August 11, 2015—Who Do You Trust?

“He was given a choice between war and dishonor. He chose dishonor and he will have war anyway.” ~Winston Churchill, referring to Neville Chamberlain’s attempt to appease Hitler

In a walk on the beautiful Seabrook Island beach near Charleston, SC and reflecting on several events of the past week or so, I remembered a late 1950s TV game show called “Who do you trust?” Click here to see its host, comedian Johnny Carson, perhaps unintendedly illustrating the problem of trust when demonstrating his inability to follow alleged simple directions in making an equally alleged delicious desert. (Other memorable videos are associated with this link.) Is this an omen?

Who do you trust on the Deal with Iran?

President Obama might take a lesson or two on the benefits of comedy when explaining his alleged “Deal that is better than no deal” with Iran. Consider lessons from a brief trip down memory lane—at least for me.

Johnny Carson gained national acclaim when he replaced Jack Parr who made the “Tonight Show” a late night staple during my graduate student and early professional years at the beginning of the “space age” and an associated arms race with the Soviet Union. The “Carson era” ended after 30-years, late in my tour as Director of the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI)—which as Britain’s Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher claimed helped President Ronald Reagan end the Cold War without firing a shot.

SDI also was of pivotal importance in President Reagan’s “Peace through Strength” agenda that gave us the first treaties ever actually to reduce nuclear arms. The Soviets violated most if not all the arms control agreements to which they were parties—as was made clear early in the Reagan administration by a comprehensive 1984 report by the Arms Control General Advisory Committee. We regularly pointed out these violations in my five years in Geneva as Reagan’s Negotiator in the Defense and Space Talks.

We also said “no” to Soviet conditions that were not consistent with our objectives, while pocketing their concessions. Witness the October 1986 Reykjavik Summit. We ultimately got what we wanted without compromising on Reagan’s SDI program.

The reverse seems to be the case in the Obama administration’s recent negotiations with Iran: the Iranians got their demands—especially relief on the sanctions that brought them to the negotiating table; and the American negotiators conceded its alleged demands—like “anytime anywhere” inspections to verify the terms of any agreement.

President Obama and his negotiators would do well to recall the facts from the Reagan era, and correct their misrepresentations in discussing with congress and others their bad “Deal” with Iran—not only in grossly misrepresenting the facts of the negotiation with Iran and its resulting agreement (that should actually be a treaty) now being reviewed by Congress, but also the comparisons with all previous negotiations—and perhaps most importantly the false claim that this “Deal” is in the U.S. national interest.

Such a sober critique would be relief from President Obama’s claims in defense of his arms control initiatives last week while mimicking John F. Kennedy’s 1963 American University speech. In particular was President Obama’s absurd and insulting claim that, by opposing the agreement, Republicans (and presumably some Democrats, including perhaps most significantly the likely next Democrat Leader in the Senate, Chuck Schumer (D-NY)), were allied with the Iranian crowds chanting “Death to America.”

These Iranians are, in fact, representing the views of the Iranian leaders with whom the Obama administration has been negotiating—without any apparent benefit to American national security.

In this regard, it is an irony that the Obama administration did nothing several years ago to support the elements of Iranian society that indeed sought to stand against the ruling Ayatollah, his mullahs and anointed government leaders who now stand with those chanting “death to America”—and who are the world’s greatest sponsors of terror, by the way.

The Iranian Mullahs got what they wanted; so, what did we get?

The answer has to be, not much if anything.

The President’s advertised “Deal” not only meets Iran’s demands; it actually permits a regression from Iran’s commitments under the Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which it has violated for years. It is indeed worse than “no deal” as argued by Peter Huessy in his August 8, 2015 Family Security Matters article, “Congress Chooses: The New Iran Nuclear Deal or the ‘Old’ NPT?”

This issue will be discussed throughout the August Congressional Recess as the vote counters will be tuned to the changing winds in the count for a needed two-thirds of the Congress in September to overturn the sure Presidential veto of the congressional rejection of the President’s vaunted “Deal.”

Let your voice be heard on who you believe your representatives should trust.

Who do you trust in this “Silly Season?”

The Tonight Show baton was passed in 1992 from Johnny Carson to Lay Leno, in 2009 to Conan Obrien and after a year back to Jay Leno, and recently to Jimmy Fallon. Other hosts of late night talk shows that sought to emulate the ”Tonight Show” format have also come and gone.

Meanwhile the quadrennial “silly season” associated with Presidential elections is again well under way. The comedy continues—and might be humorous were it not so like a tragedy in the making.

Now we have a Democrat front runner candidate (Hilary Clinton) who has obvious trouble telling the truth being so outflanked on the “Left” by avowed socialist Bernie Sanders (D-VT) that Vice President Joe Biden apparently is planning to enter the race. He is so well known for his numerous gaffs that they are written off by the liberal press and emulated by comedians—even Time Magazine provides their “Top Ten” listing. Former Democrat Senator from Virginia and Reagan Secretary of the Navy Jim Webb and Maryland’s Governor Martin O’Malley are also in the race—somewhere in the background.

Most interesting in this dynamic is trouble for the former Secretary of State being prepared by potential actions of Congress—perhaps most notably by Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) and his Select Committee on Benghazi as they probe “What did they know and when did they know it?” Click here for Family Security Matters’ publication of Judicial Watch’s current assessment of their progress in exposing these and other Clinton foibles that threaten not only her candidacy but also her criminal prosecution. Stay tuned.

And the 17 announced Republican candidates just completed their two-tiered first “debate” that provided an opportunity for the lesser-knowns to gain an audience and the better-knowns to screw-up. The “show” accomplished this objective, but provided little clarity on who will be the ultimate Republican candidate.

What can you say in ten minutes anyway?

I was listening for someone to say something about what he/she would do to counter the existential threat of an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) threat, especially associated with a ballistic missile attack from our undefended South—but heard nothing.

The closest anyone came was one candidate (Gov. Scott Walker as I recall) who mentioned he would restart the ballistic missile defense (BMD) sites in Romania and Poland—I wonder if he knows that the Romanian site pursued by the Obama administration will be operational this year and the Poland site is scheduled to be operational in 2018.

I think all predictably claimed Ronald Reagan’s mantel in one form or another—in promising to deal with the serious threats now confronting the United States. And in a number of other settings in my presence several have indicated they know of the EMP threat and would seek to counter it if elected.

Significant issues are sliding by most of the subsequent press commentary, which seems more focused on whether Fox News has become a creature of the “Left” in calling out “the Donald” on inconsequential issues to most voters … with little apparent effect on Trump’s following. But the debate apparently led to a significant reshuffling of others.

For example, Monday’s NBC poll shows that Donald Trump increased his lead by a point, Ted Cruz moved up by 7 percentage points to second place with Ben Carson moving up to third place. Carly Fiorina had the biggest improvement for the evening from the second tier to the first tier where she was tied in fourth place with Marco Rubio. Notably these candidates all moved ahead of previously second place Jeb Bush, the favorite of the Republican establishment—not so much for the mainstream voter. See further discussion by World Net Daily

Stay tuned for the next debate to be hosted by CNN in September.

In the meantime, we will urge all the contenders to look a little deeper into the existential EMP threat to all we hold dear. It’s worth a try, anyway.

Bottom Lines.

I urge you to consider carefully the critically important question, “Who do you trust?” As Grouch Marx used to say in his regular show, also in the late 1950s: ”You bet your life!”

But it’s no joke!

While allegedly seeking a decade free of Iranian nuclear weapons, our leaders are ignoring the near term existential threat from Iran (and North Korea) posed by nuclear weapons detonated in space over the United States. This threat already exists from North Korea—and may exist from Iran. The Deal with Iran will do little if anything to reduce that threat.

Still the Washington “powers that be” continue to ignore this existential threat reality. The American people need to inform themselves of these realities and demand that their current and future representative provide for the common defense as they are sworn to do.

The key question is, “Do we have the will and time to do so?”

Finally, my mother used to tell me: “If you’re looking for a helping hand—look there, it’s right on the end of your arm.” So, get involved ….

Near Term High Frontier Plans.

In addition to continuing to press for building the most cost-effective ballistic missile defenses possible, we will continue working with South Carolina folks to build a coalition to engage constructively with private citizens and their local and state representatives and other authorities to work with the SC National Guard in understanding and responding to the existential threats to the electric power grid.

What can you do?

Join us in praying for our nation, and for a rebirth of the freedom sought, achieved and passed to us by those who came before us.

Help us to spread our message to the grass roots and to encourage all “powers that be” to provide for the common defense as they are sworn to do.

Begin by passing this message to your friends and suggest they visit our webpage www.highfrontier.org, for more information. Also, please encourage your sphere of influence to sign up for our weekly e-newsletter.

Encourage them to review our past email messages, posted on www.highfrontier.org, to learn about many details related to the existential manmade and natural EMP threats and how we can protect America against them. I hope you will help us with our urgently needed efforts, which I will be discussing in future messages.

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