Category Archives: defense policy

Mindset Matters

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David Brooks had an interesting piece in Friday’s New York Times concerning our defeat at the “negotiating” table with Iran regarding the latter’s nuclear weapons program. RTWT, but a couple of comments of his really jumped out at me as he explored how this administration’s failure came about.

The big question is, Why did we lose? Why did the combined powers of the Western world lose to a ragtag regime with a crippled economy and without much popular support?

The first big answer is that the Iranians just wanted victory more than we did. They were willing to withstand the kind of punishment we were prepared to mete out.

Further, the Iranians were confident in their power, while the Obama administration emphasized the limits of America’s ability to influence other nations.

As an aside, I say “this administration’s failure” when it was the “combined powers of the Western world” because we’re the big dog in that pack, or we used to be, and on top of that, French dissatisfaction with the way things were going was palpable. Had we actually been interested in a serious outcome, they could have brought the Germans along, and that would have left the Russians and Chinese having either to admit that they wanted a nuclear-armed Iran or to go along with us.

More important, though, is that mindset. President Barack Obama and his motorboat skipper SecState didn’t want to mete out sufficient pain to force Iran’s acquiescence to our nominal going-in position because those two gentlemen didn’t think that was an appropriate use of our ability to influence other nations. Even terrorist supporting rogue nations.

All He’s Got

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…to defend his nuclear weapons deal is ad hominem attacks on those who disagree with him. That’s President Barack Obama’s abject confession that he knows it’s a bad deal.

Republican opposition as “knee-jerk partisanship….”

And

It’s those hardliners chanting “death to America” who have been most opposed to the deal. They’re making common cause with the Republican caucus[.]

And

…critics of the deal, who he said were “selling a fantasy” to the American people.

Hmm….

Another Fine VA Mess

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And another reason to disband the thing and send its budget as health care vouchers to our veterans.

A VA employee tossed files containing the Social Security numbers and other personal information of 1,100 patients of a South Dakota VA hospital into a dumpster, where they sat for two days before they were discovered and recovered. This happened last May, but the VA chose not to tell anyone, like those patients, about it until the end of July.

Mistakes happen, even egregious things like this. What’s unacceptable is the decision by this VA hospital, condoned by the VA itself (if only through its own inaction and silence) to withhold information about this breach from the breach’s victims for so long.

That decision is part of a too-long standing pattern of VA malfeasance and VA decisions to do nothing about themselves.

An Acceptable Conclusion

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Pavlo Klimkin, Ukrainian Foreign Minister acknowledged over the weekend that Russian forces are in control of his country’s oblasts, Donetsk and Luhansk.

He also said that it’s time for Russia begin

“real negotiations” about a cease-fire and stabilization in Ukraine’s war-torn east which will require fair elections that are intentionally monitored.

He’s right. But that would require Vladimir Putin first to stop lying about Russia’s behavior toward Ukraine. In the end, too, an acceptable conclusion to Russia’s invasion, IMNSHO, would be Russian withdrawal from eastern Ukraine and the end of their occupation of Crimea.

Obama Gets One Right

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Edward Snowden will likely remain hiding in Russia for some time, with Washington officials and most Americans offering no leniency or forgiveness for him notoriously stealing classified information and jeopardizing U.S. national security.

President Barack Obama, through his Homeland Security Advisor Lisa Monaco, said this about that:

Mr Snowden’s dangerous decision to steal and disclose classified information had severe consequences for the security of our country and the people who work…to protect it[.]

And then he tossed a petition to pardon this…scofflaw, the petition a product of a two year effort to let Snowden skate, into the round file.

Hear, hear.