National Security: Palin vs Obama Part 2

Thanks for Sharing [Mark Steyn]

The supersmartest president of all time, who unlike that Sarah Palin is so totally an expert on nuclear issues, offers his unique insight:

If there was ever a detonation in New York City, or London, or Johannesburg, the ramifications economically, politically and from a security perspective would be devastating

And not just the ramifications.

http://bit.ly/9mtCki

Ed Ross: Having a Hard Time Understanding Obama's Nuke Strategy

By Doug Brady

In the past several days, we have posted on Obama's misguided change in 60 years of nuclear strategy and subsequent walk back after Governor Palin called him out on it. Today Ed Ross, an expert on international defense policies, weighed in on the recent kerfuffle in an article at the Daily Caller:

The Cold war is long over and the global strategic situation has changed. Nevertheless, Palin, conservatives like Krauthammer and Bolton, and the majority of Americans understand that human nature hasn’t changed. The more uncertainty in the minds of our enemies about how we will respond to any attack, the more likely we are to deter one.

As Palin’s playground comment suggests, let’s not tempt our adversaries to use any weapon of mass destruction against us, potentially killing hundreds of thousands of Americans, and force an American president to sacrifice thousands more to retaliate using only conventional means.

Liberals may want to reconsider the conservatives-are-stupid argument. It has worked for them in the past, before the days of cable television, the internet, Twitter, and the Tea Party movement. It’s far less effective now, when people no longer have to rely on the mainstream media for information, and they have multiple means of validating their common sense. Then again, perhaps conservatives should encourage them to keep it up and let them discover what happens in November when they keep calling conservatives (40 percent of American voters) idiots.

http://bit.ly/c8GXFc

Jim Hoft: Obama Retreats on Nuke Plan

Today, the Obama Administration retreated from their previous nuclear plan. Hillary Clinton told CBS that “all bets are off” when it comes to biological weapons:

... “We were concerned about the biological weapons,” Gates said, “and that’s why the president was very clear … if we see states developing biological weapons that we begin to think endanger us or create serious concerns, that he reserves the right to revise this policy.”

Clinton added, “If we can prove that a biological attack originated in a country that attacked us, then all bets are off.”

Apparently, the former governor knows more about nuclear deterrence than the community organizer after all.

This round goes to Palin.

http://bit.ly/a7kxHm

The Systematic Dismantling of a Secure America

By Janet Levy

Fast-forward to April 6, 2010, when Barack Obama informed the world that the United States would no longer function as a global superpower buttressed by nuclear weapons as a deterrence to war. With one unanticipated public statement from the putative leader of the free world, the security held by the doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction vanished from the American arsenal, and confidence in America's ability to defend its citizens vaporized. Obama's proclamation of unilateral nuclear disarmament nullified America's willingness and ability to defend itself and its allies at a critical juncture in history when worldwide nuclear proliferation abounds.

http://bit.ly/aCis5X


It Is Not the Bomb, but Who Has It [Victor Davis Hanson]

The problem is not necessarily bombs per se (e.g., We don't lose sleep over a nuclear France or Britain), but who has them. Those nations who possess nuclear weapons — even if some are undemocratic, such as a prosperous exporter like China — and go to these sort of conferences are not those who are most likely to use them preemptively, in contrast to an Iran or North Korea or radical Islamic group. By directing efforts against the means, rather than those who employ them, we may well direct attention from the real problem — sort of like the distraught state regulator who goes after the head-nodding, law-abiding citizen for his misdemeanor because he knows well he can do nothing much about the felonies of the dangerous criminal.

http://bit.ly/bryscK

Obama's Nuclear Posturing, Part Deux

by Charles Krauthammer

But this one? What was this great convocation about? To prevent the spread of nuclear material into the hands of terrorists. A worthy goal, no doubt. Unfortunately, the two greatest such threats were not even on the agenda.

The first is Iran, which is frantically enriching uranium to make a bomb, and which our own State Department identifies as the greatest exporter of terrorism in the world.

Nor on the agenda was Pakistan's plutonium production, which is adding to the world's stockpile of fissile material every day.

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=36539