Thursday, September 17, 2009
Just Call It Change In Which Our Enemies Can Believe
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi speaks of her concern that anti-government rhetoric in the United States might lead to violence. She is seemingly unconcerned about a potential Madrid-style terrorist attack on American subways by Islamic extremists and comforted by the administration's recent announcement that it will prosecute CIA interrogators who helped keep us safe from terrorist attacks. President Barack Hussein Obama breaks with a prior U.S. commitment and abandons an anti-missile defense shield for our Eastern European allies on the 70th anniversary of the invasion of Poland by the former Soviet Union as experts confirm Iran has the ability to make a nuclear bomb and is developing a missile system capable of carrying nuclear warheads with the aid of Russia. Israel finds itself pleading with world leaders for the right to defend itself from this newest threat as Obama takes the side of Palestinians over our country's most reliable ally in the Middle East. That's certainly change in which the enemies of America can believe.
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Europe and the Middle East have not exactly been ebullient about American foreign diplomacy. Look no farther than the latest Economist to see their rapture with our new President compared to his predecessor.
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If Russia and Iran keep heating up the Eastern hemisphere, I wonder if America will help if asked? Or, will we even be able?
This analysis is absolutely unsupported by facts. Authorities have raided residences and made arrests in response to the apparent NY terrorist plot. You conclude that Pelosi is unconcerned because she failed to mention this in speaking of an unrelated domestic danger? Interrogators who violated our princilples did not keep us safe from attack, but served as good propaganda for those recruiting potential terrorists. The dumping of a missile defense plan which has proved unworkable and would not be implemented until 2018 for one that would work and can begin implemenation in 2 years will bolster our secutiy at the same time strengthening moderates in Russia at the expense of militarists. "Obama takes the side of the Palestinians"?? The article you link indicates envoy Mitchell's intention to press oor a freeze in Israeli setlements in the West Bank - settlements which violate every roadmap or peace accord of the past 15 years. The present administration has an evoy, and has begun peace efforts in earnest in its first year, as ooposed to waiting until its last. In short, the ranks of our enemies, swelled by 8 years of an incompetent foreign policy, are already smaller after one year of responsible world leadership.
Paul, The Dems can's have it both ways. They decry the Patriot Act and want to imprison interrogators for learning valuable information about terrorist plans through unconventional means. Poland's reaction to Obama's decision says it all. "He sold us to Russia." Mitchell made millions representing Middle East Arabs and he's now in charge of negotations between Israel and the Palestinians? Obama is only interested in building his one world government. I'm sure that makes you happy.
I see you have resorted to quoting foreign tabloids and deranged conspiracy theories in making your foreign policy arguments. I suppose the support for your contention that interrogators who committed torture obtained valuable information thereby is an episode of "24".
Mitchell has an impeccable credentials, including guiding the successful Good Friday agreement in one of the most intractable conflicts in the world. The Jewish Anti-Defamation League stated, "Sen. Mitchell is fair. He’s been meticulously even-handed." Obama sent Mitchell a week after his appointment. Compare to Bush's commitment to peace in the Middle East - he sent Condi in the final 6 months of his presidency.
Paul, If we had listened to folks like you and Obama, we would have lost the cold war. When I was in college, the beckoning call of the day was for a nuclear freeze. We were told that Reagan's military build up and tough stance towards Russia would end in a nuclear holocaust. Instead, Reagan broke the old Soviet Union and led to its collapse. He rejected the arguments of people like yourself that he had to abandon SDI. In the end, the Berlin Wall fell, the cold war thawed and so on. Now we're undoing everything Reagan achieved through his policies.
I'm afraid you're quite wide of the mark here, Gary. As for the nuclear freeze movement, Reagan himself went far beyond that, proposing the total elimination of nuclear missles in negotiations with Gobachev in Reykjavik in 1986. Leaving the factors leading to the end of the Soviet Union aside, the fact is we are not in a Cold War now. The devoted adherence of some conservatives to an outdated and ineffective missle defense plan smacks of their wish to be in one, and our policy of the past eight years of creating enemies where none had existed previously.
Secretary Gates, who reccomended the recently announced plan, reamins a staunch supporter of missle defense. As he stated in Sunday's NYT Op-ed: "The new proposal provides needed capacity years earlier than the original plan, and will provide even more robust protection against longer range threats." In constrast to one of Poland's tabloids, Poland's Prime Minister called the proposal "a chance for strengthening Europe's security." I believe you are mistaken, and suggest you read the article. Otherwise, you are grasping at straw to oppose the administration at every turn - which wouldn't surprise me either.
Paul, You're the one missing the mark. The nuclear freeze advocates laughed and scoffed at Reagan's notion of reducing nuclear armaments. They insisted on a nuclear freeze regardless of what the Soviets did. Both sides continued their military build-ups. The Soviets couldn't sustain the spending and began collapsing from within. Reagan was again laughed at when he left Iceland refusing to back down on SDI. Gorbachev blinked and came back to the table, paving the way for real arms reduction treaties with the Soviets.
None of which has a thing to do with your mistaken claim that the current administration abandoned missile defense in Europe.
Paul, I don't know what you've been reading, but there was an undisputed agreement that Obama pledged to back as recently as April. Now he has abandoned that agreement and pulled out of the deal based on trying to assuage the Russians.
Again, I suggest you read Gates' piece. Obama's pledge was, as long as there was a nuclear threat from Iran, that the US would go forward with missile defense that is cost effective and proven. The old plan, which Obama never pledged to enact, and in fact has criticized in the past, is neither, and would offer no protection whatever for another nine years at least. None of it has a thing to do with the Russians, except for their apparent and mistaken view of the prior plan as a threat (denied as such by Bush as well), and some conservatives' reactionary devotion to the plan, i.e., if the Russians don't like it, we have to do it. Gates points out that the Russians didn't enter into his reccomendation to shift to a more effective plan, but that their unexpected positive response is gravy.
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