Duncan Hunter 4/8/10: Obama's Nuke Puke, Stimulating Russia Jobs, and that Evil Oil

This interview with former Congressman and conservative stalwart Duncan Hunter is the latest in an on-going series of conversations designed as one way to place Hunter’s ideas and commentary into the public sphere. His long term goal is to restore the country to its constitutional republican roots, of limited government and maximum freedom. His short term goal is to win the November 2010 elections, inserting rock ribbed conservatives into seats currently being occupied by Democrats. With any luck, Mr. Hunter may challenge for the 2012 presidency. But for now, it’s time get a Republican majority back to congress to halt the Obama agenda. This interview finds Mr. Hunter fishing in San Diego County with his grandson, DIII.

AJM: Great, doing great. Today is the day you said you might have a few minutes to go on the record, so to speak. You have time?

AJM: First of all, we’d really like your commentary on Obama’s new nuclear policy. In a nutshell he’s basically taking nuclear retaliation off the table for about 90 percent of the previous understood contingencies, where previous presidents would not take that off the table. And I’d like your response to that.

DH: Well, I wrote a column about Obama’s initial discussions and the proposals that they made with the Russians. And it was to the effect that Obama was dismantling the American deterrent and he’s not getting anything for it. Other nations around the world are hard set to develop nuclear weapons. And I think the American reduction of nuclear deterrence in the face of that only encourages them and gives them hope that at some point they are going to come to parity with the US. I think the Chinese have a long range goal of coming to parity with the United States. And certainly it does not discourage the Iranians or North Koreans.

I think it is a colossal mistake. I think it’s obvious more and more that it is simply the ‘politics’ of trying to get some kind of deal, and being able to trumpet some kind of so-called success for the Administration, rather than a pragmatic, realistic, diplomatic move with any value to the United States whatsoever.

AJM: I think you’re right. And I think the proof in the pudding with this, Congressman, is that the day before the big ceremony – was it today or yesterday? – when he signed the ‘agreement’ with Russia, the day before in the London papers, the foreign minister of Russia said that Russia reserves the right to withdraw from these reduction agreements if they feel threatened by United States missile defenses. Basically, they are saying “if you put missile defenses into these European countries, we’re not going to abide by this agreement”.

DH: Well, Obama has already given up the missile defense deal that we had for the Czech Republic and Poland. With absolutely nothing in return. I think it is the first time that the United States has given in on the moral question of whether or not we have the right to defend ourselves. Under the Obama version of Mutually Assured Destruction there’s a presupposition that this nation is obligated to receive the first strike before it retaliates. And remain essentially unprotected to a large scale strike. I think that is a concession that shouldn’t have been made, for two reasons. One, we got nothing for it, but secondly, it’s a disservice to every ally in Europe because that is where we had proposed to place our defense systems, in Czechoslovakia and Poland, that essentially constituted the throat of the ballistic missile approach from Iran.

So giving up the ability to defend against Iranian missiles while the Iranians are moving out as quickly as they can to develop nuclear weapons and the ability to project them into European capitals, and possibly someday into the United States, is inexplicable. You know, rocket technology is not top end technology. It is essentially comprised of moving more stages onto rockets until they can reach the prescribed distance.

AJM: Yep, and China and others, I’m sure North Korea, are helping Iran right along that path as we speak.

DH: As I said before, I suspect China likes money. And that’s what the Iranians pay them with.

DH: It doesn’t make a lot of difference what they “see”, it’s what they are getting! They are getting concessions from Obama with no quid pro quo. It’s remarkably naïve.

Now Gates, when he tried to put the prettiest face possible on Obama’s concession with respect to missile defenses in Europe, he said we could accomplish this with other systems. Yet we haven’t heard any more, so Obama’s intentions apparently don’t include those ‘other systems’ at this time.

One thing we could do, we could put missile defensive systems on ships; we could put them in locations in cooperation with the Russians in the Black Sea, where they would essentially cover that throat of approach into Europe. But Russia has no incentive with Obama to do so…..hold on a second, I got my grandson…(To grandson: did you see one? Did you see one?)

We’re out here fishing. We’ve got a couple of coyotes that have been howling at us.

DH: So anyway, several things: One, we are giving up what we have always asserted is our moral right to defend ourselves against incoming ballistic missiles. And we’ve been attacked by ballistic missiles. We’ve had Americans killed by slow ballistic missiles, but nonetheless ballistic missiles, in the Middle East. And of course Saddam Hussein used them, fired ballistic missiles on Israel early on during the first Gulf War. So we are in an age of missiles and we are giving up the right to use them!!

And I think all of this was telegraphed when Obama spoke when he first went over to Russia following his election. He talked about the missile systems in Europe being quote “on the table”, open for negotiation. That was tantamount - understanding the Russian resistance to those missile emplacements - that was a very strong telegraph that he was going to fold on missiles and missile defenses in Europe.

AJM: So he folded on missile defenses and now follows it up by folding on our nuclear weapons posture as well. He’s got a twofer going. A dangerous twofer.

AJM: I’ll stay on the national Security front for a moment. It came out yesterday that in Obama’s new National Security Strategy, that every president goes through a couple of times during his administration, I think, they’ve purged the words Islam, Jihad, and Islamic Extremism out of the document. So there is no reference to these in our formal national security strategy.

DH: Well, you’re pretty good at analyzing these things, what do you think that tells us? (laughs)

He’s says I’m hogging the good fishing place so I gotta move over. (I’ve had a couple of bites here little Duncan)

DH: Listen, I’m not as concerned about the PR positions that the Administration is taking - and that’s what this is - these language concessions they’re making. These are meaningless in terms of invoking any kind of sympathy from our Islamic adversaries. They are essentially worthless.

But I’m more concerned with the REAL concessions, such as those we just talked about, such as taking down our defenses. I’m less concerned with the cosmetics, generally.

AJM: Yeah, but there is an angle to it, trying to get these guys to like us more, or something more….

DH: As I mentioned before, Obama can’t change the reality of the war by changing to politically correct language anymore than FDR could have proclaimed the War was over in 1943. But I’m not so worried about that. I’m more concerned with real things. I think they got a lot of people, leftwingers, with time on their hands sitting around trying to figure out how we can re-educate someone like Osama Bin Laden and his pals. It’s dumb, but I’m more concerned with the real detrimental activities Obama has undertaken, such as conceding our missile defenses in Europe and now making these misguided new concessions - the reduction of our nuclear systems, as well as the rules of engagement on the battlefield. That is cause for real alarm!

Another thing about Obama’s nuclear surrender: These things are usually a forerunner to massive American expenditures. Under the Nunn-Lugar program, we are the guys who paid for dismantling these things, so it is really a work program, we created a massive work program for the Russians. We constructed a $100 million plant to neutralize heptyl, which is rocket fuel . When we got finished with it, it looked like a massive oil refinery on the horizon. It cost the US taxpayers $100 million. At the ribbon cutting, the Russians happily informed us that there was no heptyl; that they converted it all over to their space program.

DH: So we basically did a $100 million jobs program for Russia. We then put in another $100 million plant. After we spent $100 million on site preparation, we were informed it would not be possible to get the permits from the locals. So gee, can we give them another $100 million somewhere else in Russia?

So the bureaucrats that administered Nunn-Lugar, historically have acted like farmers who fell off a dozen turnip trucks before they got to the negotiating table. Obama fell off and got run over by the wheels.

But one thing I tried to get the Clinton Administration to do on Nunn-Lugar was to actually have American site managers at these sites to ensure that the waste and fraud was not taking place and that we were accomplishing real things. They always resisted that. So the American oversight of Russian weapons destruction has basically consisted of fly-ins, where small teams of Americans would fly in for a couple of days, get briefed by the bemused Russians, then get back in their chairs on the plane and promptly doze off for their trip back to the United States.

There’s never been substantial oversight on any of these Nunn-Lugar programs. And with these Obama negotiated draw downs, there will be requests now from the Russians to the United States to pay for any dismantlement to take place. So Obama will create another jobs program for the Russians. And the message from the Russians will be: ‘Gee, if you don’ pay for this dismantlement we’re going to have a lot of security problems with our weapons, and you don’t want that now do you Americans?’

They sucked in billions of US taxpayers’ dollars under Nunn-Lugar, and most of it wasted.

AJM: Speaking of Nunn-Lugar, he’s always touted in the main stream media as being some kind of great foreign policy guru…

DH: Nunn-Lugar is two people. (laughs) It’s not one. There is nobody named Nunn Lugar, but he would be a guru! (laughing)

AJM: No, no. Very funny. Dick Lugar. I’m talking about Lugar. Sam Nunn was a democrat, so we all expect this kind of stupidity from a democrat. But why is Lugar held up as some kind of foreign policy expert? Seems he’s on the wrong side of a lot of these issues.

DH: (Whoa whoa, I had one Duncan, did you see that?) Hold on here. My bobber just went down like a rock.

DH: Yeah, he is given lots of praise by the democrats, it seems. But I’m more interested in talking about things, not people. I’m sure Mr. Lugar means well, but you can’t have almost no verification that results in massive waste!

The other point is that US expenditures have kept the nuclear weapons teams, in many cases, together in Russia. Because American tax dollars have kept these laboratories open and kept people with weapons expertise collecting a paycheck, courtesy of Dick Lugar. And we’ve since had inklings of that, of diversions of that talent to such projects as the facilities that Russia has been constructing for the Iranians, for example.

So we’re maintaining the nuclear weapons base for the Russians and Nunn-Lugar is being counterproductive. Mr. Obama will likely make it even worse.

AJM: So it’s not just a jobs program, but a jobs program for weapons scientists?

Hold on one second here, I’ve got to get something untangled. (Here, take this, I’ll get this one out. Grampa’s got a big hook in, look, I got one bobbin! Hold on. Don’t reel yet, watch it. You leave that one out there. We’re gonna get a big fish on yours…)

AJM: Sure am. I’ll move on to the next question here. We found out this week also, in regards to ObamaCare, that if you do not follow the prescribed mandate that you go out and buy, that an individual has to go out and buy insurance, that the IRS is going to make sure that you do, or they will extract it from you one way or another – either withholding refunds or sending you a bill.

DH: I think that is why they are hiring the extra several thousands of workers, or they announced that they will. Have you heard that?

DH: So the IRS is going to be ObamaCare’s collection agency. Instead of a friendly doctor’s face, Americans are going to be confronted by the less than friendly face of the Internal Revenue Service. I think that is somewhat foreboding.

You know, behind every leftwing, ‘friendly’ democrat program, there is a hard nosed enforcer.

AJM: (laughs) And if you don’t cough up the money, if you don’t pay the bill, I wonder what happens after that, Hmmm?

AJM: And I imagine they’ll garnish your wages. It’s something that will be overturned, I pray. In the meantime, are you aware, I believe it is up to 19 states now, 19 states attorneys general or governors that have joined a lawsuit to argue that ObamaCare is unconstitutional. What do you think of that?

DH: Well, I haven’t read all the particulars, but in part it seems unconstitutional on its face, and other parts maybe not. They’ll probably try to force it on the states as part of the commerce clause of the constitution.

AJM: Yeah, I think that’s what they are arguing, that the commerce clause does not allow the federal government to tell people the have to buy something.

DH: Well, if you’re a constitutional conservative and you believe in the proposition of decentralized government, and residual power going to the states, then you’d probably instinctively oppose ObamaCare on constitutional grounds. On the other hand, there are a number of instances where the commerce clause has been considered pre-emptive in those cases, unfortunately.

AJM: Yeah, I think the commerce clause is one of the most abused parts of the constitution in allowing what you and I believe is over reach, not just on ObamaCare but over the years, I think.

DH: Absolutely. On the other hand, some of the states have managed to grab their share of power. (Give me a worm). Jim, you still there?

DH: One reason you have mandates such as alcoholism treatment, fertility treatment, and these other mandates that by the force of law have to be included in any insurance policy sold in some states, that’s the function of an over-bearing and well contributed to State government. Where these industry lobbyists such as the fertility people in Massachusetts, the chiropractors almost everywhere, and institutions for alcoholism rehab, and mental health folks go to all the right fundraisers and they get their programs mandated by the state legislators for any insurance policy sold within that state’s borders.

That means that people who don’t drink are forced to purchase alcoholism treatment coverage, people who are 90 years old, in Massachusetts for example, are forced to purchase coverage for fertility treatment. While we can appreciate Governor Romney’s optimism, 90 year olds may not need it, or want it!!

See, the states do that. You have the heavy hand of government being exercised at two levels; the states and the feds.

DH: So just be wary of the states that claim they want to “free the people”. They want to free them about as far as the next cocktail party that their state assemblymen and state senators hold where they invite these peripheral medical treatment industries into a mandated position with respect to their insurance programs.

AJM: Yeah, yeah. I think this alludes to one of the most effective things that you recommended that we do for healthcare, and that is to get rid of these agreements, what do you call that, not monopolies but…

AJM: Yeah, what is that called, when they have an agreement to allow 2 or 3 companies to operate in a particular state? It’s kind of like baseball with their non-compete clause.

DH: The franchise agreements. You see, that’s the place where the federal government could actually be helpful, using the commerce clause. Just as you have a right to buy shoes or clothes or cars, or car insurance, over the state line, you ought to be allowed to buy an insurance policy over state lines.

AJM: Absolutely. That would do more, that would do a ton to reduce the cost of health insurance in this country.

DH: Yeah, at one time, Massachusetts had the same policy, according to one study, for $750 that could be purchased for about $170 in Missouri. But it was against the law for a Massachusetts citizen to purchase the Missouri policy.

So you’ve got government at all levels reaching in to grab a part of the healthcare pie and insert their economic interests between doctors and patients. That’s one reason health care costs keep going up.

The government has become a huge middleman. A very well paid middleman. And the difference between the government as a middleman and these other industries, such as the trial lawyers, is only the government can use the IRS to enforce its will!

AJM: Yeah, yeah, they can compel it. Something interesting about California I read the other day, just as an aside, is that your state, for the state emplyees’ pension fund, is underfunded by $500 billion?

DH: No, I didn’t realize it was quite that high. I knew it was bad, but not that high.

AJM: I mean, how can they ever recoup that money for all these soon to retire people? $500 billion?

DH: Yeah. It’s going to be a long haul, especially since California, by being unfriendly to business is chasing all the wagon pullers out of the state, and we are going to end up being a state which is primarily or largely populated by what Phil Graham called ‘wagon riders’. That is, people that aren’t interested in pulling the economic wagon but they like to ride in it and receive the benefits.

But by having 50 states, at least you do have competition between state governments. Conservatives in state governments are able to point to other states which are more friendly to business and hopefully bring them back to a line that is consistent with economic freedom.

San Diego county, or the City of San Diego essentially worked a series of transactions with the pension funds, with the government pension fund people in San Diego where it was extremely profitable to retire as a city employee. And it has bankrupted San Diego, which as you know has a very large and strong tax base.

DH: So San Diego now is in terrible shape. State government, all government is an extension of human nature. That is to get more, to have more, to control more. And left unchecked…

(Whoa, look at it Duncan. Get it! Get it! He got it. Did you see it, he took it all the way down! See that? Okay, watch. We had a good fish on there. Duncan, that was a monster!)

So left unchecked, government at all levels will suffocate the people. One illustration of heavy handed government is these ‘neighborhood associations’, the leadership of which is usually taken over by very active, aggressive people who no longer work and have lots of time on their hands. So you end up with rules that you have to paint your house a certain color or you get fined, you’ve got to trim your posies to a certain length or you get fined, and God help anybody who wants to make an addition like a deck or an additional fence or any architectural change to their house. They’ll think they’re in Stalingrad by the time they get finished.

DH: The point is that government at all levels is like this. People that insert themselves into government end up extending their own proclivities for control and regulation to their fellow man.

That was one reason why Ronald Reagan was so great. Ronald Reagan wasn’t taken the idea, he had no appetite for controlling people. I thought one of the great examples of that was – I think it was in Don Regan’s book – where he told the story of how he, Don, magnificently chewed out the air conditioning people in the Whitehouse when it was too cold one day. The heating wasn’t working. He said he walked in and there was the President of the United States wearing a sweater, saying “it’s OK Don, I’ll put on a sweater”. Don Regan, by gosh, was going to have their heads. Regan thought that was an example of Reagan’s ineptness and his need for Regan. And actually, it was an example of his great character. He didn’t have a burning desire to browbeat and regulate people. He wasn’t like Jimmy Carter who wanted to make sure he laid down the schedule for the Whitehouse tennis court. He didn’t want to control people like that.

AJM: (laughs) Good story. I’ve been following politics very closely since Reagan. His second term was my very first vote. I’ve been following politics since then very closely, as you probably can tell, and I think right now, with the tea parties, and some of the more conservative members of the GOP, including yourself I must say, speaking up and asserting themselves, I feel that we are going to move the ball on this whole nanny state mentality this coming election. Do you feel that optimism?

DH: Yeah, I do. I think this is a year with enormous potential for our constitution. But it is only going to translate into a changed Congress with lots of hard work. You’ve got a party in power, the Democrat Party, which is very adept at figuring out which way the parade is going and trying to insert themselves into part of the parade, and finessing their way through tough elections.

AJM: Not yet, I only sent him a check. But what I’d like to do is interview him and put it up on the blogs and at Free Republic, like we did for old Gunny Pop.

AJM: I’ll try. I’ll try to get a hold of him. But he never had a phone number on his campaign website. At least he didn’t a couple of months ago.

DH: Well just call up Vaughn Ward for Congress in Boise. They’ve got to be listed. Or just call up the republican Party of Idaho and get his number.

DH: I like you high tech guys. (laughs) It’s called punching a phone number in. You make your fingers work about 18 times. 208-555-1212, that’s information for Boise. Ask for the Republican Party, High-techie, they’ll give you a number. Call ‘em up and ask them for Vaughn Ward’s number.

AJM: (laughs) I’ll take that under advisement and probably do just that. We’ll get him hooked up for an interview soon and help spread the word.

AJM: He came across really well. I tell you, you pick ‘em good. He sounds like a very solid conservative.

AJM: I’ll let you go here, but I want to get in one more quick question. That is Obama’s announcement the other day that he’s opening up parts of the Virginia Coast, parts of the eastern seaboard, and parts of the gulf to offshore drilling, while simulataneously closing everything else to offshore drilling. And I’ve got a quote from Mike Pence that said, I’m paraphrasing: “Only in DC, when you ban more area than you open up for oil and gas, and delay the leases of the existing contracts, do you call that an improvement”.

I don’t know exactly what Obama’s game plan is, but he’s doing the opposite of what he says he’s doing, he’s actually closing more area than opening up.

DH: I would think with the huge liberal constituency that he is counting on this next election, I’d be very surprised if he really opened what I would call ‘net acreage’; increased acreage when you subtract the closed portion from the open portion.

If you want a more informed answer to that question you’ll have to get the take of the people who actually drill for oil and natural gas and find out if the areas he’s opened actually have any potential. You can open an area that has been proven to have no resources. And Obama can point to a large acreage. But if the acreage is not acreage that harbors oil and gas, then it’s all a charade.

I haven’t had the chance yet to look at the acreage being opened and I haven’t seen an analysis by anybody in the oil and gas industry.

But I think this. In their heart of hearts, a lot of the Nancy Pelosi people, and that means a lot of the Obama people, actually want to see $5 a gallon gasoline. They think that petroleum is evil! And we are never going to get to using their favored means of energy, these so called green energies, unless you essentially render the price of gasoline to the point where the average guy can’t afford to power his vehicle. I think a lot of those people, a lot of the extreme liberals like Obama, see any attempt to increase production of oil and gas in America putting off their day of reckoning when their favorite, mythical sources of energy will be utilized.

AJM: I agree. But they pretend that they are interested in weaning us off of Arab oil, but they do literally nothing to make that come about. And that was something you’ve been a proponent of – let’s drill baby drill – and get our domestic supply secure. So I think there are national security implications that the democrats are impeding, despite the rhetoric.

DH: Yeah. Obviously, energy has always had national security implications. The communist Chinese understand that. They are doing everything they can to lock up energy supplies all over the world, even in our own back yard. Meanwhile, Obama and Pelosi are catering to old hippies.

AJM: So it appears. Now your book? You told me some months ago you were writing a book, or a series of proposals to become a book. What’s become of that?

DH: Well it’s coming along pretty good. Except for being interrupted, I’m working on it quite a bit.

DH: (laughs) I’m about done with one. (inaudible) I’ve got one about finished.

Well listen, we are going to have to move our fishing spot. For some reason the fish haven’t been as receptive here as I thought they would be.

DH: We’re fishing like Jimmy Carter. I just got a hook with a little note on it that says “Trust me”.

DH: I know it! We’re gonna be quiet now. But listen, thanks for calling. I appreciate it.