Obama calls for "a world without nuclear weapons"

In response, I call for a world without swords. Look at how progressive and peace-loving I am!

Dear Mahmoud,

Please don't hate me! I'm soooo sorry George Bush was such an asshole. The US is definitely not willing to remove your government, and we don't really care if you sponsor terrorists and keep developing your nukes. Won't you be my friend? Pretty please?

Love,
Barry

The most dangerous man ever to occupy the Oval Office

Marc Thiessen responds to the Executive orders on Gitmo and CIA interrogation procedures at the Corner.

A week ago, former Vice President Cheney advised the incoming president to take some time and look carefully at the policies and institutions the Bush administration had put in place to protect the country before following through on campaign pledges to dismantle them. President-elect Obama said on ABC’s This Week: “I think that was pretty good advice, which is I should know what’s going on before we make judgments and that we shouldn’t be making judgments on the basis of incomplete information or campaign rhetoric."

Less than 48 hours after taking office, Obama has begun dismantling those institutions without time for any such review. The CIA program he is effectively shutting down is the reason why America has not been attacked again after 9/11. He has removed the tool that is singularly responsible for stopping al-Qaeda from flying planes into the Library Tower in Los Angeles, Heathrow Airport, and London’s Canary Warf, and blowing up apartment buildings in Chicago, among other plots. It’s not even the end of inauguration week, and Obama is already proving to be the most dangerous man ever to occupy the Oval Office.

2,688 Days

Marc Thiessen, chief speechwriter for President Bush, observes in the Washington Post that President Bush departed the office Tuesday after keeping the country safe from terrorist attack for 2,688 consecutive days. The column is a must-read.

Al-Qaeda is actively working to attack our country again. And the policies and institutions that George W. Bush put in place to stop this are succeeding. During the campaign, Obama pledged to dismantle many of these policies. He follows through on those pledges at America's peril -- and his own.

Unfortunately, Mr. Obama has already followed through on his promise to dismantle one of the policies Mr. Thiessen lists (enhanced interrogation techniques by the CIA, which were employed successfully to thwart planned attacks). I expect the others to follow in the days and months ahead.

By the authority vested in me...

I'm a bit disappointed that Mr. Obama chose to close Club Gitmo before conducting any sort of study to determine whether that course of action is really in the best interests of national security.

The most amusing part of the EO is the ostentatious expectation that Mr. Obama's magical diplomatic powers-of-persuasion will cause other nations to want to take the evil, derranged, and dangerous killers that currently populate Club Gitmo:

New diplomatic efforts may result in an appropriate disposition of a substantial number of individuals currently detained at Guantánamo.

Good luck with that. Personally, I like Rep. Bill Young's idea of sending the detainees to Alcatraz, right in the middle of Nancy Pelosi's district.

The return to September 10th

Today's executive order eliminating all interrogation techniques not listed in the Army Field Manual, officially granting Geneva Conventions protections to terrorists as a "baseline", and eliminating the CIA's ability to detain captives goes a long way towards rolling back our defense and intelligence apparatus to a pre-9/11 mindset. Amusingly, the order is quite explicit about the date to which it rolls back our capabilities:

All executive directives, orders, and regulations inconsistent with this order, including but not limited to those issued to or by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) from September 11, 2001, to January 20, 2009, concerning detention or the interrogation of detained individuals, are revoked to the extent of their inconsistency with this order

Interpretations of Common Article 3 and the Army Field Manual. From this day forward, unless the Attorney General with appropriate consultation provides further guidance, officers, employees, and other agents of the United States Government may, in conducting interrogations, act in reliance upon Army Field Manual 2 22.3, but may not, in conducting interrogations, rely upon any interpretation of the law governing interrogation -- including interpretations of Federal criminal laws, the Convention Against Torture, Common Article 3, Army Field Manual 2 22.3, and its predecessor document, Army Field Manual 34 52 issued by the Department of Justice between September 11, 2001, and January 20, 2009.

Rebuilding our alliances?

On day two of his administration, Mr. Obama has delivered a speech that dramatically shifts US relations with Israel, our closest and most vital ally in the middle east. Mr. Obama demands that Israel lift its blockade of Gaza as part of a cease fire:

As part of a lasting ceasefire, Gaza’s border crossings should be open to allow the flow of aid and commerce, with an appropriate monitoring regime, with the international and Palestinian Authority participating

He also expressed his deep concern about the effect of Israel's recent action against Hamas:

I was deeply concerned by the loss of Palestinian and Israeli life in recent days and by the substantial suffering and humanitarian needs in Gaza.

In addition, in what Israel could rightly interpret as a slight, President Obama made his frist phone call in that capacity to the leader of Fatah, Mahmud Abbas.

From a man who pledged to "rebuild our alliances", it seems an odd move to undermine an ally within the first 48 hours of taking the oath. But I must recall that when the Left speaks of our "alliances", they're speaking exclusively of socialist Western European states who just couldn't stand that horrid cowboy from Texas who refused to negotiate with terrorists, and consistently supported those awful Jews. Sorry, I forgot about that.