Iran’s Atomic Bomb

The United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency will be issuing a report this week which more than likely acknowledges that Iran has produced an atomic bomb. Is anyone within ear shot surprised?

Last week we learned that Benjamin Netanyahu, prime minister of Israel, and his defense minister Ehud Barak, have developed a complex plan to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities, some of which are underground and all of which are spread throughout various remote locations within the country. We have also learned that the Obama administration has poured cold water on Israel’s plan and has advised Israel that it will not take part in such a plan and will not support Israel should it, so to speak, go it alone.

Following such revelations Iran has through various spokesmen threatened that if Israel attacks Iran, even without U.S. support, ostensible or otherwise, Iran will release its underground network of terrorists currently embedded in the United States. Is anyone surprised at any of this?

Iran’s development of a nuclear bomb has been going on for decades across at least 3 presidential administrations. As much as I dislike President Obama’s fecklessness in addressing this issue from the moment he came on the national scene as a mere candidate for the Democratic nomination for president in 2007 he had much assistance from the policies of President George W. Bush and President Clinton both of whom actually believed they could talk sense to the Iranians with a dollop of sanctions.

In some perverse way I feel sorry for President Obama. It is a rare moment when a president’s nonsensical and feckless theories of foreign affairs, especially with respect to Iran’s nuclear ambitions, finally catch up with him, while the entire country looks on. But as sorry as I feel for President Obama, for the American people I feel trepidation.

Fixing The Enemy

With Egypt, Tunisia and Libya having fallen into the hands of radical Islamists and with Yemen and Syria close on the way the argument coming from the Obama Administration is that this is a good thing. Ok. Let’s analyze that.

It is now becoming obvious to anyone observing the various revolts occurring throughout the Middle East that radical Islamists will be taking over the various countries that had their despots overthrown. And there is some truth behind the hate filled venom of these Islamists that the West supported these despots perhaps not for the reasons they claim, namely, to destroy Islam and make the Middle East a garden of freedom and liberty, but rather to keep a lid on its roiling political and violent mayhem so that the oil will keep flowing. George W. Bush was a wishful thinker when he proclaimed that all humanity desires freedom and liberty and attempted to provide the Iraqi and Afghani people the opportunity to grasp that golden bowel.

However depressing the reality of the Middle East which now confronts the West, in particular the United States, since it has paid so much in blood and treasure, there is possibly one good thing that may yet come out of this Islamist takeover. There is a military term called “fixing the enemy” which refers to preventing the enemy’s withdrawal thereby allowing the attacking force to be confident that it will not escape. In our war against the Islamists we have been chasing them from one mountain to the next from one corner of the world to another never quite able to gather them in one spot. Well now we know where they are. Don’t we?

Apply The Abraham Lincoln Rule

When it comes to beating Obama in the 2012 presidential election Republican candidates should apply the Abraham Lincoln rule: Give up every single argument of your opponent with which you agree and beat him up mercilessly on those with which you disagree.

I realize that it is difficult for a Republican candidate to agree with President Obama on anything but the truth is there is an area of agreement which no Republican candidate can deny. When it comes to national security President Obama has adopted the George W. Bush doctrine and then some. He refuses to abandon the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq recognizing their strategic national security value by placing American boots on the necks of al-Queda operatives located throughout the Middle East. American military presence in Afghanistan and Iraq provides our armed forces the ability to fix the enemy while we kill their leadership by Special Forces or drone attacks. The killing of Osama bin Laden and Anwar al-Awlaki are recent examples of this successful strategy. President Obama has kept open the prison at Guantanamo and treats its prisoners as enemy combatants and therefore will try them in military tribunals. He has signed an even stronger amended Patriot Act. And the Justice Department has kept the heat on domestic terrorist organizations. In effect the Obama administration gets an A+ on National Security.

By recognizing this fact and thereby applying the Abraham Lincoln rule, a Republican presidential candidate will have a clear field to beat the hell out of the Obama administration for its oversized and systematic failures in matters economic, energy, environmental and everything else it has deemed to touch.

Walking With A Big Stick

After listening to President Obama’s speech last night concerning the war in Afghanistan I could not help but conclude that when it comes to matters of national security all American presidents carry a big stick.

Barack Obama as U. S. senator and as the 2008 Democratic candidate for president criticized President Bush’s war policies. Obama’s main focus was the doctrine which Bush established that rather than using force only when the U.S. was imminently threatened that it was in America’s long-term best interests to depose unfriendly regimes and promote democracy both militarily and diplomatically. In 2008 Obama traveled across the country vilifying Bush and describing him as a president who started unnecessary wars abroad, angering our allies and providing are enemies with new reasons to dislike us. Moreover he accused Bush of causing the deaths of thousands of our soldiers based upon an unproven doctrine. However throughout President Obama’s presidency he has adopted the Bush doctrine as his own. He has continued our military presence in Iraq, doubling down in Afghanistan by sending more troops into the conflict and entering the conflict in Libya. Last night in his speech to the American people concerning the ongoing conflict in Afghanistan President Obama informed the American people that the United States had no intention of making a massive troop withdrawal but rather hold fast to the strategy of counterinsurgency inside Afghanistan and continue to target by drones the Taliban and al-Qaeda in western Pakistan. What President Obama didn’t mention last night was that with respect to surveillance, Guantanamo, detention and habeas corpus and his recent ignoring of the war powers act he has become, in effect, Bush II. Thank you President Bush and as much as it hurts me to say this, thank you too President Obama.

Obama’s Cornucopia – Boondoggle

Yesterday, in one day, the stock market fell 279 points or 2.2% reflecting a belief among investors that the American economy is in a deep permanent decline with little chance of recovery in the short term. And the American people are watching.

It has now become obvious to all Americans, whether left or right, that the policies of the Obama administration have failed. It has been 2½ years since George W. Bush was president and it is no longer an accepted line of reasoning that 9% unemployment, a catastrophic housing market, a falling stock market, rising prices and no growth can be placed at his doorstep. Moreover the current debates in Congress concerning the raising of the debt ceiling, uncontrolled spending and entitlements and boondoggle policies affecting the environment, energy, healthcare, and our financial institutions have captured the attention of Americans probably the first time since the Great Depression.

It is difficult today for many Americans who voted for Barack Obama both as a symbol of America’s new day in race relations and a panacea for the decade of alleged failures of the Republican Party and its leader to acknowledge that this president has applied tried and true socialist principals to a free-market economy which have led to economic misadventure. Yesterday’s stock market collapse has resulted in the beginning of the end of America’s love affair with Barack Hussein Obama.

Tick, Tick, Tick…

How much more time are the American people supposed to give Barack Obama to be President Barack Obama. If the last two years are any indication time has run out.

Barack Obama came into office having promised the American people to close down the Guantanamo Bay detention facility, stop domestic wiretapping in accordance with the Patriot Act, that international terrorists shall be tried in Federal courts rather than by military tribunals, to put an end to George W. Bush’s “Freedom Agenda” and to no longer send troops into harm’s way unless there was an imminent threat to the nation’s national security. As President he broke every one of those promises. The American people have forgiven him since they know that when he took office he didn’t have a clue about national security and had to learn on the job. But he is now into his third year of his presidency and if the 2011 budget is not resolved by tonight, you know, the one the Democratic Congress should have passed last year, there will be no forgiving President Obama this time. President Obama’s leadership is in question and the American people are already having doubts whether he is in over his head. What happens in the next 12 hours will determine what happens to his presidency in 2012. Time has run out for Barack Obama.

Miss Me Yet?

Last night President Obama stated that the reason for starting the Libyan campaign was to halt the humanitarian crisis that was inevitable without our intervention. Let’s call this Bush light.

If there was one message last night that President Obama enjoyed giving was to explain to the American people that he was not George Bush and that his 2002 condemnation of the contemplated Iraq War when he was an Illinois state senator hasn’t change one iota. And in fact, when presented with similar choices, he, President Obama has handled it differently. So how is this foreign entanglement going to be different? President Obama explains.

First this is not a campaign for “regime change.” Second it will not cost over a trillion dollars and thousands of lives, both American and Libyan. Third, America will not go it alone but rather will be part of a coalition, sanctioned by the UN with a limited objective and of which it will not be its leader.

Every strategy has risks and what President Obama failed to explain to the America people is one risk that Moammar Gadhafi may survive this conflict by the creation of a divided Libya involved in a protracted civil war in which the coalition provides military and humanitarian supplies for years. And you can guess who will be leading that particular outcome and its concomitant costs. Another risk is that the coalition, along with the United States loses interest in the whole matter leaving Gadhafi to wait it out, which has been his game during his 42 years of brutal dictatorship. Meanwhile, a vengeful, enraged, perhaps a crazed Gadhafi terrorizes the various nations of the coalition, America included, for the pain it has caused him.

President Obama wants desperately not to be George W. Bush but having entered into this Libyan campaign he will experience a fundamental truth: War has its own dynamic, its own destiny. President Obama will rail at the Gods but it will be George W. Bush all over again.

Foreign Government Has No Respect For Obama/USA

Isn’t it ironic that the president who was going to restore America’s standing in the world has delivered it to a place where the major nations of the world now lecture us on our profligacy but worse, no longer respect us.

This is Roger Madon and this is what I think.

During the campaign leading to the presidential election of 2008 Barack Obama argued that America, because of the policies of George W. Bush, of course, had lost its standing among the nations of the world and that if elected he would rebuild and re-construct the alliances and partnerships necessary to meet common challenges and confront common threats. Of course he never considered at the time that the nations of the world have their own particular challenges and threats, in effect, their own national interests.

Well, candidate Obama has become President Obama and after nearly 2 years of having the opportunity of working toward this goal, last week he received the response of a number of South East-Asian countries to his efforts in bringing the United States back into the fold of the world’s leading nations: The response? Get lost.

During his trip India warned that America’s close ties to Pakistan will ultimately draw India away and direct its trade and interests toward China.

While in Indonesia, a country that refuses to recognize Israel as a sovereign state, President Obama chastised Israel for building residences in its own capital, Jerusalem. Now that’s a message that Indonesians will take to heart when considering America’s steadfast loyalty to its allies. Then he visited South Korea which rejected the long standing proposed trade agreement between it and the United States. Finally during the G-20 Summit held in Seoul, South Korea, President Obama was treated with a good dose of lecturing from Germany and China about America’s profligate monetary policy of printing 600 billion dollars of new money the clear purpose of which is diminish the dollar’s value in order to boost America’s exports and reduce its debt to creditor countries, German and China included.

With Barack Obama becoming president of the United Stated it seems the nations of the world not only don’t care for our policies, they clearly no longer respect us.

This is Roger Madon and that’s what I think.

Ignorance Here Is Not Bliss

A few days ago I saw the ever enduring The Crucible by Arthur Miller in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. But it was the brief talk before the play that I cannot seem to forget.

This is Roger Madon and this is what I think.

The talk was entitled “Seeing Red” and concerned that brief period in America’s history during the late 40’s and early 50’s, when it became clear that the United States and the Soviet Union were at war, a cold war, but a war nonetheless. It was a war that had little to do with land or treasure or race or religion. It was a war that would ultimately determine how the world would be ruled for the next thousand years, either by ruthless dictatorship or democratic liberalism. It was clear to all Americans at that time, as it is clear today, that whatever country came out the victor that history would come to an end.

The talk discussed the House Un-American Activities Committee and its role in weeding out Soviet sympathizers in the Hollywood writing community. The speakers were children of the more infamous targets of the Committee: in particular Franklin Gordon Kahn, Ring Lardner and George H. Thomas, Jr. all ultimately blacklisted from ever writing under their own names. Each of the children, now adults, spoke of the personal pain they experienced because of the terrifying behavior of the House Un-American Activities Committee and J. Edgar Hoover, the head of the FBI.

But to me what was most interesting was during the Q&A at the end of the talk which included comments ranging from expressing fear that if the Republicans win the House this November progressives will be investigated to a bogus remembrance that after 9/11 Muslims were hunted down, mosques were attacked and that George W. Bush was the reason it all occurred. What of course was thoroughly ignored by the seething liberal audience was that each of the fathers spoken about were communists, supporters of the Soviet Union and whose talented pens were silent when millions died under Stalin’s heal. No one excuses the House Un-American Activities Committee and J. Edgar Hoover for their abhorrent actions, but neither is there any excuse or pity for those who freely chose to ignore the existential challenge of the time.

This is Roger Madon and that’s what I think.

Obama, Competent Leader of National Security?

As many of you know who have listened to me over these many months I have disagreed with President Obama on numerous issues. However, on one point I vehemently agree with his position and the strategies he has adopted to implement them.

This is Roger Madon and this is what I think.

Throughout President Obama’s term of now 18 months how many times have you heard him blame George W. Bush for the country’s many current afflictions? However there is one area of government policy developed while President Bush was in office which President Barack Obama has not only adopted but enlarged upon and strengthened, and that is his policy of national security.

Oh I know you are going to remind me of the fact that immediately after his inauguration President Obama signed an Executive Order to shut down Gitmo. But he hasn’t, yet. True, he put an end to the CIA’s enhanced interrogation program. And he decided to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in Federal court rather than in a military tribunal.

However let’s look at his record. He has been undaunted in his policy toward Afghanistan and even created his own “surge” of troops leaving his supporters on the Left angry and confused. Moreover he has expanded the use of drones and has been killing al Qaeda and Taliban notwithstanding international criticism. He refuses to give up the option of keeping captured terrorists in jail indefinitely. And on the home front, not only has he kept in place President Bush’s much criticized surveillance program but now wants Congress to expand it by allowing senior FBI officials, just on their signature, to demand internet services to provide information about individual web browsing history. Holy Kamoly!

When Barack Obama was elected President, fair and square, in November 2008, I had to come to terms with the fact that he was a socialist that was “paling around with terrorists.” I had to come to terms with the fact that we now had a president about whose past was at best murky. I haven’t changed my mind about that one single bit. But as President, on national security he’s right up there with best of them.

This Roger Madon and that’s what I think.

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