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

Category: Foreign Policy

  • Rice, Clinton, Power; women go to war

    Susan Rice the US ambassador to the UN has already suggested this morning to ABC News that the US may give small arms to the Libyan rebels;

    Speaking a day after President Barack Obama defended his Libya strategy in a televised address, Rice said Gaddafi has shown no sign of leaving power without continued pressure from Western powers that have imposed a no-fly zone over Libya and used air strikes to constrain his ground forces.

    “Over the long term, as the president said, there are other things that are at our disposal that perhaps will assist in speeding Gaddafi’s exit,” she told CBS’s “The Early Show” as part of a series of TV interviews.

    She also didn’t rule out that the coalition might offer Gaddafi a “safe haven”

    “The expectation, both of the Libyan people and the international community is that there needs to be justice for the crimes that are committed,” she said. “But obviously should there be an opportunity for some sort of arrangement for Gadhafi to step aside that is something the Libyan people will have to judge and we will take it as it comes.”

    Yeah, I think that was the reason the Iranians took US hostages, because we gave the shah a safe haven on Contadora Island in Panama.

    Speaking of Rice, Salon speculates that Obama was “pussy whipped” into war by Rice, Clinton and Samantha Power.

    Of course, it’s the typical female reaction to some of the peaceniks who are flustered because they’d always thought having women in power would mean we’d be less likely to go to war;

    “We’d like to think that women in power would somehow be less prowar, but in the Obama administration at least it appears that the bellicosity is worst among Hillary Clinton, Susan Rice and Samantha Power,” writes Robert Dreyfuss at the Nation blog.

    I don’t know why men are surprised that women out-pro-war men. Every time
    a woman takes a job that was formerly a man’s job, they get tougher, act meaner because they have to be to prove themselves. So why is everyone so surprised in case?

    Heather Michon, the author of the Salon piece writes;

    First, it’s not like Clinton, Rice and Power walked into the Oval Office, batted their eyes, and asked the president to pretty-please attack that mean old Mr. Gadhafi. Nor did they march in and grab him by the scruff and order him to launch the damn Tomahawks already.

    No, they did their jobs, publicly towing the administration line while working behind the scenes to sharpen their arguments and marshal their resources. In the end, Clinton swung key Arab players to their side and Rice got a 10-5 vote through the U.N. Security Council.

    Yeah, Condeleeza Rice did much the same and fought the US Left at the same time. But, I didn’t see Salon come out and support her like this.

  • Is Janet Napolitano FOS?

    It seems that the association of non-supervisory border agents agrees with TAH that Janet Napolitano was FOS when she attempted to give Americans a false sense of security in a post on the Homeland Security Department’s blog. Napolitano wrote that theborder between the USand Mexico is as safe as it’s ever been, despite recent murders and kidnappings of US citizens in the border area. (Washington Times link)

    “It is time for the political games to stop for fear of insulting the government of Mexico,” the National Border Patrol Council (NBPC) said in a statement. “U.S. citizens are being kidnapped and killed while our Border Patrol agents fight a war at home that no one will allow them to win.

    “Not one more Border Patrol agent should fall or citizen be victimized because our government fails to act,” the NBPC said. “Mexico is hemorrhaging violence and we are being hit with the splatter.”

    Ms. Napolitano told border-area mayors and business leaders in El Paso, Texas, on Thursday that the U.S.-Mexico border is safer than ever, adding that perceptions that the border area is at its most dangerous right now are false.

    Yes, because everyone knows that relations with Mexico are much more important than Americans’ lives.

    Napolitano’s happy-go-lucky description is a direct contradiction to the State Department travel advisory for Mexico dated last September;

    Since 2006, large firefights have taken place in towns and cities in many parts of Mexico, often in broad daylight on streets and other public venues. Such firefights have occurred mostly in northern Mexico, including Ciudad Juarez, Tijuana, Chihuahua City, Nogales, Nuevo Laredo, Piedras Negras, Reynosa, Matamoros and Monterrey. Firefights have also occurred in Nayarit, Jalisco and Colima. During some of these incidents, U.S. citizens have been trapped and temporarily prevented from leaving the area.

    A few months after the advisory, 4 Americans were murdered across the border from the site of Napolitano’s speech. Crush at Blackfive reported that more Americans had been killed in Mexico than Iraq last year.

    The internet will kill Liberalism.

  • Head coke addict: Take back Obama’s Nobel Prize

    Evo Morales, Bolivia’s cocaine-fiend-in-chief, thinks President Obama should give back the Nobel Prize that he was awarded his first few days in office;

    ‘How is it possible to give the Nobel Peace Prize to someone who has launched an invasion, a bombing? It’s a violation, an assault, an aggression,’ said Morales, one of Latin America’s most left-leaning leaders and a vocal critic of the United States.

    ‘Obama is the leader of group of thugs who led an assault and an invasion – and that has nothing to do with defending human rights,’ he declared.

    So what happened to all that goodwill that was supposed to be coming our way when Obama became president? I thought working inside of the UN instead of without them was going to make us stronger. It seems that they dislike us no matter what we do – like we’ve been telling the American Left for the past ten years.

    Thanks to ROS for the link.

  • Stirring the pot

    Sometimes I like what gets said in the Canada Free Press. They defended Bush during his presidency…a lone voice from the north, it seems. But today there’s an opinion piece by Henry Lamb that attacks President Obama for bombing Libya without Congressional approval…he points out that Bush had approval from Congress in Iraq and Afghanistan…and that Obama should be impeached for not getting Congressional approval for his…um…actions in Libya.

    Social media sites are abuzz with comments about Obama’s failure to consult with, and secure approval from Congress before launching into military action. Every Representative and Senator should be deluged with phone calls from constituents demanding that the President be, at least, reprimanded for his behavior, and possibly impeached.

    If Obama’s flagrant anti-American behavior is allowed to go undisciplined, America is doomed to become little more than an administrative unit of the United Nations. Most of the member nations of the U.N. despise the United States and are eager to see her wealth redistributed to the underdeveloped nations. This too, is a goal with which Obama apparently agrees.

    I hate to be a position of defending Obama, however, The War Powers Act of 1973 gives the President the authority to shoot first and answer questions later.

    The President in every possible instance shall consult with Congress before introducing United States Armed Forces into hostilities or into situation where imminent involvement in hostilities is clearly indicated by the circumstances, and after every such introduction shall consult regularly with the Congress until United States Armed Forces are no longer engaged in hostilities or have been removed from such situations.

    It says “consult with Congress” not get a permission slip. Reagan consulted with Congress before Grenada, GHW Bush consulted with Congress before Panama, Kuwait, and Somalia. Sometimes there just isn’t time to get a resolution from Congress…that’s the nature of war these days. I appreciate Mr. Lamb’s desire to impeach Obama, but I think he needs to look for another reason.

    I hate to think that we’re going to go off half-cocked at everything we perceive to be a misstep by the administration, especially when he finally makes the right decision. That’s not me being bi-partisan. Some day, down the road, we’re going to have a president who’s not Obama who wants to do the same thing – I don’t think we want our opposition to Obama this time thrown back in our collective face.

    Thanks to Old Trooper for the link.

  • French fighters over Bengazi (Updated)

    This is from the Associated Press.

    I guess this picture needs a caption;

    Hillary

    UPDATE: French jets have engaged Libyan armor?

    A French official says a French fighter jet has fired on a Libyan military vehicle, in a first reported strike in the international campaign to enforce a no-fly zone.

    French Defense Ministry spokesman Thierry Burkhard says the strike was reported around 1645 GMT Saturday.

    Burkhard says the target was confirmed as a military vehicle, but it was not clear what kind.

  • That tightening noose

    So, since the last time I posted about Libya, the Security Council authorized a no-fly zone over Libya to protect Libyans from Qaddafi’s forces. The yesterday I read that Qaddafi immediately announced he would abide by the UN’s decision and stop murdering his people from the air.

    It looks like he’s changed his mind again;

    Muammar al-Qadhafi called the United Nations resolution authorizing international military intervention in Libya as “invalid.”

    The Libyan leader says he sent a message to President Barack Obama defending his decision to attack rebel cities: “If you found them taking over American cities by the force of arms, tell me what you would do.”

    The statement came from the government spokesman at a news conference in Tripoli.

    Qaddafi also sent a letter to the French and British leaders, and the U.N. secretary general, saying the resolution violates the U.N. charter and saying they would “regret” any intervention.
    “Libya is not for you, Libya is for the Libyans,” he said.

    Well, Libyans who survive Qaddafi, anyway.

    From Associated Press;

    Moammar Gadhafi took advantage of international indecision to attack the heart of the 5-week-old uprising on Saturday, sending troops, artillery and warplanes to swarm the first city seized by the rebels. Crashing shells shook buildings, and the sounds of battle drew closer to Benghazi’s center.

    “Where is France, where is NATO?” cried a 50-year-old woman in Benghazi. “It’s too late.”

    Can we really expect anything different. Qaddafi knew that President Bush was as good as his word and surrendered his WMDs when Bush invaded Iraq. Qaddafi also knows that, under Obama, the US just makes noise and without the US, Europe won’t do anything useful.

    Fox is showing footage of the Libyan rebels shooting down a jet, so this will be a protracted war. I sure hope this “tightening noose” doesn’t disrupt March Madness.

  • Foreign aid under the gun

    The Washington Times reports that one Congressman is trying to shut of aid for countries that “don;t like us”;

    With foreign aid a major sticking point in the budget battles raging on Capitol Hill, Rep. Ted Poe proposed new House rules to hold country-by-country votes, saying it would end the current system where overall foreign aid levels are decided essentially in one fell swoop. He said splitting each country’s funding into its own bill will make members of Congress think more carefully about which countries deserve money, while adding transparency and accountability to the process.

    Yeah, like the embarrassing aid that the Bush Administration sent to the Taliban a few months before 9-11. Or some of the funding we’re going to find for Gaddafi. Liking us should probably be a prerequisite for aid. Anything to make our spending buddies in Congress realize who they’re sending our tax dollars to is more than likely good for us.

    Democrats have fought back, saying foreign-aid spending saves money over the long haul.

    Yeah, like the health care bill was going to save our economy. Pardon me if I don’t hold my breath in the interim.

  • Iran: You’re interfering with our interference.

    So in case your have not heard, Iran is complaining about Saudi Arabia sending in troops to Bahrain. Even as going as far as declaring this action a declaration of war. But some of the quotes are just priceless considering if people remember what was going on in Iran in 2009.

    “The peaceful demonstrations in Bahrain are among the domestic issues of this country, and creating an atmosphere of fear and using other countries’ military forces to oppress these demands is not the solution,” he told the semi-official Fars news agency.

    “It is expected that the demands of the Muslim people of Bahrain … be seriously considered by the authorities and that they prevent the situation from becoming more complex by making right decisions and not allowing foreign interferences in Bahrain,” Amir Abdollahian added.

    Really? Did he just say that considering how Iran handled their own?

    Oh but it gets better.

    Iran has welcomed Arab uprisings in the region as an “Islamic awakening” against despotic rulers and has said they were influenced by its own 1979 Islamic revolution.

    You mean like that are doing now?