October 28, 1980 - Cleveland, Ohio
"There you go again..."
Showing posts with label Carter. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Carter. Show all posts
Sunday LOL Funnies!
-click on any to enlarge-
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In the Reagan era, Star Wars wasn't just a game...
and adversaries both respected and feared us.
-The Reaganite-
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-thanks to Pookie's Toons-
What Can We Gain From Russia, Anyway?
In the 1980's, Reagan actually toyed with the Russians in talks at Geneva and Reykjavik. The Kremlin at the time badly needed a deal to save the entire communist economic system -Gorbachev's #1 objective- and this had to include the cancellation of the US missile defense program, a technology the Soviets lacked the resources to compete with.
But Reagan knew it, and wasn't really interested in helping them save their dictatorship, nor in giving up his SDI plans- the aim was nothing less than freedom and democracy for Russia and all of eastern Europe, not just Glastnost and Perestoika. So The Gipper waited until 1987 -a full two years after his first Swiss summit with Gorbachev- before signing the INF treaty.
Today we have Barack Obama -who's in need of a foreign-policy victory- openly pandering for a missile deal as the START treaty expires... it's hard to imagine him bringing home anything of value from Russia now. Sadly for us, it appears that Obama's poker skills are in the same league with his bowling and girly-style baseball throw. And Russia recieved much of what it wants before Obama even landed, so how would anybody expect Barack to gain any advantage? Meanwhile, the Kremlin has failed even to comply with the terms of the truce signed with Georgia last year- continuing to do pretty much as it pleases.
At this summit in Moscow, Obama is to announce the restoration of bilateral military relations with Russia, as well as of the NATO-Russian Council. And to please the Kremlin, Obama has now put on hold plans for the deployment of American missile defenses on Polish and Czech soil. In a letter to Medvedev earlier this year, Mr. Obama floated the idea of cancelling those deals entirely if Russia can prod Iran to give up its nuclear ambitions. The Russian's response was dismiss this out of hand, but they now know the installations are negotiable.
When a superpower like the United States faces the world with an insecure foreign-policy posture, you can really get taken to the cleaners in trying to convince certain people to like you. The Kremlin leaders Obama is rushing-into-the-arms-of now are in reality zero-sum, mostly ex-KGB thugs who are out to settle a few scores with the west; this crew can smell weakness, and will be taking advantage of any on the US side to the fullest. Wouldn't it be fascinating to read the Russian intelligence files on Barack and Hill's personality flaws... and how best to exploit them?
And as to set the tone, as Obama landed in Moscow thousands of Russian troops were involved in the biggest war games in the south Caucasus since the end of the Cold War... menacing the small, independent nation of Georgia yet again. President Saakashvili remains a thorn-in-the side survivor, resistant to Russian hegemony in what the Kremlin sees as its near abroad. A pro-Kremlin regime in Georgia would give Moscow the control it desires over energy routes through the Caucasus... and influence over independent-minded Azerbaijan and Armenia, too. But as Barack smiles and glad-hands Kremlin leaders, it's like the brutal war in Georgia never happened. The Russians have paid no real price whatsoever for their expansionist adventure there- and therefore would do the same thing again in a minute.
It's hard to imagine just what Barack Obama expects to gain for America by rushing over to Moscow like this- as with Iran, he's allying the US with unsavory, anti-democratic regimes for little benefit, while abandoning those who aspire to traditional American ideals of free elections, free press, free enterprise, and rule of law in Russia and the CIS.
And he might be betting on the wrong horse yet again- the evolving reality in Russia today is that Vladimir Putin is on the political ropes-
A few weeks ago, a massive protest by unpaid aluminum industry workers in the town of Pikalyovo, outside of St. Petersburg, snarled traffic for more than a hundred miles on a major interstate roadway. Putin was forced to make an emergency visit to the town and put up significant government funds to assure payment of wages.
Nearly a quarter of Russia's population lives in "monotowns" like Pikalyovo, which depend entirely on a single industry for subsistence. Russia can't afford this kind of largesse everywhere, and economists were openly worrying whether the gesture in Pikalyovo could place the country on the road to ruin.
Putin's assumed plans of cruising right back into the presidency in a couple years are suddenly looking shaky; the collapse of the Russian stock market and the ruble have dented support, and it's not possible to blame it all on Medvedev- everyone knows where the real power lies. Like Gorbachev, Putin needs an arms deal to save his economic model -a brand of dictatorial crony capitalism- so Barack Obama would be well-advised to not let him have it.
The new missile deals Obama has made a priority seem to be of little value to US interests- few expect Russia to ever seriously face off with the US or NATO, let-alone with nuclear weapons. But any substantial nuclear arms deal with Moscow certainly frees them up to focus on far more useful endeavors, such as modernized conventional forces that could wipe the floor with Georgia, Ukraine, Belarus, or Poland. More special forces and US-type weapons, communications, transport, and training is something Putin could actually put to good use... unlike 2000 ICBMs sitting in silohs.
Russia has little to offer the United States in any negotiations- and they have almost no influence on America's foreign policy. It would be difficult for the US to purchase gas without the necessary LNG infrastructure in place. Russia's state-dominated oil industry is a chronic underacheiver, and government property grabs discourage western oil tech firms from providing the needed development. Add to that the Kremlin's use of energy as a diplomatic truncheon and oil deals simply look better elsewhere. Moscow's industrial backwardness and continuing Wild East legal environment brought them a pitiful $36B in trade with the United States last year- much of that likely Stolichnaya, not notoriously shoddy Russian manufactured goods.
However, there are few things we would value coming from Russia- like maybe a halt to their calculated and opportunistic attacks upon US power and influence, i.e.- bad mouthing the dollar/calling for a world currency, selling high-tech weapons and nuclear know-how to our enemies/terrorist sponsors such Tehran, Damascus, Caracas, and Pyongyang, as well as nabbing that US/Kyrgizstan air base from right under Obama's nose... just to make a point. But it's difficult to address these issues when Obama appears to not be interested in any such unpleasantries while chatting with Vlad and Dmitri.
The prototypical narcissist Obama is primarily after power and fame- and at any cost. In practice this means looking for a headline weapons-control deal that props-up his man of peace schtick while allowing him to eliminate F-22 production, cancel needed missile defense programs, and perhaps even cut military aid for traditional American allies, and all in order to fund his expensive domestic programs and entrench the Democratic party politically.
Obama long-ago bet his whole foreign policy platform on appeasement and legitimizing dubious regimes, and has nowhere else to run... it's hard for him to now support America's traditional freedom agenda when he's already on the record abandoning it. Thus his kid-gloves treatment re. issues like Russia's bullying of Georgia and Obama's shameful acquiescence to the brutality deployed in Tehran last month.
Obama long-ago bet his whole foreign policy platform on appeasement and legitimizing dubious regimes, and has nowhere else to run... it's hard for him to now support America's traditional freedom agenda when he's already on the record abandoning it. Thus his kid-gloves treatment re. issues like Russia's bullying of Georgia and Obama's shameful acquiescence to the brutality deployed in Tehran last month.
We have a president who's more focused on his personal and far-left domestic political agendas than on what's in the long-term, common-sense strategic interest of the United States- at best, a warped world view. Today's Russia is nothing to be afraid of, either- really just a Saudi Arabia with trees. Russia is a deeply dysfunctional society who's industry, political culture, and rule-of-law all remain seriously underdeveloped. They've got oil, though- and pride themselves in punching-above-their-weight. What our president doesn't seem to realize is that the Russians are -as is so often their practice- bluffing... as they are dealing from a position of comprehensive weakness.
But the cynical Kremlin surely doesn't take Obama seriously at all, instead they purely see an opportunity for comprehensive strategic and diplomatic gains at America's and NATO's expense. The reality is that Russia has nothing to offer the US- so as Barack heads over there to flatter them and give away our strategic advantage, perhaps we should ask for what?
But the cynical Kremlin surely doesn't take Obama seriously at all, instead they purely see an opportunity for comprehensive strategic and diplomatic gains at America's and NATO's expense. The reality is that Russia has nothing to offer the US- so as Barack heads over there to flatter them and give away our strategic advantage, perhaps we should ask for what?
And the worst is yet to come. In 1978 Jimmy Carter met with Soviet Premier Brezhnev, extending his hand in friendship much as Obama is doing in Russia today. After seeing what kind of a zero they were dealing with firsthand, the Soviet Union promptly invaded Afghanistan- in direct violation of promises made to Carter in Moscow six months earlier.
It is hard to imagine today's Kremlin being cowed or intimidated after meeting with a smiley plastic mannequin like Obama, putting his arm around them and schmoozing all the time- they know he's not going to do anything.
Next year it's Yes We Can invade Ukraine... and what are you going to do about it?
UPDATE: Obama reaches all-time low of -3% differential rating in Rasmussen's latest -here-
WHERE is the Left on Iran?
Throughout the Cold War years, the self-appointed moral watchdogs of the American left preached to us ad-nauseum on the perils of supporting anti-communist dictators like The Shah, Samoza, and Pinochet. We only damaged our own credibility when backing those who did not uphold human rights above all- regardless of the complex security challenges and/or decidedly undemocratic opponents that confronted these allies. This according to the McGoverns and Carters of the world, anyway.
And the pragmatism that lay behind the defense and intelligence policies that they so heavily criticized -these were in actuality proxy struggles with the expansionist Soviet Union- was brushed aside by liberals as cynicism and a lame excuse for continued US "imperialism". But these views were decidedly in the minority in the United States- and the narrow appeal of such short-sighted thinking surely contributed to McGovern's drubbing in the 1972 election.
Later, pollyana do-gooder Jimmy Carter showed us all how it's done with his withdrawal of support of Samoza over human rights concerns- perhaps it never occurred to him that we'd get something 10x worse with the communist Sandinistas: armed and trained by Moscow, East Germany, and Czechoslovakia... and allied with Havana in a Kremlin-funded enterprise to export communist revolution throughout central and South America.
Now we have a President Obama that basically got elected trashing America's proud history and defense policy-as he continues to do- as well as proposing that we downgrade our position as leader of the free world. All in all, there's not much daylight between Obama's zeitgeist and the finger-wagging, simplistic moral assumptions of the Cold War left.
So with the president's astounding silence and even apparent disinterest in today's Iranian crisis, WHERE is the moral concern of the holier-than-thou left now? Shouldn't these hypocrites being asking a few questions now that Barack Obama has kissed-up to Ahmedinijad and the Iranian theocracy since before he was even elected? We're talking about a former kidnapper and Holocaust-denying president of what all can now see is a brutal police state; one racing towards constructing nuclear weapons with the oft stated aim of wiping Israel from the map; a regime that cozies up to most or all of America's enemies; who supplied a large amount of Iraq's instability; one that publicly stones adulterers and petty criminals after burrying them up to their necks... and today is shooting unarmed protesters in the street. (Gateway Pundit).
Obama has now gotten his 3am-crisis-call- and so far he's done little but pound the snooze button. The complete inaction and lack of leadership is stupifying. Of course, the irony is that while the Ayatollah Khamenei is now laying blame for his Iranian citizens' uprising on the "Americans" and "the Jews"- the United States under Obama is really not doing anything of substance to support the protesters and would be counter-revolutionaries. To add insult to injury for the freedom-seeking patriots of Iran- the Obama administration also has zeroed out funding for pro-democracy programs inside Iran from the State Department budget for fiscal 2010... just as protests in Iran are ramping up (Newsmax).
Khamenei is now hinting strongly of a much harder crackdown to come- he's already using Hamas thugs imported from Gaza, who are showing their appreciation for the funding, arming, and training of their Islamofacist terrorist organization by cracking heads in the street alongside Iran's own plainclothes security forces.
Compare this all to Ronald Reagan's brave and unwavering support for Solidarity in Poland in the early 80's: in collaboration with Pope John Paul and Polish anti-communists, Reagan helped those seeking freedom in any way possible- with money, training, equipment such as radios and stepped-up VoA broadcasting to help liberate those behind the Iron Curtain.
Obviously -although it’s the last thing Team Obama want to hear- Ronald Reagan’s support of Poland’s Solidarity in the dark days of the Soviet-ordered crackdown is the model- not the preposterous straw-man argument of “what are you going to do, invade?” disingenuously presented by the do-nothing, Obamapologist left/MSM.
Most importantly, Reagan brought the Poles moral support with consistent public statements that gave the revolutionaries hope. The Gipper did this not only because of his belief in the cause of freedom worldwide; he also recognized the larger geopolitical implications of peeling the Warsaw Pact away from a weakened USSR bit-by-bit (similar to the effect that a free Iraq and free Iran could have on the Middle East today). While most referred to European states behind the Iron Curtain as Soviet "satellites"- Reagan insisted on calling them "captive" nations. And not only was Reagan right, visionary, and victorious... but the Poles remember who was with them when it seemed all was lost... that's why Poland is one of America's strongest allies for over 20 years now.
Shamefully, it seems Obama's primary concern is to bide a little more time for the the Mullahs and Ahmedinijad to pull themselves up by their bootstraps... while they beat-down any hope of actual democracy. Barack's already bet all his chips on legitimizing this vile regime- a democratic revolution in Tehran could be downright embarassing at this point. Once the Mullahs put a lid on things over there, these boys can all get back to talking business... just like they do it back in Chicago.
A liberated Iran does little to help Obama politically... which is all that ever really interests him in the end. Besides the obvious embarassment that would result from a new Iranian revolution -or even a substantially more moderate regime in Tehran- Obama appears to lack a Plan B. And if Iran becomes a struggling young democracy, trying to create a better society while battling the country's darker forces (a development any normal US president would have welcomed) -like, say, Columbia- it looks like Obama might just turn on them, too- as he's far more interested in cozying-up to the Castros, the Chavezes, and other tin-pot bullies who hold America in contempt... while snubbing the allied nations that share traditional American values of freedom, democracy, and free-market enterprise.
In other news, Obama's poll numbers are headed south: Rasmussen's daily tracking has him at a weak +1% rating- only once before has it slipped lower -to zero- and that was last week. The more friendly Gallup has him at a job approval of 58%- still a new low for this administration- looks like the deprogramming of the delusional Obamamania cult has begun.
UPDATE 6.21.09: make that Rasmussen poll differential a negative two (-2%)... a new low, and the first time in negative territory for the Obama Administration.
Obama Blows a Slam-Dunk
Barack Obama is clearly not qualified to be President of the United States- period. The chance to topple the maniacal regime in Tehran is right-there for the taking... and Obama is standing frozen like a deer in the headlights. Our False Prophet appears to have no idea what a golden opportunity he is passing up... overthrow this evil regime without firing a single shot... get their Armageddon-inspired nuke program off the world stage... and free 30 million people all at one time. But the boy wonder is too stupid to see it... or somehow just doesn't care? Perhaps he's happy to sell out Israel and the Iranian's people's right to freedom for some perceived political gain- it's hard to imagine what on God's Earth he's thinking, really.
Reagan would have toppled Ahmedinijad last night, and you'd have read about it in the papers today... but NO, we've got a non-committal coward who's instead obsessed with having the DNC hector Sarah Palin and Rush Limbaugh rather than deal with America's actual enemies. Obama's surely too busy with petty domestic politics to do what history would expect of him... we'll all pay the price for it.
And if anybody doesn't think that American-delivered freedom in Iraq has been a substantial factor in bringing this about... think again; the effects of a free Iraq, in which there is a spectrum competing parties and substantial economic freedom must be dramatic upon the Iranians. Many of them visit Iraq annually... and today's New Iraq has maintained a Shiite Islamic character for the most part without the repressive policies the Iranians must endure. These two countries have long been competitive in most ways... and surely the Iranians feel they are missing out on something most Iraqis now enjoy.
Unfortunately for the appalling and incompetent regime in Tehran, this is exactly the opposite of how it was supposed to all work out... Bush was "losing"... and they were going to swoop-in and control their former Iraqi adversaries at America's expense.
Isn't this what George W Bush told you was going to happen in the Middle East following Iraq's liberation? Maybe that's why Barack Obama has so little apparent interest in finishing the job in Iran... no matter how much it benefits the US and free world. Anyone who expected him to act in the interests of the United States -rather than for his own political security- hasn't taken a serious look at how Obama got this far in the first place.
Of course, a ruthless, narcissistic thug like Ahmedinijad has a lot in common with Obama- small wonder Barack's been kissing his posterior since before he was even in the White House. He's the kind of guy a Chicago Machine hack can do business with... maybe that's why Barack's got his back.
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