Columnist.
WASHINGTON -- According to press reports from sycophants in the mainstream media, Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin had a productive, 2-hour, private meeting of the minds during this week's G-20 summit in Los Cabos, Mexico. Don't believe it. The Obama-Putin meeting did indeed last two hours. And when it was over, the two leaders actually stood on the same platform where they read from prepared statements -- and parted with the obligatory handshake after just 11 minutes -- without taking questions from reporters. It's the shortest U.S.-Russian bilateral press availability since Mikhail Gorbachev walked out on Ronald Reagan in Reykjavik, Iceland, in 1986. Putin took three minutes to tell the assembled Fourth Estate that they had discussed "security," "economic relations" and "the Syrian affair." He also expressed thanks for the "support rendered to Russia with our accession to the World Trade Organization" and his hope this will somehow "promote the creation of jobs in both countries." He made no mention of Iranian aspirations to acquire nuclear weapons or Russian threats to veto United Nations sanctions against Iran and Syria.
WASHINGTON -- Senior members of Congress -- both Republicans and Democrats -- are reacting with shock and awe at the tsunami of national security leaks emanating from the Obama administration. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, told Greta Van Susteren on Fox News Channel that the unauthorized disclosures of classified information are "the most egregious breach of national security" he ever has seen. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., chairwoman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, told reporters this week, "The accelerating pace of such disclosures, the sensitivity of the matters in question and the harm caused to our national security interests is alarming and unacceptable." McCain and Feinstein -- and others in both parties expressing dismay at the disclosures -- shouldn't be surprised. The officials in the Obama administration who tell reporters classified details about SEAL team raids, Stuxnet, "kill lists" for targeted attacks on high-value targets and ongoing covert operations in foreign countries are doing exactly what the commander in chief wants. He told us so on the day of his inauguration.
MANAGUA, Nicaragua -- The classical definition of a hero is a person who puts himself at risk for the benefit of others. That certainly describes Adolfo Calero, who died June 2 at the age of 80. The obituaries of this remarkable man hardly do justice to his courage, perseverance, faithfulness and humility. Here is the Adolfo Calero I knew, admired and called a friend for nearly three decades: A graduate of Holy Cross High School in New Orleans and the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Ind., he was a devout Roman Catholic and educated to be a businessman, not a soldier. But after he was jailed twice by the Somoza regime and then by the Marxist Sandinistas, who overthrew the Nicaraguan dictator in 1979, Calero quietly joined the armed resistance in an effort to liberate his country. Threatened with arrest for anti-regime activities in 1982, he and his family escaped and watched from exile as the Sandinistas seized their property. The following year, he was chosen by his countrymen to lead the Nicaraguan Democratic Force, or FDN. By 1984, it had become the largest insurgent army ever fielded in the Western Hemisphere -- more than 20,000 freedom fighters under arms.
WASHINGTON -- The once highly touted Arab Spring has become the Arab Summer -- scorching hot, unbearably dry and very brutal and bloody. Last weekend, as Americans prepared to celebrate Memorial Day and commemorated the 50th Anniversary of the Vietnam War, Bashar Assad unleashed tanks, artillery and his Quds force-trained shabiha militia to kill more than 100 Syrian civilians -- most of them women and children. Though the atrocities and carnage in Syria continue, little but bluff and bluster is produced by the United Nations and the Obama administration.
WASHINGTON -- As a crowd of high-school students offloaded from the tour bus for a visit to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial aka "The Wall," he yelled, "There are no good wars!" Hemmed in on the crowded sidewalk, I tried to ignore his rant and noted the bus had a Pennsylvania license. The shouter was far too young to have fought in Vietnam, and he was wearing a dirty T-shirt, ragged jeans -- and Gucci loafers. He held a sheet of cardboard, hand-inscribed with the words "I'm the 99 percent" on one side and "Help me, I'm Homeless" on the other. While threading my way through the throng, I heard one of the clean-cut kids from the bus say, "If he's a Vietnam War veteran, shouldn't we help him?"
WASHINGTON -- Forty-three years ago this week, the fabled 101st Airborne Division launched Operation Apache Snow -- a major ground offensive against North Vietnamese army invaders in the treacherous A Shau Valley. Though fighting raged over hundreds of square miles of triple-canopied jungle, the focus soon became a single terrain feature, a mountain, with peaks as high as 3,000 feet, the Vietnamese named Dong Ap Bia, or "Mountain of the Crouching Beast." The Americans who fought there called it Hamburger Hill.
WASHINGTON -- Last week, this column described a deadly suicide attack by the Haqqani network on a secure compound outside Kabul, Afghanistan, and the failure of NATO officials to heed human intelligence that might have saved lives. I wrote, "The intel provided included information on how to precisely locate the terrorists. When I asked why the attack wasn't prevented, I was told: 'It was HUMINT. Nobody pays attention to HUMINT.'" Shortly after the column appeared, a senior U.S. intelligence officer -- and a friend -- admonished me, "It's not just HUMINT." He described the problem as "institutional arrogance" and a failure to give credence "to information from outside the system."
WASHINGTON -- My old American Heritage Dictionary defines the word "theater," inter alia, as "a large geographic area in which military operations are coordinated." Throughout World War II, official dispatches and press reports described military action and events in the European, Pacific and China-Burma-India "theaters of war." We now have a new definition, courtesy of our present commander in chief: a place to remind everyone that Osama bin Laden is still dead. On the anniversary of bin Laden's demise at the hands of U.S. special operators, the Barack Obama re-election campaign made a "surprise" middle-of-the-night visit to Kabul, Afghanistan. According to White House talking points, the purpose of the trip was twofold: "thank the troops" and sign a "historic" strategic partnership agreement with Afghanistan's erratic president, Hamid Karzai. It was brilliant political theater in a theater of war.
GEORGETOWN, S.C. -- Sixty-seven years ago this week, U.S. and Allied forces were racing across Germany and uncovering the deepest horrors of Adolf Hitler's Third Reich. Liberated death camps and extermination centers where millions perished were evidence of a brutal Holocaust perpetrated in the Führer's "Final Solution." On April 28, 1945, Hitler's erstwhile ally, Benito Mussolini, was captured by Italian partisans and summarily executed as he tried to flee to Switzerland. Less than 48 hours later, Hitler, cowering in his bunker beneath Berlin, committed suicide. Eight days after that, Germany surrendered -- ending the bloodiest war in European history. By the second week of May, with combat still raging in the Pacific, tens of thousands of American troops were en route home from Europe for victory parades.
WASHINGTON -- My dear friend and fellow Marine Joe Foss -- a Medal of Honor recipient -- would ask me occasionally, "What were you thinking?" The question usually was prompted by my missed shot on a hunt or when he heard me make a confusing comment on radio or television. Given the recent revelations of bad behavior, incompetence, corruption, waste and fraud -- and a deluge of mystifying and misleading explanations -- the potentates of the press are asking the wrong questions. The American people need to ask our nation's leaders and the masters of the so-called mainstream media, "What were you thinking?" A few recent examples:
WASHINGTON -- Nine years ago this week, our Fox News team accompanied U.S. Marines as they swept into Baghdad and then north up the Tigris River to seize Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit. It took less than three weeks to drive the tyrant from power in Operation Iraqi Freedom, and it appeared then that the force of American arms could ensure a new era of tranquility in a part of the world where brutality and anti-American despots had ruled for too long. But it was not so.
WASHINGTON -- Passover and Easter -- intrinsically linked in the Jewish and Christian traditions -- are being celebrated this weekend. For observant Jews, Passover commemorates the Hebrews' liberation from slavery under Egypt's Pharaoh. For faithful Christians, Easter is a celebration of Jesus' resurrection from the grave and the fulfillment of a new covenant between God and man. Biblical passages in Exodus 12, Matthew 28, Mark 16, Luke 24 and John 20 describe these historical events and the reasons for festivities among people of faith. But this year, these holidays are a time of extraordinary anxiety for Christians and Jews in the Middle East.
WASHINGTON -- In the summer of 1987, just before my "television debut," a true friend instructed me in a congressional hearing, "Remember, the microphone is always on -- even when it's not!" It's a lesson I never have forgotten. Apparently, Barack Obama doesn't have any friends to give him similar advice, or he doesn't learn well. Either way, an open mic during this week's nuclear security summit in Seoul, South Korea, has revealed our president's extraordinary hubris and his penchant for dangerous diplomatic duplicity.
WASHINGTON -- Nine years ago this week, President George W. Bush ordered more than 250,000 troops in a U.S.-led coalition to cross the "berm" on the border of Kuwait and head into Iraq. Weeks later, Saddam Hussein's brutal regime was finished, and the despot was in hiding. It was a stunning victory for the force of American arms and leadership. Though it took until Dec. 13 to find the former dictator hiding in a "spider hole" near his hometown of Tikrit, Saddam eventually was tried by his own people, convicted, inter alia, of crimes against humanity and executed by hanging Dec. 30, 2006. But Saddam's demise and the installation of a democratically elected government didn't quell the vicious insurgency that began shortly after the liberation of Baghdad.
WASHINGTON -- Four years ago, when then-Sen. Barack Obama was campaigning for president, he said of Afghanistan: This is "a war that we have to win." He also claimed, "The Afghan people must know that our commitment to their future is enduring because the security of Afghanistan and the United States is shared." But after three years of Obama's being commander in chief, it ought to be clear that he never really believed his own campaign rhetoric. Now, in the aftermath of recent setbacks, his words are further evidence of presidential ambivalence and uncertainty. None of this bodes well for those who hope for a positive outcome in the shadows of the Hindu Kush.
WASHINGTON -- One year ago this week, I wrote a column titled "Crude Cruelty," which covered a jump in the cost of motor fuel and a corresponding spike in prices for food and rising unemployment. Government "experts" attributed the bad news to "supply disruptions" and "uncertainty" caused by unrest in Libya. Today Moammar Gadhafi is gone, but the average price for a gallon of gasoline in the United States is $3.79 -- up 27 cents from a year ago. Unsurprisingly, mortgage defaults are up 22 percent, and orders for durable goods -- cars, appliances, machinery and aircraft -- are down. Our anemic economic recovery is being threatened. Gasoline prices are expected to top $4 per gallon by this summer.
WASHINGTON -- On Feb. 20, a NATO-Afghan security team at the Parwan Detention Center -- adjacent to the U.S.-run Bagram Air Field, north of Kabul -- began destroying files, books and documents from the detention facility library. The printed material was being burned because it contained handwritten coded messages being passed among Taliban and al-Qaida detainees. Afghan security personnel retrieved charred pages from several copies of the Quran and other Islamic holy texts. The following day, angry crowds rioted outside NATO installations in Kabul and elsewhere around Afghanistan.
MOGADISHU, Somalia -- There are few success stories here in this tortured country on the eastern coast of Africa. For nearly two decades, this drought-ravaged land and the long-suffering Somali people have been "off the radar" for most Americans. It might still be so if it were not for radical Islamist Somali terrorists -- al-Shabab -- and their financiers, the seagoing pirates who seize merchant vessels plying the Indian Ocean and the Gulf of Aden. All of that is about to change.
WASHINGTON -- Twenty-three years ago this week, Iran's self-appointed supreme leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, broadcast a religious edict declaring that author Salman Rushdie and his publishers were "hereby sentenced to death." The fatwa also called for "all the intrepid Muslims in the world" to "execute them quickly, wherever they find them." The U.S. State Department acknowledged the proclamation and issued a statement "condemning this threat in the strongest possible terms." Rushdie, then living in London, did the sensible thing; he went into hiding and rarely has been seen in public since.
WASHINGTON -- "We don't need you, so shut up!" That's the message the Obama administration has sent loud and clear to America's Roman Catholics. And it's a message now being sent to U.S. military chaplains -- to the detriment of our armed forces. During World War II, the War Department and the Department of the Navy urged -- the operative word is "urged," not "ordered," mind you -- U.S. military chaplains to encourage soldiers, sailors, airmen, guardsmen and Marines that God was on our side in the global battle against fascists, Nazis and the godless heathens running rampant across Asia and the Pacific. The hymns "Onward, Christian Soldiers" and "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" were sung with fervor at chapel services regardless of denomination.
