This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Category: Foreign Policy

  • The last Stalinist gone?

    North Korean news reported the death of Kim Jong Il on Saturday listing the cause of death as “over worked”. Marching his nation backwards into the 19th century, Kim Jong Il’s death is of little consequence to anyone outside of the two Koreas. The Washington Times reports;

    South Korea immediately declared an emergency and put its armed forces on alert. President Lee Myung-bak canceling all planned events Monday and the country’s National Security Council was meeting in emergency session Monday afternoon.

    In September 2010, Mr. Kim’s youngest son, Kim Jong-un, was elevated to be his successor.

    According to the North’s Korean Central News Agency, he was named head of his father’s funeral committee. The funeral was set for Dec. 28.

    The younger Mr. Kim is in his late 20s and little is known about him besides the fact that he studied in Switzerland and has no political experience.

    If my son wasn’t stationed in South Korea at the moment, I wouldn’t care either. I’m sure that the OWS crowd will have a moment of silence in remembrance of the socialist hermit king.

    Go to about :45 in this video to see how the OWS reveres and remembers Kim Jong Il;

    And, oh, yeah, they test-fired a short range missile on the same day that they announced the death of their Dear leader.

  • Mexican AG: Obama more inolved in F&F than he admits

    The Washington Examiner reports that Mexico’s Attorney General is accusing the Obama Administration of being more involved in the failed Fast and Furious operation than they are admitting.

    In a statement released by Mexican Attorney General Marisela Morales, she called Operation Fast and Furious “an attack on Mexicans’ security.”

    Morales told Mexican reporters that she is demanding a full and honest explanation from the United States government especially since evidence is being gathered that reveals the Obama administration was more involved in Operation Fast and Furious than top officials admitted in their sworn statements.

    Yeah, she’s pretty pissed off that she found out about the operation in her own country from the State Department after it was in the US media. I can hardly blame her. And she must be telling the truth…look how cute she is.

    2-17 Cav says this picture needs a caption. My contribution;

    Hillary: I looked that good once, I think it was September 5, 1969.

  • Norks building mobile long range missile that can reach US

    Our buddy, Bill Gertz at the Washington Times writes that the North Koreans are developing a mobile concealable long range missile capable of hitting the US according to the Sevretary of Defense Leon Panette.

    The new intelligence was discussed during a closed-door briefing in mid-November for the House Armed Services subcommittee on strategic forces and discussed in the letter to Mr. Panetta. The letter did not say specifically that the missile was North Korean, but it quoted Mr. Gates on Pyongyang’s mobile ICBM development.

    We’ve been at war with North Korea and Iran for decades while acting like we’re not. Iran is advancing their nuclear program unhindered and North Korea, which already has nukes is targeting our West Coast. And Iran has one of our most secret drones. And we’re drawing down our forces and cutting defense spending in the face of these potential threats. Nice situation we find ourselves in, huh?

  • What could go wrong?

    Old Trooper sends us a link of an article about the Russians building an ammunition factory for 7.62×39 AK47 ammo in Cuba. Now why would Cuba, after all of these years need to start making ammo? I know it’s probably a cheap source of labor for the Russians, but why don’t they manufacture cheap plastic crap like the Chinese and sell it to Walmart if all they need is cheap labor?

    It does feel a little bit like 1979, though, when the Soviets stationed a combat brigade in Cuba after they began their invasion of Afghanistan to scare Jimmy Carter into a dickless response.

    I’m pretty sure they’re not making ammo to insure peace anywhere in the world. You may have noticed that AK47s are the weapons of choice among terrorists and terrorizers. I’d sure hate to be the guy that has to test fire that first batch though.

  • The cost of the supercommittee’s failure

    Van Jones, that commie puke who almost got into the White House is cheering the super committee’s failures this week in the Huffington Post;

    …the Bush tax cuts will automatically expire at the end of next year and $600 billion of cuts in defense will go into effect automatically [which would be truly historic] in January 2013 if Congress does nothing.

    Yeah, that’s what our adversaries are banking on (Fox News link sent by Old Trooper);

    Russia will deploy new missiles aimed at U.S. missile defense sites in Europe if Washington goes ahead with the planned shield despite Russia’s concerns, President Dmitry Medvedev said Wednesday.

    Yeah, why should they worry since we’re slashing our military to 1940 levels. You remember 1940, right? Our soldiers were training with two-by-four wooden rifles and jeeps with tank cutouts over them.

    In another link from Old Trooper, on Yahoo/APF, the US will retaliate by not reporting our conventional to Russia;

    The United States said Tuesday it would no longer provide data to Russia on conventional weapons and troops in Europe, citing non-compliance by Moscow with a two-decade old treaty that governed the information exchange.

    Yeah, like Russia doesn’t know our strength from reading Stars & STtripes or by driving by the kassernes in their Mercedes. I feel safer already.

    Oh, for the story on the lead picture, go here.

  • China’s missile sales to Iran

    So yesterday we find out that Israel has missiles that can reach to Iran, but in a link that Old Trooper sent from The Washington Times’ Bill Gertz that China is selling missiles to Iran;

    “Because of the relatively short range of these missiles, China’s provision of them to Iran does not violate the Iran, North Korea and Syria Nonproliferation Act of 2006, which seeks to prevent the transfer of only those missiles that can carry a 500-kilogram warhead more than 300 kilometers,” the report says.

    “It is possible, however, that these transactions violate the Iran Freedom Support Act, or the Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability and Divestment Act of 2010, which both use the ambiguous term ‘advanced conventional weapons.’ “

    Of course, you can bet that some of the technology in those missiles was some that we lost to China during the 90s, so here we are now arming the enemies of Israel.

    [Chinese Embassy spokesman Wang Baodong ] said the commission “should cast off its Cold War mentality, respect the facts and stop making unwarranted allegations against China.”

    Yeah, don’t believe your lyin’ eyes – of course, that’s the ‘smart diplomacy” strategy of this Administration.

  • Nobel Peace Prize Huh?

    It is quite apparent our current CINC is developing a curious track record?

    James Taranto notes with a certain irony:

    We are not the first to make this observation. “For a president who promised to end the gunslinger ways of his predecessor, Barack Obama has proven himself comfortable with the use of lethal force,” the Los Angeles Times reports. The paper counts Gadhafi as another “notch” on Obama’s “lethal-force belt,” along with Osama bin Laden, Anwar al-Awlaki and others. “All told this year,” the report adds, the president “has sent U.S. troops into action on land or in the skies of seven countries on two continents.”

    A New York Times “news analysis” describes Gadhafi’s death as “vindication, however harrowing,” of Obama’s “carefully calibrated response” in which “a reluctant commander in chief put strict limits on American military engagement and let NATO allies take the lead in backing the rebels”–a far less catchy way of saying “leading from behind.”

    Toss in the de facto (tacit?)  support for The Arab Spring and we have a foreign policy that is hardly Peace oriented.

    I’ll file Taranto’s closing paragraphs under “wish I’d said that”.

    One difference between Obama’s foreign and domestic policies is that the former are conducted in a relatively economical fashion. National Journal reports that “according to the Pentagon, [this] was the cost to U.S. taxpayers for Muammar el-Qaddafi’s head: $1.1 billion through September, the latest figure just out of the Defense Department.”

    At that rate, you could knock off 400 dictators for $440 billion–still less than Obama wants to waste on Stimulus Jr. That’s the best illustration yet of just how skewed this administration’s priorities are.

    Hey OWS… I think ya missed this!

  • Iran plots assassination in DC

    According to the Washington Post, the Obama Administration has foiled a bold plan by the Iranian government to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the US while he is in Washington, DC:

    The Obama administration on Tuesday directly accused Iran and its elite Quds Force of backing the alleged attempt to kill Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the United States, Adel al-Jubeir, using hit men from a Mexican drug gang. The allegation plunged U.S.-Iranian relations into crisis and sent U.S. officials scrambling in search of new punitive measures to impose against a country that has already been hit with multiple rounds of sanctions.

    The brazenness of the plot outlined by Justice Department officials struck many current and former U.S. officials as out of character for Iran, which has rarely, if ever, been so bold as to strike targets in America.

    Seriously? No one expected Iran to commit crimes on US soil? You mean because our policy towards them has been so toothless and ineffective? They should be scared because no one holds Iran accountable for their rogue behavior? They kidnap British sailors, American hikers and anyone else they feel like kidnapping and their punishment is millions in ransom money. I’m sure the iranians are shaking in their boots with anticipation of the strongly-worded letter they’re about to receive.

    ADDED: Fox News is reporting that the plot also involved the Mexican drug cartels;

    U.S. officials say the suspects in the case were working on a “murder for hire” scheme to kill the Saudi ambassador to the United States using explosives. They allegedly reached out to a U.S. source in Mexico posing as a drug cartel representative. Arbabsiar allegedly tried to hire the source and his accomplices to carry out the attack.

    The two most direct threats to our national security which we’ve virtually ignored for decades involved in a plot together. WHo would have ever thought? Not this administration, that’s for sure.