Taking note of the 72 murdered migrants in Mexico, the Archdiocese of Mexico City:

The Archdiocese of Mexico City has issued a statement condemning the massacre of 72 migrants from Central and South America. The migrants were likely traveling to the United States.

“It is further evidence of the social disorder and loss of respect for fundamental values present in some parts of the country,” the archdiocese commented, “[and] shows the absence of a comprehensive immigration policy in Mexico that is coherent with the requirements of human mobility in view of a humane treatment of immigrants, as Mexico has required of the United States.”…

This is important given the Catholic Church’s overall views on migration – on the whole, it is not to be deterred. People have a general right to move around. I agree with the teachings of the Church – which is why I back a path to citizenship for the illegals we de-facto invited in, as well as a guest-worker program to allow in those workers we want and need. Justice and mercy requires a rational policy on migrants from all interested parties. But the statement of the Archdiocese points out that neither justice nor mercy being served along the American border – not in any respect at all.

It seems that the 72 victims all refused to become mules for the drug smugglers – and paid for their refusal with their lives. These 72 are also part of the tens of thousands of people murdered in Mexico by the criminal gangs who control the border – and who control it because both the Mexican and American governments refuse to do so.

In Mexico, it seems a bit hopeless – perhaps the leadership of courage and determination will arise to fight a war to the death against the cartels, but I see no signs of it. Mexico has a moral obligation to ensure the lives of the people in Mexican jurisdiction – legal and illegal, permanent resident or just passing through to the United States. Mexico has completely failed in its moral duty, and thus Mexican lectures to us on how to treat migrants have a hollow ring to them.

But Mexico’s failures don’t get us off the hook – we, too, bear responsibility for the murder and mayhem along the border. Our failure is in not securing our border – securing to such an extent that only people legally allowed may cross it. If we were doing that, 72 poor victims would not have sought out the cartels for permission to cross (the border, my friends, is under air-tight control…just not our control, nor Mexico’s control: the drug lords control it, with quite an iron fist); 72 people would not have been ordered to transport drugs; would not have refused, would not be dead.

It is now at the level of criminal negligence to refuse to secure the border. It is a plain and simple crime – and a crime, more over, against the weakest and most helpless among us. Anyone who from this point forward tries to paint border security as racist is now just a tool of the murdering drug cartels – border security is the basic act of mercy and justice required along the border.

Once the border is secure – securely in our hands so that we decide who crosses – then we can address what to do with the illegals already in country and those who wish to come here to work. It is all of a piece – we can’t do anything without first gaining control. If we do anything but security first, then we just consign another 72 to death. And another 72. And another. And another.

Our duty is clear – now, will we do it?

From AFP:

Israel has “eight days” to launch a military strike against Iran’s Bushehr nuclear facility and stop Tehran from acquiring a functioning atomic plant, a former US envoy to the UN has said.

Iran is to bring online its first nuclear power reactor, built with Russia’s help, on August 21, when a shipment of nuclear fuel will be loaded into the plant’s core.

At that point, John Bolton warned Monday, it will be too late for Israel to launch a military strike against the facility because any attack would spread radiation and affect Iranian civilians…

The longer the world waits to genuinely confront Iran’s nuclear program, the narrower the options become while any action becomes increasingly dangerous. The time really is now – to strike now, before Iran has any functioning nuclear facilities. If we wait – if the world waits – then we’ll one day be confronted with a nuclear-armed Iran, with all that means in terms of terrorist and other threats.

Is the world listening? We’ll soon find out.

The “wikileak” of US military documents related to the Afghan campaign doesn’t really tell us anything perceptive observers had not already figured out – but it does highlight, once again, the need for a clear US policy regarding the use of military force.

The fundamental problems we face in Afghanistan – attempting to win hearts and minds; dealing with timid allies; enemies who have safe havens from which to launch attacks upon us – have been with us ever since the Korean War. In the highest councils of our government and in spite of having, at times, Presidents and generals who understand war, we have had an overall paralysis of will which has prevented the United States from securing clear-cut victory most of the times we have engaged in battle since the Second World War. Only the comparatively minor operations in Grenada and Panama have been fought to a conclusion – and the clear peace resulting from such action stands in stark contrast to the bitter defeat or disappointing half-victories of other conflicts.

In Korea were the bad military seeds planted. First in Truman’s decision to go to war without a clear, Congressional declaration of war. Secondly, and most fatally, in the loss of nerve when things didn’t immediately work out as well as planned. In these two actions came about both the concept that the American people cannot sustain a big war as well as the insane proposition that wars may be fought for limited ends (this last bit had a shred of support from the fact that in the 19th century Bismarck had fought three wars for very strictly limited ends and wound up with a united, powerful Germany dominating the European scene – left out of such considerations were, of course, the dragon’s teeth sewn by those limited wars which united to undo Bismarck’s Germany in World War One). The truth is that both the Civil War and World War Two demonstrated America’s willingness to go all out for victory, while to fight for less than absolute victory is an absurdity no great captain of the past would understand, let alone agree to.

It is America’s leadership which has been unwilling to either declare war or to show courage when things go badly. Because of this unwillingness/cowardice, America’s wars since WWII have tended to be half-fought, and thus rapidly lose support from a public which seems to instinctively know that if you go to war at all, you go all out (and they understood this from the start – the massive, unprecedented outpouring of public support for a relieved General MacArthur in 1951 was testimony to a popular desire to win, once war was started). It is time for us to bring to an and the era of quasi-war for the United States – we have to short-circuit an often faint-hearted leadership, and ensure that if an American soldier is ever engaged in battle from this point on, then his entire nation is absolutely committed to victory regardless of cost.

As a first step, we need to retrieve our war-making power from the Executive Branch. We must pass whatever legislation is necessary to forbid the deployment of US ground forces outside the territory of the United States except during time of declared war. The President must lose his ability to send troops in to battle outside our nation until such time as he obtains specific war powers from Congress. Many will say that this ham strings the United States in times of emergency and to a certain extent they will be correct. But given the baleful effects of leaving this power in the Executive, alone, I think that on balance we’d be better off, even if a US response might be delayed a day or two while Congress gathers to debate and vote upon a war resolution.

The second step must be to prevent a Congressional cut-and-run once the war starts. The cut off of funds by Congress to South Vietnam ensured that our efforts there would end in complete failure; the attempts by Congress to cut off funds for the Iraq campaign nearly caused our complete defeat in that campaign. Once in, we must essentially be forced to stay in until victory is done – and so, legislation must be enacted to ensure that war appropriations can only be refused by a 2/3 vote of both houses.

Once in and committed to funding the fight, we can have some assurance that the war won’t be left half done. We can then look our soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines in the eye and tell them that whatever sacrifice they make, it won’t be for anything less than victory. It will also tell the world that while we might be slower to act than previously, you can rest assured that once we do act, we’re coming in all the way and with everything we’ve got.

We dare not become a fortress trying merely to protect ourselves. But we also cannot become a global 911. Diplomacy and economic activities will play a large roll, as always, but behind words and trade must lie not just a superb US military, but the knowledge that if we un-sheath the sword, it won’t be laid down until the enemy is completely destroyed.

None of this will help us in Afghanistan. For good or ill, the plan and forces we have in place now will have to do the best they can. The troops there deserve our support – but once we do finish in Afghanistan, we should pledge ourselves that will be the last such war we fight. Next time when faced with an insurgency supported by a Third Party, we’ll have to steel ourselves to taking on the sponsors, as well as the terrorists – in any fight, the enemy will know that war with us means ultimate destruction for them.

War is a terrible thing and should not be engaged in save for the weightiest of reasons – but once we determine that war is the only means of securing our interests, then it must be war to the bitter end.

For those of you who don’t know geography, that is right on the border with California – from Haaretz:

Mexico foiled an attempt by Hezbollah to establish a network in South America, a Kuwaiti newspaper reported on Tuesday.

Hezbollah operatives employed Mexicans nationals with family ties to Lebanon to set up the network, designed to target Israel and the West, the Al-Seyassah daily said…

…Nasr was living in Tijuana, Mexico at the time of his arrest, the report said…

Very close to home and I doubt he was in Tijuana as a tourist. Mark my words: they are working out ways and means of attacking us, and our undefended southern border is becoming a beacon for them to attack.

Sealing the border is not about immigration, it is about law enforcement and justice – and if we won’t control the border, then someone else will. Do you want it to be Hezbollah allied with Mexican drug lords? Follow Obama and his Democrats, and that is precisely what we’ll get.

Obama is playing politics with immigration – hoping to use Arizona’s immigration law to stir up hatred and division in the United States which he can then exploit at the ballot box. Meanwhile, his actual job – defending the United States – goes by the wayside. We are in great and increasing danger – and things need to change.

The growing arrogance of these cartels is fueled by the lack of resolve on the federal level in the United States. Convinced that we won’t do anything, they are bidding for complete control of the border – and as I’ve said, there is no such thing as an open border. Someone will control it – as we refuse to, the drug lords will.

We’ve ceded control to the drug gangs who control our border because we refuse to:

About 3,500 acres of southern Arizona have been closed off to U.S. citizens due to increased violence at the U.S.-Mexico border, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

The closed off area includes part of the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge that stretches along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu told Fox News that violence against law enforcement officers and U.S. citizens has increased in the past four months, forcing officers on an 80 mile stretch of Arizona land north of the Mexico border off-limits to Americans.

The refuge had been adversely affected by the increase in drug smugglers, illegal activity and surveillance, which made it dangerous for Americans to visit.

“The situation in this zone has reached a point where continued public use of the area is not prudent,” said refuge manager Mitch Ellis.

There is no such thing as an open border – if we don’t rule it, someone else will. In this case, it is Mexican drug lords – and I’ll bet in connivance with the Mexican police and army in the area.

Let no one tell you that border security is racism in disguise – border security is the simple application of justice and anyone who advocates anything other than strict border security is a fool or a knave.

A timely reminder of the stark reality – from Gordon C. Chang over at Pajamas Media:

…Senior Chinese officers, on the other hand, have no trouble telling us how they really feel.

In February, Colonel Meng Xianging promised a “hand-to-hand fight with the U.S.” sometime within the next 10 years “when we’re strong enough.” “We must make them hurt,” said Major-General Yang Yi this year, referring to the United States…

Do read the whole thing as it is a great look at our mindless China policy. Once upon a time, having China on side was a good idea – but that time ended when the Berlin Wall came down. Since that time, China has become the most potent threat to America’s long-term strategic interests in the world.

The analogy I use for US/Chinese relations are those between the UK and Germany early in the 20th century. Deeply intertwined in economics, talking right past each other in politics – and with Germany’s (China’s) military feverishly preparing for armed conflict. I fully expect eventual war with China – because they will attack us, likely right out of the blue, probably starting with a cat’s paw attack by North Korea or some other distracting event.

For all of China’s alleged success, China remains a corrupt, unstable tyranny incapable of delivering, long term, the desires of the Chinese people. Coupled with this fundamental flaw is a growing Chinese nationalism which wishes to flex muscle – both as a means of distracting the Chinese people from their plight as well as righting what some Chinese consider to be historic wrongs (namely, that we’re in charge, and they’re not – Middle Kingdom arrogance has never left China).

American policy should be guided by the threat – and thus we should be working diligently to build and re-build alliances with nations under direct Chinese threat: India, Thailand, Taiwan, South Korea, Japan – and some sort of working relationship with Vietnam regarding area defense (be best if Russia could be brought in, but Putin’s Russia is even stupider than we are over China). Our Navy should be greatly increased, as should our long range bomber force – and building a couple more active Army divisions would probably be wise.

Only time will tell what will come of China – but I envision eventual economic collapse (and I mean in the next year or two as all the Chinese bubbles burst) which will leave China in acute stress. Some time after that, I figure they’ll attack in some manner. Better for us to be prepared for it.

From Reason:

…The “one-off” attack line came from the highest official in the American government charged with preventing attacks exactly like Shahzad’s: Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano.

Napolitano’s rhetorical slip is a little too serious to be palmed off with some linguistic woolgathering. She has made clear repeatedly that she believes people with Gadsden flag bumper stickers are a greater threat to domestic tranquility than out-of-the-closet terrorists who receive training and material assistance in foreign terror centers. She has been wrong about this every time, and she will continue to be wrong until Americans actually die.

And it will, unfortunately, take more corpses before we can get Napolitano out. And even then it won’t be because of the dead, but because of her increasing political liability. Democrats don’t care about what happens except as it relates to electoral results – as long as you don’t risk a lost vote, you’re ok as far as Democrats go.

So far, we’ve lucked out incredibly since Obama took office – but we won’t luck out forever. Eventually, they’ll get through – and all of the “engagement” and glad handing of our enemies will be exposed for the fraud it is.

From NRO’s The Corner:

It appears that the Department of Justice is playing politics with the Times Square bombing plot by refusing to brief Senator Kit Bond (R-MO), the Vice Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. During a classified briefing on Thursday members of the intelligence community refused to answer one of Senator Bond’s questions, according to Bond “We called the agency of the intelligence community that should have that information, and they advised us that the Department of Justice is running it and they told us they should not share it with the Intelligence Committee.” Bond further noted that the stonewalling was directed at him personally, “The Intelligence Community has been told they should not speak to the Vice Chairman of the Intelligence Committee — that’s me.” Bond suspects politics is behind it, which isn’t a stretch given his criticism of the administration’s handling of the Christmas Day Bomber, and his comments on Wednesday that Shazad is not entitled to Miranda rights (a bit of a misstatement as, barring some exception, Miranda would be required if prosecutors want to use the fruits of a custodial interrogation against Shazad).

In any case, someone may want to tell AG Holder that absent some reason to believe that Vice Chairman Bond will disclose intelligence without authorization, the intelligence community is legally obligated to keep Congress “fully” and “currently” informed.

Indeed, someone should tell Holder – but I bet that Holder already knows this. The trouble is that if Bond is informed, it might come out that the Obama Administration was relentlessly incompetent in handling the affair and as we know, if anything hurts the Obama Administration, it must not come out.

Dissent might have been the highest form of patriotism back in 2008, but now we know that slavish devotion to Obama is the highest form or patriotism. Thus, Holder is just being patriotic in stonewalling Bond. Additionally, it is just as important to remember that “the people have a right to know” was only operational until January 20th, 2009. On that date, “the people don’t need to know” became the rule.

At least they aren’t letting out no-bid contracts to KBR, right?

Darn!

Because hitting our friends is easier – and safer – than confronting our enemies:

The five permanent members of the UN Security Council said they support a nuclear-free zone in the Middle East, according to a unanimous statement circulated during a conference aimed at strengthening nonproliferation.

Without mentioning Israel by name, the group voiced support for the “full implementation” of a 1995 resolution intended to free the Middle East from nuclear arms. “We are committed to a full implemented of the 1995 NPT resolution on the Middle East and we support all ongoing efforts to this end,” the statement read. “We are ready to consider all relevant proposals in the course of the Review Conference in order to come to an agreed decision aimed at taking concrete steps in this direction.”

Neville Chamberlain had this problem, too. When confronted with the choice of either restraining an insane dictator or helping the dictator out, the decision always came out in a “help the dictator” manner. Fighting evil is hard and risky – conniving at it is easy and bears no apparent risk.

But as Churchill warned Chamberlain and would warn Obama, if he could, this is just feeding the crocodile and hoping he eats you last. If we press Israeli nuclear disarmament as part of a move to convince Iran to not build nukes, all we’ll do is lend legitimacy to Iran’s government, demoralize the Israelis, encourage the Islamo-fascists and allow time for Iran’s nuclear program to bear fruit.

Nuclear weapons are the only way Israel can assure itself of survival. It is because the Moslem world knows that an all-out attack on Israel is suicidal that we haven’t had a major Moslem effort to wipe Israel out since 1973. Without those weapons, then it would become just a matter of attrition and Israel would eventually be crushed – the Moslem world could afford to exchange 10 lives for 1, they so vastly outnumber the Israelis. Nuclear weapons redress the balance.

We don’t need a nuclear-free Middle East – in fact, there would be a million nuclear weapons in the Middle East with no risk at all if the Moslem world becomes free and under democratic governance. Weapons are never the problem – who has them, is. Israelis holding nuclear weapons is a good thing because they are free people – Iranian mullahs holding them is a bad thing because they are insane tyrants.

Obama and Co can’t wrap their minds around this – mostly because liberals have no understanding of the way things work. Israel will find itself under increasing pressure from the United States while our failure to act decisively increasingly risks war between Israel and Iran. Its a bad situation, and we’re making it worse.

So much for the liberal attempts to spin him as TEA Party or other conservative:

…Shahzad’s behavior sometimes seemed odd to his neighbors, and he surprised a real estate broker he hardly knew with his outspokenness about President George W. Bush and the Iraq war.

“He mentioned that he didn’t like Bush policies in Iraq,” said Igor Djuric, who represented Shahzad in 2004 when he was buying a home.

Djuric said he couldn’t remember the exact words Shahzad used about Bush but “something to the effect of he doesn’t know what he’s doing and it’s the wrong thing that he’s doing.”

“I don’t know if he mentioned 9/11,” Djuric said, “but something like that, Iraq has nothing to do with anything.”

As Dan Riehl points out, its surprising that he wasn’t an MSNBC host – he certainly has the talking points down pat.

For those of us in the real world (ie, non-liberals), this comes as no surprise. Who else would want to bomb Times Square? Its got to be some Islamist/anti-American sort of person. To even think it could be someone else is to ignore reality – there’s that one in a million shot such a person could be motivated by other issues, but if there’s a car bomb found, the hunt should be immediately for whomever has lately been rather Islamist and/or anti-war.

We’ve been extraordinarily lucky on Obama’s watch – and even with this luck, we’ve still had people killed at Ft Hood. Our luck cannot hold forever – we cannot expect that the next car bomb will also be found in the nick of time. Until Obama and Administration start to get serious and essentially duplicate Bush’s efforts, we’re going to be increasingly at risk of terrorist attacks.

The news:

Police found an apparent car bomb in a parked sport utility vehicle Saturday evening in New York City’s Times Square, then evacuated buildings and cleared streets of thousands of tourists in “the Crossroads of the World.”

A mounted police officer noticed smoke coming from the SUV at 6:30 p.m., police said. Bomb investigators found propane tanks, powder and an apparent timing device inside, according to a law enforcement official who wasn’t authorized to release the information and spoke on condition of anonymity.

An official tells Fox News that a dark SUV was found to have what initial reports indicated was a “failed incendiary device,” including gasoline, propane and wires.

A man was seen running from the vehicle, but authorities have not been able to find or identify him.

This is a bit frightening. Is it just a kook with a grudge, or part of a larger plot against America? Only time will tell on that.

But let this be a reminder that danger does lurk for us. There are people who wish to kill in great numbers for a variety of sick causes. Eternal vigilance is the prince we’ll have to pay to both protect our selves and preserve our liberty.

A good thing, too:

Sens. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) issued the first congressional subpoenas of the Obama administration Monday after accusing the White House of stonewalling their requests for information about the Fort Hood shootings.

In a letter with the subpoenas, the chairman and ranking member of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee said the FBI and Defense Department had ignored their requests for five months. The Nov. 5 shootings at the Texas base, the largest Army post in the United States, left 13 people dead.

Lieberman and Collins said they sought witnesses and documents about what the government previously knew about the alleged gunman, Army psychiatrist Nidal M. Hasan, and whether it had adequately investigated his pre-shooting communications with Yemeni cleric and suspected terrorist Anwar al-Aulaqi.

The problem here stems from President Obama’s asinine determination to “reach out” to Islam. Its asinine not because its bad to reach out, but because Obama is reaching out to the wrong people.

While Obama reaches out to, say, the mullahs in Tehran, he should be reaching out to the people of Iran, who are on our side in the War on Terrorism. But the policy is to reach out, in effect, to the terrorists…so the blood of the Iranian people gets swept under the rug. As does the blood of the American people, murdered at Ft Hood by a man de-facto allied with the people the President is reaching out to.

But we need to know the truth. At bottom, we need to know how far the politically-correct rot has gone and how vulnerable we are to Islamists we’ve allowed to infiltrate our society. Obama’s Administration is refusing to set the record straight, and so it will have to be forced out.

Just gets weaker all the time:

President Barack Obama’s national security advisers are considering a broad range of options to curb Iran’s nuclear program…

…In his statement, Gates said: “The memo was not intended as a ‘wake up call’ or received as such by the president’s national security team. Rather, it presented a number of questions and proposals intended to contribute to an orderly and timely decision-making process.”

Mullen said Gates was leading policy deliberations within the administration that have had “great focus for years, not months.”

“This is as complex a problem as there is in our country and we have expended extraordinary amounts of time and effort to figure that out, to try to get that right,” Mullen said.

They’re acting as if they’ve got all the time in the world – they are dithering over plans and proposals which may take months to even decide on. By the time we make up our mind on what to do, Iran may already have deployed nuclear weapons.

Patience is a virtue in foreign affairs only when you are awaiting the outcome of a policy decided upon. President Bush, for instance, was very patient regarding Iraq and this was ultimately rewarded with victory. But he wasn’t patient in making up his mind – and, indeed, in such things rapid decision-making is crucial to success. Delay means that whatever policy you decide upon might not reflect reality at the time of implementation.

Choose: do we want Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon, or do we wish to prevent this?

Choose: if we wish to prevent this, do we go with talking, sanctions or armed action?

Pick one, and then stick with it. Even if we pick wrong, its better than not picking, at all. Quite honestly, we’d be better off saying we’re ok with an Iranian nuke and then make defense arrangements with Iran’s neighbors than making an asinine announcement that we’re still thinking things over. The Iranian leadership isn’t thinking things over – they’ve already decided and are now patiently waiting us out, figuring that even if we ever screw ourselves up to action, it will be too late.

My views are known – blockade of Iran’s gasoline imports followed by selected air strikes on nuclear and other defense targets if blockade doesn’t bring the Iranians to the negotiating table. Maybe I’m wrong but delay in decision is worse than being wrong.

Terrible, but not at all surprising:

When the New York Times published a series of articles on top-secret counterterrorism efforts at the National Security Agency in 2006 and 2007, supporters of the Bush administration reacted with outrage. Oddly, though, the same people who expressed outrage over the exposure of Valerie Plame as a CIA analyst never got terribly exercised over these breaches of national security (and to be fair, the same holds true in reverse). The Bush administration complained loudly about the Times’ decision to expose these programs but never made a public show of a probe to discover the source of the leaks.

Ironically, that effort apparently succeeded in uncovering at least one leaker — and the Obama administration gets the credit for it:

A former senior executive with the National Security Agency has been indicted on 10 felony charges related to the leaking of classified information to a national newspaper in 2006 and 2007, the Justice Department announced Thursday morning.

Thomas A. Drake, 52, headed an office in the NSA’s Signals Intelligence Directorate at Fort Meade between 2001 and 2005, and continued to work with the agency as a high-ranking contractor through 2008, U.S. officials said. The indictment alleges that Drake allegedly exchanged hundreds of e-mails with an unidentified reporter for a national newspaper and served as a source for its articles about Bush administration intelligence policies between February 2006 and November 2007, U.S. officials said.

Everyone on our side suspected this to be the case – that someone in the intelligence community was deliberately leaking info to the MSM. Only question: was this man a traitor for money, or for ideology? Meaning, was he getting paid for his stories, or was he doing it because he disliked Bush Administration policies.

If it was for money, 10 years or so in jail is sufficient – if it did it for ideology, then it must be life in prison. Why? Because employees of the government are not permitted to dissent from policy set by elected officials. They can put up with it, or they can quit – and that is all. Selective leaking of documents by a junior bureaucrat is not just a violation of trust, but also a threat to American security because the junior bureaucrat simply cannot know all the info which went in to making the decision he disagrees with.

And, yes, if any conservative in the ranks violates such a public trust to leak Obama Administration policy secrets then I’ll want him roasted on a spit, to (in a manner of speaking, of course).

As an aside, I take issue with Morrisey’s comparison of this to the Plame case – Plame wasn’t covert and her name wasn’t leaked. But, be that as it may, the assertion still stands: break trust, and pay a high price.

A fairly easy task when one is a down-to-earth person facing off against a self-absorbed elitist:

President Barack Obama on Thursday made clear he was not going to take advice from Republican Sarah Palin when it comes to decisions about the U.S. nuclear arsenal.

Palin, the former vice presidential candidate, has not been shy about criticizing Obama’s policies and this week weighed in on his revamped nuclear strategy, saying it was like a child in a playground who says ‘punch me in the face, I’m not going to retaliate.’

“I really have no response to that. The last I checked, Sarah Palin is not much of an expert on nuclear issues,” Obama said in an interview with ABC News.

Neither are you, Barry – and while you’ll try to sell this as something done under the advice of the SecDef, it still remains that you are the President and thus this boneheaded, ignorant and foolhardy new policy is all yours. As soon as President Pal…errmmm…I mean, as soon as a new President is sworn in, the military will breath a sigh of relief that they no longer have to salute policies they know make America unsafe.

What is really bad here is how clearly Sarah Palin has got under Obama’s skin – if his fellow Americans can rattle him this badly, imagine what our foreign enemies can do? A President who can’t graciously react to domestic criticism is not a President we can rely on in a foreign crisis.

And puts the world in danger:

So one wonders—as Putin embraces Chavez and Karzai plays host to Ahmadinejad; as Russia asserts the right to repudiate any nuclear-arms reduction treaty and China gives us the bird on the yuan; as the alliance with India languishes and the one with Britain experiences unprecedented atrophy; as Israel expresses acrid disagreement with us and Japan seeks to rip pages out of its postwar rulebook—what all the pragmatism has really, truly accomplished…

…other than give our delighted adversaries a free pass and our friends a very rude wakeup call.

And, indeed, one does wonder – but not too much. This is just the way Obama was educated to view the world. This is liberal education over the past 25 years or so put in to practice. Obama likely really believes the stories – perhaps believes such things as the reason Iran is hostile is because we supposedly helped conduct a coup in the 1950’s, that Moslems hate us because we’re partial to Israel, and so forth. If you believe that American actions are a source – or, possibly, the source – of global conflict, then pretty much doing the opposite should reduce – or eliminate – conflict.

That it is all mind-bogglingly stupid and not based on a shred of fact is neither here nor there – Obama was taught it by people who asserted it stoutly, who had the apparent credentials to make such statements and, of course, made such statements without any dissenting views being allowed any where near. Obama’s mental view of the world is a product of a hot-house climate of liberalism.

So, what to do? Hunker down and wait for a new President – it is all we can do. Obama will continue to weaken the United States all through his Presidency and we’ll be at increasing risk of war until the day he leaves office. And let’s pray war isn’t thrust upon us while Obama is in office because he’d probably be worse than useless at that, too, as in all his education, there probably wasn’t even a moment when he considered military policy.

Long, rough few years ahead.

Cross Posted: Noonan for Nevada

Sometimes, you just have to wonder whether Obama is stupid, or just wants to make America weak.

President Obama said Monday that he was revamping American nuclear strategy to substantially narrow the conditions under which the United States would use nuclear weapons.

Mr. Obama’s strategy is a sharp shift from those of his predecessors and seeks to revamp the nation’s nuclear posture for a new age in which rogue states and terrorist organizations are greater threats than traditional powers like Russia and China.

It eliminates much of the ambiguity that has deliberately existed in American nuclear policy since the opening days of the cold war. For the first time, the United States is explicitly committing not to use nuclear weapons against nonnuclear states that are in compliance with the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, even if they attacked the United States with biological or chemical weapons or launched a crippling cyberattack.

This is unbelievable. Obama is saying that America will not do whatever it takes to defend itself. And we’re supposed to call this moron Commander-in-Chief. He’s practically inviting our enemies (including al Qaeda) to attack us by giving them the heads up that any attack will not be met with an proportionate response. Whatever happened to peace through strength? if our enemies don’t see us as strong that makes us more vulnerable. So, thanks Obama, you made America less safe.

Joe Biden recently said that a another 9-11-type attack was unlikely.

Well, yesterday’s incident in Austin where nut-job Joseph Stack flew into a building targeting the IRS proves just how wrong Biden was.

If one desperate man can do such a thing, even posting up hi s suicide note online prior to his actions, are we supposed to believe that Islamic extremists, more dedicated to attacking America and in much larger numbers can’t pull enough another attack if we let our guard down?

Biden’s attitude is what the terrorists need to succeed. Our complacency paves the way for vulnerability.

Very good news:

A flying Boeing 747 jumbo jet equipped with a massive laser gun shot down a Scud-like missile over the Pacific late Thursday night, marking what analysts said was a major milestone in the development of the nation’s missile defense system.

The test shoot-down at 8:44 p.m. over a military test range near Point Mugu is expected to renew debate over spending billions of dollars for a system that seemed so far behind schedule that the Pentagon decided to significantly curtail its budget last year. The test, which the Pentagon described as a success, could be a major boon to Southern California, where much of the high-tech system has been developed and tested.

“Proving this technology is game-changing,” said Loren Thompson, a military policy analyst for the Lexington Institute, a think tank in Arlington, Va. “The program’s funding has been hanging on by a thread. A successful shoot-down of a ballistic missile will demonstrate to Capitol Hill that the airborne laser has potential.”

To translate from the MSM-ese: Obama and his liberals are gleefully gutting SDI because they are just plain and simple ignorant about it. They think in terms of the leftist slanders of “Ronald RayGun” from the 1980’s rather than in reality. Meanwhile, we desperately need this program in an increasingly dangerous world and smart people at Defense know this.

So, we get this successful test in an election year and the hope is that some Democrats – desperate to save their political hides – will vote for funding of SDI and that Obama will just sign it because its easier than opposing it. The United States gets defended by happy accident of Democrats wanting to get re-elected. Its a sad way to conduct affairs, but as long as Democrats are in charge, we’ll have to use such tricks to get anything worthwhile done.