Really? Just a month ago, when North Korea began threatening to launch long-range missiles, the Obama administration moved Aegis anti-missile units into place around Hawaii. And the North Koreans backed down, launching only a few short-range missiles.

If a nuclear missile gets launched by Iran or North Korea at a U.S. ally, what would YOU suggest we do about it? Retaliate with nuclear weapons? Go crying to the U.N. Security Council? What?

Folks like you, from both left and right, always end up knocking down U.S. military preparedness–and then when a military crisis erupts, tell us we have no option but to surrender. Underlying all your rationalizations is a profound disgust at the idea of the U.S. prevailing in an international crisis.

Because no diplomacy ever works without the implicit threat of force.

What about genuine adversaries like North Korea? There’s absolutely no way that their interests are aligned with ours.

What about genuine fanatics like Ahmedinijad of Iran? His interest is in seeing the entire world bow down to Allah, and seeing the Prophet’s green flag flying over the White House.

The problem with trying to persuade other nations that their interests are aligned with ours is, frankly, that too often they’re not aligned with ours.

“In the Netherlands, pretty much everyone over 47 who goes into hospital for a minor hernia winds up getting talked into ‘death with dignity.’ ”

I think that the piece reflects far more on the present mindset of the far right than it does on government. Two pages of red meat jokes about a bill that has less chance of getting passed by the Senate than a single-payer healthcare bill … which has no chance of getting passed by the Senate. A study in the pursuit of irrelevance by the National Review.

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZjRkZDYzYWM5YjJhYzMyNWRjMzE4YTJlM2VhMDFlYzU=

BILL

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NjgwYjE0MzBlYjFkYWNiOTEzMTZkMmFmNTAyN2NhZjE=

BILL

Nope. You don’t get it at all. There’s no debate to be won.

There is the acceptance that states will act in their own perceived self-interest. To that extent, if there is any ideology in play on Obama’s part, it is that we aren’t going to make other nations act in our interest just for our sake. We must convince them that their interests are aligned with ours.

Which isn’t really a departure from what the claimed ideology of the Bush Administration. If there’s a difference, it’s that Obama seems more serious about paying attention to what other nations claim to be their self-interest, rather than just trying to decide/announce it for them.

This, however, cracks me up:

“So the Obama administration is ready to “reset” the relationship with Russia by giving up something we need (missile defense) in exchange for something we have practically no use of (Russia reducing its nuclear stockpile – a reduction that would occur anyway).”

I strongly suspect that the Obama administration believes not only that we don’t need missle defense – but that deployment of the system will be phenomenally costly and simply put us on the hook for more and more expensive upgrades to the system over time, with little resulting permanent improvement in our security. In fact, if you want Russia to increase the size of their nuclear stockpile, there is no better way to do so than to move forward with a defense system, since it is clear that the Russians will not accept a non-MAD balance of power, and will simply increase the number of deployable warheads in order to raise the stakes of any failure of a missle defense system.

And of course, the US – even with a missle defense system – won’t accept a world where the Russians have more missles than us, and there will be political pressure for us to increase our warhead total.

For anyone interested in spending money on other things – say, energy programs, national healthcare, new transportation systems – saddling America with a committment to spend huge sums to deploy a missle defense system, to continuously maintain and upgrade it as technology and weapons balance changes, and to continue to increase our own nuclear arsenal, missle defense is not “something we need”. Rather, it is something we most certainly need to NOT deploy. It has far more value to America as a bargaining chip at this point, than as an actual installed system.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/741cc2f0-748f-11de-8ad5-00144feabdc0.html

I could go on and on… but what’s the point?

God help us. (*SIGH*)

BILL