you go back in history and if you ask that question of many vice presidents, they may have the same answer that I just gave you. But, Charlie, again, we’ve got to remember what the desire is in this nation at this time. It is for no more politics as usual and somebody’s big, fat resume maybe that shows decades and decades in that Washington establishment, where, yes, they’ve had opportunities to meet heads of state … these last couple of weeks … it has been overwhelming to me that confirmation of the message that Americans are getting sick and tired of that self-dealing and kind of that closed door, good old boy network that has been the Washington elite.

And remember those headlines about Palin calls for war with Russia?

GIBSON: And under the NATO treaty, wouldn’t we then have to go to war if Russia went into Georgia?

PALIN: Perhaps so. I mean, that is the agreement when you are a NATO ally, is if another country is attacked, you’re going to be expected to be called upon and help.

But NATO, I think, should include Ukraine, definitely, at this point and I think that we need to — especially with new leadership coming in on January 20, being sworn on, on either ticket, we have got to make sure that we strengthen our allies, our ties with each one of those NATO members.

We have got to make sure that that is the group that can be counted upon to defend one another in a very dangerous world today.

GIBSON: And you think it would be worth it to the United States, Georgia is worth it to the United States to go to war if Russia were to invade.

PALIN: What I think is that smaller democratic countries that are invaded by a larger power is something for us to be vigilant against. We have got to be cognizant of what the consequences are if a larger power is able to take over smaller democratic countries.

And we have got to be vigilant. We have got to show the support, in this case, for Georgia. The support that we can show is economic sanctions perhaps against Russia, if this is what it leads to.

It doesn’t have to lead to war and it doesn’t have to lead, as I said, to a Cold War, but economic sanctions, diplomatic pressure, again, counting on our allies to help us do that in this mission of keeping our eye on Russia and Putin and some of his desire to control and to control much more than smaller democratic countries.

His mission, if it is to control energy supplies, also, coming from and through Russia, that’s a dangerous position for our world to be in, if we were to allow that to happen.

No media bias here. Just genuine objective journalism. Nothing to see, move along now.

Palin 3, ABC 0.

“Charlie’s War” replaying in Georgia?

Is there really nothing our military can do about the Russian invasion of the former Soviet republic of Georgia? That’s what all the “experts” are saying. But I don’t think so. That’s what experts said in 1979 when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan back during President Jimmy Carter’s watch.

Carter had gutted military funding after the Vietnam War and nobody wanted to go to war with the Soviet Union over Afghanistan. So Carter did nothing but boycott the Olympics as a lame protest. That’s all the “experts” are suggesting today, another Olympic boycott against the Russians. Nobody wants to go to war with the Russians over Georgia with our troops already fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. But history may well repeat.

As the nonfiction book and movie “Charlie’s War” chronicles, in the ‘80s President Reagan, the CIA and a few friends in Congress quietly financed an insurgency against the Soviet occupation, arming the Afghans with Stinger missiles and other equipment that eventually led to Soviet defeat.

And if I was a betting man, I’d bet a similar campaign is already under way by our Spec Ops troops with the blessing of President Bush. And Georgia may be a small country, but they do have a trained army, air force and navy which succeeded in some damage to the Russian invaders.

With that core group to work with, the Russian troops might just find out it’s a whole lot easier to invade than it is to occupy a country against insurgents who are armed and supported by powerful friends. Might be a replay of Iraq and I’d bet the Russians don’t have a Gen. Petraeus.

Deebow at Blackfive.net speculated that the U.S. Air Force C-17 that landed in Georgia with humanitarian supplies probably had a few “ringers” mixed in amongst the Air Force crew, Spec Ops experts to sneak and peek a sitrep on the Russian occupation.

How many of you believe that there were soldiers on those relief flights that belonged to the RRC, AFSOC, ODA (insert number here), SOF-D or some other Special Mission Unit? I think they are likely giving ground truth to Tampa right now.

It is an axiom of modern combat that when you deploy Special Forces, you are at war...

Here’s what Strategy Page says about our troops who are already in Georgia as trainers for the Georgians: American Troops Help Defend Georgia

As Russian troops invade, from bases in southern Russia, 127 American military trainers remain in Georgia (the one in the Caucasus). They weren't the only foreign troops around, as at the end of July, a thousand Ukrainian, Azeri, Armenian and U.S. troops departed after holding joint training exercises with their Georgian counterparts.

For the past three years, several hundred American military trainers have run the GSSOP (Georgia Sustainment and Stability Operations Program), which has trained over 5,000 Georgian troops, many for eventual service in Iraq. The trainers were American soldiers and marines, who imparted their combat experience to the Georgians.

…Georgia has a population of about 4.6 million, and an active duty military of about 28,000 troops. Russia has a population of 142 million, and an active duty military of about a million personnel. The U.S. has been helping Georgia train and equip an army reserve force of about 100,000. Only about a fifth of that force has been organized so far. Georgia was hoping to develop a sufficient qualitative advantage to discourage the Russians.

If a few thousand Afghans with bolt-action rifles and Stinger missiles could make the Russians turn tail and run, the Georgians can do it too.