What in the hell is the “President Elect” doing talking Missile Defense in Europe
09 Nov
Posted by MacRanger as News
Note to King Obama, you’re not the president yet.
“(CNN) — U.S. President-elect Barack Obama has made “no commitment” to plans for a missile defense program in eastern Europe, despite a report on the Polish president’s Web site, an Obama adviser said Saturday.
An adviser to Barack Obama disputed claims made on the Polish president’s Web site.
Obama spoke to President Lech Kaczynski over the phone about continuing military and political cooperation between the two countries and possibly meeting in person soon, both sides said.
Obama “had a good conversation with the Polish president and the Polish prime minister about the important U.S.-Poland alliance,” said Denis McDonough, Obama’s senior foreign policy adviser.
However, Kaczynski’s office says on its Web site that during the same conversation, Obama told Kaczynski that he intends to continue plans for a missile shield in eastern Europe.
Obama’s adviser denied the report.
“President Kaczynski raised missile defense, but President-elect Obama made no commitment on it. His position is as it was throughout the campaign: that he supports deploying a missile defense system when the technology is proved to be workable,” McDonough said.
Meanwhile, the Kremlin said Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Obama also had a phone conversation and agreed to meet soon.
“During the discussion, both sides emphasized that relations between Russia and the USA are priority ones for both parties and that their positive development is crucial not only for the peoples of the two countries but also for the wider international community,” a statement from the Kremlin said.”
Despite the denial, and just inn case the “President Elect” is confused on the Constitution, he’s not President until innaguaration day when he takes the oath of office and as such has no business discussing foreign policy in that capacity until after that day.
As noted before there is no “Office of the President Elect”, it’s an insult to the President of the United States present, George W. Bush, who – “Lame Duck” or not is still the President of the United States.
No other President in history has had such chutzpah to not only create his own seal, but now his own office. I wonder what else he will create beyond the constitution once he takes that oath?
UPDATE:
Once again, Obama’s plan for Disarming not only America but Europe is clear.
So let’s dispense with the facade.
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One Response
Paul_In_Houston
November 9th, 2008 at 12:55 am
1I posted this rant in other places, many times, but here goes again…
(And it IS on topic, about the importance of keeping your word.)
On election day, the Ace of Spades website posted a picture of two Iraqi women, with purple-stained fingers showing they had voted in an election.
It was a “Get Out The Vote” message, noting that whatever hardships or inconveniences YOU may experience by voting, “These women literally risked their lives to vote”.
My first reaction to that was, “And THE ONE can hardly wait to sell them out”.
One of my biggest worries about Obama is that his rhetoric on Iraq, and rumored comments about Israel, show an almost casual willingness to sell out allies when convenient.
A commenter on another blog asked, “Who appointed us to be their guardians? Why is it America’s job to make sure they are safe?”
I feel the answer is we’d rather not have the entire world as a nuclear-armed camp, based on the idea that the more countries with these things, the greater the chance that some will eventually be used.
Our alliances with these countries are not out of the goodness of our heart, but for our own best interests. Sell one out, and you can bet the others will sure take notice.
That commenter seemed to be saying, “To hell with them; let them take care of themselves!”
Well, the problem there is they might do exactly that, and we might be less than thrilled with the results.
If countries under threat (Taiwan, maybe South Korea, even Japan) feel reason to believe that our word is no longer any good, they’ll almost certainly feel the need for self-sufficiency in nuclear arms as the only real deterrent to someone like China. And note, those countries ALL have the necessary economic, industrial and technical wherewithal to go nuclear. All they need do is make the decision.
Others, in the Middle East will want them to deter Iran. How about Saudi Arabia and Egypt? Maybe Libya decides that abandoning their efforts was a mistake. THOSE countries may lack the technology, but they can certainly afford to finance it.
It could just go on and on.
THAT, I feel, would be a very likely consequence of us deciding to just disengage ourselves from these countries.
We’ve tried successfully, and for a long time, to convince others that they did not need them, because WE would provide the protection of a nuclear umbrella.
When they decide we cannot be relied on, the whole thing unravels.
If that commenter gets his wish, and they DO take care of themselves, it could get real interesting for us as well.
Seeing that we also reside on the same planet, I think it almost impossible we would remain unaffected.
So, standing up for our allies is not merely a nice thing to do; it makes the hardest kind of common sense.
Simply put, we protect others in order to protect ourselves.
Abandoning them, selling them out, would be an unbelievably short-sighted (as in STUPID) thing to do, and would hurt us more in the long run. No one would trust an agreement with us; and why should they, given such a record?
Instead of being worth anything, our word would only be noise.
And that would be tragic, because WE set its’ value, by our actions.
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