Israel’s Doomsday Bomb

The most important element in the use of a dooms day bomb as a defensive weapon is to advise your enemy, immediately after its acquisition, that you possess one.

Last week the Palestinian Authority succeeded in becoming a member state in the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization, known as UNESCO. Immediately after its admission into UNESCO the Obama administration announced that it was ceasing its annual contribution of 80 million dollars towards that organization. But America’s action of withholding this substantial sum of money from one of the most reprehensible of U. N. organizations will have little effect on the Palestinian Authority’s ultimate goal: To further isolate Israel in the eyes of the world but more importantly to begin to create a false construct of a Palestinian state, thereby providing terrorists a home from which to launch attacks against Israelis living in the occupied territory and then ultimately destroying Israel as a Jewish state. With an ersatz Palestinian state, an Islamist Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, a soon to be liberated Syria, Turkey and a nuclearized Iran, Israel will soon be faced with an Arab/Muslim alliance far too formidable to defeat with its Israel Defense Force alone. Moreover, observing how the U.S. has dealt with Iran’s building of a nuclear bomb, it has become apparent to Israel that relying on the U.S. for its ultimate defense is a failed strategy.

Israel is now left with only one strategy: If attacked by the full force of an Arab/Muslim alliance or if terrorist attacks within Israel reach a level which places into question its existence it must announce a policy of mutually assured destruction, otherwise known as a dooms day bomb.

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.

When Your Right, Your Right

Some of my conservative colleagues are having difficulty with fact that President Obama, at least with respect to his decision to kill Osama Bin Laden, has shown him as one who understands the power of an American president and who has correctly exercised that power.
Anyone who has been reading or listening to my commentary knows I am not a supporter of President Obama. With respect to matters domestic I find President Obama a statist who is committed to big government, massive taxes, indifference to growing deficits and unsustainable debt. And because of this I have opined that should he serve another term in office this country will become unrecognizable in the very near future.

Notwithstanding when it comes to matters of national security President Obama has been unrelenting in attempting to keep America safe. Except for the nonsense about closing Gitmo, providing Miranda rights to suspected terrorists and trying terrorists in Federal courts, President Obama has followed assiduously the doctrines which President Bush laid out for us during his term in office. He has maintained troops in Iraq, supported the surge in Afghanistan and has even shown that he is willing to start a third military action in Libya, notwithstanding for the wrong reason.

President Obama having made the tough and risky decision to remove this mass killer of Americans owns this triumph. So a note to my conservative colleagues, however great this triumph is for the President it will not obviate the economic and social disaster he has perpetrated upon the American people.

Friend Or Foe

There are two components to every question concerning foreign policy when it comes to whether this country should intervene: Does the country have nuclear weapons and is it our ally?

From the moment Barack Obama entered upon the political scene right into his presidency he fiercely criticized George W. Bush’s foreign policy in regard to Afghanistan and Iraq, arguing that these interventions were unnecessarily pre-emptive. However when it came to the Libyan conflict he did not hesitate to have America intervene in its civil war while failing to explain why we were not also intervening in what can only be considered the civil wars of Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Jordon. The answer is simple. These 4 countries are allies. For example, one could easily ask why hadn’t we intervened in the Russia-Chechnya civil war or for that matter the uprisings in China? Better yet why did President Obama slink away from confronting Iran during last year’s June uprising? Russia and China are hardly our allies but Russia and China have nuclear weapons. As for our enemy Iran, it may already have them.

So now we know that Barack Obama has finally learned what George W. Bush seemed to have known all along: Don’t pick on somebody your own size. Do you think President Obama might say I am sorry George? Don’t bet on it.

Lucky “O”

In yesterday’s New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, describing the complex issues facing the fires currently burning in the Middle East, prays that President Obama is lucky. The problem with luck is that it usually requires courage and vision.

Barack Obama has never disappointed with respect to his courage. He made choices in his life that took courage and he wouldn’t be President today if he hadn’t. Associating himself with the vanguard of American radical socialists throughout his life, openly and notoriously, took a great deal of courage in spite of the fact that his ambition was so overpowering. He knowingly sat in the church of a radical, hate mongering preacher for 20 years in order to gild the lily of his political aspirations. When it came apparent in the summer of last year that the Health Care Reform Act was floundering and would not pass with Republican support he resolutely inspired the Democratic Congressional leadership encouraging it to garner the needed Democrat votes to accomplish this monumental achievement. He had to know that the result would lead to the most devastating political defeat his party has ever experienced, yet he remained undaunted.

There is little doubt that when it comes to domestic affairs Barack Obama has the necessary courage to attain his vision of a socialist America. It is not his lack of courage that has girded the independents and those on the right for a massive brawl with the socialist left that will inevitably occur in the Presidential and Congressional campaigns of 2012. Rather it is President Obama’s vision of America that compels so many Americans to take to the ramparts to defend freedom and individual liberty.

However, when it comes to matters involving America’s role on the stage of international affairs President Obama lacks a comprehensive vision. His Monday night speech concerning Libya reveals a president who is uncertain or unwilling to move this country into its 21st Century responsibilities and obligations. He believes America must step back from its leadership role in world affairs. He believes that America is not an exceptional country and has no greater international responsibilities or obligations than the countries of Chad or Denmark. Thomas Friedman prays that our President gets lucky. I pray that in the presidential election of 2012 America gets lucky.

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.

Who’s Next?

Will this President of the United States ever become a president of the United States? If the American people are asking this question in November of 2012 President Obama will serve only one term.

Let’s start from the top. President Obama doesn’t go to Congress when deliberating about whether the United States should involve itself in the Libyan rebellion, which, constitutionally he doesn’t have to do, but rather seeks UN approval which he seems to believe he is obligated to do.

Then, after the United States obtained UN approval to engage our armed forces, he makes no attempt to come before the American people and explain the basis of his action. This allows his opposition, which ironically comes from his liberal base, to have a field day in attacking the President as just another neo-con in sheep’s clothing.

The Libyan campaign, limited notwithstanding, at least so far, constitutes the sixth American military action involving Muslims in general or the Middle East in particular, over the last 20 years, 3 of which occurred since 9/11. Just to give some clarity to this, the United States has not been militarily involved in any other country or region during the same period. It is obvious therefore that those countries or regions that adhere to the Islamic faith, and especially located near or in the Middle East, have become a cauldron of revolution and rebellion. I don’t point this out as necessarily a bad thing since most of the governments of these Islamic countries which are presently on fire are autocratic and vicious. However every one of them, without exception, to one extent or another, are breeding grounds of America’s number one enemy, al-Qaeda. And many of them produce America’s number one and essential import, oil. So it’s not by accident that the United States finds itself entangled in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya while at the same time warily circling Iran looking for openings for conflict.

Tomorrow night, finally, the President of the United States will be addressing the American people about why we are now fighting in Libya. But he’s got to do more than that. The American people sense that this president lacks a vision when it comes to our role on the world stage. Worse they suspect that he does have a vision and it’s a United States that should take a back seat when it comes to international affairs. Will he actually come to the American people tomorrow and explain that the Libyan campaign is nothing more than a one-off? It’s not. But does he have the courage, or better yet the insight, to come before the American people and explain what as a candidate he denied: America is at war with a resolute enemy which promotes a theocratic, virulent Islamic vision for world governance. Tomorrow if he doesn’t provide for us the big picture Americans, on both sides of the political spectrum, will abandon him in droves.

Mother’s Always Right

My mother, of blessed memory, used to say “If you are going to do something, already, do it graciously.” Well allow me to paraphrase. If the United States is going to interfere in the sovereignty of another nation, already, do it competently.

Recent signals from NATO are that, with respect to the Libyan campaign, more NATO nations are running out of that edifice than a burning tenement building in the City of New York. President Obama has made it eminently clear that the United States is not going to lead the Libyan campaign and wants some other nation to do it. His view is he doesn’t want the United States to be accused of making war on one more Muslim country. Right now he’s counting two in progress and then Kuwait, Bosnia and Kosovo. By the President’s calculation that’s five Muslim countries in which the United States unnecessarily, at least according to him, entangled itself. Libya makes six. The difference however with the Libyan campaign is that it’s all his. The problem however, as today’s Wall Street Journal points out, is once having led the campaign, whether President Obama likes it or not, America’s prestige, credibility and competence is on the line.

What escapes the understanding of President Obama is that our NATO allies have always considered the United States its butler in charge of military services to appear whenever they ring up. In some perverse way, since I strenuously disagree with his position, President Obama is now the proverbial subject yelling from the crowd that the emperor, in this case our European allies, has no clothes. For decades now the European nations constituting NATO have starved their military in favor of all those wonderful socialist benefits such as national health care, rich and early pensions, long vacations and life-time unemployment insurance. They have done this with the certainty that when the need arose to address a particular crisis with military software and hardware, they could always count on the Americans. It is truly ironic that the American President, who our European allies welcomed with happiness and joy now requests of them that they grow up, get the hell out of the house and pay their own bills. That’s not exactly the reason of President Obama’s refusal to lead the Libyan campaign. And he seems very uncomfortable and annoyed about their attempt to rescue themselves. But Mom, you are right again, if you’re going to do something, already, for God’s sake do it graciously.

Obamstitution

On March 19th President Obama, without provocation, authorized the use of military force in Libya resulting in the United States of America and Libya being at war. Yesterday Congressman from Ohio Dennis Kucinich charged that the President acted in violation of the U.S. Constitution and should be impeached. The debate begins.

So here we go again. Pundits, theorists, generals and just ordinary Americans like me start reaching for that revered document called the Constitution of the United States of America. Since it came into existence in 1789, 222 years ago to be exact, and the fact that we got into enough wars during this period of time to provide us some understanding as to how this Constitution addresses the reality of war that we wouldn’t have some Congressman from Ohio, a member of the President’s own party no less, raging that the President, by starting an unprovoked war with Libya, violated the Constitution and should be thrown out of office summarily.

And then of course you have pundits on the right, like Shawn Hannity, who would take any opportunity to rage against the President even if he were buying flowers for his wife and therefore loses all credibility when he opines that the President had an obligation to go to Congress for approval before he committed American troops to engage the Libyan armed forces.

And then finally you have the American people, for who going to war with Libya is like watching their prized Mercedes going over a cliff with their arch enemy behind the wheel. What it all boils down to is this…trust. Americans know, better than pundits or theorists or even Congressmen for that matter that when we elect a president we want him to have the authority to send our troops into harm’s way if he deems that that’s the right thing to do. And as for the U.S. Constitution we’ll sort it out later.

This country has been blessed with forefathers who drafted this beloved document, our Constitution, with the knowledge that this nation lives in a very dangerous neighborhood. They figured that if the American people voted for this person, if it’s a guy, who puts his pants on every day or a woman her make-up, that he or she should have the general idea what this means: “I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

Who’s Country Is This?

President Obama has led us to a place where the tragedy unfolding in Libya presents for the first time the question whether America wishes to rely on international organizations and potential enemies for its national security.

Article II of the U.S. Constitution states: “The President shall be the Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States;” This provision has provided the President with the power and authority to act with alacrity to protect the nation and its sovereignty. At the very inception of this nation we have jealously guarded our sovereignty letting no other nation interfere with it. However, God knows that throughout our history nations have tried. Especially in the early development of our nation, the War of 1812, the Black Hawk War, the Mexican-American War, being examples of such attempts, America held fast against those nations that wished to direct our future to their interests and not ours.

In response to Japan’s surprise attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941 Congress declared war. Congress did not seek the advice or consent of any of other nation. When North Korea attacked South Korea in 1950 President Truman saw the attack as a question of our national security stemming from considerations of America’s policy toward Japan. The United States wanted to shore up Japan to make it a viable counterweight against the Soviet Union and China, and Korea was seen as part of that strategy. The Vietnam War was another example of America’s desire to contain communism in South East Asia and though we had allies in that campaign the United States took the lead in its prosecution. The American people were highly ambivalent about America’s involvement in the Vietnam War but there was never a question that we entered it seeking the approval of any other nation.

Today the United States has a president who is highly educated but one who lacks, with respect to our foreign policy, the necessary gyroscope to identify what is truly in America’s national security interest. The events occurring in Libya is a perfect example. Because of this lack he has no strategic plan and finds himself relying on countries to provide for him a direction which promotes their national security interest, but not ours.

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