Appeasement: From ObamaCare to recess appointments, honoring the Constitution has not been an administration hallmark. But when it comes to betraying secrets to mollify the Russians, it becomes a document the president hides behind.
It was bad enough that the 2012 defense authorization bill signed by President Obama set America on a downward spiral of military mediocrity.
He also issued a signing statement, something he once opposed, saying that language in the bill aimed at protecting top-secret technical data on the U.S. Standard Missile-3 - linchpin of our missile defense - might impinge on his constitutional foreign-policy authority.
Section 1227 of the defense law prohibits spending any funds that would be used to give Russian officials access to sensitive missile-defense technology as part of a cooperation agreement without first sending Congress a report identifying the specific secrets, how they'd be used and steps to protect the data from compromise.
The president is required to certify that any technology shared will not be passed on to third parties such as China, North Korea or Iran, that the Russians will not use transferred secrets to develop countermeasures and that the Russians are reciprocating in sharing missile-defense technology. ..."
"In his signing statement, Obama said he would treat these legal restrictions as 'non-binding' and that 'my administration will also interpret and implement section 1244 (sic) in a manner that does not interfere with the president's constitutional authority to conduct foreign affairs and avoids the undue disclosure of sensitive diplomatic communications.'
Betraying our secrets is easy for a president who betrayed allies Poland and the Czech Republic to placate Moscow.
Poland was to host ground-based interceptors such as those we've deployed in California and Alaska, with missile-tracking radar deployed in the Czech Republic.
Obama pulled the plug when Moscow objected. Never mind, he said, we have a better approach: a four-phase plan that calls for using three versions of the Navy's Standard SM-3 interceptor missile that forms the backbone of its Aegis missile-defense system.
The fourth phase consists of a missile still on the drawing board scheduled for deployment by 2020, a version of the SM-3 called the Block IIB. It would intercept hostile missiles in the "early intercept" phase before an enemy missile could release its warheads and decoys. The Russians want the SM-3's secrets, and Obama appears to be willing to turn them over.
The president wants to save the New Start Treaty, which the Russians have threatened to abandon if we try to fully implement President Reagan's dream of defeating a nuclear missile attack.
Russia has unilaterally asserted that any qualitative or quantitative improvement in U.S. missile defenses would be grounds for withdrawal from the treaty.
Read More At Investor's Business Daily:
http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials/010912-597158-obama-gives-russia-missile-defense-secrets.htm#ixzz3jXmMbVwY
"If we want to actually dismantle ISIS, we need to dramatically change course. We need a real, robust campaign that maximizes our overwhelming air advantage.
We need to focus our efforts not on trying to create friends, but on supporting our real ones, especially the Kurds in Iraq and Syria who have actually had success against ISIS."
-snip-
"We can redouble our efforts to develop the defensive weapons that neutralized the offensive Soviet threat -- particularly missile defense, which has seen a 25% budget reduction under Obama, according to an analysis from the conservative Heritage Foundation, and has been constrained by bad arms deals like New START.
We should not only move quickly to install the canceled interceptor sites Putin opposed in Poland and the Czech Republic, but also to develop the next generation of systems that will only increase his discomfiture.
These options do not entail a ground war in Syria, yet would effectively shake us free from the failed policies that have brought us to our current impasse.
These options set us on a new path that puts Putin on notice that the United States is reclaiming our traditional role as leader of the free world."
http://www.cnn.com/2015/10/09/opinions/cruz-syria-putin/index.html
**********************************************************
"I think it would be a mistake to get involved in the Syrian civil war. There have been voices in Washington eager for us to send our sons and daughters over to fight that civil war for some time. I haven't been one of them. I think the touchstone of U.S. military policy should be protecting the national security of this country."
"What we're seeing Putin in Russia do is a direct response to the profound weakness of Obama over six and a half years.
Putin views Obama as weak, as ineffective, and frankly, as a laughingstock. And, as a result, he is moving in, he is invading his neighbors, like Ukraine, he's kidnapping Estonians, and he's moving into Syria to gain a stronger foothold in the Middle East."
**********************************************************
Ted Cruz:
"We need a coherent plan to address both the specific crisis in Syria and the challenge posed more broadly by Putin's resurgent Russia.
The good news is that America still has options, if our leaders can summon the will to exercise them.
For starters, in Syria we can't double down on the failed strategies that have given Putin his opportunity to intervene.
We are now two years out from President Obama's proposed intervention after al-Assad used chemical weapons against his own people. ..."
http://www.cnn.com/2015/10/09/opinions/cruz-syria-putin/index.html