Tag Archives: Barack Obama

It Ain’t Necessarily So

Last week, President Obama told the latest graduates of the Air Force Academy that, despite massive cuts in defense spending being made by his administration, “We will maintain our military superiority in all areas – air, land, sea, space and cyber.”

This fits the meme being pushed by Team Obama as the campaign heats up.  It is of a piece with the contention that the President has been so extraordinarily successful a Commander-in-Chief as to be unassailable politically with regard to his stewardship of national security and foreign policy. 

As with his commitment to the newly minted Air Force officers, in the immortalwords of Ira Gershwin, this narrative “ain’t necessarily so.”

Let’s start with the promise of military superiority.  Only someone completely oblivious – or indifferent – to what it takes to achieve and maintain superiority could make such a statement under present, and foreseeable, circumstances.  The fact of the matter is that the nearly $800 billion already excised from the Pentagon budgets over the next ten years have already translated into the evisceration of virtually every military modernization program previously on the books.  Research and development accounts crucial to the next generation of weapons are being similarly savaged.

As a result, we will be lucky to be competitive with future adversaries who are busily upgrading their forces, often in ways specifically designed to counter such  advantages as we do have.  “Superiority” will, in important respects, likely be out of the question.

That is especially true if the defense budget is beset with yet the next $500 billion in cuts ordered by existing statute to start in January 2013.  You might not know this trainwreck is upon us from the lack of disclosure about the impact of such reductions in Defense Department planning documents. [(You can get a sense of the effects, however, from the Center for Security Policy’s “Defense Breakdown Reports” at www.FortheCommonDefense.org).]  The Pentagon understandably worries about disclosing in advance ways in which this magnitude of harm would be accommodated lest a blueprint for making it so be provided.

As of this writing, unless some deus ex machina materializes like in a Greek drama too complicated to be resolved by mere mortals, the armed forces will not be spared from what the Joint Chiefs Chairman has called “catastrophe.”

Sadly, it seems increasingly unlikely that a consensus will be found during a contentious lame-duck session to negate the effects on our national security of the “sequestration” mechanism – a legislative device Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta has called a “doomsday machine” since it failed to compel Congress to find other ways of reducing the deficit.  To be sure, leading Republicans, including House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, House Armed Services Committee Chairman Howard “Buck” McKeon and Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl, have developed means of staving off this debacle for our armed forces.  But neither President Obama nor Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid want any part of them.

Some would have us take comfort in the fact that, even at these reduced spending levels, the United States will expend more on defense than do our potential adversaries combined. Set aside uncertainties about exactly how much the Chinese and Russians are actually investing in amassing new weapons designed to kill Americans.  (For example, does anyone really know what China has spent to build covertly 3,000 miles of hardened underground tunnels in which are concealed heavens only knows how many nuclear missiles?)

As with domestic law enforcement, the outlays involved in preserving the peace always vastly exceed the sums spent by those intent ondisturbing it.  Typically, the more decisively the former is resourced relative to the latter, the more likely it is that hostile parties will be dissuaded from threatening us or our interests.  President Reagan dubbed this axiom “peace through strength.”

The danger is that history teaches that the alternative – the deliberate, systematic and sustained diminishing of our defense capabilities – only invites adversaries, who might otherwise be deterred, to act aggressively.  Unfortunately, the present crop of such adversaries don’t need any encouragement. 

Consider just one example: Russia under Vladimir Putin.  The Kremlin claims it will spend on the order of $700 billion to modernize its nuclear and conventional forces.  At the same time, President Obama is actively considering eliminating up to 80% of our deterrent and ensuring that little, if anything, is done to ensure that the remaining force remains viable, let alone superior, to new generations of Russian nuclear arms. 

Mr. Obama is clearly proceeding under the influence of his favorite general, former Joint Chiefs Vice Chairman James “Hoss” Cartwright, who in a paper released on May 16th proclaimed that he believes we can safely eliminate one leg of our strategic triad and “de-alert” or shelve the weapons that would be left.  Such notions are being promoted in the name of achieving “global zero” – a world without nuclear weapons.  In practice, it will result in a world with many more such arms, including in all the wrong places, as friends and allies alike adjust to a denuclearizing America and the folding of its deterrent “umbrella.”

Last week, one of our nation’s most storied warriors, nonagenarian Major General John Singlaub addressed a Center for Security Policy event in New York City.  He spoke forcefully of the need for leadership and urged all of us to settle for nothing less.  We require the real deal, now more than ever, with respect to our national security.  We literally can accept no substitutes.

Bad Timing for L.O.S.T.

           This week, the Obama administration will roll out its big guns in support of President Obama’s latest assault on American sovereignty and security interests:  The UN Law of the Sea Treaty (better known as LOST).  Of course, when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey appear before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday, they will appear to be talking about another accord altogether – one that strengthens our sovereignty and is deemed by the U.S. military to be essential to our security.  

So which is it?

The proponents are hoping that Senators on and off the Foreign Relations panel will do what they did during what passed for their chamber’s consideration of the New START Treaty in 2010:  Take the administration’s word for it; be impressed by the pro-treaty testimonials and lobbying of an array of formereminences and special interests; and largely dispense with the serious scrutiny and check-and-balance vetting the framers had in mind when they entrusted to the Senate the constitutional responsibility to advise and consent to treaties.

If, on the other hand, the members of the U.S. Senate trouble themselves to study, or at least read, the text of the Law of the Sea Treaty, they would immediately see it for what it really is: a diplomatic dinosaur, a throwback to a bygone era when UN negotiations were dominated by communists of the Soviet Union and their fellow-travelers in the Third World.  

These adversaries’ agenda was transparent and wholly inimical to American equities. They sought to: establish control over 70% of the world’s surface; create an international governing institution that would serve as a model for bringing nation states like ours to heel; and redistribute the planet’s wealth and technology from the developed world to themselves.  LOST codifies such arrangements – and would subject us to mandatory dispute resolution to enforce them via stacked-deck adjudication panels

Fortunately, even if Senators are disinclined to go to school on what the Law of the Sea Treaty entails – and why it cannot possibly serve even the parochial interests of the U.S. Navy or oil and gas industries whose willfully blind support will be much in evidence in the ratification campaign ahead – others are doing their homework.  Such efforts are likely to make the timing of the Obama administration’s current quest, shall we say, most inopportune.

First, Dick Morris and his wife, Eileen McGann, have just published an important new book that addresses, among other outrages, LOST as a prime example of the title: Screwed! How Foreign Countries are Ripping off America and Plundering our Economy – and How our Leaders Help Them Do It.  In addition to their proven track-record as best-selling authors, Dick’s regular appearances on Fox News ensures that millions who might otherwise be unaware of what is afoot will be on notice and on guard.  That markedly improves the chances that those who might try to slip such an assault on our sovereigntythrough in the dark of night will be challenged and held accountable.

Second, Glenn Beck – whose predicted demise as an influential broadcaster with his departure from Fox has proven, thankfully, to be premature – did yeoman work educating the American people about LOST in 2007, the last time a push was made to ensnare us in this accord.  In his new and wildly successful reincarnation as a pioneer of internet subscription-based television, Mr. Beck stands to be even more effective in connecting the dots for his audience, and engaging them in opposing LOST.

Third, on June 1st, theaters nationwide will begin showing a documentary by Ami Horowitz called “U N Me” that uses Michael Moore-style humor and intrepid camera-work to lay waste to the United Nations as a corrupt, self-dealing, incompetent and fundamentally anti-American institution.  It is hard to believe that anyone who sees this film will want to entrust any more resources, legitimacy or responsibility to such an organization – or to its subsidiaries like LOST’s International Seabed Authority, the Orwellian-named “Enterprise,” the Law of the Sea Tribunal, the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf, etc.  

As it happens, even before such important forces are brought fully to bear in opposition to Team Obama’s bid to ram through the Senate this “constitution of the oceans,” the ratification bandwagon hit something of a roadblock.  At the initiative of freshman Representative John Duncan (R-Tennessee) and Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), who chairs the House Republican Study Committee, the House of Representatives last Friday voted 229-193 to bar millions of dollars the administration had sought to contribute to the funding of LOST organizations.  This is the first time either chamber has formally voted in opposition to this agreement and is a salutary shot across the bow of its proponents.

There is, of course, one other factor that should prove problematic in terms of the timing of President Obama’s effort to foist LOST on the American people is that it comes amidst an election in which his presumptive Republican opponent, Mitt Romney, is no fan of this accord.  According to an October 2007 report, a spokesman declared that “Governor Romney has concerns with the Law of the Sea Treaty.  He believes giving unaccountable international institutions more power is a serious problem.”

Amen.

False Flag Operation on L.O.S.T.

Here we go again: The usual suspects – the environmentalists, the one-worlder transnationalists, the Obama administration (to the extent that is not redundant) and assorted short-sighted special interests including, regrettably, the United States Navy – are dusting off the hopelessly outdated and inequitable UN Law of the Sea Treaty (better, and more accurately, known as LOST) in the hope of jamming its ratification through the Senate as was done two years ago with the defective New START Treaty.

Amazingly, they are doing so under what intelligence professionals would dub a "false flag" operation – an initiative that presents itself as one thing, in this case "The American Sovereignty Campaign", when it is actually exactly the opposite. If ever there were an anti-sovereignty treaty it is LOST. It speaks volumes about the lengths to which this accord’s proponents have to go to conceal that reality that they are masquerading as advocates of U.S. sovereignty, not what they really are: champions of an effort greatly to reduce it.

As it happens, the poster child of this bait-and-switch may be former Senator-turned-lobbyist Trent Lott. In October 2007, former Senate Majority Leader Lott actually circulated a letter to his colleagues urging that the Law of the Sea Treaty be withdrawn from consideration by what was once known as "the world’s greatest deliberative body."

This letter warned that: "To effect the treaty’s broad regime of governance, we are particularly concerned that United States sovereignty could be subjugated in many areas to a supranational government that is chartered by the United Nations under the 1982 Convention. Further, we are troubled thatcompulsory dispute resolution could pertain to public and private activities including law enforcement, maritime security, business operations, and nonmilitary activities performed aboard military vessels."

Today, however, Sen. Lott represents Shell Oil. His job is to lobby his former colleagues not to sign a letter that has that exact same language in it, word for word. Is that because the treaty is no longer a threat to U.S. sovereignty at the hands of "a supranational government that is chartered by the United Nations under the 1982 Convention"? Or is it simply that Senator Lott is now a gun-for-hire, willing like the campaign he is helping advance to do or say whatever it takes to get a seriously defective treaty ratified?

How defective is LOST? Consider the following illustrative examples of its fatal flaws:

First, as Senator Lott once warned, ratification of LOST would commit the United States to submit to mandatory dispute resolution with respect to U.S. military and industrial operations. While LOST proponents argue that the United States will choose available arbitration mechanisms to avoid legal decisions from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) or the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS), such arbitration panels are no-less perilous for U.S. interests as the decisive, "swing" arbiters would be appointed by generally unfriendly UN-affiliated bureaucrats. The arbitration panels can also be relied upon to look to rulings by the ICJ or ITLOS to inform their own decisions.

Furthermore, while there is a LOST provision exempting "military activity" from such dispute resolution mechanisms, the Treaty makes no attempt to define "military activity," virtually guaranteeing that such matters will be litigated – in all likelihood to our detriment – before one or another of LOST’s arbitration mechanisms. And the rulings of such arbitrators cannot be appealed.

Subjecting our military to the risks of such mandatory dispute resolution is all the more imprudent given that LOST provides the Navy with no navigational rights and freedoms beyond those it already enjoys under customary international law and the U.S. Freedom of Navigation Program. The Navy has successfully protected American interests on the seas for more than two hundred years without the United States becoming a party to LOST – including during the thirty years since LOST was concluded, in 1982. There is no compelling reason to believe that record will be improved upon by entrusting the job to international legal arrangements.

Second, the Law of the Sea Treaty contains provisions that risk putting sensitive – and in some cases, militarily useful – information and technology in the hands of America’s adversaries and its companies’ commercial competitors. Claims by LOST’s proponents that this problem was fixed by a 1994 agreement that was not signed by all LOST’s parties cry out for close examination by the Senate and the nation.

Third, the Law of the Sea Treaty entails commitments that have far-reaching implications for U.S. businesses, far beyond the possibility of mandatory technology transfers. These include: embroiling this country in treaties bearing on commercial activities to which it is not a party; wide-ranging, intrusive and expensive environmental obligations; creating standing for foreign nationals to pursue alien torts in our courts; and jeopardizing our rights under the World Trade Organization, which was established after 1994.

Of particular concern is the fact that LOST creates an international taxation regime. It does so by empowering the International Seabed Authority (ISA) to tax Americans for the purposes of meeting its ownadministrative costs and of globally redistributing revenue derived from the exploitation of seabed resources.

It is a travesty to portray atreaty with such clearly sovereignty-sapping provisions as an enhancement to our national sovereignty. LOST should be rejected this time – as President Ronald Reagan did thirty years ago and as Senator Lott urged twenty-five years later.

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr. is President of the Center for Security Policy (www.SecureFreedom.org), a columnist for the Washington Times and host of the nationally syndicated program, Secure Freedom Radio, heard in Washington weeknights at 9:00 p.m. on WRC 1260 AM.

True Sovereignty Coalition Calls for Balance in Hearings on L.O.S.T.

Listen to More than the ‘American Anti-Sovereignty Campaign’
 
Washington, D.C., May 11, 2012– In a choreographed roll-out yesterday – transparently timed to coincide with the end of Senator Richard Lugar’s ill-fated primary race for reelection to the United States Senate, a group styling itself the “American Sovereignty Campaign” announced that it would be mounting an aggressive effort to secure ratification of the obsolete and defective Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST).  Given the threat LOST poses to U.S. sovereignty and vital interests, a better moniker for this entity would be the “American Anti-Sovereignty Campaign.”

 
A previously organized coalition that actually supports American sovereignty – the Coalition to Preserve American Sovereignty – responded by calling on Sen. Lugar, the Ranking Minority Member on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and his Democratic counterpart, Chairman John Kerry, to assure the record reflects the insights of the treaty’s many critics, not just its boosters.
 
            In a letter to the two Senators (below), the pro-sovereignty Coalition identified a number of LOST’s defects that should require close scrutiny.  It also identified a number of expert witnesses who could illuminate them and urged the Foreign Relations Committee to hear from such authorities.
 

            The Coalition welcomes an honest, open debate about a treaty that was largely drafted when the Soviet Union and Non-Aligned Nations were still going concerns and dominated the United Nations and Law of the Sea negotiations.  If the Senate actually deliberates on this accord – rather than following the appalling 2010 precedent of hastily rubber-stamping the Obama administration’s unverifiable and inequitable New START Treaty, the outcome seems certain:  The Senate will reject the LOST Treaty, as did President Ronald Reagan 30 years ago.
 
Text of the Letter
 
10 May 2012
 
Hon. John Kerry
Chairman, Senate Foreign Relations Committee
444 Dirksen Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510-0802
 
Hon. Richard G. Lugar
Ranking Minority Member, Senate Foreign Relations Committee
446 Dirksen Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510-0802
 
Dear Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member Lugar:
 
We understand that you will soon convene hearings in connection with possible U.S. ratification of the United Nations’ Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST).  It is our view that this accord is seriously defective in a number of respects (several of which are enumerated below.)  Accordingly, we write to request that the individuals listed below be afforded an opportunity to testify in connection with the Foreign Relations Committee’s consideration of LOST with respect to the following problematic provisions of that treaty – an opportunity largely not afforded to critics of LOST during the last round of your panel’s hearings on the matter in 2003 and 2007.
 
First, ratification of LOST would commit the United States to submit to mandatory dispute resolution with respect to U.S. military and industrial operations.  While LOST proponents argue that the United States will choose available arbitration mechanisms to avoid legal decisions from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) or the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS), such arbitration panels are no-less perilous for U.S. interests as the decisive, “swing” arbiters would be appointed by generally unfriendly UN-affiliated bureaucrats.  The arbitration panels can also be relied upon to look to rulings by the ICJ or ITLOS to inform their own decisions. 
 
Furthermore, while there is a LOST provision exempting “military activity” from such dispute resolution mechanisms, the Treaty makes no attempt to define “military activity,” virtually guaranteeing that such matters will be litigated – in all likelihood to our detriment – before one or another of LOST’s arbitration mechanisms.  And the rulings of such arbitrators cannot be appealed.
 
Subjecting our military to the risks of such mandatory dispute resolution is all the more imprudent given that LOST provides the Navy with no navigational rights and freedoms beyond those it already enjoys under customary international law and the U.S. Freedom of Navigation Program.  The Navy has successfully protected American interests on the seas for the past two hundred years without the United States becoming a party to LOST – including during the thirty years since LOST was concluded, in 1982.  We see no compelling reason why that record will be improved upon by entrusting the job to international legal arrangements.
 
Second, the Law of the Sea Treaty contains provisions that risk putting sensitive, militarily useful information and technology in the hands of America’s adversaries and its companies’ commercial competitors.  That accord’s proponents would have you believe that there is no problem with technology transfer since the Treaty’s relevant mandates were eliminated by a 1994 agreement relating to the implementation of LOST’s Part XI.  Unfortunately, this is another area that cries out for close examination by the Senate and the Nation.
 
For one thing, it is unclear to what extent the Treaty could be and was amended by the ’94 accord.  For another, a number of provisions obligating the transfer of potentially sensitive technology and data were not addressed in the latter agreement.  For example, LOST arbitration procedures specify that parties to a dispute would be required to provide an arbitral tribunal with “all relevant documents, facilities and information” – a potential avenue for compelling such transfers.
 
Third, the Law of the Sea Treaty entails commitments that have far-reaching implications for U.S. businesses, far beyond the possibility of mandatory technology transfers.  These include: embroiling this country in treaties bearing on commercial activities to which it is not a party; wide-ranging, intrusive and expensive environmental obligations; creating standing for foreign nationals to pursue alien torts in our courts; and jeopardizing our rights under the World Trade Organization, which was established after 1994.
 
Of particular concern is the fact that LOST creates an international taxation regime.  It does so by empowering the International Seabed Authority (ISA) to tax Americans for the purposes of meeting its own administrative costs and of globally redistributing revenue derived from the exploitation of seabed resources.  The wisdom of such compulsory payments to the ISA is highly questionable, considering the poor track record of international organizations’ management of finances.  Moreover, the ISA would be unconstrained in its discretion as to which countries or entities were to receive this redistributed American wealth, the recipients of which could include highly corrupt and undemocratic regimes or even countries identified by the Department of State as sponsors of terrorism.    
 
We believe the Foreign Relations Committee’s deliberations on the Law of the Sea Treaty will be incomplete, perhaps misleadingly so, unless they are informed by testimony on these and related points.  We formally request that you and your colleagues ensure that the following individuals are afforded an opportunity to provide such testimony:
 
Donald Rumsfeld                                Former Secretary of Defense
Edwin Meese                                      Former United States Attorney General
John R. Bolton                                    Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations
John F. Lehman                                  Former Secretary of the Navy
William Middendorf                           Former Secretary of the Navy
Douglas J. Feith                                  Former Under Secretary of Defense for Policy
Admiral James A. Lyons                    Former Commander-in-Chief, U.S. Pacific Fleet
Vice Admiral Robert Monroe             Former Director, Research, Development,
Test and Evaluation
Phyllis Schlafly                                   Eagle Forum
Fred Smith                                          Competitive Enterprise Institute
Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.                           Center for Security Policy
Doug Bandow                                     Cato Institute
Steven Groves                                     Heritage Foundation
Baker Spring                                       Heritage Foundation
Thomas P. Kilgannon                         Freedom Alliance
Peter Leitner                                       Author, Reforming the Law of the Sea Treaty
Kevin Kearns                                      U.S. Business & Industry Council
John Fonte                                          Hudson Institute
Jeremy Rabkin                                    George Mason University School of Law
 
Sincerely,
 
Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.
Coalition to Preserve American Sovereignty

First Thoughts on the Unity Government

Here’s a quick first take on Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s unity deal with Kadima leader Shaul Mofaz.
I don’t think that this move was either motivated by or will impact Netanyahu’s decisions regarding Iran’s nuclear weapons program. If the elections had been carried out in September, as we thought, Netanyahu would certainly have been reelected. Obama, concerned about his foreign policy bona fides and the Jewish vote on the eve of his reelection bid, would have been unable to undermine Netanyahu on Iran or just about anything else. So from Netanyahu’s perspective, a September election date immunized him from White House pressure.
True, Mofaz has been parroting former Mossad chief Meir Dagan’s attacks on Netanyahu, but no one really cares too much about the criticisms. This is particularly true because Dagan, et. al. actually share Netanyahu’s assessment of the Iranian threat. They just don’t want him to be the man dealing with it because they hate him personally. 
They know, and Mofaz knows, and Obama knows that the Israeli public will rally around Netanyahu in the event he orders an attack. So widening the coalition would only impact his decision on Iran at the margins, if at all. I suppose from the perspective of optics, it is nice to go into such a mission with a massive coalition standing with you. 
Some on the right have voiced concerns that Netanyahu wants this coalition so he can reinstate negotiations with the Palestinians and withdraw from Judea and Samaria. Maybe. But it’s hard for me to believe that Netanyahu will want to go full speed ahead with that. What would he stand to gain? Moreover, the Palestinians are the ones who ended the talks, not Netanyahu. And with Islamists rising to power throughout the Arab world and in Egypt particularly, Mahmoud Abbas has no incentive to return to negotiations. 
Aside from that, it is possible that Netanyahu will use the cover he gets from Kadima to destroy homes in Beit El along the lines that the Supreme Court has ordered by July. But he probably would have done it anyway — or not. It all depends on what he thinks he can get away with. If he decides not to destroy them, it will be easier for him to stand up the Supreme Court, whose decision doesn’t pass the laugh test, with a coalition of 94 than with a coalition of 66. And it will be easier for him to bow to the decision of the Supreme Court with a coalition of 94 than a coalition of 66. 
Here it is important to note that to a large extent, Netanyahu has built his present power on his refusal to commit seriously to any binding position on the Palestinians. I don’t see him sacrificing this winning policy any time soon by following in Ariel Sharon’s footsteps and betraying his political camp and ideology completely.
I think the unity deal is an example of a situation in which Netanyahu was presented with an offer he’d be an idiot to refuse. In return for essentially nothing, he built himself the strongest and largest coalition Israel has ever seen. He gave Mofaz nothing but breathing space for a year. Mofaz didn’t even get a governing portfolio. And in exchange Netanyahu received unprecedented power and political stability for more than a year. 
Kadima was set to lose half its seats in the Knesset in the next election. It may still lose half its seats in the next election. It may split apart. A million things can happen. But Mofaz probably figures that whereas if the elections were held in September he’d be blamed for the loss, by October 2013, he will have figured out someone else to blame for the defeat of his party. 
Finally, there is an economic aspect to this decision. By bringing Kadima into his coalition, Netanyahu effectively ensured that his free market economic policies will be maintained and the socialist voices in Israeli politics will be marginalized for the next year or so. With France going socialist, Israel’s Left, led by Labor Party leader and Marxist Shelly Yahimovich would have had more resonance in the public for its statist, deficit spending economic platform. Now Netanyahu got another year during which the public will see what those policies are doing to Europe and so make his economic arguments for him. 
All in all this is a great day for Netanyahu. I hope that I am right that he won’t use his new strength to destroy his political party as Sharon did before him. I don’t see any previous action on his part that lends to that conclusion. But certainly the public, and particularly the Likud members who are in politics to represent and advance their values and not just to gain power for power’s sake need to think carefully about their strengths and weaknesses. They need to base their actions over the next year on a strategy that maximizes the former and minimizes the latter understanding all the time that they are dealing with an incredibly powerful party leader.

Wanted: A Competent Commander-In-Chief

So, it turns out, Team Obama suddenly wants the 2012 presidential campaign to be about foreign policy, rather than the economy. Such a pivot might not be surprising given that, by President Obama’s own test, he has not cut unemployment to the point where he deserves to be reelected.

The Democrats have – if anything – a weaker case for reelecting this president on national security grounds. The campaign ad they unveiled on Friday, timed to take credit for the liquidation of Osama bin Laden on the first anniversary of that achievement, is a case in point.

The video used former President Bill Clinton to extol his successor’s role in the mission – and selectively quoted Republican nominee Mitt Romney to suggest he would not have done the same.

It is an act of desperation and contempt for the American people that, of all people, Mr. Clinton would be used in such a role. Let’s recall, during his presidency, he repeatedly declined to take out bin Laden. (So sensitive is the former president about this sorry record that his operatives insisted in 2006 that ABC excise from "Path to 9/11" – an outstanding made-for-TV film by Cyrus Nowrasteh – a dramatized version of one such episode. Check it out at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=asw8fhpz0wA.)

More telling still is an issue inadvertently showcased by this controversy. While the Clinton-Obama-Biden spot tries to make Gov. Romney sound as though he wouldn’t have had the courage, or at least the vision, the President exhibited in a risky bid to take out bin Laden, what the presumptive Republican nominee actually said in 2007 in context illustrates a far better grasp than President Obama has of the enemy we confront:

"I wouldn’t want to over-concentrate on Bin Laden. He’s one of many, many people who are involved in this global Jihadist effort. He’s by no means the only leader. It’s a very diverse group – Hamas, Hezbollah, al-Qaeda, Muslim Brotherhood and of course different names throughout the world. It’s not worth moving heaven and earth and spending billions of dollars just trying to catch one person. It is worth fashioning and executing an effective strategy to defeat global, violent Jihad and I have a plan for doing that."

Mr. Obama, by contrast, would have us believe that the problem in notonly just al Qaeda but that that threat is pretty much a thing of the past,thanks to bin Laden’s elimination and the decimation primarily by drone strikes of others among its leadership and rank and file. An unnamed senior State Department official told the NationalJournal last week, "The War on Terror is over" as Muslims embrace "legitimate Islamism."

Unfortunately, as Seth Jones observed in the Wall Street Journal on April 30, 2012, "Al Qaeda is far from dead. Acting as if it were will not make it so."

Even if al Qaeda actually had been defeated, however, we are – as Mitt Romney said five years ago – confronting a host of other jihadist enemies who seek the same goals as bin Laden’s al Qaeda and its franchises: the triumph of the totalitarian, supremacist Islamic doctrine of shariah and a global government, known as a caliphate, to govern according to it.

Unfortunately, as demonstrated conclusively in a free, web-based video course entitled "Muslim Brotherhood in America: the Enemy Within" released last week by the Center for Security Policy (www.MuslimBrotherhoodinAmerica.com), far from understanding the danger posed by the rest of the jihadist enterprise, the Obama administration is actually making it stronger.

The evidence presented in this course suggests that could be due, at least in part, to the six Muslim Brotherhood-associated individuals the Center has identified who are either on the government’s payroll, advising it and/or being used for outreach to the American Muslim community. (See Part 8 for the details on the Obama Six.)

Whatever the motivation, consider how Team Obama has managed the three other groups Gov. Romney mentioned. The administration made no effort to impede the take-over of Lebanon by the Iranian foreign legion, the designated terrorist organization known as Hezbollah. It has actively helped bring to power, recognized and effectively turned over $1.5 billion to the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. Worse yet, it has, as noted above, embraced its operatives and front groups here. And President Obama personally directed last week that $170 million in U.S. foreign aid be given to a Palestinian Authority "unity government" which includes another designated terrorist organization, Hamas – incredibly on the grounds tthat "U.S. national security interests" required it.

Unfortunately for the Obama administration, fundamentally misconstruing the nature of the enemy is just part of this president’s ominous legacy with respect to his Commander-in-Chief portfolio. The wrecking operation he is engaged in with respect to our military’s capability to project power, its unilateral cuts to the U.S. nuclear deterrent and weakening our missile defenses may not be fully evident between now and the election. But the impact will be felt for generations to come. That will be true in spades of the war on the culture of the armed forces being waged inpursuit the radical left’s efforts to make-over American social norms and mores, starting with its most esteemed institution: the United States military.

Getting bin Laden isn’t the issue. The issue is whether President Obama is getting right the rest of his job as Commander-in-Chief. And, regrettably, he is not.

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr. is President of the Center for Security Policy (www.SecureFreedom.org), a columnist for the Washington Times and host of the nationally syndicated program, Secure Freedom Radio, heard in Washington weeknights at 9:00 p.m. on WRC 1260 AM.

Post-Zionism is so 1990s

You can learn a lot about a nation’s health by watching how it celebrates its national holidays. In Israel’s case, compare how we celebrated our 50th Independence Day in 1998 to what celebrations involve today.
During the 1990s, Israel’s elite took a vacation from reality and history and they brought much of the public with them.
Then-foreign minister Shimon Peres said that history was overrated. The so-called "New Historians," who rummaged through David Ben-Gurion’s closet looking for skeletons, were the toast of the academic world. Radicals like Yossi Beilin, Shulamit Aloni and Avrum Burg were dictating government policy.
The media, the entertainment establishment, and the Education Ministry embraced and massively promoted plays, movies, television shows, songs, dances, art and books that "slayed sacred cows." Everywhere you turned, post-Zionism was in. Post-Judaism was in. And Zionism and Judaism were both decidedly out.
As he is today, in 1998 Binyamin Netanyahu was prime minister, and then as now there were prominent voices seeking to blame him for the absence of peace and every other terrible blight on the planet.
In 1998, the government invested a fortune in marking Israel’s 50th Independence Day. The main official celebration was a massive affair called Jubilee Bells that took place at Teddy Stadium in Jerusalem. More than 2,000 performers participated. But rather than serve as an event that unified Israeli society in celebration of 50 years of sovereign freedom, the event exposed just how far Israel’s political and cultural elite were willing to go in attacking basic societal values.
The Bat Sheva Dance Troupe was scheduled to participate in the program and present a dance set to the traditional Passover song "Ehad mi yodea," (Who knows one). The song contains 13 stanzas that praise God, praise Jewish law, and outline the Jewish life cycle. In the number Bat Sheva was scheduled to perform, the dancers come on stage dressed as ultra-Orthodox Jewish men and by the end of the song, all they are wearing is underwear.
The choreography enraged members of Netanyahu’s cabinet including education minister Yitzhak Levy. They insisted that the program shouldn’t contain material that insulted sectors of Israeli society. The organizers tried to forge a compromise. But the dancers chose to boycott the festival.
Israel’s cultural and media establishment expressed shock and horror at what they viewed as the government’s attempt to infringe on artistic freedom. The Association of Israeli Artists demanded that a public commission be formed to ensure that the government would be unable to interfere in artistic freedom in the future. Major cultural icons declared cultural war against religious Jews.
The question of whether the dance was appropriate for an official, state- financed celebration of Independence Day was never asked. So, too, no one asked whether a dance portraying ultra-Orthodox Jews moving sensuously to a traditional Jewish song while taking off their clothes reflected the values of society.
To understand the distance Israel has traveled since then, consider Tuesday night’s Memorial Day ceremony at Rabin Square in Tel Aviv. None of the performers attacked their fellow Israelis. And the best-received artist and song was Mosh Ben-Ari and his rendition of Psalm 121 – A Song of Ascent.
The psalm, which praises God as the eternal guardian of Israel, became the unofficial anthem of Operation Cast Lead in Gaza in 2008-2009. And Ben-Ari’s rendition of the song propelled the dreadlock bedecked, hoop earring wearing world music artist into super-stardom in Israel.
IT WAS impossible to imagine Pslam 121 or any other traditional Jewish poem or prayer being performed as anything other than an object of scorn in 1998. Back then, it would have been impossible to contemplate a crowd of tens of thousands of non-religious Israelis reverently singing along as Ben-Ari crooned, "My help is from God/ Maker of Heaven and Earth/ He will not allow your foot to falter/ Your Guardian will not slumber/ Behold he neither slumbers nor sleeps – the Guardian of Israel."
It’s not that the crowd would have necessarily booed him off the stage. He simply never would have been allowed on the stage to begin with. The 1990s was the decade that launched Aviv Gefen, the most prominent secular draft-dodger, to stardom.
Israel is no longer in the throes of an adolescent rebellion. It has regained its senses.
True, its celebrities look like Ben-Ari and not like Naomi Shemer. But the message is the same. Israel is a great country and a great nation. Zionism is in. Judaism is in. Post- Zionism is out. Post-Judaism is out.
When last year a group of performers announced they would boycott the Ariel Center for Performing Arts, the public reacted with anger and disgust, not understanding. Fearing a loss of state funding, their theater bosses quickly sought to distance themselves from the performers.
Israel’s return to its Zionist roots is the greatest cultural event of the past decade. It is also an event that occurred under the radar screen of the rest of the world. No one outside the country seems to have noticed at all.
The outside world’s failure to take note of Israel’s cultural shift owes to its failure to recognize the significance of the failure of the peace process with the Palestinians on the one hand and the failure of Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza on the other hand. The demise of the peace process at Camp David in July 2000 and the terror war that followed launched the Israeli public on its path away from its radical post-Zionist rebellion and back to its Zionist roots. The failure of the withdrawal from Gaza, and the international community’s response to Operation Cast Lead, marked the conclusion of the journey.
The Oslo peace process was based on the radical belief that it is possible to make peace by empowering terrorists and giving them land, political legitimacy, money and guns. To embrace this nonsense, the public had to be willing to tolerate the notion that there was something unjust about the Zionist revolution. Because if Zionism and the cause of Jewish national liberation are just, then it is impossible to justify empowering the PLO, a terrorist movement dedicated to the destruction of Israel and the delegitimization of Zionism.
Most Israelis never adopted the post-Zionist narrative. But they did accept the doctrine of appeasement. And they shared the belief that if appeasement failed, the world would rally to Israel’s side.
Consequently, the beginning of society’s awakening to the lie of post-Zionism at the heart of the peace process was a function not only of the massive Palestinian terror onslaught that began after Yasser Arafat rejected peace and statehood at Camp David. It was also a function of the August 2000 UN Durban Conference and its aftermath in which the international community rallied to the Palestinians’ side. The latter demonstrated that just as Israel’s transfer of land and guns to the PLO had endangered the lives of its citizens, Israel’s conferral of political legitimacy on the PLO endangered the international standing of the country.
The lesson that Israelis took from the failure of the peace process was that Israel has no Palestinian partner for peace. And until the Palestinians change, Israel has no one to talk to.
While a slight majority of Israelis still support partitioning the land between Israel and a Palestinian state, the overwhelming majority of Israelis believe that Israel has no one to make peace with and therefore no possibility of successfully partitioning the land.
This is not the lesson that foreigners learned. From Bill Clinton to George W. Bush to Tony Blair to Barack Obama to Nicolas Sarkozy, foreign leaders have insisted that the Oslo process had nearly succeeded and that its failure was a fluke.
The most the parts of the international community that are not completely anti-Israel have been willing to grant about the failure of the peace process is that it failed due to a lack of courage. By this telling, the problem isn’t the concept of appeasing terrorists with land, guns and legitimacy. Rather the problem is narrow-minded, cowardly leaders. And so the way forward for them is also clear: figure out a more attractive appeasement package for the Palestinians and put Israel’s feet to the fire to make it cough up the required concessions.
THEN THERE is the aftermath of the withdrawal from Gaza.
Israel’s unilateral withdrawal from Gaza was a traumatic national event. The forced expulsion of thousands of Israelis from their homes led Israeli society to the brink of disintegration.
The move represented the last hope of the peace movement. If the Palestinians won’t sit down with Israel, so the thinking went, Israel can still appease them by simply giving them what they want without an agreement.
But not only did the withdrawal bring no peace. It brought Hamas to power. It brought tens of thousands of projectiles down on southern Israel. 
Israelis expected the world to recognize the significance of this string of events. But that didn’t happen.
Instead of seeing the lengths Israel had gone to appease the Palestinians and side with it when its appeasement failed again, the international community refused to even acknowledge that Israel had withdrawn from Gaza. Condoleezza Rice forced Israel to continue supplying electricity and water to Gaza and providing medical care for Gazans in Israeli hospitals as if nothing had happened. No one accepted that Israel was no longer in charge.
As far as most Israelis were concerned, the final end of our vacation from reality came with the publication of the Goldstone Report in the aftermath of Cast Lead. Here was Israel, forced to defend itself from Hamas-ruled Gaza that was waging an illegal missile war against Israeli civilians. Rather than stand by Israel that had done everything for peace, the UN’s commission accused Israel of committing war crimes.
Undoubtedly one of the reasons so few outsiders have drawn the same lessons as the Israeli public from the failure of the peace process and the Gaza withdrawal is because the only Israelis they listen to are the few remaining holdouts from the 1990s. People like former Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) director Ami Ayalon can expect to have every withdrawal-from-territory and destroy-the-settlements op-ed they write published in The New York Times, whereas Richard Goldstone wasn’t even able to get the Times to publish his admission that his eponymous commission’s conclusions were false.
This open door policy for Israeli radicals was defensible in the 1990s when a significant portion of the Israeli public supported them. Now it constitutes nothing more than an anti-Israel propaganda campaign.
From Obama to J Street to the EU, international actors interested in forcing Israel to make more concessions to the Palestinians cannot understand why their attempts continue to fail. How is it possible that despite their best efforts, Netanyahu remains in power and the Left can’t get any traction with the public? For the answer, they need to look no farther than Mosh Ben-Ari, his dreadlocks, and his rendition of Psalm 121. Israel’s adolescent rebellion is over.
Post-Zionism is so 1990s.
Originally published in The Jerusalem Post

Frank Gaffney’s Warning for America

By Jack Kemp, The American Thinker.

On the morning of April 24, Frank Gaffney, Jr., president of the Center for Security Policy, held a live public gathering and online briefing in Washington to discuss his latest project.  Gaffney’s organization has produced a ten-part video course, which Gaffney narrates, on the Muslim Brotherhood in America.  This free course, lasting around ten hours, can be accessed at www.muslimbrotherhoodinamerica.com.  It explains why we are not winning the war against jihad in America today and names the names of those responsible for the current situation.

Preceding Mr. Gaffney’s main talk was Harry E. Soyster, a retired U.S. Army general and member of Gaffney’s research team.  He pointed out that the CIA’s published Book of World Facts (and trends) didn’t even mention religion as a significant factor in politics and thus is quite myopic in its worldview.  It was also mentioned during this gathering that a senior State Department official had said that “the war on terror is over” since we have “killed most of Al Qaida.”  The general also mentioned was that in Italy today, crucifixes are being removed from all public places so as not to offend Muslims.  Gen. Soyster recalled, in years past, having to register a car in Italy and going to a police station where there was a crucifix on the wall, as it was considered a normal part of Italian culture.  Speaking about both Italy and the U.S., he concluded that with the attacks on our culture, the government refuses to look at the true situation and is thus limiting (hindering) itself and stopping any chance of victory (in this profound culture war).

Frank Gaffney then took the podium to give a basic refutation of a prevalent myth today, stating that although we can eliminate a number of semi-literate jihadists overseas, the major thrust of the jihadists now in America is to engage in a civilizational jihad.  This stealth jihad currently overshadows the violent acts of such people as Nidal Malik Hasan at Ft. Hood or Faisal Shahzad, who attempted to set off a bomb in Times Square in New York.  Gaffney is talking about a civilizational jihad consisting of lawfare, multiple court cases used to financially drain defendants and inhibit free speech, and “insidious informational dominance” that results in Americans imposing a doctrine on ourselves of not offending organizations like the Muslim Brotherhood as they attempt to impose demands of silence at the expense of our Constitution.  Also widespread is a civilizational jihad technique of takiya — deception — claiming that attempts to influence and change our laws and culture aren’t what they clearly are.  Mr. Gaffney stated plainly that the Muslim Brotherhood’s objectives are indistinguishable from those of al-Qaeda.  In fact, he called civilizational jihad “pre-violent” and not merely “non-violent.”

The briefing crowd was then shown a fifteen-minute video executive summary of the ten-part online video course on The Muslim Brotherhood in America.  The summary touched upon a number of subjects and was narrated by the Center for Security Policy’s president.

The first part was a criticism of the constant apologies one sees offered to jihadists, particularly by our higher-level military officers.  Also, there was mention that U.S. soldiers themselves are “taught to talk in submissive terms” about Islam.  Nidal Malik Hasan’s attack at Ft. Hood was classified by the government as “workplace violence,” to give an example.

Gaffney then identified Grover Norquist, the tax protester and associate of Abdul Rahman Al-Amoudi, as one of the enablers of the Muslim Brotherhood in the latter’s efforts to influence American government leadership at the time of time of the George W. Bush administration.  This type of influence has continued under the Obama administration with the placing of Muslims who advocate civilizational jihad in high places.  These people advocate policies that do not speak the truth of the Muslim Brotherhood’s self-professed programs of wanting to change America to a sharia-compliant state along with continued attempts to normalize the suppression of free speech as it relates to jihadists.

In the final part of the fifteen-minute overview film, Gaffney discusses the last of the ten-part video course, which goes into some detail about what can be done by individuals and groups to stop this assault on our values by civilizational jihad.  There are listings of (re)sources at other websites given in that lesson.  At the conclusion of the video preview, Mr. Gaffney mentioned that today, the New York City Police Department is being attacked politically, that the Muslim Public Affairs Council is now “educating” the government and calling on Attorney General Holder to investigate the NY Police Department.  One would assume that the offense of the NYPD is daring to investigate, find, report, and act on jihadist activities.

“We have to start to understand. It is our purpose to start this debate,” Mr. Gaffney said in concluding his prepared remarks.  And this was followed by questions by those in attendance and by some online participants.

Someone asked about Huma Abedin, the member of a Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated group, wife of former Congressman Anthony Weiner, and current political confidante of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.  Frank Gaffney replied that because he has no subpoena power, he is not sure what she is doing, but he knows from public records that Hillary Clinton just gave $1.5 billion to the current post-Mubarak government of Egypt.

The next question, though provocative, was treated seriously by Mr. Gaffney.  It was asked whether the film and the briefing was a slander against Muslims.  Gaffney replied that such wasn’t the case and that he knows that there are millions of Muslims who don’t want to live under sharia — Muslims who came to the U.S. to get away from sharia-based governments.  He further stated that during the Cold War, a person’s loose association with communists was considered enough to make him suspect but that current definitions of what constitutes a jihadist are not as strict.  Gaffney said that he hoped his ten-part video course will be seen as a legitimate inquiry into the nature of the situation today.

Something not mentioned in Mr. Gaffney’s reply was that his Center for Security Policy was a participant and sponsor of the early March public show of support by moderate Muslims in favor of the New York City Police Department and their Commissioner Ray Kelly, an event led by Dr. Zuhdi Jasser.  In fact, Mr. Gaffney’s executive vice president, former Congressman Fred Grandy, was a participant at that event, as I reported in American Thinker.

“To the extent that we ignore the connections of these groups we are insuring our government’s defeat in civilizational jihad,” Gaffney added.  He further stated that the Justice Department has ordered the FBI to purge documents that “offended” Muslim groups because of complaints from the Muslim Brotherhood, thus making the training that FBI agents receive less detailed as to various past facts uncovered and conclusions made, despite whose feelings might be allegedly hurt.

A question was posed by someone listening on the internet in Kansas, asking whether the State Department should classify the Muslim Brotherhood as a hostile foreign power — essentially a terrorist organization.  Gaffney replied that that is his own recommendation.

Another question led to a detailed discussion of a stealth jihad tactic known as having an “Interfaith Dialog.”  This often extends the influence of the Muslim Brotherhood into churches and leads to changes in how churches act and perceive the Brotherhood.  There was also a discussion of schools that require young Americans to pretend they are Muslims for a period of time — an indulgence given to no other religion in our secular schools.

The question of how sharia is being addressed in American law schools got a response from Mr. Gaffney in which he stated that Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan has been a major promoter of sharia financial education in law schools.  This led to another discussion of a war on women in America caused by courts in the U.S. supporting a sharia-compliant decision in 23 of 27 cases brought so far.  New Jersey had a famous — one could say infamous — case where a woman was being raped and beaten by her husband, and the family court upheld the practice because it was part of sharia cultural practices, refusing to grant a restraining order against her Moroccan husband.

One of the final questions asked of Mr. Gaffney was all but a stealth jihad act in itself.  Someone inquired whether sharia law was similar to Orthodox Jewish Halacha Law, since both have many strictures.  Rather than dismissing this out of hand, Gaffney addressed the question with an answer formulated by David Yerushalmi, an Orthodox Jewish attorney he works with.  Halacha, Gaffney stated, does not advocate the overthrow of the government and requires submission to the secular law of the land.  What went unsaid was that this is very different from sharia law, which seeks to establish a caliphate and make sharia the law of the land, negating the U.S. Constitution.  I believe that Mr. Gaffney answered this question more for the audience listening in on the internet and for the other people in the room than for the questioner, who appeared to attempt to advance a false equivalence between the two religions’ laws.

Another of the final topics mentioned was the original prosecutorial intention of the successful 2007-2008 Holy Land Foundation case convictions — namely, for that case to be a first step in further investigations and trials.  But Attorney General Holder has been unwilling to investigate or bring to trial anyone else in a Phase Two follow-up.

Among these final remarks, Mr. Gaffney made a plea for his cause in relation to the upcoming U.S. elections.  He asked if we, as Americans, want more submissions to sharia — or do we want something different?  What he didn’t say is what I will now add.

It would be too easy to assume that one political party is automatically better in regard to fighting a civilizational jihad than the other party.  In fact, the extent of the attack on our society’s institutions in the name of tolerance (that is, of our tolerance alone) has not been fully understood by either political party’s leadership.  It is up to all of us to be, as Thomas Jefferson said, eternally vigilant as to the price of our liberty.  And this issue will not go away if your favorite political party wins in November.  There will still be much to do to keep our Republic.

Media and Congress spread the word on Muslim Brotherhood in America

April 26, WASHINGTON, DC: On Tuesday, April 24, Frank Gaffney unveiled a controversial 10-part online video course explaining why we are losing the Jihadists’ war on America. Titled The Muslim Brotherhood in America, the course is receiving significant attention among the media and Congressional leaders.
 
Erick Stackelback, a terrorism analyst at CBN News described the course as "for the average American to learn about the Muslim Brotherhood.  It breaks down the group, what they’re about and why they are so dangerous.”
 
On Glenn Beck’s April 26 radio show, Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann, said of the Muslim Brotherhood, “I think this is the number one issue facing our country right now. People have no idea how far, how deep, how wide the Muslim Brotherhood has penetrated the upper echelons here in the United States.”  Additionally, she recently told CBN, "President Obama is more responsible for the rise of Sharia in the Middle East…He’s excited the Islamists to embrace Sharia not only in the Middle East, but here in the United States”
 
Also today, Bill Gertz, in his weekly Washington Times column Inside the Ring reinforced the concerns about Muslim Brotherhood influence on the Obama administration, stating, “The video includes a detailed section on “Team Obama” that identifies six people working close to or inside the Obama administration that the course says are linked to the Muslim Brotherhood or similar Islamist groups through numerous front organizations.” Gertz added, “Publication of the online course comes as Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, reportedly ordered a review of U.S. military training material with the goal of purging allegedly anti-Islamic content, the online portal Danger Room reported Tuesday… A military source critical of Gen. Dempsey’s move said the chairman’s action is a politically correct effort to “make our professional military education fit a narrative, not objective inquiry.”
 
 
The press conference generated national media interest, with interviews with Frank Gaffney on Fox and Friends and Hugh Hewitt.
 
 
If you missed the press conference, please view the video highlights:
 






 
 
If you haven’t already, make sure to check out the complete Course at http://muslimbrotherhoodinamerica.com/

The Summit of the Americas: A Major Disappointment

The Summit of the Americas, the largest gathering of leaders from the Latin American and Caribbean states plus the U.S. and Canada, ended last week in Cartagena, Colombia with no joint declaration or statement.

The reason is two-fold. First there was no consensus with regard to the status of Cuba in the forum. Second, there was no agreement regarding Argentina’s claim to the Falkland Islands.

The United States and Canada are opposed to the inclusion of Cuba. President Obama stated that he “will welcome a free Cuba in the next summit” (scheduled for 2015 in Panama,). Concerning the issue of the Falklands Islands, the U.S. maintained its neutrality on the conflict. Since final summit statements require unanimous consent, a statement on the Falklands could not be formulated.

These disagreements did not go without consequences. Venezuela, Bolivia, and Ecuador stated that they will not participate in the next summit if Cuba is not included. The presidents of Nicaragua and Ecuador did not even attend the summit due to the same reason.

With regard to the Falkland Islands, the Argentinean president, Cristina Kirchner, left the summit early in what many interpreted as an “angry mood”.

The summit’s host, Colombian president, Jose Manuel Santos downplayed these controversies by stating that “for the first time there is a deep and heated discussion about Cuba. “The discussion itself sparks closer relations (between the countries) and bridges that will enable us, God willing, to include Cuba in the next summit”

Santos also tried to hide the fact that President Kirchner upbraided him over his failure to mention the Falkland Islands in his opening speech.

These two issues dominated the summit (at least in public). Since the gathering ended without a statement and since the United States and Canada were the only two dissenting voices on the Cuba issue, the two countries seemed to have been somewhat isolated during the summit.

Colombia also seemed to have been weakened. Observers and academics in Colombia pointed out that this conference “was the biggest failure in Colombian diplomatic history” According to these observers, everyone expected events in Cartagena to develop the way they did since no sound strategy had been developed to avoid such a fiasco.

If that is the case, who benefitted from this summit?

Of course, the big winners of the summit were the countries of the Bolivarian Alliance (ALBA) led by Venezuela.

Bolivarian countries have been lobbying for the inclusion of Cuba for a long time. They have included Cuba in other Latin American forums while excluding the United States and Canada. (E.g. the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States or CELAC)

On the other hand, President Obama rightly stated that Cuba must be democratic before the U.S. agrees to include it in the Organization of American States (OAS). However, the U.S., Canadian and Colombian presidents failed to push the issue of democracy and articulate a clear message in support of democracy. Had they done so and brought every country to discuss the meaning of the Inter-American democratic charter, it would have been the ALBA countries that would have been isolated. The OAS charter plainly states that “representative democracy is indispensable for the stability, peace, and development of the region, and that one of the purposes of the OAS is to promote and consolidate representative democracy”. It is not clear whether this was poor planning, lack of imagination or mere indifference on the part of the leaders of these three countries.

In very simple terms, the reason why ALBA countries want to include Cuba is precisely because they aspire to become dictatorships like Cuba not because the latter has turned more democratic or more respectful of human rights. In fact, Cuba rejected all the overtures President Obama offered.

The biggest victory of the ALBA countries was precisely that they succeeded in making sure that Latin American countries supported the inclusion of Cuba without objections. Furthermore, ALBA countries have done remarkably well in maintaining their own violations of democracy and human rights under the radar.

 

Drugs and Drug Trafficking

The Summit also dealt with the important issue of drugs.
Drug trafficking is a very serious problem, particularly in Central America and Mexico. Not long ago, the Guatemalan president proposed the legalization of drugs as a means to stop their illegal trade. This proposal was rejected by certain countries in Central America, particularly Honduras and Nicaragua.

The reason the proposal was put on the table in the first place is because of a set of common arguments raised all the time by Latin American leaders. The first is that U.S. drug policies are a failure and secondly that the United States is the main consumer of drugs and the principal provider of weapons to the cartels.
Of course, nobody has raised the argument that the Drug Enforcement Administration has been expelled from the ALBA countries or that the leaders of these countries are linked to the drug cartels or that they encourage the cultivation of cocaine.

At this point, Latin American leaders agreed to give a mandate to the OAS to examine the possibility of developing alternatives and new ideas to combat drug trafficking and drug consumption.

It is highly doubtful that Latin American countries will bring any creative or positive idea.

The Case of Brazil

On April 9th, the Brazilian president, Dilma Roussef, visited the United States and met with President Obama for two hours at the White House.

The New York Times stressed the existence of an element of tension between the two countries. The Brazilian president was not honored with a special dinner at the White House, as happened when the Chinese and Indian leaders visited the United States. During the press conference both leaders looked tense and aloof.

Indeed, there are some disagreements between the two countries. Brazil still does not support international sanctions against Iran, and, contrary to the United States, it supports trade with Cuba.

The U.S. also objects to the inclusion of Brazil as a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. Roussef also complained about U.S. monetary policies which she believes may hurt Brazil’s economy.

Despite this, Ms. Rousseff stressed oil and gas production as “a tremendous opportunity for further cooperation,” as the U.S. can supply equipment and knowledge to extract these materials and then buy the products.

This, of course, could be a tremendous opportunity not only to cooperate with Brazil in terms of energy but also to help the U.S. solve its own energy problem and dependency on Middle East countries or rogue states such as Venezuela.

Furthermore, during the Summit of the Americas, Rousseff pointed out something of extreme importance. In her own words: “In our region, we have to recognize the importance of the United States. The United States has features that are crucial in this emerging multi-polar world: it has flexibility; it has leadership in science, technology and innovation; and; it also has democratic roots”.

In other words, Rousseff wants to be a U.S. partner and ally and contrary to her predecessor, Jose Inazio Lula Da Silva, she is less engaged in ideological quarrels with the U.S. or with foolish and hyperbolic expressions of solidarity with tyrannical leaders in the third world, particularly in the Arab world. Rousseff is a former prisoner who was tortured and knows the evils of tyranny.

Contrary to Lula, she has been very outspoken about Iran’s human rights violations, ruthless executions, and treatment of women. She values human rights and democracy.
Brazil could be an economic and political asset and could partner with the United States on economic and democracy promotion policies, particularly in Latin America. Brazil is a growing economic power and is moving in the direction of consolidating democracy. It has the potential to be an ally almost like the European Union in the global arena. It could potentially help on issues such as drugs, terrorism, rogue states and others. It is important to look at Brazil beyond Lula and his curious and misguided foreign policy.

During the Summit as well as during personal meetings, the White House seemed to have missed an opportunity to develop good partnerships and to clearly identify potential friends from those who are not. What is worse the United States did not bring any item to the agenda that was really important, like the crisis of democracy in the region. Instead, it granted Chavez and the ALBA a victory, and failed to strengthen actual friends such as Colombia or engage new friends like Brazil. A real missed opportunity.