Barrel Strength

The cavalier attitude displayed by the Obama administration toward national security continues to amaze.   It seems that anti-terrorist strategy is relying on failure on the behalf of the terrorist.  So far this has included the 2009 Christmas bombing and the Times Square bombing.  With reports of a terror watch at the Texas/Mexican border, one would think that Obama would be eager to shore up the defenses there but alas that is not the case.  He has failed to respond the request for troops by the Texas governor.

After repeated requests for help, President Barack Obama has agreed to send 1,200 National Guard troops to Arizona’s border with Mexico. But so far, the president hasn’t responded to Texas’ request for assistance.

Gov. Rick Perry has sent letters to Obama, Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano requesting National Guard troops for the Texas-Mexico border.

Almost a year and a half after the first letter was sent, Perry hasn’t received an answer.

Is he reading his security briefings or is he more interested in raising funds, and providing entertainment at these fund raising events, for the upcoming election campaign?

With Korean Peninsula heating up again, the problem will be inevitably blamed on Bush.  The resident centrist has already taken that tack, “Bush didn’t have a solution for Iran, nor had he a solution for Korea”.  Didn’t Bush realize that he was actually leaving some work behind?!  What is up with that lazy cowboy?!

The real cause for the current problem though lies with the Clinton administration, which allowed North Korea to obtain nuclear weapons.  This NYT editorial from 1994 is worth reading, with particular attention to the degree of condescension toward the hawks.  It notes that “the hawks’ alternative to diplomacy was full of danger”.  Well alright then, what is the alternative now with the benefit of 15-years of hindsight?

Diplomacy with North Korea has scored a resounding triumph. Monday’s draft agreement freezing and then dismantling North Korea’s nuclear program should bring to an end two years of international anxiety and put to rest widespread fears that an unpredictable nation might provoke nuclear disaster.

The U.S. negotiator Robert Gallucci and his North Korean interlocutors have drawn up a detailed road map of reciprocal steps that both sides accepted despite deep mutual suspicion. In so doing they have defied impatient hawks and other skeptics who accused the Clinton Administration of gullibility and urged swifter, stronger action. The North has agreed first to freeze its nuclear program in return for U.S. diplomatic recognition and oil from Japan and other countries to meet its energy needs. Pyongyang will then begin to roll back that program as an American-led consortium replaces the North’s nuclear reactors with two new ones that are much less able to be used for bomb-making. At that time, the North will also allow special inspections of its nuclear waste sites, which could help determine how much plutonium it had extracted from spent fuel in the past.

A last-minute snag, North Korea’s refusal to resume its suspended talks with neighboring South Korea, was resolved to Seoul’s satisfaction. If Washington and Pyongyang approve the agreement, and if the North fulfills its commitments, this negotiation could become a textbook case on how to curb the spread of nuclear arms.

Hawks, arguing that the North was simply stalling while it built more bombs, had called for economic sanctions or attacks on the North’s nuclear installations. The Administration muted the war talk and pursued determined diplomacy.

Reassuring the North paid off in the end. Given the residual mistrust between the two sides, the U.S. will now sensibly provide more tangible reassurance. It is moving toward diplomatic recognition, in the form of an exchange of liaison offices, and economic cooperation, in the form of heavy fuel oil from others in the U.S.-led consortium and the start of construction of new nuclear reactors.

In return, the North will put its nuclear program in a deep freeze by not refueling its nuclear reactor, arranging temporary safe storage of the spent fuel rods removed from that reactor and sealing its reprocessing facility to prevent the extraction of plutonium from those fuel rods. Implementing the freeze and allowing it to be verified are important tests of the North’s good faith.

Then, in elaborately choreographed stages detailed in a confidential note, nuclear dismantling will proceed step-by-step with reactor replacement. That gives both sides leverage against reneging. At the end of stage one, with construction of the first reactor well under way but before key nuclear components have been supplied, the North will allow special inspections of its nuclear waste sites.

In stage two, as construction proceeds on the two reactors, the North will gradually ship its 8,000 spent fuel rods abroad for reprocessing. In stage three, as the second replacement reactor nears completion, the North will dismantle all its bomb-making facilities, including its old graphite reactors and reprocessing plant.

Critics say the U.S. is in effect bribing North Korea to comply with the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Yet Washington has previously provided inducements to others, including South Korea, to refrain from bomb-making. It has gotten the North to do a lot more than the treaty requires, like dismantle its nuclear installations.

From the start, the hawks’ alternative to diplomacy was full of danger. Their solution — economic sanctions and bombing runs — might have disarmed North Korea, but only at the risk of war. President Clinton, former President Carter and Mr. Gallucci deserve warm praise for charting a less costly and more successful course.

Oh yes, very successful indeed!

During the Bush presidency it was common to compare Hitler with Bush.  This wasn’t just limited to political fringes, but included elected Democrats like Sen. John Glenn who said “It’s the old Hitler business.”  The Republican comments directed toward Obama are not as vituperative, but are becoming more direct.  Here is a comment from private lunch between Obama and Republican Senators which was suppose to patch up differences.

“The more he talked, the more he got upset,” Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) said. “He needs to take a valium before he comes in and talks to Republicans and just calm down, and don’t take anything so seriously. If you disagree with someone, it doesn’t mean you’re attacking their motives — and he takes it that way and tends then to lecture and then gets upset.”…

In one of the most heated exchanges of the lunch, Corker accused Obama of acting “duplicitous” in his calls for bipartisanship, saying that he was trying to cut a deal on regulatory reform only to see the rug pulled out from underneath him. At one point, Corker said Obama was using lunch with Republicans as a “prop.”

“I told him I thought there was a degree of audacity in him even showing up today after what had happened with financial regulation,” Corker told reporters after Republicans met with Obama.