Republican Senator Rick Santorum writes in the Philadelphia Inquirer:

Watching President Obama apologize last week for America’s arrogance – before a French audience that owes its freedom to the sacrifices of Americans – helped convince me that he has a deep-seated antipathy toward American values and traditions. His nomination of former Yale Law School Dean Harold Koh to be the State Department’s top lawyer constitutes further evidence of his disdain for American values.

This seemingly obscure position in Foggy Bottom’s bureaucratic maze is one of the most important in any administration, shaping foreign policy in the courts and playing a critical role in international negotiations and treaties.

Let’s set aside Koh’s disputed comments about the possible application of Sharia law in American jurisprudence. The pick is alarming for more fundamental reasons having to do with national sovereignty and constitutional self-governance.

What is indisputable is that Koh calls himself a "transnationalist." He believes U.S. courts "must look beyond national interest to the mutual interests of all nations in a smoothly functioning international legal regime. …" He thinks the courts have "a central role to play in domesticating international law into U.S. law" and should "use their interpretive powers to promote the development of a global legal system."

Koh’s "transnationalism" stands in contrast to good, old-fashioned notions of national sovereignty, in which our Constitution is the highest law of the land. In the traditional view, controversial matters, whatever they may be, are subject to democratic debate here. They should be resolved by the American people and their representatives, not "internationalized." What Holland or Belgium or Kenya or any other nation or coalition of nations thinks has no bearing on our exercise of executive, legislative, or judicial power.

Koh disagrees. He would decide such matters based on the views of other countries or transnational organizations – or, rather, those entities’ elites.

Unsurprisingly, Koh is a strong supporter of the International Criminal Court, which could subject U.S. soldiers and officials to foreign criminal trials for their actions while fighting for our security. He has recommended that American lawyers work to "undermine" official American opposition to the court.

If only Koh’s transnationalism ended there. Our Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment? Koh believes it should be reinterpreted in light of foreign and international law to pay "decent respect to the opinions of humankind."

Old fogies like me believe we ought to pay more attention to the opinions of the Founders who wrote the Constitution and the people who have lived under it. If Americans want to end the death penalty, they can do so through their elected state representatives.

If foreign opinions trump those of Pennsylvanians on capital punishment, why not on other issues?… 

How would it work? Each judge could pick and choose which law of which country he would apply in any particular instance? Or would it be a matter of majorities: eg most other countries (all Arab countries, almost all African countries just to start with) use torture, make arbitrary arrests, imprison without trial, so the US should do it too? And Sharia punishments of limb-lopping, public floggings, hurling from heights, beheading, stoning – they should be applied in the US?

If this is Koh’s legal-political philosophy, and if he is to have his way, there is no point in national sovereignty; no point in Americans making their own laws, and they may as well tear up the Constitution.

From an article in Newsmax by Ken Timmerman (read it all here): 

When newly appointed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meets with President Barack Obama next month, don’t expect a public spat over peace process politics. Sources in the new government tell Newsmax that the Israeli prime minister is determined to focus all of his energy on convincing Obama that preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons dwarfs all other concerns either nation could have. Netanyahu sees the threat from a nuclear-armed Iran as a “hinge of history,” that could fundamentally alter the world if it goes unchallenged, sources told Newsmax in Jerusalem on Tuesday. 

If the world fails to meet the challenge of stopping the Iranian regime’s nuclear quest, Netanayhu believes “this could be a turning point that is irreversible.”

Should Iran succeed in acquiring nuclear weapons, it would be the first time that a radical Islamic regime dedicated to Israel’s destruction had ever acquired such massive destructive power. “We cannot assume that the normal rational calculations other actors have had for the last 50 or 60 years are going to hold true,” one source said.

But what if Obama desires that irreversible historical change? What if he desires Israel’s destruction? Every appointment he has made in connection with Middle East policy, every step he has taken since coming to power in relation to the Arabs and Islam, has demonstrated his sympathy with the Islamic powers – even to the point of inventing a ‘moderate Taliban’. His decision to base his Israel-Palestine policy on the Saudi plan, which is a formula for the destruction of Israel, confirms his lack of sympathy for the Jewish State. We suspect that Netanyahu is extremely unlikely to change Obama’s mind. There may or may not be a public spat specifically over the (misnamed) ‘peace process’, but there is very likely to be an irreconcilable clash over Iran. 

 The San Francisco Chronicle reports: 

Rep. Barbara Lee of Oakland, who led a historic trip of members of Congress to Cuba this week, met with Fidel Castro at his home and says the former Cuban president sees President Obama as "a good person and good for America."

Does it make all Americans feel proud?

 Robert Spencer, one of the West’s most reliable authorities on Islam, writes (read the whole article here):

“We will convey,” said Barack Obama to the Turkish Parliament Monday, “our deep appreciation for the Islamic faith, which has done so much over the centuries to shape the world — including in my own country.”

 Undeniably the Islamic faith has done a great deal to shape the world – a statement that makes no value judgment about exactly how it has shaped the world. It has formed the dominant culture in what is known as the Islamic world for centuries. But what on earth could Obama mean when he says that Islam has also “done so much” to shape his own country? 

Unless he considers himself an Indonesian, Obama’s statement was extraordinarily strange. After all, how has the Islamic faith shaped the United States?…

Surveying the whole tapestry of American history, one would be hard-pressed to find any significant way in which the Islamic faith has shaped the United States in terms of its governing principles and the nature of American society. Meanwhile, there are numerous ways in which, if there had been a significant Muslim presence in the country at the time, some of the most cherished and important principles of American society and law may have met fierce resistance, and may never have seen the light of day.

So in what way has the Islamic faith shaped Obama’s country? The most significant event connected to the Islamic faith that has shaped the character of the United States was the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001.” … The Islamic faith has shaped the U.S. since 9/11 in leading to the spending of billions on anti-terror measures, and to the ventures in Iraq and Afghanistan, and to Guantanamo, and to so many features of the modern political and social landscape that they cannot be enumerated within the space of a single article.

Of course, it is certain that Obama had none of that in mind. But what could he possibly have had in mind? His statement was either careless or ignorant, or both – not qualities we need in a Commander-in-Chief even in the best of times.

 From Canada Free Press: 

President Obama said in Turkey to the citizens of this majority Muslim country that the United States “would never be at war with Islam.” He went on to say that the relationship the U.S. has with Islam, and the bridge he would like to build between Islam and the West, cannot and will not be based on opposition to Al Qaeda.

He then drew on his personal ties to Islam – you know, the ties he denied he had during the campaign – Obama stated that many Americans have Muslims in their family, or have lived in a Muslim-majority country. He added, “I know, because I am one of them.”

Despite Obama’s ignorance, the radical Islamization of the West has nothing to do with a wonderful concept of multiculturalism and diversity. Europe is being overrun with radical Islam, and as the radical Islamization of that continent takes place, the crime is so rampant in the Muslim neighborhoods that the police don’t even dare enter the areas.

Radical Islam’s desire, whether or not the Left, President Obama, or the touchy-feely crowd are willing to admit it, is to conquer the world. Their goals are to eliminate Israel, kill every Jew walking the Earth, and to bring down the West, transforming the Great Satan into Islamic Nations operating under the thumb of Sharia Law. Radical Islam will not ever be at peace with non-Muslim nations not to mention Muslims who do not share a belief in Sharia Law.

Sure, there will be temporary treaties that they will abide by for a few months, or even a number of years, but in the end, understand that these agreements are temporary. Radical Islam will not completely rest until all non-Muslim civilizations are destroyed, and the inhabitants are slaves under the mighty fist of an Islamic Caliphate.

Giving special privileges to such a radical, political, judicial and threatening nightmare is a mistake. Calling countries like Iran, Syria, the Palestinian Authority, Hezbollah, Hamas, or other radicals “friends” and negotiating with their leaders without pre-conditions and a stance that comes from a position of strength is a mistake, and very dangerous.

The President can proclaim all he wants that the West, or that the United States is not at war with radical Islam, but like it or not, radical Islam is at war with America, Israel, Europe, and anyone else that is not under their control.

 On Obama’s policy of giving up America’s nuclear capability while doing nothing to prevent the acquisition of nuclear arms by its worst enemies,  Mark Steyn comments:

The wish for "a world without nuclear weapons" is not merely a pacifist delusion but one that obliquely subscribes to the false equivalence so assiduously promoted during the Cold War.

I wouldn’t lose a moment’s sleep if I read in the paper that New Zealand and Switzerland had decided to become nuclear powers. It’s not the technology (which can’t be un-invented, any more than the rifle or the spear or the sling could). It’s the regime. North Korea and Iran going nuclear is not the same as Norway and St. Lucia going nuclear. It is so depressing to see the president of the United States mired in obsolete Cold War non-proliferation bromides…

 It’s not just embarassing to hear the so-called "leader of the free world" talking like a 14-year old who’s been up in his room listening to "Imagine" for too long. I fear this presidency has the makings of global tragedy.

 Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has never struck us as an ardent patriot or a conservative, any more than Colin Powell did. (Donald Rumsfeld was both, we thought.) No wonder Obama was happy to keep Gates on as his Defense Secretary. They apparently share an uneasiness with America’s military might and are working together to decrease it.  North Korea’s firing of a long-range missile was not something they wanted to interfere with. ‘I don’t think we have a plan’ to do anything about it, Gates said absurdly. Doesn’t think he has? Doesn’t he know his own mind? 

Contrast this from the Heritage Foundation –

The key assumption running through the Gates/Bush 2008 National Defense Strategy, is that “Although U.S. predominance in conventional warfare is not unchallenged, it is sustainable for the medium-term given current trends.” Really? “Medium-term” means the next 10 to 15 years. Considering America’s aging military equipment, projected shortfalls in fighter aircraft, attack submarines, aircraft carriers and the rate at which China is building a military that seeks to offset American power with high-end asymmetric capabilities, Gates supposition that American conventional power will remain an effective deterrent is questionable at best.

Following this theme, Gates said yesterday [April 6] that America’s “conventional modernization goals should be tied to the actual and prospective capabilities of known future adversaries, not by what might be technological feasible for a potential adversary given unlimited time and resources.” This contention is fundamentally flawed. A defense budget, especially one that attempts such a fundamental strategic shift, cannot afford to be tied to the present and “prospective” threats America faces. The unpredictability of future events combined with the decades-long cycles it takes to buy sophisticated military equipment means that the U.S. must plan for the future with a focus on the core capabilities the nation will need to remain prepared for any type of future military operation.

Should the defense budget Obama submitted to Congress be implemented along with the many ill-advised cuts outlined by Gates, America’s ability to project power throughout the global commons and maintain its military primacy across the spectrum will be doubted by friend and foe alike. A narrowly-focused approach that looks only to the present and what we can hope to predict of the future is a strategy unbecoming of a nation that counts itself as the world’s indispensable nation. This path will ensure America becomes a declining military power. 

With this – 

April 6, 2009, Juneau, Alaska – Responding to the missile test by North Korea, Governor Sarah Palin today reaffirmed Alaska’s commitment to protecting America from rogue nation missile attacks.

“I am deeply concerned with North Korea’s development and testing program which has clear potential of impacting Alaska, a sovereign state of the United States, with a potentially nuclear armed warhead,” Governor Palin said. “I can’t emphasize enough how important it is that we continue to develop and perfect the global missile defense network. Alaska’s strategic location and the system in place here have proven invaluable in defending the nation.”

Governor Palin stressed the importance of Fort Greely and the need for continued funding for the Missile Defense Agency. The governor is firmly against U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates’ proposed $1.4 billion reduction of the Missile Defense Agency. Greely’s isolated location in Alaska as well as its strategic location in the Pacific allows for maximum security and development of the country’s only ground-based missile defense complex.

“Our early opposition to reduced funding for the Missile Defense Agency is proving to be well-founded during this turbulent time,” Governor Palin said. “I continue to support the development and implementation of a defensive missile shield based in Alaska. We are strategically placed to defend the critical assets of the United States and our allies in the Pacific Theater.”

Governor Palin also requested stimulus funding for the Kodiak Launch Complex. The Kodiak Launch Complex is a commercial rocket launch facility for sub-orbital and orbital space launch vehicles owned and operated by the Alaska Aerospace Development Corporation, a public corporation of the State of Alaska.

Plainly, America and the world would be safer if Palin were president and not Obama.

Is Obama’s response to the launching of the long-range missile by North Korea merely (though very dangerously) stupid, or is it a sign that President Obama does not want to carry out his paramount duty, the protection of his country?       

Melanie Phillips writes:

Both Professor Eytan Gilboa and John Bolton, here and here have observed that the crisis over North Korea has a significance beyond itself. It is the first major test of Obama – and how he reacts will tell the world how he intends to deal with Iran.

So far he could hardly have performed more stupidly. Here’s Bolton:

Incredibly, U.S. Special Envoy for North Korea Stephen Bosworth revealed – just a few days before the launch – that he was ready to visit Pyongyang and resume the six-party talks once the "dust from the missiles settles." It is no wonder the North fired away. Once the missile shot was complete, the administration’s answer was hand-wringing, more rhetoric and, oh yes, the obligatory trip to the U.N. Security Council so that it could scold the defiant DPRK [North Korea]. Beyond whatever happens in the Security Council, Mr. Obama seems to have no plan whatever.

…Iran has carefully scrutinized the Obama administration’s every action, and Tehran’s only conclusion can be: It is past time to torque up the pressure on this new crowd in Washington. Not only is Iran’s back now covered by its friends Russia, China and others on the U.N. Security Council, but it sees an American president so ready to bend his knee for public favor in Europe that the mullahs’ wish list for U.S. concessions will grow by the minute.

Obama believes that offering a hand of friendship to the enemies of civilisation turns swords into ploughshares. If he is not persuaded otherwise, he will test that craven theory to destruction. Our destruction.

Foreign aid has kept Africa poor. Global redistribution is likely to keep the whole world poor. 

 Let’s consider this (from an article in the Wall Street Journal) –  

Dambisa Moyo, a native of Zambia and a former World Bank consultant, believes that it is time to stop proceeding as if foreign aid does the good that it is supposed to do. The problem, she says in "Dead Aid," is not that foreign money is poorly spent (though much of it is) or that development programs are badly managed (though many of them are). No, the problem is more fundamental: Aid, she writes, is "no longer part of the potential solution, it’s part of the problem – in fact, aid is the problem."

In a tightly argued brief, Ms. Moyo spells out how attempts to help Africa actually hurt it. The aid money pouring into Africa, she says, underwrites brutal and corrupt regimes; it stifles investment; and it leads to higher rates of poverty – all of which, in turn, creates a demand for yet more aid. Africa, Ms. Moyo notes, seems hopelessly trapped in this spiral, and she wants to see it break free. Over the past 30 years, she says, the most aid-dependent countries in Africa have experienced economic contraction averaging 0.2% a year.

And bear it in mind as we read these extracts from an account (by Joseph Klein, find it here) of  a proposed global redistribution of wealth by the United Nations, which will help to transform that nefarious institution into a world governing body.  

The UN Commission of Experts issued a preliminary report on March 20 outlining its views on the causes of the current global economic crisis, the impacts on all countries and recommendations to avoid its recurrence and restore global economic stability. The report contemplates a massive reordering of the world economy involving trillions of dollars of wealth transfers, global regulation, and global taxes, all under the supervision of the United Nations. 

The report blends the socialist and Islamic economic perspectives as an alternative to our present capitalistic system.  It has four basic themes.  Western-style free market capitalism is the villain.  Redistributive justice is mandatory.  New global governance authorities are required. Global taxes are also needed. 

The only institution that the UN experts believe has broad enough political legitimacy to serve as the global decision making forum and eliminate the abuses of free market capitalism is, unsurprisingly, the body that gave them the platform to air their views on a global stage in the first place – the United Nations.  Standing UN bureaucracies such as the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development Secretariat have been pressing this same message in order to justify their own permanent existence.  They want major re-regulation of the market by governments working in unison through the global decision-making arms of the UN…   

Every polemic text has to have its target to attack.  In this case, the Commission of Experts preliminary report goes after “the previously fashionable economic doctrines” of free market economies in the “rich countries” as the cause of the global crisis. 

The rich developed countries foisted their rotten system on the poor developing countries, which are suffering much of the fall-out through no fault of their own, according to the UN experts.  Without citing a single example, the report claimed that “developing countries that have developed good regulatory frameworks, created effective monetary institutions, and succeeded in implementing sound fiscal policies” have been brought to their knees by “defects in one economic system” – i.e., Western-style capitalism…     

Of course, it goes without saying that the villain must pay.  This means even more redistribution of wealth to the developing countries than the hundreds of billions of dollars already set to be transferred from the United States and other developed countries under the UN’s Millennium Development Goals assistance program. 

The commission report calls for the rich industrialized countries to dig deeper into their pockets and take at least one percent of the stimulus packages meant to get their own economies moving again and send that money to the developing countries instead.  In effect, the UN experts want to take nearly $8 billion dollars off the top from the $787 billion stimulus package passed by Congress and send it directly to the developing countries with no questions asked.  Also, any banks that receive bailout money from American taxpayers should not focus so much on making domestic loans that would help American businesses to stay alive and help Americans to stay in their homes and jobs.  Instead, the UN experts want some of that bailout money to go toward making shaky loans that are unlikely to be paid back in order to “finance additional support to developing countries.”

Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is already starting to put these ideas into motion.  He sent a letter to the leaders attending the Group of 20 economic summit in London suggesting that they establish a $1 trillion global stimulus package for the poorest countries over the nexttwo years.  That would be $50 billion per donor if divided equally among the Group of 20 countries.  Since the United States is usually asked by the UN to put up at least 20% of whatever money it is raising, that would mean U.S. taxpayers would be expected to fork over $200 billion extra over the next two years. 

Would we at least be able to impose some reasonable conditions on the massive grants and loans for development and other support (or ““conditionalities” as the Commission of Experts calls them)?  The UN experts say absolutely not! 

After all, it would be politically incorrect to expect each recipient of our taxpayers’ money to actually have to demonstrate that the money won’t end up in a corrupt dictator’s Swiss bank account because, according to the UN experts’ circular reasoning, such “conditionalities” would “disadvantage developing countries relative to the developed, and undermine incentives for developing countries to seek support funding…” 

By the way, we are being asked to entrust some of our money for this support funding to the United Nations Development Programme (“UNDP”), the main UN agency in charge of spending for development projects around the world.  The current president of UNDP’s executive board is Iran’s UN representative… 

The UN experts recommend a new global economic order that must “encompass more than the G-7 or G-8 or G-20, but the representatives of the entire planet, from the G-192 (number of member states in the General Assembly).”   

The first step would be to dump the dollar as the standard international reserve currency and instrument for international payments for products traded on the global market, such as oil.  In its place would be a new Global Reserve System controlled by an international financial institution under UN oversight.  The three leading countries singing a similar refrain are Iran, China and Russia…  

The value of the dollar will crash, causing the current recession to move into a depression of the magnitude of the 1930s.  We may well find ourselves giving away dollar devalued hard assets at ridiculously low prices, in order to accumulate the new global reserve currency, to countries in the Middle East that are hostile to our democratic values.  At the same time Uncle Sam will still be expected to pay the lion’s share of global foreign aid, the UN budget and defense of the free world.   

In addition to the idea of a new Global Reserve Currency, the UN Commission of Experts says that international economic institutions, such as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, must be significantly altered and supplemented with new global governance bodies to make the whole process more “democratic” and accountable to the developing countries.  This would be accomplished in two ways, say the experts.  First, the internal governance structures of existing international economic institutions would be fundamentally revamped to give more power to the developing countries.  Second, they would be made accountable to a new “globally representative forum” known as the Global Economic Coordination Council, which would be created as part of the UN system at “a level equivalent with the General Assembly and the Security Council”.    

That’s not all.  The UN experts want to create still more global institutional arrangements for governing the global economy, including a new Global Financial Regulatory Authority, a new Global Competition Authority and a new International Bankruptcy Court.  They think it is just too “difficult to rely on national regulatory authorities”.   The focus of this enhanced global regulation, they say, should be on the most systematically important countries – i.e., the United States and other major industrial nations.  In the Commission of Experts’ view, our sovereignty as a self-governing people to regulate our own economy must give way to global government for the sake of “the broad interest of the international community”… 

Islamists and socialists have a common agenda – to bring down Western capitalism.  They are exploiting the perfect storm that has arisen from the current economic crisis, which they blame on the United States.  Their revenge is to position the United Nations as the only global membership institution that can ensure the legitimacy of decisions to govern a global economy and push free market economics aside.

 From American Thinker:

 

…  most unbecoming a President of the United States. (With bowed head and bended knee and Would Abe Lincoln bow down to a slave-keeping Arab king?)