Showing posts with label War. Show all posts
Showing posts with label War. Show all posts

Friday, March 28, 2014

A "BREATHTAKING" REDUCTION OF U.S. POWER: Obama Defunds Critical Hellfire and Tomahawk Missile Systems

Guest post by Investor's Business Daily

Defense Spending: Two more weapons systems, including the Navy's premier attack missile, have been targeted for elimination by the administration years before their usefulness ends or replacements are ready.

How ironic that Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Barack Obama used the Tomahawk missile he now seeks to scrap as his weapon of choice when on March 19, 2011, he launched Operation Odyssey Dawn and fired 112 Tomahawks at Libyan targets to enforce a U.N.-backed no fly-zone in support of Libyan rebels fighting Moammar Gadhafi.

Future presidents will not be able to carry such a big stick. Along with the Hellfire air-to-ground attack missile, the Tomahawk is considered by the administration to be one of those Cold War weapons no longer needed.

Under Obama's budget proposals, the Navy, which as recently as last year had plans to buy 980 more Tomahawks, the primary cruise missile used throughout the fleet, will see purchases drop from 196 last year to just 100 in 2015. The number will then drop to zero in 2016.

The U.S. used 220 Tomahawks in the fight with Libya, according to the Washington Free Beacon. With the States using about 100 Tomahawks annually, our inventory will be depleted around 2018. No future purchases are planned, and no replacement is in the pipeline.

"It doesn't make sense," Seth Cropsey, director of the Hudson Institute's Center for American Seapower, told the Free Beacon. The move, he said, is "like running a white flag up on a very tall flagpole and saying, 'We are ready to be walked on.'"

If someone were trying to "reduce the U.S. ability to shape events" in the world, Cropsey added, "they couldn't find a better way than depriving the U.S. fleet of Tomahawks. It's breathtaking."

Wednesday, March 26, 2014

SOUNDING THE ALARM: Obama doing to the U.S. military what no enemy on Earth could do

Guest post by Alan Caruba


I began March with a look at the way President Obama is undermining the U.S. military and did not think I would have to return to this topic for a while. I was wrong.

A March 25 article in The Washington Times was titled “Obama to Kill Navy’s Tomahawk, Hellfire Missile Programs in Budget Decimation” and on March 21, The Wall Street Journal published a commentary, “America’s Incredible Shrinking Navy.” When you add those to The New York Times February 23 article, “Pentagon Plans to Shrink Army to Pre-World War II Level”, you’ve got sufficient reason to begin to realize something very ominous is occurring.

This concern is heightened by the way dozens of high ranking officers are, in the view of some observers, being purged. A number of retired generals are speaking out about it. One of them, retired Army Major General Paul Vallely has charged that Obama is “intentionally weakening and gutting our military and reducing us as a superpower, and anyone in the ranks who disagrees or speaks out is being purged.” Retired Army Major General Patrick Brady agrees saying, “There is no doubt he is intent on emasculating the military and will fire anyone who disagrees with him.”

The world, over the course of human civilization, has always been a dangerous place. Much of the history of mankind is a history of wars, large and small. In the last century the U.S. military was involved in two world wars, a Korean conflict, a war in Vietnam, and the Gulf War to drive out Hussein’s Iraqi forces after he invaded Kuwait.

The Russian seizure of Crimea in the wake of the protests that has left Ukraine in disarray has put all of Europe on edge and raised questions about the readiness of NATO. A look around the world sees China increasing its military strength, particularly at sea.

The Middle East to include much of northern Africa is a hotbed of turmoil. And, of course, Iran continues to contribute to it, aiding Syria’s regime along with the Russians, supporting Palestinian terror organizations that threaten Israel, while pursuing its own nuclear weapon capabilities.

Tuesday, March 25, 2014

SICK, DELUSIONAL OLD FOOL: Harry Reid Blames Russia's Invasion of Ukraine on... Republicans

Guest post by Investor's Business Daily

Politics: Harry Reid blames Russia's annexation of Crimea on Republicans who didn't act fast enough on a sanctions package. But he ignores Obama's appeasement as president and push when a senator to disarm Ukraine.

The Senate Majority Leader's latest claim is consistent with other utterances out of his parallel universe, including calling Stage IV cancer patients liars about Obamacare's collateral damage and asking why we'd want to save one child with cancer.

"Since a few Republicans blocked these important sanctions, Russian lawmakers voted to annex Crimea, and Russian forces have taken over Ukrainian military bases," Harry Reid said Monday as the Senate began debate on a package of sanctions and aid.

"It's impossible to know whether events would have unfolded differently if the United States had responded to Russian aggression with a strong, unified voice."

The man who makes Vice President Joe Biden look competent by comparison ignores the fact that since the House and Senate passed different versions, quick action on sanctions would have been impossible and that it was Reid and the Democrats who refused to bring up the House version as is.

The Senate version wasn't a clean bill, having attached provisions that would increase the power of emerging countries in the International Monetary Fund and shift some $63 billion from a crisis fund to a general account that Republicans feared would leave U.S. taxpayers on the hook for more foreign bailouts.

Friday, March 21, 2014

PARTY OF WEAKNESS COMIX: Mom Jeans vs. KGB

Democrats despise our military and have always undermined our national defense. Always.


As former director of the U.S. Naval Institute Steve Cohen notes, "Only 35% of the U.S. Navy's entire fleet is deployed, fewer than 100 ships, including just three aircraft carriers."

And Obama wants more cuts. Not for his radical corporatist green-energy buddies. Not for the hundreds of millions of waste, fraud and abuse as described by the federal government itself.

No, Democrats always want to cut the military.

Because they despise America.

The next president is going to have one hell of a mess on his or her hands.


Hat tip: BadBlue News

Wednesday, March 19, 2014

FORMER PENTAGON INSPECTOR GENERAL: Obama Administration Riddled With Deceit

Guest post by M.D. Kittle

Yes, government waste, fraud and abuse are the triplet children of incompetence, greed and unbridled ambition.


Joseph E. Schmitz, former inspector general of the U.S. Department of Defense, says the Obama administration doesn’t like watchdogs looking at it.
But these sins of public trust begin and end with dishonesty.And Joseph E. Schmitz has seen a lot of lying by the government to taxpayers in his lengthy legal career.

Schmitz, who served as inspector general of the U.S. Department of Defense from 2002-05, in an interview with Watchdog.org said, “no political party has a monopoly on waste, fraud and abuse and corruption.”

But he said he has seen some troubling patterns of deceit in the Obama administration.

Exhibit A, according to the attorney: Benghazi.

“I still represent whistleblowers, and I see the people in this current administration just blatantly lying — lying to American citizens, lying about people trying to redress grievances,” Schmitz said. “These huge scandals start with dishonesty.”

Conservatives have been critical of the Obama administration’s handling of the Sept. 11, 2012, attack on a U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, an assault that killed four Americans — including a U.S. ambassador.

A Senate Intelligence Committee report released in January criticized the Hillary Clinton-led U.S. State Department and the intelligence community for not preventing the attacks.

The long-delayed bipartisan report asserts the State Department failed to increase security, although it had been repeatedly warned to do so, and it faulted intelligence agencies for not sharing information.

“The attacks were preventable, based on extensive intelligence reporting on the terrorist activity in Libya — to include prior threats and attacks against Western targets — and given the known security shortfalls at the U.S. Mission,” the panel said in a statement.

The report was released a year after Clinton, in aggravation at a Senate committee hearing on Benghazi, asked U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., “What difference does it make?”

“Was it because of a protest or was it because of guys out for a walk one night and decided they’d go kill some Americans,” Clinton said. “What difference — at this point, what difference does it make?”

Schmitz, like myriad other conservatives, said the State Department’s actions, or lack thereof, made a big difference in the outcome of the attacks.

“From my standpoint, whoever wrote those fallacious talking points that (then U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations) Susan Rice repeated to citizens in government, those blatantly dishonest talking points that were propagated by senior officials. And nobody has been held accountable,” the former inspector general said.

Tuesday, March 18, 2014

Misunderstanderers of Islam call for car bombs in U.S. cities

Last week, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) released the 12th issue of their Inspire e-magazine. This issue, the first since last year’s release of Issue 11 (30 May 2013), continues AQAP’s calls for attacks on the West, individual jihad, and the lionization of the Tsarnaev brothers. Local attacks are encouraged with considerable focus on the Commercial Facilities Sector, and sporting events in particular. It also identifies high-priority targets in the US, UK and France.

A section entitled “Open Source Jihad” asserts it is a “resource manual for those who loathe the tyrants; includes bomb-making techniques, security measures, guerrilla tactics, weapons training and all other jihad related activities.” As with previous messages, the section continues to encourage jihadists to conduct local operations as opposed to assuming risk via overseas travel.

The section on "Car Bombs Inside America" states, “Inspire Magazine's goal is to empower Muslim youth. And what is empowerment without being strong, powerful and intelligent? In this section, we give you strength, power and intelligence. Believe me, using car bombs gives you all that. It is absolutely simple. And we will make it simpler for you, biidhnillāh (meaning: by Allah’s [God’s] will), so that every Muslim, who loves Allāh and His Messenger, and wants to accelerate Islam's victory, becomes prepare to make, even if this is the first military mate- rial his eyes has set on. This recipe gives you the ability to make a car bomb even in countries with tight security and surveillance. The reason is: primary materials easily available and they do not raise suspicion. These materials are not explosives in nature. But after you have assemble and prepare them, they become a bomb ready for destruction, biidhnillāh. This type of car bomb is not usually used to destroy buildings, but is very effective in killing individuals. The merit of this method is that you can prepare a car bomb in a few hours during the availability of the primary materials. So there is less worry about your personal security.”

A section captioned “Car Bomb Field Data” states, "Choosing the place and time is a crucial factor to success in any operation. Choose targets in your own country. You know the enemy better, you are within. We will point out some general and specific targets as an example.” Identifying “general targets,” the segment continues, “America is our first target, followed by United Kingdom, France and other crusader countries. As for the field target for the car-bomb, you have places flooded with individuals, e.g. sports events in which tens of thousands attend, election campaigns, festivals and other gathering. The important thing is that you target people and not buildings.” The section then lists specific target areas within the US, UK and France.

Friday, March 14, 2014

OUTRAGE: Obama's Roman Orgy of Wealth Redistribution Funded on the Backs of America's Veterans

Guest post by Investor's Business Daily

ObamaCare: The administration plans to cut the military pensions of those who served their country while giving public employees a break by exempting their ObamaCare subsidies from sequestration.

On the heels of announcing that Army troop levels will be cut below pre-World War II levels, the Military Times has reported that the Obama administration is planning to reduce military pension costs by 10% by converting part of their retirement to 401(k)-like defined-contribution plans from defined-benefit plans.

What makes this interesting is that it affects military retirees and members of the military who are non-union and therefore can't strike or engage in collective bargaining. Public-sector union employees will retain their defined-benefit plans.

So, those who defend this country will be cut while those who feed at the public trough and whose union dues provide a ready supply of campaign cash will not.

To cut the retirement benefits of the military after these genuine heroes have fought with honor and distinction for 13 years in Iraq and Afghanistan is unconscionable. It's particularly despicable to treat American military retirees worse than other public employees.

President Obama has long defended defined-benefit plans, which, yes, do cost the government more and have pushed some cities and states toward bankruptcy. In a defense of public-sector unions and their benefits, Obama spoke forcefully to the National Governors Association at the White House on Feb. 28, 2011:

"I don't think it does anybody any good when public employees are denigrated or vilified or their rights are infringed upon."

That cost-saving measures are to be applied only to the military and not to politically favored groups and programs

O'S PARTNERS IN PEACE: Iranian Military General Swears on His Religion That They Will Annihilate Israel

When it comes to Barack Obama, there are -- best I can tell -- three possible reasons for his catastrophic track record.

Imagine a Venn diagram with three interlocking circles. One is labeled Marxism, the other is marked Hatred, and the last one is captioned Ignorance. All three circles overlap with different ratios depending upon the actual policy.

Take Obama's Middle East policy. Please. He has, in just five short years, isolated our strongest ally Israel; attempted to prop up the Nazi-aligned Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt; toppled a strongman in Libya leaving Al Qaeda in charge; permitted a U.S. ambassador and other diplomatic personnel to be slaughtered during a seven hour gunfight without lifting a finger to help; failed to pursue said terrorists despite multiple promises to do so; and attempted to interfere in Syria by drawing bogus "red lines" failing only after Congress refused to empower evil bastards of one stripe or another.

But the worst element of all of Obama's miserable foreign policies failures relate to Iran. During the Green Revolution that threatened to topple the Islamofascist Mullahs, Obama refused to speak out during the critical first week of riots and protests. Eventually the resistance movement was crushed thanks to Obama's inaction and -- seemingly -- tacit endorsement of the Mullah's actions.

Then there's Iran's nuclear program, which no credible observer believes is destined for anything except for the manufacture of atomic bombs. Instead of choking the Islamofascists through sanctions, Obama instead argued for relaxing the economic noose.

And his reward is the entirely predictable set of statements coming out of Tehran.

Iranian Deputy Commander Warns They Are Ready to Annihilate Israel


MEMRI. Org: Speaking at a conference held in Tehran, Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Deputy Commander Brigadier-General Hossein Salami said: “We, here, can muster all our energies in order to annihilate the Zionist entity, more than 1,400 kilometers away. We are ready for that moment in the future.”

Following are excerpts from the speech, which aired on Al-Alam TV on March 11, 2014.

Brigadier-General Hossein Salami: Despite the geographical distance, we are attached to the hearts of the Palestinians. How is it that our slogans and goals are identical to the slogans and causes of the Palestinians? Why do we strive to become martyrs and risk our lives for the Palestinian cause?

The answer is that the religion of Islam has designated this for us – this goal, this motivation, this belief, this energy – so that we, here, can muster all our energies in order to annihilate the Zionist entity, more than 1,400 kilometers away. We are ready for that moment in the future.

These Islamonazis are Obama's "partners in peace". His negotiating partners. His pals.

Can it be any more clear what Barack Hussein Obama's true agenda is?


Hat tip: BadBlue News

Thursday, March 13, 2014

FOURTH TURNING: The People vs. Big Brother

Guest post by Jim Quinn

“The risk of catastrophe will be very high. The nation could erupt into insurrection or civil violence, crack up geographically, or succumb to authoritarian rule. If there is a war, it is likely to be one of maximum risk and effort – in other words, a total war. Every Fourth Turning has registered an upward ratchet in the technology of destruction, and in mankind’s willingness to use it.” – Strauss & Howe - The Fourth Turning

“In the need to develop a capacity to know what potential enemies are doing, the United States government has perfected a technological capability that enables us to monitor the messages that go through the air. Now, that is necessary and important to the United States as we look abroad at enemies or potential enemies. We must know, at the same time, that capability at any time could be turned around on the American people, and no American would have any privacy left such is the capability to monitor everything—telephone conversations, telegrams, it doesn’t matter. There would be no place to hide.

If this government ever became a tyrant, if a dictator ever took charge in this country, the technological capacity that the intelligence community has given the government could enable it to impose total tyranny, and there would be no way to fight back because the most careful effort to combine together in resistance to the government, no matter how privately it was done, is within the reach of the government to know. Such is the capability of this technology.

I don’t want to see this country ever go across the bridge. I know the capacity that is there to make tyranny total in America, and we must see to it that this agency and all agencies that possess this technology operate within the law and under proper supervision so that we never cross over that abyss. That is the abyss from which there is no return.”Frank Church on Meet the Press regarding the NSA – 1975

Ever since Edward Snowden burst onto the worldwide stage in June 2013, I’ve been wondering how he fits into the fabric of this ongoing Fourth Turning. This period of Crisis that arrives like clockwork, 60 to 70 years after the end of the previous Fourth Turning (Civil War – 66 years after American Revolution, Great Depression/World War II – 64 years after Civil War, Global Financial Crisis – 62 years after World War II), arrived in September 2008 with the Federal Reserve created collapse of the global financial system. We are now five and a half years into this Fourth Turning, with its climax not likely until the late-2020’s. At this point in previous Fourth Turnings a regeneracy had unified sides in their cause and a grey champion or champions (Ben Franklin/Samuel Adams, Lincoln/Davis, FDR) had stepped forward to lead. Thus far, no one from the Prophet generation has been able to unify the nation and create a sense of common civic purpose. Societal trust continues to implode, as faith in political, financial, corporate, and religious institutions spirals downward. There is no sign of a unifying regeneracy on the horizon.

The core elements of this Fourth Turning continue to propel this Crisis: debt, civic decay, global disorder. Central bankers, politicians, and government bureaucrats have been able to fashion the illusion of recovery and return to normalcy, but their “solutions” are nothing more than smoke and mirrors exacerbating the next bloodier violent stage of this Fourth Turning. The emergencies will become increasingly dire, triggering unforeseen reactions and unintended consequences. The civic fabric of our society will be torn asunder.

Wednesday, March 12, 2014

SEN. FEINSTEIN (D-CA): Obama White House Ordered CIA to Spy on Congress, an Impeachable Offense

Where are those styrofoam Grecian columns when you need them?

Senate Democrats are openly accusing the White House of ordering the CIA to spy on Congress during a Senate Intelligence Committee investigation.

As Rachel Maddow so aptly put it, this is “death of the Republic stuff.” The congressional committee tasked with overseeing the executive branch and our intelligence agencies is being spied upon and their investigations “interfered” with, and it’s coming straight from the White House, according to top Senate Democrat and Intelligence Committee chairwoman Dianne Feinstein...

Say, I wonder if Feinstein is funded by the Koch brothers?

The Washington Post described Feinstein's tirade, but omitted some key facets of the story.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said that the situation amounted to attempted intimidation of congressional investigators, adding: “I am not taking it lightly.”

She confirmed that an internal agency investigation of the action has been referred to the Justice Department for possible criminal prosecution. And she said that the CIA appears to have violated the Fourth Amendment, which bars unreasonable searches and seizures, as well as various federal laws and a presidential executive order that prevents the agency from conducting domestic searches and surveillance.

She has sought an apology and recognition that the CIA search of the committee’s computers was inappropriate, she said. “I have received neither,” she added.

MSNBC's Adam Serwer added the information the Post was unwilling to mention:

Monday, March 10, 2014

EXPORTING GAS TO EUROPE WOULD BE A HUGE VICTORY FOR THE WEST: Which explains why Obama won't do it

Guest post by Investor's Business Daily

Geopolitics: Four central European nations have appealed to the U.S. to increase natural gas exports should Russia cut off its supply to Ukraine. We are the superpower of energy. Time to give Vladimir Putin some gas pains.

Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic sent a letter Friday to House Speaker John Boehner, with a similar letter expected to be sent to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, asking the U.S. to expedite approval of natural-gas export applications. These nations believe a steady gas supply is key to the region's economic and geopolitical stability.

Putin's Russia has used its energy resources as a weapon, and the current crisis in Ukraine and Crimea is no exception. Most of the pipelines taking natural gas from Russia to a dependent Europe run though Ukraine, a fact not lost on fearful Europeans as the Russian bear growls anew.

President Obama says there will be "costs" for Russia's seizure of Crimea, so it's time the administration remembered that a crisis is a terrible thing to waste. This is a perfect opportunity to increase our exports, as Obama has pledged to do, and thwart in a non-military way Russia's increasingly expansionist ambitions.

"The presence of U.S. natural gas would be much welcome in Central and Eastern Europe," ambassadors from the four countries wrote to Boehner. "And congressional action to expedite (liquefied natural gas) exports to America's allies would come at a critically important time for the region."

Thursday, March 06, 2014

PIC: How to get state-run media to cover the Benghazi scandal

Via our summer intern @BiffSpackle:



Hat tip: BadBlue Real-Time News

The Ukraine Situation in 90 Seconds

The Commentator drops some science on the Beltway media nincompoops.

1. Crimea has existential-level historic resonance for Russia. In the context of the political-psychological loss of the Soviet Union for Russians, it is inconceivable that Vladimir Putin can now back down over Crimea. The referendum will (must, by fair means or foul) agree to Crimea becoming part of the Russian Federation.

2. The West is led by Barack Obama -- the most incompetent American president in all American history; and a "leader" who does not believe in the Free World, let alone American leadership of it.

3. The European Union is a foreign policy disaster, led, foreign policy wise, by Catherine Ashton someone who supported the Soviet Union in the Cold War.

4. Crimea is now part of Russia. End of story. Putin would have to quit politics to allow any other outcome.

5. The only question is whether Russia's annexation of Crimea leads to other parts of Ukraine in the east following suit.


As China flexes it muscles and Russia amps up its defense budget to #3 in the world, what is Barack Obama doing?

You've got it: he's hollowing out the U.S. military, leaving it incapable of fighting even one major war.

These are dangerous times, my friends. Dangerous times.


Hat tip: BadBlue News.

Wednesday, March 05, 2014

With Obama's evisceration of NASA, America reduced to hitching rides into space from... Putin

Guest post by Investor's Business Daily

Leadership: Putting an economic and political squeeze on Moscow over the Ukraine crisis could bring another Obama chicken home to roost — our president killed the U.S. space program and made us dependent on Putin.

Since 2011, when America's space shuttle fleet was retired and our space program was dispersed to various museums, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, which proudly put the first human beings, Americans, on the moon some 45 years ago, has largely been fixated on things like monitoring nonexistent climate change and Muslim outreach.

There have been the occasional Mars rover and plans to conduct unmanned chases of comets and asteroids, but our manned presence in space has been limited to hitching rides on Russian spacecraft to fix toilets on the International Space Station (ISS). With the crisis in Ukraine, that might be in jeopardy.

While Russian President Vladimir Putin, currently impaling Ukraine, hasn't indicated he might do this in response to the Obama administration suddenly developing a foreign policy backbone, the unfortunate fact is we've made ourselves dependent on the Russians for manned access to space for the next two or three years.

America's final space shuttle mission ended July 21, 2011, when Atlantis landed at NASA's Kennedy Space Center. Since then NASA has relied on the Russian Federal Space Agency and its Soyuz spacecraft to get astronauts to and from the ISS.

The Atlantis is there still, on display and out of commission. A prototype shuttle Enterprise is on display in New York at the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum after having been towed there on a barge up the Hudson River.

"We don't have the capability today to put a human being in space of any kind, shape or form, which is absolutely, totally unacceptable when we got the greatest flying machine in the world sitting down at Kennedy in a garage there with nothing to do," said Eugene Cerban, the last man and last American to walk on the moon.

Gripping photo from inside the President's strategy meeting on Ukraine

Courtesy of @CalebHowe's spy-cam:


But don't worry, folks: "Obama Says He’s Spending Plenty Of Time On Ukraine Crisis – At Fundraiser".


Tuesday, March 04, 2014

Ukraine and the 'Little Cold War'

Guest post by George Friedman

This column is derived from two chapters of Friedman's 2009 book, The Next 100 Years; this abstract of the chapters that focused on Eastern Europe and Russia because the forecast -- written in 2008 -- is prescient in its anticipation of events unfolding today in Russia, Ukraine and Crimea.


We must consider the future of Eurasia after the fall of the Soviet Union. Since 1991, the region has fragmented and decayed. The successor state to the Soviet Union, Russia, is emerging from this period with renewed self-confidence. Yet Russia is also in an untenable geopolitical position. Unless Russia exerts itself to create a sphere of influence, the Russian Federation could itself fragment.

For most of the second half of the 20th century, the Soviet Union controlled Eurasia -- from central Germany to the Pacific, as far south as the Caucasus and the Hindu Kush. When the Soviet Union collapsed, its western frontier moved east nearly 1,000 miles, from the West German border to the Russian border with Belarus. Russian power has now retreated farther east than it has been in centuries. During the Cold War it had moved farther west than ever before. In the coming decades, Russian power will settle somewhere between those two lines.

After the Soviet Union dissolved at the end of the 20th century, foreign powers moved in to take advantage of Russia's economy, creating an era of chaos and poverty. Most significantly, Ukraine moved into an alignment with the United States and away from Russia -- this was a breaking point in Russian history.

The Orange Revolution in Ukraine, from December 2004 to January 2005, was the moment when the post-Cold War world genuinely ended for Russia. The Russians saw the events in Ukraine as an attempt by the United States to draw Ukraine into NATO and thereby set the stage for Russian disintegration. Quite frankly, there was some truth to the Russian perception.

If the West had succeeded in dominating Ukraine, Russia would have become indefensible. The southern border with Belarus, as well as the southwestern frontier of Russia, would have been wide open.