Bill Clinton is Back on the World Stage

Congratulations to our nation’s forty-second President, Bill Clinton, as he successfully obtained the release of the two American journalists, Laura Ling and Euna Lee, who have been held hostage for the past four months by the North Korean regime. Mr. Clinton did a masterful job in obtaining the release of these Americans who have been held against their wills by a crazed dictator. The Obama Administration also deserves credit because, other than Jimmy Carter, no former American President would attempt such a mission without the support and coordination from the current occupant of the Oval Office.

Mr. Clinton and Mr. Obama also deserve credit for something else today. They also engaged in an action that helps to legitimize a rogue nation that not only has nuclear weapons, but is actively attempting to export their related technology to other outlaw states. By sending the former President of the United States to pay a courtesy call to North Korean dictator, Kim Jong-Il, President Obama has allowed a crazed dictator to share the world stage with the once most powerful man on earth. This lends credibility to Mr. Kim and it will, of course, be used by him as propaganda both at home and abroad.

Imagine some other third world dictator sitting in his palace in Tehran, for example, reading about this or watching it on CNN International. He could not help but believe that by continuing to engage in bad behavior, maybe, some day, he too will be able to meet with President Clinton. It is doubtful that either former President Bush would want to be photographed with Kim Jong-Il. George W. Bush was, after all, the one who, correctly, declared that North Korea was a member of the Axis of Evil.

It is not surprising that President Clinton would allow himself to be used as a prop by the North Koreans. He had, of course, allowed himself to be used like this while he was in office. Remember, he is the one who sent his Secretary of State to Pyongyang. Who can forget the entertainment at the large outdoor stadium with the starving people of North Korea all flipping their cardboard signs in unison and on cue. And, don’t forget about the goodies that Secretary of State Madeline Albright brought to Mr. Kim. As a Chicagoan and long time Chicago Bulls fan, it was somewhat insulting that the gifts included a Michael Jordan autographed basketball. (I wonder if Mr. Kim has sold that basketball on E-Bay in an effort to raise hard currency for his fellow North Korean citizens. I tend to doubt that.)

During the Clinton Administration, the North Koreans develop their first nuclear weapon. As a reward for that, President Clinton extended the courtesy of having his top diplomat pay a visit. It was under President Clinton that the North Koreans signed an agreement to discontinue their nuclear program. Despite a signed piece of paper, they didn’t stop. And, Mr. Clinton, like his two successors, did nothing (unless you believe that the old adage of “Stop or I’ll say stop again”, is doing something – I don’t).

I am very happy for Ms. Ling, Ms. Lee and their families. If it was my daughter who was being held hostage, I would demand that the US government do everything in its power to ensure her safe return, including sending a former President to help negotiate her release.

However, for the rest of us, I’m afraid that today’s mission of mercy may have unintended consequences. The North Koreans do not act out of selflessness. Something must have been promised to them in exchange for the release of the hostages. In the years to come, we will find out if a secret deal has been made. If I’m right and something was promised, hopefully, it will not be costly to our national security. And, whether there is a secret deal or not, the world’s most dangerous dictator got to spend the day, in full view of the TV cameras, with the former President of the United States. Not a bad way to spend a few hours and, at the same time, make yourself a more credible figure to your partners in crime.

Foreign Policy for Dummies

In general, perception is reality. This is particularly true in the realm of foreign policy. The President of the United States largely conducts foreign policy on his own. Therefore, the perception that is created is solely his. Unfortunately for President Barack Obama, the perception of him in this realm is that of weakness.

Much like one of his processors, Jimmy Carter, President Obama is faced with major foreign policy crises. And, it seems, that the President is reacting in a manner that Mr. Carter approves of.

On Mr. Obama’s watch, North Korea has detonated nuclear weapons, launched ballistic missiles and is attempting to export these technologies to Myanmar. In response, the President runs to the United Nations and says that none of this will stand. That’s all well and good, but there is no follow up. As I’ve said before, the President is really telling Kim Jong-Il, “Stop or I’ll say Stop again!” Or maybe it’s really, “If you disobey this strongly worded letter, I’ll send an new stronger worded letter!” In any event, Mr. Obama looks helpless.

The one substantive measure that the President has taken in response to North Korea is to reduce the number of missile interceptors from the missile defense budget. Even if the reduced number of interceptors makes no difference to the effectiveness of the system, the timing of this cutback could not be worse. It sends the wrong message to the generals in Pyongyang (and Tehran, as well).

Mr. Obama also looked hapless in the aftermath of the Iranian presidential election. His early statements discounting the policy differences between Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Mir Hossein Mousavi, while probably technically accurate, were beside the point. The Western allies were presented with an opportunity to make life difficult for a totalitarian regime that presents the greatest threat to them and in response, the leader of the free world says that he doesn’t want to be seen as meddling in Iran’s internal matters (of which the mullahs accused him of doing anyway).

President Obama should be meddling in Iran’s internal matters. He should be publicly speaking out in favor of the protesters. He should be standing with those who want to free themselves from the shackles of a police state. But, instead, the President of the United States is waiting for the opportunity to meet with a fellow head of state who has repeatedly called for the annihilation of a fellow UN member state.

The President’s lack of action and public support for the protesters sends a signal to those who live under tyranny all over the globe - “If you attempt to stand up to your oppressors, the United States will stand by and not meddle.”

In addition, President Obama’s floundering may force the Israelis to act. No Israeli government stand idly by as Iran finalizes it acquisition of a nuclear bomb. At some point, Prime Minister Netanyahu will be forced to take military action against this threat. The shame is that strong action by Mr. Obama could result in regime change, thus avoiding the need for Israeli military action.

Mr. Obama’s failure to confront the dictators in North Korea and Iran are just the two most recent additions to a litany of actions that signal weakness to our enemies. As the sole actor on the foreign policy stage, I hate to see what this President has in store for an encore.

Kim Jong-il Strikes Again

In the past week, North Korea has detonated a nuclear devise and launch 5 ballistic missiles. All of these actions are in direct defiance of the United Nations’ Security Councils “strongly worded” presidential statement of April 5. In response to the news of this “strongly worded” presidential statement, I said on April 7 that the UN is not effective in dealing with madmen who are heads of state. I also asked the question “how many times does the United Nations have to fail to act before the Obama Administration will realize that it is nothing more than a failed anti-American organization?” Apparently, the answer is more than twice, because that’s how many times North Korea has defied the UN since President Obama took office.

If the Western allies, and, unfortunately, by extension, the UN fails to take strong and decisive actions against North Korea for it’s most recent round of belligerent behavior, the message to all Third World dictators who aspire to obtain nuclear weapons will be clear – “Go ahead and get them. We will do nothing!”

It is imperative for the security of the world that, at minimum, strong and effective sanctions be imposed on North Korea. China and Russia must be active participants. Both of those countries must abide by the sanctions and must use their militaries to enforce them. We can no longer accept a wink and a nod from the Chinese as they promise to veto sanction regime after sanction regime. Especially because North Korea is extremely vulnerable to sanctions. The North Koreans import almost all of their energy and they cannot produce enough food to feed their citizens.

The question becomes how do we force the Chinese to finally agree to punish their communist ally. This is not easy. The Chinese are extremely worried that an effective sanctions regime will cause a flood of North Korean refugees across its borders. Beijing also is known to have a soft spot for other Asian communist dictatorships.

The single greatest pressure point to use against China is it’s historic rival, Japan. If the Chinese fail to cause the North Koreans to cease their nuclear program and their ballistic missile development, the United States must assist Japan in obtaining nuclear weapons. It is not unheard of for the United States to assist an ally with its nuclear program. We have been doing that with the United Kingdom since 1958. This will require Japan to change its constitution and defense posture, but it may very well be the only thing that will force China to act.

China wants nothing less than a nuclear armed Japan. If the Chinese leadership believes that the Japanese are serious in their desires to counter the North Korean nuclear threat by arming themselves with nuclear weapons, China may very well take actions against North Korea just to avoid the prospect of a Japanese nuclear program.

Since Kim Jong-il has once again proven that “strongly worded” statements from the United Nations have no effect on his behavior, it is time that we move on to something else. The time for saying “Stop or I’ll say ‘stop’ again” is over. The time for President Obama’s UN Ambassador, Susan Rice, telling the Today Show that “we really mean business this time” has come and gone. President Obama spent Memorial Day looking like a deer in the headlights as he said that the UN would take up the issue of North Korea very soon. As I’ve been saying since January, the President must stop showing weakness to those who would kill us. Strong and decisive action is need now.

It is unfortunate that an arms race in Asia may be the only thing that can stop a nuclear armed madman. But, it may just be the thing needed to show China and North Korea that we mean business. If not, maybe President Obama should rethink his cuts in our missile defense system.

The New Piracy

Congratulations to the Navy Seals and their skilled snipers for doing what should always be done to dangerous terrorists.

We are incredibly fortunate that the strength and courage of the American military is still a force for good in the world, even at a time when the Obama Administration is hell bent on shrinking America’s global stature.

I can’t imagine the backache Barack Hussein will have after the upcoming Summit of the Americas in Trinidad. By my count, there will be 33 heads of state before whom to bow later this week.

While I applaud Obama’s apparent zero-tolerance policy regarding brazen Somali Pirates, here at home we’re no less under siege. We have entered the age of The New Piracy We Can’t Believe In.

The traditional definition of piracy is an act committed by a non-state actor but the Somalis have made that obsolete, as no one believes they are true pirates, acting alone or without training. Here in the U.S., there are multitudes of state actors littering the looting and pillaging landscape:

Tax pirates on Capitol Hill and inside the White House.

Salary/bonus pirates on Congressional subcommittees.

Free-market pirates, most of them holed up in Larry Summers’ office at the White House.

Education pirates, a.k.a., lawmakers who’d rather stay cozy with teachers’ unions than open doors to educational opportunities in abysmal urban school systems.

First Amendment pirates, led by Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reed, who still think folks don’t get the twisted irony of something called “The Fairness Doctrine” that targets Conservative talk radio.

Family pirates, judges mostly, popping up in state after state, zealously targeting the sanctity of marriage between a man and a woman with bench rulings that legalize gay unions. The pirates are still nursing rum hangovers in Iowa and Vermont.

Peace pirates, empowered by the President, who apparently believes that a little love sent Iran’s way will pay big diplomatic dividends down the road. Where’s the harm in a little unabashed uranium enrichment by Iranian “technicians”?

(Iran’s a small nation, like North Korea, remember? The junior Senator from Illinois said so last year when seeking the Piracy, ah, Presidency. They’re just a bunch of happy-go-lucky Johnny Depps, charming the ladies and dabbling in petty crimes).

Finally, we learned just today about the Freedom Pirates lurking inside the Department of Homeland Security. Seems they’ve issued an “assessment” that warns “rightwing extremists may be gaining new recruits by playing on their fears about several emergent issues.”

The report compares present trends to a climate that spawned the various anti-government military militias of the 1990s (translation: during the last reign by a liberal Democrat President). There is no mention of what if any activities these extremists were suspected of in the past decade, as if there were no hidden factions that loathed George Bush. They existed, but they would mainly fall under the heading, “leftwing extremists”, and would thus have been of little concern to the DHS and beyond the scope, as they say, of this report.

The DHS further advises that, while there are righties who are “hate-oriented” (the militia types), the feds are also keeping an eye on “those that are mainly antigovernment, rejecting federal authority in favor of state or local authority, or rejecting government authority entirely.” Imagine that? A failure to embrace big, smothering government control of … um … well … everything.

Let us not misunderstand the underlying message of this “assessment” (which is being discussed across the land tonight) and the intent of its publication. American citizens who are not pro-Obama are members of society who pose a “threat”. The DHS knows this because of its analysis of “rightwing extremist chatter on the Internet”. (Such as the post you are reading here).

You are not a Conservative if you oppose Obama’s radical vision, his Socialist agenda, or his apologies for America when he stands on foreign soil. You are not a Patriot if you believe in the Constitution as our enduring foundation, or if you would fight to preserve the First and Second Amendments.

What are you? You are a Rightwing Extremist Threat. It says so in the DHS “assessment”. It says “the historic election of an African American president and the prospect of policy changes” are stirring the right. It says our chatter focuses on “the perceived loss of U.S. jobs” (yes, it actually says “perceived”). It says the winds of extremism are blowing because you are “antagonistic toward the new presidential administration and its perceived stance on a range of (social) issues.”

Oh, and this. You are on the DHS radar because your “rightwing extremist views bemoan the decline of U.S. stature.” Shall we assume that a leftwing extremist bemoans the expansion of U.S. stature?

I think we know the answer. We hear it every time the White House teleprompter rolls.

Monday is Patriots’ Day. But at the DHS, every day since Jan. 20, 2009, has been Rightwing Extremist Alert Day. Get used to it.

Talk is Cheap

Once again the United Nations has proven to be a useless institution for international security. Following North Korea’s launch of a ballistic missile on Sunday, the UN Security Council convened for over three hours in a closed door session. The result of the meeting – you guessed it, nothing! The 15 members of the Security Council were unable to come to an agreement about what actions to take against the North Korean regime. Even prior to the meeting, China and Russia both made clear that they would use their veto power to block any resolution imposing new sanctions on Pyongyang, in part because they were not convinced that the missile launch violated prior Security Council resolutions.

In fact, the meeting of the Security Council was useless to the point that upon issuing the statement as the current president of the Security Council, Mexico’s UN Ambassador, Claude Heller, was prevented from using the phrase “express concern”. The only thing he was allowed to say was that Council members “agreed to continue consultations on the appropriate reaction by the Council…” I bet that Kim Jong-il, and dictators around the world for that matter, is quaking in his high heeled boots.

President Obama persists in his policy of running to the United Nations anytime there is an action by a rogue regime that threatens the security of the United States. The facts are that the UN is not effective in dealing with madmen who are heads of state. And yet, Obama’s UN Ambassador, Susan Rice, is still calling for the UN to make a “clear and firm response.” How many times does the United Nations have to fail to act before this administration will realize that it is nothing more than a failed anti-American organization?

The international community that the President often speaks of is a fiction. It has no influence. It doesn’t exist. It doesn’t do anything.

By launching this missile on the day that President Obama gave a grandiose speech in the Czech Republic about ridding the world of nuclear weapons, the North Koreans were sending him a message. That message is that there is no enforcement mechanism by which the President can fulfill this dream. It’s as if Mr. Obama believes that the moral authority of the United States will influence the two remaining members of the Axis of Evil to abandon their nuclear programs.

Of course, this will not happen. All nations act in their own self interests. The way to influence crazy dictators is with pressure. Not only diplomatic pressure, but, more importantly, economic pressure and military pressure. So far, there has been no economic pressure or military pressure against North Korea.

Unfortunately, it now appears that Kim Join-il is stronger than ever. According to Koh Yu-hwan, a Dongguk University professor of North Korea studies “Pride among North Koreans stemming from what they believe to be a successful launch would help keep his regime intact…” Mr. Koh believes that this launch creates a better atmosphere for Kim to hand over power to his chosen successor.

In Prague, Mr. Obama made the hollow promise that there will be consequences for North Korea's actions. So, while the President and his Secretary of State pound their fists and say that they type of action will not stand, the dictator taking the action grows stronger. When Mr. Obama says that North Korea has further isolated itself from the community of nations, what exactly does he mean? What is the consequence? It can’t possibly be that a closed door meeting of the Security Council in which nothing happens (and the outcome was predetermined) is a consequence in and of itself, can it? If so, President Obama’s childish dream of a world without nuclear weapons is further away than ever.