Track-A-’Crat: The Roll Call of Democratic Delinquency

Barry the militant pacifist is at it again.

Entirely failing to see the point in retaining nuclear weapons and maintaining the development of new, more reliable and even more explode-y nukes no matter what, Barry wants a radical shake-up in the US’ nuclear and strategy.

Reducing the number of nukes is no biggie: it’s been going on for ages and, though he doesn’t get any credit for it, W. reached a nuclear reduction accord with Vlad the Mad in 2002.

But Barry is once again jumping in at the deep-end, without even attempting to take any measurements.  Most significantly, Obama wants to (1) redraft nuclear doctrine to narrow the range of conditions under which the US would use nuclear weapons and (2) guarantee the future reliability of nuclear weapons without testing or producing a new generation of warheads.

Here’s a couple of hints for you, Barry.  Please don’t make (1) contingent upon the US being struck with a nuke first, before it can launch one itself.  I feel that this is necessary to say because you’re so terrifyingly peacenik and reluctant to state what the world knows: we are the best.  At everything.  And, (2), before the generals and scientists tell you this, is impossible.  The only way that we can ensure that our nukes are reliable (thus, safe) is by testing them.  If you’re thinking about replacing real tests with virtual ones, don’t.

Even Barry cannot be naive enough to believe that if the US does this, then Russia/Iran/DPRK will be more inclined to undertake concessions themselves in return.  That will never happen.

So if Barry doesn’t believe that, what then lies behind his urge to disarm?

Simple.

Barry sincerely believes that the US is too powerful/dangerous.  He is one of those people (whom I’ve experience teaching) who believe that the US’ use of nukes against Japan was genocidal and a crime against humanity.  So he will neuter the US in an unrequited act of love towards the not-free world.

Finally, to those who think that nukes are an antiquated remnant of a world long gone, think again: as we so evidently cannot predict future threats, why should we deprive ourselves of one of the means of protection against them?

PS – Here’s the equation for legitimate ownership of nuclear weapons, in case anyone needs reminding:

Democracy + nukes = good.

Non-democracies + nukes = disaster.

And it’s no coincidence that that neatly draws a line between “us” and “them”, too.

Oh deary me.

Less than 48 hours after President Obama decided to reward Tehran for its complete and utter obstinacy, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad – the man with such intimate knowledge of his own country that he even knows that not a single homosexual resides there – has now decided that the bi-lateral negotiations are not going to cover the nuclear issue, after all.

Well, who would want to talk about such a trifling issue, really?

This is precisely why negotiations without preconditions were not offered previously, and can only come as a surprise to those who are willfully blind as to the nature and history of the Iranian theocracy.  For everyone else (read: all those not affiliated with the Democratic Party in any way whatsoever), this is nothing but another step on the path towards the imminent Iranian acquisition of nuclear weapons.

How our leaders are still duped by Iran’s time-honed strategy of offer-and-rescind is beneath my ability to explain.

The consequences, however, are far more easily elucidated: Iran gains a propaganda victory through making it appear that the Great Satan has capitulated; having already agreed to negotiations in principle, the Obama administration may still go through with them in a futile attempt to salvage whatever scraps of face remain after such a swift slap round the chops; and, most importantly for the mullahs, they gain yet more crucial time to dedicate to their weaponization schemes.

There are no easy choices and few good outcomes on this issue, but the worst by far remains Iranian possession of nukes.  At least with North Korea we have a somewhat compliant China (mostly) helping to keep the Dear Leader within the confines of his playpen, but who could fulfill a similar role with regard to Iran?

The Bush administration’s strategy veered schizophrenically from John Bolton’s singleminded determination to prevent Iran from obtaining nukes to eventually settling for merely slowing down their development horizon.  The Obama administration’s strategy, from what I can gather, consists almost entirely of talking nicely to an abhorrent collection of misogynists, bigots, racists and anti-Semites, and hoping for the best.

The complacency is stunning.  Time is running out to do anything substantive and if President Obama’s brainwave is to simply run down the clock and shrug his shoulders in resignation once the theocracy has turned the nightmare into reality, then he’s doing a bang-up job.

Otherwise, serious thinking caps (if not military helmets) need to go on right now.

Kim Jong-il, king of the fruitcakes, isn’t looking quite as robust as he normally does.

While his DPRK peasants eat grass, mud and each other (seriously – due to Kimmy’s depredations, destitute North Koreans have provided the world’s most contemporaneous example of forced cannibalism), the Dear Leader gorges himself on the finer things in life – whiskey, cigars and lobster.

Not that he has much longer to do so – the pancreatic cancer eating away at him appears to be winning.

DPRK is in the news for once not due to bellicose statements, missile launches and nuclear weapons. To remind us all that he (unfortunately) hasn’t died yet, Kimmy’s goons kidnapped a couple of American journalists.

The release of whom was negotiated in exchange for a visit by that walking STD, silver-haired lothario Bill Clinton, whom the state-run DPRK media then delightedly reported had apologized to the DL.

As cowardly as Clinton undoubtedly is, still I doubt it.

More pertinently, wasn’t it lucky that the two US reporters worked for Al Gore’s San Francisco-based Current TV? How handy for then calling in the 42nd president to go grovel for their release. Friends in high places and all that…

Does this mean that Clinton will henceforth be dispatched to Iran to ensure the release of the three arrested American tourists there?

In fact, why not use Bubba as a full-time chief hostage negotiator in increasingly dangerous global hot-spots?

A use has been found for him at last!

They commit suicide.

Though it’s a perennial favorite among left-wing enclaves, any (serious) talk of the demise of the US as the world’s sole superpower is so out of whack with reality that it’s normally not worth engaging your brain. When you’ve heard how the story goes once, you’ve heard it a thousand times.

Particularly when it’s Deepak Chopra (apologies, linked to a slightly aged piece in the Huff Po), who does nothing more than slightly re-heat all the tepid and vapid arguments of yesteryear about why a multi-polar world would be so, so nice.

Except, genius, that we’ve already had a multi-polar world on many previous occasions.  And it resulted in the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, World War I and World II (and, less directly, the Cold War), to name the biggies of the last two centuries alone.

Is even recent history that forgettable, now?

Significant state power, once gained, dissipates very slowly: few countries have lost their status as a superpower. Spain, Portugal and Holland are examples of this in the modern age, but, despite their deep problems, the United Kingdom, France and Russia still cling to their superpower standing, at least for now.

There has, however, never before been a power like the United States.

The (former) empires of France, Britain, Persia, Russia, China and Rome do not even come close to the military might of the US.  Short of the entire world teaming up against America, none could take her down – and even then, my money would be on the US. It’d be like Hulk Hogan fighting a room full of toddlers: unpleasant, to be sure, but more irritating than anything else (for the Hulkster, anyway).

Not that the US’ authority comprises only military means.  Combined with the twin allures of its (usually) dynamic economy and open society, the US towers over the rest of the world.

The real stake in the heart of this soft-intellectualism, however, is the most basic point: who would take over?

For as much as the Left loves to imagine it, there would be no orderly division of labor between America and the wannabees.  There never has been and there never will be, until (God forbid) we have some kind of global governance rule.

That aside, intense (and violent) competition will emerge among those nation-states covetous of American influence.  Historically, the world is at its most dangerous when states seek to change the prevailing order.

Which is precisely what is happening today. The ascension of a young and inexperienced president has afforded nefarious regimes the world over another opportunity to see how far they can push America back and expand their own influence. China is challenging the US Navy in the South China Sea.  Latent Russian hostility is on the rise, as they achieve feats such as ousting the US from its only Central Asian air base in Kyrgyzstan.  Iran is as belligerent as usual and closer than ever to obtaining nuclear weapons.  North Korea, behaving true to form despite Kim Jong-il’s incapacity, is conducting nuclear tests without a care in the world.  Serial basket-case Pakistan is nowhere nearer becoming the theoretical stable democracy that some analysts think not only possible, but also a panacea for their many problems. Finally, the mini-me Castros of Latin America are still nipping at America’s heels, but let’s leave them to their own plots and schemes while we focus on the big boys.

Within the last week alone – not that you’d know it from a domestic media that has focused exclusively on the riveting spectacle of Democrats blanketly defaming tens of millions of conservatives as racists – Russia has concluded pacts with the Georgian regions of Abkhazian and South Ossetia, allowing it to maintain military bases in both places for nearly a half-century to come. Everyone, please welcome back the Russian Empire. That, of course, is in addition to Russian warnings that it will seize (Georgian) ships in the Black Sea. Iran, meanwhile, is delirious with self-satisfaction now that its pure intransigence has led to its being dropped from the agenda for a September 24th meeting of the UNSC chaired by President Obama, a moratorium on further UNSC sanctions and the grand prize, bi-lateral negotiations with the United States. The DPRK, ever desperate to ensure that the world takes note of its pitiful existence, has been similarly rewarded with one-on-one talks, after it decided to renounce the 1953 armistice with South Korea.

More so even than acts of great strength, acts of weakness on this scale are never forgotten.

It is so dangerously naive to believe that we can all just get along, as Chopra and so many other left-wing flyweights unquestioningly do (with not the least among them being President Obama), that it defies comprehension.

Can they truly believe that China or Russia would be content with sharing global predominance with the US and do not harbor ambitions of usurping the US entirely?  That they wouldn’t subsequently transpose their oppression from the domestic to the international level?

And do they really want to see that happen?

I’m not sure that I want to know the answer.

Oyyyy.

Got a little headache this morning.  My body, apparently, ain’t so friendly with beer anymore.  Could be because my wife and I drank champagne like water during the two weeks around our wedding.  Could be because I’m nearly 30.  Could just be that I’m a bit lame.

Enough about me.  Turns out North Korea, according to Retired Marine Corps Gen. James Jones, is not so much of a threat, after all.

Except, that is, for being led by a complete loony-bin, possessing nuclear wepaons, having a gigantic military, adhering to strict Marxist ideology and, most dangerously of all, a propensity for passing on its nuclear know-how to places such as Iran.

All in all, then, the DPRK is a wonderfully friendly and open place, but just has a slight image problem.

Gen. Jones is so sanguine about the threat posed by North Korea because, if you’re optimistic, (a) he has better info than we do about the imminent collapse of the regime there, or, if you’re pessimistic, (b) he knows that the US is soon to face a far more significant military challenge from, say, North Korea’s large northern neighbor.

[PS - I wanted another DPRK story to surface as, since my post yesterday, I've been checking out DPRK propaganda posters online.  They're awesome!  Ignore the abundant destruction of US symbols, and just admire the artistry and insanity.]

King of the Freakazoids, Kim Jong-il, has been a naughty boy again.

Susan Rice, US ambassador to the United Nations, and thus the very first person to whom we should turn when empty words are preferable to swift action, said that, “they’re going to find they’ll pay a price because the international community is clear: it’s not acceptable.”

The statement was made in a midly (think Dijon mustard as opposed to Tabasco) threatening way.

I sure would hate to pee off the quote-international community-unquote.  That would definitely be a bad move.

Unless I were the Taliban.  Or the CCP.  Or the House of Saud.  Or al-Bashir of Sudan.  Or Robert Mugabe.  Or Vladimir Putin.  Or Chavez/Correa/Morales or any of the other past or future Latin American Castro wannabes.  Or…

You get my point.

And, almost certainly, the “price” that the DPRK will pay will be to receive ever-so-slightly less aid from us spineless westerners.  That’s the same type of mindset that in Washington DC defines a cut in government spending as a decrease in the rate of increase of government spending.

Fail, you morons.

[Yeah, the title is not one of my creations.  I read it elsewhere ages ago and decided there and then to steal it for my own use one day.  But it's still awesome.]

Human Teletubby and King of the Freakazoids, Kim Jong-il, has failed to send a satellite into space, according to South Korea and the US military.

This, however, didn’t stop North Korean officials from claiming that they had successfully placed into orbit a satellite broadcasting “revolutionary songs”.

Revolutionary songs?  WTF?

I know that Kimmy is completely whackadoo but this is even more insane than usual.

In completely unrelated but equally outlandish news, North Korea also recently opened its very first “authentic” Italian pizzeria.  After TEN YEARS of covert international research.

That’s approaching the amount of time it took the DPRK to make nuclear weapons (thank you Russia, China, A. Q. Khan).  Except I imagine that they’re slightly more awkward to manufacture than pizza.