TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran has sent six warships to international waters, including the Gulf of Aden, to show its ability to confront any foreign threats, its naval commander said on Monday. Admiral Habibollah Sayyari, quoted by the ISNA news agency, made the announcement five days after Iran said it test-fired a surface-to-surface missile with a range of 2,000 km (1,200 miles), putting Israel and U.S. bases in the area within reach.
Iran said on May 14 it had sent two warships to the Gulf of Aden to protect oil tankers from the world's fifth-largest crude exporter against attacks by pirates but ISNA did not make clear whether they were among the six Sayyari talked about.
Iranian waters stretch along the Gulf, the Strait of Hormuz and the Sea of Oman. Iran has threatened to block the Strait of Hormuz, through which about 40 percent of the world's traded oil is shipped, if it were attacked over its nuclear programme.
"Iran has dispatched six ... warships to international waters and the Gulf of Aden region in an historically unprecedented move by the Iranian Navy," Sayyari told a gathering of armed forces officials, IRNA reported.
Sayyari said that preserving Iran's territorial integrity in its southern waters called for the "perseverance and firmness" of the navy.
The move to dispatch the warships "is indicative of the country's high military capability in confronting any foreign threat on the country's shores," Sayyari said.
The ISNA report did not mention the threat of pirate attacks, which, fuelled by large ransoms, have continued almost unabated despite the presence of an armada of foreign warships patrolling the Indian Ocean and Gulf of Aden.
In January, pirates released an Iranian-chartered cargo ship carrying 36,000 tonnes of wheat to Iran from Germany that was seized in November. In March, a regional maritime official said Somali villagers had detained another Iranian vessel.
Nearly 20,000 ships pass through the Gulf of Aden each year, heading to and from the Suez Canal. Seven percent of world oil consumption passed through the Gulf of Aden in 2007, according to Lloyd's Marine Intelligence Unit.
On May 20, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Iran had tested a missile that defence analysts say could hit Israel and U.S. bases in the Gulf, a move likely to fuel concern about Tehran's nuclear ambitions.
The United States and its allies suspect the Islamic Republic is seeking to build nuclear bombs, a charge Tehran denies, but President Barack Obama has offered a new beginning of diplomatic engagement with Iran if it "unclenches its fist". (source)
North Korean soldiers look south on the north side as they stand guard in front of the border line (bottom) upon Belgium's Prince Philippe's visit at the truce village of Panmunjom in the demilitarised zone separating the two Koreas in Paju, north of Seoul, May 10, 2009.
SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea defied international condemnation of its latest nuclear test by firing three short-range missiles off its coast on Tuesday and major powers considered tougher action against the isolated communist state.
With tension in the region high, South Korea said it would join a U.S.-led initiative to intercept ships suspected of carrying weapons of mass destruction, something Pyongyang has warned it would consider a declaration of war.
South Korea's Yonhap news agency quoted a government source in Seoul as saying the North had test-fired one surface-to-air and one surface-to-ship missile off its east coast. The missiles had a range of about 130 km (80 miles).
Yonhap later reported that Pyongyang had fired a third short-range rocket on Tuesday.
North Korea also fired three short-range missiles on Monday and South Korean media quoted government sources as saying further missile tests were possible.
Monday's nuclear test, the North's second after one in 2006, drew sharp international condemnation and U.S. President Barack Obama said Pyongyang's nuclear arms program threatened international security.
The nuclear test raised concern about North Korea spreading its weapons to other countries and groups. The United States has accused it of trying try to sell nuclear know-how to Syria and others.
"Another risk is that the North Koreans might peddle some plutonium, or peddle some technology to terrorist groups, that would also be very, very serious," Hans Blix, former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, told the BBC.
Obama assured South Korean President Lee Myung-bak of Washington's unequivocal commitment to defense on the divided peninsula, where some two million troops face off.
UN RESOLUTION "WITH TEETH"
North Korea's actions took a toll on Seoul's jittery financial markets, fearing the impact of its growing belligerence in a region which accounts for a sixth of the global economy.
South Korean stocks and the won currency wobbled for a second day, with the main KOSPI share index ending the day more than 2 percent lower. The won fell almost one percent against the dollar, although many traders said the market was becoming less concerned by North Korea.
In New York, ambassadors from the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council plus Japan and South Korea met to work on resolution meant to add pressure to Pyongyang to rein in its nuclear program.
After the meeting, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice told reporters that negotiations on a resolution "will indeed take some time."
She told CNN that Washington wanted "a strong resolution with teeth... Those teeth could take various different forms. They are economic levers, they are other levers that we might pursue."
U.S. State department spokesman Ian Kelly said North Korea would "pay a price" if it did not reverse its course but said the door was still open for it to resume long-running six-party talks meant to draw the reclusive state out of its isolation. A U.S. Treasury Department official said on condition of anonymity that Washington was "reviewing our options" for further financial sanctions against Pyongyang.
There is little more Washington can do to deter the North, which has been punished for years by international sanctions and is so poor that it relies on aid to feed its 23 million people.
U.N. diplomats said it was clear that China, a veto-wielding permanent council member, opposed new penalties but might accept demands for tougher enforcement, and possibly an expansion, of existing sanctions. So far only the French delegation has publicly called for new U.N. sanctions.
PYONGYANG BLAMES U.S.
Pyongyang said the United States was the aggressor, its usual justification for making nuclear arms. "Our army and people are fully ready for battle ... against any reckless U.S. attempt for a preemptive attack," said its KCNA news agency.
Analysts say Pyongyang's military grandstanding was partly aimed at tightening leader Kim Jong-il's grip on power so he can better engineer his succession. Many speculate he wants his third son to take over.
For China, an immediate concern is a possible breakdown of order inside the ostracized state, which could send a flood of North Korean refugees across its border.
China is believed to want to bring North Korea back to the six-party talks, also involving South Korea, Japan, the United States and Russia, to make it give up a nuclear weapons program in return for aid and an end to its years as a pariah state.
Analysts say North Korea, which now spurns those talks, wants to use its nuclear muscle as leverage in dealing with Washington.
A North Korean diplomat told the 65-nation U.N.-sponsored Conference on Disarmament in Geneva that denunciations of its nuclear test could prevent it from supporting the group's moves to curb production of nuclear bomb-making material, jeopardizing the start of global talks on the issue.
A number of analysts said 67-year-old leader Kim, who is widely thought to have suffered a stroke last year, hopes his defiant weapons tests will help him secure support from the hard-line military for his chosen successor.
Kim was named successor by his father and the country's founding president Kim Il-sung, but has carefully avoided putting any of his three sons in the limelight. (source)
North Korea threatened military action in response to South Korea joining an anti-proliferation program and said it’s no longer bound by the 1953 armistice that ended the Korean War.
South Korea’s actions are tantamount to a “declaration of war,” the North’s official said in a statement today. North Korea said it can’t guarantee the safety of ships passing through its western waters near the maritime border with the South.
“We will regard any intervention, searches or other minor hostile acts against our peaceful ships as an intolerable violation of our sovereign rights and will counter with an immediate and forceful military strike,” the KCNA statement said. (source)
The upcoming home front drill, Turning Point 3, is based a scenario in which “a combined missile and rocket attack on Israel from all sides combined with terror attacks from within,” and is “not a fictional scenario,”, Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilan’i told members of the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Monday.
Matan Vilan’i describes upcoming home front drill simulating war on three fronts
Vilna’i briefed the committee on the state-wide drill, scheduled to begin on May 31. The threat of missiles hitting mainland Israel “is not unrealistic,” Vilna’i continued. “If a war breaks out, that is probably what would happen.”
According to Vilna’i, “In conducting this national home front drill we aren’t looking to scare anyone, but rather prepare ourselves for a threat which has its writing on the wall.”
The drill will include all emergency response teams, all government ministries as well as the entire civilian population. According to the military, people will be asked to choose secured rooms or bomb shelters, and ensure that they know what to do in the event of war.
During the exercise, 252 local councils and municipalities will open ‘crisis rooms’ and will respond to various simulated emergency scenarios. (source)
WASHINGTON – The Pentagon is prepared to leave fighting forces in Iraq for as long as a decade despite an agreement between the United States and Iraq that would bring all American troops home by 2012, the top U.S. Army officer said Tuesday.
Gen. George Casey, the Army chief of staff, said the world remains dangerous and unpredictable, and the Pentagon must plan for extended U.S. combat and stability operations in two wars. "Global trends are pushing in the wrong direction," Casey said. "They fundamentally will change how the Army works."
He spoke at an invitation-only briefing to a dozen journalists and policy analysts from Washington-based think-tanks. He said his planning envisions combat troops in Iraq and Afghanistan for a decade as part of a sustained U.S. commitment to fighting extremism and terrorism in the Middle East.
Casey's calculations about force levels are related to his attempt to ease the brutal deployment calendar that he said would "bring the Army to its knees."
Casey would not specify how many combat units would be split between Iraq and Afghanistan. He said U.S. ground commander Gen. Ray Odierno is leading a study to determine how far U.S. forces could be cut back in Iraq and still be effective.
President Barack Obama plans to bring U.S. combat forces home from Iraq in 2010, and the United States and Iraq have agreed that all American forces would leave by 2012. Although several senior U.S. officials have suggested Iraq could request an extension, the legal agreement the two countries signed last year would have to be amended for any significant U.S. presence to remain.
As recently as February, Defense Secretary Robert Gates reiterated the U.S. commitment to the agreement worked out with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.
"Under the Status of Forces Agreement with the Iraqi government, I intend to remove all U.S. troops from Iraq by the end of 2011," Gates said during an address at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina. "We will complete this transition to Iraqi responsibility, and we will bring our troops home with the honor that they have earned."
The United States currently has about 139,000 troops in Iraq and 52,000 in Afghanistan.
Obama campaigned on ending the Iraq war as quickly as possible and refocusing U.S. resources on what he called the more important fight in Afghanistan.
That will not mean a major influx of U.S. fighting forces on the model of the Iraq "surge," however. Obama has agreed to send about 21,000 combat forces and trainers to Afghanistan this year. Combined with additional forces approved before former President George W. Bush left office, the United States is expected to have about 68,000 troops in Afghanistan by the end of this year. That's about double the total at the end of 2008, but Obama's top military and civilian advisers have indicated the number is unlikely to grow much beyond that.
Casey said several times that he wasn't the person making policy, but the military was preparing to have a fighting force deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan for years to come. Casey said his planning envisions 10 combat brigades plus command and support forces committed to the two wars.
When asked whether the Army had any measurement for knowing how big it should be, Casey responded, "How about the reality scenario?"
This scenario, he said, must take into account that "we're going to have 10 Army and Marine units deployed for a decade in Iraq and Afghanistan."
Casey stressed that the United States must be ready to take on sustained fights in the Middle East while meeting other commitments.
Casey reiterated statements made by civilian and military leaders that the situation in Afghanistan would get worse before it gets better. "There's going to be a big fight in the South," he said.
Casey added that training of local police and military in Afghanistan was at least a couple years behind the pace in Iraq, and it would be months before the U.S. deployed enough trainers. There's a steeper curve before training could be effective in Afghanistan, requiring three to five years before Afghanis could reach the "tipping point" of control.
He also said the U.S. had to be careful about what assets get deployed to Afghanistan. "Anything you put in there would be in there for a decade," he said.
As Army chief of staff, Casey is primarily responsible for assembling the manpower and determining assignments. He insisted the Army's 1.1-million size was sufficient even to handle the extended Mideast conflicts.
"We ought to build a pretty effective Army with 1.1 million strength," Casey said. He also noted that the Army's budget had grown to $220 billion from $68 billion before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
He said the Army is two-thirds of the way through a complete overhaul from the Cold War-era force built around tanks and artillery to today's terrorist-driven realities. The Army has become more versatile and quicker by switching from division-led units to brigade-level command.
Casey said the Army has moved from 15-month battlefield deployments to 12 months. His goal is to move rotations by 2011 to one year in the battlefield and two years out for regular Army troops, and one year in the battlefield and three years out for reserves. He called the current one-year-in-one-year-out cycle "unsustainable." (source)
“I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.” ~Sonia Sotomayor
As you can see, when Barry says that he is looking for a Supreme Court nominee who isn't just "ivory tower", but also has "common touch", Sonia Sotomayor is exactly who he has in mind.
Can you imagine if a white man had made that kind of a comment [above]? There would be hissy fits and psychological meltdowns ALL over America by the self-appointed guardians of our civil rights. First of all, though, just what kind of meaning is there to that statement? One assumes that she is speaking of a hypothetical court case involving some Hispanic. So, in other words, if a Hispanic is caught red-handed of murdering someone, Ms Sotomayor would have more wisdom regarding their innocence or guilt than a white justice? How about a black jurist--would they be able to be wise?
Of course, I'm not the only one who questions Ms Sotomayor's "common sense". You can read a leftist magazine bring up the same question here.
In a nation of majority whites, why is it not seen as common for a white jurist to be picked? If Sotomayor is better at deciding cases with Latinos involved, wouldn't she be simultaneously less than best to decide on cases involving white people?
With that switch of the debate, he will have the press hard on the question of Sotomayor's ability to cry about her court cases, versus what the role of Supreme Court Justices hold by design of the Constitution. That is, whether the role of the jurist is to make law or interpret the law for constitutionality, according to the original intent of the Constitution itself.
How many of you know whether or not our US Constitution allows for judges to make policy or not? Check out the glib way that the judicial elite treat that very basic dictate in our sacred Constitution:
Poor Colin. He just can't fathom that most of us understand that Conservatism is already inclusive. You just have to have the bravery to try it. He acts like Conservatives are all rich Daddy Warbucks, passing the homeless everyday with a sneer. As if every wealthy Conservative or Republican was born into money, instead of following Conservative principles to get where he or she is currently.
In short, it looks as if Colin has swallowed the Kool-Aid.
Being attracted to Barry Obama's charms and ethnicity is nothing new to us. We have seen people who are focused on race and personality all of our lives. Our entire culture is consumed with identification by race. Ironically, the self-appointed guardians of civil rights-the Left-simultaneously shriek about seeing a racist under every rock, while orchestrating a numbing society which forces job applications and government forms where you check to which ethnic group you belong.
And hides behind the Democrat Party shield, along with Robert Byrd, Fullbright, Gore, Wallace, and hundreds more segregationist Democrat politicians since before the Civil War. And while you Leftists smugly point and cry "racist" at Conservatives, we just continue quietly like we always have: giving more in charity than the Left, praising God for loving us despite our faults, looking past the State for answers to the deepest problems we confront.
Poor Colin calls himself a Conservative [I think], but he doesn't know what that means. Especially if he thinks that we need to "spread the wealth". It's not all about money, Colin. It's about a formula for life. And we've been talking about it, in articulate, passionate means since Buckley, Chambers, and Reagan.
Just because there are people who refuse to hear our message or get past those who bait disagreement and hostile attitudes-the mainstream media-doesn't meant that we should stop believing in our core Conservative tenets: self-reliance, delayed gratification, respect for authority/order, smaller government, preventing huge concentrations of power, adherence to originalist Constitutional principles, etc.
What you've been listening to, Colin, is the Left attempt to define us. And you've fallen for it, whether you can see it in yourself or not. Perhaps you need to do some more reading.
In the latest round of the increasingly heated intra-GOP feud, former Secretary of State Colin Powell Sunday defended his Republican credentials and fired back at radio host Rush Limbaugh and former Vice President Dick Cheney, saying the party had to expand beyond its conservative base.
“Rush will not get his wish and Mr. Cheney was misinformed – I am still a Republican,” Powell said in a much-anticipated interview on CBS’s “Face the Nation” two weeks after Cheney suggested on the same show that the retired general had left the party by endorsing Barack Obama last fall.
Powell outlined his party bona fides, noting his votes for and services under a string of Republican presidents, and said it was not up to Cheney and Limbaugh – the radio host has kept up a steady drumbeat of criticism since Powell's cross-party endorsement last year – to determine who belonged in the GOP.
“Neither [Cheney] nor Rush Limbaugh are members of the membership committee of the Republican Party,” Powell said.
Powell suggested that there were a number of moderates in the party who shared his concerns but were hesitant to speak out “because if you are vocal you’re going to get your voice mail filled up and get lots of e-mails like I did.”
One such Republican did seem to take Powell's side of the fight today, as Former Homeland Security Secretary and Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge also joined in the criticism of Limbaugh Sunday.
“I think Rush articulates his point of view in ways that offend very many,” Ridge said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
“It's a matter of language and a matter of how you use words. It does get the base all fired up and he's got a strong following. But personally, if he would listen to me and I doubt if he would, the notion is express yourselves but let's respect others opinions and let's not be divisive.”
Ridge also split with Cheney on the vice president's claim that Obama's policies were making Americans less safe. "I do not" agree with that, Ridge plainly told CNN's John King, adding, "Yeah, I disagree with Dick Cheney."
Powell also found a less likely ally in former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who said on "Meet the Press" that "I don't want to pick a fight with Dick Cheney, but the fact is, the Republican party has to be a broad party that appeals across the country," adding, "To be a national party, you have to have a big enough tent that you inevitably have fights inside the tent."
Pointing to President Ronald Reagan's at appealing to Democrats and independents as he carried 49 states in 1984, Gingrich – himself a potential 2012 contender for the party's presidential nomination – concluded, "I think Republicans are going to be very foolish if thy run around deciding that they're going to see how much they can purge us down to the smallest possible space."
It's a point Powell made, even as reiterated his commitment to the GOP, stressing that the party had to broaden itself to stay relevant, framing his critique as the political version of a military after-action report following last year’s election.
“I think the Republican Party has to take a hard look at itself and decide what kind of party are we,” Powell said. “Are we simply moving further to the right and by so doing opening up the right of center and the center to be taken over by independents and be taken over by Democrats.”
Powell – who held up the late Jack Kemp as a model for the party, a conservative who was inclusive – also had some choice words for his two critics.
Reiterating his support for closing down the terrorist detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Powell said Cheney’s opposition was an affront to Obama’s predecessor as well.
“Mr. Cheney is not only disagreeing with President Obama’s policy, he’s disagreeing with President Bush’s policy,” Powell said.
And, citing Cheney’s suggestion in a speech last week that President Obama only wanted to close Guantanamo to make Europeans happy, Powell said, “No, we’re doing it to reassure Europeans, Muslims, Arabs, all the people around the world, that we’re a nation of law.”
Lending credence to Democrats argument that moving the Gitmo detainees to American soil would not put the country in danger, Powell said he was “not terribly worried about one of these guys going to a super lock-up.”
As for Limbaugh – whose name Powell pronounced as “Lim-bow” – the former secretary of state said he was an “entertainer” but who had such influence over the party that officials had to live in fear of offending him.
He lamented that RNC Chairman Michael Steele had “to lay prostrate on the floor” apologizing to Limbaugh after criticizing him and that other GOP members of Congress had to be similarly repentant after taking on the radio host.
“Well, if he’s out there he should be subject to criticism, just as I’m subject to criticism,” Powell said.
Steele, who's giving on Tuesday what the RNC is touting as a major speech out his vision for the party, said in an interview this week with "Fox News," that "I want a party that speaks to people. The idea that we only narrowly speak to one segment of the population is boneheaded and it's not reflective of the history of this party," adding, "How is kicking Colin Powell out or kicking Dick Cheney out or Rush Limbaugh in going to feed a child who's hungry tonight?"
In an appearance on "Fox News Sunday," Karl Rove dismissed the dust-up between Cheney and Powell, since "neither one of those two are candidates," and deemed the fight "a false debate that Washington loves."
Asked if he agreed with Cheney's contention that Limbaugh was better for the Republican Party than Powell, Rove said: "Yes, if I had to pick between the two."(source)
WASHINGTON (AP) - Lawmakers appealed to the Obama administration on Friday to slow down the restructuring of General Motors and Chrysler, wary of shuttered car dealerships, job losses and the big unknown of a GM bankruptcy. "We are asking President Obama to call 'time-out' on his automobile task force," said Rep. Steve LaTourette, R-Ohio.
Members of Congress urged the White House to re-examine its work to stabilize the U.S. auto industry, prompted by sweeping plans outlined last week by Chrysler LLC and General Motors Corp. to shutter hundreds of car dealerships.
They said a pending June 1 deadline for a GM bankruptcy created more uncertainty for the industry, and could lead to a rash of more job losses and dealership closings.
Thirty-six members of Congress, mostly Republican, told the White House they were troubled by the work of the auto industry task force appointed by the president earlier this year. The panel has worked with GM and Chrysler to try to restructure the companies.
"They represent various Wall Street interests who have long looked at exporting jobs out of this country," said Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, who accused the task force of facilitating plans by GM to import Chinese-made vehicles to the U.S.
Five House members, including Kucinich, LaTourette and House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers, D-Mich., met with a representative of the Obama task force on Friday. "They're anxious to have additional meetings," said LaTourette spokeswoman Deborah Setliff.
The White House said it was focused on helping the companies become viable to preserve jobs and strengthen the auto industry.
"Saving the auto industry is an urgent priority for our nation and our workers. The task force has worked diligently and deliberatively throughout this process and we will continue to work with all stakeholders," said White House spokeswoman Amy Brundage.
Chrysler LLC, which has received $5.8 billion in federal aid, disclosed in bankruptcy court last week its plans to close about a quarter of its 3,200 U.S. dealerships by June 9.
General Motors, which has received $19.4 billion in aid and could be forced into bankruptcy, has told about 1,100 of its dealers—about 20 percent—that their franchise agreements will not be renewed by late next year. GM said Friday it had borrowed an additional $4 billion from the government, bringing its total to $19.4 billion.
Chrysler plans to close eight manufacturing plants, part of its work to shed assets, debt and contracts and shift its good assets to Italian automaker Fiat Group SpA.
GM and the United Auto Workers union reached a tentative agreement Thursday on labor and health care concessions. Details have not yet emerged but GM had previously said it would close 16 factories, laying off 21,000 hourly workers.
While many auto plants are confined to Rust Belt states, the loss of car dealership jobs affect communities throughout the country. With an upcoming Memorial Day recess looming, members of Congress are expected to field questions about the job losses.
While GM has not made its list public, Chrysler has identified 789 dealerships in 49 states that are scheduled to be closed. Only Alaska was spared.
"These dealers deserve a little more than a pink slip in the mail," wrote Missouri Sens. Claire McCaskill, a Democrat, and Kit Bond, a Republican.
The job losses have also brought vows of congressional oversight. Sens. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., and Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, the ranking members on the Senate Commerce Committee, said they would hold hearings on the dealerships in early June.
Rockefeller's home state could lose 17 of its 24 Chrysler dealerships while 50 Chrysler dealerships in Texas are expected to go out of business.
"These companies cannot be allowed to take taxpayer funds for a bailout and then leave local dealers and their customers to fend for themselves with no real notice and no real help," Rockefeller said.(source)
Barack Obama inherited a set of national-security policies that he rejected during the campaign but now embraces as president. This is a stunning and welcome about-face.
For example, President Obama kept George W. Bush's military tribunals for terror detainees after calling them an "enormous failure" and a "legal black hole." His campaign claimed last summer that "court systems . . . are capable of convicting terrorists." Upon entering office, he found out they aren't.
He insisted in an interview with NBC in 2007 that Congress mandate "consequences" for "a failure to meet various benchmarks and milestones" on aid to Iraq. Earlier this month he fought off legislatively mandated benchmarks in the $97 billion funding bill for Iraq and Afghanistan.
Mr. Obama agreed on April 23 to American Civil Liberties Union demands to release investigative photos of detainee abuse. Now's he reversed himself. Pentagon officials apparently convinced him that releasing the photos would increase the risk to U.S. troops and civilian personnel.
Throughout his presidential campaign, Mr. Obama excoriated Mr. Bush's counterinsurgency strategy in Iraq, insisting it could not succeed. Earlier this year, facing increasing violence in Afghanistan, Mr. Obama rejected warnings of a "quagmire" and ordered more troops to that country. He isn't calling it a "surge" but that's what it is. He is applying in Afghanistan the counterinsurgency strategy Mr. Bush used in Iraq.
As a candidate, Mr. Obama promised to end the Iraq war by withdrawing all troops by March 2009. As president, he set a slower pace of drawdown. He has also said he will leave as many as 50,000 Americans troops there.
These reversals are both praiseworthy and evidence that, when it comes to national security, being briefed on terror threats as president is a lot different than placating MoveOn.org and Code Pink activists as a candidate. The realities of governing trump the realities of campaigning.
We are also seeing Mr. Obama reverse himself on the domestic front, but this time in a manner that will do more harm than good.
Mr. Obama campaigned on "responsible fiscal policies," arguing in a speech on the Senate floor in 2006 that the "rising debt is a hidden domestic enemy." In his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention, he pledged to "go through the federal budget line by line, eliminating programs that no longer work." Even now, he says he'll "cut the deficit . . . by half by the end of his first term in office" and is "rooting out waste and abuse" in the budget.
However, Mr. Obama's fiscally conservative words are betrayed by his liberal actions. He offers an orgy of spending and a bacchanal of debt. His budget plans a 25% increase in the federal government's share of the GDP, a doubling of the national debt in five years, and a near tripling of it in 10 years.
On health care, Mr. Obama's election ads decried "government-run health care" as "extreme," saying it would lead to "higher costs." Now he is promoting a plan that would result in a de facto government-run health-care system. Even the Washington Post questions it, saying, "It is difficult to imagine . . . benefits from a government-run system."
Making adjustments in office is one thing. Constantly governing in direct opposition to what you said as a candidate is something else. Mr. Obama's flip-flops on national security have been wise; on the domestic front, they have been harmful.
In both cases, though, we have learned something about Mr. Obama. What animated him during the campaign is what historian Forrest McDonald once called "the projection of appealing images." All politicians want to project an appealing image. What Mr. McDonald warned against is focusing on this so much that an appealing image "becomes a self-sustaining end unto itself." Such an approach can work in a campaign, as Mr. Obama discovered. But it can also complicate life once elected, as he is finding out.
Mr. Obama's appealing campaign images turned out to have been fleeting. He ran hard to the left on national security to win the nomination, only to discover the campaign commitments he made were shallow and at odds with America's security interests.
Mr. Obama ran hard to the center on economic issues to win the general election. He has since discovered his campaign commitments were obstacles to ramming through the most ideologically liberal economic agenda since the Great Society.
Mr. Obama either had very little grasp of what governing would involve or, if he did, he used words meant to mislead the public. Neither option is particularly encouraging. America now has a president quite different from the person who advertised himself for the job last year. Over time, those things can catch up to a politician. (source)
Released detainee Said Ali al-Shihri is now an al-Qaida commander in Yemen.
Thanks to Barry's unnecessary inflammation of conditions during our fight against terrorism, we now have intelligence officers paralyzed with fear over helping our country fight these fanatics.
This is what happens when you're concerned first with impressing your leftist cowards who wouldn't put up a fight to save their families, instead of keeping our secrets safe so that our solidiers' next move won't be telegraphed straight to the enemy.
The blood on Barry's soft hands has only begun to stain him.
WASHINGTON — An unreleased Pentagon report concludes that about one in seven of the 534 prisoners already transferred abroad from the detention center in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, has returned to terrorism or militant activity, according to administration officials.
The conclusion could strengthen the arguments of critics who have warned against the transfer or release of any more detainees as part of President Obama’s plan to shut down the prison by January. Past Pentagon reports on Guantánamo recidivism have been met with skepticism from civil liberties groups and criticized for their lack of detail.
The Pentagon promised in January that the latest report would be released soon, but Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman, said this week that the findings were still “under review.”
Two administration officials who spoke on condition of anonymity said the report was being held up by Defense Department employees fearful of upsetting the White House, at a time when even Congressional Democrats have begun to show misgivings over Mr. Obama’s plan to close Guantánamo.
At the White House on Wednesday, Mr. Obama ran into a different kind of resistance when he met with human rights advocates who told him they would oppose any plan that would hold terrorism suspects without charges.
The White House has said Mr. Obama will provide further details about his plans for Guantánamo detainees in a speech Thursday.
To relocate the 240 prisoners now at Guantánamo Bay, administration officials have said the plan will ultimately rely on some combination of sending some overseas for release, transferring others to the custody of foreign governments, and moving the rest to facilities in the United States, either for military or civilian trials or, in some cases, perhaps, to be held without charges.
But the prospect that detainees might be moved to American soil has run into strong opposition in Congress. To show its misgivings, the Senate voted on Wednesday, 90 to 6, to cut from a war-spending bill the $80 million requested by Mr. Obama to close the prison, and overwhelmingly approved a second amendment requiring that a threat assessment be prepared for each prisoner now at Guantánamo to address what might happen on release.
The F.B.I. director, Robert S. Mueller III, said Wednesday that moving detainees to American prisons would bring with it risks including “the potential for individuals undertaking attacks in the United States.”
But Michele A. Flournoy, the under secretary of defense for policy, said of the detainees: “I think there will be some that need to end up in the United States.”
Pentagon officials said there had been no pressure from the Obama White House to suppress the report about the Guantánamo detainees who had been transferred abroad under the Bush administration. The officials said they believed that Defense Department employees, some of them holdovers from the Bush administration, were acting to protect their jobs.
The report is the subject of numerous Freedom of Information Act requests from news media organizations, and Mr. Whitman said he expected it to be released shortly. The report, a copy of which was made available to The New York Times, says the Pentagon believes that 74 prisoners released from Guantánamo have returned to terrorism or militant activity, making for a recidivism rate of nearly 14 percent.
The report was made available by an official who said the delay in releasing it was creating unnecessary “conspiracy theories” about the holdup.
A Defense Department official said there was little will at the Pentagon to release the report because it had become politically radioactive under Mr. Obama.
“If we hold it, then everybody claims it’s political and you’re protecting the Obama administration,” said the official, who asked for anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation. “And if we let it go, then everybody says you’re undermining Obama.”
Previous assertions by the Pentagon that substantial numbers of former Guantánamo prisoners had returned to terrorism were sharply criticized by civil liberties and human rights groups who said the information was too vague to be credible and amounted to propaganda in favor of keeping the prison open. The Pentagon began making the assertions in 2007 but stopped earlier this year, shortly before Mr. Obama took office.
Among the 74 former prisoners that the report says are again engaged in terrorism, 29 have been identified by name by the Pentagon, including 16 named for the first time in the report. The Pentagon has said that the remaining 45 could not be named because of national security and intelligence-gathering concerns.
In the report, the Pentagon confirmed that two former Guantánamo prisoners whose terrorist activities had been previously reported had indeed returned to the fight. They are Said Ali al-Shihri, a leader of Al Qaeda’s Yemeni branch suspected in a deadly bombing of the United States Embassy in Sana, Yemen’s capital, last year, and Abdullah Ghulam Rasoul, an Afghan Taliban commander, who also goes by the name Mullah Abdullah Zakir.
The Pentagon has provided no way of authenticating its 45 unnamed recidivists, and only a few of the 29 people identified by name can be independently verified as having engaged in terrorism since their release. Many of the 29 are simply described as associating with terrorists or training with terrorists, with almost no other details provided.
“It’s part of a campaign to win the hearts and minds of history for Guantánamo,” said Mark P. Denbeaux, a professor at Seton Hall University School of Law who has represented Guantánamo detainees and co-written three studies highly critical of the Pentagon’s previous recidivism reports. “They want to be able to claim there really were bad people there.”
Mr. Denbeaux acknowledged that some of the named detainees had engaged in verifiable terrorist acts since their release, but he said his research showed that their numbers were small.
“We’ve never said there weren’t some people who would return to the fight,” Mr. Denbeaux said. “It seems to be unavoidable. Nothing is perfect.”
Terrorism experts said a 14 percent recidivism rate was far lower than the rate for prisoners in the United States, which, they said, can run as high as 68 percent three years after release. They also said that while Americans might have a lower level of tolerance for recidivism among Guantánamo detainees, there was no evidence that any of those released had engaged in elaborate operations like the Sept. 11 attacks.
In addition to Mr. Shihri and Mr. Rasoul, at least three others among the 29 named have engaged in verifiable terrorist activity or have threatened terrorist acts. (source)
Just your average Zen Baptist, admitting upfront to being a (mostly) reconstructed hillbilly.
If you can't understand the attitude or perspective I come from, it's safe to say that we're from different realities.
If you can't start off the conversation with a respectful question about how/why I came to the particular perspective I did, and then find some way that you can relate to it, then I don't have any time to entertain your issues.
Give respect, get respect.
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Joe Shields - Brooklyn Bridge
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Joe Shields - Brooklyn Bridge
Website - http://twoshacks.com.
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