It's bad enough that President Obama is about to sign a new START agreement with Russia--an accord that is little more than a gift to Moscow.
The Senate will never accept it.
Perhaps they won't even though the president's party has 59 votes. Can such things be filibustered?
Not to mention that Russia has announced they'll walk out on the agreement without notice should they feel the need. This agreement is of a piece with all of President Obama's other achievements. Well done, Mr. President!
Yes, it can be filibustered.
And Vlad Putin knows as much about expiration dates as Bambi ...
But Mr. Obama is now making matters far worse with his "Nuclear Posture Review," which further weakens our deterrent capabilities.
Previewing his new policy for the court stenographers at The New York Times, the president set limits on how the U.S. might use nuclear weapons, even in self-defense. Mr. Obama said the United States would commit "to not using nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states that adhere to non-proliferation treaties--even if those countries attack the U.S. with chemical or biological weapons."
While stopping short of a "no first use" policy, the Obama doctrine clearly constrains our potential employment of nuclear weapons. In his interview with the Times, the president said one of his goals is to "move towards less emphasis on nuclear weapons, to make sure that our conventional weapons capability is an effective deterrent in all but the most extreme circumstances."
Some of those "circumstances" could include rogue states like Iran and North Korea. Mr. Obama's policy makes exceptions for those adversaries. Pyongyang has already demonstrated a limited nuclear capability while Iran is working actively to develop nuclear weapons. The President says our revised posture will "set an example" for the rest of the world, and persuade more nations to curb their nuclear programs.
It's tempting to ask just how well that example is working. North Korea has threatened both the U.S. and South Korea with nuclear attacks, and even shared their technology with Syria. Apparently, Pyongyang is unconcerned about our "example," or the potential for American nuclear retaliation. And the pace of Iran's nuclear program has only accelerated over the past year, suggesting that Iran has little fear of the administration and its nuclear policies.
But the decline in our nuclear forces goes well beyond our political statements, and how they play in places like Iran and North Korea. Mr. Obama is telegraphing how he would use nuclear weapons, eliminating the policy "ambiguity" that has kept enemies guessing--and served us well--for more than 60 years.
Equally distressing, President Obama remains committed to a continuing erosion in our nuclear capabilities. As former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Frank Gaffney observes:
I believe that the most alarming aspect of the Obama denuclearization program, however, is its explicit renunciation of new U.S. nuclear weapons -- an outcome that required the president to overrule his own defense secretary. Even if there were no new START treaty, no further movement on the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, and no new wooly-headed declaratory policies, the mere fact that the United States will fail to reverse the steady obsolescence of its deterrent -- and the atrophying of the skilled workforce needed to sustain it -- will ineluctably achieve what is transparently President Obama's ultimate goal: a world without American nuclear weapons.
Given the outlines of Mr. Obama's policy, it's hard to disagree. Not only will our nuclear forces grow smaller in the coming years, they will also become less capable, with the president mandating a "procurement holiday" for that category of weapons, and the infrastructure and produces them.
Additionally, the newly-negotiated Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) will take a further toll on our deterrent capabilities, by cutting the number of warheads (to 1,500 for both the U.S. and Russia) and placing limits on delivery systems. By agreeing to that provision, Mr. Obama and his security team essentially traded away an American strength.
Two decades after the Cold War ended, the U.S. is the only global power with a true nuclear "triad," consisting of land-based ICBMs, sub-launched ballistic missiles and long-range nuclear bombers. Reaching treaty goals means the United States will surrender some of its advantage in those latter categories. Russia, on the other hand, has only a token ballistic missile fleet and a handful of long-range bombers. Clearly, the U.S. must make most of the cuts to comply with the new agreement.
It's also worth noting that some of the American bombers facing elimination are dual-capable systems, designed for nuclear strike missions and extended-range conventional sorties. Writing at the American Thinker, Thomas Lifson speculates that Russia's real goal wasn't a reduction in nuclear weapons, but rather, a decrease in our global, precision-strike capabilities. With fewer dual-capable bombers in the inventory, it will be more difficult to mount "shock and awe" campaigns in the future and inject U.S. power in areas that Moscow wants to dominate.
No matter how you slice it, the new START agreement (and Mr. Obama's revised nuclear posture statement) are bad policy, pure and simple. After a year in the Oval Office, the commander-in-chief still has a myopic view of the world, believing that nuclear weapons can simply be wished or negotiated away. In reality, President Obama is sewing the seeds of a new arms race. Allies in eastern Europe and the Far East (think Taiwan) that have long counted on the American nuclear umbrella will now be tempted to developed their own weapons, deducing (correctly) that the U.S. may be unwilling or unable to protect them.
Sad to say, but the new treaty and nuclear posture statement represent the worst security policy since the United States signed the Kellogg-Briand pact back in 1928. That was the agreement that "prohibited war as an instrument of national policy," except in matters of self-defense. You know how that one worked out.
TOPIX > VARIOUS > OBAMA NUKE PLAN RAISES TERROR FEARS AGZ US [Inspiration of TerrOps agz CONUS = US o A ]; + US EXPANDS WAR FRONT THROUGHOUT THE WORLD ['Tis WW3 in all but Name + lack of formal USG Declaration of War], + OBAMA EXPANDS MILITARY OPS IN AFRICA + US CONGRES REPORT: MELTING ARCTIC IS SECURITY THREAT TO US.
"STAR TREK" OLD VULCAN SAYING > "ONLY OBAMA [Nixon] COULD GO TO CHINA [Africa]".
D *** NG IT, "And NIXON VPOTUS SPIRO AGNEW to GUAM".
* SAME > IRAN DM:IFF ISRAEL ATTACKS, NOTHING WILL REMAIN/BE LEFT OF IT; + LEBANON PRESIDENT: COUNTRY WILL SIDE/FIGHT WITH HEZBOLLAH IFF ISRAEL ATTACKS.
* SAME > [Yemen Intel]YEMEN: SENIOR AL QAEDA HAVE LANDED IN YEMEN [from Afghanistan + Iraq bases due to US-ALLIED MIL PRESSURE], + HIZBUL ISLAM: WE INVITED OSAMA, AL QAEDA TO SOMALIA.
* SAME > [Africa Water Trubles, Wars?] KENYA: DAM "BUSTERS" CLAIM GIBE 3 PUTS THOUSANDS AT RISK
...In terms of foreign policyor, better put, foreign cloutthe U.S. is going through a startling period of auto-emasculation. Barack Obama has discarded his predecessor's big stickthe wielding of which should have confirmed the flaws not of big sticks but of his predecessorand replaced it with a mission of almost messianic outreach to our foes and most adamant competitors (while, at the same time, snubbing allies like Britain, Israel and India; Robert Kagan has a doughty essay on this in The Washington Post.)
Observing Obama's foreign policy, one comes away with the impression that he is profoundly embarrassed by American exceptionalism: We are a country like any other, and let no one tell us otherwise. He also views America's international decline as irreversible: His instinctive response is to accommodate the U.S. to the forces that have led to this decline, since to resist them would not merely be futile, but an affront to the multi-polar sensibilities of all those who, in foreign chanceries and international institutions, watch America closely for any trace of unilateralist recidivism. (Of course, it is OK to be unilateralist in the formal renunciation of strategic options, as happens with any nuclear self-denial; otherwise, multinational solidarity is always to be preferred, even when it leads to the backing of anti-American forces, as has happened in Honduras.)
In the Obama narrative, America has been a reckless source of trouble for the world because of its arrogant interventionism. Obama's solution, in the words of Charles Hill, a professor at Yale, is the following: Close out the wars, disengage, and distance ourselves in order to carry out the real objective: the achievement of a European-style welfare state. Just as Reagan downsized government by starving it through budget cuts, Obama will downsize the military-industrial complex by directing so much money into health care, environ-o-care, etc., that we, like the Europeans, will have no funds available to maintain world power. This will gain the confidence of those regimes adversarial to us as they recognize we will no longer be a threat to them and that we will acquiesce in their maintenance of power over their people.' All will be well with the world....
Posted by: Mike ||
04/07/2010 08:17 ||
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#3
This administration is far worse than Carter's. Carter had some restraints on him by his own Democrats as well as Republicans. Today, the donks have bought the whole leftard deal.
#9
I hereby apologize to Jimmah for ever saying he was the worst president in my lifetime. The Precedent has already got him beat and he's not halfway through his term.
#10
VARIOUS NET > wehell, seems for some Netters POTUS BAMMER is not just Jimbo II but worse a NELVILLE "PEACE IN OUR TIME/I HAVE A PAPER HERE SIGNED BY MR. HITLER PROMISING PEACE" CHAMBERLAIN???
#1
In Mexico, the government would face severe political blowback if it were to allow U.S. intervention. As of now, U.S. military boots on the ground in Mexico is just not going to happen, Posey said. Its a very culturally sensitive issue.
Seal the border and let them fight it out. Then keep the border sealed.
#2
Enforce the border. This may well turn out to be a sleeper issue that catches the political class completely unawares in 2012.
Stop the mexification of America. Enforce the f***ing border, crack down on employers of illegals, and for god's sake move to a points-based immigration system, already. We don't have much time left.
#3
I go to mexico regularly, and live in california. Mexicans here and there don't seem to care about violence and mayhem. They are completely enamored with the gangster lore and lifestyle the way the black community is with the 'gangsta' imagery.
Music and movies are rife with it in mexico and youngsters all dream of getting a gun and an expensive pickup truck.
In short, they don't want it to stop, and they don't care, as long as it doesn't affect them directly.
In my column of Jan 28 I had written about Hazrat Umar (RA) who had informed his own son of the severe reprimand he got from Allah for the defective bridge built in Baghdad during his rule in which a goat had broken its leg. Hazrat Umar (RA) is reported to have said that even if a dog died of hunger on the bank of the Dajla (Tigris), he would be taken to task for it.
Contrast this to the situation nowadays. People are without food, water and electricity hardly a kilometre from the palaces of the rulers. Lavish lifestyles and foreign tours cost the exchequer millions of rupees, with the rulers totally ignoring the literally starving masses in the country.
Our Islamic history has many golden chapters of good governance and justice. It is all there as an example for us to act accordingly. We know that the USA has many Nobel laureates in economics, but that has not stopped the country from being almost bankrupt and asking other countries to bail it out. Were it not for its natural resources, the United States would have been totally bankrupt by now and perhaps disintegrated into individual states.
Many other Muslim rulers are famous for justice. Hazrat Umar bin Abdul Aziz (RA), Haroon Al-Rashid, Mahmood Ghaznavi, Alauddin Khilji, etc., all left a treasure of good governance and justice. Were our present rulers to follow this age-old tradition, we would come out of the precarious situation we are facing.
During the period of Haroon Al-Rashid, his Qazi was famous for his honest and quick decisions. His memoirs were so interesting that they were translated by the British and published as Reminiscences of a Mesopotamian Judge. One of the stories he told was related to an inspection tour to some far off place. The people there were very pleased and thanked him for having appointed a very honest Qazi. On hearing that, he held his head in both hands and thought: "Oh my Lord! Is it possible to have a dishonest Qazi?" I wish we could say the same today.
In that same column I had written about an adjudicator of justice and a famous administrator Nizamul Mulk Toosi and Chanakya. The latter was the prime minister of Raja Chandra Gupt Mauria, was very clever and a great planner. He managed to get the Nanda dynasty wiped out through his intrigues. Chanakya's treatise on state administration was known as Arth Shastra and was translated into Urdu by Shanul Haq Haqqee and printed by Mr Ismail Zabi. Chanakya's policies and tactics were mostly based on unethical principles. It is believed that the Italian statesman and author Nicolo Machiavelli's book The Prince (1532) was based on Chanakya's Arth Shastra. His name and tactics are synonymous with cunning, scheming and unscrupulous behaviour in politics and business.
Nizamul Mulk Toosi was the prime minister first of Seljuk Sultan Alp Arsalan and then of his illustrious son, Sultan Malik Shah. He was a very competent, honest and efficient administrator. He wrote two treatises on administrative policies and methods for the benefit of Muslim rulers. These books, Siasat Nama and Dasturul Vuzara are internationally acclaimed as masterpieces. Both are based on truth, honesty, Quranic edicts, Hadiths and the Shariah. This noble person was murdered by a follower of Hasan bin Sabbah, who was out to destroy the stability and the very existence of Islamic dynasties. In his books, Nazimul Mulk Toosi mentioned many very interesting and eye-opening episodes regarding justice. Here I would like to tell the one related to Sultan Mahmood Ghaznavi.
Once Mahmood Ghaznavi and his companions listened to music and drank the whole night. Mahmood's commander-in-chief, Ali Noshtgin, and Muhammad Arabi drank excessively. Before dawn broke they were fast asleep and when they rose at about 10 a.m. Ali Noshtgin asked Mahmood for permission to go home. He was still drunk and his behaviour was erratic. Mahmood advised him to relax till Zuhar prayers and then go home, as by that time the influence of the alcohol would have worn off. If he went out in his present condition the Qazi might catch him and punish him according to Shariah.
Noshtgin thought that since he was the commander-in-chief nobody would dare touch him. In his arrogance he left the palace, ignoring Mahmood's advice. He had only gone a short distance with his soldiers and servants when the Qazi, a former slave, came upon him and, seeing that he was drunk, intercepted him. He told his guards to take Noshtgin off his horse and he himself whipped a screaming Noshtgin black and blue. The Qazi left him lying there. His servants took him home and treated his wounds. After a few days, when Noshtgin went to see Mahmood, the Sultan asked him what happened. Noshtgin told him and showed him his back, which was still sore and bruised. Mahmood smiled and said that a just and honest punishment had been carried out with justice applicable to all without discrimination. He said that had even he been caught in that condition, he would have been treated in the same way. Alhamdulillah.
The second story is about a fifth-generation descendent of Mahmood, the Sultan Ibrahim Ghaznavi, who was also famous for his justice and good governance. It so happened that all bakeries were closed and bread was scarce. People were facing hardships because of it and complained to the sultan. Upon enquiry he was informed by the bakers that all the wheat and flour that was being brought to the city by the farmers was being forcefully bought by the supervisors of the royal kitchen and bakers were not able to buy even small quantities. Ibrahim Ghaznavi became very angry and ordered his guards to fetch the supervisor, throw him in front of an elephant and then tie his mutilated body to the tusks of the elephant and allow it to roam the city for all to see. By evening there was an abundance of bread in the bakeries and flour in stock!
These two stories have been told to illustrate how our rulers and judges of yore dispensed justice and practiced good governance. The system was applied without fear, discrimination or undue delay. Nowadays people have lost faith in receiving quick, fair justice and the words "good governance" no longer exist. The remedy lies in strict and severe laws to be promulgated by our lawmakers and their strict and exemplary application by our judiciary.
Presently there is neither the will nor the application to do so. Recently, hoarders of sugar and flour caused unimaginable hardships to the poor public while allowing some to become billionaires overnight. Mill-owners from the ruling party and the opposition alike made profit. The judiciary was helpless in the absence of stringent measures that could be applied. It could deal with the menace only to a limited extent.
Nazimul Mulk Toosi had warned that a heavenly curse and worldly problems are the forerunner of the decay and fall of a nation. The best period in any nation's history is when just, honest and efficient rulers are in charge. Since the demise of the Quaid-e-Azam we have not seen anyone without ulterior motives. There seems, for the time being anyway, no change forthcoming.
Posted by: john frum ||
04/07/2010 16:53 ||
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...You're always lecturing the rest of us how taxes are an investment in the future, the price we pay for civilization, etc., etc. But when given the option of personally paying your fair share, hey, come back here, you pony-tailed trust-fund recipient you. Put your hands up and step away from the Prius - slowly. What about the children?
As the deadline for filing 2009 state income taxes nears, once again the Beautiful People of Massachusetts are proving that while they enjoy talking the talk, walking the walk is another thing altogether.
We have a two-tier income tax in this state, you know. You have the option of paying either at the standard rate of 5.3 percent, or at the old, higher 5.85 percent rate.
As of Wednesday, here are this years numbers, according to the state DOR: Of 1,840,000 state tax filers, exactly 931 have opted to pay taxes at the higher rate. That works out to one-twentieth of one percent. Think of it this way: In 2000, only 60 percent of the Massachusetts electorate voted to cut the income tax, but a decade later 99.95 percent of the population has decided to take advantage of the tax cut a lot of them claimed they didn't want or need....
...I forgot to ask Gov. Deval Patrick Thursday if he's volunteering to pay more taxes this year, so I e-mailed the question to his office Friday. No response, which I guess means he stands with that 99.95 percent of his constituents.
Yes, he con.
Posted by: Mike ||
04/07/2010 08:43 ||
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#1
It is probably time to rejig your withholding, since the government is in effect saying that they can help themselves to it if you don't do what they say.
#2
Yes, it is as I've said all along: if you hate a tax cut, by all means leave a tip for the difference.
Posted by: Grenter, Protector of the Geats ||
04/07/2010 9:58 Comments ||
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#3
The whole "tax the rich" approach is anti-democratic. You are encouraging a majority to vote in favor of harming a minority. Of course, since money is involved nobody seems to mind. Free government goodies and the election of more Democrats are seen as greater goods. Who cares if some minority groups are mistreated in the process.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
