PRIORITIES: Obama Calls For Repeal Of 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell'

President Obama said Wednesday night he will work with Congress and the military to repeal the "don't ask, don't tell" policy that bars gays and lesbians from openly serving in the armed forces.

Obama made the remark in his first State of the Union speech during a short litany of civil rights issues, which included his successful hate crimes bill, a move to "crack down on equal-pay laws" and improvement of the immigration system.

"We find unity in our incredible diversity, drawing on the promise enshrined in our Constitution: the notion that we are all created equal, that no matter who you are or what you look like, if you abide by the law you should be protected by it," he said.

"We must continually renew this promise. My administration has a Civil Rights Division that is once again prosecuting civil rights violations and employment discrimination. We finally strengthened our laws to protect against crimes driven by hate," he said.

"This year, I will work with Congress and our military to finally repeal the law that denies gay Americans the right to serve the country they love because of who they are."

Former Navy pilot Sen. John McCain said "it would be a mistake" to repeal the 1993 law that bars gay men and lesbians from revealing their sexual orientation, and prevents the military from asking about it.

"This successful policy has been in effect for over 15 years, and it is well understood and predominantly supported by our military at all levels," McCain said. "We have the best-trained, best-equipped, and most professional force in the history of our country, and the men and women in uniform are performing heroically in two wars. At a time when our Armed Forces are fighting and sacrificing on the battlefield, now is not the time to abandon the policy."

But in a message to Pentagon leadership, Gen. John Shalikashvili, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said it's time to repeal the law.

"As a nation built on the principal of equality, we should recognize and welcome change that will build a stronger more cohesive military," said Shalikashvili. His letter was sent to Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-New York, who supports repealing the policy.

The Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, an organization that works with those affected by the "don't ask, don't tell" law, praised Obama's call for repeal.

"We very much need a sense of urgency to get this done in 2010," the group said. "We call on the president to repeal the archaic 1993 law in his defense budget currently being drafted, that is probably the only and best moving bill where DADT can be killed this year. ... The American public, including conservatives, is overwhelmingly with the commander in chief on this one."

House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, flatly disagreed with the idea of ending it.

"When it comes to 'don't ask don't tell,' frankly, I think it's worked very well. And we just ought to leave it alone," he said to reporters Wednesday morning.

The policy prohibits openly gay men and women from serving in the U.S. armed forces.

The policy bans military recruiters or authorities from asking about an individual's sexual orientation but also prohibits a service member from revealing that he or she is gay.

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin, D-Michigan, supports ending the practice but wants to go about it carefully.

Levin said he did not have any details about what the president would say.

"If we do this in a way which isn't sensitive ... we could have exactly the opposite effect of what I hope will be the case -- which is to change the policy," he said Monday.

Levin said the committee plans to hold hearings on the issue in early February, although the hearing may be with outside experts -- delaying a hearing with Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Michael Mullen, that had originally been promised, CNN was told by a congressional source.

Obama campaigned on the promise that he would repeal the law in his first year of office.

Speaking to the gay rights group Human Rights Campaign, in October, Obama admitted that "our progress may be taking longer than we like," but he insisted his administration was still on track to overturn the policy.

"Do not doubt the direction we are heading and the destination we will reach," he said.

Pentagon Spokesman Geoff Morrell deflected repeated questions about the policy at Wednesday's Pentagon briefing, directing reporters to take their questions to the White House.

"We continue to work on this problem," said Morrell. "But I'm not going to get into it with more specificity than that."

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What Do Jesus, Rifle Scopes and Dead Terrorists Have in Common? Trijicon

by Doug Giles

 

In the latest edition of political correctness gone wild, Mikey Weinstein and the Military Religious Freedom Foundation are droning on about scope manufacturer Trijicon putting Scripture references on their gun optics that our troops use to kill Muslim maniacs. They think a biblical citation will offend our opposition and be used as a recruiting tool for terrorist tools.

 

This politically correct, anti-Christian military “watch dog” is the same group of wizards that didn’t catch Nidal Malik Hasan’s “SoA” (Soldier of Allah ref) on his military business card and claim that somehow Hasan felt harassed by non-Muslim military meanies into killing our troops at Fort Hood. How sweet.

 

Yep, the overly sensitive ones at MRFF are very concerned that an obscure Scripture reference built into the serial number in tiny, wittle print on the base of Trijicon scopes will affront Achmed the Terrorist. That would be the same Achmed who screams “Allahu Akbar!” before he lights his penis on fire at 30,000 feet.

 

Call me crazy, but I’d think that the most odious aspects of Trijicon’s optics, if I were a terrorist, would not be the murky Bible references but the following ...

• Trijicon’s self-luminous aiming systems that have been battle-tested by those who protect and defend the USA around the globe—rightfully earning Trijicon the reputation of having the most sophisticated and dependable deadly optics on the planet. Yep, Trijicon has united long-range accuracy with instantaneous shot placement like no other. Now ... if I were part of the Taliban, that would tick me off more than JHN.8:12 on a sight rail would. Fo’ shizzle, my nizzle.
  
• Another thing that would irk me if I were a “Man Made Disaster” (or whatever Napolitano calls terrorists) more than John 3:16 could ever hope to would be Trijicon’s Advanced Combat Optical Gunsight™ (ACOG). Why would the ACOG get under my skin? Well, it’s because this little gadget provides “instinctive” target acquisition and increased hit potential in all lighting conditions. That’s way offensive!
  
• Another thing that would really get me PO’ed if I were an al-Qaeda op is the Bindon Aiming Concept™ (BAC). Y’know ... aiming with both eyes open! This crap gives the USA a far superior sense of balance and a wider field-of-view. Indeed, the combination of these benefits with a magnified Trijicon sight gives our troops a considerable advantage over their targets. And we all know how unfair that is to Islamic radicals.

Another thing that I’d consider ruder than the vague verses hidden out of view on Trijicon’s sighting system if I were a suicide bomber would be the .223, .308 and .50 BMG bullets that actually come out of the gun barrel and devastate my vital organs. That stuff would get me really pissy. So, MRFF … when are we going to ban bullets for their bellicosity toward poor Muslim terrorists?

 

Yep, thanks to the PC pressure MRFF applied to our already bound and gagged military wizards, the brass inside the Beltway have come to conclude that if our troops use Trijicon’s optics marked with a reference to the gospel of Mark that al-Qaeda and the Taliban will get mad, go crazy and view our engagement as a holy war.

 

Uh … let me help you a little bit. These crazy SOBs can’t get any madder. I think at this stage of the game everything we do ticks them off. For example, in their minds: Bible code on a scope = they wanna kill us! Heidi Montag gets a boob job! Argh! We must die! Conan gets cancelled! No soup for us! Pat Boone wears white after Labor Day! Damn Americans! I kill you!

 

Additionally, the war that we are fighting with implacable Islam—the one which they started—has always been, in their view, a holy war; we’re the one’s who are still pretending it isn’t!

 

Here’s what I recommend: Being the anything-but-PC pundit that I am, I say we do the opposite of what the PC sheeple suggest we do. Here’s what I think we ought to try:

 

1. Trijicon renames their ACOG optics to GRTMS, the “Get Ready to Meet Satan” scope.

 

2. We put the image of Jesus in the scope with his finger pointing up to where the bullet will impact the target.

 

3. We rename the M4 to 72VP, which is short for “72 Virgins? Puh-lease!”

 

Finally, I’d like to thank all the patriots at Trijicon for the amazing optics they have provided for hunters, law enforcers and our outstanding military men and women, as well as their commitment, as a company, to Jesus Christ. I’ve got to confess, I have never owned a Trijicon scope and have been a Leupold fan for many years. However, in light of the hell the boys at Trijicon are going through because of their faith, my three new rifles that are currently scopeless will now all be topped with Trijicons. And I suggest, America, that you show them some love and do the same thing with all your rifles that need some glass.

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Different Presidents, A Different Corps

This video has received a lot of attention. As of right now, it is showing well over a half a million hits since it was posted on March 1. It is also controversial. Many Obama supporters have claimed to debunk the video by pointing out that the events were not comparable. They argue that the event in Anbar province that President Bush attended in September 2007 was informal. The Camp Lejune event that President Obama attended, on the other hand, was more formal. They point out that it is not fair to compare two events in which the Marines are subject to different rules of behavior.

In fairness, they are correct. The events were different in many ways and the Marines present were subject to different behavioral expectations. There is, however, more to this video than that. If the content of this video were that easily debunked it would not still be drawing tens of thousands of hits per day. The different degrees of formality aside, this video is quite revealing.

In the video, the Marines exhibit obvious love and respect for President Bush. His visit was not an event that followed closely on the heels of 9/11. This video was taken after the worst days of the war and after the surge created major progress in the region. The president is visiting the troops in Anbar Province, the home of the infamous Falluja and Ar Ramadi killing grounds. This visit took place after the province had been pacified. In other words, the Marines showed their love of Mr. Bush even after the darkest days of the war.

The Lejune video, on the other hand, shows Obama entering with all the pomp and circumstance of a royal visit to the peasants. Hail to the Chief plays in the background; something that President Bush didnt allow during his military visits. Obama knows that keeping the Marines locked at the position of attention means that no comparison can ever be made to the loving reception President Bush regularly received from the troops. Obama knows how the Marines feel and will always treat them exactly like the rabble he sees.

This is the real truth of the video and why it is so popular. It warms the heart of Bush supporters to see President Bush receive the love, gratitude and respect of these warriors. It angers Obama supporters because they also see the love President Bush receives and they know their man will never see anything similar from the troops. They know that these warriors loved the last president and will never give similar respect to this one.

A good YouTube video stirs the emotions and this one does that. It elicits different emotions in different people but the underlying truth that is the catalyst for the emotional response is the same for everyone. The Marines loved President Bush in a way they will never love President Obama.

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Iran: Can Obama play hardball?

By Thomas E. Brewton

Robert Kagan’s Washington Post column gives us a look at the way the president appears to be playing his hand in the diplomatic game.

President Obama notoriously promised to bring change to our foreign policy relations.  His presumption, shared by most liberal-progressives, was that every nation in the world truly desires to eschew war as a policy instrument. 

Liberal-progressives take their cue from Auguste Comte’s writings in the 1820s.  Comte was supremely confident that international socialism, under the rubric of his Religion of Humanity, would bring people from all over the world to learn from French intellectuals the means for restructuring political society.  Restructured societies, with socialistic redistribution of wealth, would no longer experience crime, aggression, or war.  Acting as moral judges, intellectuals would dictate appropriate rules for personal and international relations.

The way to realize those presumed universal peace desires, in the liberal-progressive scenario, is to be sensitive, even obsequious, and never to take military or diplomatic action unilaterally.  To show its faith in the promise of world peace and benevolence under international socialism, the United States is to set an example for the world by disarming itself and reducing its economic and military power to rough equality with such powers in the rest of the world. 

This diplomatic paradigm, faithfully followed by President Obama in his dealings with our self-declared enemies, has so far produced nothing more than promises. 

On the domestic front, the president also is pursuing the ideology of international socialism by ballooning Federal debt to devalue the dollar, bringing large portions of industry and the financial community under direct Federal supervision, and by imposing cap-and-trade green regulation and National Socialistic healthcare, both of which will greatly increase business costs and diminish international competitiveness of American industry.

The question now confronting the president is whether he will persist in negotiating with our enemies without useful results, or whether he will implement his vaguely implied sanctions to compel good-faith negotiations by our foreign adversaries.  Time to curb Iran’s nuclear weapons ambitions is running short.

Are we reverting to liberal-progressives’ 1960s “better Red than dead” rationalization for doing nothing for fear of offending the Soviet Union?

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Support Gen. McChrystal, Defeat Terror!

By Oscar Y. Harward

Late September or early October, U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, requested an additional 50,000 new troops in Afghanistan.

Last week, former Vice President Cheney stated President Obama was ‘dithering’ on his solemn responsibility.

President Obama’s Press Secretary Gibbs calls Obama’s solemn responsibility to the men and women in uniform and to the American public. Sen. John Kerry and others advise Obama to wait until after the November 7, 2009 results for Afghanistan’s Presidential election runoff between current President Hamid Karzai and former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah.

Afghanistan’s runoff election has little or nothing to do with Obama’s delay in sending Gen. McChrystal’s request for addition troops. Obama’s delayed decision of sending more troops may be based on the November 3rd. Governors’ elections in Virginia and New Jersey, as well as the special election in New York’s 23rd. Congressional District.

A majority of Americans want President Obama to follow the request for support of Gen. McChrystal, and sending the additional troops. The left-wing support of the Democrat Party would like for Obama to pull all American troops out of Afghanistan. To send the additional troops, as requested, the left wing of the Democrats on Capitol Hill will oppose Obama. Democrats decision wouldo leave Afghanistan a homeland for terrorists to cultivate, and for terrorism to expand throughout the world.

America and the world must defeat the Taliban and Al Quieda, wherever these thugs operate, in an effort to be determined these terrorists never operate in our nation, our communities, or on our streets.

Obama must support his own appointee, General Stanley McChrystal, to defeat the terrorists and all terrorism, not to play American political games with our troops. Support America and our troops. Do not allow partisan politics to surmount our freedoms around the world.

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Guantanamo’s Future in Doubt

By E. Ralph Hostetter    

President Barack Obama, just two days after his inauguration, signed an Executive Order on Tuesday, January 22, effectively ending the Central Intelligence Agency's secret interrogation base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Guantanamo Bay is the location of a U.S. Naval base established in the wake of the Spanish-American War.  It comprises a 45-square-mile site that was leased to the United States from Cuba in 1903 to use as a coaling station for the U.S. Navy.  The lease can only be terminated by the mutual consent of both the United States and Cuba. The United States has refused, up to this time, to consent to any change in or the cancellation of the lease.

Since the September 11, 2001, attacks that destroyed the World Trade Towers in New York City, the time elapsed has now permitted the Guantanamo Bay prison facility to become the center of criticism from foreign governments and human rights activists.  Now that the debris has been swept away and the carnage buried, the real culprit is said to be the United States with its terrorist prison facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Guantanamo Bay has served our nation well.  It should remain open.  The United States may well be at the very beginning stages of a world-wide terrorist uprising in which stateless individuals, operating in many instances on their own, place themselves in positions to reign terror and destruction on other individuals and societies around the world.

Prisoners taken since the invasion of Afghanistan suspected of being Al Qaeda members or supporters have been transported to Guantanamo Bay for detention.

The Obama Administration indicated on May 9, 2009 that it was planning to revive the military commission system that came to an immediate halt in January.  President Obama intends to amend the Bush Administration's legal systems to provide more legal protection for terrorist suspects.

Human rights groups, as well as some of President Obama's political allies, are expected to offer sharp criticism to reviving the military commission system used during the Bush Administration. The military commission system was viewed as an effort to use Guantanamo to avoid the American legal system.

President Obama has ordered the facility closed in January. However, no plan has been offered to accomplish the closing.  At present the issue of closing Guantanamo Bay detention camp is at a standstill.

On May 19, 2009, Senate Democratic leaders said they would not provide the $80 million which President Obama had requested to close the detention center nor would they permit the transfer of detainees to the United States.  This decision brought into question President Obama's order to close Guantanamo Bay by January 22, 2010.

Democrats in Congress, by a vote of 307-114, last week were successful in passing a measure which would allow detainees held in Guantanamo Bay onto U.S. soil for prosecution.  A Republican bill to block the effort failed by a vote of 193-224.

There are growing demands from both Republicans and Democrats that President Obama provide more details on the closing of Guantanamo Bay and particularly assurances that detainees will not end up on American soil, even in maximum security prisons.

THE NEW YORK TIMES reports:  "Administration officials have indicated that if the Guantanamo camp closes as scheduled, more than 100 prisoners may need to be moved to the United States, including 50 to 100 who have been described as too dangerous to release.  Of the 240 detainees, 30 have been cleared for release.  Some are likely to be transferred to foreign countries, though other governments have been reluctant to take them.  Britain and France have each accepted one former detainee.  And while as many as 80 of the detainees will be prosecuted, it remains unclear what will happen to those that are convicted and sentenced to prison."

Representative Charles W. Dent (R-PA), a member of the House Committee on Homeland Security, states that the closure of Guantanamo Bay is illy advised:  "The prisoners we are talking about are people like Khalid Sheikh Mohamed, admitted mastermind of the 9/11 attacks – dangerous killers who do not know the bounds of decency or law.  They are not ordinary criminals; they are declared enemies of the United States who were engaging in direct action against us.

"I remain convinced that Guantanamo Bay is better suited to hold these detainees than any facility, even a military base, in the United States.  We’ve invested hundreds of millions of dollars to add facilities at Guantanamo Bay specifically to handle these detainees.  It’s surrounded by minefields and protected by the best security force in the world, the United States Marine Corps.

“I, for one, sleep well at night knowing that these dangerous terrorists are detained at Guantanamo Bay instead of somewhere in the United States."

E. Ralph Hostetter, a prominent businessman and publisher, also is an award-winning columnist and Vice Chairman of the Free Congress Foundation Board of Directors.

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If Obama had told us before his election

By Phyllis Schlafly

"If Barack Obama had campaigned on what he has actually done in his first 300 days in office, would he have been elected? That's the question so many are asking today.

If Obama had told us he would appoint 34 czars, reporting only to himself and not vetted or confirmed in the constitutional way, building a powerful unitary executive branch of government, would he have been elected? What if he had told us that his green jobs czar had been a communist, that the science czar wrote in a college textbook that compulsory "green abortions" are an acceptable way to control population growth and that the diversity czar has spoken publicly of getting white media executives to "step down" in favor of minorities?

If Obama had told us he would take over the automobile industry faster than any socialist dictator ever nationalized an industry, fire the CEO of General Motors and replace him with a Democratic Party campaign contributor, would Obama have been elected? If Obama had campaigned on closing down thousands of profitable car dealers, nearly all Republicans, would we have believed that this vindictive financial retaliation against those who didn't vote for Obama could happen in America?

If Hugo Chavez, the communist who nationalized most of Venezuela's industries, had said before the election that "Comrade Obama" would nationalize the U.S. automobile industry and Chavez would "end up to his right," would anybody have believed it? If talk shows had warned against such a socialist takeover, would the Obama-loving media have accused them of McCarthyism?

If Obama had told us he would spend $3 billion in a Cash for Clunkers program that would use taxpayers' funds to buy mostly foreign cars and grind up the used American cars traded in to make them unusable, would he have been elected?

If Obama had told us that his stimulus package is a sham because it does not create private-sector jobs (as a tax cut would do), so that the unemployment rate has risen to nearly 10 percent, with 15 million Americans unemployed plus another 11 million underemployed, could he have been elected?

If Obama had told us his Supreme Court pick would be a woman who said repeatedly that a "Latina woman" would make better decisions than "a white male," that his pick for chief State Department lawyer would be a transnationalist who wants to integrate foreign law into law binding on U.S. citizens and that his pick for regulations czar argues that animals are entitled to have lawyers to sue humans in court, would Obama have been elected?

If we had known that Obama would be totally incompetent as commander in chief of his chosen war in Afghanistan, and would not speak to the general in the field for 70 days, ignoring his dire report for six weeks, would Obama have been elected?

If Obama had told us he would have the government guarantee 90 percent of all U.S. mortgages, imposing $5 trillion in off-budget debt on U.S. taxpayers who had faithfully made their own mortgage payments, would he have been elected? And what if Obama had told us he would have the taxpayers take over 80 percent of all student loans at a cost of $1 trillion over the next decade?

If Obama had told us that he would make the U.S. government a major shareholder in Citigroup (one of the world's largest banks), would you have believed he could get away with this socialist takeover?

If Obama had admitted that his health care plan would include the same provisions for which he ran negative TV ads against Hillary Clinton (a federal mandate requiring every American to buy health insurance) and against John McCain (a tax on high-cost employer-based plans), would Obama have been elected?

And what if Obama had told us that his federal health plan would pay for all abortions without regard to the Hyde Amendment and provide full health care (including private doctor visits) to immigrants without requiring proof of legal residence?

If Obama had campaigned on increasing federal spending and debt from a multibillion-dollar level to multitrillions, would he have been elected? And what if Obama had told us that his promise to "spread the wealth around" would balloon his first year's budget deficit to $1.6 trillion?

If Obama had told us that his promise to "spread the wealth around" meant wiping out the Republican welfare reform of 1996 and increasing annual welfare spending by 39 percent to almost $1 trillion a year by the end of his first term, would he have been elected?

If Obama had declared during his campaign that his first major speech abroad would be to the Muslim world and that he would proclaim in Muslim Turkey that "one of the great strengths of the United States is ... we do not consider ourselves a Christian nation," would he have been elected?

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Apartment residents told to take down U.S. flags...

By Melica Johnson

ALBANY, Ore. - At the Oaks Apartments in Albany, the management can fly their own flag advertising one and two bedroom apartments - but residents have been told they can't fly any flags at all.

Jim Clausen flies the American flag from the back of his motorcycle. He has a son in the military heading back to Iraq, and the flag - he said - is his way of showing support.

"This flag stands for all those people," said Clausen, an Oaks Apartment resident. "It stands for the people that can no longer stand - who died in wars. That's why I fly this flag."

But to Oaks Apartment management, Clausen said, the American flag symbolizes problems.

He was told to remove the red, white and blue from both of his rides, or face eviction.

"It floored me," he said. "I can't believe she was saying what she was saying."

Even long-time residents like Sharron White, who has flown a flag on her car for eight years, has been told to take it down.

White said management told her that "someone might get offended."

"I just said to her 'They'll just have to get over it,'" White said.

Resident we talked to who had been approached to take down their flags all told us the same thing: that management told them the flags could be offensive because they live in a diverse community.

Attempts to find out for ourselves why management would ban flags were unsuccessful. KATU wanted to talk to management at Oaks Apartments, but no one has returned our calls. The woman we were told had made the decision said she was "not going to answer any questions."

The mother of one soldier fighting in Iraq put up a poster in her son's apartment window when she learned of the ban. Her son's roommate said he'll risk eviction to make sure it stays.

Another Oaks Apartment resident, Judith Sherer, doesn't have a car. Instead she carries an American flag around the complex to protest the ban, and wonders if the flag pin she wears is next to be "singled out."

"If I put it on and I walk outside, what's going to happen?" Sherer muses. "Am I going to be confronted by a manager about this?"

We're told the ban includes sports flags and even flag stickers on cars.

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Question for Nobel Appease Prize winner

By Joseph Farah

I have a question for Barack Obama, the Nobel Appease Prize winner, and the man who told us during last year's presidential campaign that troops needed to be redeployed from Iraq to the "real" front in the war on terrorism – Afghanistan.

In case your memory fails you, here's what he said in July 2008:

• "In fact – as should have been apparent to President Bush and Sen. (John) McCain – the central front in the war on terror is not Iraq, and it never was. That's why the second goal of my new strategy will be taking the fight to al-Qaida in Afghanistan and Pakistan."

• "It is unacceptable that almost seven years after nearly 3,000 Americans were killed on our soil, the terrorists who attacked us on 9/11 are still at large. Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahari are recording messages to their followers and plotting more terror. The Taliban controls parts of Afghanistan. Al-Qaida has an expanding base in Pakistan that is probably no farther from their old Afghan sanctuary than a train ride from Washington to Philadelphia. If another attack on our homeland comes, it will likely come from the same region where 9/11 was planned. And yet today, we have five times more troops in Iraq than Afghanistan."

• "… as president, I will make the fight against al-Qaida and the Taliban the top priority that it should be. This is a war that we have to win."

• "We need more troops, more helicopters, more satellites, more Predator drones in the Afghan border region. And we must make it clear that if Pakistan cannot or will not act, we will take out high-level terrorist targets like bin Laden if we have them in our sights."

So what happened between then and now?

Well, Obama got his wish. He became president. He is now fully in command. He can divert any resources he wishes from Iraq to Afghanistan. He got to appoint a new commander for the Afghan campaign, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal. And what did Gen. McChrystal advise?

He told Obama he needs "more troops, more helicopters, more satellites, more Predator drones in the Afghan border region" – exactly the prescription Obama was calling for more than a year ago during the campaign.

And what has been Obama's reaction?

He's shocked!

He can't believe it.

He is mulling it over.

Mulling it over?

Isn't this exactly what Obama said he wanted to do more than a year ago?

What has changed since then and now – other than the fact that Obama actually has the power to do what he advocated doing in July 2008?

Maybe it's that Nobel Appease Prize?

I don't know.

My guess is that it's a lot easier being an armchair general when you don't have the power to send men and women to risk their lives.

Maybe Obama really thought he could negotiate with al-Qaida and the Taliban.

Maybe he thought they would lay down their arms when he took office.

But reality is setting in.

Nine months after taking office, Obama has not greatly reduced U.S. forces in Iraq and he has only modestly increased U.S. forces in Afghanistan. Now he seems to resist doing what he pledged to do and what the general he placed in charge of the battlefield says must be done.

I guess it was a lot easier second-guessing President Bush and Sen. McCain than it is expanding a war that is unpopular with his base – and his own friends in Congress.

Suddenly, it seems, Barack Obama's knees are getting wobbly.

Some questions for the White House:

How soon can we expect that decision now?

Will you be replacing your general and looking for a military recommendation you like better?

Are you waiting to send in the "don't ask, don't tell" brigade?

Will you be taking military command of the battlefield yourself?

Or will you be changing your mind – yet again?

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Military puts Obama on the spot...

by Dan De Luce

By openly declaring their views on the Afghan war, US military leaders have placed President Barack Obama in a bind as he faces a fraught decision over the troubled US-led mission.

Obama has refused to quickly approve a request from his commanders for a major troop build-up in Afghanistan, insisting first on a full vetting of the current strategy.

But while a war council takes place behind closed doors at the White House, top military officers have made no secret of their view that without a vast ground force, the Afghan mission could end in failure.

"They want to make sure people know what they asked for if things go wrong," Lawrence Korb, a former assistant secretary of defense, told AFP.

As a result, if Obama chooses to change course in Afghanistan or decline a request for large numbers of troops, he will be rejecting the advice of the US military, raising the political stakes.

Commentators on the left say the military ought to keep its advice private without trying to influence public debate, with New York Times columnist Frank Rich accusing the generals of an attempt to "try to lock him (Obama) in" on Afghanistan.

Korb said the top brass is keen to avoid a repeat of the run-up to the Iraq war under former president George W. Bush, when military leaders bowed to White House demands for a small invasion force -- with disastrous consequences.

Drawing on blood-soaked experience in Iraq, military commanders now fervently embrace counter-insurgency doctrine, which calls for large numbers of troops providing security and winning the trust of the local population.

Amid rising casualties and a spreading insurgency, skeptics in Congress and the White House have floated proposals to freeze or even reduce the 65,000-strong force.

But McChrystal and his superiors have dismissed such alternatives as half-measures.

"You can't hope to contain the fire by letting just half the building burn," McChrystal told Newsweek.

Top US military officer Admiral Mike Mullen and the head of the regional Central Command, General David Petraeus, have publicly endorsed the manpower-intensive strategy set out in a report by McChrystal.

The commander's stark assessment of the war, which was leaked, has set off a flurry of counter-leaks in US newspapers with unnamed officials in the White House voicing skepticism about esclating the American commitment.

The heated debate over war strategy mostly pits hawks on the right demanding Obama promptly endorse the commander's request for more troops against voices on the left who raise the specter of a quagmire akin to Vietnam.

Senator John McCain and other Republicans invoke Iraq, arguing the US military turned the tide there only after a "surge" of additional combat troops and tactics suited to irregular warfare.

McCain has praised Bush for approving the surge strategy in late 2006, a move that was opposed by most of the US military leadership at the time.

Dismissing calls by Democrats to hold off on a troop buildup until training more Afghan security forces, McCain said: "We've seen this movie before, it didn't work in Iraq and it won't work in Afghanistan."

But the disputed election in Afghanistan, tainted by allegations of widespread fraud, has jolted the administration and renewed serious doubts about the credibility of the Kabul government.

"Nobody expected it to go this poorly and that I think that has got people thinking," Korb said.

The White House meanwhile acknowledged some members of Obama's team have been reading "Lessons in Disaster," a book about flawed decision-making in the Vietnam war.

In the book, author Gordon Goldstein suggests the late president John F. Kennedy, if he had lived, would have rejected the military's demand for combat troops in Vietnam -- as he had lost faith in his generals' advice after the Bay of Pigs fiasco in Cuba.

"Perhaps this is Obama?s JFK moment," George Packer of the New Yorker wrote in his blog. "We?ll know in a few weeks."

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Obama furious at Gen. McChrystal speech on Afghanistan...

Barack Obama angry at General Stanley McChrystal speech on Afghanistan

The relationship between President Barack Obama and the commander of Nato forces in Afghanistan has been put under severe strain by Gen Stanley McChrystal's comments on strategy for the war.

By Alex Spillius

According to sources close to the administration, Gen McChrystal shocked and angered presidential advisers with the bluntness of a speech given in London last week.

The next day he was summoned to an awkward 25-minute face-to-face meeting on board Air Force One on the tarmac in Copenhagen, where the president had arrived to tout Chicago's unsuccessful Olympic bid.

In an apparent rebuke to the commander, Robert Gates, the Defence Secretary, said: "It is imperative that all of us taking part in these deliberations, civilians and military alike, provide our best advice to the president, candidly but privately."

When asked on CNN about the commander's public lobbying for more troops, Gen Jim Jones, national security adviser, said:

“Ideally, it's better for military advice to come up through the chain of command.”

Asked if the president had told the general to tone down his remarks, he told CBS: "I wasn't there so I can't answer that question. But it was an opportunity for them to get to know each other a little bit better. I am sure they exchanged direct views."

An adviser to the administration said: "People aren't sure whether McChrystal is being naïve or an upstart. To my mind he doesn't seem ready for this Washington hard-ball and is just speaking his mind too plainly."

In London, Gen McChrystal, who heads the 68,000 US troops in Afghanistan as well as the 100,000 Nato forces, flatly rejected proposals to switch to a strategy more reliant on drone missile strikes and special forces operations against al-Qaeda.

He told the Institute of International and Strategic Studies that the formula, which is favoured by Vice-President Joe Biden, would lead to "Chaos-istan".

When asked whether he would support it, he said: "The short answer is: No."

He went on to say: "Waiting does not prolong a favorable outcome. This effort will not remain winnable indefinitely, and nor will public support."

The remarks have been seen by some in the Obama administration as a barbed reference to the slow pace of debate within the White House.

Gen McChrystal delivered a report on Afghanistan requested by the president on Aug 31, but Mr Obama held only his second "principals meeting" on the issue last week.

He will hold at least one more this week, but a decision on how far to follow Gen McChrystal's recommendation to send 40,000 more US troops will not be made for several weeks.

A military expert said: "They still have working relationship but all in all it's not great for now."

Some commentators regarded the general's London comments as verging on insubordination.

Bruce Ackerman, an expert on constitutional law at Yale University, said in the Washington Post: "As commanding general, McChrystal has no business making such public pronouncements."

He added that it was highly unusual for a senior military officer to "pressure the president in public to adopt his strategy".

Relations between the general and the White House began to sour when his report, which painted a grim picture of the allied mission in Afghanistan, was leaked. White House aides have since briefed against the general's recommendations.

The general has responded with a series of candid interviews as well as the speech. He told Newsweek he was firmly against half measures in Afghanistan: "You can't hope to contain the fire by letting just half the building burn."

As a divide opened up between the military and the White House, senior military figures began criticising the White House for failing to tackle the issue more quickly.

They made no secret of their view that without the vast ground force recommended by Gen McChrystal, the Afghan mission could end in failure and a return to power of the Taliban.

"They want to make sure people know what they asked for if things go wrong," said Lawrence Korb, a former assistant secretary of defence.

Critics also pointed out that before their Copenhagen encounter Mr Obama had only met Gen McChrystal once since his appointment in June.

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Obama to take on military gay ban at `right time'

President Barack Obama will focus "at the right time" on how to overturn the "don't ask, don't tell" ban on gays serving openly in the military, his national security adviser said Sunday.

"I don't think it's going to be — it's not years, but I think it will be teed up appropriately," James Jones said.

The Democratic-led Congress is considering repealing the 1993 law. Action isn't expected on the issue until early next year.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., recently wrote Obama and Defense Secretary Robert Gates asked to share their views and recommendations on the contentious policy. In Sept. 24 letters, Reid also asked for a review of the cases of two U.S. officers who were discharged from the military because of their sexuality.

"At a time when we are fighting two wars, I do not believe we can afford to discharge any qualified individual who is willing to serve our country," Reid wrote.

Jones said Obama "has an awful lot on his desk. I know this is an issue that he intends to take on at the appropriate time. And he has already signaled that to the Defense Department. The Defense Department is doing the things it has to do to prepare, but at the right time, I'm sure the president will take it on."

As a candidate, Obama signaled support for repealing the law. To the disappointment of gay-rights supporters, he has yet to made a move since taking office in January. The White House has said it will not stop the military from dismissing gays and lesbians who acknowledge their sexuality.

Last year, 634 members of the military were discharged for being gay, or .045 percent of the active-duty U.S. force, according to an Aug. 14 congressional report.

The largest number of gays who were ousted under the "don't ask, don't tell" policy came in 2001, when 1,227 were discharged, or .089 of the force.

The House is considering legislation to repeal "don't ask, don't tell" and allow people who have been discharged under the policy to rejoin the military.

Jones appeared on CNN's "State of the Union."

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Iran's Ahmadinejad - a self-hating Jew?

Photo of president holding up identity card shows family changed name from Hebrew

By Drew Zahn

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad revealing his identity papers (Photo: London Telegraph)

Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has exasperated the world with incensed condemnations of Israel and his insistence that the Holocaust is a hoax, but could there be another reason behind his seeming hatred for the Jews?

According to a London Telegraph report, his ferocity may be overcompensation … for his own Jewish roots.

Examining a photo of the Iranian president holding aloft his identity card during the nation's 2008 elections, the newspaper discovered Ahmadinejad's original family name – prior to their conversion to Islam – was Sabourjian, a Jewish name meaning "cloth weaver."

Ahmadinejad has not denied that his name was changed when his family moved to Tehran in the 1950s, but he has also never confirmed what that original name was.

A note on his identification papers, when magnified from the photo, however, suggests the man from Aradan, Iran, carried a common Jewish name from the region of his birth. "Sabourjian," the Telegraph reports, is even on the list of reserved names for Iranian Jews compiled by Iran's Ministry of the Interior.

"This aspect of Mr. Ahmadinejad's background explains a lot about him," commented Ali Nourizadeh of the Centre for Arab and Iranian Studies. "Every family that converts into a different religion takes a new identity by condemning their old faith."

Nouizadeh told the Telegraph, "By making anti-Israeli statements, he is trying to shed any suspicions about his Jewish connections. He feels vulnerable in a radical Shia society."

Ahmadinejad, the fourth of seven children to a man who worked as an ironworker, grocer, barber and blacksmith, moved with his family to Tehran was he was a small child. Reportedly, the family moved to seek better economic fortunes, but also took on the new, Islamic name.

A 2007 Congressional Research Service report lists the Iranian president's original family name as "Saborjhian," linking the name to the Farsi "sabor," meaning "thread painter."

Some biographers, including Joel C. Rosenberg, list Ahmadinejad's original family name as "Sabaghian," meaning "dye-master" in Persian.

But the Telegraph reports the name on his papers is "Sabourjian" and cites a London-based expert on Iranian Jewry, who says the "jian" ending is specifically Jewish.

"He has changed his name for religious reasons, or at least his parents had," said the newspaper's source. "Sabourjian is well known Jewish name in Iran."

If Ahmadinejad is of Jewish ancestry, he has done much to distance himself from his heritage.

In a 2006 speech aired on the Iranian News Channel, Ahmadinejad listed alleged crimes by Israel against Palestinians while the crowd chanted, "Death to Israel! Death to Israel!"

Ahmadinejad responded, speaking of the Jewish people, "They have no boundaries, limits or taboos when it comes to killing human beings. Who are they? Where did they come from? Are they human beings? 'They are like cattle, nay, more misguided.' A bunch of bloodthirsty barbarians. Next to them, all the criminals of the world seem righteous."

That same year, he said, "[Israel] will be gone, definitely. You [Western powers] should know that any government that stands by the Zionist regime from now on will not see any result but the hatred of the people."

At a U.N. meeting last month, the Iranian president denounced Israel for "genocide, barbarism and racism."

"Yesterday, the man who calls the Holocaust a lie spoke from this podium," responded Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the same U.N. summit. "A mere six decades after the Holocaust, you give legitimacy to a man who denies the murder of six million Jews while promising to wipe out the State of Israel, the State of the Jews. What a disgrace. What a mockery of the charter of the United Nations."

The Telegraph reports it contacted the Israeli embassy in London for comment on Ahmadinejad's birth name but was told it would not speak on the Iranian president's background.

"It's not something we'd talk about," said Ron Gidor, a spokesman.

 

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UN Report Says Iran Has Data to Make a Nuclear Bomb

By WILLIAM J. BROAD and DAVID E. SANGER

Senior staff members of the United Nations nuclear agency have concluded in a confidential analysis that Iran has acquired “sufficient information to be able to design and produce a workable” atom bomb.

The report by experts in the International Atomic Energy Agency stresses in its introduction that its conclusions are tentative and subject to further confirmation of the evidence, which it says came from intelligence agencies and its own investigations.

But the report’s conclusions, described by senior European officials, go well beyond the public positions taken by several governments, including the United States.

Two years ago, American intelligence agencies published a detailed report concluding that Tehran halted its efforts to design a nuclear weapon in 2003. But in recent months, Britain has joined France, Germany and Israel in disputing that conclusion, saying the work has been resumed.

A senior American official said last week that the United States was now re-evaluating its 2007 conclusions.

The atomic agency’s report also presents evidence that beyond improving upon bomb-making information gathered from rogue nuclear experts around the world, Iran has done extensive research and testing on how to fashion the components of a weapon. It does not say how far that work has progressed.

The report, titled “Possible Military Dimensions of Iran’s Nuclear Program,” was produced in consultation with a range of nuclear weapons experts inside and outside the agency. It draws a picture of a complex program, run by Iran’s Ministry of Defense, “aimed at the development of a nuclear payload to be delivered using the Shahab 3 missile system,” Iran’s medium-range missile, which can strike the Middle East and parts of Europe. The program, according to the report, apparently began in early 2002.

If Iran is designing a warhead, that would represent only part of the complex process of making nuclear arms. Engineering studies would have to turn ideas into hardware. Finally, the hardest part would be enriching the uranium that could be used as nuclear fuel — though experts say Iran has already mastered that task.

While the analysis represents the judgment of the nuclear agency’s senior staff, a struggle has erupted in recent months over whether to make it public. The dispute pits the agency’s departing director, Mohamed ElBaradei, against his own staff and against foreign governments eager to intensify pressure on Iran.

Dr. ElBaradei has long been reluctant to adopt a confrontational strategy on Iran, an approach he sees as counterproductive. Responding to calls for the report’s release, he has raised doubts about its completeness and reliability.

Last month, the agency issued an unusual statement cautioning it “has no concrete proof” that Iran ever sought to make nuclear arms, much less to perfect a warhead. On Saturday in India, Dr. ElBaradei was quoted as saying that “a major question” about the authenticity of the evidence kept his agency from “making any judgment at all” on whether Iran had ever sought to design a nuclear warhead.

Even so, the emerging sense in the intelligence world that Iran has solved the major nuclear design problems poses a new diplomatic challenge for President Obama and his allies.

American officials say that in the direct negotiations with Iran that began last week, it will be vital to get the country to open all of its suspected sites to international inspectors. That is a long list, topped by the underground nuclear enrichment center under construction near Qum that was revealed 10 days ago.

Iran has acknowledged that the underground facility is intended as a nuclear enrichment center, but says the fuel it makes will be used solely to produce nuclear power and medical isotopes. It was kept heavily protected, Iranian officials said, to ward off potential attacks.

Iran said last week that it would allow inspectors to visit the site this month. In the past three years, amid mounting evidence of a possible military dimension to its nuclear program, Iran has denied the agency wide access to installations, documents and personnel.

In recent weeks, there have been leaks about the internal report, perhaps intended to press Dr. ElBaradei into releasing it.

The report’s existence has been rumored for months, and The Associated Press, saying it had seen a copy, reported fragments of it in September. On Friday, more detailed excerpts appeared on the Web site of the Institute for Science and International Security, run by David Albright, a nuclear expert.

In recent interviews, a senior European official familiar with the contents of the full report described it to The New York Times. He confirmed that Mr. Albright’s excerpts were authentic. The excerpts were drawn from a 67-page version of the report written earlier this year and since revised and lengthened, the official said; its main conclusions remain unchanged.

“This is a running summary of where we are,” the official said.

“But there is some loose language,” he added, and it was “not ready for publication as an official document.”

Most dramatically, the report says the agency “assesses that Iran has sufficient information to be able to design and produce a workable implosion nuclear device” based on highly enriched uranium.

Weapons based on the principle of implosion are considered advanced models compared with the simple gun-type bomb that the United States dropped on Hiroshima. They use a blast wave from a sphere of conventional explosives to compress a ball of bomb fuel into a supercritical mass, starting the atomic chain reaction and progressing to the fiery blast. Implosion designs, compact by nature, are considered necessary for making nuclear warheads small and powerful enough to fit atop a missile.

The excerpts also suggest that Iran has done much research and testing to perfect nuclear arms, like making high-voltage detonators, firing test explosives and designing warheads.

The evidence underlying these conclusions is not new: Some of it was reported in a confidential presentation to many nations in early 2008 by the agency’s chief inspector, Ollie Heinonen.

Iran maintains that its scientists have never conducted research on how to make a warhead and that any documents to the contrary are fraudulent.

But in August, a public report to the board of the I.A.E.A. by its staff concluded that the evidence of Iran’s alleged military activity was probably genuine.

It said “the information contained in that documentation appears to have been derived from multiple sources over different periods of time, appears to be generally consistent, and is sufficiently comprehensive and detailed that it needs to be addressed by Iran with a view to removing the doubts” about the nature of its nuclear program.

The agency’s tentative analysis also says that Iran “most likely” obtained the needed information for designing and building an implosion bomb “from external sources” and then adapted the information to its own needs.

It said nothing specific about the “external sources,” but many intelligence agencies assume that Iran obtained a bomb design from A. Q. Khan, the rogue Pakistani black marketer who sold it machines to enrich uranium. That information may have been supplemented by a Russian nuclear weapons scientist who visited Iran often, investigators say.

The I.A.E.A.’s internal report concluded that the staff believed “that non-nuclear experiments conducted in Iran would give confidence that the implosion system would function correctly.”

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