Slapping Friends

By Charles Krauthammer

WASHINGTON -- What is it like to be a foreign ally of Barack Obama's America?

If you're a Brit, your head is spinning. It's not just the personal slights to Prime Minister Gordon Brown -- the ridiculous 25-DVD gift, the five refusals before Brown was granted a one-on-one with The One.

Nor is it just the symbolism of Obama returning the Churchill bust that was in the Oval Office. Query: If it absolutely had to be out of Obama's sight, could it not have been housed somewhere else on U.S. soil rather than ostentatiously repatriated?

Perhaps it was the State Department official who last year denied there even was a special relationship between the U.S. and Britain, a relationship cultivated by every U.S. president since Franklin Roosevelt.

And then there was Hillary Clinton's astonishing, nearly unreported (in the U.S.) performance in Argentina last month. She called for Britain to negotiate with Argentina over the Falklands.

For those who know no history -- or who believe that it began on Jan. 20, 2009 -- and therefore don't know why this was an out-of-the-blue slap at Britain, here's the back story:

In 1982, Argentina's military junta invaded the (British) Falkland Islands. The generals thought the British, having long lost their taste for foreign lands, would let it pass. Besides, the Falklands have uncountably more sheep than people. They underestimated Margaret Thatcher (the Argentines, that is, not the sheep). She was not about to permit the conquest of a people whose political allegiance and ethnic ties are to Britain. She dispatched the navy. Britannia took it back.

Afterward, neither Thatcher nor her successors have countenanced negotiations. Britain doesn't covet foreign dominion and has no shortage of sheep. But it does believe in self-determination, and will negotiate nothing until and unless the Falkland Islanders indicate their desire to be ruled by a chronically unstable, endemically corrupt polity with a rich history of dictatorship, economic mismanagement and the occasional political lunacy (see: the Evita cult).

Not surprisingly, the Falkland Islanders have given no such indication. Yet inexplicably, Clinton sought to reopen a question that had been settled for almost 30 years, not just pointlessly stirring the embers but even taking the Argentine side (re: negotiations) against Britain -- a nation that has fought and bled with us for the last decade, and that today has about 10,000 troops, far more than any other ally, fighting alongside America in Afghanistan.

Of course, given how the administration has treated other allies, perhaps we shouldn't be so surprised.

-- Obama visits China and soon Indonesia, skipping India, our natural and rising ally in the region -- common language, common heritage, common democracy, common jihadist enemy. Indeed, in his enthusiasm for China, Obama suggests a Chinese interest in peace and stability in South Asia, a gratuitous denigration of Indian power and legitimacy in favor of a regional rival with hegemonic ambitions.

-- Poland and the Czech Republic have their legs cut out from under them when Obama unilaterally revokes a missile defense agreement, acquiescing to pressure from Russia with its dreams of regional hegemony over Eastern Europe.

-- The Hondurans still can't figure out why the United States supported a Hugo Chavez ally seeking illegal extension of his presidency against the pillars of civil society -- its Congress, Supreme Court, church and army -- that had deposed him consistent with Article 239 of their own constitution.

But the Brits, our most venerable, most reliable ally, are the most disoriented. "We British not only speak the same language. We tend to think in the same way. We are more likely than anyone else to provide tea, sympathy and troops," writes Bruce Anderson in London's Independent, summarizing with admirable concision the fundamental basis of the U.S.-British special relationship.

Well, said David Manning, a former British ambassador to the U.S., to a House of Commons committee reporting on that very relationship: "He (Obama) is an American who grew up in Hawaii, whose foreign experience was of Indonesia and who had a Kenyan father. The sentimental reflexes, if you like, are not there."

I'm not personally inclined to neuropsychiatric diagnoses, but Manning's guess is as good as anyone's. How can you explain a policy toward Britain that makes no strategic or moral sense? And even if you can, how do you explain the gratuitous slaps to the Czechs, Poles, Indians and others? Perhaps when an Obama Doctrine is finally worked out, we shall learn whether it was pique, principle or mere carelessness.

letters@charleskrauthammer.com

Mike Walker, USMC Colonel (retired) is correct. Who is celebrating the achievements of our service members? Almost a decade has passed with only a few non anti-military-Michael Mooreish films being made. Iraq military accomplishments are sent to page 17(if the paper still has a pg17) and Abu Graib still makes it to page 1.....

Marines,

Was watching the HBO series “The Pacific.” This is a follow-up to the “Band of Brothers” series. Clearly the best presentation of life in the infantry ever conceived.

These are stories that all who served in the infantry can relate to, but more importantly, view with the deepest of respect for the soldiers and Marines who served in combat in that war.

For anyone who has served in the infantry, the series vignettes are timeless and always strike close to home. The life of “grunt” has not really changed all that much over the years.

There is, however, a special aura of those who served in the rifle companies in time of war. We who were young, like myself, when the battle siren did not call are only the faint connecting files, the keepers of the flame, for those who were tested in the sting of battle. To them the laurels must go and rightfully so.

That is why, for a Marine, “The Pacific” is so important.

There is one scene that deserves special attention, the closing scene of episode two.

In the scene a sailor tells four Marine ‘grunts’ that:

“You guys are on the front page of every newspaper in America. You are heroes back home.”

Those are words no Marine Korean or Vietnam War veteran ever heard and those are words no Marine veteran of Iraq or Afghanistan will ever hear.

And that belies the truth that they deserve those words ever equally as much. We are no different.

Yet, no matter how courageous, no matter what the sacrifice, in complete indifference to those who gave the last full measure of devotion to our country, today's Marines will never hear the seventeen words uttered in “The Pacific” series.

That is a national disgrace and disservice to those who serve.

We will never hears those words because the 21^st century American media is lost and adrift in a misconceived ideal of 'constitutional-internationalist' elitism, faux intellectualism, and plain and simple ignorance when confronted with the best and brightest of America, our men and women in the Armed Forces.

They cannot relate the truth about the actions of our combat heroes in uniform to the American people today because they are too conflicted by their prejudices and bias.

Where is our Ernie Pyle? Missing in action and will remain so.

Our American media: SNAFU.

Semper Fi,

Mike

So This Is What Change Looks Like

Bond Markets Reflect the True Cost of Obamacare

By Michael Barone

Not many people noticed amid the Democrats' struggle to jam their health care bill through the House, but in recent weeks U.S. Treasury bonds have lost their status as the world's safest investment.

The numbers are pretty clear. In February, Bloomberg News reports, Berkshire Hathaway sold two-year bonds with an interest rate lower than that on two-year Treasuries. A company run by a 79-year-old investor is a better credit risk, the markets are telling us, than the U.S. government.

Buffett's firm isn't the only one. Procter & Gamble, Johnson & Johnson and Lowe's have been borrowing money at cheaper rates than Uncle Sam.

Democrats wary of voting for the health care bill may have been soothed by the Congressional Budget Office's report that it would reduce federal deficits over the next 10 years. But bond buyers know that the Democrats gamed the CBO system to get a good score.

The realities, as former CBO Director Douglas Holtz-Eakin pointed out in The New York Times, are different. The real cost is disguised by the fact that the bill includes 10 years of revenue but only six years of spending. It includes $70 billion in premiums for long-term care that will have to be paid out later. It excludes $114 billion in discretionary spending needed to run the program. It includes nearly half a trillion dollars in unrealistic Medicare savings.

Holtz-Eakins's bottom line: The bill will not lower deficits, but will raise them by $562 billion over 10 years. Treasury will have to borrow that money -- and probably pay much higher interest than it's paying now.

Moreover, once the bill is fully in effect, the Cato Institute's Alan Reynolds points out, its expenses are likely to grow at least 7 percent a year -- significantly faster than revenues. At that rate, spending doubles every 10 years.

No wonder that Moody's declared last week that the Treasury is "substantially" closer to losing its AAA bond rating.

It's not only the federal government that is heading toward insolvency. State governments will have to spend more under the health care bill -- $735 million in Tennessee alone, according to Democratic Gov. Phil Bredesen.

And state governments are already facing a huge problem called pensions. The Pew Charitable Trusts estimates that state government pensions are underfunded by $450 billion. My American Enterprise Institute colleague Andrew Biggs argues in The Wall Street Journal that the real figure is over $3 trillion.

The reason: State governments set aside cash to invest in pensions, but they typically assume that their investments will rise 8 percent a year indefinitely. They haven't been getting such high returns and are not likely to do so in the future. But they are under legal obligations, which courts won't allow them to escape, to pay the pensions. Retirees get paid off before bondholders, which means that states are going to have to pay more interest when they borrow.

Back in the 1990s, Clinton adviser James Carville said that if he was reincarnated he would like to come back as the bond market -- "because you can intimidate everybody." Governments, like all organizations, need to borrow routinely. But investors won't lend unless they think they will be paid back. And they will demand higher interest rates as their loans become riskier.

On Sunday, 219 House Democrats, soothed by their leaders' gaming of the CBO scoring process, voted in reckless disregard of what the bond market has been telling them. Some may share Speaker Nancy Pelosi's optimism that the government's looming fiscal disaster can be avoided by imposing a value-added tax -- in effect, a national sales tax.

But, as we know from the experience of high-tax Western Europe and relatively low-tax America over the last three decades, higher taxes tend to retard economic growth. Lower economic growth means less revenue for government than in CBO projections. Less revenue means more borrowing -- and at some point lenders are going to call a halt.

Barack Obama's project of transforming the United States into something like Western Europe is, according to the CBO, raising the national debt burden on the economy to World War II levels. I see train wrecks ahead -- as the bond market forces huge spending cuts or tax increases first on states and then on the federal government. It will make what happened in the House Sunday look pretty.

Copyright 2010. Creators Syndicate Inc.

WE'RE AN AMERICAN MAN

Posted by Scott Johnson, Powerline

In Letter III of his Letters From an America Farmer (1782), J. Hector St. John De Crevecoeur famously asked: "What then is the American, this new man?" He answered: "He is an American, who, leaving behind him all his ancient prejudices and manners, receives new ones from the new mode of life he has embraced, the new government he obeys, and the new rank he holds. He has become an American by being received in the broad lap of our great Alma Mater. Here individuals of all races are melted into a new race of man, whose labors and posterity will one day cause great changes in the world. Americans are the western pilgrims." (More on De Crevecoeur here.)

The Census Bureau will have none of it. Mark Krikorian observes: "Fully one-quarter of the space on this year's form is taken up with questions of race and ethnicity, which are clearly illegitimate and none of the government's business (despite the New York Times' assurances to the contrary on today's editorial page)." The editorial to which Krikorian refers is here.

Mark Krikorian harks back in spirit to De Crevecouer. Krikorian has set up a Facebook page inviting Americans to follow his example:

In 2010, the new CENSUS will be taken.
Last time, instead of listing my race, I listed me as "HUMAN."
This next year, I will be listing myself as "AMERICAN"... please Join ME!!
If you believe, as do I, that when America QUITS asking people what their COLOR, RACE, Ethnicity is, then we will all become a stronger Group: Americans.

Krikorian therefore suggests:

[W]e should answer Question 9 by checking the last option -- "Some other race" -- and writing in "American." It's a truthful answer but at the same time is a way for ordinary citizens to express their rejection of unconstitutional racial classification schemes. In fact, "American" was the plurality ancestry selection for respondents to the 2000 census in four states and several hundred counties.

So remember: Question 9 -- "Some other race" -- "American." Pass it on.

As he says, pass it on.

It has been evident that there are several in Hollywood that have taken up "jihad" against American values and governmental systems. Two big examples are Matt Damon with his series of man-against-ruthless-machine films (Bourne series) and Tom Hanks and his faith based attacks (Da Vinci Code, Big Love, etc) These are not just films or just entertainment, these are statements in a more well developed Michael Moore mode. German propaganda worked so well before and during WWll because the message was consistent and polished.

Here is an interesting look at Mike Walker's (USMC Colonel, retired) view of the Green Zone.

All,

Let the Hollywood silliness begin with yet one more Iraq War film.

Did you know the new Matt Damon action thriller "The Green Zone" is based on an Iraq Survey Group (ISG) mobile exploitation team (more accurately called a mobile collection team (MCT)) in 2003?

Probably don't care either but...

That was my unit in Qatar and Iraq in 2003 and went on a number of exploitation missions in Baghdad and northern Iraq.

Cannot wait to see if the fantasy has any connection whatsoever to reality. Doubtful.

Please note that any resemblance between movie star Matt Damon and myself is totally coincidental. I am more distinguished looking when in uniform.

For the record, personnel assigned to the ISG were part of a combined joint/multi-agency intelligence task force operating in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. It was made up of personnel from all four services, US Government Agencies, the Australian and UK Armed Forces as well as UK and Australian Governmental Agencies.

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Special Assistant for Strategy directed ISG operations and the Director for HUMINT, DIA, oversaw day-to-day ISG operations.

The ISG mission was to organize, direct, and apply intelligence capabilities and expertise to discover, capture, exploit and disseminate information on individuals, documents and other media, materials, facilities, networks, and operations relative to Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD), Terrorism, Former Regime Intelligence, as well as Iraqi or Third-Country Nationals associated with the Former Regime, detained by the Former Regime, or subjects of Indictment for War Crimes or Crimes against Humanity.

Gee that was a mouthful!

So now you can see why Hollywood likes it, a golden opportunity to disparage/discredit our men and women in the military (except one lone hero, no doubt), plus the CIA, and whole host of other governmental spooks, geeks, and snake eaters along, with our allies to boot!

Despite my dripping cynicism, I will watch it, eat my popcorn, and quite probably enjoy it.

Liked "A Few Good Men" even though it had no real resemblance to service in the Marines. But that is the beauty of a Hollywood film, a hopefully pleasant escape from reality.

However, "The Green Zone" will be as valuable an insight into the Iraq War as a Three Stooges movie is on how to conduct you interpersonal relationships.

Semper Fi,

Mike

A note from Mike Walker, USMC Colonel, retired. I sure hope someone is thinking about this now besides Mike, but I'm not confident. Our actions should be proactive, we shouldn't be "surprised".

A very short missive on a Containment Strategy for Iran

All,

Let us face reality, neither the United Nations nor the United States is going to take the steps necessary to prevent Iran from fielding nuclear weapons.

So now is the time to take out and dust off our old containment strategy books from the Cold War and develop a comprehensive policy to contain Iran.

That means putting together the unified military, multinational, economic, information, diplomatic, intelligence strategy, tactics, techniques, and procedures needed to defeat the world's newest totalitarian regime.

We have the time now to create a "soup to nuts" policy that will win this for us. Let us not waste the opportunity.

Semper Fi,

Mike

I just received this post from Mike Walker, a retired Marine Colonel. What a legacy Harry has left, "Say anything, no matter how damaging!" Yes, Mr. Reid, we remember!

All,

On 20 April 2007 Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, on the floor our capitol building, stated:

"...this war is lost and the surge is not accomplishing anything..."

Was there ever an American holding a high office in time of war that made a more defeatist statement than that of Harry Reid?

Was there ever an instance where our armed forces, in the midst of life-or-death battle, were publicly subjected to such words of betrayal as those spewed forth by our Majority Leader in the Senate?

Due to the unsung bravery, dedication, and professionalism of our armed forces we have now obtained victory in Iraq. We have won the war that Harry Reid recklessly opined as lost, all the while sitting safe and sound back home (or "fat, dumb, and happy" in Marine jargon).

If ever a national leader deserves an equal public censure of being voted out of office by his electorate then that man is Harry Reid of Nevada.

President Obama said this during a speech on 21 March 2007 as a Senator:

"...we must learn the lessons of Iraq. It is what we owe our soldiers. It is what we owe their families. And it is what we owe our country – now, and in all the days and months to come."

We do indeed owe them and we can pay them back in part by doing whatever it takes to turn Harry Reid out of office in November 2010.

Semper Fi,

Mike

Two-tour veteran of the Iraq War

Excuses for Obama's Failure to Lead

By Charles Krauthammer

WASHINGTON -- In the latter days of the Carter presidency, it became fashionable to say that the office had become unmanageable and was simply too big for one man. Some suggested a single, six-year presidential term. The president's own White House counsel suggested abolishing the separation of powers and going to a more parliamentary system of unitary executive control. America had become ungovernable.

Then came Ronald Reagan, and all that chatter disappeared.

The tyranny of entitlements? Reagan collaborated with Tip O'Neill, the legendary Democratic House speaker, to establish the Alan Greenspan commission that kept Social Security solvent for a quarter-century.

A corrupted system of taxation? Reagan worked with liberal Democrat Bill Bradley to craft a legislative miracle: tax reform that eliminated dozens of loopholes and slashed rates across the board -- and fueled two decades of economic growth.

Later, a highly skilled Democratic president, Bill Clinton, successfully tackled another supposedly intractable problem: the culture of intergenerational dependency. He collaborated with another House speaker, Newt Gingrich, to produce the single most successful social reform of our time, the abolition of welfare as an entitlement.

It turned out that the country's problems were not problems of structure but of leadership. Reagan and Clinton had it. Carter didn't. Under a president with extensive executive experience, good political skills and an ideological compass in tune with the public, the country was indeed governable.

It's 2010 and the first-year agenda of a popular and promising young president has gone down in flames. Barack Obama's two signature initiatives -- cap-and-trade and health care reform -- lie in ruins.

Desperate to explain away this scandalous state of affairs, liberal apologists haul out the old reliable from the Carter years: "America the Ungovernable." So declared Newsweek. "Is America Ungovernable?" coyly asked The New Republic. Guess the answer.

The rage at the machine has produced the usual litany of systemic explanations. Special interests are too powerful. The Senate filibuster stymies social progress. A burdensome constitutional order prevents innovation. If only we could be more like China, pines Tom Friedman, waxing poetic about the efficiency of the Chinese authoritarian model, while America flails about under its "two parties ... with their duel-to-the-death paralysis." The better thinkers, bewildered and furious that their president has not gotten his way, have developed a sudden disdain for our inherently incremental constitutional system.

Yet, what's new about any of these supposedly ruinous structural impediments? Special interests blocking policy changes? They have been around since the beginning of the republic -- and since the beginning of the republic, strong presidents, like the two Roosevelts, have rallied the citizenry and overcome them.

And then, of course, there's the filibuster, the newest liberal bete noire. "Don't blame Mr. Obama," writes Paul Krugman of the president's failures. "Blame our political culture instead. ... And blame the filibuster, under which 41 senators can make the country ungovernable."

Ungovernable, once again. Of course, just yesterday the same Paul Krugman was warning about "extremists" trying "to eliminate the filibuster" when Democrats used it systematically to block one Bush (43) judicial nomination after another. Back then, Democrats touted it as an indispensable check on overweening majority power. Well, it still is. Indeed, the Senate with its ponderous procedures and decentralized structure is serving precisely the function the Founders intended: as a brake on the passions of the House and a caution about precipitous transformative change.

Leave it to Mickey Kaus, a principled liberal who supports health care reform, to debunk these structural excuses: "Lots of intellectual effort now seems to be going into explaining Obama's (possible/likely/impending) health care failure as the inevitable product of larger historic and constitutional forces. ... But in this case there's a simpler explanation: Barack Obama's job was to sell a health care reform plan to American voters. He failed."

He failed because the utter implausibility of its central promise -- expanded coverage at lower cost -- led voters to conclude that it would lead ultimately to more government, more taxes and more debt. More broadly, the Democrats failed because, thinking the economic emergency would give them the political mandate and legislative window, they tried to impose a left-wing agenda on a center-right country. The people said no, expressing themselves first in spontaneous demonstrations, then in public opinion polls, then in elections -- Virginia, New Jersey and, most emphatically, Massachusetts.

That's not a structural defect. That's a textbook demonstration of popular will expressing itself -- despite the special interests -- through the existing structures. In other words, the system worked.

letters@charleskrauthammer.com

Iranian regime change: An Obama achievement we could believe in

By William Kristol

Vice President Biden -- who was for the Iraq war before he was against it, and who then argued that the surge could never work before he decided (in retrospect) that it did -- said this to Larry King on Wednesday night:

"I am very optimistic about -- about Iraq. I mean, this could be one of the great achievements of this administration. You're going to see 90,000 American troops come marching home by the end of the summer. You're going to see a stable government in Iraq that is actually moving toward a representative government. . . . I've been impressed how they have been deciding to use the political process rather than guns to settle their differences."

Iraq is "one of the great achievements of this administration"? Well, any port in a political storm -- even if it means taking credit for the success of policies of the previous administration, policies you opposed. In politics, after all, success acquires many fathers. And that's fine, if it means the Obama administration is careful over the next couple of years not to toss away American troops' achievements in Iraq.

King (in his inimitable way) then asked Biden about Iran: "Iran, nuclear -- worry?"

Biden acknowledged that, yes, Iran is "a concern. A real concern, not an immediate concern in the sense that something could happen tomorrow or in the very near term. But what I worry most about with regard to Iran, if they continue on the path of nuclear weapons and were able to gain even a modicum of the capability, then I worry what that does -- Larry, and you know the Middle East, what that -- what pressure that puts on Saudi Arabia, on Egypt, on Turkey, etc. To acquire nuclear weapons . . . .That's very destabilizing."

Leave aside whether it make sense to worry more about other countries getting nuclear weapons in response to Iran than about the more immediate problem of the Iranian regime acquiring nuclear weapons capability. Leave aside also that Biden -- following in his boss's footsteps -- couldn't be bothered to express anything in the way of solidarity with the demonstrators who would be taking to the streets of Iran the next day.

What's striking is this: (a) Even Biden seems to realize that having the current Iranian regime go nuclear would be a problem that could, unfortunately, outweigh all other successes in the Middle East, such as Iraq; (b) even Biden doesn't bother to pretend that the year the Obama administration spent on "engagement" with Iran produced anything worthwhile; and (c) even Biden doesn't bother to claim that the effects of a nuclear Iran can be "contained" by extending deterrence to other nations in the Middle East, or other favorite nostrums of some in the foreign policy community.

So what is the Obama administration going to do about the Iranian regime's pursuit of nuclear weapons?

Sanctions. But even if the administration succeeds in the U.N. Security Council, even if the administration is then able (with the Europeans) to go beyond what the Russians and Chinese will accept at the United Nations, even if the administration is willing to again consider the "crippling" sanctions it once discussed but now shies away from and even if the administration is willing to risk military conflict by preventing the importing of refined petroleum to Iran -- none of this is likely to succeed in inducing the regime in Tehran to halt uranium enrichment or in preventing the regime from ultimately acquiring nuclear weapons capability.

But maybe sanctions are simply designed to buy time. Or, as one senior Obama administration official told the New York Times this week, "It is about driving them back to negotiations, because the real goal here is to avoid war."

One supposes the official is referring to the possibility of an Israeli strike against the Iranian nuclear program. Or is he referring to an American strike? In either case, he's right that war is a real possibility. In fact, I'd say military action is likely at some point over the next couple of years if there's not regime change in Iran.

But thanks to the people of Iran, regime change is now a real possibility. Surely the administration could have more of a sense of urgency in helping increase the odds of that devoutly to-be-wished goal.

Perhaps embracing the concept of "regime change" spooks the Obama administration. It's awfully reminiscent of George W. Bush. But one great failure of the Bush administration was its second-term fecklessness with respect to Iran. Bush kicked the Iran can down the road. Does Obama want an achievement that eluded Bush? Regime change in Iran -- that would be an Obama administration achievement that Joe Biden, and the rest of us, could really celebrate.

William Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard, writes a monthly column for The Post.

Ronald Reagan would be 99 years old today. When we talk about keeping our "eye on the ball" we should remember our role model of a fiscally conservative and prudent President. If you don't have it, don't spend it... and please, don't spend mine.

There is something wrong with this man... he is our president and he doesn't see the obvious. His remarks about Las Vegas, the bald faced statement below, and a pile of others which should have everyone alarmed. This guy is not prepared to do his job and we are in for a very rocky three years, well, like the one we just had. I think I am experiencing "flabbergast"....

President Say Anything

Hugh Hewitt

Today President Obama told Senate Democrats that they had faced "enormous procedural obstacles that are unprecedented.."

"You had to cast more votes to break filibusters last year than in the entire 1950s and 1960s combined. That's 20 years of obstruction jammed into just one."

This is astonishing. A filibuster is the successful use of 41 or more votes to prevent the closing of debate. There wasn't a single filibuster in 2009. Not one.

The president will say anything to advance a narrative that makes him a victim of obstruction. It is clear that 2010 will be spent pivoting from his 2009 mantra of Bush's fault to his campaign year blasts at the "do nothing Republicans."

His advisors must foresee grim news on jobs to offer up such a transparent and unpersuasive, indeed almost purposefully alienating argument.