ISIS Leader Who Beheaded Army Ranger Gets Droned

Some stories do have a happy ending…

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ISIS leader who executed Army Ranger killed by coalition forces in Syria

By Staff Writer| December 3rd, 2018

 

An ISIS leader who took part in the abduction and beheading of a US veteran has been killed in Syria by way of drone strike, according to a NATO coalition spokesman.

Coalition spokesman Colonel Sean Ryan reported the death of Abu al-Umarayn, who was killed over the weekend by ordnance released by a US drone.

Al-Umarayn played a major role in the kidnapping and murder of Peter Kassig, a former US Army Ranger turned aid worker.

“Al-Umarayn had given indications of posing an imminent threat to coalition forces and he was involved in the killing of American citizen and former US Army Ranger, Peter Kassig,” Ryan told reporters. “He has been linked to and directly involved with executing several other prisoners as a senior ISIS member. Coalition airstrikes continue to disrupt ISIS command and control on the battlefield as we remove key figures from their ranks.”

According to Express, the Kassig was working as an aid worker in Syria when he was abducted in 2013, and was killed after ISIS executed British aid worker Alan Henning.

Since being defeated in Iraq and Syria, ISIS has been forced to recede from their once large caliphate, and are currently being targeted in their few remaining Middle Eastern strongholds.

Link to article:  https://popularmilitary.com/isis-leader-who-executed-army-ranger-killed-by-coalition-forces-in-syria/?fbclid=IwAR26gGQOVn3d84sS37C2qW1oP7Gy-9iONjRENrAra1IuH9QbuxAEKNn2JgM

Obama STILL lying – AFRICOM: AF, Navy still flying Libya missions

Obama is STILL lying, and is STILL in violation of the War Powers Act. Whether or not the act is unconstitutional is not for Obama to decide under our system of LAW. Every president since the act’s passage has thought it unconstitutional, but has obeyed the law. However, Obama the imperial president, as in so many other cases has simply decided the law doesn’t apply to him.

The congress had an opportunity to make itself relevant again and defund the operation, but as usual they caved leaving Obama unchecked and free to do whatever he wishes.

I’m beginning to think it’s time for an impeachment, and several recalls of elected officials.
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http://www.airforcetimes.com/news/2011/06/defense-africom-air-force-navy-flying-libya-missions-063011/

AFRICOM: AF, Navy still flying Libya missions

By Dave Majumdar – Staff writer
Posted : Thursday Jun 30, 2011 12:33:04 EDT

Air Force and Navy aircraft are still flying hundreds of strike missions over Libya despite the Obama administration’s claim that American forces are playing only a limited support role in the NATO operation.

US, Allies Tell Taliban About Offensive

“…, but for weeks U.S. and allied officials have been telling reporters about their forthcoming assault on Marjah,…”

Why?  Because we (and by that I mean the political and some of the upper military leadership) are just STUPID! You never tell the when and where your going to be.  You just tell them than whenever we get to where you happen to be, you have two choices.  Surrender or die.

Telling them when and where is tactically unsound, and costs American and allied lives.

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http://www.military.com/news/article/us-allies-tell-taliban-about-offensive.html?ESRC=airforce-a.nl

February 06, 2010

McClatchy-Tribune Information Services

KABUL – Thousands of U.S., British and Afghan troops are poised to launch the biggest offensive of the war in Afghanistan in a test of the Obama administration’s new counterinsurgency strategy.

Military operations usually are intended to catch the enemy off guard, but for weeks U.S. and allied officials have been telling reporters about their forthcoming assault on Marjah, a Taliban-held town of 80,000 and drug-trafficking hub in southern poppy-growing Helmand province.

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Is Obama Trying to Marshal Our Own Military Against Us?

Let’s just be clear right up front.  While ANYTHING is possible, I don’t believe what these writers are saying is close to happening.

There are several statements in the stories that can be backed up with facts from other sources.  Some of those I have linked to with the stories.  Others, especially things attributed to the unnamed military and police officers, are just too fantastic to believe without further evidence to back the stories up.

Are there any of you out there who know anything more about these stories?

(Note: PURPLE highlights indicate things that smell a bit fishy to me.  ORANGE highlights indicate things that I think are possible, perhaps even probably based on other tidbits of information.)

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http://www.eutimes.net/2009/12/us-forces-plan-direct-action-against-american-citizens/

U.S. Forces Plan Direct Action Against American Citizens

Posted by Europe on Dec 11, 2009

“There is an event coming in the very near-term future that is going to effect the USA to its very soul,” former Kansas State Trooper Greg Everson of The Heartland USA and former host of Republic Broadcasting “Voices from the Heartland” told host Steve Quayle in a special two hour “Survive 2 Thrive” broadcast Thursday.

“What is being planned and what is coming together is a perfect storm brewing right over our heads.” Everson cited verifiable information confirmed by an active duty US Air Force Colonel, three chiefs of Police, a local Sheriff, State Troopers in 3 neighboring Midwest states and a Federal agent he has known for twenty years.

“There is being made an effort to bring together the Armed Forces of this Nation in preparation for responding to and acting against the interests of our Citizens,” Everson said. Such efforts include actions that will be so deep and penetrating that the United States will never be the same. Everson explained that the deteriorating economy combined with Federal Reserve theft of trillions unaccounted for has had a devastating effect on Americans who have had enough and the US Military expects will respond by defending what little they have left.  (That much the author is correct about.  We are willing to defend what’s left.)

“The American people have reached the point of total saturation due to the failure of Government to protect its borders, corruption and theft.” Everson expects that such a response has been projected by US Government computer models and believes NORTHCOM, DHS and state and local authorities will begin implementation of Operation Garden Plot and Martial Law within 45-60 days. “Civil war is precisely what this administration wants to happen,” said Everson. “And before Americans can organize themselves they will be destroyed by their own military.”  (I seriously question whether our military will fire on its own civilians.  Most that I know would not.  Operation Garden Plot seems to be a real OPLAN.  Here’s a link to one site that has documents that appear to be legit without looking too hard.)

The first signs of pacification by our own forces will not only be convoys rolling through city streets and small towns throughout the Country, but direct military action against pre-targeted areas. Data acquired in the past year by “Census workers” has been used to program military targeting computers which our own armed forces will use in the unthinkable task of fighting its own citizenry.

“It is a formula for unmitigated disaster regardless of Copenhagen, Health Care reform or anything coming from Capitol Hill,” Everson said. Steve Quayle noted his own sources who say as many as 50 million Americans are likely to be killed with gun owners, veterans and the more visible dissenters the most likely targets of deadly force. More “liberal” areas that pose minimal resistance would likely be pacified using lesser means.

One of Everson’s’ sources was quoted as having said “We have plans that if it gets bad enough we will simply commence yard farming,” (a military reference for targeted air strikes) on neighborhoods and communities in cities and states where heavy resistance is expected. A tactic designed to destroy both the enemy and the area(s) under and around the enemy. Everson suggests such horrifying events could possibly coincide with an invasion by the Chinese from the west and Mexico from the south. In any case, military, law enforcement and civilian casualties could be enormous.  (Me thinks the author has watched “Red Dawn” a few too many times.  However, if America were to descend into civil war (which would fit well with the Cloward and Piven strategy being followed by Obama), the Chinese, Russians, and a host of other vultures would not hesitate to pick over our carcass.)

During the two hour broadcast Quayle received an e-mail message from an undisclosed US Military source that a last minute, unscheduled meeting of Saturday December 5 has been called for all unit commanders in the region to present readiness status reports. States in the Region include Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Kentucky, Illinois and Tennessee.

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http://www.eutimes.net/2009/11/obama-orders-1-million-us-troops-to-prepare-for-civil-war/print/

Obama Orders 1 Million US Troops to Prepare for Civil War

Posted By Europe On 28/11/2009 @ 11:59 pm In North America, War

Russian Military Analysts are reporting to Prime Minister Putin that US President Barack Obama has issued orders to his Northern Command’s (USNORTHCOM) top leader, US Air Force General Gene Renuart, to “begin immediately” increasing his military forces to 1 million troops by January 30, 2010, in what these reports warn is an expected outbreak of civil war within the United States before the end of winter.  (Much of that depends on the passage of health care reform, cap-and-trade, and another “stimulus.”  If the voters can keep the predatory government at bay a little longer, there is hope.)

According to these reports, Obama has had over these past weeks “numerous” meetings with his war council about how best to manage the expected implosion of his Nations banking system while at the same time attempting to keep the United States military hegemony over the World in what Russian Military Analysts state is a “last ditch gambit” whose success is “far from certain”.

And to Obama’s “last ditch gambit”, these reports continue, he is to announce in a nationwide address to his people this coming week that he is going to expand the level of US Military Forces in Afghanistan by tens of thousands of troops, while at the same time using the deployment of these soldiers as a “cover” for returning to the United States over 200,000 additional American soldiers from the over 800 bases in over 39 countries they have stationed around the Globe bringing the level of these forces in America to over 1 million, a number the US Military believes will be able to contain the “explosion of violence” expected to roil these peoples when they learn their economy has been bankrupted.  (Is there anyone out there who can back any of this stuff up?  I’m usually someone who thinks anything is possible, but this seems far fetched even to me.)

These reports further state that at the same time Obama will be attempting to keep his Nation from violent disintegration, the tens of thousands of additional troops he will send to Afghanistan are to be ordered to Kandahar where the Americans and their NATO allies will begin their final attempt to secure their TAPI (Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India) pipeline, which without the Western Nations, due to their grave lack of alternative energy resources, and being cut off from these vast Central Asian supplies (which both Russia and China are seeking to insure), are warned will totally collapse.

Making the American’s (and by extension the West’s) situation even worse are new reports coming from the International Energy Agency stating that “under pressure” from the US government they have been “deliberately underplaying” a looming Global oil shortage for fear of triggering panic buying and raising the Americans fear over the end of oil supremacy because it would threaten their power over access to our World’s last remaining oil resources.
To the scariest “end game” maneuvers being made by Obama, in his attempt to protect Americas Global hegemony, is his record shattering move in plunging the United States $3.5 Trillion further into debt, and which raises the total amount owed by the United States, to its citizens and the World, to the unprecedented height of over $106 Trillion.  (That figure is correct.  When you add up all the money owed on all the government books, that is a much more accurate number than the $13 Trillion commonly reported.)

So alarming has Obama’s actions become (especially since they are being imitated by all of the Western powers) that the managing-director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Dominique Strauss-Kahn, warned this past week that the “stimulus actions” of the West (which in essence is nothing more than the printing of money with nothing to back it up) has now become a “threat to democracy” as millions of people are expected to erupt in violence against their governments over the theft of their money and their futures.  (OK.  This part is verified.  Here’s the link to one of several articles where Strauss-Kahn is quoted as saying things similar to what this EUOnline author has attributed to him: http://in.reuters.com/article/economicNews/idINIndia-38656120090323)

Most unfortunately for the American people though is that this IMF warning fell on “deaf ears” in the United States with the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis President, James Bullard, saying this week that the US would continue its “stimulus actions” because they “would give more flexibility to US policymakers”, a most absurd statement especially when viewed in the light of the unprecedented debt payments currently looming over the American economy they have no ability whatsoever to pay.  (Without even looking it up, I do know that the democrats/liberals are talking about another stimulus, which the American people overwhelmingly DO NOT WANT, and which would be disastrous.)

To the ability of the West’s banking giants to save their Nation’s economies, even worse news came this week with the US ratings giant Standards & Poors issuing a warning that “every single bank in Japan, the US, Germany, Spain, and Italy included in S&P’s list of 45 Global lenders remain unsafe”, a warning which then lead to one of Europe’s largest banks, Société Générale, warning its clients to prepare for a “total Global Economic Collapse”.  (Believable.  There probably will be a depression before this is through, but I don’t think that makes the original assertion of this article any more valid.)

To the fears of Obama over the United States erupting into civil war once the full extent of the rape and pillaging of these peoples by their banks and government becomes known to them, grim evidence now shows the likelihood of this occurring much sooner than later, especially in new poll figures showing that Obama’s approval rating among white Americans has now fallen to 39%. A number made more significant when one realizes that the white population of the United States comprises 74% of their estimated 398 million citizens, or put more ominously in these reports as “over 220 million American people armed to the teeth and ready to explode”.

And so fearful has the white population of the United States become that upon the election of Obama to the Presidency he was named as the “Gun Salesman of the Year” by the Outdoor Wire, the US’s largest daily electronic news service for the outdoor industry, who report “panic buying” of weapons and ammunition by those fearful of the destruction of their country at the hands of man they believe is not even an American citizen and had been foisted upon them by their elite classes seeking to enslave them.

Though the coming civil war in the United States is being virtually ignored by their propaganda media, the same cannot be said of Russia, where leading Russian political analyst, Professor Igor Panarin has long warned that the economic turmoil in the United States has confirmed his long-held view that the US is heading for collapse, and will divide into separate parts.

Professor Igor Panarin further stated in his warning that “the US Dollar is not secured by anything. The country’s foreign debt has grown like an avalanche, even though in the early 1980s there was no debt. By 1998, when I first made my prediction, it had exceeded $2 trillion. Now it is more than 11 trillion. This is a pyramid that can only collapse.”

What remains to be seen, and these reports do not speculate upon, is if the citizen-soldiers of the United States will fire upon and kill their fellow countrymen during the coming conflict, but if history is to be our guide clearly shows this will be the case as the once great American Nation continues its headlong plunge into the abyss of history. May God have mercy upon all of them. (AMEN.)
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Obama Betraying Military, Causes Troops to Die in Afghanistan

From one of the mouths on one of his faces, Obama NOW says that his worries about military spending are delaying his decision on sending more troops to Afghanistan.  That’s funny.  He wasn’t worried about too much spending when he signed the $787 Billion (which we didn’t have) porkulus package into law.  He doesn’t seem too worried about spending TRILLIONS more dollars we don’t have on a freedom destroying takeover of the American health care system.  He doesn’t seem too worried about spending TRILLIONS more dollars we don’t have, and completing the destruction of our economy by pushing his cap-and-charade climate change agenda, and vowing to sign the Copenhagen Treaty.  He doesn’t seem too worried about the BILLIONS of dollars that are being funneled to his cronies and union buddies in the form of political payoffs.

The amount of fraud, waste, and abuse of the Medicare system last year would fund the 40,000 troops that General McChrystal is requesting for an entire year.

Here’s a Nancy Pelosi, “Are you kidding me?” moment if I ever saw one.  During his current Asian “Apologize for America” tour, Comrade Obama stopped at Eielson AFB in Alaska.  There he told the 1,000 some-odd troops in attendance the following:

“I want you guys to understand that I will never hesitate to use force to protect the American people and our vital interests,” Obama told the troops. “But I also make you this promise: I will not risk your lives unless it is necessary to America’s vital interests.”

“And if it is necessary,” Obama added, “the United States of America will have your back. We’ll give you the strategy and the clear mission you deserve. We’ll give you the equipment and support you need to get the job done. And that includes public support back home.”

I wonder if he includes the troops in Afghanistan and Iraq in this statement, because he is using military force, and he is risking American military lives in those places.  Does he consider Afghanistan and Iraq to be “America’s vital interests?”  If he did, he would give them a “strategy and the clear mission” they deserve, and he would indeed “have their back,” and would be giving them “the equipment and support” they “need to get the job done.”

He has delayed for 3 months giving the General THAT HE APPOINTED the men and material that he has requested, so what does that say about Obama’s attitude toward Afghanistan?  What does it say about his attitude toward the military in general when looked at in the larger context of his military spending plans?

It appears to me that Chairman Maobama is attempting to destroy the military just as he appears to be intentionally trying to destroy the economy.  What will fill the void?  Remember that “civilian security force” Obama spoke of during his campaign?  The one that he said would be “just as well funded and equipped as the military?”  The current military swears to protect and defend the constitution.  Obama’s new “military” would swear allegiance to him.

Didn’t we learn ANYTHING from the second world war?  Brown Shirts, anyone?

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If Obama were a REAL American…

If Barack Obama, his commie wife, our commie politicians, the liberals, the muslim apologists, etc. REALLY loved America, they wouldn’t run around the word telling everyone how terrible they “think” we are.  They would be telling everyone how great we really are.

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At a time when our president and other politicians tend to apologize for our country’s prior actions, here is a refresher on how some of our former patriots handled negative comments about our country.

These are good

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JFK’S Secretary of State, Dean Rusk, was in France in the early 60’s when DeGaule decided to pull out of NATO.  DeGaule said he wanted all US military out of France as soon as possible.

Rusk responded “does that include those who are buried here?

DeGuale did not respond.

You could have heard a pin drop.

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When in England , at a fairly large conference; Colin Powell was asked by the Archbishop of Canterbury if our plans for Iraq were just an example of empire building by George Bush.

He answered by saying, ‘Over the years, the United States has sent many of its fine young men and women into great peril to fight for freedom beyond our borders.  The only amount of land we have ever asked for in return is enough to bury those that did not return.’

You could have heard a pin drop.

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There was a conference in France where a number of international engineers were taking part, including French and American.  During a break, one of the French engineers came back into the room saying ‘Have you heard the latest dumb stunt Bush has done? He has sent an aircraft carrier to Indonesia to help the tsunami victims.  What does he intended to do, bomb them?’

A Boeing engineer stood up and replied quietly: ‘Our carriers have three hospitals on board that can treat several hundred people; they are nuclear p powered and can supply emergency  electrical power to shore facilities; they have three  cafeterias with the capacity to feed 3,000 people three meals a day, they can produce several thousand gallons of fresh water from sea water each day, and they carry half a dozen helicopters for use in transporting victims and injured to and from their flight deck.  We have eleven such ships; how many does France have?’

You could have heard a pin drop.

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A U.S. Navy Admiral was attending a naval conference that included Admirals from the U.S. , English, Canadian, Australian and French Navies. At a cocktail reception, he found himself standing with a large group of Officers that included personnel from most of those countries. Everyone was chatting away in English as they sipped their drinks but a French admiral suddenly complained that, whereas Europeans learn many languages, Americans learn only English.  He then asked, ‘Why is it that we always have to speak English in these conferences rather than speaking French?’

Without hesitating, the American Admiral replied, ‘Maybe it’s because the Brit’s, Canadians, Aussie’s and Americans arranged it so you wouldn’t have to speak German.’

You could have heard a pin drop.

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AND THIS STORY FITS RIGHT IN WITH THE ABOVE….

Robert Whiting, an elderly gentleman of 83, arrived in Paris by plane.  At French Customs, he took a few minutes to locate his passport in his carry on.

“You have been to France before, monsieur?” the customs officer asked sarcastically.

Mr. Whiting admitted that he had been to France previously.

“Then you should know enough to have your passport ready.”

The American said, ‘The last time I was here, I didn’t have to show it.”

“Impossible. Americans always have to show your passports on arrival in France !”

The American senior gave the Frenchman a long hard look.  Then he quietly explained, ”Well, when I came ashore at Omaha Beach on D-Day in 1944 to help liberate this country, I couldn’t find a single Frenchmen to show a passport to.”

You could have heard a pin drop…

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Obama to Unilaterally Disarm U.S.

That’s what this amounts to. Every time we’ve tried to be “reasonable” with the Russians/Soviets, or “bargain” with them from OTHER than a position of strength, it has bought us nothing but grief. We are still paying the prices for those past follies now.

Now Obama is pledging to dismantle the only thing we have left keeping the hordes at bay. Out military is now so week that they can be challenged, especially when we are stretched so thinly across the globe. The only deterrent we have left is the threat of nuclear retaliation. In conjunction with the dismantling of our offensive/retaliatory strike capability, Obama is doing his best to dismantle the defensive capability as well by scuttling the missile defense systems.

Our own “president” is now the biggest threat to our nation! HE MUST GO! Can’t those of you who voted for “change” see that with Obama staying in office we have no “hope?” Now with the liberals in COMPLETE control of both the house and senate following the appointment of Franken to the senate, THERE IS NOT STOPPING OBAMA’S COMMUNIST/SOCIALIST AGENDA. If we don’t “disarm” the house and senate by reigning in or removing the liberals, there will not be an America left to salvage by next year.

God, be merciful on us.

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http://apnews.myway.com/article/20090706/D9996QEG0.html

Obama, Medvedev agree to deal to cut nuke weapons

Jul 6, 5:31 PM (ET)
By STEVEN R. HURST

MOSCOW (AP) – Presidents Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev confidently committed to a year-end deal to slash nuclear stockpiles by about a third on Monday, but the U.S. leader failed to crack stubborn Kremlin objections to America’s missile defense plans – a major stumbling block to such an agreement.

Both men renewed pledges to pull U.S.-Russian relations out of the dismal state into which they had descended during the eight years of the Bush administration. And to that end, they signed a series of agreements and joint statements designed to enliven and quicken contacts on a broad range of issues – including cooperation on Afghanistan, a key Obama foreign policy objective.

Obama said the leaders both felt relations had “suffered from a sense of drift. President Medvedev and I are committed to leaving behind the suspicion and rivalry of the past.”

His host expressed similar good will.

“This is the first but very important step in improving full-scale cooperation between our two countries, which would go to the benefit of both states,” the Russian leader said. But he injected a note of caution, saying discussions so far “cannot remove the burden of all the problems.”

There was no statement of Russian readiness to help the United States persuade Iran to abandon its nuclear ambitions, even though Obama’s top Russia adviser, Michael McFaul, told reporters in a post-meeting briefing that Iran dominated the two leaders’ private meeting that opened the summit. Talks continued in an expanded session that included 12 advisers for each president.

For all the upbeat public statements, a pall of disagreement on missile defense and NATO expansion lingered over the glittering Kremlin hall where Obama and Medvedev answered reporters’ questions. Obama said the meetings had been “frank,” diplomatic speak for difficult.

Obama sits down on Tuesday with Medvedev’s patron and predecessor as president, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, the target of a verbal poke from the U.S. president last Friday. In a pre-summit interview with The Associated Press, Obama said Putin still had one foot in the old, Cold War way of doing things.

While Medvedev insisted on Monday that a replacement to the keystone START I nuclear arms reduction treaty, which expires Dec. 5, must be linked to Russian concerns about the U.S. missile defense program in Eastern Europe, it remained unclear if the Kremlin was prepared to scuttle the negotiations over that issue.

Gary Samore, Obama’s chief adviser on weapons of mass destruction and arms control, told reporters he did not believe the Russians were prepared to walk away.

“I think at the end of the day – because our missile defense does not actually pose a threat to Russia’s strategic forces – I think they’ll be prepared to go ahead without trying to extract a price on missile defense.”

And McFaul said it had been made “crystal clear” from the beginning that negotiations about a START replacement would not include any missile defense issues.

Washington insists the defense program is designed only to protect European allies from missile attack by Iran.

Hoping to ease Kremlin concerns, Obama promised that an assessment of whether the missile defense would actually work would be finished by late summer, earlier than expected, and that he would share initial U.S. thoughts with Medvedev.

Obama also said he understood in principle that arms control must take into account both offensive and defensive weapons. But he insisted the missile defense installations planned for Poland and the Czech Republic would pose no threat to Russia. He said they were not being built to intercept missiles from “a mighty Russian arsenal.”

Obama does not approach the missile defense issue with the same fervor as former President George W. Bush, whose administration was responsible for reaching agreement with the two former Soviet satellites to serve as sites for the system.

The planned START replacement pact – the centerpiece summit agreement – calls for each side to reduce strategic warheads to a range of 1,500 to 1,675, and strategic delivery vehicles to a range of 500 to 1,100. Current limits allow a maximum of 2,200 warheads and 1,600 launch vehicles. The new treaty, as conceived, would run for 10 years. Each side would have seven years to reach reduction goals with the final three years used for verification.

Medvedev called the plan a “reasonable compromise.”

Among the deals meant to sweeten Obama’s two days of talks here and show progress toward resetting U.S.-Russian ties was a joint statement on Afghanistan. It included a deal to allow the United States to transport arms and military personnel across Russian land and airspace into Afghanistan.

The White House said that would save $133 million a year, through a transit fee waiver, shorter flying times and fuel savings.

The presidents outlined other areas in which they said their countries would work together to help stabilize Afghanistan, including increasing assistance to the Afghan army and police, and training counternarcotics personnel. A joint statement said they welcomed increased international support for upcoming Afghan elections and were prepared to help Afghanistan and Pakistan work together against the “common threats of terrorism, extremism and drug trafficking.”

Among other side agreements was the resumption of military cooperation, suspended after Russia invaded neighboring Georgia last August and sent relations into a nosedive. Last August, after the Georgian president ordered his military to try to retake the breakaway region of South Ossetia, Russia invaded and crushed the tiny nation’s military.

McFaul said Obama would never accept Russia’s contention that South Ossetia and Abkhazia, another breakaway Georgia region, are no longer part of Georgia.

Putin has voiced deep anger with Georgia’s coziness with the United States as it lobbies to join NATO, and the standoff about Georgia is likely to be a central issue when Putin meets with Obama on Tuesday.

Obama also will deliver a speech Tuesday to graduates of Moscow’s New Economic School in a bid to reach out to the Russian people. In addition, he plans to meet with opposition leaders who are continually under government pressure for their complaints about retreating democracy and freedom under Putin.

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Associated Press Writer Ben Feller contributed to this report.

Barack Obama rejects Normandy trip to avoid offending Germany

Didn’t want to offend the GERMANS? This lying, narcissistic pecker head doesn’t want to offend anyone else around the world, but he doesn’t seem to mind offending his SUBJECTS at home. He was overheard being asked by a staffer why he didn’t want to go to Normandy, to which he responded “…there are not live voters there.” He doesn’t care about doing what is best for America. He cares about what is best for the rock-star image of B. Hussein Obama. He’s only going to go where he can draw the biggest crowd.

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The Humbling of a Superpower

Another excellent perspective on the significance of Obama’s genuflection and kowtowing to the European weenies and to the Wahhabi King.  I submit to you, Greg Niedermier, that this IS NOT the kind of leader that America needs to defend us and maintain our standing as a benevolent super power.

The Humbling of a Superpower

by Nile Gardiner (more by this author)

Posted 04/09/2009 ET

It is hard to imagine a bigger slight to the memory of the more than 100,000 American soldiers who died liberating Europe than the image of a U.S. president attacking the “arrogance” of his own country on French soil. President Obama’s speech last week ahead of the NATO summit in Strasbourg, barely 500 miles from the beaches of Normandy, marked a low point in presidential speechmaking on foreign policy.

The largely French and German town hall audience cheered like ancient Romans in a packed Coliseum. This time, however, it was not Christians being fed to the lions but the symbolism of U.S. power, as the president lashed out at America’s “failure to appreciate Europe’s leading role in the world.” Obama bemoaned that “instead of celebrating your dynamic union and seeking to partner with you to meet common challenges, there have been times where America has shown arrogance and been dismissive, even derisive.”

The Franco-German crowd also clapped mightily in approval and bayed for more when the president boasted of closing down the detention center in Guantanamo Bay, declaring that “without equivocation or exception that the United States of America does not and will not torture,” as though his own country had been some sort of brutal tyranny that had suddenly seen the light with his election. It was a thoroughly distasteful attack on the previous administration’s interrogation of extremely dangerous terror suspects, feeding into the very anti-Americanism that Obama had half-heartedly challenged earlier in his address.

This was a humiliating spectacle to behold as the leader of the most powerful nation on earth prostrated his country before a European audience that lapped up his message as though it was manna from heaven. Obama’s actions represented the humbling of a superpower on the world stage, a defining moment for a new administration that is weakening American global leadership and taking every opportunity to engage with its enemies, such as Iran, or its strategic competitors, including Russia and China.

It was an approach that failed to reap any dividends on the president’s European tour. If anything, this trip proved there is little to be gained from bending to the whims of European governments, who simply view it as weakness to be exploited and used to their own advantage. When Obama urged Europeans to play a bigger role in the NATO mission in Afghanistan, his words were met in the Strasbourg amphitheatre with an eerie silence, as though this was a ridiculous request and an affront to their delicate sensibilities.

Behind the scenes at the NATO summit, there was no evidence of goodwill towards the pleas of the rock star-like American president. Obama succeeded only in securing a weak-kneed pledge of 5,000 European trainers and military police to join the NATO-led International Security Force in Afghanistan, most of whom will remain in the country only until the elections in August. Great Britain was the only European nation to offer a significant number of additional combat troops — 1,000 — to be added to the 8,300 British forces already on the ground.

It is continental European leaders, including French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who should be apologizing for the failure of their own countries to fight in Afghanistan, while American, British and Canadian troops are dying in large numbers on the battlefields. The brutal fact is that Obama achieved nothing at all at the NATO summit, and the war in Afghanistan remains overwhelmingly a conflict fought by a small group of English-speaking nations who continue to take 85 percent of the casualties in the fight against the Taliban, while most of Europe sits pathetically on the sidelines with cowardly indifference.

In world affairs, popularity rarely brings with it concrete results. Ronald Reagan was reviled in Europe but together with Margaret Thatcher brought down the might of the Soviet Empire. President Bush was burnt in effigy in almost every capital city across the European Union but succeeded in liberating sixty million Muslims from tyranny and kept the United States safe from terrorist attack in the years following 9/11.

It wasn’t much better for Obama at the preceding G-20 summit in London, where European leaders made all the running. Obama may have stolen the limelight and the best photo-ops but shaped little of the policy. Eventually the United States signed up to a communiqué that pledged $750 billion for the IMF, a European-dominated highly ineffective organization, as well as laying the foundations of a new global regulatory architecture for the financial industry, that poses a huge threat to American national sovereignty and the freedom of American companies to operate in global markets.

As the Obama administration will gradually begin to realize, world leadership is not a popularity contest. Rather, it is about taking tough decisions and positions that will be met with hostility in many parts of the globe. It is about the assertive projection of American power, both to secure the homeland and to protect the free world. It is often a lonely and unenviable task that at times will require the use of maximum force against America’s enemies and a willingness to face the scorn of countries whose glories are way behind them, or who lack the courage and conviction to do what is right.

Obama faces a world that in many ways is even more dangerous than the one that existed during the Cold War, with an array of rogue regimes close to developing offensive nuclear weapons capability, as well as a global terrorist network that seeks the very destruction of the United States and its allies. This is not the time for flower power speeches repenting for the so-called “arrogance” of the globe’s only superpower, or pointless declarations about creating a “nuclear free world.”

The president must deal with the world as it is now, not as he imagines it. This requires confronting the Mullahs of Tehran and tyrants such as Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Kim Jong Il, and standing up to Russian aggression in its ‘Near Abroad.’ It also involves a determination to wage a global war, not an “Overseas Contingency Operation,” against Islamist groups and networks in the form of Al-Qaeda, the Taliban, Hamas, Hezbollah and an array of other terrorist organizations. This will require significantly increased military spending not less, as well as the full implementation of a global missile defense system.

This is not a moment for faint hearts and 60s-style pacifism, but a time for America to project its might on the world stage and defeat its enemies. Europe can mock and jeer on the sidelines all it likes, but will quickly rediscover that its own security ultimately lies in supporting a United States that roars like a lion rather than bleats like a lamb.

Cartoon by Brett Noel.

Nile Gardiner, Ph.D. is the Director of the Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom, and a Margaret Thatcher Senior Research Fellow at The Heritage Foundation.

The Biden Prophecy

Life is hard enough without being stupid.

The Biden Prophecy
Charles Krauthammer
Friday, February 20, 2009

WASHINGTON — The Biden prophecy has come to pass. Our wacky veep, momentarily inspired, had predicted last October that “it will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama.” Biden probably had in mind an eve-of-the-apocalypse drama like the Cuban Missile Crisis. Instead, Obama’s challenges have come in smaller bites. Some are deliberate threats to U.S. interests, others mere probes to ascertain whether the new president has any spine.

Preliminary X-rays are not very encouraging.

Consider the long list of brazen Russian provocations:

(a) Pressuring Kyrgyzstan to shut down the U.S. air base in Manas, an absolutely crucial NATO conduit into Afghanistan.

(b) Announcing the formation of a “rapid reaction force” with six former Soviet republics, a regional Russian-led strike force meant to reassert Russian hegemony in the Muslim belt north of Afghanistan.

(c) Planning to establish a Black Sea naval base in Georgia’s breakaway province of Abkhazia, conquered by Moscow last summer.

(d) Declaring Russia’s intention to deploy offensive Iskander missiles in Kaliningrad if Poland and the Czech Republic go ahead with plans to station an American (anti-Iranian) missile defense system.

President Bush’s response to the Kaliningrad deployment — the threat was issued the day after Obama’s election — was firm. He refused to back down because giving in to Russian threats would leave Poles and Czechs exposed and show the world that, contrary to post-Cold War assumptions, the U.S. could not be trusted to protect Eastern Europe from Russian bullying.

The Obama response? “Biden Signals U.S. Is Open to Russia Missile Deal,” as The New York Times headlined Biden’s Feb. 7 Munich speech to a major international gathering. This followed strong messages from the Obama transition team even before the inauguration that Obama was not committed to the missile shield. And just to make sure everyone understood that the Bush policy no longer held, Biden in Munich said the U.S. wanted to “press the reset button” on NATO-Russian relations.

Not surprisingly, the Obama wobble elicited a favorable reaction from Russia. (There are conflicting reports that Russia might suspend the Kaliningrad blackmail deployment.) The Kremlin must have been equally impressed that the other provocations — Abkhazia, Kyrgyzstan, the rapid reaction force — elicited barely a peep from Washington.

Iran has been similarly charmed by Obama’s overtures. A week after the new president went about sending sweet peace signals via al-Arabiya, Iran launched its first homemade Earth satellite. The message is clear. If you can put a satellite into orbit, you can hit any continent with a missile, North America included.

And for emphasis, after the roundhouse hook, came the poke in the eye. A U.S. women’s badminton team had been invited to Iran. Here was a chance for “ping-pong diplomacy” with the accommodating new president, a sporting venture meant to suggest the possibility of warmer relations.

On Feb. 4, Tehran denied the team entry into Iran.

Then, just in case Obama failed to get the message, Iran’s parliament speaker rose in Munich to offer his response to Obama’s olive branch. Executive summary: Thank you very much. After you acknowledge 60 years of crimes against us, change not just your tone but your policies, and abandon the Zionist criminal entity, we might deign to talk to you.

With a grinning Goliath staggering about sporting a “kick me” sign on his back, even reputed allies joined the fun. Pakistan freed from house arrest A.Q. Khan, the notorious proliferator who sold nuclear technology to North Korea, Libya and Iran. Ten days later, Islamabad capitulated to the Taliban, turning over to its tender mercies the Swat Valley, 100 miles from the capital. Not only will sharia law now reign there, but the democratically elected secular party will be hunted down as the Pakistani army stands down.

These Pakistani capitulations may account for Obama’s hastily announced 17,000 troop increase in Afghanistan even before his various heralded reviews of the mission have been completed. Hasty, unexplained, but at least something. Other than that, a month of pummeling has been met with utter passivity.

I would like to think the supine posture is attributable to a rookie leader otherwise preoccupied (i.e. domestically), leading a foreign policy team as yet unorganized if not disoriented. But when the State Department says that Hugo Chavez’s president-for-life referendum, which was preceded by a sham government-controlled campaign featuring the tear-gassing of the opposition, was “for the most part … a process that was fully consistent with democratic process,” you have to wonder if Month One is not a harbinger of things to come.

Obama’s War

Obama’s War
by Patrick J. Buchanan (more by this author)
Posted 12/19/2008 ET

Just two months after the twin towers fell, the armies of the Northern Alliance marched into Kabul. The Taliban fled.

The triumph was total in the “splendid little war” that had cost one U.S. casualty. Or so it seemed. Yet, last month, the war against the Taliban entered its eighth year, the second longest war in our history, and America and NATO have never been nearer to strategic defeat.

So critical is the situation that Defense Secretary Robert Gates, in Kandahar last week, promised rapid deployment, before any Taliban spring offensive, of two and perhaps three combat brigades of the 20,000 troops requested by Gen. David McKiernan. The first 4,000, from the 10th Mountain, are expected in January.

With 34,000 U.S. soldiers already in country, half under NATO command, the 20,000 will increase U.S. forces there to 54,000, a 60 percent ratcheting up. Shades of LBJ, 1964-65. Afghanistan is going to be Obama’s War. And upon its outcome will hang the fate of his presidency. Has he thought this through?

How do we win this war, if by winning we mean establishing a pro-Western democratic government in control of the country that has the support of the people and loyalty of an Afghan army strong enough to defend the nation from a resurgent Taliban?

We are further from that goal going into 2009 than we were five years ago.

What are the long-term prospects for any such success?

Each year, the supply of opium out of Afghanistan, from which most of the world’s heroin comes, sets a new record. Payoffs by narcotics traffickers are corrupting the government. The fanatically devout Taliban had eradicated the drug trade, but is now abetting the drug lords in return for money for weapons to kill the Americans.

Militarily, the Taliban forces are stronger than they have been since 2001, moving out of the south and east and infesting half the country. They have sanctuaries in Pakistan and virtually ring Kabul.

U.S. air strikes have killed so many Afghan civilians that President Karzai, who controls little more than Kabul, has begun to condemn the U.S. attacks. Predator attacks on Taliban and al-Qaida in Pakistan have inflamed the population there.

And can pinprick air strikes win a war of this magnitude?

The supply line for our troops in Afghanistan, which runs from Karachi up to Peshawar through the Khyber Pass to Kabul, is now a perilous passage. Four times this month, U.S. transport depots in Pakistan have been attacked, with hundred of vehicles destroyed.

Before arriving in Kandahar, Gates spoke grimly of a “sustained commitment for some protracted period of time. How many years that is, and how many troops that is … nobody knows.”

Gen. McKiernan says it will be at least three or four years before the Afghan army and police can handle the Taliban.

But why does it take a dozen years to get an Afghan army up to where it can defend the people and regime against a Taliban return? Why do our Afghans seem less disposed to fight and die for democracy than the Taliban are to fight and die for theocracy? Does their God, Allah, command a deeper love and loyalty than our god, democracy?

McKiernan says the situation may get worse before it gets better. Gates compares Afghanistan to the Cold War. “(W)e are in many respects in an ideological conflict with violent extremists. … The last ideological conflict we were in lasted about 45 years.”

That would truly be, in Donald Rumsfeld’s phrase, “a long, hard slog.”

America, without debate, is about to invest blood and treasure, indefinitely, in a war to which no end seems remotely in sight, if the commanding general is talking about four years at least and the now-and-future war minister is talking about four decades.

What is there to win in Afghanistan to justify doubling down our investment? If our vital interest is to deny a sanctuary there to al-Qaida, do we have to build a new Afghanistan to accomplish that? Did not al-Qaida depart years ago for a new sanctuary in Pakistan?

What hope is there of creating in this tribal land a democracy committed to freedom, equality and human rights that Afghans have never known? What is the expectation that 54,000 or 75,000 U.S. troops can crush an insurgency that enjoys a privileged sanctuary to which it can return, to rest, recuperate and recruit for next year’s offensive? Of all the lands of the earth, Afghanistan has been among the least hospitable to foreigners who come to rule, or to teach them how they should rule themselves.

Would Dwight D. Eisenhower — who settled for the status quo ante in Korea, an armistice at the line of scrimmage — commit his country to such an open-ended war? Would Richard Nixon? Would Ronald Reagan?

Hard to believe. George W. Bush would. But did not America vote against Bush? Why is America getting seamless continuity when it voted for significant change?

Mr. Buchanan is a nationally syndicated columnist and author of Churchill, Hitler, and “The Unnecessary War”: How Britain Lost Its Empire and the West Lost the World, “The Death of the West,”, “The Great Betrayal,” “A Republic, Not an Empire” and “Where the Right Went Wrong.”