Obama Destroys Another Alliance

Name America's greatest allies historically. Go ahead, I'll wait...

France? When it suits their needs (which it did not in Iraq). Poland? Yes, but they lack the military capabilities we require. Germany? Yes, after that bit of ugliness in the 30 and 40's. But who has always been there for us? What nation has always had our backs? Great Britain has. 

We've enjoyed what's been referred to as "a special relationship" with the UK and whenever we needed help they were there for us and us them. Until now.

Earlier this week, the UK parliament rejected becoming our allies in the upcoming war in Syria. Parliament has not voted against a war since 1792 and that was to fund more money for the American Revolution!

So today, the Secretary of State John (f-ing) Kerry drops this embarrassment on the UK:

In laying out the case for military strikes on Syria, Secretary of State John Kerry on Friday had praise for the French, who he called “our oldest ally,” but snubbed any mention of the British, who have long believed they enjoyed a “special relationship” with the U.S.

Yes, yes he did. He just destroyed 250 years of goodwill with a nation that we need in everything from intelligence gathering to special operations. And his boss encouraged it. Obama is the man who pissed on the Brits when it came to the Falklands last year, gave the frigging queen an Ipod filled with his own speeches and essentially ruined the career of their PM David Cameron.

And not just the UK, everyone from Russia to Poland to Japan to Israel has been disrespected by this administration. He even turned Canada away and into the arms of China. 

The left in this country screamed about "Bush the cowboy" ruining our relationships while he used in statesmanship to build a coalition that routed the Taliban and Saddam Hussein. Obama on the other hand has turned his back on Hosni Mubarak leading directly to our arch enemies taking power in Egypt (a problem rectified by their military), allowed al-Qaeda to flourish in Libya and has allowed our enemies to strengthen.

Just as in life; if you screw your friends over enough, you end up alone and vulnerable. Add to that Obama allowed our own citizens to die in Benghazi and our former allies know what could await them. Obama has done to us in five years what every president we've ever had didn't do, lose all of our friends. 

Obama Admin Leaks Critical Info

The best intelligence operations are ones we never hear about. And even if we do, the details are usually never revealed or are twisted in such a way that tactics and sources are never really made known. Intelligence services do this to protect their agents, sources, governments and ongoing operations.

Enter the Obama administration and the operation to eliminate bin-Laden The Navy SEAL's take out Osama and the Obama people spill the beans on how it was done thus removing that type of operation from the playbook.

The latest example of amateurish behavior with intel issues came this week:

Detailed leaks of operational information about the foiled underwear bomb plot are causing growing anger in the US intelligence community, with former agents blaming the Obama administration for undermining national security and compromising the British services, MI6 and MI5.

Note that this is from the far left-wing Guardian newspaper. 


These are things you never want to hear from intelligence experts; men who have been involved in some of the most covert activities ever:


Michael Scheur:

 "MI6 should be as angry as hell. This is something that the prime minister should raise with the president, if he has the balls. This is really tragic," ... "Any information disclosed is too much information. This does seem to be a tawdry political thing." 

Of course it is Michael, Obama wants to appear tough to the voters, that's why he went on the I Killed Osama Victory Tour 2012, you may have seen it on TV. Everything is political with this regime and what do they care if we hurt the intel forces of allied nations, liberals hate all intelligence services. And take note, Scheur is not a conservative. Hell, I disagree with the man's politics almost completely but you can't discount his experience and abilities.

What does the former head of the CIA Counter-Terrorism Center think? Discussing what the British agencies must be thinking, he said this:

"In their place, I would think two and three times before sharing with the Americans, and then only do it if I had to. The problem with that dynamic is that you don't know what you don't know, and what opportunities you might be missing when you decide not to share. The Americans are doing a very good job of undermining trust, and the problem starts at the top."

In essence, by staffing his administration with a bunch of amateurs who leak info on operations to show what big shots they are, other, more professional intel agencies around the world now must hold and hide info that may be crucial to stopping the next 9/11 or worse.

Is there anything the Obama administration can be professional about?

Obama Lying To Us and the Canucks

We're starting to see a breach in the carefully orchestrated Obama campaign. Essentially, Democrats and the media have been giving him a pass regardless of what he says. All he has to say is "change" and they all swoon.

Now that he's the front-runner, things are going to change and he better get his message straight before further incidents like this occur:

Barack Obama has ratcheted up his attacks on NAFTA, but a senior member of his campaign team told a Canadian official not to take his criticisms seriously, CTV News has learned.

Both Obama and Hillary Clinton have been critical of the long-standing North American Free Trade Agreement over the course of the Democratic primaries, saying that the deal has cost U.S. workers' jobs.

Within the last month, a top staff member for Obama's campaign telephoned Michael Wilson, Canada's ambassador to the United States, and warned him that Obama would speak out against NAFTA, according to Canadian sources.

The staff member reassured Wilson that the criticisms would only be campaign rhetoric, and should not be taken at face value.

I imagine this is what he meant when he said he would talk to other world leaders. He's being duplicitous to the Canadians or he's flat-out lying to Americans, either way it's shady politics.

As noted by Ed, Canada and Mexico rely on us as a major export partner and Obama's infantile mix of populism and protectionism will do nothing but hurt our relationship with those two nations. It's interesting that this was leaked to CTV by what I would suppose was a Canadian with high level authority. That says to me that they don't rust Obama and will d whatever is necessary to let the world know that he's speaking out of both sides of his mouth. NAFTA is extremely important to Canada and it's become a large issue in their national politics.

If he can't be trusted on a matter such as this, what could he possible say to Ahmadinejad behind closed doors or Bashar Assad? This dangerous politics of the vilest sort.

This is a serious look into the character of Obama and it isn't a pretty sight at all. To gamble and tell the American electorate one thing and whisper something completely opposite to an age-old ally is troubling at best, extremely damaging at worst. If the American people can't trust him and one of our staunchest allies can't either, who can?

Exit question: Why did the two Senators demagogue Canada and say nothing about the jobs we've lost to China?

Happy Australia Day

To my friends down under: enjoy the day. I've been there only once for three glorious days but fell in love with the great land immediately.

As a side note, no news on Tim Blair of late, here's to hoping his recovery is progressing as quickly and pain free as possible.

History of the holiday here and here.

Rudd Wins In Australia

The Aussies have elected Kevin Rudd of the Labor party to replace John Howard.

You can read how it went down by following this link, then this one and finally this one.

Howard had a good run that was the equal of Tony Blair's in Britain. One can only hope that Rudd doesn't continue this analogy and start off like Gordon Brown has. Let's further hope that Rudd realizes the importance of the battle against al-Qaeda and the importance of a united front against all terrorism.

One last thing that occurs to me, no Aussie leader has had to deal with the wrath of the right-wing blogosphere. Howard had to deal with some of it from the left but it was mostly people like Blair foil Margo Kingston who was easily ridiculed. I don't know if blogs have the same impact as they do here (the immigration battle being the best example) but I would suspect that they do. Rudd is now in a leadership position and all those in political groups in Oz who allied against Howard and slammed his policies will have to, you know, actually lead their nation in what is a very tumultuous time--at least on the foreign affairs front.

Update: The NY Times headline reads: Bush Ally Defeated in Australia. I don't recall the headline Bush Ally Wins in France when Sarkozy was elected, do you?

Aussie Polls Are Open

It's going to be a tight one for PM John Howard versus the earwax-eating Kevin Rudd of the Labor Party.

Updates can be found here and of course, Tim Blair is the one to read about Aussie political goings on (don't miss this fisking that is devastating). Here's (PDF) a guide for those of us outside of Oz that sums up each party and their views.

Let's hope Howard can pull this one out as we need his continued support in a crucial time such as now.

Update: Howard was within four percentage points going into today.

Update 2: Tim notes that there are Aussie leftists who say they would leave Australia if Howard were elected again, much like Alec Baldwin and others said they would do if Bush were re-elected. Here's to hoping they're too stupid to figure out how to get to America because we already have enough idiots here.