It wasn't quite an apology at Hiroshima, though some might argue that President Obama's mere presence at the site of the world's first use of nuclear weapons was itself an apology. What it was a reiteration of President Obama's mantra that our weapons are the threat, whether guns or nukes, and not the criminals and tyrants that would use them against us. As the New York Times reported his remarks:
We may not be able to eliminate man's capacity to do evil, so nations and the alliances that we form must possess the means to defend ourselves. But among those nations like my own that hold nuclear stockpiles, we must have the courage to escape the logic of fear and pursue a world without them….
And yet that is not enough. For we see around the world today how even the crudest rifles and barrel bombs can serve up violence on a terrible scale. We must change our mind-set about war itself. To prevent conflict through diplomacy and strive to end conflicts after they've begun.
This is a rehash of what he said in Praguein October, 2009:
So today, I state clearly and with conviction America's commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons…
…the United States will take concrete steps towards a world without nuclear weapons. To put an end to Cold War thinking, we will reduce the role of nuclear weapons in our national security strategy, and urge others to do the same.
Munich, Mr. President, was an attempt to "prevent conflict through diplomacy". Appeasement brought on World War II, not any arms buildup. We ignored Hitler's global game plan, outlined in Mein Kampf, just as we ignored the plans of Imperial Japan. We ignored Japan's aggression against China. We ignored the rape of Nanking. The road to Hiroshima began at Pearl Harbor. World War II was not caused by our battleships, Mr. President. It was caused by the ambitions of Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany. We ignored them, just as your are ignoring the ambitions of Putin's Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran.
As Investor's Business Daily editorialized in 2013, it is the policy of "Peace Through Strength", not the absence of weapons that deters both war and aggression:
When Kennedy proclaimed "Ich bin ein Berliner" in June 1963, it was a statement of solidarity with the free people of West Berlin and a pledge of resistance to the tyranny that surrounded it. It was not an act of appeasement or a vain hope for peace in our time.
Similarly, Kennedy said in his 1961 inaugural address that "only when our arms are sufficient beyond doubt can we be certain beyond doubt that they will never be employed."
The next year, Kennedy used our supremacy to make the Soviets blink during the Cuban missile crisis. Obama probably would have apologized for threatening Cuba.
Ronald Reagan, who in June 1987 stood in West Berlin to demand that Mikhail Gorbachev tear down the Berlin Wall, spent his presidency rephrasing Kennedy's doctrine as "peace through strength." He built a 600-ship Navy, launched the Strategic Defense Initiative and, when Gorbachev in October 1986 in Iceland demanded he give it up, told him, "Nyet!"
The result was the Berlin Wall came down -- and the Soviet Union with it.
It was Obama's vision of a "world without nuclear weapons" set out in a speech in Prague in 2009, three months into his presidency, that arguably earned him the Nobel Peace Prize. He ignored the fact that before 1945 we lived in such a world, and it was neither peaceful nor secure.
It is arguable that U.S. possession of nuclear weapons prevented World War III. Obama forgets that the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were the end result of murderous tyrants' seeking to extinguish freedom and liberty throughout the world. He ignores what the world would have been like if Japan had won or got the atomic bomb before we did.
It is not nuclear weapons that threaten us, but rather the tyrants and terrorists that would use them against us. We are not threatened by French, British, or Indian nukes. We are threatened by those in the hands of China, Russia, and North Korea, and someday, thanks to his appeasement, Iran
If President Obama were truly wants a world without nuclear weapons, why does he reduce our nuclear and defensive arsenal while ignoring things like Russia's violation of the Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty? It does not bode well that an Obama administration that assures us that the nuclear deal with Iran will not be violated by the mullahs is clearly looking the other way as Iran's ally, Russia, blatantly violates the 1987 Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty signed with the former Soviet Union.
The Obama White House is sitting on a Pentagon risk assessment report completed last month that states "that the breach involved a new missile that violates the limits set by the treaty. The treaty bans holding, producing, or flight-testing ground-launched ballistic or cruise missiles with ranges of between 310 miles and 3,418 miles." As Bill Gertz reports in the Washington Examiner:
At the Pentagon, spokesman Capt. Greg Hicks said: "The Chairman's assessment of Russia's Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty violation is classified and not releasable to the public."
Hicks said, however, that steps are being taking "across the government to address Russia's violation of the treaty, including preserving military response options -- but no decision has been made with regard to the type of response, if any."
"If any" means that nothing likely will be done either in terms of sanctions over the development and testing of the Russian RS300 cruise missile or in the deployment of additional missile defenses in Eastern Europe that might offend President Obama's untrustworthy friend, Russian president Vladimir Putin After all, President Obama has pulled the rug out from under our allies, notably Poland and the Czech Republic, before.
When President Obama took office in January, 2009, sitting on his desk were President George W. Bush's plans for the deployment of ground-based missile interceptors, such as are deployed at Fort Greely, Alaska, in Poland as well as missile defense radars in the Czech Republic, As Investor's Business Dailynoted over a year ago, President Obama had other plans and his betrayal of our allies was ironically exquisite:
Yet within hours of Medvedev's election as president in 2008, the Russian announced that Moscow would deploy SS-26 missiles in his country's enclave of Kaliningrad situated between our NATO allies Poland and Lithuania.
He wanted the U.S. to abandon plans to deploy missile interceptors in Poland and warning radars in the Czech Republic designed to counter a future threat from Iran.
What did President Obama do? He caved in and notified the Poles in a midnight phone call on Sept. 17, 2009 -- the 70th anniversary of the Soviet Union's invasion of Poland -- that we were pulling the plug on that system due to Russian objections.
Putin then watched in 2012 as Obama promised Medvedev at the Nuclear Security Summit in Seoul, South Korea, that after his re-election he would have more "flexibility" to weaken missile defense, which would help him fulfill his dream of U.S. disarmament.
A world without nuclear weapons or a world without resistance to tyrants? Putin knows full well Obama's weakness in responding to any foreign threat to U.S. interests and security. President Obama is the Neville Chamberlain of this century, promising "peace in our time" as he invites war with weakness, disarmament, apologies, and appeasement.
Daniel John Sobieski is a free lance writer whose pieces have appeared inInvestor's Business Daily, Human Events, Reason Magazine and the Chicago Sun-Times among other publications.
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