Our own government has quietly admitted that America needs foreign help to handle the oil spill — almost two months after pushing that help away. Far more oil could have been intercepted before it fouled the Gulf Coast. So why hasn’t our government apologized? By refusing foreign assistance, we banned both the latest technology and cleanup vessels that far exceed the capacity of America’s oil spill response vessels (OSRV’s). We rejected ships with ten times the capability of the vessels we used instead. In a quiet announcement on June 18, …
Canada is one of America’s greatest allies and its largest trading partner. Yet within a split second, it could freeze US financial systems, disable key military technologies, or halt any number of government agencies. How? A few rogue actors launching a cyber attack from Canada. Such is the nature of asymmetric threats where the words “border” and “allies” are no longer relevant. This possibility was outlined by the Deputy Defense Secretary, William J. Lynn, while in Canada following his speech to the Conference on Defense Associations.
The artificial Afghanistan withdrawal deadline has obviously caused some of our military leaders to question our strategy in Afghanistan. That deadline, which President Barack Obama announced to the American people, the military, our allies and our enemies on December 1, 2009, has provoked many — including the government in Kabul, the Afghan people, the military in Pakistan, and our enemies the terrorists – to question America’s resolve to win the War in Afghanistan. More disconcerting for the American people is that the timeline appears to be putting tremendous unnecessary pressure …
Health care is a life-and-death matter. It’s also a huge part of our economy (one-sixth, to be exact). With so much at stake, it makes sense to “go slow,” when it comes to reforming the system. But rather than take the time to get it right, the liberal leaders of Congress rammed through a wholesale restructuring of the system without giving their rank and file enough time to read—much less comprehend—what they were up to. The rush to “reform” didn’t stop there, either. The Obamacare bill imposed a host of …
New evidence on the melting Pine Island Glacier (PIG), one of the melting Antarctic glaciers that some scientists feel may pose a threat to sea level increases, suggests that it is not climate change that is causing the glacier to melt. From the UK’s Register: “Many scientists have theorised that the PIG’s accelerating flow is due to global warming. However, recent research – including surveys beneath the bottom of the floating, projecting ice sheet by Blighty’s Autosub robot probe – indicate that this may not be the case. “The discovery …
The Washington Post reports today that Gen. Stanley McChrystal, U.S. commander in Afghanistan, apologized for an upcoming article in Rolling Stone magazine that portrays him and senior officials on his team as dismissive of top Obama administration officials. As a result, General McChrystal has been summoned to the White House to explain his comments. It is a case of poor judgment on the part of the general and his staff to air comments on the character of senior civilian leaders to a reporter, but both the White House and the …
The idea of going down the road to “nuclear-zero” is as old as nuclear weapons themselves. Steps were first proposed to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons by the United States in the aftermath of the Second World War. The plan was rejected by the Soviet Union as the country was already developing its own nuclear weapon covertly. Supporters often underscore the moral argument, stemming from the statutory obligation under Article VI of the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty. It calls upon “ … general and complete disarmament under strict and …
On June 21, in Humanitarian Law Project v. Holder, the Supreme Court reaffirmed the painfully obvious – that providing material support to terrorists is a crime and that Congress’ saying so is not a violation of the Constitution. That it took more than 10 years to reach this conclusion, and that three Justices dissented from it, says more about the ways in which lawyers construct arguments that only lawyers can believe in than it does about the reality of the world we live in, in which terrorist activities abound. First, …
The impressive run-off electoral victory of Juan Manuel Santos demonstrates that Colombians place great confidence in the former finance and defense minister’s ability to guide their nation for the next four years. It was also a vote for continuity with the successful and popular policies of outgoing President Alvaro Uribe. Undoubtedly, Santos has large executive shoes to fill. Colombia under Santos, who takes office on August 7, will need to strengthen democratic institutions, advance an impartial justice system, put the economy on a high growth track, and battle poverty, while …
A page on the Canadian Government’s G-20 Toronto Summit website promises payments to citizens “to mitigate adverse financial consequences” as a result of the meeting of world leaders June 26-27. Unfortunately, the adverse consequences being referred to are only those incurred as a result of the security precautions that shut down cities when the world’s power brokers come to town. Those economic costs can run into the millions, as the citizens of Pittsburgh found out when they hosted G-20 leaders last year. The real economic damage to fear, of course, …
