Critics of President Obama’s Nobel award are wrong when they say he hasn’t done anything yet. If you think the world would be safer with Russia having an effective veto over NATO’s missile defenses, you will agree Obama has already accomplished a lot.
There is more to be done, however. Russian delight over Obama’s decision to scrap the missile-defense sites in Europe is fading quickly. As many predicted, Moscow dislikes the sea-based missile-defense concept as much as it did the ground-based interceptors. One problem with a sea-based missile defense is that Aegis warships have to be deployed to set it up. Defending Europe against missiles launched from Iran dictates deploying warships in the Eastern Mediterranean, Black Sea, or Baltic Sea, areas Russia is notoriously sensitive about.
But the other problem is the same one the Russians raised with the sites in Europe. Wherever we propose to put Aegis ships, Moscow will suspect that they can intercept missiles launched from Russia and will accuse the U.S. of “targeting Russia” with our missile defenses. This is exactly what Russia’s envoy to NATO is now doing, mere weeks after Obama’s policy concession. Indeed, Moscow now evinces an eye-opening air of entitlement to explanations on this head.
NATO, meanwhile, is renewing its search for greater cooperation with Russia on missile defense, with implications for the tactical ground-based systems assumed to be options in the Obama plan. Technological disparities between NATO and Russia make meaningful integration doubtful in the short run. This could give more prominence to technologically awkward, politically driven “solutions,” such as NATO accepting a role for Russia’s premier S-400 air defense system in its southern European defenses. Russia is already in negotiations with both Turkey and Greece over the S-400 and thus has an existing interest that is in direct competition with the U.S. Patriot. If Turkey and Greece host upgraded tactical missile-defense systems for NATO, those systems may not be ours.
A NATO missile-defense system over which Russia can exercise an inside veto is a Nobel-worthy experiment indeed. One thing we can say is that few cowboys would take a chance on it.
“The administration has a choice now …: beat a hasty retreat on the “Close Guantanamo!” hooey –or start a scattershot effort to distribute detainees in the U.S. and around the world.”
OR, Obama can just keep patting himself on the back for having closed Guantanamo, and ignore the fact that it is still there. Ignoring the facts is one of Obama’s great skills. Don’t even get me started on the oceans not receding…
I love how Obama and Co. gave George Bush no credit for the work he was doing to protect the country, slandering and hindering him whenever possible. Now they see that he was making truly difficult decisions, not because they might be popular, but because they were the only reasonable compromise among the diverse and complicated interests. Turns out Guantanamo wasn’t such a bad place after all (according to Eric Holder, but too late to stop the closing announcement), and was located outside the US for very good reasons. I wish that serious people were in charge of our country’s national security.
I guess this is an example of Obama’s brilliance; it is so extraordinary that everyone else can’t seem to understand why not having a plan for closing Guantanamo is a problem.
Correction, it should say,
I guess this is an example of Obama’s brilliance; it is so extraordinary that everyone else can’t seem to understand why not having a plan for closing Guantanamo is NOT a problem.
My apologies.
This, like the budget, wasn’t inherited .. Obama knew this was coming .. he signed on for it.
Obama furiously blamed Bush during the presidential campaign for anything and everything wrong in the world, and deliberately offered few solutions. This proved to be a winning election strategy. Republicans should copy this approach in ’10 and ’12. They should blame Obama when Iran goes nuclear, when Pakistan collapses, when the deficits continue at record levels, and when the economy continues to sputter. If the economy does begin to recover, they should blame Obama for the inevitable lag in job creation. Amidst all this stone hurling, Republicans should offer no realistic solutions, instead promising universal health care, tax cuts for 95% of America, the end of global warming, and hordes of new social spending. Then, once Republicans have political power again, they should responsibly act to curb entitlement spending and to transform the federal revenue model to make it more efficient and fair.
#2
I wish that serious people were in charge of our country’s national security.
the whole purpose of encouraging illegal immigration, denigrating the Pledge of Allegiance, downplaying the importance of assimilation and the emphasis of, so called, compassion over law, is to have these people voting for the type of government we now have..
http://news.findlaw.com/ap_stories/a/p/1130/04-30-2009/20090430072008_19.html
“Hispanics also had gains in voting share, mostly due to their rapidly growing population. In 2008, about 9.7 million, or half of Hispanics eligible to vote, cast ballots. They made up about 7.4 percent of the total voters, a jump from 6 percent in 2004.
“Due to immigration and high birth rates, the number of Hispanics eligible to vote rose by 21 percent from 2004 to 2008 to 19.5 million, compared with a 5 percent increase for the general population. The fastest-growing minority group, Hispanic voters helped Obama flip the battleground states of Colorado, Florida, Nevada and New Mexico.
“Moving into the future, we’re going to see a much more diverse electorate,” said Mark Hugo Lopez, associate director of the Pew Hispanic Center, who co-wrote the report. “Among youths generally and black youths in particular, we have seen an increase in voter participation since 2000, and there’s generally been more civic engagement such as volunteering.”
by diverse, he means people who are not culturally or intellectually connected to the values of the Founding Fathers of this nation, and often hostile to them
PBO says that closing Gitmo and releasing OLC EIT memos “makes us safer,” presumably because potential terrorists will choose not to join the jihad now that America is sufficiently penitent.
This would be ludicrous if it weren’t so scary. Either the Obama administration is hopelessly naive for believing this, or dishonest for saying something they know can’t possibly be true. Either way, it’s very bad for America.
I can’t reverse course on closing Guantanamo. It was the signal accomplishment of the first 100 days of my Revolution. All I have to do is send some Stimulus to Murtha or some other buffoon, and they will take the Gitmo Gang off my hands. That’s how we roll.
#2, don’t worry. Frauds are always found out. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised to see that as Obama becomes less popular, he will seek out the advice of President Bush.
Wasn’t the premise behind “close Gitmo now” that the place was full ‘o’ torture?
Now we know that it is a well-run prison, with better conditions than most comparable US-based federal prisons. Why can’t Obama easily back down, and claim credit for reforms? It should never have been about the prison but about the detainee policies and allegations of mistreatment. Obama can fix those.
It was never about the prison, or about allegations of abuse. It was about our “image abroad,” a capricious will-o-the-wisp that Obama apparently plans to chase wherever it leads us. God help us.