Military Affairs

Nuclear Weapons, Israel, and the Obama Administration

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The Obama administration is looking at pressuring Israel to change the status quo regarding that country’s nuclear arsenal.

Assistant Secretary of State Rose Gottemoeller, speaking Tuesday at a U.N. meeting on the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), said Israel should join the treaty, which would require Israel to declare and relinquish its nuclear arsenal.

“Universal adherence to the NPT itself, including by India, Israel, Pakistan and North Korea, … remains a fundamental objective of the United States,” Ms. Gottemoeller told the meeting.

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The Obama Administration and the Terrorist Threat

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Andrew C McCarthy, former U.S. Attorney for the southern district of New York, responds to a request from AG Eric Holder for his participation in a task force on detention policies–a request which McCarthy (who led the terrorism prosecution against Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman and eleven others in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing) chose to decline. Here’s why:

I admire the lawyers of the Counterterrorism Division, and I do not question their good faith. Nevertheless, it is quite clear—most recently, from your provocative remarks on Wednesday in Germany—that the Obama administration has already settled on a policy of releasing trained jihadists (including releasing some of them into the United States). Whatever the good intentions of the organizers, the meeting will obviously be used by the administration to claim that its policy was arrived at in consultation with current and former government officials experienced in terrorism cases and national security issues. I deeply disagree with this policy, which I believe is a violation of federal law and a betrayal of the president’s first obligation to protect the American people. Under the circumstances, I think the better course is to register my dissent, rather than be used as a prop.

Read the whole thing.

For those who don’t remember just what a serious matter the fight against terrorism is, here’s a reminder.

Two Items…and Two Questions

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1) A Palestinian man has been sentenced to death by hanging for the “crime” of selling land to Jews.

Will the people who endlessly denounce Israel for its supposed interference with “Palestinian rights” have anything to say about the rights of this Palestinian man?

I think you know the answer.

2) Palestinian military forces are now being trained–at a cost of tens of millions of dollars to American taxpayers–by United States personnel.

Why on earth should we assist the development of a military which shields a regime under which atrocities such as the one above are a matter of policy?

Note also: The Obama administration is requesting changes to U.S. law which would permit aid to continue flowing to the Palestinian Authority even if officials backed by Hamas become part of a unified Palestinian government. (Since Hamas has been designated as a terrorist organization, aid would not be permitted under U.S. law as it stands.)

Political AIDS: the First Symptom is Pirates

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The thing that strikes me most about the Somali  pirate  problem  is the shear trivial nature of the physical threat. Via Instantpundit comes this report which says:

Separately Sunday, the captain of an Italian cruise ship said his security staff fought off a pirate attack in the region Saturday with pistols and a water hose.  

Wow, who knew that the combination of  pistols  and  water hoses  created such a fearsome weapon! The navies of the world’s developed nations should look into obtaining this fearsome combination because apparently they cannot defeat these  awesome  pirates with the ships, aircraft,  missiles, radar,  satellites and all the other multi-billion dollar weapons they currently have.  

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South Park Foreign Policy

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Via Instapundit comes this report on the U.S. struggle to deal with Somali pirates:

Gen. David Petraeus, who came to the Capitol to talk about a wide variety of issues, told a House committee Friday that just trying to outrun or block pirates from boarding cargo ships isn’t enough to deter sea bandits off the Somali coast who are becoming more aggressive. The Pentagon is starting to study how to better protect merchant shipping, but hasn’t yet come up with a formal plan.

They should just ask the writers of South Park:

Of course, we should shoot all pirates regards of race, ethnicity or creed. A pirate is a pirate.