Tag Archives: foreign policy

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.

“We Have Lost the Peace”

Posted on by
Reply

Walter Russell Mead had some thoughts while ruminating on some remarks made by Pope Francis as the latter was enroute to Poland.  He quoted Francis:

 …the world is at war because it has lost the peace.

To be clear: Francis wasn’t talking about have misplaced the peace; he was referring to our having lost the struggle for peace—both the struggle that is peace vs war and the struggle for generating out of that peace freedom, prosperity, and stability.

Mead commented:

[W]e have lost the peace. It is an interesting counterpoint to the Democratic establishment’s celebration of itself and its wisdom last night [the third night of the Democratic Party Convention].

Although he’s more confident in Clinton than I am, a point is clear: a Party that hides its head away from the reality of the present situation is a Party that will be hard-pressed to deal with that reality in any productive way.

More of the Same

Posted on by
2

…from the best damn change-maker [Bill Clinton has] met in my entire life.  Indeed,

Mrs Clinton has been clear. She wants to serve as Mr. Obama’s political and policy heir, as she and he now admit. This won’t mean “change” unless the Clintons have an unusual personal definition of that word, as they do for “classified material.” A de facto third Obama term will mean the status quo, only more of it.

Here’s what Obama has accomplished with his policies, and Clinton has made no bones about wanting to do even more of it.

The slowest recovery from a recession since WWII—a period that encompasses a dozen recessions, culminating in the Panic of 2008.

  • labor force participation rate is at a 40 year low
  • median real household income remains lower than it was before the Panic
  • unemployment rate, even accounting for that greatly depressed labor force participation rate, didn’t recover even nominally until 5-6 years after the official end of the Panic against a normal interval of 2-3 years after the end of a recession
  • the national debt has been doubled and is growing because
  • the budget deficit, exploded in the years immediately following the Panic and dropping for a time after that has begun growing again

Rapid retreat from the world

  • Russia now occupies a partitioned Georgia and Ukraine (yes, Russia had invaded Georgia prior to this administration’s accession, but Obama has accepted the resulting partition)
  • Russia has attacked with impunity the Baltic States and Poland with cyber war
  • Russia threatens nuclear war against any European nation that builds is military defenses beyond what Russia would permit with this administration’s silence on the matter
  • abrogation of commitments to Poland and Czech Republic to deploy missile defense systems on the demand of Russia. We have yet to see whether this administration will follow through on a new commitment to Romania
  • People’s Republic of China occupation of the South China Sea
  • PRC repudiation of the International Court’s ruling against the PRC regarding the South China Sea, answered with US…silence
  • conclusion of an agreement with Iran that not only permits it to develop nuclear weapons, codifies that “right”
  • weakening of our ties with Israel
  • weakening of our ties with Great Britain, including Obama’s economic threat that if Great Britain leaves the EU, they will be pushed to the back of the bus queue on any trade deals with us

Here’s how Clinton wants to extend the domestic same old-same old, acceding to the demands of Independent Socialist Senator Sanders (I—he walked away from the D as soon as that no longer was convenient—VT).  We can’t afford four more years of no change, especially from a change-maker who’s promising unchanged-making.

  • subsidies ages 0 to 5
  • spending allegedly earmarked for public works (read, her crony capitalists)
  • wage controls for higher federal minimum
  • a right to child care
  • free college; a Medicare-like public health insurance option and administrative prices for new drugs;

With all of this paid for by even higher taxes, including a nearly doubling of the top tax rate on long-term capital gains to 43.4% from 23.8%, which is about as anti-investment and job-killing as it’s possible to get.