Samantha Power, Obama & New Adventures In Cluelessness

This . . .

. . . is Samantha Power, an Irish-born former Harvard professor, one of Obama's long time foreign policy advisors and now our nation's ambassador to the UN.

This woman thinks that, well, . . . this:

President Obama's team thought the regime might abandon dictator Bashar Assad over his use of chemical weapons in Syria's civil war.

Samantha Power, the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, hoped that a team of UN investigators — many of whom, presumably, have a longstanding relationship with Iranian leaders -- could write a report that would convince Iran to abandon its ally at the behest of the United States.

"We worked with the UN to create a group of inspectors and then worked for more than six months to get them access to the country on the logic that perhaps the presence of an investigative team in the country might deter future attacks," Power said at the Center for American Progress as she made the case for intervening in Syria.

"Or, if not, at a minimum, we thought perhaps a shared evidentiary base could convince Russia or Iran — itself a victim of Saddam Hussein's monstrous chemical weapons attacks in 1987-1988 — to cast loose a regime that was gassing it's people," she said. . . .

Now, the mad mullahs are the single greatest threat to the West in the world today. The mad mullahs have their hands covered in blood. They are in the midst of developing nuclear weapons - things that dwarf chemical weapons. They are the world's single greatest sponsor of terrorism. They are an authoritarian theocracy that cannot be trusted to act rationally. They have been at war with the U.S. since 1979. Syria is their only Arab ally - and an absolutely critical one, as Syria links Iran to Lebanon and the West Bank.

So how clueless, how out of touch with reality must Samantha Power be, if she can think for even a nanosecond that we can deal with the mad mullahs. If this is the nature of her advice to Obama, we are in deep, deep trouble. This is a degree naivete the world hasn't seen since Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain returned from his 1938 meeting with Hitler to announce that he had secured "peace in our time." This is scary.

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Foreign Policy As Politics - Following The Obama Example

Foreign policy, including the use of force, should always be based on national interests, not politics. Just a reminder, as we consider Obama's call to attack Syria because Assad violated Obama's redline and slaughtered over a thousand innocents, recall if you will how the left tried to legislate defeat of our nation during the Iraq War for purely political gain and irrespective of the consequences. This from James Taranto at WSJ:

In 2007 Obama asserted that American troops should be withdrawn from Iraq even if that would result in genocide:

"Well, look, if that's the criteria by which we are making decisions on the deployment of U.S. forces, then by that argument you would have 300,000 troops in the Congo right now--where millions have been slaughtered as a consequence of ethnic strife--which we haven't done," Mr. Obama told the AP. "We would be deploying unilaterally and occupying the Sudan, which we haven't done. Those of us who care about Darfur don't think it would be a good idea."

These past statements indict the president for hypocrisy, but they do not prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt. In his defense one might claim that his moral sensibility has matured over the past six years. Perhaps, that is, he has grown in office--though he has not grown nearly enough by other measures that one can say he is up to the job.

Unless in the next week or so he discovers a heretofore unrealized capacity to move public opinion on substantive matters of policy, the expedient thing for lawmakers of either party to do will be to vote "no" while smugly minimizing the moral stakes by noting that while Assad is of course "a bad guy," he poses no imminent and direct threat to the United States, the Syrian economy is in shambles, there are lots of other mass-murdering dictators and we can't bomb 'em all, and so forth.

Any opportunistic lawmaker who takes that path will be following the example set by the man who is now president of the United States.

As I said in the post below, I would support attacking Syria if the attack was of sufficient strength to change the trajectory of the Syrian civil war because, that, in the long run, is in our national interest. It is in our national interest primarily because it would hurt Iran, and they are the true enemy in the Middle East that has to be defeated. But I will say, it is a bitter pill to swallow, to now give the traitorous left moral and political cover to use force.

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Obama, Syria, & A Foreign Policy Somewhere Between Wrong, God-Awful Wrong, & Disastrous

My impression is that we are aiming the barrels of our guns at Syria for no other reason than Obama has discovered that talking tough about a red line then doing nothing about it does not play well politically.  This most recent use of chemical weapons by Assad is not the first or even the second time he has used them since Obama announced a red line on chemical weapons - its the sixth time Assad has used them.  Moreover, according to Obama and all the leaks coming from the White House, Obama plans to do nothing that will have any impact on the Syrian civil war.  In other words, there is no discernible objective to this other than for Obama to say that he did something to "punish" Assad for using chemical weapons.  This is as James Tarranto has described it in the WSJ, a Show Of Farce which defies satire.

Should Congress vote in favor of such a strike?  First, let's look at Obama's foreign policy before keying in on Syria.

Obama has no discernible foreign policy in the Middle East.  He reacts to events, inevitably taking a position on the hard issues only when forced, and even then taking a position that proves somewhere between wrong, god awful wrong, and disastrous.  Let's go down the list. [Update: Instapundit takes a look at Obama's foreign policy at the USA Today, from the infamous reset with Russia all the way to the coalition building Obama has done on Syria. Instapundit finds Obama's foreign policy to be "inept" - which is probably an overly kind description of the acts Instapundit memorializes.]

In Iran, he let the Green Revolution go by without doing a thing to assist - even from the bully pulpit.  He was golfing while young women were being shot by government snipers on the streets of Terhan.  For all of Obama's talk of being tough with Iran, the mad mullahs move closer every day to a nuclear arsenal and Obama does nothing to stop them.  Oh, he tried to slow them down with the now well publicized STUXNET, but he has done nothing to change their trajectory.  This is a sleeper at the moment, but every day it goes on, it will eventually cost our nation ever more in gold and blood on the day we have to face it.

In Iraq, Obama merely had to negotiate a Status of Forces Agreement, so that we could leave troops there to stabilize the nation and, indeed, threaten Iran.  He failed at that - and I would not be surprised to find, in the years to come, that it was deliberately so.  The Iraq War is what the traitorous left, led by Obama, was using as a political tool between 2005 and 2008.  They tried as hard as they could to legislate defeat in Iraq and paint that war as a complete failure.  When that failed, Obama did not want to do anything other than leave.  All the blood and gold we spent to try and create something akin to a functioning republic has been wasted, and Iraq now daily devolves ever more back into violence and the sphere of Iran.  It is obscene.

In Afghanistan, Obama authorized a partial "surge," while at the same time announcing a date certain for our withdrawal.  Could there be any more counter productive way to conduct a war?

In Egypt, Obama gave support to pushing out our ally, Honsi Mubarak, when the strongest force in the nation was the Muslim Brotherhood - the progenitors of al Qaeda.  Obama then followed a policy of fully supporting the Brotherhood government even as they road roughshod over democracy in an attempt to form a decidedly non-democratic Islamic theocracy. And now, even after the people of Egypt spearheaded a coup against the Brotherhood, Obama has led calls to re-establish a civilian government immediately and to stop any government use of force against the Brotherhood as they try to conduct their own counterrevolution.

In Libya, the U.S. had next to no national interests.  Qaddafi, once a promoter of terrorism, had renounced it and, indeed, offered to stop his nuclear program years before.  He was no threat to the U.S. and, indeed, while many of his people supported al Qaeda, he was a bulwark against a theocracy in his tribal country.  And yet, Obama saw fit to insinuate himself into a civil war there on wholly humanitarian grounds.  Obama announced a doctrine that required U.S. intervention when a leader threatened to kill his own people.  Obama set out the moral high ground and planted his flag.  He also unleashed the radicals in Libya, and it is an open question whether they will, in the end, take over the country.

The Obama doctrine lasted about six months, until the Syrian civil war began.  And it was truly a civil war, with the grass roots at war with the government.  Obama could have stepped in to help them - and it very much would have been in our interests to do so.  Syria is key Iran, if for nothing else then as a passage way to Lebanon and the West Bank.  But Obama dithered, doing nothing, and Syria became a Mecca for the radical Sunnis who dream of establishing their own theocracy.  And it is unclear at the moment, should Syria fall, that the country would not emerge in the hands of the al Qaeda types.  What a mess.

Still and all, in judging between the threats posed by Iran and al Qaeda, the greater threat is that posed by Iran.  Their losing Syria as an ally would be a serious loss, and war with Iran is a certainty unless something is done to stop their march to a nuclear arsenal.  Thus, I would roll the dice in favor of supporting Syrian rebels now, and try to straighten out the Sunni mess later.

That said, under no circumstances should the U.S. spend an ounce of its gold or a drop of the blood of its sons and daughters merely to allow Obama a way to save face.  Unless he agrees to take actions that in fact will impact the civil war in Syria - that will truly hurt Assad with a goal of driving him from the country - none of our representatives should vote in favor of attacking Syria.

Moreover, even if Obama agrees to decisive action, the right should not let him or the traitorous left off the hook by failing to point out that --

1.  This action is being taken without the support of the UN.  You will recall how the left howled about taking any action without full approval of that body.

2.  This action is being taken without virtually any coalition of the willing.  You will recall how the left howled about the U.S. acting "unilaterally" when Bush had put together an alliance of some forty nations.

3.  That President Bush took no military actions without the full consent of Congress.  Obama, on the other hand, took us into Libya without either Congressional authorization or any threat to our national security.  The only reason he has come to Congress now is because he lacks anything approaching a legitimate mandate to attack Syria.


4.  That we are where we are today because Obama has not had anything approaching a coherent foreign policy.  He has neither attacked enemies who threaten our national interest nor given support to those who would support our national interest.  He did not intervene during the Green Revolution, yet he saw fit to intervene in Libya.  He did not help the Syrians at the start of their civil war, but he did support the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.  Can this joker - or the left as a whole - get anything right?

That is a rhetorical question, but let me answer it anyway - I don't think so.  The left seem to see pursuing our national interest as something that is immoral.  On the other hand, they see intervening in places where our national interest is not at stake as somehow moral.  It is the bizarre brand of self hate that grew from the pen of Karl Marx and has spread like a cancer throughout the West ever since.  God help this nation.

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Seventy Five Minutes of Krauthammer

Perhaps our most insightful pundit on the right, Charles Krauthammer, recently gave a long talk at the NRO, recorded by CSPAN, on modern liberalism and a host of other topics. It is great to hear him speak in longer than a 1 to 2 minute soundbyte on Special Report. Unfortunately his talk cannot be embeded. You can find it here

His points paraphrased:

- The 2008 election reflected the desire of America to withdraw from the world stage, both as a function of economics and national will. The problem is that while we can freely ignore our enemies, they will not ignore us.

- Obama wants us to emulate European social democratic nations, with a much reduced military and far more spending on social welfare. Europe was able to do this after WWII because they were protected by the U.S. military. We do not have that option. If we reduce our military, we create a power vacuum.

- The end result of Obama's policies will be unmistakably negative for our country, and because of that, we will see a return to conservatism.

- 2010 was a pure ideological election on the relationship between citizen and state - between the big government leftism versus small government conservatism. That is why it was a wave election. The 2012 election was not a campaign based on ideology. Romney eschewed the ideological arguments and tried to run just on the state of the economy. That is why he lost.

- "Romney spoke conservatism as a second language."

- Krauthammer was once a communist. It only lasted a weekend during college, but it was "one hell of a weekend."

- Republicans should make no suicidal charges during the next two years. We can't govern from the House. We can and should block, as well as make small advances.

- Obama is going to use the regulatory bureaucracy to go around Congress because they would never approve his radical agenda. Moreover, some of Obama's executive orders have been lawless. The House should highlight these facts through hearings.

- Conservatism is not dead, and the Democratic theories of demographic Republican decline are not believable. The one troubling spot is that the Republicans have lost a natural constituency in Hispanics. We need to neutralize the immigration issue. Step one, stop illegals crossing our border by building a fence just like the Israelis did to stop the violence of the Second Intafada. Step two, then grant limited amnesty with a path to naturalization.

- Single women, the youth, and urban dwellers are natural liberal constituencies. So what. Conservatives have larger natural constituencies.

- Is our society devolving? The rise in births to unmarried women under 30 is troubling, but on the flip side, there has been a huge decrease in crime. We are in the midst of adapting to new social relationships that inevitably work themselves out in the end.

- Krauthammer, once a speech writer for Walter Mondale, moved to the right in the 1980's for two reasons. On foreign policy, the left became incredibly irresponsible, advocating such things as a nuclear freeze. On social policy, Krauthammer came to the realization that the social policies of the left were doing great damage to the constituencies they were put in place to help.

- A crime of American liberalism is consigning inner city children to a life of desperation because of the influence of teachers' unions. It is failing for lack of competition. There are a host of intractable problems troubling the inner city youths, but changing public education is simple and key.

- Affirmative action actually hurts more than it helps. It takes away the life chances of a large number of Americans by setting them up for failure.

- It is improper to call Obama a "socialist." Socialism is too broad a term. Obama is not a socialist in the totalitarian sense. He is in the ilk of a social Democrat in the post-WWII European sense.

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Of Boats and Bayonets

Romney: Our Navy is old -- excuse me, our Navy is smaller now than at any time since 1917. The Navy said they needed 313 ships to carry out their mission. We're now at under 285. We're headed down to the low 200s if we go through a sequestration. That's unacceptable to me.

I want to make sure that we have the ships that are required by our Navy. Our Air Force is older and smaller than at any time since it was founded in 1947. We've changed for the first time since FDR -- since FDR we had the -- we've always had the strategy of saying we could fight in two conflicts at once. Now we're changing to one conflict. Look, this, in my view, is the highest responsibility of the President of the United States, which is to maintain the safety of the American people. . .

OBAMA: Bob, I just need to comment on this. First of all, the sequester is not something that I've proposed. It is something that Congress has proposed. It will not happen. The budget that we are talking about is not reducing our military spending. It is maintaining it.

But I think Governor Romney maybe hasn't spent enough time looking at how our military works. You mentioned the Navy, for example, and that we have fewer ships than we did in 1916. Well, Governor, we also have fewer horses and bayonets, because the nature of our military's changed. We have these things called aircraft carriers, where planes land on them. We have these ships that go underwater, nuclear submarines.

And so the question is not a game of Battleship, where we're counting slips. It's what are our capabilities. And so when I sit down with the Secretary of the Navy and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, we determine how are we going to be best able to meet all of our defense needs in a way that also keeps faith with our troops, that also makes sure that our veterans have the kind of support that they need when they come home.

Presidential Foreign Policy Debate, 22 October 2012

What has made the spin in the above exchange is Obama's incredibly condescending and insulting response to Mitt Romney's points, focusing solely on the analogy to 1916. But in a rationale world, Romney's points make a mockery of Obama's response.

As a threshold matter, the cuts in defense spending required by sequestration came at the insistence of the White House. The stupidest thing that Republicans have done in living memory was to agree to that. The far left's wet dream, for half a century, has been to cut our defense to the bone and beyond. The Republicans misjudged the fact that they would willing accept cuts to domestic programs if they could finally gut defense.

And those of course on top of Obama's many other cuts to defense. His change of our military posture from being able to fight two wars simultaneously was not driven by any change in strategic reality, it was wholly a means to justify deep cuts to defense spending. He has stopped production on a score of critical next generation weapons systems that can't be restarted on the fly. Development of new weapons systems takes years.

As to the U.S. Navy, it is charged with keeping shipping lanes open worldwide and being able to project superior combat force to any point on the high seas. As to the size of our Navy, the numbers Romney cited came from a 2005 DOD review of force structure in respect of their missions. What Obama is doing is wholly gutting the ability of our Navy to meet their missions. This from the NRO:

The Obama administration’s neglect of the Navy can be typified by the early retirement of the USS Enterprise (CVN 65) and its plans to decommission other naval assets. In August of this year, I outlined on NRO why the Enterprise should remain in service, but the Big E is only the most prominent asset slated for premature retirement. The administration also plans to decommission and scrap six Ticonderoga-class cruisers, although the vessels have as many as 15 years of service life left (even without further overhauls). Maintaining freedom of the seas requires hulls in the water — and the Navy hasn’t even started building the replacements for these cruisers. At present, all we have is a design study called CGX, which may or may not enter production.

This is one area where Obama is particularly culpable: His administration, in an effort to cut costs, proposed the retirement of the USS Enterprise (which his allies in Congress passed in 2009) and the six cruisers. Numerous crises are heating up around the world, as recent events show, but there is no indication that Obama has reconsidered these retirement plans. Certainly, it would not be hard to halt the retirements, and extenuating circumstances clearly warrant a supplemental appropriations bill. None of our carriers or submarines — no matter how high-tech they are — are capable of covering the Persian Gulf and South China Sea at the same time, or the Mediterranean Sea and the Korean Peninsula simultaneously.

And lastly, we don't have "fewer bayonets" in the military today because "the nature of the military's changed." Obama is clueless. All soldiers in the Army and Marines are trained in the use of the bayonet. All infantry line troops are issued bayonets. The current model M9 is a masterpiece of work – at a foot long, it is a razor sharp short sword.

Bayonet charges have been critical events in modern warfare. Gettysburg, and thus the Civil War, turned on a bayonet charge down little Round Top. In the Korean War, the defense of Chip Yong Ni likewise saw a famous bayonet charge, that one by the outnumbered French Foreign Legionnaires. That same war saw a platoon of U.S. Infantry take out machine gun positions with a bayonet charge on a piece of terrain that became known as “Bayonet Hill.” In both Iraq and Afghanistan, British Army units have executed bayonet charges to overcome resistance, most famously in the 2004 “Battle of Danny Boy” at Al Amara, Iraq.

Beyond the bayonet charge by entire units, The bayonet has been used in all wars, through today, as the last tool of defense in close combat. More than a few al Qaeda and Taliban have been ushered off to meet Allah at the sharp end of a U.S. bayonet.

Bottom line – no line soldier will ever show disrespect to the bayonet. Obama is no soldier. He sees the military not as the single most important part of our federal government, but as a piggy bank.

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An Insider's Damning Critique Of Obama's Four Years of Foreign Policy

Rosa Brooks, a hard line progressive and a severe critic of Bush era foreign and economic policies, served as an Undersecretary for Defense in the Obama administration. She writes today, in Foreign Policy Magazine, a scathing critique of Obama's foreign policy and the highly dysfunctional foreign policy machinery he has created.

First is her assessment of the wages of Obama's foreign policy:

Despite some successes large and small, Obama's foreign policy has disappointed many who initially supported him. The Middle East initiatives heralded in his 2009 Cairo speech fizzled or never got started at all, and the Middle East today is more volatile than ever. The administration's response to the escalating violence in Syria has consisted mostly of anxious thumb-twiddling. The Israelis and the Palestinians are both furious at us. In Afghanistan, Obama lost faith in his own strategy: he never fought to fully resource it, and now we're searching for a way to leave without condemning the Afghans to endless civil war. In Pakistan, years of throwing money in the military's direction have bought little cooperation and less love.

The Russians want to reset the reset, neither the Chinese nor anyone else can figure out what, if anything, the "pivot to Asia" really means, and Latin America and Africa continue to be mostly ignored, along with global issues such as climate change. Meanwhile, the administration's expanding drone campaign suggests a counterterrorism strategy that has completely lost its bearings -- we no longer seem very clear on who we need to kill or why.

Ms. Brooks then lays out a six point plan to fix all the ills of Obama's foreign policy:

1. Get a Strategy. Ms. Brooks notes that Obama is long on aspirational statements, short indeed on any sort of cohesive strategy. As she asks:

What does President Obama see as the one or two gravest threats to the United States? What are our one or two biggest opportunities? Is terrorism an existential threat to the United States, or a marginal threat, overshadowed by the long-term dangers posed by climate change, pandemics, and a highly manipulable global financial system? Should we focus on increasing ties in Asia, or focus on our neighbors in Central and South America? Is the United States trying to maintain global preeminence, even if it comes at the expense of other states -- or are we trying to foster a global order in which the United States is but one of many strong countries, all constrained by a robust international network of laws and institutions? . . .

2. Get Some Decent Managers According to Ms. Brooks, the foreign policy apparatus as existing in the space between the Executive agencies and the President - the National Security Advisor and his staff, are in a "state of permanent crisis," accomplishing little. Moreover,

. . . although the National Security Staff lacks the personnel or the depth of experience and expertise to be the primary font of policy, the NSS appears to view the Cabinet-level departments and agencies as mere implementers of policies created by the White House, rather than as sources of ideas and expertise. As a result, the schedule and agenda for senior level-discussions is driven almost entirely by a small number of NSS staff, making it difficult for other issues and perspectives to be brought to the fore.

So is this where the decision was made to "normalize" our posture in Benghazi and deny repeated requests for increased security?

3. Get some people who actually know something. Ms. Brooks charge that nepotism and cronyism are rampant throughout Obama's foreign security apparatus. Political connections wholly trump foreign policy experience:

[M]eetings called by top NSS officials involve by-name requests for attendance, with no substitutions or "plus ones" permitted. As a result, dissenting voices are shut out, along with the voices of specialists who could provide valuable information and insights. The result? Shallow discussions and poor decisions.

4. Get Out Of The Bubble. Ms Brooks charges that the White House's NSS staff functions as a fiefdom, severely limiting access to the President on security matters. Moreover, it appears that the President is not hearing any contrary arguments.

5. Get a backbone. Heh. Sorry Ms. Brooks, but Obama's lack of a spine is apparently genetic. Wishing won't change that defect.

6. Get rid of the jerks. There is a tremendous amount of in-fighting among the principals of Obama's foreign policy apparatus, in addition to rudeness. It is a dysfunctional environment.

Romney doesn't need prep for the upcoming debate with an Obama stand-in, he just needs to buy a copy of Foreign Policy magazine and memorize Ms. Brooks's article.

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Clinton Takes Responsibility For Benghazi, But Leaves All Critical Questions Unanswered

Sec. of State Clinton said this last night about the murder of Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans in Benghazi:



What she said is insufficient. If she was truly taking responsibility, she would have accompanied her mea culpa with a letter of resignation, or the heads of the "security professionals" who, she would tell us, made criminally reckless decisions. Instead, what Clinton gave us yesterday was a whimsical "my bad, sorry." Or to use the vernacular of Whoopi Goldberg, it wasn't 'taking responsibility taking responsibility.' It states the obvious, leaving all of the important questions regarding security, intelligence and foreign policy unanswered, and holding no one accountable.

Yes, as Clinton stated, the specific manning decisions for security in Benghazi would be made at the State Dept. and would never reach the White House. That said, if the decision to underman security in Benghazi irrespective of the actual threat was made in consideration of a policy, then we need to know where that policy originated. who approved it and why. That is either Clinton and or Obama. Bob Woodward highlighted this exact point several days ago on Fox News:



And then, of course, there is the now the well publicized testimony of LTC Wood, commander of a security detachment in Benghazi who begged the State Dept. for more security months in advance of the attack - "[f]or me, the Taliban was on the inside of the building. . ."



Moreover, there is the claim that "fog of war" lasted for near two weeks, during which time Susan Rice, Obama, Clinton and others in the administration claimed that this was a 'spontaneous' protest over a video that got out of hand. State Dept. officials who were in Benghazi on 9-11-12 have given a first hand account of what occurred on that day. To say that our intelligence agencies were mystified for weeks, let alone 24 hours, by the "fog of war" is utterly beyond belief. Charles Krauthammer highlighted that on a Fox News panel:



So that raises the next series of questions, regarding our intelligence capabilities. Who in our intelligence community briefed the White House and what was the sum of that briefing? Either our intelligence community has degraded to the level of the keystone kops or someone is lying to America. And further, we have been told again and again that our nation had no "actionable intelligence" regarding the Benghazi attack. Why not? Are we seeing degraded intelligence capabilities because of the President's decision to deal with al Qaeda almost solely through drone strikes and not through capture and interrogation?

Then there is the elephant in the room. If Obama was trying to deceive America about the nature of the Benghazi attack, why was he doing it? Others have answered that. Charles Krauthammer, in his column The Collapse of the Cairo Doctrine, points out that Salafism is resurgent in the Middle East, that Obama's "doctrinal premises were supremely naive" and that his policies have been "deeply corrosive to American influence." Laura Logan noted that Obama's deception runs deeper than just al Qaeda and the Benghazi attacks:

[O]ur government is downplaying the strength of our enemies in Afghanistan and Pakistan, as a rationale of getting us out of the longest war. We have been lulled into believing that the perils are in the past: “You’re not listening to what the people who are fighting you say about this fight. In your arrogance, you think you write the script.”

And indeed, twelve hours before the attacks on 9-11-12, I penned the following:

{The US. is experiencing] a false sense of security for no, we are not safer today. For the past eleven years, our soldiers and intelligence services have performed brilliantly. They have done all that we have asked of them. And yet, the future in the Middle East and, more particularly, as regards the radical Islamists, looks far more threatening today than it did on September 10, 2001.

I followed that prescient observation by noting that we have failed to engage in the war of ideas, and thus al Qaeda will be constantly regenerating in some form or another. This is not a 'war' that will end in 2014 as we turn off the lights in Afghanistan. Because we are not engaging in the war of ideas, this will be a conflict that will last for decades.

At any rate, the answers to all of the questions raised above were not answered by Hillary Clinton's whimsical acceptance of responsibility with no consequences. This is not a "political" diversion; it goes to the heart of our national security and the wages of four years of policy decisions by the Obama administration. It so happens that they are all encapsulated in the answers to why the Benghazi attack happened, why it succeeded, and why the Obama administration lied about it to America. Those are questions the Obama administration wants to avoid like the plague until after the first Tuesday in November. Those are questions America deserves answers to today.

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Romney's Foreign Policy Speech At VMI

Here is the video followed by the transcript. It is a good speech. As Romney memorably notes:

I know the President hopes for a safer, freer, and a more prosperous Middle East allied with the United States. I share this hope. But hope is not a strategy.

Perhaps the only thing that I would have added is that Obama has not captured a single high value intelligence target, preferring to kill them from afar with drones. We are not getting human intelligence like we did in the years before Obama. Did we see the wages of this intelligence failure in Benghazi, where the Obama administration failed to see a growing al Qaeda threat, resulting in the catastrophic slaughter of our Ambassador and others?

[Opening remarks not included] General Marshall once said, “The only way human beings can win a war is to prevent it.” Those words were true in his time—and they still echo in ours.

Last month, our nation was attacked again. A U.S. Ambassador and three of our fellow Americans are dead—murdered in Benghazi, Libya. Among the dead were three veterans. All of them were fine men, on a mission of peace and friendship to a nation that dearly longs for both. President Obama has said that Ambassador Chris Stevens and his colleagues represented the best of America. And he is right. We all mourn their loss.

The attacks against us in Libya were not an isolated incident. They were accompanied by anti-American riots in nearly two dozen other countries,mostly in the Middle East, but also in Africa and Asia. Our embassies have been attacked. Our flag has been burned. Many of our citizens have been threatened and driven from their overseas homes by vicious mobs, shouting “Death to America.” These mobs hoisted the black banner of Islamic extremism over American embassies on the anniversary of the September 11th attacks.

As the dust settles, as the murdered are buried, Americans are asking how this happened, how the threats we face have grown so much worse, and what this calls on America to do. These are the right questions. And I have come here today to offer a larger perspective on these tragic recent events—and to share with you, and all Americans, my vision for a freer, more prosperous, and more peaceful world.

The attacks on America last month should not be seen as random acts. They are expressions of a larger struggle that is playing out across the broader Middle East—a region that is now in the midst of the most profound upheaval in a century. And the fault lines of this struggle can be seen clearly in Benghazi itself.

The attack on our Consulate in Benghazi on September 11th, 2012 was likely the work of forces affiliated with those that attacked our homeland on September 11th, 2001. This latest assault cannot be blamed on a reprehensible video insulting Islam, despite the Administration’s attempts to convince us of that for so long. No, as the Administration has finally conceded, these attacks were the deliberate work of terrorists who use violence to impose their dark ideology on others, especially women and girls; who are fighting to control much of the Middle East today; and who seek to wage perpetual war on the West.

We saw all of this in Benghazi last month—but we also saw something else, something hopeful. After the attack on our Consulate, tens of thousands of Libyans, most of them young people, held a massive protest in Benghazi against the very extremists who murdered our people. They waved signs that read, “The Ambassador was Libya’s friend” and “Libya is sorry.” They chanted “No to militias.” They marched, unarmed, to the terrorist compound. Then they burned it to the ground. As one Libyan woman said, “We are not going to go from darkness to darkness.”

This is the struggle that is now shaking the entire Middle East to its foundation. It is the struggle of millions and millions of people—men and women, young and old, Muslims, Christians and non-believers—all of whom have had enough of the darkness. It is a struggle for the dignity that comes with freedom, and opportunity, and the right to live under laws of our own making. It is a struggle that has unfolded under green banners in the streets of Iran, in the public squares of Tunisia and Egypt and Yemen, and in the fights for liberty in Iraq, and Afghanistan, and Libya, and now Syria. In short, it is a struggle between liberty and tyranny, justice and oppression, hope and despair.

We have seen this struggle before. It would be familiar to George Marshall. In his time, in the ashes of world war, another critical part of the world was torn between democracy and despotism. Fortunately, we had leaders of courage and vision, both Republicans and Democrats, who knew that America had to support friends who shared our values, and prevent today’s crises from becoming tomorrow’s conflicts.

Statesmen like Marshall rallied our nation to rise to its responsibilities as the leader of the free world. We helped our friends to build and sustain free societies and free markets. We defended our friends, and ourselves, from our common enemies. We led. And though the path was long and uncertain, the thought of war in Europe is as inconceivable today as it seemed inevitable in the last century.

This is what makes America exceptional: It is not just the character of our country—it is the record of our accomplishments. America has a proud history of strong, confident, principled global leadership—a history that has been written by patriots of both parties. That is America at its best. And it is the standard by which we measure every President, as well as anyone who wishes to be President. Unfortunately, this President’s policies have not been equal to our best examples of world leadership. And nowhere is this more evident than in the Middle East.

I want to be very clear: The blame for the murder of our people in Libya, and the attacks on our embassies in so many other countries, lies solely with those who carried them out—no one else. But it is the responsibility of our President to use America’s great power to shape history—not to lead from behind, leaving our destiny at the mercy of events. Unfortunately, that is exactly where we find ourselves in the Middle East under President Obama.

The relationship between the President of the United States and the Prime Minister of Israel, our closest ally in the region, has suffered great strains. The President explicitly stated that his goal was to put “daylight” between the United States and Israel. And he has succeeded. This is a dangerous situation that has set back the hope of peace in the Middle East and emboldened our mutual adversaries, especially Iran.

Iran today has never been closer to a nuclear weapons capability. It has never posed a greater danger to our friends, our allies, and to us. And it has never acted less deterred by America, as was made clear last year when Iranian agents plotted to assassinate the Saudi Ambassador in our nation’s capital. And yet, when millions of Iranians took to the streets in June of 2009, when they demanded freedom from a cruel regime that threatens the world, when they cried out, “Are you with us, or are you with them?”—the American President was silent.

Across the greater Middle East, as the joy born from the downfall of dictators has given way to the painstaking work of building capable security forces, and growing economies, and developing democratic institutions, the President has failed to offer the tangible support that our partners want and need.

In Iraq, the costly gains made by our troops are being eroded by rising violence, a resurgent Al-Qaeda, the weakening of democracy in Baghdad, and the rising influence of Iran. And yet, America’s ability to influence events for the better in Iraq has been undermined by the abrupt withdrawal of our entire troop presence. The President tried—and failed—to secure a responsible and gradual drawdown that would have better secured our gains.

The President has failed to lead in Syria, where more than 30,000 men, women, and children have been massacred by the Assad regime over the past 20 months. Violent extremists are flowing into the fight. Our ally Turkey has been attacked. And the conflict threatens stability in the region.

America can take pride in the blows that our military and intelligence professionals have inflicted on Al-Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan, including the killing of Osama bin Laden. These are real achievements won at a high cost. But Al-Qaeda remains a strong force in Yemen and Somalia, in Libya and other parts of North Africa, in Iraq, and now in Syria. And other extremists have gained ground across the region. Drones and the modern instruments of war are important tools in our fight, but they are no substitute for a national security strategy for the Middle East.

The President is fond of saying that “The tide of war is receding.” And I want to believe him as much as anyone. But when we look at the Middle East today—with Iran closer than ever to nuclear weapons capability, with the conflict in Syria threating to destabilize the region, with violent extremists on the march, and with an American Ambassador and three others dead likely at the hands of Al-Qaeda affiliates— it is clear that the risk of conflict in the region is higher now than when the President took office.

I know the President hopes for a safer, freer, and a more prosperous Middle East allied with the United States. I share this hope. But hope is not a strategy. We cannot support our friends and defeat our enemies in the Middle East when our words are not backed up by deeds, when our defense spending is being arbitrarily and deeply cut, when we have no trade agenda to speak of, and the perception of our strategy is not one of partnership, but of passivity.

The greater tragedy of it all is that we are missing an historic opportunity to win new friends who share our values in the Middle East—friends who are fighting for their own futures against the very same violent extremists, and evil tyrants, and angry mobs who seek to harm us. Unfortunately, so many of these people who could be our friends feel that our President is indifferent to their quest for freedom and dignity. As one Syrian woman put it, “We will not forget that you forgot about us.”

It is time to change course in the Middle East. That course should be organized around these bedrock principles: America must have confidence in our cause, clarity in our purpose and resolve in our might. No friend of America will question our commitment to support them… no enemy that attacks America will question our resolve to defeat them… and no one anywhere, friend or foe, will doubt America’s capability to back up our words.

I will put the leaders of Iran on notice that the United States and our friends and allies will prevent them from acquiring nuclear weapons capability. I will not hesitate to impose new sanctions on Iran, and will tighten the sanctions we currently have. I will restore the permanent presence of aircraft carrier task forces in both the Eastern Mediterranean and the Gulf region—and work with Israel to increase our military assistance and coordination. For the sake of peace, we must make clear to Iran through actions—not just words—that their nuclear pursuit will not be tolerated.

I will reaffirm our historic ties to Israel and our abiding commitment to its security—the world must never see any daylight between our two nations.

I will deepen our critical cooperation with our partners in the Gulf.

And I will roll back President Obama’s deep and arbitrary cuts to our national defense that would devastate our military. I will make the critical defense investments that we need to remain secure. The decisions we make today will determine our ability to protect America tomorrow. The first purpose of a strong military is to prevent war.

The size of our Navy is at levels not seen since 1916. I will restore our Navy to the size needed to fulfill our missions by building 15 ships per year, including three submarines. I will implement effective missile defenses to protect against threats. And on this, there will be no flexibility with Vladimir Putin. And I will call on our NATO allies to keep

the greatest military alliance in history strong by honoring their commitment to each devote 2 percent of their GDP to security spending. Today, only 3 of the 28 NATO nations meet this benchmark.

I will make further reforms to our foreign assistance to create incentives for good governance, free enterprise, and greater trade, in the Middle East and beyond. I will organize all assistance efforts in the greater Middle East under one official with responsibility and accountability to prioritize efforts and produce results. I will rally our friends and allies to match our generosity with theirs. And I will make it clear to the recipients of our aid that, in return for our material support, they must meet the responsibilities of every decent modern government—to respect the rights of all of their citizens, including women and minorities… to ensure space for civil society, a free media, political parties, and an independent judiciary… and to abide by their international commitments to protect our diplomats and our property.

I will champion free trade and restore it as a critical element of our strategy, both in the Middle East and across the world. The President has not signed one new free trade agreement in the past four years. I will reverse that failure. I will work with nations around the world that are committed to the principles of free enterprise, expanding existing relationships and establishing new ones.

I will support friends across the Middle East who share our values, but need help defending them and their sovereignty against our common enemies.

In Libya, I will support the Libyan people’s efforts to forge a lasting government that represents all of them, and I will vigorously pursue the terrorists who attacked our consulate in Benghazi and killed Americans.

In Egypt, I will use our influence—including clear conditions on our aid—to urge the new government to represent all Egyptians, to build democratic institutions, and to maintain its peace treaty with Israel. And we must persuade our friends and allies to place similar stipulations on their aid.

In Syria, I will work with our partners to identify and organize those members of the opposition who share our values and ensure they obtain the arms they need to defeat Assad’s tanks, helicopters, and fighter jets. Iran is sending arms to Assad because they know his downfall would be a strategic defeat for them. We should be working no less vigorously with our international partners to support the many Syrians who would deliver that defeat to Iran—rather than sitting on the sidelines. It is essential that we develop influence with those forces in Syria that will one day lead a country that sits at the heart of the Middle East.

And in Afghanistan, I will pursue a real and successful transition to Afghan security forces by the end of 2014. President Obama would have you believe that anyone who disagrees with his decisions in Afghanistan is arguing for endless war. But the route to more war – and to potential attacks here at home – is a politically timed retreat that abandons the Afghan people to the same extremists who ravaged their country and used it to launch the attacks of 9/11. I will evaluate conditions on the ground and weigh the best advice of our military commanders. And I will affirm that my duty is not to my political prospects, but to the security of the nation.

Finally, I will recommit America to the goal of a democratic, prosperous Palestinian state living side by side in peace and security with the Jewish state of Israel. On this vital issue, the President has failed, and what should be a negotiation process has devolved into a series of heated disputes at the United Nations. In this old conflict, as in every challenge we face in the Middle East, only a new President will bring the chance to begin anew.

There is a longing for American leadership in the Middle East—and it is not unique to that region. It is broadly felt by America’s friends and allies in other parts of the world as well— in Europe, where Putin’s Russia casts a long shadow over young democracies, and where our oldest allies have been told we are “pivoting” away from them … in Asia and across the Pacific, where China’s recent assertiveness is sending chills through the region … and here in our own hemisphere, where our neighbors in Latin America want to resist the failed ideology of Hugo Chavez and the Castro brothers and deepen ties with the United States on trade, energy, and security. But in all of these places, just as in the Middle East, the question is asked: “Where does America stand?”

I know many Americans are asking a different question: “Why us?” I know many Americans are asking whether our country today—with our ailing economy, and our massive debt, and after 11 years at war—is still capable of leading.

I believe that if America does not lead, others will—others who do not share our interests and our values—and the world will grow darker, for our friends and for us. America’s security and the cause of freedom cannot afford four more years like the last four years. I am running for President because I believe the leader of the free world has a duty, to our citizens, and to our friends everywhere, to use America’s great influence—wisely, with solemnity and without false pride, but also firmly and actively—to shape events in ways that secure our interests, further our values, prevent conflict, and make the world better—not perfect, but better.

Our friends and allies across the globe do not want less American leadership. They want more—more of our moral support, more of our security cooperation, more of our trade, and more of our assistance in building free societies and thriving economies. So many people across the world still look to America as the best hope of humankind. So many people still have faith in America. We must show them that we still have faith in ourselves—that we have the will and the wisdom to revive our stagnant economy, to roll back our unsustainable debt, to reform our government, to reverse the catastrophic cuts now threatening our national defense, to renew the sources of our great power, and to lead the course of human events.

Sir Winston Churchill once said of George Marshall: “He … always fought victoriously against defeatism, discouragement, and disillusion.” That is the role our friends want America to play again. And it is the role we must play.

The 21st century can and must be an American century. It began with terror, war, and economic calamity. It is our duty to steer it onto the path of freedom, peace, and prosperity.

The torch America carries is one of decency and hope. It is not America’s torch alone. But it is America’s duty – and honor – to hold it high enough that all the world can see its light.

Thank you, God bless you, and God bless the United States of America.

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9-11 Its Aftermath, Eleven Years On

On September 11, 2001 al Qaeda, a group of Wahhabi Islamists led by Osama bin Laden, managed the worst foreign attack ever on American soil ever. Using passenger jets as weapons of mass slaughter, they killied nearly 3,000 innocent men, women and children. The attack was a surprise to most Americans. Few realized, just the day before, on September 10, 2001, the nature of the threat against us rising in the Middle East, nor, for that matter, that such a threat existed.

Since 9-11, we have spent hundreds of billions of dollars and lost the lives of thousands of American fighting men and women in what was once known as the "war on terror," a term Obama later sanitized to "overseas contingency operations." Between September 11, 2001 and today, we drove the Taliban out of Afghanistan, though they have since mounted a partial comeback. We drove the Ba'athits from power in Iraq as part of a war of choice to try to bring democracy and moderation to the Middle East. We rid the world of many an evil man, either by capture of death, such as Khalid Sheik Mohammed, Abu Musab al Zarqawi and Saddam Hussein. We have kept America safe from any large scale terror attacks. And, in an act of great symbolic importance, we brought justice to Osama bin Laden. He sleeps with the fishes.

So are we safer today, eleven years on from 9-11? We as a nation certainly seem to feel so. Washington today will be "business as usual," according to Dana Milbank. There will be a smattering of memorial services in Washington, but, Milbank tells us, that "the day that changed the nation is becoming more and more ordinary . . . Sept. 11, 2001 is on its way to joining Dec. 7, 1941 — more historical, less raw." But it is very much a false sense of security for no, we are not safer today. For the past eleven years, our soldiers and intelligence services have performed brilliantly. They have done all that we have asked of them. And yet, the future in the Middle East and, more particularly, as regards the radical Islamists, looks far more threatening today than it did on September 10, 2001.

On September 10, 2001, no Islamic radicals had access to nuclear weapons. Today, Iran, the world's most ardent supporter of terrorism, a regime every bit as bloody minded, radical, expansionist and Jew-hating as was Nazi Germany, is on the brink of creating nuclear weapons.

On September 10, 2001, Pakistan, the only Islamic nuclear nation, was under the control of a nominally secular military dictator. Today, Pakistan is a hot bed of radical Islam, a failed state, and evermore our enemy.

On September 10, 2001, Turkey was a secular nation, an ally of the U.S. and a friend to Israel. Today, Turkey is well down the path to being Islamicized by PM Erdogan, who, not long ago, conducted a coup against secularists in control of the Turkish military. Erdogan dreams of reestablishing Turkey as the head of a new Caliphate and has warmed to Iran.

On September 10, 2001, Egypt was a dictatorship friendly to the U.S. and cooperative with Israel. Today, after the "Arab Spring," Egypt is under the control of the radical Muslim Brotherhood - the organization that spawned al Qaeda and shares every one of al-Qaeda's goals. The secularists who led the revolution that deposed the Mubarak dictatorship are already under brutal assault from their new regime and its Islamist supporters. The Muslim Brotherhood government has already led a coup against the military, which many in the West hoped to be a restraining influence in Egypt. Indeed, Egypt seems to be following the same pattern that took Iran from revolution in 1979 to a radical theocracy but two years later.

On September 10, 2001, the PLO nominally controlled the Gaza strip, subject to Israeli oversight. Today, Hamas, a bloody terrorist organization, fully controls the Gaza strip, the PLO has joined with them, and the Obama regime is funding them, at least indirectly, to the tune of almost a billion dollars..

On September 10, 2001, Lebanon was divided between Syrian occupation in the north and Israeli occupation to the south. Today, Lebanon is virtually a puppet regime of Iran, ruled only with the continuing approval of Hezbollah. It is armed to the teeth with Iranian supplied rockets pointed at Israel.

On September 10, 2001, Syria was a secular dictatorship under the Assad / Alawite clan and an ally of Iran. Today, Syria is involved in a brutal "civil war;" but . . . a large number, perhaps a majority, of the people fighting Assad for control are not beleagured Syrian citizens, but foreign Islamists bent on deposing Assad in order to put in place their own Sunni theocracy. Indeed, as one Syrian General recently opined,

"Of Western, and particularly European, attitudes to the battles, he voiced disbelief. "Don't they understand that we are the last dam that is holding back the flood of Islamists in Europe," he asked. "What blindness."

Just as Egypt's former dictator Mubarak rightly warned us that he was the bulwark against the Islamists in Egypt, I think that the Syrian general might well be right as regards Syria, not to mention what it will mean for Europe if Assad falls to the Islamists. And we seem to be doing nothing to influence the situation.

On September 10, 2001, Iraq was ruled by Saddam Hussein. We got rid of him and installed what was to be a democracy. But desperate to mark Iraq as a failure, our perfidious left demanded that all U.S. troops be pulled from Iraq, Bush blinked, and Obama made sure all U.S. troops were removed. Moreover, when Iraq held its free election in 2010, Obama acquiesced to what amounted to a coup by Maliki. Today, we have little influence over Iraq and its illegitimate government is moving ever closer to the Iranian sphere. Unique in today's Middle East, Iraq today is better off than it was ten years ago and it is, at least not a direct enemy of the U.S. That said, Iraq's trajectory looks poor indeed.

On September 10, 2001, Saudi Arabia was nominally a close ally of the U.S. They still are a close ally of our government types, even as they spend billions of dollars annually pushing their bloody, toxic brand of Wahhabi Islam throughout the world. And it is that - Wahhabi Islam and its influences - that caused 9-11, and that undergird the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas and Hezbollah, among many others. Iran's own highly radicalized version of Shia Islam, the Ayatollah Khomeini's veleyat-e-faqi, is virtually a clone of Wahhabi Islam in terms of its triumphalism, expansionism and bloodiness.

So what has gone wrong over the past eleven years? Short answer - Bush's failure to identify our enemy as Wahhabi Islam, a mistake exponentially compounded by Obama's policies towards Wahhabi Islam and the Middle East.

Obama has pointed to the execution of bin Laden as well as his, Obama's, increased use of drone strikes as the ipso facto proof of his foreign policy bona fides. But especially as regards the Middle East and radical Islam, his policies have been an utter catastrophe: from the failure to fan the Green Revolution in Iran to fanning the flames of revolution in Egypt; from pressuring Israel to make unreasonable concessions to the Palestinians to excusing the radicalism and terrorism of the Palestinians; from failing to halt Iran's march towards a nuclear arsenal to allowing Pakistan to play a double game against the U.S. Obama has allowed a bad situation to become exponentially worse.

I have been saying for years now on this blog that our policy towards the Islamists - those who would happily slaughter us in a heart beat and impose Sharia law on the world - has no chance of working unless and until we finally identify the enemy. The enemy is not "terrorism." Terrorism is a tactic. The enemy is the toxic ideology of Wahhabi Islam and the Veleyat-e-Faqi of Iran.

Columnist Caroline Glick, several months ago, hit on much this same point, as well as pointing out how Obama has made the situation much worse. Her assessment is well worth a read:

How is it possible that the US finds itself today with so few good options in the Arab world after all the blood and treasure it has sacrificed? The answer to this question is found to a large degree in an article by Prof. Angelo Codevilla in the current issue of the Claremont Review of Books titled "The Lost Decade."

Codevilla argues that the reason the US finds itself in the position it is in today owes to a significant degree to its refusal after September 11, 2001, to properly identify its enemy. US foreign policy elites of all stripes and sizes refused to consider clearly how the US should best defend its interests because they refused to identify who most endangered those interests.

The Left refused to acknowledge that the US was under attack from the forces of radical Islam enabled by Islamic supremacist regimes such as Saudi Arabia and Iran because the Left didn't want the US to fight. Moreover, because the Left believes that US policies are to blame for the Islamic world's hostility to America, leftists favor foreign policies predicated on US appeasement of its enemies.

For its part, the Right refused to acknowledge the identity and nature of the US's enemy because it feared the Left.

And so, rather than fight radical Islamists, under Bush the US went to war against a tactic - terrorism. And lo and behold, it was unable to defeat a tactic because a tactic isn't an enemy. It's just a tactic.

And as its war aim was unachievable, the declared ends of the war became spectacular. Rather than fight to defend the US, the US went to war to transform the Arab world from one imbued with unmentionable religious extremism to one increasingly ruled by democratically elected unmentionable religious extremism.

The lion's share of responsibility for this dismal state of affairs lies with former president Bush and his administration. While the Left didn't want to fight or defeat the forces of radical Islam after September 11, the majority of Americans did. And by catering to the Left and refusing to identify the enemy, Bush adopted war-fighting tactics that discredited the war effort and demoralized and divided the American public, thus paving the way for Obama to be elected while running on a radical anti-war platform of retreat and appeasement.

Since Obama came into office, he has followed the Left's ideological guidelines of ending the fight against and seeking to appease America's worst enemies. This is why he has supported the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. This is why he turned a blind eye to the Islamists who dominated the opposition to Gaddafi. This is why he has sought to appease Iran and Syria. This is why he supports the Muslim Brotherhood-dominated Syrian opposition. This is why he supports Turkey's Islamist government. And this is why he is hostile to Israel.

And this is why come December 31, the US will withdraw in defeat from Iraq, and pro- American forces in the region and the US itself will reap the whirlwind of Washington's irresponsibility.

There is a price to be paid for calling an enemy an enemy. But there is an even greater price to be paid for failing to do so.

We have already spent tremendous amounts of treasure and blood in response to the 9-11 attacks. But the failure to identify and fight the real enemy, not merely on the battlefield, but in the war of ideas, has been an existential error.

One of the lessons of WWII, according to Nazi generals, was that Hitler could have been stopped with minimal cost in blood and treasure in 1937 had France and England stood up to him. Waiting just two years turned the costs from nominal into the most costly and deadly conflict in our world's history.

We are now repeating that mistake in regards to radical Islam. Bush is at fault; Obama has allowed the situation to become exponentially worse. Given that 9-11 has given us much more warning of the "enemy's" bloodiness, violence and existential motivations than either the British or French had as regards the Nazi's in 1937, our failure to address this is unforgivable. And no, killing bin Laden does not change the fact that, on this most important of issues, Obama's foreign policy is ineffective at best, incompetent and dangerous at worst.

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Glancing about the web, I see that Bookworm Room has a post on 9-11 that you would likely find of interest: September 11, 2001: In Memoriam.

Powerline has a good post on how aggressive CIA policies, now condemned by Obama, are what led to finding and executing Osama bin Laden.

Update: This from Muslim reformer Dr. Zhudi Jasser of AIFD today hits the nail on the head:

The American Islamic Forum for Democracy (AIFD) is calling on President Obama and presidential candidate Governor Mitt Romney to use the eleventh anniversary of the 9/11 attacks to reengage the national discussion into the root causes of this horrible attack that claimed nearly 3,000 American lives.

With the understandable concerns over the U.S. economy driving the 2012 president race, both the Administration and the Romney campaign seem to be content to not engage on important issues in the global arena. But eleven years since the attacks on our country the U.S. still has done little to address the ideology of political Islam which is the root cause that led Al Qaeda and 19 hijackers to attack our country. In fact with the Islamist political victories in the Middle-East since the “Arab Spring” it is clear that the ideology of political Islam, and the radicalism that is borne within the ideology, are growing in a post 9-11 world. . . .

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Obama To Russia On Bended Knee

We have a huge technological advantage in Ballistic Missile Defense.  And, in a world of nuclear proliferation, fully developing that technology and maintaining our technological advantage could be the difference between life or death for the U.S..  Yet we now learn that Obama plans to  share our ballistic missile defense (BMD) technology with Russia... including our newest mid-range missile, Standard Missile 3 (SM3).   Of all Obama's foreign policy missteps, this one has the potential to be the most damaging to our nation.

Now, to the person of average intelligence, this might seem like an incredibly dumb move.  While the U.S. and Russia are no longer sitting on the fence of nuclear war, Russia is hardly an ally, nor are they benign.  Indeed, their interests, such as building nuclear reactors in Iran, are directly at odds with Western interests.  So why, oh why, would this smartest of Presidents consider sharing BMD technology with Russia?  Why in order to allay Russian "fears" about putting some of our SM3's in Europe.  This is vintage Obama - naive beyond measure, unable to distinguish friend from foe, and acting in the best interests of a foreign power rather than the U.S..  The appropriate response to Russia's overreaction is to threaten to put SM3's on every street corner in Europe, not to give them the blueprints.

Big Lizards has the whole story with appropriate comment.

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Osama bin Shark Bait Part II

A few other issues have arisen in regards to the successful operation to introduce Obama to his Maker - and 72 sturgeons. One is the inexplicable lack of security at Obama's compound. Two is the decision whether to release a photo of bin Laden with his brains decorating the walls of his compound. Three is the reaction to the raid from many of the euro-lefties. Four is the reaction from the radical Muslim wing.

According to reports to date, two blackhawk helicopters were able to hover over bin Laden's compound while 24 soldiers rappelled into the compound, probably from a height of about 50 to 60 feet, perhaps higher. Once on the ground, they made their way into the building housing bin Laden and made it all the way up to the third floor before taking any fire. In the end, it appears only four men were on the compound, three of whom were bin Laden and two of his sons. In other words, there was no security presence. There were no people manning machine guns in the courtyard. There were no RPG positions on the roof. There was zip, zero, nada - not even a BEWARE OF DOG sign apparently.

For one of the most hunted men in the world, I find that complete lack of security mind boggling. From this, we can safely infer that bin Laden had no clue whatsoever as to our operational capability. Given that we have probably performed literally thousands of night air assault raids over the past decade in Iraq and Afghanistan, this suggests a level of ignorance on the part of bin Laden that is inexplicable. Obviously bin Laden felt completely secure in his compound. The only way that makes any sense at all is if bin Laden felt that that his security was guaranteed by a third party - and that can only mean that Pakistan's security services were involved at some level. We will see what the documents and computers captured from the compound show about this, if it is ever revealed.

The second issue is the hand-wringing going on in the Obama administration over whether to release photos of the recently departed bin Laden. It is ridiculous. According to the Obama administration, the concern is whether the death photos might be "inflammatory" to Muslims. Let's get this right. Bin Laden's existence on this earth was inflammatory to Americans. Americans, as well as every person who has been attacked by this most evil of men (the majority of whom are Muslims), is entitled to photographic proof of bin Laden's demise. That should be the alpha and omega of the Obama administrations consideration on that issue. But to add, I don't care if it inflames some Muslims. To the contrary, I want seared into their memory the last image of bin Laden being with half of his skull missing and his brains decorating the walls. Bin Laden claimed in the mid-90's that the massive growth of al Qaeda was because people want to back the "strong horse." Well, bin Laden today is not merely a weak horse, he is an executed one. Muslims who will be inflamed by his execution will be inflamed irrespective of graphic photos. It seems more likely that the photos may dissuade some from following bin Laden. Further, Muslims in the Middle East need proof of bin Laden's death, particularly given their propensity for utterly insane conspiracy theories. In short, whether to release bin Laden's death pictures really should be a "no brainer" for the Obama administration.

The third issue is the international response to the raid on bin Laden's compound. As a threshold matter, bin Laden was responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of people. If there was ever a man who deserved death at the end of a gun, it was him. Yet the euro-left, as discussed at length in Der Spiegel, is engaging in a lot of hand wringing, speculating that our assassination mission violated some provision of "international law:"

Claus Kress, an international law professor at the University of Cologne, argues that achieving retributive justice for crimes, difficult as that may be, is "not achieved through summary executions, but through a punishment that is meted out at the end of a trial." Kress says the normal way of handling a man who is sought globally for commissioning murder would be to arrest him, put him on trial and ultimately convict him. In the context of international law, military force can be used in the arrest of a suspect, and this may entail gun fire or situations of self-defense that, in the end, leave no other possibility than to kill a highly dangerous and highly suspicious person . . . .

It is unfortunate. And it is certainly no reason for the indescribable jubilation that broke out on Sunday night across America -- and especially not for applause inside the CIA's operations center.

This from the folks who gave us Hitler and the final solution. Really guys, if you want a say over our foreign policy and how we conduct our national security, or to condemn us for celebrating the execution of this most evil of men, let me just say, with all sincerity . . .



Lastly, the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, the Taliban and many others of their ilk are condemning the assassination of bin Laden. On of the most bucolic of these responses came from an Imam in Jerusalem:

An imam from the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem vowed to take revenge over "the western dogs" for killing Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in Pakistan on Sunday.

In a Youtube video uploaded by the imam he said: "The western dogs are rejoicing after killing one of our Islamic lions. From Al-Aqsa Mosque, where the future caliphate will originate with the help of God, we say to them – the dogs will not rejoice too much for killing the lions. The dogs will remain dogs and the lion, even if he is dead, will remain a lion."

The imam then verbally attacked US President Barack Obama saying: "You personally instructed to kill Muslims. You should know that soon you'll hang together with Bush Junior."

"We are a nation of billions, a good nation. We'll teach you about politics and military ways very soon, with god's help," he vowed.

This is the response I would respect from radicalized Muslims. As Instapundit notes:

what’s this about how dogs should not rejoice after killing a lion? If I were a dog, and I killed a lion, I’d damn sure rejoice.

But Osama was more of a jackal, you know? And if this dumbass keeps talking, people might get the idea that we’re at war with Islam or something. And trust me, your Imam-ness, you don’t want Americans to decide that.

True enough. Indeed, most Americans believe in live and let live. That said, the reality of radical Islam is an unknown to most Americans still to this day - a fact for which I blame both Bush and Obama. Under a best case scenario, Americans become educated about the realities of radical Islam and public opinion in the free world is harnessed to bring pressure for change and moderation. Under a worst case scenario, Americans remain blissfully ignorant and the radicals in fact do pull off another 9-11, perhaps one with nuclear or biological weapons. And when that happens, live and let live will be out the window - as will be any attempt to seperate the good from the radicals in the Muslim world. God help the radical Muslims - and indeed, all Muslims - should that happen.

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Happy 100th Birthday, Ron

Whatever else history may say about me when I’m gone, I hope it will record that I appealed to your best hopes, not your worst fears; to your confidence rather than your doubts. My dream is that you will travel the road ahead with liberty’s lamp guiding your steps and opportunity’s arm steadying your way.

Ronald Wilson Reagan, Republican National Convention, 1992 ((H/T Gay Patriot)

When Reagan took the helm in 1981, we were a nation in decline. Under the second most incompetent president of the past century, Jimmy Carter, stagflation - the combined totals of inflation (13.5%) and unemployment (7.2%) - topped 20%. America was being humiliated by Iran's Khomeini who was holding our embassy officials hostage. And the communist empire of the Soviet Union, then led by Leonid Brezhnev, posed the greatest threat to the West. On the day President Reagan left office eight years later, our economy was booming, the hostage crisis was a distant memory, and the Soviet Union was fatally hemmoraging. Communism was in retreat throughout its sattelites, and in particular in Poland. His was a most successful presidency.




Fred Thompson: What Set Reagan Apart

As we celebrate his centennial and observe politicians of all stripes trying to align themselves with Reagan’s legacy, we should remember what made Ronald Reagan such a compelling leader. When given a moment on the international stage, Reagan unfailingly proclaimed America as the beacon of hope for those who yearn for freedom.

John Heubusch @ PJM - Reagan's Foreign Policy Legacy

Few presidents have altered the trajectory of world affairs as dramatically as Ronald Reagan, whose Centennial America we celebrate on Feb. 6.

The year-long Centennial celebration is an opportunity to examine the legacy and lessons of our 40th president, who not only reversed the “malaise” mentality at home and revived American optimism, but also stared down totalitarians abroad and won the Cold War.

Hot Air - Happy Birthday, Mr. President

How many people today remember what it was like to live in a world of a divided Europe, a divided Germany, and a divided Berlin — where guards with guns shot people who wanted to get out rather than get in? “We come to Berlin,” Reagan told the crowd at Brandenburg Gate, “because it is our duty to speak at this place of freedom.” And it’s largely because of Ronald Wilson Reagan, along with Margaret Thatcher, Pope John Paul II, and Lech Walesa that the Iron Curtain world died quietly in its sleep 21 years ago. Reagan and those stalwarts gave us a world where freedom and liberty triumphed over an “evil empire,” and the first step towards that victory was Reagan speaking plainly about its very nature rather than indulging in the pablum of moral relevancy that Reagan’s political opponents demanded.

Weekly Standard - Natan Sharansky Remembers Ronald Reagan

I have to laugh. People who take freedom for granted, Ronald Reagan for granted, always ask such questions. Of course! It was the great brilliant moment when we learned that Ronald Reagan had proclaimed the Soviet Union an Evil Empire before the entire world. There was a long list of all the Western leaders who had lined up to condemn the evil Reagan for daring to call the great Soviet Union an evil empire right next to the front-page story about this dangerous, terrible man who wanted to take the world back to the dark days of the Cold War. This was the moment. It was the brightest, most glorious day. Finally a spade had been called a spade. Finally, Orwell's Newspeak was dead. President Reagan had from that moment made it impossible for anyone in the West to continue closing their eyes to the real nature of the Soviet Union. . . .

Dr. Sanity - How Can You Not Love A Guy Like That

I vividly recall the day I met President Reagan almost exactly 20 years ago. It was one of the saddest days of my life. I was at the Johnson Space Center memorial service for the Challenger astronauts on the Friday after the Challenger accident. The President had come to JSC to honor the fallen crew and to heal the nation. . . .

Happy Birthday, Ron.

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