February 10, 2015 - No Existential Threat, Really?

“[W]hat’s missing here in Washington is a sense of perspective. Yes, there’s a lot going on. Still, while the dangers we face may be more numerous and varied, they are not of the existential nature we confronted during World War II or the Cold War.” ~ Ambassador Susan Rice, National Security Advisor

Remember our UN representative, Ambassador Susan Rice, who told all the major Sunday talk shows that an extemporaneous mob reaction to a video led to the September 11, 2012 attack on our consulate in Benghazi, killing our Ambassador to Libya and three other Americans?

Last week in a speech at the Brookings Institute—and now as the National Security Advisor, she unveiled President Obama’s new National Security Strategy, notably summarized as “Strategic Patience” while all is going along just fine.

Truth: We Have No Strategy—And Everyone Knows It!

Ambassador Rice’s presentation and the underlying so-called strategy are about as credible as her now debunked explanation of the cause of Benghazi. Hopefully, Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) and his House Select Committee on Benghazi will eventually get to the bottom of what actually happened, why the American people were lied to, and why the truth has been withheld for so long. But I digress.

That Ambassador Rice mischaracterized our current situation needs little elaboration from me. To get a taste of what is being said by even those who usually find excuses for the administration’s bumbling foreign policy, just read the February 5, 2015 scathing Washington Post editorial on its dealings with Iran.

This critique of our ill-guided policy to counter Iran’s succeeding quest for nuclear weapons echoed several very knowledgeable generals and former Secretaries of State who recently testified that we have no strategy for dealing with an overarching enemy that the President and his lieutenants refuse to identify.

In particular on February 8, Former DIA Director Lt. General (Retired) Michael Flynn described on Fox News Sunday the situation as being like a football team with no coach. It’s worth a minute and a half of your time to listen to him by clicking here—or better here for all of his very important views (15 or so minutes), including his cogent, sobering and I believe accurate description of the growing global threat (that our leaders refuse to identify) and his thoughtful discussion of what we need to do to counter it.

Iran’s Growing Threat, While Negotiators Kick the Can.

In my opinion, Iran, its surrogate terrorists, Shia allies and even Sunni adversaries are in fact—and contrary to Ambassador Rice’s assertion—an existential threat to America, indeed to all of Western Civilization . . . just as were our enemies during World War II and the Cold War. (By the way, some believe that our policies in dealing with Russia’s creeping invasion of Ukraine could indeed lead to another Cold War – potentially a Hot War.)

Consider that just last week, Iran launched successfully its fourth satellite, reportedly weighing 110 pounds, in an orbit tilted at 55.5-degrees with the equator and at an altitude varying between 139 and 285 miles above the earth. Last week’s launch occurred during national ceremonies marking the 36th anniversary of the 1979 Iranian Revolution, and employed a 72-foot-tall Safir rocket based on the Shahab 3 booster—Iran’s most advanced ballistic missile.

As I have previously written, Iranian satellites, successfully launched in 2009, 2011 and 2012, demonstrated Iran’s capability to launch satellites carrying up to 4400 pounds into orbits that approach the United States from the South at altitudes just right for bathing the entire nation in an electromagnetic pulse (EMP). Consequently, our electric power grid could collapse indefinitely, and within a year without electricity up to 90-percent of all Americans could perish from the consequent starvation, chaos, and societal collapse.

Isn’t this an existential threat???? You bet!

Today, we have little or no defense against this threat—and no apparent program to provide one.

Meanwhile, our diplomats are seeking an agreement with Iran that does little or nothing to prevent it from gaining a nuclear weapon as a satellite payload to send the “Great Satan” America back to the 18^th century without the agrarian society that then enabled a much smaller population to prosper. Most would perish today.

Meanwhile, the debate in Washington is focused on whether sanctions should or should not be used to strengthen the leverage of our negotiators—who as best as I can tell are only seeking to delay (by a few months) Iran in obtaining nuclear weapons.

It will be interesting, and no doubt sobering, to hear Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s views when he addresses a Joint Session of Congress in March. He is very concerned about Iran’s existential threat to the “Little Satan” Israel – we seem oblivious to Iran’s existential threat to the “Great Satan” America.

Clearly, a negotiated outcome that permits Iran to obtain so quickly nuclear weapons that can be deployed on existing and tested ballistic missile launchers is not in Israel’s interest—or ours.

Someone, please connect the dots!

Dr. Ashton Carter can bring fresh thinking about how to counter this existential threat as the new Secretary of Defense, if only he will—and if the White House will permit it. Hope springs eternal.

But Ash will be outflanked by too many who have shown little interest in identifying and addressing this existential threat—as so blatantly illustrated by Ambassador Rice’s vacuous comments at Brookings.

I don’t often agree with Les Gelb, President Emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations. However, a couple of weeks ago, he was right on in his Daily Beast article, “This Is Obama’s Last Foreign Policy Chance.” Notably, he named names of some Obama’s lieutenants who should move on—including Ambassador Rice and “foreign policy guru without portfolio” (Gelb’s label not mine) Valerie Jarret.

Hear, hear! President Obama needs to clean house.

And Congress should demand a proper response to the existential threat that is all too real. We may not have two years to wait for a new President to begin repairing the damage from our current policies.

Bottom Line.

Unless we prepare better than we have so far, existential threats such as those identified in our past messages—and reiterated above—will surely materialize. And time is running out!!!

In particular, a quick review of our past email messages, posted on www.highfrontier.org, will inform you of many details related to the existential manmade and natural EMP threats and how we can protect America against them. Yes, we also remain vulnerable to the EMP caused by a major solar storm that will one day surely create this threat condition—and we are not dealing with it either.

Click here for a 25 minute video of the presentation former SC Deputy Adjutant General Lester Eisner and I gave at the January 17^th South Carolina Tea Party Convention, which reviews the manmade and natural EMP threat and highlights my top priority effort to make sure our nuclear power reactors can operate through an EMP event and help re-establish the nation’s electric power grid.

We are trying to work the problem in South Carolina from the bottom-up among local and state authorities because Washington seems unable even to identify the obvious problems, let alone deal with them.

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.

I hope you will help us with our urgently needed efforts, which I will be discussing in future messages. Click here to make your tax deductible gift. If you prefer to mail a check, Please send it to 500 North Washington Street, Alexandria, VA 22314.

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