Running the world

 During ABC News' exclusive interview with President Joe Biden on July 5^th, 2024, the following statement was made:

PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: “Look. I have a cognitive test every single day. Every day I have that test. Everything I do. You know, not only am I campaigning, but I'm running the world.”

FullTranscript of Interview

It is telling that the President of the United States' statement claiming he is "running the world" did not elicit any remarks from the interviewer or the subsequent reporting press.  Do the citizens of the United States expect or approve of their President “running the world”?

Central planning has always and everywhere been a failure.  The approximately 205 sovereign states of the world might not agree with President Joe Biden’s assessment of his authority.

Apparently, President Joe Biden has decided to enhance the cold war title “leader of the free world” that was first applied to President Harry S. Truman.  This is arrogance characteristic of an empire not a constitutional republic.

Compare our current President’s opinion of US foreign policy (and apparently the opinion of the main stream media) with that of two esteemed prior Presidents.

During his first inaugural address on March 4, 1801, Thomas Jefferson described the essential principles of our government: “Equal and exact justice to all men, of whatever state or persuasion, religious or political; peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none…”

John Quincy Adams delivered a speech on July 4, 1821, celebrating the anniversary of American independence while serving as Secretary of State under President James Monroe. In this speech, Adams articulated his vision of American foreign policy, emphasizing the principles of non-intervention and neutrality.  "Wherever the standard of freedom and independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her [America’s] heart, her benedictions and her prayers be. But she goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own."

Consider this: Would you enjoy greater individual liberty and a lower burden of national debt today if the USA had adhered to the advice of Thomas Jefferson and John Quincy Adams?

A differentiation fed them by the administration

John F. Kerry's testimony before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations on April 22, 1971:

"We veterans can only look with amazement on the fact that this country has been unable to see there is absolutely no difference between ground troops and a helicopter crew, and yet people have accepted a differentiation fed them by the administration."

John F. Kerry's testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Syria, September 3, 2013:

"So let me be clear: President Obama is not asking America to go to war. And I say that sitting next to two men -- Secretary Hagel and Chairman Dempsey -- who know what war is. Senator McCain knows what war is. They know the difference between going to war and what President Obama is requesting now. We all agree, there will be no American boots on the ground."

John F. Kerry's testimony 4-22-71

John F. Kerry's testimony 9-3-13

"the image of success"

Charles Krauthammer’s latest column in the Washington Post comments on how President Obama manipulates foreign policy to enhance his self image:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/01/AR2009100104208.html?nav=rss_opinion/columns

Some of the highlights of this article are:

• Don't take it from me. Take it from Sarkozy, who could not conceal his astonishment at Obama's naivete. On Sept. 24, Obama ostentatiously presided over the Security Council. With 14 heads of state (or government) at the table, with an American president at the chair for the first time ever, with every news camera in the world trained on the meeting, it would garner unprecedented worldwide attention.
  
• Unknown to the world, Obama had in his pocket explosive revelations about an illegal uranium enrichment facility that the Iranians had been hiding near Qom. The French and the British were urging him to use this most dramatic of settings to stun the world with the revelation and to call for immediate action.
  
• Obama refused. Not only did he say nothing about it, but, reports the Wall Street Journal (citing Le Monde), Sarkozy was forced to scrap the Qom section of his speech. Obama held the news until a day later -- in Pittsburgh.
• And from Obama's star turn as planetary visionary: "The administration told the French," reports the Wall Street Journal, "that it didn't want to 'spoil the image of success' for Mr. Obama's debut at the U.N."

Maybe we can learn from Europe

The Germans have elected a conservative-free market government. The following Wall Street Journal article highlights some of the new government’s proposals:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704471504574438884290190804.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

Some of the highlights of the new policies:

• The Free Democrats campaigned on a €35 billion tax cut combined with a radical simplification of one of the most complex tax codes in the world. The current rates, which rise gradually from 14% to 45%, would be replaced with three brackets of 15%, 25% and 35%. The proposal has come to be known as the "beer-coaster reform"—as in, you could fit the whole tax return on a beer coaster. The reform would make Germany's tax code among the most competitive and transparent in the industrialized world.
  
• The FDP also wants to loosen the "Kündigungsschutz"—the country's strict dismissal rules, which make it so costly to lay off employees that it hinders hiring them in the first place.

FDP also proposes to cut the size of government and reform the government health-care system.

Combining the legendary German work ethic with these free market policies will create an economic miracle in the center of socialist Europe.

CIA Assassination Program

This is an interesting article discussing the recent action by CIA director Leon Panetta:


http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20090715_u_s_reaction_cia_assassination_program?utm_source=SWeeklyS&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=090715&utm_content=readmore


The following paragraphs give an overview of this article:

• That a program existed to assassinate al Qaeda leaders should certainly come as no surprise to anyone.


• Furthermore, since 2002, the CIA has conducted scores of strikes against al Qaeda targets in Pakistan using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) like the MQ-1 Predator and the larger MQ-9 Reaper. These strikes have dramatically increased over the past two years and the pace did not slacken when the Obama administration came to power in January. So far in 2009 there have been more than two dozen UAV strikes in Pakistan alone.


• During the 2004 and 2008 presidential elections in the United States, every major candidate, including Barack Obama, stated that they would seek to kill bin Laden and destroy al Qaeda. Indeed, on the campaign trail, Obama was quite vocal in his criticism of the Bush administration for not doing more to go after al Qaeda’s leadership in Pakistan. This means that, regardless of who is in the White House, it is U.S. policy to go after individual al Qaeda members as well as the al Qaeda organization.


• In light of these facts, it would appear that there was nothing particularly controversial about the covert assassination program itself, and the controversy that has arisen over it has more to do with the failure to report covert activities to Congress. The political uproar and the manner in which the program was canceled, however, will likely have a negative impact on CIA morale and U.S. counterterrorism efforts.


• Furthermore, there are certain parts of the world — including some countries considered to be U.S. allies — where it is very difficult for the United States to conduct counterterrorism operations at all. These difficulties have been seen in past cases where the governments have refused U.S. requests to detain terrorist suspects or have alerted the suspects to the U.S. interest in them, compromising U.S. intelligence efforts and allowing the suspects to flee.


• The fear that details of a sensitive program designed to assassinate al Qaeda operatives in foreign countries could be leaked was probably the reason for the Bush administration’s decision to withhold knowledge of the program from the U.S. Congress, even though amendments to the National Security Act of 1947 mandate the reporting of most covert intelligence programs to Congress. Given the imaginative legal guidance provided by Bush administration lawyers regarding subjects such as enhanced interrogation, it would not be surprising to find that White House lawyers focused on loopholes in the National Security Act reporting requirements.


• In April we discussed how some of the early actions of the Obama administration were having a chilling effect on U.S. counterterrorism programs and personnel. Expanding the minimum reporting requirements under the National Security Act will serve to turn the thermostat down several additional notches, as did Panetta’s overt killing of the covert program. It is one thing to quietly kill a controversial program; it is quite another to repudiate the CIA in public. In addition to damaging the already low morale at the agency, Panetta has announced in a very public manner that the United States has taken one important tool entirely out of the counterterrorism toolbox: Al Qaeda no longer has to fear the possibility of clandestine American assassination teams.

The actions of our Presidential Administration and Congress are diminishing the ability of our security agencies to pursue and eliminate terrorist threats. Congress does not need and should not be given broader oversight powers.

Strategic Calculus and the Afghan War

The following link will take you to a very interesting article from Stratfor Global Intelligence about the strategy of waging a counterinsurgency war:

http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20090713_strategic_calculus_and_afghan_war?utm_source=GWeeklyS&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=090713&utm_content=readmore

This article is very interesting and the subject matter is exceptionally relevant when considering our course of action in Afghanistan. I have not provided any outtakes as this article should be read in its entirety.

The Decline and Fall of the US Dollar

During an economic summit in Russia world leaders expressed their lack of confidence in the Obama Administration:

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EU_RUSSIA_SUMMIT_TALKS?SITE=OHWIL&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

The following quotes express the concern over US economic policy:

• At the same time, Medvedev pushed against U.S. domination of financial
  markets by calling for new global reserve currencies to complement the
  dollar.
  
  Medvedev said new currencies will take a long time to emerge, but emphasized that the world will feel the growing need to hedge financial risks. "The main reserve currency, the dollar, has failed to serve its purpose," he said.
• 
  He added, however, that the creation of new reserve currencies should help distribute global wealth more fairly and also encourage economic leaders to pursue a more balanced economic policy.
• 
  The talk about global reserve currencies has been prompted by concerns in China and Russia that soaring U.S. budget deficits could spur inflation and weaken the dollar, debasing the value of their holdings.

We all know how important it is to President Obama to be loved by overseas society. It will be very difficult for him to win the hearts and minds of foreigners if they distrust his economic policies.

Stand up and take action

President Obama apparently has a new approach to foreign policy:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Remarks-by-the-President-on-North-Korea/

Highlights of his remarks:

Now, the United States and the international community must take action in response.

We will work with our friends and our allies to stand up to this behavior and we will redouble our efforts toward a more robust international nonproliferation regime that all countries have responsibilities to meet.

I have several questions.

Does the use of the term stand up imply that we have been lying down?

Does this mean that we are done talking to Kim?

What “action" does the President propose?

An Israeli Prime Minister Comes to Washington Again

This article is a very interesting discussion of the multidimensional chess match of international politics in the Mideast:

http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20090518_israeli_prime_minister_comes_washington_again

Leon Panetta's statement

CIA Director Leon Panetta issued this statement to CIA employees on 5/15/09:

https://www.cia.gov/news-information/press-releases-statements/message-from-the-director-turning-down-the-volume.html

I am impressed by his willingness to contradict the Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. These 2 paragraphs from his statement are unequivocal:

Let me be clear: It is not our policy or practice to mislead Congress. That is against our laws and our values. As the Agency indicated previously in response to Congressional inquiries, our contemporaneous records from September 2002 indicate that CIA officers briefed truthfully on the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah, describing “the enhanced techniques that had been employed.”

We are an Agency of high integrity, professionalism, and dedication. Our task is to tell it like it is—even if that’s not what people always want to hear. Keep it up. Our national security depends on it.

incompetent or dishonest

Newt Gingrich comments on Nancy Pelosi and the CIA briefings:

http://abcnews.go.com/video/playerIndex?id=7595688

Some highlights of his comments:

"She is a trivial politician, viciously using partisanship for the narrowest of purposes, and she dishonors the Congress by her behavior."

"Speaker Pelosi is the big loser, because she either comes across as incompetent or dishonest. Those are the only two defenses," he continued. "The fact is, she either didn't do her job, or she did do her job and she's now afraid to tell the truth."

why does President Pantywaist hate America so badly?

One of my friends emailed me this blog post:

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/gerald_warner/blog/2009/04/24/barack_obama_and_the_cia_why_does_president_pantywaist_hate_america_so_badly

Note that Gerald Warner is a British journalist.

In case you are wondering, the definitions for pantywaist are:

1. child's undergarment consisting of a shirt and pants buttoned together at the waist.

2. Slang A boy or man who is considered weak or effeminate.

honor killings

The following is a current news article from the BBC about the Taliban enforcing their own version of religious law in Afghanistan:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7997749.stm

This type of execution is described in the following paragraph:

Extrajudicial "honor killings" have been widely carried out in Afghanistan since then by conservative families angered by a relative who has brought them shame - usually by refusing to marry a chosen partner.

When the Taliban are described as enforcing a “middle ages existence” this type of behavior is referenced as an example. Was this a common practice in Europe during the middle ages?

It's Your Country Too, Mr. President

One of my friends emailed me this article by Charles Krauthammer:

http://townhall.com/columnists/CharlesKrauthammer/2009/04/10/its_your_country_too,_mr_president

If you are not familiar with Charles Krauthammer his resume may surprise you. He is a psychiatrist with a MD from Harvard. He retired from medicine and became a speech writer for Walter Mondale (!). He later became disillusioned with big government and became a journalist.

Obama: U.S. expects "accountability" from Pakistan

The following news article describes our administration’s new policies toward Pakistan:

http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSTRE52S1B120090329?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews

According to this report our new president will consult with the Pakistani government prior to attacking al Qaeda or Taliban targets:

“He also said the United States would go after so-called "high-value" targets in Pakistan after consulting with Pakistani authorities, but the main thrust of his policy would be to help Pakistan defeat extremism.”

In the recent news article below US military commanders discuss Pakistan's ISI military intelligence agency:

http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSTRE52R03R20090328

The first 2 paragraphs of this article present a paradox to our new Pakistani policies:

“The United States has indications that elements of Pakistan's ISI military intelligence agency provide support to Taliban or al Qaeda militants, senior U.S. military officers said on Friday.

Navy Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Army General David Petraeus, head of U.S. Central Command, said the agency must end such activities.”

Based on the opinion of our military leaders, if we consult with Pakistan prior to attacking al Qaeda or Taliban then Pakistan's ISI military intelligence agency will disrupt these attacks by warning the intended targets. Also if we provide money and military equipment to Pakistan it is likely that some of it will be distributed to al Qaeda and the Taliban by the ISI.

Hugo Chavez

This is the first time that I agree with Hugo Chavez:

http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE52L19G20090322

This has been a tough week for our new “extended hand” foreign policy. First our new best friends in Iran scoff at our presidents videotaped message and now Hugo speaks unfavorably of our “Dear Leader”. I am convinced that after they get to meet our new secretary of state both Iran and Venezuela will realize we are serious about achieving “peace for our time”.

The last great world power was also convinced that it had achieved this utopian goal. For the details follow this link:

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1938PEACE.html

The two photos below are of British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain in 1938. The first photo is during his meeting with Adolph Hitler. The second photo is of Chamberlain’s return to England after the historic meeting with Hitler. The paper that he is waiving over his head is the document signed by Hitler and Chamberlain that was going to guarantee “peace for our time”.