The Nobel Peace Prize Goes to drum roll please… President Barack Obama! Really…President Obama?

Last week Friday, I was strolling around our nation’s capital, enjoying the second day of a brief, four-day visit and I was filled with a deep admiration for our country’s brave and brilliant founding fathers. This was my first visit to the City of Washington and I was so thoroughly impressed with what I saw, heard, felt and experienced that I miss the city already. What a wonderful combination of power, reverence, dignity, pride, gratitude and beauty.

The unseasonably warm weather (far nicer than the below-freezing temperatures of my hometown Milwaukee) provided a perfect setting to enjoy a leisurely walk with my girlfriend; a walk that allowed us ample time to reflect on the words, deeds and convictions of the great men that were depicted in the powerfully moving memorials that dotted the skyline of Washington.

Then, inexplicably, my train of thought was derailed with a conversation I overheard by a small group of passersbys. One of them was discussing something about President Obama and the Nobel Peace Prize. I couldn’t pick up much more than that and I didn’t care enough to track them down and ask them to elaborate on their statements. For all I knew, they were a pack of ardent, President Obama supporters that were pontificating on how President Obama should win the prize.

I chalked the comments up to the fanatical desires of irrational Obama supporters or my inability to correctly overhear the conversations of some fellow tourists and continued on my walk from the Lincoln Memorial to the Franklin Roosevelt Memorial...two men that sought peace, but thoroughly understood that, at times, peace comes with a significant price.

After visiting the FDR Memorial, my girlfriend and I came to the conclusion that we needed some additional fuel after an aggressive hike through the city, so we hoped in a cab to find a bite to eat. In the brief cab ride, we were discussing the next few stops on our itinerary and while my girlfriend was looking for something in her purse, I barely picked up the faint report that came out of the cab’s radio, but I could swear I heard something, again, about President Obama and Nobel Prize. Before I could compute what was said, my girlfriend found what she was looking for and the conversation about the trip’s itinerary commenced.

After our sightseeing for the day had ended, we headed back to our friend’s house (the main reason behind our trip) for dinner. When we got to the house, CNN was on TV and, lo and behold, there it was again, President Obama and the Nobel Peace Prize. This time, straining to hear what the discussion was all about was unnecessary; as the message was clear…President Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize.

While I clearly heard the report correctly, I still had to utter, “What?!?!?!” as it was such a shocking piece of news. “Why?!?!?!” quickly followed, as I could not then, nor can now, understand the reasoning behind this designation, as he hasn’t done anything to increase peace in the world other than making a speech at the United Nations.

The Nobel Committee said President Obama’s “extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples” was their reasoning behind this designation.

While I will agree with the Nobel Committee’s assertion that President Obama has made considerable attempts at strengthening international diplomacy (attempts that reek of naiveté), I have to ask, what have those efforts netted either the US or the rest of that world? In fact, the question of whether the world is more or less peaceful since President Obama took office is a legitimate one.

Honestly, I would say that it is less. Since President Obama has taken office, the Iranian situation has gone for bad to worse as they may already have the technology, enriched uranium and resources to create a nuclear weapon, numerous Iranians died in a violent sham of an “election”, North Korea has restarted its nuclear weapons program and is testing long range missiles, the War in Afghanistan has rapidly deteriorated, Pakistan has seen increased violence after an embarrassing deal with the Taliban and some of our strongest alliances (England, France, India and all of Eastern Europe) are strained.

While this award means little in the grand scheme of things, I worry that it will only encourage President Obama to continue his appeasement and capitulation doctrine regarding foreign affairs that has been seen in the Iranian and North Korean nuclear weaponry issues.

If he does, I can assure you that peace will be the last thing that is achieved.

That’s all for now folks. Until next time, take care and be well.

-John

It is time to act.

In their latest round of taunts against the United States, North Korea is planning another long-range ballistic missile test, scheduled for; you guessed it, July 4^th.

Not only is this test’s date a symbolic slap in the face to the nation, the test itself has the potential to be a real life threat to the country, as the North Koreans are aiming it at the Hawaiian Islands (the missile’s long-range distance capability is 4,000 miles. Hawaii, being 4,500 miles away form North Korea, is out of its range).

Combine this incredibly brash move with their reneging on the deal to halt their nuclear weapons program, their rogue partnership with the Iranian government, their nuclear weapon tests, their threats to “wipe out the aggressors (U.S.) off the globe once and for all” and their violation of international law by transporting nuclear weaponry to Myanmar for further testing and the case has clearly been made to strike North Korea.

While I am not suggesting we declare war on North Korea (although that should not be ruled out, as it will be difficult to have any significant progress in the U.S/North Korean relationship while Kim Jong Il is in power), I am suggesting, however, that we execute targeted air-strikes against their facilities to destroy their nuclear weapons program.

This would pacify an ever-increasing problem in the Pacific by eliminating the immediate threat of a nuclear war, show South Korea and Japan, an incredibly important ally, that we will stand by them in ensuring their safety and deal a significant blow to a despotic regime.

This strike would also be the wisest foreign policy move that President Obama could make. It would show the rest of the world, but specifically, Iran, Al Qaeda, The Taliban, the terrorists in Iraq, Columbia, Russia and Pakistan that President Obama, while a thoughtful and pragmatic leader, cannot be pushed around.

This would do wonders for our troubles around the globe. It could potentially drive a death nail into a quickly collapsing Iranian regime. It would show Al Qaeda, Taliban and anti-democratic fighters in Iraq that you can fight all you want, but you will eventually succumb to American military might. This would tell Columbia and Russia to think twice before making outlandish claims about us (Columbia) or attempting to sabotage our international security operations (Russia). It would also show Pakistan that we are capable of cleaning up international messes if need be.

In short, it would make President Obama’s life much, much easier.

I know that Defense Secretary Gates has discussed the possibility of shooting down the test missile, but I simply do not believe that is enough. There is absolutely no guarantee that it would work (imagine how energized North Korea would be if the attempt to shoot down their missile failed) and it is not strong enough of a response, even if it were to work.

As I have said time and time again, I do believe military options should be the last resort in solving any international issue. I also believe that we have reached that critical stage with the North Koreans.

That’s all for now folks. Until next time, take care and be well.

-John

Sacrificing a political need for a political want.

So it seems that the Obama administration is interested in getting rid of Iran’s nuclear problem after all…only after that pesky little problem between the Israelis and the Palestinians is solved.

That’s right folks, President Obama will consider taking out Iran’s nuclear program only after we solve a problem that has been around for 60 years and consumed the efforts of five past presidencies before he was ever sworn in.

Why doesn’t he just wait until hell freezes over to do something about a nuclear Tehran?

This latest foray into foreign policy by President Obama is quite troubling on four fronts.

1. He doesn’t understand the issue. What does the Israeli-Palestinian peace process have to do with stopping a terrorist-backing, militant government like Iran’s? While Palestinians and Iranians have a few things in common (a fanatical hatred of the U.S. and Israel, a love of terrorism and abiding by the teachings of Islam), they are not that tight and having the Israelis and Palestinians agree to peace will not curb Iran’s nuclear aspirations.

In fact, this may make the situation even more dangerous. Let’s say hell does freeze over and the Israelis and Palestinians do reach some sort of peace agreement and become allies. Well, Iran may feel a bit cornered and even more isolated now that a former, quasi-friend is now, essentially, sleeping with the enemy and, as a result, may push for the development of nuclear weaponry even faster than they are now.

2. He doesn’t understand the issue’s urgency. Here’s a newsflash for President Obama: Iran is sprinting towards nuclear weapons, not crawling towards them. By placing a gargantuan and incredibly time-consuming roadblock in the way of an already-difficult and politically sensitive issue, he is ensuring that the Iranian nuclear program will not be properly addressed, until it is too late.

3. His priorities are totally out of whack. Yes, peace between the Palestinians and Israelis is extremely important and it would do wonders for the Israeli and Palestinian people and the Middle East in general. However, it pales in comparison to the importance of a nuclear-armed Iran. By needlessly tying the two together, President Obama is sacrificing a political need for a political want.

4. This, again, shows his incredible arrogance. He seems to think that he can do something in a matter of days that the Carter, Reagan, Bush the eldest, Clinton and Bush the younger administrations couldn’t accomplish in nearly 35 years.

By overreaching and trying to solve all of the world’s problems all at once, he won’t be able to solve any of the world’s problems at any point in his presidency.

As I have said again and again and again and again when I have addressed this issue, this needs to be our first priority. This is more important than Iraq, Afghanistan, the economy and the Dow Jones’ industrial average. Hell, and I know this may be difficult to believe, this is even more important than the Swine flu and if we don’t act soon, the articles of how to prevent a nuclear Iran will be replaced by those that discuss how to live with a nuclear Iran and that will be a very, very frightening reality.

That’s all for now folks. Until next time, take care and be well.

-John

Yeah…we are the disrespectful ones.

During President Obama’s good will tour of Europe and parts of the Middle East, he made some rather striking comments about the U.S.’s actions and motives in the Middle East and the Muslim world in general.

When asked about relations between Israel and the Palestinians and the appointment of George Mitchell as special envoy, President Obama said, "What I told [Mitchell] is start by listening, because all too often the United States starts by dictating -- in the past on some of these issues -- and we don't always know all the factors that are involved. So let's listen."

He also went on to say that his administration would base relations with the Muslim world on “mutual respect”, something, he claimed, that past administrations did not do.

Hmm…let’s see here. Which administrations is he talking about?

He must not be referring to President Reagan who spent billions protecting the Afghans from the invading Soviet Union in the late 1970’s and through the 1980’s.

He can’t be talking about President George H.W. Bush. After all, didn’t President Bush free millions of Kuwaitis in Operation Desert Storm and provide hundreds of millions in aid to Jordanians, Egyptians and Palestinians?

How about President Clinton? Well, he can’t be referring either as he continued President Reagan’s support of Somalia, bombed European Christians to save Muslims in the Balkans, worked unsuccessfully, yet tirelessly, to achieve peace between the Israelis and Palestinians and lectured Russians about their brutal treatment of Chechnya?

Surely, he cannot be talking about President George W. Bush who freed tens of millions of Iraqis and Afghans from oppressive regimes by fostering democracy in each country, while providing incredibly generous amounts of aid for tsunami relief in Indonesia.

Not to mention the U.S.’s incredibly liberal immigration policy that allows untold numbers of Muslims to come here and become citizens.

So Mr. Obama, who are you referring to?

Perhaps he doesn’t know who he referring to. Perhaps he is so hell bent on trying to sound like the nice guy to the rest of the world that he’ll just blame us for all of the world’s ills.

If that is the case, which I suspect it is, that is not going to improve our relations with other countries. This approach will merely make it easier for the Muslim world to blame us for a litany of fictitious grievances.

I do have another question for President Obama about his “mutual respect” approach…when has the Muslim world showed us respect?

Besides blaming us for all of the world’s ills, the Muslim world has done the following to the U.S.:

November 4, 1979

Iran Hostage Crisis: The U.S. embassy in Tehran, Iraq, is seized by fundamentalist Islamic students; 52 American diplomats taken hostage and released 444 days later.

April 18, 1983

The U.S. embassy in Beirut, Lebanon, is destroyed by a suicide car bombing by Radical Islamic Jihad members; 63 killed, 120 injured.

October 23, 1983

A truck bomb is detonated near U.S. military barracks in West Beirut, Lebanon, and a second bomb follows; 241 Marines and 58 French paratroopers are killed.

September 20, 1984

A suicide bomb explodes at the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, Lebanon; 23 are killed and 21 injured, including U.S. and British ambassadors.

December 21, 1988

Pan Am Boeing 747 flight 103 explodes and crashes in Lockerbie, Scotland, when a bomb planted by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command and the Libyan government explodes; all 259 passengers are killed, including U.S. students and military personnel.

February 26, 1993

A rented van packed with explosives explodes in the World Trade Center’s underground garage; six people and an unborn child are killed, more than 1,040 are injured. The bomb plot includes a device designed to release cyanide gas that would kill emergency response crews and area residents, but the cyanide is destroyed in the fire.

April 14, 1993

An attempt to assassinate U.S. President George Bush in Kuwait fails.

October 4, 1993

Black Hawk Down: Two U.S. helicopters on a humanitarian mission are shot down in Mogadishu, Somalia, by militants trained by Al Qaeda using weapons supplied by Osama bin Laden and Mohammed Atef; 18 U.S. soldiers are killed, and some of their bodies are abused and dragged through the streets.

June 25, 1996

A truck bomb is detonated outside the U.S. Air Force complex Khobar Towers in Dharan, Saudi Arabia; 19 U.S. servicemen are killed and 515 people are injured, including 240 U.S. citizens.

August 7, 1998

Truck bombs are detonated almost simultaneously outside two U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, killing 224 and injuring more than 5,000. The attacks are carried out by 22 al Qaeda members, including Osama bin Laden.

October 12, 2000

A U.S. Navy destroyer, the USS Cole, is rammed by a small boat loaded with explosives in Aden, Yemen, killing 17 sailors and injuring 39.

September 11, 2001

American Airlines flight 11, en route from Boston to Los Angeles, is hijacked and crashed into the World Trade Center (north tower); United Airlines flight 175, from Boston to Los Angeles, is hijacked and crashed into the World Trade Center (south tower); United Airlines flight 93 from Newark to San Francisco is hijacked and crashes in southwestern Pennsylvania; American Airlines flight 77, en route from Washington to Los Angeles, is hijacked and crashed into the Pentagon. More than 2,900 are killed, and thousands more are injured.

Keep in mind folks, these are just the actions committed against us. There are, literally, hundreds of other terrorist activities committed by the Muslim world over the past four decades.

But we’re the ones that are disrespectful.

That’s all for now folks. Until next time, take care and be well.

-John

Quickie: He simply doesn’t get it.

While Iran is sprinting towards gaining the capabilities to develop a nuclear weapon and North Korea just successfully tested a long-range missile, President Obama is talking about disarming.

I don’t understand how he simply cannot grasp the concept that rogue regimes like these do not view disarmament as a “morally responsible” move, rather they see it as a sign of weakness… and you know what, they are right.

I have already discussed the flaws of soft power here and here, so I won’t get into a long discussion now, however, you all better start preparing for more stories like North Korea’s missile test and Iran’s increasing uranium enrichment in the near future with talk like this from the president.

President Bush: Foreign Policy Failures

Until now, I have been fairly easy on President Bush. The issues that I have discussed have been, no doubt, some of his finest deeds as president.

Well, for all you Bush-haters out there (and I know there’s a large number of you) I’m sure you’ll enjoy today’s entry.

As noted last week, President Bush’s foreign policy has resulted in a number of very impressive initiatives that not only helped us, but the rest of the world as well.

While those gains should be applauded, they do not absolve him for the complete foreign policy failures that he has managed.

I’ll deal with these one by one.

Russia

While our dealings with Russia have hardly been a complete failure, I would certainly not categorize them as a success either.

Over the past 12-18 months, Russia has really ramped up the anti-American rhetoric; so much so that you would think it was 1984, not 2009. They’ve pranced around our hemisphere and gotten cozy with similar despotic regimes like Chavez’s of Venezuela and Castro’s of Cuba, while flexing their military might during war games with the former.

Personally, this doesn’t worry me too much as I think Russia is far more bark then bite. While they are strong militarily, they still do not approach our armed forces capabilities.

And if you think our economy is bad, oh man, you should check out there’s! Rampant unemployment, inflation through the roof and corruption…well, everywhere.

That is not to say that we do not have to take them seriously, but I do not view them as the menace that some do.

Where we failed with Russia, however, was during this summer’s invasion of Georgia by Russian forces.

Georgia is one of our staunchest allies. They have done everything in their power to get closer to the U.S. They have opened up their markets to embrace capitalism and are on the road to becoming a member of NATO.

As all of you know, during the opening ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics, Russian tanks rolled through Georgian towns. Their buildings were bombed, their people killed all while the rest of the world was in awe of the spectacle going on in the People’s Republic.

What was our response to a close ally, a sovereign nation being invaded simply because they wanted to join NATO?

Words. Words that fell on deaf ears.

This had to have been incredibly disappointing to the Georgians, as none of their efforts to get closer to the U.S. prevented an attack that resulted in the loss of land, a destroyed infrastructure and many civilian and military deaths.

This showed Georgians, and the rest of the world for that matter, that being an ally of the U.S. isn’t what it used to be.

North Korea

What?

North Korea?

Didn’t they agree to end their nuclear weapons program?

Didn’t they destroy their nuclear cooling tower to prove their cooperation?

Wasn’t this a success?

Oh, how a few months can change everything…

For a while, this section would’ve appeared in the foreign policy success entry. But as the end of the Bush Administration gets closer, so does the realization that North Korea will, once again, begin developing nuclear weaponry.

If you’re not aware of the latest developments in North Korea, let me bring you up to speed.

The vaunted Six-Party Talks, you know the multi-national approach that was going to rid the world of the North Korean nuclear menace, have all but collapsed and Pyongyang is becoming ever more vague as to how or when they will actually adhere to their original cooperation.

President Bush should have known that this cooperation would not last. The other members of the talks (China, South Korea, Japan and China) were not as eager as we were to rid the North Koreans of this weaponry and it showed as none of them seriously pressed the issue with Kim Jong Il.

Additionally, President Bush should have known better than to treat the North Koreans with the respect that rational governments demand. The war-mongering North should not have been trusted, simple as that.

While, I do not necessarily abdicate going to war with North Korea, I do think that tougher actions should have been taken.

Further economic sanctions or air strikes to take out nuclear installations would have been better approaches than diplomacy with a bunch of disinterested parties.

As a result, President failed at one of his largest foreign policy goals: ridding North Korea of nuclear weapons.

Good luck with that one Barack!

Iran

Here's another hot potato President Bush will pass along to President-elect Obama.

To me, this is President Bush’s grandest foreign policy failure.

Again and again, I have repeated how disastrous a nuclear Iran would be, so I’m not going to rehash all of those old arguments.

I just find it incomprehensible that he did not do anything to stop Iran’s nuclear aspirations. I know that he was sabotaged by his own National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) in December of 2007, but with a successful Iraq critical to not only the rest of the Middle East and world, but to his own legacy as well, he still should have acted to relieve the region of such a source of instability and danger.

He could have done something…anything else than what he did, err...didn't do.

Again, calculated air strikes, a proxy war fought through Israel (a nation who’s arm no one has to twist when their safety is challenged) and draconian economic sanctions could have worked...at least they should have been tried.

Instead, of actually doing something about it, all he offered was words. Words, that again, fell on deaf ears.

Hopefully, Iran won’t develop the bomb. Hopefully, the Ahmadinejad regime will collapse. Hopefully, it won’t be replaced by an even more fanatic leader. Hopefully, President-elect Obama will be able to find a resolution.

That’s an awful lot to hope for though.

One last hope that I have is that years from now historians won’t look back at 2008 the same way they look back to the early 30’s and wonder why nothing was done to stop such a despotic, evil regime from wreaking havoc all over the world.

If they do, the first finger of blame will, and should, be pointed directly at President Bush.

That’s all for now folks. Until next time, take care and be well.

-John