Fast and Furious Goes South

I am looking at two different reports sourcing off the same newspaper: the El Tiempo.  Fast and Furious was supposed to allow US government agents to trace the flow of weapons into drug cartel hands in Mexico.  What has resulted, as previously documented, was some 2,000 weapons of various types vanishing into the badlands of northern Mexico.  Along with the deaths of 300+ Mexican citizens and two US agents - Brian Terry and Jaime Zapata.

The old saying is a broke clock is right two times a day.  In this case, it seems the BATF F&F clock was right once.  Two long arms and 14 Five-seven pistols have been recovered in an interesting locale.  In the city of Medellin Colombia in fact.  During a raid of the drug cartel that replaced Pablo Escobar's in fact.  A cartel just as violent as Pablo's.   But F&F was never aimed at the Ofcina de Envigado, it was aimed at the Mexican drug cartels like the Sianola Cartel.

But we will never hear anything about this from the mainstream media.  For example: the DoJ IG is supposed to report to Congress on September 19th on Fast & Furious.  Notice there is nothing there yet.  However it seems CNN has gotten the 'dope' on the matter and exonerates Eric Holder and his band of law breakers, you see it was those ATF agents in Arizona who are at fault for going rouge.  If CNN's anonymous leakers are correct, the IG is going to try and whitewash away the culpability of Holder and his crew.

While looking this information up, stumbled across what seems to be a DEA caused My Lai massacre in Honduras.  In the town of Ahuras, a DEA agent called for air support after claiming being under fire.  As a result four people, including a pregnant woman, were killed.  It seems the agent was not assisting the locals, but was leading the mission.

History Applied to Missile Defense

Back during Operation Iceberg, the US Navy found itself bedeviled by an aerial buzz-saw called the kamikaze threat. Now a fast carrier task force was something pretty formidable but it was not doing enough to protect the carriers themselves. F6F Hellcats and F4U Corsairs provided a very good aerial umbrella while the destroyers, cruisers, and battleships provided a curtain of lead to ward off the kamikaze; but they were still getting through to damage. So the US Navy started to place destroyers with a few lighter escorts further out along expected axises of threat. The mission of these ships was to give even more advance warning of a kamikaze attack and to allow those Hellcats and Corsairs more time to slash at the attackers' numbers. As a result the amount of damage the carriers suffered decreased, along with damage to escorting ships. These picket ships extended the task force's defensive perimeter which allowed more kamikazes to be destroyed, thus saving more American lives.

By having the radar and interceptor missiles stationed in the countries of Poland and the Czech Republic, America's defensive aegis would be similarly extended. The satellites in 23,000 mile orbits would still provide launch warning, but that radar in Eastern Europe would provide the US with early tracking data while the missiles would give the US a chance to take out some more missiles. Thus reducing the workload of the ABL[if its aloft and in area once developed] and the terminal defense missile interceptors[Patriot for now]. And to boot, to protect allies from a nuclear oblivion from Iran. An Iran that the IAEA now says can build an atomic weapon.

Okay, I will take out a canard that is now being trotted out to defend Obama's decision in regards to missile defense. The talking heads say it will be several years before Iran can develop a missile to carry a nuclear warhead. These pundits forget that Iran has already launched into orbit a satellite. And more telling they omit the ugly truth it will take the US several years, working with Poland and the Czech Republic, to install that radar and those missiles. So to wait for Iran to develop the missile and then respond be deploying, makes all of Europe vulnerable to Iranian blackmail.

Assuming Europe would let the US deploy such a system in the future. The Obama administration has once again betrayed a country that thought the US was an ally. Israel and Honduras spring to mind as aggrieved parties. Now add Poland and the Czech Republic to the list of countries the US has broken its word with.

And what gain has the Obama Administration garnered for abandoning European missile defense? A promise by Russia not to deploy any missiles near Eastern Europe and some chastising of Iran and its nuclear program. A Russia who's history includes an invasion of Poland by the USSR, acting under the secret codicils of its Non-Aggression Pact with Nazi Germany. And Obama informs Poland of this betrayal on the 70th anniversary of that invasion. Naturally the Poles and Czechs are bouncing off the walls in indignation as they remember the last time the Western powers under Britain and France abandoned them to cruel fates.

President Obama and his administration may think they are making the world safer by making the US and the West less dangerous, in fact they have helped the world become more dangerous with their actions of disarmament and appeasement.

Unfit for Command

Many applied that term to Sen. John F. Kerry when he ran in 2004 against President George Bush. The sobriquet was aimed at his narcissistic personality that even as a young man he created a legend more heroic than what was reality. It seems the term was applied to the wrong person. It should be applied to Barack Hussein Obama instead.

How else to explain the happenings since the inauguration that was supposed to bridge the gap between political divides, why even to start healing the planet we all live on. How else indeed.

I have mentioned previous snubbings of close allies and coddling of enemies. This proclivity has continued with bullying of Israel to stop all settlement activity, even trying to stop the growth of existing settlements to accommodate population growth. Honduras continues to be bullied for defending its democracy. Colombia still awaits what should be a piece of landmark legislation that could finally heal the wounds between that country and the US, a free trade agreement that languishes as President Obama speaks softly to Chavez of Venezuela. And in dealings with Iran, the diplomats might as well be reading from menus as they rehash the same points over and over again, meanwhile an Iran that kills its citizens and puts in as Minister of Defense a man wanted for the bombing of a synagogue in Argentina rushes forward to embrace the atomic bomb. Meanwhile it seems Iraq is sliding backwards and Afghanistan is in need of a surge that Obama's allies in Congres seem unwilling to think about.

On the economic front, we see a man who operates in an environment devoid of any connection to reality. Even as the Peoples Republic of China is understandably worried, Obama's Treasury keeps piling on debt while printing more money which devalues its holdings in US dollars. This past Friday, the Obama Administration added another bone of contention between the US and the PRC by imposing a tariff upon tires imported to the US to protect a union that supported his candidacy. What Obama is risking is a trade war and possible sanctions if this is brought before the WTO and the WTO rules against the US.

These two disagreements with the PRC could very well boil over onto the diplomatic front. Obama has touted himself as the man to heal the breaches the previous administration has created. Obama needs the PRC on his side in dealings with a nuclear North Korea that is in the middle of a power transition. Then there is the matter of a nuclear Iran. The PRC sits on the UN Security Council and has a veto vote and on Sept. 24th when Obama heads the Security Council and asks for help with imposing more sanctions upon Iran. The PRC can veto any such sanctions, giving Obama a diplomatic smack down. Some healing right?

All of this stems from Obama being unable to actually lead. To lead risks failure and Obama is very much adverse to public failure. So he stumbles into failures and then tries to blame someone else. Here it is September and Obama was sworn in at the end of January, but he still blames President Bush every time he can. When it comes to criminal conduct in his appointees, it is always someone else who failed to vette the person properly. On the Stimulus bill, the Waxman-Markey Bill, and the various flavours of health care overhaul the Democrats have crafted; Obama has never sent to Congress what he would like in these bills, he has let Congress run wild and craft these legislative initiatives. When thinking about it, Obama is a classic politician. He wants his name attached to something when its a success, but will deny ever being near something that is a failure - ask Rev. Wright or Van Jones.

In the history of the English people, Ethelred the Unready is an obscure footnote in their long illustrious history that they would prefer to forget. Meanwhile William the Conqueror has had many books written about his accomplishments as a leader. I have a feeling we have the former in the White House instead of the later.

Real Politics vs Wishful Politics

Back in the 1980s, the countries of Iraq and Iran were locked in an eight-year battle that saw millions die but no clear resolution or victor. Sensing an opportunity to bleed two countries with hostile intentions while securing some vital national interests, President Reagan’s administration embarked on an audacious plan. To Iraq the US supplied intelligence information while dealings with Iran were far more complex. To Iran went military parts for things like F-14s; in return Iran would talk with its cats-paws to release American hostages while the money from the military sales went to support freedom fighters in Nicaragua.

Now we have President Obama’s administration dealing with Iraq and Iran again. As the Iranian government kills protestors and openly scorns all attempts at rapprochement from the US, our current administration still keeps offering olive branches. One was the release of the ringleader of the Karbala attack that saw American soldiers captured and executed. In return, several bodies of British hostages were dumped at the British compound in Baghdad. This effort was supposed to bring the terror group that carried out the Karbala attack back into the fold in Iraq, reconciliation was the word used. Since that overture failed, Obama has tried the same approach again. This time the US released men Iran claimed were diplomats. These were diplomats who were caught inside Iraq with terrorists. Some diplomats, but now they are back in Iran. No word yet on how Iran will reply, but history suggests the mullahs are laughing up their sleeves while calculating how to make Obama and the US look even more pathetic.

When it comes to operating in the rarified realm of pragmatic politics or realpolitk, I would have to say President Reagan did a far better job. He kept two enemies of the US weak, secured the freedom of US citizens, and helped fight the spread of communism in Central America. President Obama so far only has the bodies of British citizens to show for his efforts to engage the dictatorship of Iran.

Melancholy

Almost forty years ago a guy named Buzz Aldrin commented on why we went to the Moon, "the insatiable curiosity of mankind to explore the unknown." Aldrin should know since he had just become the second man to ever set foot on another celestial body - that same Moon.

Now it seems people are too buried in their Twitter or E! Extra over Michael Jackson to even care. On July 20th, 1969 America left a plaque on the Moon that read - HERE MEN FROM THE PLANET EARTH FIRST SET FOOT UPON THE MOON. JULY 1969 A.D. WE CAME IN PEACE FOR ALL MANKIND. Golda Meir said at the time that this event might "open the way to that era of universal peace presaged by the prophets of old." Forty years on NASA tries to stay in space with three shuttles while the successor program seems to move from one crisis to another. Is anyone paying attention as Endeavour carries out another mission to the International Space Station to add the Kibo module? Thirteen people are now in orbit setting a record. That in a very short while all three remaining shuttles will be grounded to never fly again? It does not seem like it.

Nor does it seem many are paying attention to what is going on in Iran or in Honduras as despotism tries to hold sway. People are dying in foreign lands even as the satellites spawned by the Space Age bring the information to every viewer. It just seems none are programmed to receive anymore. If it does not happen within one's social network, then its not important.

Not even when it happens in their own country. We have seen multiple pieces of legislation get shoved through the Democrat Congress in the name of national emergency. Six months on the first has failed to deliver any relief. Meanwhile our President genuflects to foreign countries in apologia while they kick dirt in this country's face and continues being despots. We will see someone put on the Supreme Court of this land not because of the content of her character, but because of her gender, political views, and her being Hispanic.

We as a nation seem to have lost our way. Instead of pursuing a just society that rewards being diligent and honest, it has become a game in which large segments of the population prostrate themselves to chivvy danes geld from the government. Unfortunately the pot of danes geld is finite and when it runs dry, may there still be a country left to rebuild when the golden calf is thrown down.

But right now as I think of President Kennedy sending our nation to the Moon not because it was easy, but because it was hard; I do not sense that sense of commitment as it seems to have been destroyed by too many playing one side against the other in an illusionary zero-sum game. In the end, all of humanity will lose because they traded long term prosperity for short term games peddled by politicians only concerned for staying elected.

Obama the Lesser

Well we can see how President Obama's apology tour of Latin America has affected the perception of the United States down there. We just have to look at the drama around Honduras' internal affairs. Well if it was Iran, it would be internal affairs.

Both Hugo Chavez and President Obama want the same thing. Proto-Marxist and now ousted President Zelaya of Honduras back as the leader of that country. As negotiations continue in Costa Rica to resolve the crisis, the Zelaya buddy and printing press for the illegal ballots Hugo Chavez does his best to swagger and steal the spotlight.

He is blasting the United States for being timid. He wants the US to recall its ambassador, impose economic sanctions, and even use the US military forces who have been training with the Hondurans to do 'something.' This gives Chavez cover for his failure to invade Honduras, as he has promised, to reinstate Zelaya. He can now turn to the rest of Central and South America and say "I showed solidarity with Zelaya and argued for his forceful return. If the interfering and imperial United States could do nothing because President Obama is fearful and blocked any such forceful action, then how could I do anything." Factor in President Obama's worldwide tour to reset US relations with various countries which is being seen as 'I do humbly apologise for the United States being such a powerful nation.' and many will believe him and Chavez becomes a greater statesman for the region as the US influence becomes weaker.

Obama is proving to be a weak horse on the world stage and those with no honorable intentions are sharpening their knives because they see the United States as weak as a logical corollary. Instead of Alinksy, Obama should have read Nicolai Machiavelli.