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China's indignant reaction to the announcement of U.S. plans to sell weapons to Taiwan appears to be in keeping with a new triumphalist attitude from Beijing that is worrying governments and analysts across the globe. |
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In the final analysis, this test appears to be an important milestone in Chinese defense capabilities and demonstrates the growing maturation of its missile defense system. It is also apparent that the test has clear implications for the military modernization of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) which may challenge U.S. strategic posture in the Asia-Pacific region (See "Advances in PLA Air Defense Capabilities Challenge Strategic Balance in Asia," China Brief, October 23, 2008; China Times, January 12). |
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My advice for the Republicans during the President's SOTU address: laugh at him! Don't shout him down. Don't sit with angry smirks. Laugh at him. Remember what Herb Brooks did with his "Miracle" 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team? He got them to laugh at the big, bad Russians. It minimized the mystique. The same must be done to President Obama. He's a joke, a court jester, and the American public is beginning to see it now. Please reflect that sentiment by laughing at the clown when he makes ridiculous claims on Wed night. |
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However, I would rather look backward, because doing so reminds us that when our democratic society is faced with ruthless adversaries, we sometimes — and only for a very short time — contract our liberties. This is not to say that the Bush Administration contracted the civil liberties of American citizens vis-a-vis the above documents. But history demonstrates that our society flexes in response to outside threats. While other governments have contracted civil liberties, most, if not all, have failed to return to their original parameters. It's a tribute to the Founders that our government is structured in such a way that it cycles outward and inward periodically in response to threats from ruthless adversaries committed to our destruction. Overall, though, it can be easily argued that in the long run, civil liberties in the United States have expanded far more than they've contracted. And that's a good thing. |
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It seems like a pretty simple question. Who made the decision to charge Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the accused terrorist arrested for trying to blow up a Northwest Airlines jet on Christmas Day, as an everyday criminal, as opposed to an enemy combatant? |
Ed Morrissey notes that "The Weekly Standard feels the need to explain to its readers that this headline comes not from an article in the satirical magazine The Onion, but from an actual press release from Capitol Hill by Senators Susan Collins and Joe Lieberman." The headline? Worried about possible terrorist attacks over the Christmas holiday, President Obama met on Dec. 22 with top officials of the C.I.A., F.B.I. and Department of Homeland Security, who ticked off a list of possible plots against the United States and how their agencies were working to disrupt them.
SENATORS INTRODUCE BILL TO REQUIRE INTELLIGENCE OFFICIALS BE CONSULTED ABOUT ARRESTED FOREIGN TERRORISTS
New York Times:
In a separate White House meeting that day, Mr. Obama’s homeland security adviser, John O. Brennan, led talks on Yemen, where a stream of disturbing intelligence had suggested that Qaeda operatives were preparing for some action, perhaps a strike on an American target, on Christmas Day.
Yet in those sessions, government officials never considered or connected links that, with the benefit of hindsight, now seem so evident and indicated that the gathering threat in Yemen would reach into the United States.
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U.S. intelligence agencies now suspect that Iran never halted work on its nuclear arms program in 2003, as stated in a national intelligence estimate made public three years ago, U.S. officials said. Differences among analysts now focus on whether the country's supreme leader has given or will soon give orders for full-scale production of nuclear weapons. The new consensus emerging among analysts in the 16 agencies that make up the U.S. intelligence community on Iran's nuclear arms program is expected to be the highlight of a classified national intelligence estimate nearing completion that will replace the estimate issued in 2007. |
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According to the Pentagon's report on China's military, Chinese military forces have been developing an array of advanced weaponry, including new nuclear ballistic and cruise missiles, anti-satellite weaponry and cyber-attack capabilities, in addition to new more conventional ships, aircraft and ground-warfare capabilities. |
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"First, let's ask the question that economists often ask but is all but ignored in the media: Can China's data be trusted? Many economists believe the answer is no. In fact, no one knows for sure what China's GDP is. The communist government simply announces it — there is virtually no transparency. [...] |
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Iran ran circles around United Nations sanctions last week, using the good offices of China to procure nuclear equipment from Taiwan. It's about par for Iran, but spotlights China's double game on security. |
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The calculus of long-term committment is just different when your country guarantees the basic necessities of an advanced civilization. When your government provides you, as they do in Canada and in Europe, with health care that is unlinked to a job or "productivity," subsidized prescription drugs, child care, free education through graduate school, and, finally, old-age pensions with visiting nurses if you need them to retain your health and a modicum of dignity. Marriage, ultimately, is about family, however you shape it. I sometimes don't blame men here for being lame or commitment-phobic. They're probably terrified of failing as providers or co-providers. |
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Too many American students simply lack the basics. In 2002, a National Geographic-Roper survey found that most 18- to 24-year-olds could not find Afghanistan, Iraq, or Japan on a map, ranking them behind counterparts in Sweden, Great Britain, Canada, Italy, Japan, France, and Germany. And in 2007 the American Institutes for Research reported that eighth graders in even our best-performing states - like Massachusetts - scored below peers in Singapore, South Korea, and Japan, while students in our worst-performing states - like Mississippi - were on par with eighth graders in Slovakia, Romania, and Russia. |
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With his wealth, privilege and education at one of Britain's leading universities, Abdul Farouk Abdulmutallab had the world at his feet – able to choose from a range of futures in which to make his mark on the world. |
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The poverty argument is laughable when one considers that al-Qaida founder Osama bin Laden is the scion of a wealthy Saudi family who went to private schools and studied business administration. |
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"He was singing like a canary, then we charged him in civilian proceedings, he got a lawyer and shut up," Slade Gorton, a member of the 9/11 Commission that investigated the Sept 2001 terror attacks on the US, told The Sunday Telegraph. |
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President Obama: I think that we have inherited the biggest set of challenges of any president since Franklin Delano Roosevelt. We stabilized the economy; prevented the possibilities of a Great Depression, or a significant financial meltdown; the economy is growing again; we are on our way out of Iraq; I think we've got the best possible plan for Afghanistan; we have reset our image around the world; we are...we have achieved an international consensus around the need for Iran and North Korea to disable their nuclear weapons; and, I think we're going to pass the most significant piece of social legislation since [uh]...since Social Security, and that's health insurance for every American. |
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Gibbs today said the move, in closing Guantanamo Bay, will make the country safer, and suggested if Boehner – or anybody – is confused by that, they should go to the members of the previous administration such as Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and the chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen and ask “why they support closing Guantanamo Bay and support today's decision.” Gibbs called this sort of concern over the safety of Illinois “hyperbole” and “scare tactics” that “we haven't seen in quite some time.”In response to Gibbs’ comments, Michael Steel, Spokesman for Boehner, issued a statement to ABC: “I look forward to seeing hordes of violent Jihadists lay down their AK-47s in response to the news that our terrorist prison is moving from the Caribbean to America’s heartland, but I’m not holding my breath. In the meantime, the White House still has not explained how bringing these terrorist killers to this country and giving the same rights as citizens will make the American people safer.” |
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The result is “Avatar,” a sanctimonious thud of a movie so infested with one-dimensional characters and PC clichés that not a single plot turn – small or large – surprises. I call it the “liberal tell,” where the early and obvious politics of the film gives away the entire story before the second act begins, and “Avatar” might be the sorriest example of this yet. For all the time and money and technology that went into its making, the thing that matters most – character and story – are strictly Afterschool Special… |
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Zinn and company have launched a nationwide education project in conjunction with the documentary. “A people’s history requires a people’s pedagogy to match,” Zinn preaches. The project is a collaboration between two “social justice” activist groups, Rethinking Schools and Teaching for Change. Rethinking Schools recently boasted of killing a social studies textbook series in the Milwaukee school system because it “failed to teach social responsibility.” A Rethinking Schools guide on the September 11 jihadi attacks instructs teachers to “nurture student empathy” for our enemies and dissuade students from identifying as Americans. “It’s our job to reach beyond this chauvinism.” And a Rethinking Schools guide to early childhood education written by Ann Pelo disparages “a too-heavy focus on academic skills” in favor of “social justice and ecological teaching” for preschoolers. |
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As I said, Obama’s speech is only about Afghanistan if you’re in Afghanistan. If you’re in Moscow or Tehran, Pyongyang or Caracas, it’s about America. And what it told them is that, if you’re a local strongman with regional ambitions, or a rogue state going nuclear, or a mischief-making kleptocracy dusting off old tsarist dreams, this president is not going to be pressing your reset button. Strange how an allegedly compelling speaker is unable to fake even perfunctory determination and resilience. Strange, too, how all the sophisticated nuances of post-Bush foreign-policy “realism” seem so unreal when you’re up there trying to sell them as a coherent strategy. Go back half a decade to when the administration was threatening to shove democracy down the throats of every two-bit basket case whether they want it or not. Democratizing the planet is, in a Council of Foreign Relations sense, “unrealistic,” but talking it up is a very realistic way of messing with the dictators’ heads. A pipsqueak like Boy Assad sleeps far more soundly today than he did back when he thought Bush meant it, and so did the demonstrators threatening his local enforcers in Lebanon. |