Bloodthirsty Liberal

- Aggie

What’s he looking for, a cigarette butt on the ground to smoke?

This photo will get Democrat President Obama a lot of approving nods in Japan this weekend, especially among the older generation of Japanese who still pay attention to the royal family living in its downtown castle. Very low bows like this are a sign of great respect and deference for a superior.

To some in the United States, however, an upright handshake might have looked better.

…

Seven months ago, the White House insisted that Obama didn’t bow to Saudi King Abdullah, understanding the terrible breach in presidential protocol that it represented. They tried to tell reporters that Obama was picking something up off the floor, which the video clearly shows was a lie (at the link). Take a look at the picture of Obama’s bow to the son of Hirohito. Do you see anything on that immaculate floor that requires retrieval?

American Presidents do not bow to royalty. In fact, heads of state do not bow or genuflect to each other in the normal course of diplomacy.

Hey, he can bend over and lick the emperor’s shoes for all I care—they’re not enemies.

This, on the other hand, I have a problem with:

Obama’s team said he wasn’t bowing to the Saudi King; he was merely fellating him. Entirely different thing.

That would be an offensive statement in any context—perhaps no more so than as official (if anonymously so) US government policy:

The feeling in Washington is that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has been trying to maneuver the US administration over the past few weeks, and we cannot accept that, an unnamed US diplomat told Army Radio on Wednesday morning, in what may have constituted an explanation to the possibly punitive blackout imposed on the details of the Monday night 100-minute talk Netanyahu and US President Barack Obama.

The official went on to cite Netanyahu’s conduct in press briefings, presumably those following meetings with Obama and other high ranking White House officials in the past, as evidence of the prime minister’s attempt to sway opinion.

The diplomat also mentioned the prime minister’s apparent efforts to pressure the US administration through Washington lobbying.

…

Yet another unnamed US official was quoted expressing dissatisfaction with Netanyahu over what the Israeli leader said, or rather did not, in his address to the Jewish Federations of North America’s annual General Assembly on Monday.

“We had an idea that he might bring something out to push the process forward,” the Wall Street Journal quoted the official on Tuesday in referral to an Israeli settlement freeze. “But he’s kept it in his pocket.”

Netanyahu will be meeting with French President Nicolas Sarkozy on Wednesday and stress Israel’s willingness to make great efforts to achieve peace.

I never thought I’d be relieved to see an Israeli leader talking to a French leader. But these are strange times.

To start, how rich is it that this administration doesn’t like being outmaneuvered in the press? Ha! Very rich indeed.

But also, what did they expect Netanyahu to do, saw a woman in half? Sing “Lady of Spain?” He’s the leader of an imperiled and unfairly treated nation, not a vaudeville act. Name me another where every zoning decision, every shovel of earth comes before the UN Security Council for examination.

Israel knows it has to survive varying degrees of hostility in every administration. (In his diaries, even Reagan acknowledged having the same enemies as Israel, but still never wrote warmly and rarely respectfully of PM Begin) As storms go, however, the Obama administration is a big blow, and Israel will need to sail carefully. These people aren’t content with petty jealousies—they think big, radical, transformative. That kind of thinking is not safe for anyone, especially Israel.

Madame Secretary evidently couldn’t tell East Jerusalem from East Jesus—and very likely doesn’t care:

The incompetence of American diplomacy reached a new nadir yesterday in an incident vershadowed by the elections in the US. Hillary Clinton told Al-Jazeera in an interview that the US wants to see an Israeli capital in East Jerusalem. Apparently, the chief diplomat of the United States and the woman who ran on her experience in foreign affairs did not remember that East Jerusalem is primarily Palestinian:

Egypt and other Arab nations reacted with strong concern to remarks Clinton made in Jerusalem on Saturday. She caused a stir when she said with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at her side that his government’s offer to restrain — but not stop — settlement activity in Palestinian areas was unprecedented.

And in a new twist Tuesday, Clinton made what appeared to be an inadvertent slip of the tongue in a television interview with the al-Jazeera network, referring to the goal of “an Israeli capital in east Jerusalem.”

…

Two Clinton aides monitoring the interview alerted her to the mistake and that portion of the interview was retaped so she could correct herself.

In other words, she pressed the re-set button.

If it indeed were American policy to recognize the Israeli capital in East Jerusalem, I would be the first to praise the morality and courage of such a decision. But no, they just hit the re-wind button, and erased history.

What a bunch of rank amateurs.

Lessons from the Cuban Missile Crisis

In the summer of 1962, the leader of the great Soviet empire, Nikita Khrushchev, faced a serious problem. His huge intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) didn’t work. Their launchers were unreliable, their aim was off and the fuel used to rocket them skyward was so volatile that they had to be stored empty. In case of an attack, they would first have to be tanked up before being fired. The Soviet premier understood that since his ICBMs were a crucial part of his nuclear balance with the U.S., this put him at a major disadvantage.

However, Khrushchev did have a smaller, intermediate-range missile that was dependable, accurate and quite deadly. But it was too small to hit the U.S. all the way from Russia. So Khrushchev, the chess enthusiast, thought up a bold countermove. He decided to secretly place his smaller but more reliable missiles within range of the United States and, thus, in one stroke, completely level the playing field.

Under a false manifest, he sent an armada of ships carrying 60 missiles and 40 launchers along with a small army of 40,000 Soviet technicians on a clandestine journey to his new client state, Cuba. The trip took three weeks and the technicians were not allowed topside during the day in case they were seen by U.S. planes. In spite of numerous warning signs, the secret operation went undetected by Washington.

That’s because the wily Soviet premier suckered the young American President, John F. Kennedy, by an exchange of messages that year. In an outright lie, Khrushchev promised Kennedy that he would not place any menacing weapons outside of the Soviet Union and Kennedy believed him. At the same time, Khrushchev stepped up the heat in Berlin—the other hot spot in the Cold War—focusing Kennedy’s attention away from Cuba.

The ruse worked even though there were hundreds of reports concerning Soviet missiles coming from a variety of sources. But with each clue, the U.S. intelligence community failed the president by talking itself out of the possibility that the Russians would actually do what they were doing. However, there was one man in the federal government who felt uncomfortable with the status quo and believed it was his job to worry about exactly this kind of problem.

John McCone was a conservative Republican industrialist who had made a fortune building ships during World War II. He entered government service late, in the Eisenhower administration, and was clearly an odd duck in the group of Democratic New Frontiersmen. But on Robert Kennedy’s insistence, President Kennedy placed him in charge of the CIA after the Bay of Pigs disaster in 1961. McCone was smart. He constantly put himself in Khrushchev’s head and he realized that summer that if he were the leader of the USSR, Cuba was exactly where he would place his short-range missiles.

McCone pressed Kennedy for U-2 flights over Cuba to see if he was right. Kennedy refused. He worried that the U-2 flights might be seen as a provocation.

Worth reading it all. And then stopping to consider Iran and Hugo Chavez of Venezuela.

Human nature does not change. We voted for change, I realize this, but no matter how we vote, we cannot change reality. We might as well have voted to repeal gravity.

- Aggie

President Obama is trying to concentrate:

Obama is no Harry Truman. At best, he is reprising Jimmy Carter. At worst, the real precedent may be Ethelred the Unready, the turn-of the-first-millennium Anglo-Saxon king whose reputation for indecisiveness and his unsuccessful paying of Danegeld — literally, “Danish tax” — to buy off Viking raiders made him history’s paradigmatic weak leader.

…

Finally, Obama’s agonizing, very public reappraisal of his own 7-month-old Afghanistan policy epitomizes indecisiveness. While there is no virtue in sustaining policy merely for continuity’s sake, neither is credit due for too-quickly adopting policies without appreciating the risks entailed and then fleeing precipitously when the risks become manifest. The administration’s stated reason for its policy re-evaluation was widespread fraud in Afghanistan’s Aug. 20 presidential election. But this explanation is simply not credible. Did not the administration’s generals and diplomats on the ground, not to mention United Nations observers, see the election mess coming? Was the Hamid Karzai administration’s cupidity and corruption overlooked or ignored during Obama’s original review and revision of his predecessor’s policy?

The unmistakable inference is that Obama did not carefully think through his March Afghan policy, or did not have full confidence then or now in Army Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal or Ambassador Richard C. Holbrooke, or that it is now politically inconvenient among increasingly antiwar Democrats to follow through on that policy.

None of these explanations reflect credit on the president. He is dithering. Whatever decision Obama reaches on Afghanistan, his credibility and leadership have been badly wounded by his continuing public display of indecisiveness.

With respect to my co-blogress, Aunt Agatha, who was the first person I heard call Obama the next Carter, John Bolton deserves a standing ovation for seeing in our president the unmistakable double-helix of Ethelred the Unready.

And if you liked Bolton on Ass-stan, you should read what he has to say about this administration’s policy toward Russia, Iran, and the rest of the crooks, theives, and thugs in the world. Can an armadillo and an opossum breed? Their offspring is setting foreign policy these days.

President Obama’s complete amateur act on the foreign stage isn’t helping matters.

As the philosopher Bugs Bunny put it: “Of course, you realize this means war.”

Events are fast pushing Israel toward a pre-emptive military strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities, probably by next spring. That strike could well fail. Or it could succeed at the price of oil at $300 a barrel, a Middle East war, and American servicemen caught in between. So why is the Obama administration doing everything it can to speed the war process along?

At July’s G-8 summit in Italy, Iran was given a September deadline to start negotiations over its nuclear programs. Last week, Iran gave its answer: No.

Instead, what Tehran offered was a five-page document that was the diplomatic equivalent of a giant kiss-off. It begins by lamenting the “ungodly ways of thinking prevailing in global relations” and proceeds to offer comprehensive talks on a variety of subjects: democracy, human rights, disarmament, terrorism, “respect for the rights of nations,” and other areas where Iran is a paragon. Conspicuously absent from the document is any mention of Iran’s nuclear program, now at the so-called breakout point, which both Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his boss Ali Khamenei insist is not up for discussion.

What’s an American president to do in the face of this nonstarter of a document? What else, but pretend it isn’t a nonstarter. Talks begin Oct. 1.

All this only helps persuade Israel’s skittish leadership that when President Obama calls a nuclear-armed Iran “unacceptable,” he means it approximately in the same way a parent does when fecklessly reprimanding his misbehaving teenager. That impression is strengthened by Mr. Obama’s decision to drop Iran from the agenda when he chairs a meeting of the U.N. Security Council on Sept. 24; by Defense Secretary Robert Gates publicly opposing military strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities; and by Russia’s announcement that it will not support any further sanctions on Iran.

While the president is trying to stick a thermometer up our national bunghole (at least he says it’s a thermometer), real events of real importance are taking place in the vast realm of his ignorance:

Israel is paying attention. And the longer the U.S. delays playing hardball with Iran, the sooner Israel is likely to strike.

…

Such a strike may well be in Israel’s best interests, though that depends entirely on whether the strike succeeds.

…

Then again, it is not in the U.S. interest that Israel be the instrument of Iran’s disarmament. For starters, its ability to do so is iffy: Israeli strategists are quietly putting it about that even a successful attack may have to be repeated a few years down the road as Iran reconstitutes its capacity. For another thing, Iran could respond to such a strike not only against Israel itself, but also U.S targets in Iraq and the Persian Gulf.

But most importantly, it is an abdication of a superpower’s responsibility to outsource matters of war and peace to another state, however closely allied. President Obama has now ceded the driver’s seat on Iran policy to Prime Minister Netanyahu. He would do better to take the wheel again, keeping in mind that Iran is beyond the reach of his eloquence, and keeping in mind, too, that very useful Roman adage, Si vis pacem, para bellum. [If you wish for peace, prepare for war.]

Stop telling us to open wide and say “Ahh”; stop trying to sell us a new car; stop ordering us to change our light bulbs and grow arugula—and act like a freaking president, for pete’s sake.

I’m sure Martin Sheen can give you lessons. Ask Charlie next he demands an audience with you.

We told you he was a dolt. Not exactly a news flash, I suppose, but when Biden’s remarks about the Russian nation he had just visited were published, we knew he had put his foot in his mouth… again:

Hillary Clinton, US secretary of state, yesterday sought to head off a spat with Russia after it was angered by comments by Joe Biden, US vice president.

The Kremlin had demanded clarification of remarks in which Mr Biden suggested Russia would be forced to improve relations with the US because its economy was “withering”.

Barack Obama’s administration has made improved relations with Russia a centrepiece of its foreign policy. But in an interview with the Wall Street Journal Mr Biden, who has a reputation for frank speaking, suggested that Russian agreement to strategic arms cuts was dictated by a weakening economy.

“We view Russia as a great power,” Mrs Clinton told NBC’s Meet the Press on being asked about the vice-president’s remarks. “Now every country faces challenges . . . The Russians know we have continuing questions about some of their policies and they have continuing questions about some of ours.”

…

Moscow had said that Mr Biden’s “perplexing” comments raised questions about who was in charge of US foreign policy just weeks after a showpiece summit between Mr Obama and Dmitry Medvedev, Russian president.

“The question is: who is shaping the US foreign policy, the president or the respectable members of his team?” said Sergei Prikhodko, the Kremlin’s chief foreign policy adviser, who added that this month’s summit in Moscow had created a “good atmosphere”.

“If some members of Obama’s team and government do not like this atmosphere, why don’t they say so? If they disagree with the course of their president, we just need to know this.”

How many more? How many more gaffes, misstatements, hyperbole, and revelations of unacknowledged truths before this guy is reassigned to dog catcher?

I repeat myself, but if the best way to judge a presidential candidate is by his selection of a running mate, Barack Obama would still be a first-term hack senator making shady deals with Rod Blagojevich. That’s commensurate with his skills and experience.

PS: If Vice President looks like a dolt trying to defend the stimulus, he is hardly the one to blame. It’s probably punishment for all his past goofs. Stick him out there—nobody messes with, or listens to, or believes in, Joe.

Watching Vice President Biden in action raises the age-old question: was he born this stupid, or does he have to work at it?

Vice President Joe Biden said in an interview that Russia’s economy is “withering,” and suggested the trend will force the country to make accommodations to the West on a wide range of national-security issues, including loosening its grip on former Soviet republics and shrinking its vast nuclear arsenal.

Mr. Biden said he believes Russia’s economic problems are part of a series of developments that have contributed to a significant rethinking by Moscow of its international self-interest. The geographical proximity of the emerging nuclear programs in Iran and North Korea is also likely to make Russia more cooperative with the U.S. in blocking their growth, he said.

But in the interview, at the end of a four-day trip to Ukraine and Georgia, Mr. Biden said domestic troubles are the most important factor driving Russia’s new global outlook. “I think we vastly underestimate the hand that we hold,” he said.

“Russia has to make some very difficult, calculated decisions,” Mr. Biden said. “They have a shrinking population base, they have a withering economy, they have a banking sector and structure that is not likely to be able to withstand the next 15 years, they’re in a situation where the world is changing before them and they’re clinging to something in the past that is not sustainable.”

So much for Smart Power. Taunting your adversaries is generally a pretty poor way of getting them to see your side of things.

How does he expect Putin/Medvedev to respond?

Natalya Timakova, a spokeswoman for Mr. Medvedev, declined to comment on Mr. Biden’s remarks.

Why comment on moronic comments by a moron? Especially when he wasn’t done:

Despite Russia’s economic and geopolitical difficulties, Mr. Biden said, Moscow could become more belligerent in the short term unless the U.S. continues to treat Russia as a major player on the international stage. He said Russian leaders are gradually beginning to grasp their diminished global role, but that the U.S. should be cautious not to overplay its advantage.

“It won’t work if we go in and say: ‘Hey, you need us, man; belly up to the bar and pay your dues,’ ” he said. “It is never smart to embarrass an individual or a country when they’re dealing with significant loss of face. My dad used to put it another way: Never put another man in a corner where the only way out is over you.”

EXACTLY!!!

“It’s a very difficult thing to deal with, loss of empire,” Mr. Biden said. “This country, Russia, is in a very different circumstance than it has been any time in the last 40 years, or longer.”

He’s not wrong; he’s learned the lessons of America Alone (now in paperback!). But what does this adolescent crowing gain us? This is just the sort of loose-lipped, free-shooting chauvinism that Bush took so much heat for—but rarely if ever committed. Neither he nor Cheney (nor Rumsfeld) ever shot their mouths off like this.

Although she doesn’t use the term much these days, Secretary Clinton’s department still goes on and on about “smart power”, whatever it may actually be. They can’t be too pleased with such a dolt—a “foreign policy expert” dolt—as Vice President.

PS: Well, she thinks she knows what it is:

So around the world we are trying to do what we think is actually smart power, which means you have to work with people you have to be conscious about what their expectations and goals are.

Smart power: “you have to work with people you have to be conscious about what their expectations and goals are.”

Oy.

The reset button or the red button?

President Obama took leave of his Russian hosts on Tuesday night to seclude himself in his Moscow hotel with his wife, Michelle, and their daughters.

The first family enjoyed a relaxed evening at the O2 Lounge, the super-chic, super-pricey rooftop club at the new Ritz-Carlton, although no doubt the Secret Service first cleared the place of most if not all of the swaggering tycoons and leggy models who flock to such Moscow venues.

Hmmm, so while Obama tells Americans to tighten their belts, and prepares to slap massive tax increases on us all, he dines like a celebrity. BTW, who paid for the meal? Did the taxpayers pick up the tab?

The decision to brush off the Russians on one of his two nights here miffed some in the Moscow government who did not understand why he would not devote the scarce time to his hosts. Mr. Obama had dinner with President Dmitri A. Medvedev on Monday and lunch with him on Tuesday. But with the second dinner slot unavailable, he ended up having breakfast Tuesday with Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin, a known night owl not given to American-style early morning business meals.

I’m all for family vacations—as long as it’s with someone else’s family (ha, just kidding honey). But can’t President Obama find another time to take Michelle and the girls to Ruski-Disney—when he’s not negotiating away the store of our nuclear deterrence? Maybe over a bowl of borscht he could have managed to bring up all those Russian reporters who oddly turn up dead with such alarming regularity.

On the other hand, it would have provided more opportunities for idiocy like this:

Referring to the long history of Russia-U.S. trade stretching back more than two centuries, Obama told an audience of business people in Moscow:

“Along the way, you gave us a pretty good deal on Alaska. Thank you.”

Czar Alexander II’s sale of Alaska to the United States in 1867 for $7.2 million in gold, around 1.9 cents per acre, was regarded by Russians as a national disgrace — particularly once it became clear that the province was rich in oil.

If we’re going to send ignorant buffoons overseas to say imbecilic things to contemptuous thugs, can’t we just send Vice President Biden? He bills at a lower rate and travels with a smaller entourage.