Category Archives: foreign policy

The Non-Ransom Ransom

Posted on by
Reply

As part of the Iran nuclear weapons deal done by President Barack Obama (D) and his Secretary of State John “Motorboat Skipper” Kerry, the US ransomed four prisoners held by Iran.  Of course, Obama denies that the $400 million payment that…coincided…with the prisoner release was a ransom.

In fact, this part of the nuclear weapons deal was a carefully scripted exchange little different from any pirate’s ransom exchange.

US officials wouldn’t let Iranians take control of the money until a Swiss Air Force plane carrying three freed Americans departed from Tehran on Jan 17. Once that happened, an Iranian cargo plane was allowed to bring the cash home from a Geneva airport that day.

And [emphasis added]

One of the Americans released in January as part of the prisoner exchange, a pastor named Saeed Abedini, said he and other American prisoners were kept waiting at Mehrabad airport from Jan 16 to the morning of Jan 17. He said in an interview that he was told by a senior Iranian intelligence official at the time that their departure was contingent upon the movements of a second airplane.

So—who are we to believe, Obama or Abedini’s lying ears?

Another Obama/Clinton Outcome

Posted on by
Reply

Russia now is running airstrikes against Syrian targets from an airbase in Iran.  Russia also is making use of these missions to exercise its Cold War military assets in the process, running many of these strikes with one of its long-range bombers, a TU-22 variant.  Other runs are being made with its newer Su-34 tactical bomber, and all of them are being escorted by Russia’s newer Su-30 and Su-35 fighter aircraft, giving all those pilots valuable live fire, combat experience.

This isn’t just the fact of a few runs, either—it’s a broad range of aircraft, with a commensurately broad range of support crews, and with all of that, a broad range of compatibility training with their Iranian hosts.

Of as great importance as that use of Iranian basing facilities is the fact that those Russian striking aircraft have to overfly Iraq or Turkey to get to Syria, and Russia has been working cooperation deals with both of those nations—even after the kerfuffle involving Turkey’s shootdown of a Russian fighter.

President Barack Obama’s (D) and Democratic Party Presidential candidate and then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s reset with Russia once again is proving enormously expensive.

This is Dumb

Posted on by
Reply

And it adds to the national security threat our nation faces; unfortunately, though, it’s of a piece with President Barack Obama’s (D) forcing the US to retreat from the world stage [emphasis added].

A senior US military official says an advanced US missile defense system that is to be deployed in South Korea only targets North Korea, not China.

Vice Adm James D Syring, director of the Missile Defense Agency, said the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, system will never be used against China.

Whatever possesses men who know (or should know) better to take cards off the table when facing our enemies?  Whatever possesses men who know (or should know) better to assure our enemies that there are certain things we will not do in defense of ourselves or our friends and allies, no matter what those enemies do to us or our friends and allies?

No.  Say, rather, that we will use this system and others like it against any nation or any other entity that launches on us or on our friends or allies.

PRC Provocation

Posted on by
Reply

This episode comes as President Barack Obama (D) continues his retreat from the global stage, a retreat with which Democratic Party Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton is completely on board.

Six coast guard ships of the People’s Republic of China’s People’s Liberation Army Navy escorted a large fleet of fishing vessels into the waters around Japan’s Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea.  Japan was left to summon PRC diplomats and formally protest, as the Obama administration kept carefully silent on the matter.

Japan’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement it filed the protest after Japan’s coast guard spotted the vessels Saturday along with a fleet of 230 Chinese fishing boats swarming around the Japanese-controlled Senkaku Islands.

Of course, the PRC demanded that Japan not take “any action that could lead to a tense or complicated situation,” notwithstanding that it’s PRC behavior that’s provoking tensions and complications.

This action marks an escalation of PRC aggressiveness in the East and South China Seas since the PRC’s seizure of the South China Sea was ruled illegal by an international court in The Hague, and it’s an escalation encouraged by Obama’s considered silence.

Ransom

Posted on by
Reply

As part of the Obama administration’s nuclear weapons deal with Iran, the US paid a $400 million ransom for four Americans who were being held by Iran on trumped up charges.  Naturally, the administration denies the ransom aspect.  It also denies that the ransom was part of the weapons deal, insisting that the all-cash payment, in euros, Swiss francs, and other unnamed currencies (because doing this in $US would be a violation of Federal law—a felony) and flown to Tehran in a cargo plane from which all national markings had been removed was part of a separate arms deal settlement.  That the three things—the nuclear weapons deal, the cash payment, and the Americans’ release all happened together was just a coincidence.  Nothing to see here, move along.

There’s a reason the US—until this administration—doesn’t pay ransom: it puts targets on every American travelling overseas, especially in the present case those who are visiting family in Iran.  Some in government recognize this.  Senator Mark Kirk (R, IL):

Paying ransom to kidnappers puts Americans even more at risk.  While Americans were relieved by Iran’s overdue release of illegally imprisoned American hostages, the White House’s policy of appeasement has led Iran to illegally seize more American hostages.

That ransom was paid last January.  Since then, two other Americans who were not ransomed remain in Iranian prisons, and three more Americans have been “detained” by the Iranian government while visiting Iran.  Worse, Obama’s ransom payment appears to have endangered citizens of our friends and allies, too: four British, Canadian, and French citizens have been “detained” by the Iranians since Obama paid up.

Democratic Party Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has said loudly and clearly, she intends not only to continue the Obama administration’s policies, she intends to take them even further.

Elections have consequences.