On missile defense, Obama has a new view

PRAGUE | The Obama administration has begun to indicate that it’s willing to reconsider the Bush administration’s push to deploy a ballistic missile defense system in the Czech Republic and Poland — if Russia helps curb Iran’s push to develop nuclear weapons.

Echoing Vice President Joe Biden, who said the new administration wants to push a “reset button” on U.S.-Russia relations, Undersecretary of State William Burns told the Interfax news agency in Moscow that “the United States is quite open to the possibility of new forms of cooperation” with Moscow on missile defense, Iran and “the whole range of security issues with Russia.” His remarks are on the Interfax Web site.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is to meet her Russian counterpart, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, in Geneva, Switzerland next month, paving the way for the first meeting between President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev at the Group of Eight economic summit in London in early April.

The meetings come as concerns mount about Iran’s ballistic missile and nuclear enrichment programs, as Israeli hard-liners who consider Iran a threat gain ground and as Moscow grows more vocal about what it charges are U.S. encroachments on its spheres of influence in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. They also come, however, as falling oil prices and bad investments hammer the once high-flying Russian economy.

Treaties to approve the missile defense plans, which Russia opposes, were signed in 2008 in Prague and in Poland.

Poland would be home to a missile interceptor base, and the Czech radar installation would be built about 50 miles from Prague.

Echoing doubts about the system, however, Biden and Clinton both said that technological and economic factors also might affect construction of the bases.

Added to "The List"

A new week starts for the Obama administration and they have been on a roll. They have managed to go back on at least 7 campaign promises in the first month of office.

Week Four

Obama has begun to indicate that he's willing to reconsider the Bush administration’s push to deploy a ballistic missile defense system, contrary to his repeated campaign promises to the contrary.

Third week in office

Obama changes the setup of the National Security Councel by executive order
Shauna Daly, professional “dirt digger” hired as “White House councel research director”
White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel got free housing from House rep (D) Rosa DeLauro for 5 years . DeLauro is married to Stan Greenberg; a pollster (Quinlin Rosner Research) with lucrative contracts from both that representatives.
A Syrian paper reported that the Obama U.S. Dept. of Commerce agreed to sell plane parts to Syria
A lawyer for the Obama administration surprised a panel of federal appeals judges by making an argument to preserve state secrets in a trial regarding terrorism subjects. This argument was made, after repeatedly attacking the Bush administration for doing the same thing.
President Obama said Monday that "only government" can shake the country out of recession, as he tried to settle doubts about his administration's costly economic recovery package during a prime-time press conference.
Obama reverses Bush policy on 'warming' Federal agencies settle long-standing case in favor of environmentalists. The U.S. will now refuse to help finance development overseas if the environmental establishment claims that it would contribute to 'global warming
Deborah Burlingame, a 9/11 family member who lost her brother Chip during the 9/11 attacks, spoke to media at the National Press Club about her meeting with President Obama.
He said he was not at all worried about the security of the American people in bringing the detainees here. Not in the least worried about that. His reasoning was this: ‘ Al Qaeda doesn’t have conscience they’re not interested in going back and springing these guys. They’re forgotten once they are put away in our federal facilities. He said, furthermore there are so many soft targets in the United States, like a shopping mall, why would Al Qaeda go after a hard target like a federal lock up or military prison, when they could choose a soft target.’
Burlingame later added that Obama was “non-committal” about visiting Guantanamo Bay when she asked him
Interior Secretary Salazar Kills Bush Offshore drilling plan Saying “we need bring sanity back into our energy policy….
Obama gave two high level positions to former Citibank executives (Jacob J. Lew, and Michael Froman) who helped run Citibank into the ground and raises questions of conflict of interest .
Republicans are shut out of the Stimulus conference negotiations.
Republican Conference Chairman Mike Pence (R-Ind):“(the stimulus package…)is being crafted without a single House Republican in the room.”
Obama in 2007:End the Practice of Writing Legislation Behind Closed Doors: (from Obama’s website: http://change.gov/agenda/ethics_agenda/)
Defense lobbyist William Lynn approved as deputy defense secretary. Obama waives ethics regulations by putting the ex-defense lobbyist in charge of day-to-day operations at the Pentagon. Obama violates promise to keep lobbyists out of the federal government. On his first day in office, Obama issued an executive order forcing individuals to wait two years before they could be hired for the agencies they had lobbied, violating his own executive order less than three weeks in office.
Obama appoints Gil Kerlikowske to be the nation’s new drug czar. Kerlikowske has established himself as a devoted lobbyist for every restrictive gun law proposal.
Obama controls the press core at the White House: Chicago Sun Times Writer Carol Marin writes: “The press corps, most of us, don't even bother raising our hands any more to ask questions because Obama always has before him a list of correspondents who've been advised they will be called upon that day.”
Obama demonstrates dangerous ignorance of the Classified Information Procedures Act or CIPA by the president. This was witnessed by Debra Burlingame, sister sister of Charles Burlingame III, the pilot of American Airlines Flight 77 that was flown into the Pentagon on 9/11, at White House meeting of families of terrorism victims
President Obama today repeated the claim that Jim Owens, the CEO of Caterpillar, Inc., "said that if Congress passes our plan, this company will be able to rehire some of the folks who were just laid off." But after the president left the event, Owens said the exact opposite.
Defending the White House in the wake of Sen. Judd Gregg's withdrawal as Commerce Secretary, Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel said it is not "amateur hour"
Obama Now Believes Iran Is Nuke Threat. In 2007, Obama said the opposite, “"It is absolutely clear that this administration and President Bush continues to not let facts get in the way of his ideology."
"They need, now, to aggressively move on the diplomatic front."
"They should have stopped the saber rattling -- should never have started it," said Obama.
Obama interfering with Israeli Government Formation
The U.S. official position is that it looks forward to "working with any government," but in back-channel messages the Obama administration has made it clear it would like to see a unity government in Jerusalem over a narrow right-wing government which would in all likelihood result in a freeze in peace talks with the Palestinians.
Aides to Likud chairman Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed on Friday that Washington officials did indeed relay the message while associates of Kadima chief Tzipi Livni denied receiving such a message.

Obama brakes campaign promise to wait 5 days before signing any legislation on stimulus bill. Second time he broke this promise in his first month in office

(For the complete list, go to my profile at FR)

And .. has anybody realized yet that within this new “stimulus” there is NO MONEY FOR THE MILITARY ..??

You’d think .. with our nation being involved in TWO WARS .. supporting our troops would be a primary goal.

Besides .. upgrading military equipment; repairing military equipment; building new housing; repairing military bases; upgrading air support with new planes and all the equipment and materials to keep them in the air .. and think of all the training facilities which could benefit from upgrading.

THAT ALONE would have stimulated the economy. Throwing in the tax cuts for all those companies who make or repair any type of military equipment would have stimulated it even more.

But this administration doesn’t care if our forces have enough support or the right equipment .. all they care about is paying off their supporters: the unions and ultra left-wing groups like ACORN and MoveOn.org - all the groups who can and will intimidate people to vote for the dems.

America is in big trouble with this group of dem vultures at the helm.

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