China, the United States, and Global Governance: Shifting Foundations of World Order

First is a pdf file, with an excerpt then the article with the title in the subject line.

“China, the United States, and Global Governance: Shifting Foundations of World Order”

Workshop in Beijing, China  March 15 – 17, 2010

http://www.cfr.org/content/thinktank/CFR_CICIR_MeetingNote.pdf

Excerpt:

Prospects for effective multilateral cooperation on global and transnational problems in the twenty-first century will inevitably reflect the distinct national interests and international visions of the great powers. But the identity and number of the world’s leading states is changing, creating new challenges and opportunities for global governance. The world order that ultimately results from this transition period will reflect difficult negotiations between established powers—including the United States, European Union, and Japan—and emerging ones—including China, India, and Brazil.

Common World Order Visions?

Any discussion of divergences between American and Chinese global visions must begin with some historical perspective. Over the past four decades, China has shifted its foreign policy in a breathtak-ing fashion. Once a revolutionary power bent on overturning world order, China has become a prin-cipal beneficiary of globalization and a responsible member of most international regimes, from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) to the World Trade Organization (WTO). Possessing a per-manent seat in the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) and, since November 2008, a spot in the Group of 20 (G20), it is increasingly part of the global establishment. On balance, its aims tend to be modestly revisionist, focused on securing growing weight within international institutions (such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund) and peacefully expanding its economic and politi-cal influence, particularly within Asia. Consistent with Chinese president Hu Jintao’s concept of a “harmonious world,” China places heavy emphasis on multilateralism—and especially the United Na-tions—as a necessary approach to the exercise of power. In some areas, particularly when it comes to national sovereignty and nonintervention, China has emerged as a more conservative power than the United States. This was especially clear during the administration of George W. Bush (20012009), when the United States—far from being a status quo power—embraced a doctrine of contingent sove-reignty.

Workshop participants perceived an ongoing, impressive shift of global power toward Asia (including China), particularly in the wake of the global financial crisis, and stressed the importance of navigating this delicate power transition in a smooth and peaceful manner.

The United States, meanwhile, enters the second decade of the new millennium with its continued global leadership role increasingly in doubt, thanks to the nation’s fiscal strains, U.S. public fatigue with fighting two large wars, and the evaporation of the bipartisan Cold War internationalist consen-sus. Given these domestic constraints, some U.S. participants anticipated a period of diminished U.S. global ambition, perhaps even retrenchment. Notwithstanding President Barack Obama’s commit-ment to international institutional reform, most anticipated that the United States would continue to pursue a mixed strategy of reliance on formal, treaty-based institutions and more ad hoc, flexible coali-tions composed of a smaller number of capable states to pursue its global agenda.

Much, much more at link.

CFR Convenes “Council of Councils” Linking Leading Foreign Policy Institutes From Around the World

http://www.cfr.org/global-governance/cfr-convenes-council-councils-linking-leading-foreign-policy-institutes-around-world/p27612

The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) has launched an international initiative to connect leading foreign policy institutes from around the world in a common conversation on issues of global governance and multilateral cooperation. The mission of the Council of Councils is to find common ground on shared threats, build support for innovative ideas, and inject remedies into the public debate and policymaking processes of member countries.

The founding membership of the Council of Councils includes leading institutions from nineteen countries, roughly tracking the composition of the Group of Twenty (G20). The network will facilitate candid, not-for-attribution dialogue and consensus building among influential opinion leaders from established and emerging nations.

CFR will convene the inaugural Council of Councils conference on March 12-13 in Washington, DC. Participants will tackle four major themes at this first gathering:

—the overall state of global governance and multilateral cooperation

—the status of the nuclear nonproliferation regime (with a focus on Iran)

—the dollar's future as the world's reserve currency

—the criteria for humanitarian intervention, in the wake of regime change in Libya and the ongoing crisis in Syria

Transcripts from two on-the-record sessions of the conference, featuring President of the World Bank Robert B. Zoellick and Undersecretary of State Robert D. Hormats, will be available on CFR.org after the event.

In addition to an annual conference, the Council of Councils will provide an ongoing exchange for research and policy collaboration among its members. CFR and its international partners will experiment with new technology, using state-of-the-art videoconferencing, wikis, and mobile platforms to collectively communicate and respond to breaking crises. The group will also consider long-term structural reforms that would enhance the global governance capacity of leading international institutions.

CFR President Richard N. Haass said, "The defining foreign policy challenges of the twenty-first century are global in nature. The Council of Councils draws on the best thinking from around the world to assess emerging threats and opportunities and formulate responses to them."

The Council of Councils initiative is funded by a generous grant from the Robina Foundation, as part of its ongoing support for CFR's International Institutions and Global Governance program.

Founding Council of Councils Member Organizations:
Australia: Lowy Institute for International Policy
Belgium: Center for European Policy Studies (CEPS)
Brazil: Getulio Vargas Foundation (FGV)
Canada: Center for International Governance Innovation (CIGI)
China: Shanghai Institutes for International Studies (SIIS)
France: French Institute of International Relations (IFRI)
Germany: German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP)
Indonesia: Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)
Israel: Institute for National Security Studies (INSS)
Italy: Institute of International Affairs (IAI)

Japan: Genron NPO
Mexico: Mexican Council on Foreign Relations (COMEXI)
Russia: Institute of Contemporary Development (INSOR)
Singapore: S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS)
South Africa: South African Institute of International Affairs (SAIIA)
South Korea: East Asia Institute (EAI)
Turkey: Global Relations Forum (GIF)

United Kingdom: Chatham House (The Royal Institute of International Affairs);
International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS)
United States: Council on Foreign Relations (CFR)

***

The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) is an independent, nonpartisan membership organization, think tank, and publisher dedicated to being a resource for its members, government officials, business executives, journalists, educators and students, civic and religious leaders, and other interested citizens in order to help them better understand the world and the foreign policy choices facing the United States and other countries. CFR takes no institutional positions on matters of policy.

CFR's International Institutions and Global Governance (IIGG) program aims to identify the institutional requirements for effective multilateral cooperation in the twenty-first century.

Related:

Globalist Imperial Network

OWS and the planned “endgame” for the U.S.

The Newt World Order… Worth a Look and Some Consideration

Kissinger in 2008:  There Will Be “Bi-Partisan” Push for New World Order, Whoever Is Elected President  -  They expected us to stay asleep and never counted on the tea party movement!

America’s Ruling Class and the Perils of Revolution

Brzezinski: Syria is Not Libya  -  Former Carter national security adviser and trusted Rockefeller minion Zbigniew Brzezinski has stated that military intervention in Syria will not work as it did in Libya. 

A21 are changing name to Millennium Development Goals: GLOBAL POVERTY ACT IS BACK

Wow! Awesome article that tells us everything we need to know about their master plan.  It's more than a name change; this article describes their blueprint to achieve world domination. Everything they're doing (NDAA included) appears to me to fit their blueprint.

go to http://www.newswithviews.com/DeWeese/tom208.htm ....you will see that the evildoers at the A21 (Agenda 21) are changing their name to Millennium Development Goals.  Just be on the lookout for the new terms.  Remember:  these people are changelings... and evil to the very core.

GLOBAL POVERTY ACT IS BACK

by Tom DeWeese  -  January 11, 2012  -  NewsWithViews.com  - h/t to AJ

He might be a whiz kid at creating computer software, but beyond that Bill Gates has proven time and again that he hasn’t a clue about why or how freedom works.

He constantly teams up with anti-free market types like the National Wildlife Federation (NWF) to produce “educational programs” in his software packages, misdirecting unsuspecting children with political propaganda. In 2002 he gave the NWF $600,000 worth of software to help these environmental radicals run their programs to block the drilling of American oil. Apparently Gates doesn’t understand that he needs oil to create power to run computers. Most recently his Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation donated $3 million to eight universities to reinvent the flush toilet. Environmentalists call that device “one of the world’s most destructive habits.”

Clearly Gates is a captive of his own wealth, suffering the usual rich man’s guilt over being rich – rushing full speed ahead to “give back to the world.” Funny how such giving back always seems to mean supporting socialist causes with money gained from the free market. Up till now, Gates has just been giving his own money voluntarily. Even if it’s to bad causes, he is certainly free to use his money anyway he chooses.

Now, however, his misguided meddling is about to involve the misdirecting of everyone’s income, and so the world’s richest useful idiot just became dangerous to freedom.

In November, as part of the G20 summit, Gates, representing his foundation, presented a report on a plan to eradicate world poverty. Said Gates, “I am honored to have been given this important opportunity. My report will address the financing needed to achieve maximum progress on the Millennium Development Goals, and to make faster progress on development over the next decade.” Gate’s report proposes a financial transaction tax (FTT) on tobacco, aviation, fuel and carbon (energy), to be enforced by all members of the G20 nations. The financial transaction tax has been excitedly talked about in the halls of the UN for a decade. Called the Tobin Tax, named after a Yale economist who dreamed it up, FTT would give the UN almost unlimited funding by taxing every stock and monetary transaction in the world.

Gates didn’t just dream this up on his own accord. He is actually resurrecting legislation a bill introduced in 2008 by then Senator Barack Obama. It was called the Global Poverty Act. Obama introduced the bill during his one abbreviated term in the U.S. Senate.

The bill was one of the only pieces of legislation ever introduced by Senator Barack Obama, and it wasn’t just a compassionate bit of fluff that Obama dreamed up to help the poor of the world. This bill was directly tied to the United Nations and served as little more than a shake down of American taxpayers in a massive wealth redistribution scheme. The Global Poverty Act would provide the United Nations with 0.7% of the United States gross national product. Estimates indicated that would add up to at least $845 billion of taxpayer money into UN coffers, to be spent (or wasted) by UN bureaucrats. The excuse for the taxing, of course, is to help end poverty in third world countries. The bill died in Congress in 2008 after passing unanimously in the House. Now Bill Gates has resurrected it.

Of course the United States has had an ongoing program of supplying billions of dollars in foreign aid and assistance to the poor for decades. In addition, the U.S. pays most of the bills at the UN for its many unworkable poverty programs. So what’s new about the Global Poverty Act, and why is it dangerous?

First, some history that led up to the Global Poverty Act. In 1999 and 2000 non-governmental organizations, NGOs held numerous meetings around the world to write what became known as the Charter for Global Democracy. The document was prepared as a blue print for achieving global governance. In reality it was a charter for the abolition of individual freedom, national sovereignty and limited government.

The Charter for Global Democracy outlined its goals in 12 detailed “principles:”

• Principle One called for the consolidation of all international agencies under the direct authority of the UN.

• Principle Two called for UN regulation of all transnational corporations and financial institutions, requiring an “international code of conduct” concerning the environment and labor standards.

• Principle Three explored various schemes to create independent revenue sources for the UN – meaning UN taxes including fees on all international monetary transactions, taxes on aircraft flights in the skies, and on shipping fuels, and licensing of what the UN called the “global commons,” meaning use of air, water and natural resources. The Law of the Sea Treaty fits this category.

• Principle Four would restructure the UN by eliminating the veto power and permanent member status on the Security Council. Such a move would almost completely eliminate U.S. influence and power in the world body. In turn Principle Four called for the creation of an “Assembly of the People” which would be populated by hand-picked non-governmental organizations (NGOs) which are nothing more than political groups with their own agendas (the UN calls NGOs “civil society”). Now, the UN says these NGO’s will be the representatives of the “people” and the Assembly of the People will become the new power of the UN.

• Principle Five would authorize a standing UN army.

• Principle six would require UN registration of all arms and the reduction of all national armies “as part of a multinational global security system” under the authority of the UN.

• Principle Seven would require individual and national compliance with all UN “Human rights” treaties and declarations.

• Principle Eight would activate the UN Criminal Court and make it compulsory for all nations — now achieved.

• Principle Nine called for a new institution to establish economic and environmental security by ensuring “Sustainable Development.”

• Principle Ten would establish an International Environmental Court

• Principle Eleven demanded an international declaration stating that climate change is an essential global security interest that requires the creation of a “high level action team” to allocate carbon emissions based on equal per-capita rights – The Kyoto Global Warming Treaty in action.

• Principle Twelve demanded the cancellation of all debt owed by the poorest nations, global poverty reductions and for the “equitable sharing” of global resources, as allocated by the UN – here is where Obama’s Global Poverty Act comes in.

Specifically, the Charter for Global Democracy was intended to give the UN domain over all of the earth’s land, air and seas. In addition it would give the UN the power to control all natural resources, wild life, and energy sources, even radio waves. Such control would allow the UN to place taxes on everything from development; to fishing; to air travel; to shipping. Anything that could be defined as using the earth’s resources would be subject to UN use-taxes. Coincidentally, all twelve principles came directly from the UN’s Commission on Global Governance.

There was one major problem with the Charter for Global Democracy, at least as far as the UN was concerned. It was too honest and straightforward. Overt action displeases the high-order thinking skills of UN diplomats. The UN likes to keep things fuzzy and gray so as not to scare off the natives. That way there is less chance of screaming headlines of a pending takeover by the UN. So, by the time the UN’s Millennium Summit rolled around in September 2000, things weren’t quite so clear.

At the Summit, attended by literally every head of state and world leader, including then-president Bill Clinton, the name of the Charter had been changed to the Millennium Declaration and the language had been toned down to sound more like suggestions and ideas. Then those “suggestions” were put together in the “Millennium Declaration” in the name of all of the heads of state. No vote or debate was allowed — just acclamation by world leaders who basically said nothing. And the deed was done. The UN had its marching orders for the new Millennium.

Now the principles were called “Millennium Goals,” and there were eight instead of twelve. Goal 1: Eradicate Extreme Hunger and Poverty; Goal 2: Achieve Universal Primary Education; Goal 3: Promote Gender Equality and Empowerment of Women; Goal 4: Reduce Child Mortality; Goal 5: Improve Maternal Health; Goal 6: Combat HIV/AIDS, Malaria and other diseases; Goal 7: Ensure Environmental Sustainability; Goal 8: Develop a Global Partnership for Development.

Yes, these are sneaky guys, well trained in the art of saying nothing. Who could oppose such noble goals? The Millennium Project, which was set up to achieve the “goals” says on its website that it intends to “end poverty by 2015.” A noble goal, indeed. So what happened to the 12 Charter principles? Take a hard look – they are all still there.

Principles One, Two, and Twelve are right there in Goal 8 – to develop a global partnership for development. Now almost every world organization such as the World Bank carries a section on their web sites calling for “Millennium Development Goals” which control international banking and loan policy. They set policy goals for each country and sometimes communities to measure if nations are keeping their promise to implement the Millennium goals.

Principle Seven is clearly Goal 3, the only way to assure Gender Equality is to enforce compliance with UN Human Rights treaties. Principle Eight has already been achieved. Principle Nine is Goal 7. Al Gore is doing his best to enforce Principle Eleven. Global Warming, no matter how well the theory is debunked, just won’t go away because it is one of the Millennium Goals.

And then there is Barack Obama’s Global Poverty Act. Can you see which Principle that is? Of course, Principle 12 and Goal 1. Obama’s 2008 bill specifically mentioned the Millennium Goals as its guide and the 0.7% of GNP is right out of UN documents. In order to eradicate poverty by 2015, they say, every industrial nation must pony up 0.7% of their GNP to the UN for use in eradicating poverty.

The UN is now becoming an international collection agency, pressing to collect the promises the world leaders made at the Millennium Summit. The UN wants the cash. In 2005 former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said, “Developed countries that have not already done so should establish timetables to achieve the 0.7% target of gross national income for official development assistance by no later than 2015…”

At the Summit in 2000, the UN set clear goals to establish its power over sovereign nations and to enforce the greatest redistribution of wealth scheme ever perpetrated on the world. Now it has the Criminal Court; Sustainable Development (Agenda 21) is fast becoming official policy in every corner of the nation—only today we call it “going green;” and there is a full court press on to enforce Global Warming policy, in spite of the fact that there is now overwhelming evidence pouring out of the scientific community to fully debunk the scam.

Obama introduced the Global Poverty Act as he campaigned for the Presidency with the obvious and clear intention of showcasing the then little known Senator as a world leader. But the bill died in the Senate. Now, Bill Gates is proving his “useful idiot” status (a term coined by Lenin to describe capitalists who would sell the rope to hang capitalism), by serving as Obama’s lackey to resurrect the Global Poverty Act.

And right on cue, just after Bill Gates made his report to the G20 Summit calling for a financial transaction tax, Senator Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) and Representative Peter DeFazio (D-Oregon) introduced legislation to put a tax on “certain trading activities undertaken by banking and financial firms.” The bills, of course, are the Tobin Tax and in line with Gate’s report.

Clearly, Obama needs to show that, under his leadership, the United States is falling in line with the Millennium Declaration and its 2015 deadline for implementation. Truth, science and American taxpayer interests be hanged, as Bill Gates offers the rope, Harkin and DeFazio provide the knot, and Obama gets to pretend to be a “world” leader.

© 2012 Tom DeWeese - All Rights Reserved

Related Articles:

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What Happens When Fools and Elites Rule the World…

Hot Mic Catches Obama Ripping Netanyahu With Sarkozy At G20 Conference: “You’re Fed Up With Him, But I Have To Deal With Him Every Day!”

Is anyone really surprised?

Busted: Sarkozy backstabs Netanyahu at the G20 summit.  click here

Sarko: "I can't stand him any more, he's a liar."
Obama: "You may be sick of him, but me, I have to deal with him every day."

They were talking about Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister, who is working  with both leaders to stop Iran getting hold of a nuclear weapon. Great story, right?

In a “faux pas” for the ages, President Barack Obama conducted what he assumed was a private conversation about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with French President Nicolas Sarkozy after the G20 summit on Thursday. The only problem, however, was that the microphones the two men were wearing from their earlier press conference, had not in fact been turned off. What ensued was a major public embarrassment after both Obama and the French PM disparaged Netanyahu, saying they  cannot “stand” dealing with him.

According to a Monday report in the French website “Arret sur Images,” Sarkozy told Obama, “I cannot stand him [Netanyahu]. He is a liar.” Rather than exercising diplomacy, however, Obama hopped on the bash-wagon, reportedly telling Sarkozy: “You’re fed up with him, but I have to deal with him every day!”

(Related: Jewish Mag Editor Responds to Blaze Article on Obama Being Named an Influential Jew)

Ynet adds:

The conversation apparently began with President Obama criticizing Sarkozy for not having warned him that France would be voting in favor of the Palestinian membership bid in UNESCO despite Washington’s strong objection to the move.

The communication faux pas went unnoticed for several minutes, during which the conversation between the two heads of state – which quickly reverted to other matters – was all but open to members the press, who were still in possession of headsets provided by the Elysée for the sake of simultaneous translation during the G20 press conference.

…

The surprising lack of coverage may be explained by a report alleging that reporters present at the event were requested to sign an agreement to keep mum on the subject of the embarrassing comments.

According to Ynet, a member of the media confirmed Monday that “there were discussions between journalists and they agreed not to publish the comments due to the sensitivity of the issue.”

That explains why the world has not heard about the incident until now. Even more troubling, is the fact that journalists are meant to expose the truth, not hide it.

While it perhaps comes as no surprise that Obama harbors little affection for the Israeli PM, to have his true feelings revealed publicly in such a manner highlights the disingenuousness of any of his past complimentary sentiments for Netanyahu, and thus, is truly a cringe-worthy moment for the president.

Bold emphasis added by The Blaze

(h/t: WZ)

This all comes to light at the same time as an IAEA report was leaked collaborating the fears that Iran is definitely collecting data needed to produce nuclear arms, not just for nuclear energy plants.  Full report will be released in the next few days.  It also comes to light as Israel considers preemptive strikes.

Columnist Judith Miller and political bundler Noele Nikpour among  others say this just verifies what they’ve been saying all along.  Obama is not a friend to Israel.  The big question is: Will this finally be enough for American Jews to wake-up?!?  There should be no Jewish votes for Obama left after this!

Netanyahu is a wise man who loves not only Israel but the United States.  Sarkowzy (France) and Obama are narcissistic elites who hate both Israel and the United States.  Wake-up!!

Related:

Beck Agrees With ACLU in Investigation of “kick a Jew Day’ in Florida

Press For Truth: Into the Fire – Full Length Film

Video:  Into The Fire 2:03:47

Press For Truth Presents Into The Fire
World leaders and activists from around the world gathered for the G20 Summit. With over 19,000 police officers and security personnel on hand, the results lead to over 1100 arrests, martial law in downtown Toronto, and the most massive violation of civil liberties in Canadian history.

 

80,000 Soldiers On AMERICAN SOIL.......Being Trained And Stationed At Fort Stewart, Georgia

Many scientists believe that the big Solar Storm is about to erupt, sending EMPs at earth (something that the government has tried to keep under wraps). If the electrical grid and communications, computers, etc are disrupted, chaos would supervene. This could also be the beginning of the "tribulation." The cities would be without light, heat, sanitation, food and other necessities in less than a week.

There would be mass evacuations and the gangs would try to take over. It would be a probable time for attacks from the enemies of America and the onset of world wide panic, famine, plagues. I would strongly suggest getting out of the cities now and heading for safer areas.

Dr. Byron Weeks, , COL. USAF, Ret.

I thought the following news article would interest you, by Jan Lamprecht

 

A MUST READ: 80,000 Soldiers On AMERICAN SOIL.......Being Trained And Stationed At Fort Stewart, Georgia....Military Police State Coming?

Date Posted: Wednesday 14-Apr-2010

This does not sound pretty at all for us. IMO, this is a tactic to set Martial Law in place, they are just pushing for it.  (The existence of these  troops and their training have been verified)

Remember there will be plants in the crowds slowing moving towards the front to provoke 'civil unrest'. They are paid to do this, they will do anything to push it to a blood bath for Americans. If anyone living in the Fort Stewart, Georgia area could please contact us with any information regarding the activities occurring at this time...

Seawitch

Military Police State Coming?  Police State; noun, also known as Military Police State

(1) A state in which the government exercises rigid and repressive controls over the social, economic, and! political life of the people.

(2) A nation whose rulers maintain order and obedience by the threat of police or military force; one with a brutal, arbitrary government.

I don't care which side of the political aisle you are on.

You could be a die-hard Obama supporter, or you can hate everything he and his policies stand for, or think they stand for.

But according to the Army Times Magazine, Prez Obama has done another first, never before in the history of this Nation; and I personally cannot help but wonder exactly WHY?

Prez Obama has ordered the full time and permanent Military Response to ANY upcoming social CIVILIAN chaos event here in the United States.

So what exactly does Prez Obama know, or suspect, that the rest of us do not know, yet some people do suspect?

And exactly what kind of "Military Response" to a civilian threat is Obama preparing?

Well apparently the mere threat of civilian chaos is so large ! that a domestic law-enforcement arm of the U.S. military (refe! rred to by The Army Times as the "Consequence Management Response Force") has been created to deal with what U.S. officials believe to be a coming, unprecedented wave of massive civilian social chaos.

A recent report by the Army War College's Strategic Studies Institute states flatly the U.S. military must prepare for "a violent, strategic dislocation inside the United States" that could be provoked by "unforeseen economic collapse" or "loss of functioning political and legal order."

The Army Times has reported that the domestic emergency army unit has been increased 80,000 COMBAT trained troops.

Many of these are combat veterans returning from Iraq and who are currently, and will be in the future, being trained and stationed at Fort Stewart, Georgia.

The 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team has spent 35 of the last 60 months in Iraq patrolling in full battle rattle, helping restore essential services and escorting supply convoys.

Now ! they’re preparing for the same mission here at home.

WHY?

It is not the first time an active-duty unit has been tapped to help at home.

In August 2005, for example, when Hurricane Katrina unleashed hell in Mississippi and Louisiana, several active-duty units were pulled from various posts and mobilized to those areas to HELP care for civilians.

But this new mission marks the first time an active unit has ever been given a permanent dedicated assignment within the United States.

WHY??? WHY NOW???

NorthCom, the joint command that was established in 2002 to provide command and control for federal homeland defense efforts in case of TERRORIST ATTACKS, is now being prepared to be used in support of CIVILIAN AUTHORITIES in case the civilian population gets 'out of hand'.

The brigade will not change its name, but the force will be known for the next year as a CBRNE Consequence Management Response Force, or CCMRF (pronounced "se! a-smurf").

The Army states that the Combat Troops used ! to ‘maintain civilian order here in the United States’ will use some of the tactics and skills they acquired in the Iraq War Zone, but apparently do not feel they will have to deal with being shot at by American Civilians while using those tactics and skills.

Training for homeland 'scenarios' has already begun at Fort Stewart and includes specialty tasks such as extra medical training for a CBRNE incident.

"It’s a new modular package of capabilities that they’re fielding. They’ve been using pieces of it in Iraq, but this is the first time that these modules were consolidated and this package fielded, and because of this mission (war on American Civilians??) we’re undertaking we were the first to get it." Said one Unit Commander.

The package includes equipment to stand up a hasty road block; spike strips for slowing, stopping or controlling traffic; shields and batons; etc.

And some of the brigade elements will also be on call around the clock, during which! time they’ll do their regular marksmanship, gunnery and other deployment training.

Now American Civilians need to be prepared to deal with Combat Troops that are training to use this war-zone tactics on American Soil, on American Civilians.

Now I don't know about anyone else, but I can read pretty damn well.

I see SEVERAL issues with all of this, and they all concern me greatly.

Why would Obama need an 80,000 COMBAT force of armed soldiers, to support 'civilian authority' (his authority?) here in CONUS, ie: the Continental United States?

What makes Obama so concerned about any 'uprising or chaos' from the American Civilian Population? What does he know that no one else knows, or accepts?

WHY would the civilian population get 'out of hand' or create 'violent chaos' that would require the intervention of 80,000 armed military combat soldiers?

Why is it these Combat Troops have NO FEAR of being shot at by the American Civilian Population they are attempting to 'control'?

Does Obama use these guys to take our firearms first?

Look, I could care less if you are a Koolaid drinking Obama worshiper or not.

THIS PERMANENT Military Combat Brigade of 80,000 soldiers on AMERICAN SOIL for the express purpose of 'controlling the American Civilian Population' if and when needed, is one hell of a scary thought.

This is the FIRST time in American history any President, or anyone else for that matter, has set up a full time, permanent Military Unit for this purpose, on American Soil.

In any other country, like Russia, China, Cuba, it would be called a Military Police State when you use the military to control the civilian population.

I wonder what this freaking Messiah plans on calling it;

"Hope Ya Liked Your Liberty, Cause It's Gone Now, For your Own Good Of Course."

Source Url: http://www.AmericanCrisis.us/Article.php?ID=69876 & Cross Posted at:  http://community2.myfoxorlando.com/_Military-Police-State-Coming/blog/228699/72667.html

America's Police Brutality Pandemic  - Archive from 2007

 

by Paul Craig Roberts

Bush's "war on terror" quickly became Bush's war on Iraqi civilians. So far over one million Iraqi civilians have lost their lives because of Bush's invasion, and four million have been displaced. Iraq's infrastructure is in ruins. Disease is rampart. Normal life has disappeared.

Self-righteous Americans justify these monstrous crimes as necessary to ensure their own safety from terrorist attack. Yet, Americans are in far greater danger from their own police forces than they are from foreign terrorists. Ironically, Bush's "war on terror" has made Americans less safe at home by diminishing US civil liberty and turning an epidemic of US police brutality into a pandemic.

The only terrorist most Americans will ever encounter is a policeman with a badge, nightstick, mace and Taser. A Google search for "police brutality videos" turns up 2,210,000 entries. Some entries are foreign and some are probably duplications, but the number is so large that a person could do nothing but watch police brutality videos for the rest of his life. A search on "You Tube" alone turned up 2,280 police brutality videos. PrisonPlanet has a selection of the most outrageous recent cases.

Police brutality has crossed the line from using excessive force against a resisting Rodney King to unprovoked gratuitous violence against persons offering no resistance, such as the elderly, women, students, and elected officials. Americans are not safe anywhere from police.Police attack Americans in university libraries, in public meetings, and in their own homes.

Last week we had the case of the University of Florida student who was repeatedly Tasered without cause for asking Senator Kerry some good questions in the question and answer period following Kerry's speech. Two days after the Florida student was gratuitously brutalized, Senate Republicans defeated Vermont Democrat Patrick Leahy's bill to restore habeas corpus protection.

A UCLA student was Tasered by police without cause for studying in the university library without having his student ID on his person. Following police orders to leave, the student was walking toward the door when police grabbed him and repeatedly Tasered him.

On September 19, 2007 a young woman was repeatedly Tasered without cause by a large brutal cop in a parking lot outside a night club in Warren Ohio.

On September 14, 2007, Roseland, Indiana, city council member David Snyder was ejected from a council meeting by dictatorial council chairman Charlie Shields. Snyder had protested being limited to one minute to speak. Police goon Jack Tiller escorted Snyder out, and as Snyder exited the building, Tiller, following behind, pushed Snyder to the ground and without cause began beating Snyder in the head with a nightstick. Snyder was hospitalized.

Local TV news stations throughout the US offer an endless stream of police brutality videos, which are then posted on the stations' web sites, often with an opportunity for citizens to express their opinion of the incidents.

There are many disturbing aspects to police brutality cases.

One disturbing aspect is that the police always arrest the people that they have gratuitously brutalized. There was no justification whatsoever to arrest councilman Snyder, or the UCLA student, or the University of Florida student. The cops committed assault against innocent citizens. The cops should have been arrested for their criminal acts. Instead, the cops cover up their own crimes by arresting their victims on false charges that are invented to justify the unprovoked police violence against citizens.

Another disturbing aspect is that no one tells the police to stop the brutality. "Free" Americans are so intimidated by police that on February 19 of this year male customers in a Chicago bar stood aside while a drunk cop weighing 251 pounds beat a 115 pound barmaid, knocking her to the floor with his fists and repeatedly kicking her, for obeying the bar rules and not serving him more drinks.

Yet another disturbing aspect is that a minority of citizens will justify each act of police brutality no matter how brutal and how unprovoked. For example, WNDU.com's poll of its viewers found that 64.2% agreed that Snyder was a victim of police brutality, but 27.8% thought that Snyder got what was coming to him. "Law and order conservatives" and other authoritarian personalities invariably defend acts of police brutality. Perhaps the police brutality pandemic will bring the day when we will be able to say that a civil libertarian is a law and order conservative who has been brutalized by police.

The most disturbing aspect is that the police usually get away with it.

I remember decades ago when civil libertarians in New York City tried to stop police brutality by establishing civilian review boards to introduce some accountability into the police's interaction with civilians. Law and order conservatives at William F. Buckley's National Review went berserk. Accountability was "second-guessing" the police. The result would be a crime wave. And so on.

Police forces have always attracted bullies with authoritative personalities who desire to beat senseless anyone who does not quake in their presence. In the past police could get away with brutalizing blacks but not whites. Today white citizens are as likely as racial minorities to be victims of police brutality.

The police are supreme. The militarization of the police, armed now with military weapons and trained to view the general public as the enemy, against whom "pain compliance" must be used, has placed every American at risk of personal injury and false arrest from our "public protectors."

In "free and democratic America," citizens are in such great danger from police that there are websites devoted to police brutality with online forms to report the brutality.

Nine years ago Human Rights Watch published a report entitled, "Shielded from Justice: Police Brutality and Accountability in the United States." The report stated:

"Police abuse remains one of the most serious and divisive human rights violations in the United States. The excessive use of force by police officers, including unjustified shootings, severe beatings, fatal chokings, and rough treatment, persists because overwhelming barriers to accountability make it possible for officers who commit human rights violations to escape due punishment and often to repeat their offenses. Police or public officials greet each new report of brutality with denials or explain that the act was an aberration, while the administrative and criminal systems that should deter these abuses by holding officers accountable instead virtually guarantee them impunity.

"This report examines common obstacles to accountability for police abuse in fourteen large cities representing most regions of the nation. The cities examined are: Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Indianapolis, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, New Orleans, New York, Philadelphia, Portland, Providence, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C. Research for this report was conducted over two and a half years, from late 1995 through early 1998.

"The brutality cases examined, which are set out in detail in chapters on each city, are similar to cases that continue to emerge in headlines and in survivors' complaints. It is important to note, however, that because it is difficult to obtain case information except where there is public scandal and/or prosecution, this report relies heavily on cases that have reached public attention; disciplinary action and criminal prosecution are even less common than the cases set out below would suggest.

There is no way to hold police accountable when the president and vice president of the United States, the attorney general, and the Republican Party maintain that the civil liberties and the separation of powers mandated by the US Constitution must be abandoned in order that the executive branch can keep Americans safe from terrorists.

Even before the "war on terror," federal police murdered 100 people in the Branch Davidian compound at Waco, and no one was held accountable.

Who is a terrorist? If the police and the US government have the mentality of airport security, they cannot tell a terrorist from an 86-year old Marine general on his way to give a speech at West Point. Retired Marine Corps General Joseph J. Foss was delayed and nearly had his Medal of Honor confiscated. Airport security regarded the pin on the metal as a weapon that the 86-year old Marine general and former governor of South Dakota could use to hijack an airliner and commit a terrorist deed.

In America today, every citizen is a potential terrorist in the eyes of the authorities. Airport security makes this clear every minute of every day, as do the FBI and NSA with warrantless spying on our emails, postal mail, telephone calls, and every possible invasion of our privacy. We are all recipients of abuse of our constitutional rights whether or not we suffer beatings, Taserings, and false arrests.

The law makes it impossible for Americans to defend themselves from police brutality. Law and order conservatives have made it a felony with a long prison sentence to "assault a police officer." Assaulting a police officer means that if a police thug intends to beat your brains out with his nightstick and you disarm your assailant, you have "assaulted a police officer." If you are not shot on the spot by his backup, you will be convicted by a "law and order" jury and sent to prison.

No matter how gratuitous and violent the police brutality, a "free" American citizen can defend himself only at the expense, if not of his life, of a long stay in prison. Osama bin Laden must wish that he had such power over Americans.

September 26, 2007

Paul Craig Roberts [send him mail] wrote the Kemp-Roth bill and was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page and Contributing Editor of National Review. He is author or coauthor of eight books, including Supply-Side Revolution(Harvard University Press). He has held numerous academic appointments, including the William E. Simon Chair in Political Economy, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Georgetown University and Senior Research Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He has contributed to numerous scholarly journals and testified before Congress on 30 occasions. He has been awarded the U.S. Treasury's Meritorious Service Award and the French Legion of Honor. He was a reviewer for the Journal of Political Economy under editor Robert Mundell. He is the co-author of The Tyranny of Good Intentions. He is also coauthor with Karen Araujo of Chile: Dos Visiones — La Era Allende-Pinochet (Santiago: Universidad Andres Bello, 2000).

Copyright © 2007 Creators Syndicate

Paul Craig Roberts Archives

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The Independent (UK) is reporting that Arab states are in talks to work towards the end of using US currency for oil trading. Especially troubling when this movement is coupled with the Obama global apology tour and the UN's call for a new global reserve currency. The rest of the globe is making a power play, and they are trying to knock us down a peg or two...or ten. Glenn talks about what this attack on the dollar means for you. (Transcript of discussion on Glenn’s Radio Show)

In this video commentary Dick Morris discusses how the United States, at the G20 conference, put itself under the guidance and, ultimately, control of the International Monetary Fund even as it succeeded in turning more power in that organization over to debtor nations. The Declaration of Independence is being repealed before our eyes.

To access the video - Go here!

The demise of the dollar

In a graphic illustration of the new world order, Arab states have launched secret moves with China, Russia and France to stop using the US currency for oil trading

Iran announced late last month that its foreign currency reserves would henceforth be held in euros rather than dollars.

In the most profound financial change in recent Middle East history, Gulf Arabs are planning – along with China, Russia, Japan and France – to end dollar dealings for oil, moving instead to a basket of currencies including the Japanese yen and Chinese yuan, the euro, gold and a new, unified currency planned for nations in the Gulf Co-operation Council, including Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi, Kuwait and Qatar.

Secret meetings have already been held by finance ministers and central bank governors in Russia, China, Japan and Brazil to work on the scheme, which will mean that oil will no longer be priced in dollars.

The plans, confirmed to The Independent by both Gulf Arab and Chinese banking sources in Hong Kong, may help to explain the sudden rise in gold prices, but it also augurs an extraordinary transition from dollar markets within nine years.

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The Americans, who are aware the meetings have taken place – although they have not discovered the details – are sure to fight this international cabal which will include hitherto loyal allies Japan and the Gulf Arabs. Against the background to these currency meetings, Sun Bigan, China's former special envoy to the Middle East, has warned there is a risk of deepening divisions between China and the US over influence and oil in the Middle East. "Bilateral quarrels and clashes are unavoidable," he told the Asia and Africa Review. "We cannot lower vigilance against hostility in the Middle East over energy interests and security."

This sounds like a dangerous prediction of a future economic war between the US and China over Middle East oil – yet again turning the region's conflicts into a battle for great power supremacy. China uses more oil incrementally than the US because its growth is less energy efficient. The transitional currency in the move away from dollars, according to Chinese banking sources, may well be gold. An indication of the huge amounts involved can be gained from the wealth of Abu Dhabi, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Qatar who together hold an estimated $2.1 trillion in dollar reserves.

The decline of American economic power linked to the current global recession was implicitly acknowledged by the World Bank president Robert Zoellick. "One of the legacies of this crisis may be a recognition of changed economic power relations," he said in Istanbul ahead of meetings this week of the IMF and World Bank. But it is China's extraordinary new financial power – along with past anger among oil-producing and oil-consuming nations at America's power to interfere in the international financial system – which has prompted the latest discussions involving the Gulf states.

Brazil has shown interest in collaborating in non-dollar oil payments, along with India. Indeed, China appears to be the most enthusiastic of all the financial powers involved, not least because of its enormous trade with the Middle East.

China imports 60 per cent of its oil, much of it from the Middle East and Russia. The Chinese have oil production concessions in Iraq – blocked by the US until this year – and since 2008 have held an $8bn agreement with Iran to develop refining capacity and gas resources. China has oil deals in Sudan (where it has substituted for US interests) and has been negotiating for oil concessions with Libya, where all such contracts are joint ventures.

Furthermore, Chinese exports to the region now account for no fewer than 10 per cent of the imports of every country in the Middle East, including a huge range of products from cars to weapon systems, food, clothes, even dolls. In a clear sign of China's growing financial muscle, the president of the European Central Bank, Jean-Claude Trichet, yesterday pleaded with Beijing to let the yuan appreciate against a sliding dollar and, by extension, loosen China's reliance on US monetary policy, to help rebalance the world economy and ease upward pressure on the euro.

Ever since the Bretton Woods agreements – the accords after the Second World War which bequeathed the architecture for the modern international financial system – America's trading partners have been left to cope with the impact of Washington's control and, in more recent years, the hegemony of the dollar as the dominant global reserve currency.

The Chinese believe, for example, that the Americans persuaded Britain to stay out of the euro in order to prevent an earlier move away from the dollar. But Chinese banking sources say their discussions have gone too far to be blocked now. "The Russians will eventually bring in the rouble to the basket of currencies," a prominent Hong Kong broker told The Independent. "The Brits are stuck in the middle and will come into the euro. They have no choice because they won't be able to use the US dollar."

Chinese financial sources believe President Barack Obama is too busy fixing the US economy to concentrate on the extraordinary implications of the transition from the dollar in nine years' time. The current deadline for the currency transition is 2018.

The US discussed the trend briefly at the G20 summit in Pittsburgh; the Chinese Central Bank governor and other officials have been worrying aloud about the dollar for years. Their problem is that much of their national wealth is tied up in dollar assets.

"These plans will change the face of international financial transactions," one Chinese banker said. "America and Britain must be very worried. You will know how worried by the thunder of denials this news will generate."

Iran announced late last month that its foreign currency reserves would henceforth be held in euros rather than dollars. Bankers remember, of course, what happened to the last Middle East oil producer to sell its oil in euros rather than dollars. A few months after Saddam Hussein trumpeted his decision, the Americans and British invaded Iraq.

By Robert Fisk - Tuesday, 6 October 2009

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Khadafy Sounds Like a Democrat, A Kook Inspired by Barack Obama! (Updated) – Friday: Obama To Announce NWO Goal for G20

September 23, 2009

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Well, I mean this is a laugh riot. Khadafy is still speaking, going on 90 minutes now. He's in the middle of a rant about how it's the Arabs who have protected the Jews throughout history. He's saying to the crowd at the UN, the General Assembly, he's pointing at them, you're the ones who annihilated them, you're the ones who burned the Jews. You're the ones who gassed them. We have protected them. We're from the same race. We don't want any harm to come to the Jews. The Jews and the Palestinians all want to live under one state. It's you who hate. I mean this is hilarious. He's got a little white book that looks like a white dove logo on the front of it. I couldn't tell what it was. And he claimed the solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is in the book. He reached around and threw it back up to the secretary general. I mean, it's a laugh riot. MSNBC, of course, is still sticking with the coverage. Fox has backed out of it. I mean they've seen the futility and the ridiculousness of this, but MSNBC still thinks this is worthy of coverage. On and on, he shows no indication of stopping. He said all medicine in the world should be free.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: We have a Khadafy sound bite. You know, it is striking to listen to some of these world leaders show up at this freak show every September at the United Nations, and start pounding the desk and giving their speeches. It's frightening, shocking, how similar they sound to America's Democrats, to America's liberals. Here is Libyan leader Moammar Khadafy right in line, bam, bam, bam, down the line agreeing with the American left.

KHADAFY: Medicine should be free of charge. Vaccinations should be given free to children so that capitalist companies make vaccinations and don't have to make a profit.

RUSH: Well, I mean so you got Khadafy trashing capitalism and capitalists, and so does Obama. (imitating Obama) "We're going to take those profits, insurance companies aren't gonna give 'em up easily, but I'm gonna take 'em. Same thing with Big Oil." You know these elitist academics, you don't want to get between them and a buffet. Free food and these people act like pigs in a sty. They love all this big money donated to their universities that pays their salaries, and they don't stop for a minute to think who earned it and how. No. They spend all their time in their classrooms trashing the people who earned the money and how they earned it. Obama does it. The Democrat Party does it, Pelosi, Harry Reid. And now Moammar Khadafy joins their parade.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Details of the speech made by Moammar Khadafy at the UN are starting to trickle in. I'm not making this up. Khadafy called on the United Nations to open a new investigation into the assassination of John Kennedy. Khadafy speculates that Israeli Jack Ruby killed Lee Harvey Oswald, a communist, because JFK wanted to investigate the Israeli nuclear reactor. So the new theory for JFK being assassinated is that Oswald did it because JFK was going to investigate the nuclear reactor. Ruby went out there, the Israeli Jack Ruby went out there and wiped out Lee Harvey Oswald.

Moammar Khadafy also said the swine flu is not the big threat, that there is a coming fish flu. Now, this man is a kook. He is a literal freak. But here's the thing. He is inspired by Barack Obama. Barack Obama is the leader of the world's kooks now. Obama is a kook. I am convinced he is a left-wing radical freak. He is no different than the fringe people in his base. He is one of them, he just happens to sound a little smarter, he just happens to sound classically educated, but the man is a Loony Tune.
I have weighed this very carefully during the top-of-the-hour break, whether I should say this. But when I saw this little analysis, and it was on maybe some of your network newscasts at the top of the hour: Khadafy called for the reopening of the investigation of the assassination of JFK because somehow the Israelis were behind it because JFK was going to investigate their nuclear reactor. Now, Khadafy and other Looney Tunes are inspired by Obama. Oh, yeah, he's a son of Africa, he's president of the United States now and we hope that he's president forever, Khadafy said. I know it's funny, it's hilarious, but it's not at the same time. You can look at the United Nations as the cantina in Star Wars, the bar scene. And Obama is part of the crowd. He happens to be leader of it. Kooks and freaks on parade, inspired by Barack Obama.

Now, I was making a joke at the top of the hour. This often happens. I tell jokes about the left, and it turns out they're true. I said to Cookie, "Find me the sound bite of Obama accepting the legitimacy of the president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad," because he just said that America does not accept the legitimacy of continued settlements in Israel, Jews building their own homes. That's not legitimate. So I said, "Find the bite where Obama said that Ahmadinejad is legitimate." And, you know, I was making it up, but he actually kinda said it. Listen to this.

OBAMA: In their actions to date the governments of North Korea and Iran threatened to take us down this dangerous slope. We respect their rights as members of the community of nations. I have said before and I will repeat, I am committed to diplomacy that opens a path to greater prosperity and more secure peace for both nations if they live up to their obligations.

RUSH: Well, I mean we respect their rights as members of the community of nations. Iran and the Norks, we respect their rights as members of the community of nations. He would never say that about Israel. We don't accept as legitimate continued Israeli settlements. Citizen of the world. I mean he is, in his own inflated mind, he is the president of the world. I have said before, I will repeat, I am committed, I will do, I'll grant you permission or I will not grant you permission. We're going to do it as I say. We're going to do it as I think. He's a kook, a dangerous kook. Castro loves the guy. I mean look at the people that love the guy, Castro thinks he's the greatest thing since free rice cookers. I mean the Russians and the Iranians are laughing at him. They've tested him twice, and he just wilted.

Now, listen to this. Of all places, this is in the science section of the New York Times. This next story is in the science section of the New York Times. "In the early 1980s, according to newly released documents, Fidel Castro was suggesting a Soviet nuclear strike against the United States, until Moscow dissuaded him by patiently explaining how the radioactive cloud resulting from such a strike would also devastate Cuba. The cold war was then in one of its chilliest phases. President Ronald Reagan had begun a trillion-dollar arms buildup --" trillion-dollar arms buildup? What the hell is that? And we don't hear about trillion-dollar health care fraud? We don't hear about $12 trillion in deficit. Trillion dollar arms buildup? I know it's the New York Times, but still, trillion dollar arms buildup? The federal budget in 1989 was not even a trillion dollars, the whole budget when Reagan left office.

Anyway, "Dozens of books warned that Reagan’s policies threatened to end most life on earth. In June 1982, a million protesters gathered in Central Park." This is true. "Some Reagan aides talked of fighting and winning a nuclear war." No, they didn't. They were expressing policy and the supremacy of the United States should we be attacked! Good Lord, this is published yesterday. "Dozens of books warned that Reagan’s policies threatened to end most life on earth." The story is written by William J. Broad. "Barack Obama, then an undergraduate at Columbia University, worried about the nuclear threat and later wrote as a student and a journalist about ways to avoid global annihilation. The future president didn’t know half the danger." How in the world do you take a story, the central theme of which is Castro tried to get the Soviets to nuke us, you throw in there that Reagan threatened the world. Castro wanted the Soviets to nuke us, they work into the story that it was Reagan who was a threat, dozens of books, and somehow they have to worm it in there that the kook-in-chief as a student was worried about nuclear annihilation and warning and writing of ways to stop it. In the eighties he was 20 years old, he was smoking whatever. You've seen the pictures, wearing the Panama hats.

"The National Security Archive, a private research group at George Washington University, recently made public documents that reveal the nuclear threat in new detail. The two-volume study, 'Soviet Intentions 1965-1985,' was prepared in 1995 by a Pentagon contractor and based on extensive interviewing of former top Soviet military officials. It took the security archive two years to get the Pentagon to release the study. Censors excised a few sections on nuclear tests and weapon effects, and the archive recently posted the redacted study on its website. … In the early 1980s, the study quotes [a Soviet general staff officer] as saying that Mr. Castro 'pressed hard for a tougher Soviet line against the US up to and including possible nuclear strikes.' The general staff, General Danilevich continued, 'had to actively disabuse him of this view by spelling out the ecological consequences for Cuba of a Soviet strike against the US.'"

Castro loves Obama. Castro is a freak. Castro is a kook. I mean these are dangerous thug murdering dictators, don't misunderstand. But all the world's raconteurs love this guy. They love this guy because he shares similar views about the United States with them. So Castro wants to nuke us, and the New York Times finds a way to put Reagan in the story as the big threat, and then includes Obama studiously working even as far back as 1985 on how to protect the world from a nuclear strike. I mean I want to throw up.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: We got a couple more sound bites here from Moammar Khadafy at the United Nations this morning. He spoke for 90 minutes, and again, it's the Star Wars bar scene. Keep in mind, now, it's an organization of kooks, by kooks, and for kooks, and the guy running it is the kook himself, Barack Obama, he is a kook, he's inspiring all these people. Here's number one of two bites of Moammar Khadafy.
KHADAFY: In the name of the African Union and in the name of 1,000 traditional kingdom -- African kingdoms in your own name, I would like to seize this opportunity to present the congratulations to our son Obama because this is the first time that he is attended with us the General Assembly in his capacity as the president of the United States, and we greet him because it is the hosting country of this gathering.

RUSH: And he continued to refer to Obama as our son, meaning a son of Africa. You know, Khadafy heads up the African Union, whatever it is, I think that's the name of it. He kept calling Obama "our son." Somebody call the birthers out there. Khadafy just may in fact be one. Here's the next bite. This is all you need to know about Barack Obama from the lips of Moammar Khadafy.
KHADAFY: This is an historic event. One day the black doesn't go where the whites go and cannot be in a bus where the whites is, now the American people, the black African Kenyan voted for him and made him a president, this is a great thing. We're proud of that. You are the beginning of a change. He did go for a change but as far as I'm concerned Obama is a glimpse in the dark for the four years or the next eight years and I'm afraid that we may go back to square one. How can you guarantee America after Obama? Can you guarantee after Obama how America will be governed? No one can guarantee America. We are content and happy if Obama can stay forever as a President of America.

RUSH: Now, what are we supposed to do here as American citizens? Here is this lunatic who openly applauded the return of the Lockerbie bomber, had his own son escorts the bomber back from the UK, gets off the plane out there in Libya, through a cheering throng, this lunatic shows up today, makes a speech, "We love Barack Obama, and we want Barack Obama to be president forever. If he can't be president forever it's back to square one." He's talking about our president. You know, Ahmadinejad is gonna speak tonight and he's got a big challenge. He's gotta follow Khadafy. I am not going to be watching it. I am going out to dinner tonight with some friends and I am paying people good money 'cause it's worth it to me to not have to watch it myself. They'll watch this and give us the sound bites tomorrow.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Folks, now, don't forget, I'm holding here in my formerly nicotine-stained fingers, it's actually a YouTube video, we got a transcript of it here, of June 11, 2008, and in it Libyan leader Moammar Khadafy says that Obama suffers an inferiority complex that might make him behave whiter than the white. And the inferiority complex that he suffers is that he's really a Muslim but he can't admit it. So Khadafy, you know, right out of the Star Wars bar scene today up there making a speech, "We love Obama, president forever, black man in Africa, our son." Now, you gotta keep in mind that Khadafy keeps calling him our son, Kenyan, Khadafy says he's a Muslim. Now, I'm wondering, did the Obama administration go to Khadafy today and say, "Look, do not celebrate Obama, it is not going to be helpful, Moammar, if you go out there and celebrate Obama." Just like they told him, "Look, the deal is, we're going to release the Lockerbie bomber, but you don't have a celebration for the guy," and they did do that, and Khadafy flipped 'em off.

Maybe the Obama administration did go to him and say, "Look, Moammar, we love you, man, but you can't start praising Obama. You can't start praising him because it's not going to help us."

Maybe they did it and he just didn't listen to them like he ignored them on the Lockerbie thing. If I'd gone to the United Nations and made a speech and I've got Moammar Khadafy following me praising it, I'd really question myself. I would ask if somebody injected me with some mind-altering poison. It doesn't seem to bother these guys.

END TRANSCRIPT

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Rush Limbaugh's first appearance on the Jay Leno Show, Leno's new 10:00pm program, was certainly a memorable one. But it's unlikely that Al Gore will be laughing.

Gore became the unwitting butt of a Limbaugh joke when the radio host ran down a cardboard cutout of the former vice president on the "Green Challenge" road course. Rush was supposed to avoid the obstacle as he drove a new electric Ford Focus.

But Limbaugh really got the laughs when he put the car in reverse to hit Gore again, and then put it back in gear to strike the cardboard likeness a third time.

The hyped meeting between two of America's most recognizable hosts lived up to its billing. In a mere 15 minutes or so, Rush and Leno touched on everything from health care to GM to environmentalism. (Full Article & Video)

Read the Background Material...

• FOXNews: Qaddafi Lauds Obama, Then Launches Into Rambling Attack on U.N.
  AP: Gadhafi says UN Failed to Stop 65 Wars
  Sweetness & Light: Castro Wanted Soviets To Nuke The US
  AP: Fidel Castro Praises Obama on Climate Change
  FOXNews: Obama: U.S. Does Not Recognize 'Legitimacy of Continued Israeli Settlements'
• Barack Snubs Gordon Brown Over Private Talks
• Netanyahu Slams U.N…
• Not True: Obama Claims U.S. Did Nothing on Emissions Before 2009… & Betrays Israel
• John Bolton: Obama just put “Israel on the chopping block”
• Teargas Used on Protesters at G20 Summit in Pittsburgh

The Humbling of a Superpower

It is hard to imagine a bigger slight to the memory of the more than 100,000 American soldiers who died liberating Europe than the image of a U.S. president attacking the “arrogance” of his own country on French soil. President Obama’s speech last week ahead of the NATO summit in Strasbourg, barely 500 miles from the beaches of Normandy, marked a low point in presidential speechmaking on foreign policy. 

The largely French and German town hall audience cheered like ancient Romans in a packed Coliseum. This time, however, it was not Christians being fed to the lions but the symbolism of U.S. power, as the president lashed out at America’s “failure to appreciate Europe’s leading role in the world.” Obama bemoaned that “instead of celebrating your dynamic union and seeking to partner with you to meet common challenges, there have been times where America has shown arrogance and been dismissive, even derisive.” 

The Franco-German crowd also clapped mightily in approval and bayed for more when the president boasted of closing down the detention center in Guantanamo Bay, declaring that “without equivocation or exception that the United States of America does not and will not torture,” as though his own country had been some sort of brutal tyranny that had suddenly seen the light with his election. It was a thoroughly distasteful attack on the previous administration’s interrogation of extremely dangerous terror suspects, feeding into the very anti-Americanism that Obama had half-heartedly challenged earlier in his address.

This was a humiliating spectacle to behold as the leader of the most powerful nation on earth prostrated his country before a European audience that lapped up his message as though it was manna from heaven. Obama’s actions represented the humbling of a superpower on the world stage, a defining moment for a new administration that is weakening American global leadership and taking every opportunity to engage with its enemies, such as Iran, or its strategic competitors, including Russia and China.

It was an approach that failed to reap any dividends on the president’s European tour. If anything, this trip proved there is little to be gained from bending to the whims of European governments, who simply view it as weakness to be exploited and used to their own advantage. When Obama urged Europeans to play a bigger role in the NATO mission in Afghanistan, his words were met in the Strasbourg amphitheatre with an eerie silence, as though this was a ridiculous request and an affront to their delicate sensibilities.

Behind the scenes at the NATO summit, there was no evidence of goodwill towards the pleas of the rock star-like American president. Obama succeeded only in securing a weak-kneed pledge of 5,000 European trainers and military police to join the NATO-led International Security Force in Afghanistan, most of whom will remain in the country only until the elections in August. Great Britain was the only European nation to offer a significant number of additional combat troops -- 1,000 -- to be added to the 8,300 British forces already on the ground. 

It is continental European leaders, including French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who should be apologizing for the failure of their own countries to fight in Afghanistan, while American, British and Canadian troops are dying in large numbers on the battlefields. The brutal fact is that Obama achieved nothing at all at the NATO summit, and the war in Afghanistan remains overwhelmingly a conflict fought by a small group of English-speaking nations who continue to take 85 percent of the casualties in the fight against the Taliban, while most of Europe sits pathetically on the sidelines with cowardly indifference. 

In world affairs, popularity rarely brings with it concrete results. Ronald Reagan was reviled in Europe but together with Margaret Thatcher brought down the might of the Soviet Empire. President Bush was burnt in effigy in almost every capital city across the European Union but succeeded in liberating sixty million Muslims from tyranny and kept the United States safe from terrorist attack in the years following 9/11. 

It wasn’t much better for Obama at the preceding G-20 summit in London, where European leaders made all the running. Obama may have stolen the limelight and the best photo-ops but shaped little of the policy. Eventually the United States signed up to a communiqué that pledged $750 billion for the IMF, a European-dominated highly ineffective organization, as well as laying the foundations of a new global regulatory architecture for the financial industry, that poses a huge threat to American national sovereignty and the freedom of American companies to operate in global markets. 

As the Obama administration will gradually begin to realize, world leadership is not a popularity contest. Rather, it is about taking tough decisions and positions that will be met with hostility in many parts of the globe. It is about the assertive projection of American power, both to secure the homeland and to protect the free world. It is often a lonely and unenviable task that at times will require the use of maximum force against America’s enemies and a willingness to face the scorn of countries whose glories are way behind them, or who lack the courage and conviction to do what is right. 

Obama faces a world that in many ways is even more dangerous than the one that existed during the Cold War, with an array of rogue regimes close to developing offensive nuclear weapons capability, as well as a global terrorist network that seeks the very destruction of the United States and its allies. This is not the time for flower power speeches repenting for the so-called “arrogance” of the globe’s only superpower, or pointless declarations about creating a “nuclear free world.” 

The president must deal with the world as it is now, not as he imagines it. This requires confronting the Mullahs of Tehran and tyrants such as Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Kim Jong Il, and standing up to Russian aggression in its ‘Near Abroad.’ It also involves a determination to wage a global war, not an “Overseas Contingency Operation,” against Islamist groups and networks in the form of Al-Qaeda, the Taliban, Hamas, Hezbollah and an array of other terrorist organizations. This will require significantly increased military spending not less, as well as the full implementation of a global missile defense system. 

This is not a moment for faint hearts and 60s-style pacifism, but a time for America to project its might on the world stage and defeat its enemies. Europe can mock and jeer on the sidelines all it likes, but will quickly rediscover that its own security ultimately lies in supporting a United States that roars like a lion rather than bleats like a lamb.

by Nile Gardiner
Cartoon by Brett Noel.