During the Bush years, Democrats and leftists came to loathe the stinging charge that their foreign policy views posed a threat to national security, and now that one of their own is the commander-in-chief, it’s payback time. At the Daily Beast, former Assistant Secretary of State Leslie Gelb accuses congressional Republicans of being willing to endanger the United States by opposing the White House’s latest nuclear treaty with Russia, simply to score political points against President Barack Obama.

Gelb declares that the GOP’s arguments “are totally without merit,” and you know he means business here because he says so: “That’s a charge I hardly ever level because it’s so serious.” Seriously.

As Obama said on Thursday, passage of the treaty this year is a “national-security imperative.” That’s not idle presidential chatter. His words are backed by the most senior and experienced Americans, Republicans and Democrats, who have worked in the most important positions for presidents of the United States for decades. This star-studded list includes: James A. Baker, Colin Powell, Henry Kissinger, Madeleine Albright, Bill Cohen, William Perry, and on and on. With all due respect, Senator Kyl, your knowledge of national security does not compare well to this roster. Virtually every former top security official, with the exception of Don Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney, back this treaty. That alone should tell you something, everything, about what Kyl is really up to.

Ah, one of my favorite arguments: all these really smart people side with me! Because really, when has the conventional wisdom among foreign policy elites ever been wrong?

With the swooning over celebrity policy wonks out of the way, Gelb moves on to describe what the treaty does…

It sets modest limits on the long-range nuclear arsenals of both sides. Neither side can have more than 1,550 warheads on no more than 800 launchers (land-based and sea-based intercontinental missiles and long-range bombers). Several U.S. presidents urged those ceilings because they fit existing U.S. force plans, though the limits actually exceed existing Russian forces. The other major provision permits both sides to resume on-site inspections, which neither has been allowed to do for years. This is quite important for Washington’s ability to verify what’s going on with Russia’s nuclear arsenal.

… and why opposition to it doesn’t hold water:

Sen. Kyl and others contend that the treaty somehow diminishes America’s will to ensure that the existing U.S. nuclear stockpile is secure and workable—i.e., that the warheads will explode when and how they are supposed to. Most nuclear experts don’t believe this is a serious problem to begin with. But to reassure Kyl and his cohort, Obama is committing more than $85 billion in coming years to check the reliability of the nukes and to modernize them. That sum includes a very recent addition of $4.1 billion, which the White House hoped would seal their bribe.

That commitment isn’t as golden as Gelb suggests—as Frank Gaffney explains, “much of these funds will only be made available in the ‘out-years,’” some after the end of his first term and others after the end of his potential second one, making it more of a big maybe than a promise. It also runs counter to anti-nuke Obama’s stated wish to “rid the world of nuclear weapons,” which has been Obama’s rationale for not upgrading these systems in the past. And the White House is suggesting that the money is contingent upon ratifying the treaty during the lame-duck session, which would be a bad idea considering that lame-duck periods are hardly conducive to the kind of deliberation such an allegedly vital treaty would demand and that the administration won’t let the Senate see the negotiating record to better understand why DC has a different understanding of what the treaty will do than the Kremlin does.

I honestly do not understand individuals who admire communists. Maybe I am a delusional daughter of Lithuanian immigrants who “brainwashed” me with their anti-communist rhetoric. Maybe I am a paranoid conservative eager to dispel the myths that communists are not worth celebrating. Either way, it is frustrating that some Americans do not understand how evil these people are and fail to grasp the insurmountable number of people they killed! Try explaining that to my peers in college who hang up flags of Che Guevara and embrace the works of infamous Marxist-Leninists. Now, communists—alive and dead—continue to plague the halls, dorm walls, and social hubs at universities. Here at UC-San Diego there’s even a Che Cafe and  several  homages paid to a Messianic Obama around campus.

Recently, I crossed paths with the famed red drink adorned in Cyrillic and a haunting portrait of V.I. Lenin called Leninade.

Give us the child for 8 years and it will be a Bolshevik forever. -Vladimir Lenin

People will argue that this drink’s message is a harmless play on words and mockery of communism. Regardless, my fellow Eastern Europeans with an understanding of communism and its travesties find this gesture extremely offensive. It can be appropriately compared to plastering one’s college dorm walls with a poster of a shirtless Vladimir Putin—Russian Prime Minister and former KGB operative.

The photos will inevitably trigger mass swooning by women all over Russia – as well as unfavourable comparisons of their husbands to Mr Putin’s manly physique.

Making communism sexy and appealing is only going to aid the cause of advancing this oppressive—albeit failed—system, not prevent it. Let us hope that college students do not swoon over pictures of Hugo Chavez, Joseph Stalin, and Fidel Castro because it is not sexy and hip!

Leninade is adorned with the phrases, “”POPAGANDA,” “Get Hammered and Sickled,” “A Taste Worth Standing in Line For,” and “Drink Comrade! Drink! It’s This or the Gulag!” Does Leninade creator Danny Ginsburg understand what he is propagating? Placing communist rhetoric on pop drinks and posters is only going to leave Obama Zombies susceptible to this doctrine. Ginsburg is obviously not sensitive to the victims of Lenin and their families with this gesture. Lovely when “humanitarian,” so-called liberals don’t condone these killers in their campaigns, right?

Time will only tell if naive Americans will finally grasp that communism is ill-fated, not something worth capitalizing on.

Whole barrels of ink (a few pints of which have been mine) have been expended describing the stunning disconnect between Obama’s  view of the world–driven in equal parts by ideology, naivete and a seemingly inexhaustible faith in his own charisma to reverse the tides of geopolitical reality–and the world as it really is. Few essays I have read however have crystallized things for me quite as well as the juxtaposition of “how I spent my summer” pics above.

Let’s be clear, I don’t care if Obama ever owns a gun, learns to throw a baseball or buys a man’s bike. I do care that competent, determined and very tough guys like Putin see him exactly as he is depicted in that picture. That’s bad for him, and worse for America.

Someone once described the old Soviet Union as being like a thief in a hotel walking down the hall testing every doorknob. Putin and his ilk are very much heirs to that way of thinking and Obama–possibly mistranslating the word “reset” once again– has already unlocked a great many doors for them. As residents of that metaphorical hotel it’s worth asking if he’s thinking of reviewing this open door policy before there’s nothing left.

(HT: Drudge)

‘The elite of Poland have been struck down just as they were 70 years ago,’ said former Polish President, Lech Walesa of the plane crash that claimed the sitting Polish President, Lech Kaczynski, his wife, and most of Poland’s top government officials. The plane was en route to a commemoration of the 1940 Katyn massacre of Polish government officials before it crashed over Smolensk, Russia. 

The UK’s Daily Mail reports that the Russian government prevented the plane from landing four times. Arthur Gorski, a prominent Polish politician, alleges that the plane was denied permission to land at Smolensk Airport for a host of “dubious” reasons such a fog, inadequate landing strip size and equipment problems. They attempted to redirect the plane to alternative Russian airports which, incidentally, would likely have impaired the President’s timely arrival at the memorial event.  

Accusations of Russia’s culpability are not in terms of equipment sabotage or military aggression, but by instigating a chaotic landing environment which culminated in the uneventful crash. Kaczynski, is a staunch anti-communist and former freedom-fighter. Some Poles surmise that Russia’s actions were in an effort to prevent Kaczynski from appearing at the commemoration of the Katyn massacre which he was not invited to attend (another Polish leader, Donald Tusk, was invited by the former KGB member, Vladimir Putin.) The slaughter of some 22,000 Polish nationals at Katyn Forest in Russia has been a source of tension between the two nations for decades. 

However, none of these uncanny circumstances are a clear indictment of intentional malice on behalf of Russian officials — far from it.  Evidence does support foggy landing conditions which the outmoded aircraft carrying the ill-fated Poles was not as capable of combatting compared to more sophisticate planes. Language issues between the flight crew and Russian ground control may have compounded events. We will undoubtedly learn more when (or if) recorded transmissions of the flight are made public.

Yesterday, two female suicide bombers killed themselves and 39 others at two of Moscow’s subway stations. 70 innocent Muscovites were hospitalized, five of whom are in critical condition.

Russia’s Director of the Federal Security Bureau, Alexander Bortnikov, said that this gruesome terrorist attack was most likely carried out by “a terrorist group from the northern Caucasus.” Matt Gurney adds at FrontPage Magazine that this probably means Chechnya. He also argues that the women were probably members of “the Black Widows. These women, the female relations of Muslim rebels killed by the Russian military during numerous counter-insurgency campaigns in the Caucasus, seek revenge on Russia by striking at the heart of its cities.”

In other words, it was yet another massive crime against humanity carried out by extremist Muslims.

Although I’m certainly not a fan of either Russia’s President Dmitry Medvedev or its Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, we have to stand by Russia on this one. Chechnya has become a hot bed of Jihadism. Many Arabic (and other) radical Muslims moved to the Caucasus years ago to carry out a Jihad against Russia. When they are done fighting there, they will not go home and become loving fathers to their children and kind husbands to their wives. No, they will turn their attention to other, new victims. They will declare war and fight against different countries, including those in the West. We can’t let that happen.

Now, that does not mean that I’m condoning or being an apologist for Russia’s policy towards peoples in the Caucasus or in Eastern Europe. I am not. I do realize, however, that this war is no longer truly about independence for the Chechen people, but about the ‘holy war’ Islamists have declared on non-Muslims and non-extremist Muslims worldwide. And because of that they have to be stopped against pretty much all cost.

Bill O’Reilly used his “Talking Points” segment last night to show how the Obama administration’s attempts to “reset” America’s relationship with Russia is dangerously naive.  President Obama betrayed our allies in Eastern Europe by abandoning the missile defense shield planned for installation in Poland and the Czech Republic, in the hope of garnering good will in Russia.   He and Hillary Clinton nearly swooned when Russian president Dmitry Medvedev said a few days later that Russia could possibly consider sanctions against Iran sometime in the future.  Wow — some real hard bargaining there!

Vladimir Putin — Russia’s former spymaster and current prime minister who is still really in charge — subsequently shot down even that teaser:

We believe that we should treat this issue with caution, and there is no need to scare the Iranians.

Of course what Putin really meant was that there was no need to interrupt Russia’s highly profitable arms dealings with Iran, or its efforts to form a natural gas cartel with Iran that could strangle Europe.

While Putin was in China when he made these remarks, Hillary Clinton was visiting Moscow.   She received a similar message from Russia’s foreign minister regarding Russia’s present opposition to sanctions.  Yet, with her head in the sand,  she chose to ignore the reality of Russia’s intentions and remarked how much she appreciated Russia’s spirit of cooperation :

I feel very good about the so-called reset.   We did not ask for anything today.  We reviewed the situation and where it stood, which I think was the appropriate timing for what this process entails.

If that weren’t enough, Hillary apparently promised her hosts full access to inspect our nuclear facilities as part of an agreement in principle on a new strategic arms treaty.    Supposedly, the Russians will be as forthcoming about their own facilities.  Anyone who believes that also believes in the Tooth Fairy.

In keeping with Obama’s commitment to lead the way towards a nuclear-free world, the Russians would be permitted to visit nuclear sites in the United States to count missiles and warheads.  As Hillary explained:

We want to ensure that every question that the Russian military or Russian government asks is answered.

In other words, we have already made concrete concessions, and are planning to make more, with nothing of any real value to show for them in return.   So far the re-set button means that we are being set down a very dangerous path, while Russia and Iran are laughing all the way to the bank.

Bill Maher, host of HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher,” revealed some frightening ignorance on his show this weekend in an exchange with Matthew Continetti, associate editor at The Weekly Standard. When Continetti pointed out Obama’s mistake in canceling the missile shield and the danger that Vladimir Putin poses to the West, Maher scoffed with derision and ridicule, making wisecracks about how the Cold War is long over.

Perhaps Maher might want to reflect about the reality of there having been no Nuremberg-style trials in the post-Soviet era and what that has meant, in the most tragic sense, for Russia and the world.

First clue: it has something to do with why the surviving heirs of the Soviet monster remain in power in the Kremlin today. Second clue: it’s connected to why the Putin gang recently ferociously denounced a resolution that equated Stalinism with Nazism.

Throughout the Cold War, liberals like Maher ridiculed conservatives’ concern about the threat of communism. I wonder when Maher will invite Harvey Klehr and John Haynes on his program to discuss their new book, Spies: The Rise and Fall of the KGB in America, which reveals substantial evidence regarding American communist support for Soviet espionage. Will Maher admit that the liberals were wrong about almost everything they argued regarding the communist infiltration of America? The evidence now proves the liberals wrong beyond reasonable doubt.

A dialogue like that between Maher, Klehr and Haynes may serve as a solid foundation to bringing Maher into contemporary reality regarding Putin. Because the liberal denial continues today, as revealed by Maher, about the present threat emanating from Russia. The fact is that the threat of the KGB, now termed the FSB (Federal Security Service), remains. The FSB is the same old outfit — just with a different name. Konstantin Preobrazhenskiy, a former KGB agent, has revealed that Russian spying continues at a high degree in America and poses a major threat to the U.S.  He has also revealed Russian-Iranian cooperation, and how and why the Putin gang is helping Iran build the bomb.

To add to all of this, there is a serious and deadly problem of the Putin regime’s involvement in, and support of, Islamic terrorism. Alexander Litvinenko paid with his life for, among other things, the information he knew about the FSB’s links to al-Qaeda.

But Bill Maher finds it all really funny. Sort of how my liberal and leftist academic acquaintances used to break into sidesplitting laughter when ridiculing Ronald Reagan’s reference to the Soviet regime as the “Evil Empire.” As someone who comes from the Soviet Union, and who has recently reread the Gulag Archipelago and Varlam Shalamov’s Kolyma Tales,  I still have difficulty understanding what is laughable about it all.

I wonder if Bill Maher would also laugh, in his contemptuous and self-satisfied manner, upon learning the facts regarding the nightmarish, sadistic and barbaric torture that is, as we speak, being inflicted on prisoners in Putin’s prison cells.