ABC reports that "a bipartisan team of seven former directors of the Central Intelligence Agency wrote to President Obama today urging him to direct Attorney General Eric Holder to close the criminal investigation looking into whether any CIA officers went beyond what they were told was legal in their interrogations during counterterrorism investigations. Allowing future investigations and prosecutions 'will seriously damage the willingness of many other intelligence officers to take risks to protect the country,' the seven men write. 'In our judgment such risk-taking is vital to success in the long and difficult fight against the terrorists who continue to threaten us.' Moreover, they argue, 'public disclosure about past intelligence operations can only help Al Qaeda elude US intelligence and plan future operations. Disclosures about CIA collection operations have and will continue to make it harder for intelligence officers to maintain the momentum of operations that have saved lives and helped protect America from further attacks.' The seven former directors are Michael Hayden and Porter Goss, who served under President George W. Bush; George Tenet, who served under Bush and President Bill Clinton; John Deutch and R. James Woolsey, who served under Clinton; William Webster, who served under Presidents George H.W. Bush and Ronald Reagan; and James R. Schlesinger, who served under President Richard Nixon." Tweet
Friday, September 18, 2009
Polish Tabloid: "Betrayal! The U.S. Sold Us To Russia And Stabbed Us In The Back"
The AP reports that "Poles and Czechs voiced deep concern Friday at President Barack Obama's decision to scrap a Bush-era missile defense shield planned for their countries. 'Betrayal! The U.S. sold us to Russia and stabbed us in the back,' the Polish tabloid Fakt declared on its front page. Polish President Lech Kaczynski said he was concerned that Obama's new strategy leaves Poland in a dangerous 'gray zone' between Western Europe and the old Soviet sphere. Recent events in the region have rattled nerves throughout central and eastern Europe, a region controlled by Moscow during the Cold War, including the war last summer between Russia and Georgia and ongoing efforts by Russia to regain influence in Ukraine. A Russian cutoff of gas to Ukraine last winter left many Europeans without heat. The Bush administration's plan would have been 'a major step in preventing various disturbing trends in our region of the world,' Kaczynski said in a guest editorial in the daily Fakt and also carried on his presidential Web site." Tweet
Thursday, September 17, 2009
U.S. Scraps Europe Missile Defense Saying Iran Is Not A Threat
CNN reports "the Obama administration will scrap the controversial missile defense shield program in Eastern Europe, a senior administration official confirmed to CNN Thursday. The comment followed similar statements from officials in Poland and the Czech Republic -- where key elements of the system were to be located -- but was the first confirmation from an American official. Vice President Joe Biden earlier refused to confirm to CNN that the George W. Bush-era plan was being shelved. But he did explain the logic of doing so, saying Iran -- a key concern for the United States -- was not a threat. 'I think we are fully capable and secure dealing with any present or future potential Iranian threat,' he told CNN's Chris Lawrence in Baghdad, where he is on a brief trip."
This news comes out on the 70th anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Poland in 1939. The Obama administration is weakening national and world security before our very eyes, emboldening both Russian hawks and the religious fanatics in Teheran. The Kyiv Post argues that this may "have unintended consequences in the former Soviet bloc. Russian diplomacy is largely a zero-sum game and relies on projecting hard power to force gains, as in last year's war with Georgia over the rebel regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia or the gas dispute with Ukraine at the start of this year. Western concepts of 'win-win' deals and Obama's drive for 21st century global partnerships are not part of its vocabulary." Nile Gardiner of the Telegraph has called that "the president has surrendered to Russian demands" with "a shameful abandonment of America’s friends in eastern and central Europe, and a slap in the face for those who actually believed a key agreement with Washington was worth the paper it was written on."
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