Archives for June 2013

President Obama is making a big mistake by arming the Syrian rebels because the administration still cannot identify the ones we can trust, according to retired U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. Tom McInerney.

McInerney also wonders how there can be any talk of a U.S.-led no-fly zone in Syria since the Obama administration has grounded a large percentage of the Air Force, allegedly over sequestration.

The general rose to assistant vice chief of staff in the U.S. Air Force and was vice commander-in-chief of U.S. Air Forces Europe.  He is currently a Fox News military analyst.

Last week, the Obama administration publicly concluded that the Bashar al-Assad regime deployed chemical weapons against the rebels earlier in the year and the U.S. will begin arming the rebels and helping to effect regime change

McInerney says it’s hard to see the compelling U.S. interest in getting involved in another nation’s civil war but he’s even more concerned that the administration can’t even identify the trustworthy actors in a rebellion featuring forces loyal to Al Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood.

“What are our interests in Syria today?  They want to back Gen. (Salem) Idris of the Free Syrian Army?  That’s the wrong part of the Free Syrian Army.  They don’t even know the right part of the Free Syrian Army that they want to back,” said McInerney.  “So that makes it even more troubling and we’re going to get into what we got in in Libya and resulted in Benghazi, supporting a radical Islamist state when we already had a tyrant there who was supporting us.”

McInerney says it is possible to find the right factions within the rebellion and deal exclusively with them  but he says the Obama administration seems to have little interest in correctly identifying those elements.

“This administration doesn’t want to listen to the people who know who the reputable allies are , so that’s the real difficulty,” said McInerney.

The general also scoffs at the idea of a no-fly zone in Syria thanks to what he considers wrong priorities by the administration in response to some modest belt-tightening.

“You know where the no-fly zones are today?  Over all the U.S. Air Force bases,” said McInerney.  “We have grounded one-third of the United States Air Force because of sequestration and the lack of the administration’s initiative to ensure that these units are not standing down.  So we have a huge problem there?

“If we tried to do a no-fly zone against a rather sophisticated air defense system in Syria, it would cost a lot of resources that, frankly, aren’t available right now because of the sequestration and the stand down driven by the Obama administration,” said McInerney.

So what should we do?  McInerney largely agrees with former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton, who says that containing the threat posed by any remaining weapons of mass destruction is by far the top U.S. national security interest in Syria.  McInerney says it is especially critical to make sure the weapons don’t get to Hezbollah.

The general says the public is also giving thumbs down to the Obama policy, an assessment backed up by a new poll showing 70 percent of Americans oppose arming the rebels.

“The American people do not want to get involved, particularly with boots on the ground, with any forces in Syria right now.  And they’re right,” said McInerney.  “Should we take out Bashar Assad?  Yeah, I’d take him out, but that still won’t solve the problem.  You’ve got Russia, Iran and Hezbollah all backing Bashar Assad right now.  So that’s the difficulty.”

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Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America discuss a new CNN poll that show Obama’s approval ratings declined, they laugh at Bloomberg wanting New Yorkers to sort their compost, and they question whether or not Putin stole Robert Kraft’s superbowl ring.

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California Rep. Dana Rohrabacher is ripping Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and other Republicans for facilitating the Democratic approach to immigration reform and deceiving the American people about what’s in the legislation.

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Religious freedom in the military is a hot topic following the controversy that followed a meeting between Pentagon officials and a noted advocate for removing God from the military, and now Congress is on the verge of preserving those freedoms through the annual National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).

The furor over the rights of service members to share their faith peaked in April and May after Mikey Weinstein of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation held a meeting with Pentagon leaders and reportedly received assurances that members of the military found sharing their faith would be prosecuted.

The Pentagon tried to tamp down criticism of those stories by saying expressing one’s faith is fine but proselytizing is not.

Now, Louisiana Rep. John Fleming is advancing an amendment to the NDAA that would guarantee service members not only the right to believe as they wish but to express those beliefs freely as well.

“It allows for military members to exercise their first amendment right within appropriate limits, so that not only can they maintain their beliefs of conscience…but also they can express it and they can take action, which means they can have a bible on their desk or they can speak in a non-coercive fashion with other members,” said Fleming, who adds that the amendment would not allow service members to disobey orders.

“If your commanding officer says, ‘Get in that tank and go shoot,’ you can’t say all of a sudden that it’s against my religion.  You can’t do that,” he said.

In addition to the Pentagon meeting with Weinstein, several stories of religious freedoms being infringed concern Fleming.  He says service personnel have been reprimanded for having a bible on their desk, been denied promotion because of their beliefs, expressing their beliefs in blogs and other forums or even serving Chick-fil-A at a promotion event.  Fleming says that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

“It was pretty clear that there was a common thread of suppression for free speech, particularly for those who express religious beliefs and even particularly more for those who express Christian beliefs,” he said.  “In some of their training at the Pentagon, they claim that evangelical Christianity is an extremism and consistent with the KKK and Al Qaeda.”

The restrictions on military chaplains are also alarming to Fleming.

“Chaplains have to have their speeches reviewed and accepted and certainly have words like “Jesus” removed from a Christian chaplain’s prayer or a situation where they’re not even allowed to hand a bible to someone or share their faith with someone.  That’s really what we’ve become,” said Fleming.

However, Fleming is encouraged that his amendment has sailed through the House Armed Services Committee and was part of the NDAA that passed the full House on Friday.  He says there was strong bipartisan support for it.  In addition, Utah Sen. Mike Lee is advancing the amendment in the Senate.  It has passed the Democratically controlled Senate Armed Services Committee and now awaits consideration from the full Senate.

But not everyone is on board.  The Obama administration released a statement in recent days urging rejection of the amendment to protect the sharing of faith, claiming it would have “a significant adverse effect on good order, discipline, morale and mission accomplishment.”

Fleming says that’s simply untrue and he is not fazed by the White House opposition.  He believes if the Senate approves the NDAA with the religious freedom language, Obama won’t be in the mood to pick a fight with so many members of his own party and will sign it into law.

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Greg Corombos of Radio America and Daniel Foster of National Review Online applaud former Attorney General Ed Meese for explaining how the Gang of 8 immigration plan is almost exactly the same thing as the 1986 amnesty bill.  They also shake their heads as President Obama plans to arm islamist rebels in Syria against the Iranian-backed regime.  And they slam Nancy Pelosi for saying her Catholic faith is the main reason she holds late-term abortions ‘sacred’.

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Greg Corombos of Radio America and Jim Geraghty of National Review are mostly pleased that the U.S. Supreme Court rejected the idea of patenting natural genes, although it did OK patenting of synthetic DNA.  They also vent at NSA leaker Edward Snowden for revealing details of American hacking efforts in China.  And they react to New York Rep. Peter King urging prosecution of journalist Glen Greenwald for publishing the NSA story.

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Gun rights advocates successfully fended off efforts to expand background checks, limit magazine capacity and ban certain firearms weeks ago, but a United Nations treaty that President Obama vows to sign could have the same impact even if the Senate rejects it.

The United Nations Small Arms Trade treaty passed the UN General Assembly earlier this year.  Last week, Secretary of State John Kerry announced President Obama would sign the treaty, noting it is an “important contribution to efforts to stem the illicit trade in conventional weapons, which fuels conflict, empowers violent extremists and contributes to violations of human rights.”

Gun Owners of America Executive Director Larry Pratt says the impact of this treaty would be far more damaging than the relatively benign language suggests.

“First of all, it’s probably helpful to understand who’s the good guys and who’s the bad guys at the UN,” said Pratt.  “Most of those governments are at best crooked and often dictatorial, tyrannical and just horrible to have anything to do with.

“When they talk about keeping guns out of the wrong hands, they’re talking about keeping guns out of the hands of the people that might seek their freedom from these horrible governments.  So for us to sign a treaty like that is for the United States to, in effect, sanitize, to approve of these governments, which we do anyway by being part of the UN, and give them morally a stronger hand in oppressing their people,” said Pratt.

Pratt also contends that the UN has a terrible track record in protecting human life.  He says the horrors in Rwanda are a perfect example of why the UN has no business deciding who should and ahould not have access to guns.

“Among its other distinctions was to preside over the genocide that occurred in Rwanda, taking nearly a million people’s lives.  UN, quote, peacekeepers would actually send the people fleeing the massacres back into the hands of those they were fleeing from.  That’s how horrible the UN is,” said Pratt.  “For us to be part of it means we don’t have a problem with genocide.  That’s exactly why the peoples of the world need their guns, so that they can protect themselves from their own government.  That’s why we have a second amendment.”

Pro-second amendment groups like Gun Owners of America are heartened to know the treaty will never be officially binding on the United States.  Even with Obama’s signature, the treaty must be ratified by two-thirds of the U.S. Senate.  That has virtually no chance of happening.  In fact, 53 senators rejected the treaty on a recent vote.  Sixty-seven senators are needed for ratification.

But even if the Senate votes down the treaty, Pratt says Americans could still see their second amendment rights infringed.

“Once 50 countries have signed in a treaty, then it’s considered to be part of international law.  While it doesn’t technically bind countries that have not signed it, it puts them under increased pressure.  Some of these countries.  Some of these countries would, of course, welcome the opportunity to say, ‘We’ve got to conform to international law.’  I kind of suspect that the current government here in the United States would love to make such an argument,” said Pratt, who notes two justices of the U.S. Supreme Court have cited international law in past rulings.

Sixty nations have already signed the treaty, so it will be recognized by the UN as international law.  Pratt previewed how life could change for existing and future gun owners if the U.S. courts bow to the UN position.

“Our government, if it were to implement the terms of the treaty, would have to set up a national gun registration and licensing scheme so that it could make its due diligence in knowing where every gun is sold and bought.  The idea being that if you lose track of them inside the country and who knows, they might end up in the hands of some poor Rwandan trying to save his life from his own government, and we can’t have that,” said Pratt.

“Our own government hasn’t had a problem putting guns in the hands of the Mexican cartel, leading to the death, the murder, of at least 400 Mexicans.  It seems to me that if there’s any gun control that’s needed, it’s control of our own government by we the people,” he said.

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Greg Corombos of Radio America and Jim Geraghty of National Review are glad to see George W. Bush rated as more popular than President Obama even though conservatives have mixed views on the Bush years.  They also slam the Turkish government for Tuesday’s violent response to protests in Istanbul.  And they laugh as Massachusetts Rep. Ed Markey claims budget work is not about about math but about arithmetic in his debate before a special U.S. Senate election.

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The Obama administration is rescinding its opposition to a federal judge’s ruling that all age restrictions should be removed on girls seeking to obtain the so-called Plan B morning after pill and the Family Research Council says the health of young girls is at risk as a result.

Until this year, girls younger than 17 could not purchase Plan B on their own.  Federal judge Edward Korman ruled in April that no age requirements should be in effect.  The administration appealed that ruling at the time.  Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius subsequently lowered the minimum age to 15.  Now the administration is allowing Judge Korman’s ruling to stand.

“The Obama administration is really caving into political pressure and putting those politics ahead of the health and safety of young girls and the rights of parents,” said Anna Higgins, director of the Center for Human Dignity at the Family Research Council.

So where did the pressure come from?

“First of all, Judge Korman put a lot of pressure on Secretary Sebelius in his April decision.  He basically gave her a scathing review saying she was politically motivated but really offered no hard evidence to prove that,” said Higgins.  “In addition to Judge Korman’s decision, you have quite a few reproductive rights groups who are very supportive of the president pushing for this access over and over for years.  I think they finally got to the point where they didn’t want to fight this anymore.”

Higgins says this ruling will have consequences in multiple ways.  She says making it simple for kids to keep their parents in the dark on an issue like this is a recipe for disaster and supporters of this decision have no good answers for why this is a good idea.

“(Pro-choice groups) really have glossed over the issue.  I think it’s something that’s not been sufficiently addressed.  They say that they are going to encourage parents to talk to teens.  Well, teens are going to have absolutely no motivation to talk to parents about this if they don’t need to,” said Higgins.  “They have to have their parents’ permission to obtain an aspirin at their school, yet we’re going to allow them unfettered access to high dose contraceptives that are associated with premature sexual behavior.  Not only will parents not have a say in a health decision affecting their child, they’re also not going to have a say in, perhaps, the sexual behavior or decisions affecting the sexual behavior of their teens.”

So what impact could unsupervised use of Plan B have on the health of young girls?  Higgins says the answer ranges from uncertainty to substantial risk.

“No one knows what effects taking this high dose of hormones have on girls during puberty.  There have been no studies on the effects of Plan B on these young girls, so we don’t know what it’s going to do to their bodies,” said Higgins, who says a 2011 study in Britain discovered loosening Plan B restrictions resulted in a higher rate of sexually transmitted diseases in young girls.

“Additionally, over the counter sales encourage repeat usage of the drug which is not safe.  And there’s no clear indication that young girls understand this is a one-dose use requirement,” she said.

Higgins says other problems emerge as the law tacitly encourages sexual activity among the very young.

“We have young girls who are most at risk for contracting sexually transmitted diseases or being sexually abused, who are going to be bypassing necessary medical screenings and guidance from parents that could detect these kinds of issues,” said Higgins.

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Greg Corombos of Radio America and Jim Geraghty of National Review discuss Marco Rubio’s insistence on legalization of immigrants before amnesty. They then praise four democratic senators who may vote against the immigration bill. And they laugh at the NSA’s inability to find the whistleblower Edward Snowden.

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