Free Republic

How an Americanist devoted to destroying international alliances became the US envoy to the UNIn the heat of the battle over the Florida vote after the 2000 US presidential election, a burly, mustachioed man burst into the room where the ballots for Miami-Dade County were being tabulated, like John Wayne barging into a saloon for a shoot-out. "I'm with the Bush-Cheney team, and I'm here to stop the count," drawled John Bolton. And those ballots from Miami-Dade were not counted.Now that same John Bolton has been named by President Bush as the US ambassador to the UN. "If I were...

On March 23, 1983, President Ronald Reagan delivered a speech that horrified the liberal establishment of the time: his call for a Strategic Defense Initiative. Ronald Reagan was not your typical politician. The only president born and raised in Illinois (yes, Lincoln, Grant, and Obama moved to Illinois as adults, but only Ronald Reagan grew up there), he came to politics with a heartland sensibility: do what makes sense, do what’s right; don’t worry about what the elites from the Ivy League or Foggy Bottom insist upon. Reagan came to party activism late in life, running for public office for...

...The Bush administration filed its answer two Septembers ago with the National Security Strategy, a 31-page document whose most famous word was "preemption." It said, "In an age where the enemies of civilization openly and actively seek the world's most destructive technologies, the United States cannot remain idle while dangers gather." Preemption now is wholly associated with the Iraq war. But whether to act preemptively again -- or not -- is almost certain to re-emerge over the next four years with another country that we know but cannot verify is building a nuclear weapon. Just this week in an interview...

Henry Kissinger's quick trip across the news headlines as chairman of the new commission to investigate the September 11 attacks was curious. I wish the nosy media, which love to indulge in the sport of "gotcha," would apply their investigative talents to ferreting out the details behind both his appointment and his speedy resignation. After the Senate Ethics Committee issued its legal opinion that Kissinger must comply with congressional financial disclosure requirements, Kissinger quickly resigned. Apparently he had accepted the appointment believing he could ignore the rules that apply to other government appointees. Kissinger's plan to reveal his list of...

Ashamed of the Red, White & Blue Award First Place Phil Donahue: “Let me tell you what is impressive. You’re not wearing a flag. Well, I don’t want to damn you with my praise, but I say hip-hip-hooray for that, and I think you gave the right answer when you spoke at Northwestern University....” Tom Brokaw: “Right. I said, you know, I wear a flag in my heart, but I think if you wear a flag, it’s a suggestion somehow that you’re endorsing what the administration is doing at the time. And I don’t think journalists ought to be wearing...

Do you remember when Ottawa and Europe were warning of the parade of horribles that would follow if the United States scuttled the obsolete 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty? At the time, back in pre-9/11 days, missile opponents pointed to various heavyweights -- Russia, China, Japan -- that were anxious about the U.S. plan. The belief was that an ambitious anti-missile scheme would jump-start a new arms race, and thus destabilize the planet. But when the Americans did withdraw from the ABM, nothing happened. Russian President Vladimir Putin, who'd been looking for a way to trim his military budget, was more...

JEANNE SHAHEEN filled out a questionnaire last November for the anti-nuke Council for a Livable World. In it, she said she opposed a unilateral American withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty with the former Soviet Union. In Monday night’s debate with opponent John Sununu, she changed her tune, saying she supported President Bush’s withdrawal from the treaty. Too bad for the Council for a Livable World, which has raised $65,000 for Shaheen. The group’s Web site lists her as “a supporter of arms control” and says “She disagrees with President Bush’s mid-December decision to withdraw from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile...

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Justice Department asked a federal court Tuesday to dismiss a lawsuit filed by 31 House members challenging President Bush's authority to withdraw the United States from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. The United States officially left the treaty in June, six months after Bush announced his intentions to do so. The plaintiffs are all Democrats, except for one independent who usually votes with Democrats. Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, the lead plaintiff, has said the president must first seek the consent of Congress before pulling the United States from the treaty. In a court document seeking dismissal...

U.S. National Security No Longer the SALT of the Earth By The Globalist On June 13th, 2002, the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty between the United States and the former Soviet Union expired. Six months before, on December 13th, 2001, President Bush gave the required notice of the unilateral withdrawal by the United States from the treaty. On June 14th, 2002, Russia pulled out of the 1993 START II nuclear arms treaty. But arms treaties are not the only relics of the old superpower relationship that have disappeared. As Eastern European editor Alexei Bayer writes, superpower summits that gave rise...

The Claremont Institute This is the print version of http://www.claremont.org/writings/precepts/20020615kennedy.html. The ABM Treaty Is Gone, What Now? By Brian T. Kennedy Posted June 15, 2002 Six months ago President Bush announced that the United States would withdraw, as was our right, from the Anti Ballistic Missile Treaty of 1972. The ABM Treaty, signed between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R., prevented the construction and deployment of a national missile defense. President Bush believes, rightly, that it is in the supreme interest of the United States that one be built as soon as possible. On Thursday, at midnight, the six months was...

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, long the centerpiece of nuclear equilibrium between the United States and the Soviet Union and a strong deterrent to other nations with nuclear aspirations, is officially being put to rest. Barring last-minute court intervention, the 1972 treaty expires Thursday, six months after President Bush invoked a provision allowing either side to withdraw upon such notice. It is 30 years and one month old. Not gravediggers' shovels, but those of construction workers and Pentagon officials will mark the passing of the treaty at a ceremony Saturday in Delta Junction, Alaska, breaking ground on a...

WASHINGTON (AP) - Thirty-one House members filed suit against President Bush Tuesday in an effort to block the president from withdrawing from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. The United States officially leaves the treaty on Thursday, six months after Bush announced his intentions to do so. The Pentagon plans an earth-breaking ceremony on Saturday at Fort Greely, Alaska, to begin construction on the first portion of a new missile interceptor system. Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, the lead plaintiff, said the president does not have the authority to unilaterally withdraw from a treaty and should first seek the consent of Congress....

Wash Compost has to be linked. It's an article admitting through gritted teeth that Bush was right and the Democrats and European politicans were nothing but sky-is-falling chicken littles. It's above or this one The most ludicrous quote is this one the writer chose to use about Bush: "We were worried a year ago that Bush's position would create a terrible confrontation," a senior German diplomat said. "Maybe we underestimated Putin's creativeness and farsightedness." The article says the Bush dministration compiled as list of quotes, "Quotes of Criticism on ABM Withdraw and National Missile Defense," and quotes a few by...

US and Russian arms control negotiators have reportedly reached an agreement on the terms for a new treaty between the US and Russia, reducing the size of the US arsenal to between 1700-2200 nuclear warheads each, and President Bush has announced that he plans to sign the measure at the Bush-Putin summit in Moscow on May 24th. The Russians sought a binding agreement in order to render the planned US nuclear disarmament measures "irreversible," while Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld worked to retain provisions in the treaty which would leave the US the option to rearm itself in the event...

If we are to believe the Moscow media, during February and the first half of March 2002, relations between the United States and Russia changed – and changed greatly – from bad to worse. The most recent issues of the leading Moscow newspapers and magazines are oversaturated with anti-American sentiments. For example, the weekly Moscow News (usually a very liberal, "pro-American and pro-democratic" magazine for intellectuals) published an article in its March 12-18 issue called "Let's put the Bush gang on trial! It is fashionable, among Russian politicians, to be anti-Western this season." The article quoted such Russian politicians as...