The 14th Dalai Lama says U.S. weapons are powerful but not as powerful as American principles. (0:26)

 

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By Ravi Bhatia-Talk Radio News Service

A number of high ranking Congressional Republicans Thursday protested President Barack Obama’s recent decision to scrap an Eastern European based missile defense system.

Ranking Member of the House Committee on Armed Services Howard “Buck” McKeon (R-Calif.), House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.), Ranking Member of the House Subcommittee on Strategic Forces Michael Turner and House Chairman Michael Pence (R-Ind.) all delivered statements.

“We’re seeing this administration’s real national security policy emerge,” McKeon said. “The administration is capitulating to Russia’s demands, rewarding Russia for its divisive policies and actions.”

The plan eliminates former President George W. Bush’s planned missile defense system, which would have deployed either a radar system in the Czech Republic or 10 ground-based interceptors in Poland in order to deter long range and short range missiles. Instead, the Obama administration will use a system aimed more toward intercepting shorter-range missiles from Iran, which Defense Secretary Robert Gates believes pose a more immediate threat.

“The sudden turnaround, the sudden release of new intelligence information – that has not come the way of the Hill – is puzzling, to say the least,” Cantor said. “We await the answers associated with that turnaround from our administration.”

Cantor also said that he hoped Vice President Joe Biden was “misquoted” when he said he was much less concerned about Iran because Iran does not have the potential capacity to launch a missile at the United States.

“To me, implicit in [Biden’s] statement is that we should not naturally concern ourselves with the threat to our allies in Europe, to our allies in the Middle East such as Israel,” Cantor said.

Acording to Michael Turner, the Obama administration has cut missile defense funding by $1.2 billion. He also said that the plan will not provide the United States with long range missile defense until 2020, while the former plan would have considered long range missile defense as early as 2013.

“They’re retreating from the deployment of a missile defense shield in Europe,” he said.

“The Obama administration is continuing a policy of appeasement at the expense of our allies,” Pence said. “History teaches that weakness and appeasement invite aggression against peaceful nations.”

By Michael Combier-Talk Radio News Service

Philip H. Gordon, Assistant Secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs, says that the United States will push for Turkey’s integration into the European Union because it will benefit Europe. (0:31)

 

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Former Senator, Tom Daschle (D-S.D.), explains how the United States is not doing a sound job at recruiting health care providers. Also, how there needs to be more emphasize on nursing education in the United States. (0:52)

 

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by Christina Lovato, University of New Mexico-Talk Radio News Service

Janet Napolitano, Secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, said that the United States, Mexico and Canada all rely on trade but with the increase in illegal immigration and drug and weapon trafficking, it is time for more modern and safe border security.

Today Napolitano spoke at the 2009 Border Trade Alliance International Conference and addressed not only border security issues but trade issues.

The Border Trade Alliance is a grassroots non-profit that serves as a forum for participants to address key issues affecting trade and economic development in North America.

Before heading to Mexico City with President Obama last week, Napolitano visited several American southern states to address the escalating violence in Mexico and the rise in drug and weapon trafficking among Mexico and the U.S.

Since 2006, when Mexico’s President, Felipe Calderon increased his efforts against drug cartels, more than 10,000 people have been killed in Mexico due to drug-related violence.

Because of the increase in violence at the U.S.-Mexico border, President Obama has dispatched hundreds of federal agents along with high-tech surveillance gear and drug-sniffing dogs, to the Southwest border to help Mexico in it’s fight with drug cartels.

Napolitano said that the U.S. is engaged and focused on border issues not only from a security standpoint but from a trade standpoint.

“The two go together, we cannot separate one from the other,” she said.

Napolitano said the United States is not only working to end illegal immigration, drug and weapon trafficking and unlawful trade with the Mexican government but also with the Canadian government as well.

“We don’t want to appear to go heavy on the southern border and light on the northern border. We will have a balanced approach consistent with effective security for our entire country,” she said.

Napolitano said that the U.S. needs to respect the differences between the northern and southern borders.

“There needs to be a level of parity between the two borders,” she said.

But Napolitano said that the two borders share similar concerns regarding security, trade, illegal entry, and drug smuggling.

“We need to deal with circumstances on the ground. On the southern border it means protecting against drug cartel violence in combating illegal entry…. We’ve added more personal and technology. We’ve created a southbound strategy to stop the flow of guns and bulk cash into Mexico,” she said.

Napolitano said that the U.S. is providing new technology for Canada and have added five new U.S. Customs and Border Protection Marine and air branches, and 24 integrated border enforcement teams that include Canadian law enforcement officials.

“We don’t want to damage economic security in the name of homeland security,” she said.

Napolitano also spoke about the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative, which will require all travelers coming into the U.S. from Canada or Mexico to present a passport or other document that denotes identity and citizenship.

“These are real borders, this is a real law, and I am really charged with implementing it and I take that charge very seriously,” she said.

Although the Mexican and Canadian borders are different in climate and geography, both share a common goal to have a “modern border, an efficient border and a safe and secure border for both people and for commerce,” Napolitano said.

by Christina Lovato, University of New Mexico-Talk Radio News Service

Today on Capitol Hill experts gathered to talk about the future relationship between Iran and the United States and expressed their recommendations to the Obama administration.

This morning, the Middle East Policy Council, an organization that provides political analysis of issues involving the greater Middle East, held a discussion on the prospects of engagement between Iran and the United States.

Kenneth Katzman, a Middle East specialist at the Congressional Research Service and author of “Warriors of Islam: Iran’s Revolutionary Guard” said that Iran envisions a Middle East free of what Iran believes is domination by the United States and Israel.

“Iran’s goal, it’s honored policy goal, the assessment of many, is to fundamentally restructure the Middle East by reducing U.S. influence in the region and weakening Israel to the furthest extent possible,” said Katzman.

Thomas Pickering, the former Undersecretary of State and former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations and the Russian Federation said that the future of our relationship with Iran will not depend on a totally accurate reading of Iranian internal politics because that remains something of a crapshoot.

“Watch as much as what is done, as what is said,” said Pickering.

Pickering said that the objective for the U.S. and Iran ought to be to seek a normal relationship over a period of time.

“A relationship that involves not just embassies and ambassadors but an ability for people on all sides to meet, talk with, know and work with each other…. We have a lot at stake and Iran has a lot at stake,” said Pickering.

Trita Parsi, the President of the National Iranian American Council and author of “Treacherous Alliance: The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran and the United States” said that in order for the U.S. to improve relations with Iran there needs to be a change in atmosphere and said that the speeches and comments made by President Obama are creating just that and injecting trust.

But Parsi said that giving a deadline of diplomacy to Iran will only militarize the atmosphere, and that will not be successful.

“The more the atmosphere gets militarized, the more difficult it will be for the Obama administration to be able to pursue its path of diplomacy,” said Parsi.

by Christina Lovato, University of New Mexico-Talk Radio News Service

This morning the Middle East Policy Council held a discussion on the prospects of engagement between Iran and the United States, and the panelists expressed their concerns. Trita Parsi, the President of the National Iranian American Council and author of “Treacherous Alliance: The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran and the United States” said that in order for the U.S. to improve relations with Iran there needs to be a change in atmosphere and that giving a deadline of diplomacy to Iran will only militarize the atmosphere, and that will not be successful. (01:06)

 

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By Jonathan Bronstein, Talk Radio News Service

If America is to remain an international superpower, it must control the world’s oceans, according to U.S. military and policy experts.

“The United States quite simply is a maritime nation,” said Michael Auslin, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. “Our future is possibly more tied up in the Pacific than with Europe.”

“The more power diffuses to the international system and Asia, the harder it will be to protect the global commons and the more difficult it will be to protect maritime security,” said Ashley Tellis, senior associate at with the Carnegie Endowment for Peace. Tellis said that the interests between rising nations, like India and China, are not all shared by the U.S. and would be unreliable partners who would almost certainly take advantage of any global cooperation.

Tellis is skeptical of the concept that international maritime cooperation “is essentially an idea that is pivoted on the notion of cooperation, and it works best in a world where all nations have common interests.”

Historically, the domination of the seas has been vital to the continuing strength and viability of powerful countries. But America’s role as a global hegemony is in jeopardy as Asian nations, like China and India, are taking militaristic actions to control large bodies of oceans.

In 1994, the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea was officially enforced, which defines the rights and responsibilities of nations in their use of the world’s oceans. But before China signed the treaty, they extended their territorial waters to the continental shelf, which was much farther than the 12 miles stated in the original treaty.

America did not sign the agreement, which creates a global system of signals to aid in communication in order to prevent any misunderstandings.

According to Bernard Cole, a professor at the National War College, the Chinese view the situation as: America must “stay 200 miles off our coastline at all times and we won’t have any conflict.”

Japan is another major player within the Asian-Pacific region because of the strength of their economy and relations with America. But Japan itself is at a “crossroads toward rising or falling as a nation,” said retired Vice Admiral Hideaki Kaneda of the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force. “It is very critical in the long term to maintain this important maritime alliance for Japan and the United States.”

by Christina Lovato, University of New Mexico-Talk Radio News Service

“Now the G-20 is not an easier group to get into a consensus, it’s very much harder,” said Jeremy Rabkin, a Professor of law at George Mason University School of Law.

Today at a discussion on the upcoming G-20 meeting in London, panelists expressed their concerns about the meeting, the topics that should be addressed, and the likely results from the meeting.

J.D. Foster, a Senior Fellow in the economics of fiscal policy at the Thomas Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies of the Heritage Foundation, said there are three issues at stake in the summit, the first being stimulus spending. “Should it be an international priority? Second, international institutions…. Should entirely new institutions of global governance be created? And third, underlying the both of the first two questions is the question of sovereignty. Should nations retain the basic right to regulate their own markets even if the result is that their systems of regulation differ?” Foster also said that at the summits they take on the task of lecturing one another usually on things that they themselves are not doing very well. “In this case we hope very much that the American president, President Obama, heeds some of the lectures of his European counterparts. It is a shameful situation to find ourselves in where we hope the European leaders are effective in lecturing the American president on the dangers of debt finance but that’s where we are.” Foster went on to say that people all over the world have the right to be angry with the U.S. “The Czechs, the French, the Germans, everybody else in the world is right to be angry at the United States and other governments engaged in this sort of enormous debt finance stimulus which won’t work, but they should be more than concerned; they should be furious. They should be furious because this is going to drive up interest rates at some point…. It will be affecting global financial markets,” concluded Foster.

Desmond Lachman, a Resident Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy, said “Europe to me looks like it’s basically in denial. Japan has run out of policy instruments…. interest rates are at zero. China is still counting on exports, really not being flexible on its exchange rate or trying to modify its economy….. You know that I think they diagnosed the problem correctly,” he said. Lachman went on to say, “I think what they have done is executed rather poorly.” Lachman expressed that the the fiscal stimulus package was poorly designed and that the Geithner plan is not attacking the problem in the banking system, saying that the problem is not one of liquidity but of solvency.

Rabkin stated that he thinks it is very unlikely that we are going to see enhanced global governance as the outcome of G-20 deliberations and said that the G-20 group is science fiction. “The majority of these countries are poor and somewhat chaotic. The idea that you’re going to propose a elaborate system of global controls, and ‘China’ will say yeah good idea we really want people to come into our country and monitor how we do our regulation. I think it’s fantastical,” he concluded.

by Christina Lovato, University of New Mexico-Talk Radio News Service

Today at a discussion titled, “The Implications of the G-20 Summit for the Political Sovereignty and Economic Freedom of the United States,” Jeremy Rabkin, a Professor of law at George Mason University School of Law said that the G-20 group is science fiction. “The majority of these countries are poor and somewhat chaotic. The idea that your going to propose a elaborate system of global controls and China will say yeah good idea we really want people to come into our country and monitor how we do our regulation. I think its fantastical,” Rabkin said. (01:45)

 

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