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MONDAY,  MAY 31,  2010

WHAT WE STAND FOR – AT 7:53 P.M. ET:  On the day when we contemplate the sacrifices of American servicemen and women, we also think about the causes that led them into battle.  And Jackson Diehl of the Washington Post isn't pleased with the way one of those causes has been shunted aside by the Obama administration:

What sort of international order does Barack Obama seek? Last week he gave a detailed answer: "One that can resolve the challenges of our times -- countering violent extremism and insurgency; stopping the spread of nuclear weapons and securing nuclear materials; combating a changing climate and sustaining global growth; helping countries feed themselves and care for their sick; resolving and preventing conflict, while also healing its wounds."

That's a big agenda. But isn't something missing? Nowhere in that long sentence, in the introduction to his new national security strategy, does Obama suggest that the international "engagement" he proposes should serve to combat tyranny or oppression, or promote democracy. In that sense, it is typical of the first comprehensive account Obama has offered of his administration's goals in the world. In theory -- as in the practice of his first year -- human rights come second.

Ouch.  And this is the change we were supposed to believe in.  Oh, the youthful idealism!

The White House's left-leaning "realists" -- who seek to limit U.S. foreign engagements, shift resources to domestic programs and jettison the "freedom agenda" of George W. Bush -- seem to have won all of the big arguments.

Yeah, we've noticed.  Aren't we proud.

Like the Bush administration before it, the Obama team says America has an interest in the creation of a Palestinian state -- but unlike Bush, Obama doesn't say that that state should be democratic.

After all, democracy is just another "narrative."  Isn't that the stuff they teach in graduate schools these days?

It gets worse:

Proponents of an Obama freedom agenda did get one chapter of the report, titled "Values." But its very segregation from the other three "interests" -- "Security," "Prosperity" and "International Order," gives its proposals a fenced-off feel. The policy begins with a couple of big qualifications: The United States will promote its values mainly "by living them at home..."

As the guy from "Saturday Night Live" used to say, "Isn't that special."

Obama has already demonstrated that he does not accept Bush's conclusion that the promotion of democracy and human rights is inseparable from the tasks of defeating al-Qaeda and establishing a workable international order. But nowhere in his 52-page doctrine is there a coherent explanation of why.

COMMENT:  That's pretty devastating, in my view.  Here is the first African-American president, for whom "freedom" should have special meaning, and it doesn't seem to have much meaning at all. 

I wonder why.  Is it, perhaps, because this president harbors a certain respect for socialism, or other forms that dabble in totalitarianism?  Hmm.  Question to be answered.

May 31, 2010     Permalink

IRAN GAINS – SAME OLD STORY – AT 7:25 P.M. ET:  While "the world" spends its time condemning Israel's raid on Gaza "peace" ships (the video tells a different story), Iran makes dramatic gains in its nuclear program.

VIENNA (AP) — Iran has amassed more than two tons of enriched uranium, the U.N. atomic agency said Monday in a report that heightened Western concerns about the country developing the ability to produce a nuclear weapon.

Two tons of uranium would be enough for two nuclear warheads, although Iran says it does not want weapons and is only pursuing civilian nuclear energy.

The U.S. and the four other permanent U.N. Security Council members — Russia, China, Britain and France — have tentatively backed a draft fourth set of U.N. sanctions against Iran over its refusal to stop enriching uranium.

Separately, the International Atomic Energy Agency — the U.N. nuclear watchdog — said Syria continues to stonewall agency reports to follow up on U.S. assertions that a facility destroyed three years ago by Israeli warplanes was a secretly built reactor meant to produce plutonium.

"Syria has not cooperated with the agency since June 2008" on most aspects of its investigation, according to the IAEA's Syria report. But it noted that Syria has admitted to small-scale nuclear experiments that it had previously not owned up to.

COMMENT:  The "sanctions" that members of the Security Council have agreed on would do little to discourage Iran, in the absence of additional sanctions by individual nations.  So far, those have not materialized.

What is lacking, of course, is any sense of urgency.  Hillary Clinton makes grand statements about the Iranian program, but they're followed by months of negotiations leading nowhere.

May 31,  2010    Permalink

OIL, SHE SAID – AT 11:26 A.M. ET:  The oil spill continues critical, as the Obama administration tries to polish its image.  From The New York Times:

HOUSTON — The Obama administration scrambled to respond on Sunday after the failure of the latest effort to kill the gushing oil well in the Gulf of Mexico. But administration officials acknowledged the possibility that tens of thousands of gallons of oil might continue pouring out until August, when two relief wells are scheduled to be completed.

“We are prepared for the worst,” said Carol M. Browner, President Obama’s climate change and energy policy adviser. “We have been prepared from the beginning.”

Even as the White House sought to demonstrate that it was taking a more direct hand in trying to solve the problem, senior officials acknowledged that the new technique BP will use to try to cap the leak — severing the riser pipe and placing a containment dome over the cut riser — could temporarily result in as much as 20 percent more oil flowing into the water during the three days to a week before the new device could be in place.

“This is obviously a difficult situation,” Ms. Browner said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday, “but it’s important for people to understand that from the beginning, the government has been in charge.”

Huh?  At first the Obamans said that BP was in charge.  And why would they now want to claim to be in charge of a series of failures?  I guess they left their thinking caps in the closet.

“We have been directing BP to take important steps,” including the drilling of a second relief well, she added.

COMMENT:  Carol Browner is the resident socialist in the Cabinet.  She knows from drills like she knows from economics.

May 30, 2010     Permalink

INCIDENT AT SEA – AT 11:10 A.M. ET:  At least ten so-called "peace activists" were killed when an Israeli commando team raided a "relief" ship as it approached Gaza.  Israel claims, and seems to have the proof, that the "activists" were actually violent extremists, who attacked the Israeli team.  But the "humanitarian workers" are having a propaganda field day, as is the left-wing media:

Israel's allies in Europe, as well as the United Nations and Turkey, voiced shock and outrage at the bloody end to a bid by international campaigners to break Israel's blockade of the Gaza Strip. Its navy stopped six ships ferrying 700 people and 10,000 tonnes of supplies toward the Islamist-run Palestinian enclave.

The U.N. Security Council was summoned for an emergency session in New York at 1 p.m. EDT. In Washington, however, the United States, Israel's most vital ally, said only that it regretted the loss of life and was looking into the "tragedy."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was in Canada and expressed full support for the navy operation, cut short a visit to North America that was to have ended Tuesday with a meeting at the White House with U.S. President Barack Obama.

That meeting had seemed intended to soothe U.S.-Israel ties, which have been strained by differences over recently revived peace talks with the Palestinians. But Obama must also balance relations with Israel, which is popular with American voters, and those with an outraged Turkey and other Muslim allies.

COMMENT:  There is, of course, no waiting for facts.  The standard "shock and outrage" crowd is already at the microphones.  Other ships in a Gaza "relief" flotilla were also boarded without incident.  There was violence, apparently extreme, only aboard one ship.

The incident will complicate even further our Mideast policy.  In fairness we must ask whether mistakes were made on the Israeli side in the planning of the boarding.  However, it does appear that a planned ambush took place aboard that one ship, and that Israelis had a right to fight back.

The truth won't matter.  The flotilla was sponsored by Turkey, which is rapidly turning into an extremist Islamic state.  They'll milk it.

May 31, 2010    Permalink

THE DAY – AT 9:28 A.M. ET:  Urgent Agenda readers need no reminder of the meaning of Memorial Day.  Sadly, for much of the nation, the "Memorial Day Weekend" has become one more commercial event.  The president, perhaps unsurprisingly, is even skipping the traditional wreath laying at Arlington.

But don't despair.  There is, in our country, an unending line of patriotic citizens who do remember, and do pass the remembrance on to their children.  Some among the self-appointed elites will laugh at them, call them hicks or worse, and regard them as "the flyover people."

We know who they really are.  They are the people who keep this nation going, who are the first at recruiting stations in time of war, and who comprehend what "duty, honor, country" is all about.

James Michener once asked why we are lucky enough to have the men and women in our armed forces, whose sacrifice we remember this day.  We aren't lucky.  The core of our patriotism was built through the generations, not by arms alone, but by ideas – ideas that are as valid and needed today as they were in 1776, or on September 11, 2001.

Those ideas will endure long after this weekend's barbecue pits grow cold.

May 31,  2001   Permalink

SUNDAY,  MAY 30,  2010

CORRECTION:  In a post earlier today, I wrote this:   "In the past, enemies have had sanctuaries in North Korea and China, during the Korean War, and North Vietnam and China during the Vietnam War. "  As reader Bruce Goldman points out, that is incorrect.  There was no sanctuary in North Korea during the Korean War.  The UN command, which essentially meant the United States, did decide against a new ground assault against North Korea once peace talks began, but North Korea did continue to receive regular air and naval bombardment.  Urgent Agenda regrets the error. 

THE TRUTH COMES OUT – AND WE'RE HAPPY TO BRING IT TO YOU – AT 11:18 P.M. ET:  Now we know, courtesy of Nancy Pelosi, who caused the disaster in the Gulf.  From the Washington Examiner:

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., blamed the Bush administration for any lack of oversight leading up to the Gulf oil spill. The Obama administration, on the other hand, is blameless.

From Talk Radio News Service:

“Many of the people appointed in the Bush administration are still burrowed in the agencies that are supposed to oversee the [oil] industry,” Pelosi said when asked if Democrats could have prevented or mitigated the crisis by keeping a closer watch on the industry.

Added the Speaker, “the cozy relationships between the Bush administration’s agency leadership and the industry is clear…I’ve heard no complaints from my members about the way the president has handled it,” Pelosi stated.

COMMENT:  President Bush also caused global warming, unintended acceleration in Toyotas, and Oprah's ratings dip.  We're so relieved that he's gone.

May 30, 2010    Permalink 

IRANIAN MEDDLING – AMERICAN DEATHS – AT 4:15 P.M. ET:  Add one more reason, and an urgent one, for the United States to get serious about Iran, and end the party dancing going on now.  From AP:

KABUL, Afghanistan — The commander of US and NATO forces in Afghanistan said Sunday there was "clear evidence" that some Taliban fighters had trained in Iran.

Gen. Stanley McChrystal told reporters in the Afghan capital that Iran had generally assisted the Afghan government in fighting the insurgent group. "There is, however, clear evidence of Iranian activity — in some cases providing weaponry and training to the Taliban — that is inappropriate," he said, adding that NATO forces were working to stop both the training and the weapons trafficking.

Translated:  The Iranians are playing both ends, and American soldiers are caught in the crossfire – in this case a real crossfire. 

We are, in effect, giving the Taliban a sanctuary in Iran.  In the past, enemies have had sanctuaries in North Korea and China, during the Korean War, and North Vietnam and China during the Vietnam War.  It is an extra burden, and an extra cruelty, that American forces must contend with.

In the meantime, we continue to "engage" Iran.

May 30, 2010     Permalink

NO SALE IN THE ARAB WORLD – AT 11:37 A.M. ET:  You'd think, with all the outreach going on from this administration toward our misunderstood friends in the Arab world, that some impact would be evident. 

But Dan Pipes, in NRO, notes a recent poll that show some pretty disappointing results:

Gallup’s results show something of a wash: Obama does distinctly better than George W. Bush in Mauritania (going from 44 to 69 percent) and Egypt (6 to 19 percent). He improves on Bush just over the margin of error in Algeria (going from 25 to 30 percent). He improves on Bush within the margin of error in the Palestinian Territories (from 13 to 16 percent). The two are tied in Lebanon (at 25 percent). And Obama does worse than Bush in Iraq (going from 35 to 30 percent).

Also noteworthy is that Obama’s current standing has declined among all six of the populations from what it was in mid-2009. The smallest drop (3 percent) was in Iraq and the largest (18 percent) in Egypt.

Comments: (1) These polls register a highly unimpressive showing for someone who placed so much emphasis on improving U.S. standing among Muslims. (2) The graph of Arabic-speakers’ attitudes toward Obama differs from that of Americans’ views: The former went up and then down, while the latter went down and then flattened out. That said, both at present show a downward trend.

COMMENT:  Is anyone shocked?  The idea that this self-proclaimed new messiah could actually work miracles in the Arab world is ludicrous.  These cultures have their own point of view, and their own leaders and news media, feeding them the worst propaganda every day.

This reminds me of an isolationist senator who, after the Nazis invaded Poland in September of 1939, exclaimed how all this could have been prevented had he just had five minutes to talk with Adolf Hitler.

Grand illusions die hard, then get reborn.

May 30, 2010    Permalink

THE RELIGION OF PEACE SENDS ANOTHER AMBASSADOR – AT 11:17 A.M. ET:  Just as our malice in blunderland administration is making it clear that "Islamic extremism" is not in its dictionary, an incident in Britain illustrates why it should be, big time.  From The Times of London:

THE home secretary, Theresa May, is facing a stiff test of the Conservative party’s claims to oppose radical Islam after her officials chose to allow a misogynist Muslim preacher into Britain.

Zakir Naik, an Indian televangelist described as a “hate-monger” by moderate Muslims and one Tory MP, says western women make themselves “more susceptible to rape” by wearing revealing clothing.

Naik, who proselytises on Peace TV, a satellite television channel, is reported to have called for the execution of Muslims who change their faith, described Americans as “pigs” and said that “every Muslim should be a terrorist”.

In a recent lecture, he said he was “with” Osama Bin Laden over the attacks on “terrorist America”, adding that the 9/11 hijackings were an inside job by President George W Bush.

In opposition, David Cameron and other senior Tories led criticism of the Labour government for allowing radical preachers into Britain to stir up hatred on lecture tours. While in opposition, Cameron also campaigned to get Yusuf al-Qaradawi, an Egyptian radical, banned from Britain.

Cameron and May now face a political test over Naik, whose inflammatory comments have led some moderate Muslims to call him a “truth-twister”.

One well-placed insider said: “Zakir Naik is a nasty man who makes al-Qaradawi look like a participant at a teddy bears’ picnic. He shouldn’t be allowed into the country to stir up hatred.”

COMMENT:  Nice, huh?  Look for him to be invited soon to American universities, as an expression of "multiculturalism."

I wonder where the "women's" groups are in all this.  We know where they are.  They are playing their proudest role, as backups for the leftist movements they truly represent.  Women's rights?  Oh yeah, that's on their list, too.  Just look pretty far down the page.

May 30, 2010     Permalink

ISRAEL PUTS FORCES IN PLACE RE IRAN – AT 10:51 A.M. ET:  There is a growing feeling that Field Marshal Obama has no intention of doing anything serious to stop the Iranian nuclear and missile programs, and that Israel may have to act alone.  Israel apparently agrees.  From The Times of London:

Three German-built Israeli submarines equipped with nuclear cruise missiles are to be deployed in the Gulf near the Iranian coastline.

The first has been sent in response to Israeli fears that ballistic missiles developed by Iran, Syria and Hezbollah, a political and military organisation in Lebanon, could hit sites in Israel, including air bases and missile launchers.

The submarines of Flotilla 7 — Dolphin, Tekuma and Leviathan — have visited the Gulf before. But the decision has now been taken to ensure a permanent presence of at least one of the vessels.

The flotilla’s commander, identified only as “Colonel O”, told an Israeli newspaper: “We are an underwater assault force. We’re operating deep and far, very far, from our borders.”

Each of the submarines has a crew of 35 to 50, commanded by a colonel capable of launching a nuclear cruise missile.

The vessels can remain at sea for about 50 days and stay submerged up to 1,150ft below the surface for at least a week. Some of the cruise missiles are equipped with the most advanced nuclear warheads in the Israeli arsenal.

The deployment is designed to act as a deterrent, gather intelligence and potentially to land Mossad agents. “We’re a solid base for collecting sensitive information, as we can stay for a long time in one place,” said a flotilla officer.

COMMENT:  We tend to push Iran off the front pages, but the Iranian crisis is building day by day.  Despite all the yapping about "sanctions," there really has been no action taken with any effect at all.  This is not getting better, and the Israeli action underlines the danger.

May 30, 2010    Permalink

PLAYING BY THE RULES – AT 10:29 A.M. ET:  We try to teach our children to play by the rules.  Unfortunately, some people who play by the rules wind up being thrown out of the country, while those who didn't play by the rules portray themselves as victims of "fascist" Arizona.  From The New York Times:

WELLS, Me. — It was an unusual sign, even for a restaurant here along the Maine coast, where seasonal home-grown businesses are a way of life.

“Closed. Gone to try and get a new visa,” read the hand-scrawled message taped inside the window of Laura’s Kitchen, a cozy eatery that specialized in corned beef hash and omelets and where the tiny tables were still set with brightly colored napkins. “Hope to see you in the spring. Dean & Laura.”

The sign turned out to be overly optimistic. Dean and Laura Franks, a British couple who opened the restaurant in 2000, found that after nine years of running their business, they could not renew their visa, forcing them to shutter the restaurant and leave the country.

And...

...immigration advocates say they are hearing more and more accounts of renewal applications being turned down. It has been an enigmatic process for the Franks, uprooting their lives even though they have paid all their taxes, own the restaurant and its adjacent rental house, and have no debts except a mortgage on their home in Arundel, about 35 miles away.

COMMENT:  The authorities will give all kinds of reasons for these denials, such as claiming that the businesses run by visa holders like the Franks don't generate sufficient income to meet some subjective standard.

But, bottom line, people like the Franks don't have any political clout.  There is no "visa vote" for the Democrats to grovel after.  They cannot be portrayed as ethnic victims.  They don't have a President Calderon coming to the United States to lecture us on their behalf.  They work hard and live clean, and so the political left considers them uninteresting. 

When we start throwing out hard-working people, and figuring out ways to "legalize" the illegal, we are in trouble.  But we've known that for years, haven't we?

May 30, 2010    Permalink