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This weekend the president travels to Lisbon, Portugal for the upcoming NATO summit, but will it be another disastrous foreign trip for the president and the U.S.
After the shellacking the president and his party suffered in the mid-term elections, the president traveled to Asia. The trip was heralded as a chance to bring home valuable jobs for the American people, unfortunately it turned into a public relations nightmare for the president.
Asian and European leaders dressed down the president over U.S. currency policy, and European leaders lectured the president that his economic policies are having a negative effect on the global economy. The last indignation was the failure to secure a free trade deal with Korea, which was all but completed by the Bush administration, and would have created substantial number of jobs in the U.S.
The president has to deal with a reluctant number of our NATO allies who are beginning to signal that they are pulling their forces out of Afghanistan, this after the president repeatedly stating that our allies need to do more. There are other weighty issues to be dealt with to include NATO countries substantially reducing their defense budgets and NATO relationship with Russia.
Is the president up to the task?
Today, the President of the United States will present the Congressional Medal of Honor to Army Staff Sergeant Salvatore Giunta for actions against enemy forces in Afghanistan.
Staff Sergeant Giunta, is the first living recipient of the Medal of Honor since Vietnam and the first one from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He will become the eighth service member to receive the Medal of Honor during operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The seven previous medals were awarded posthumously.
The Obama administration has developed a plan to begin transferring security duties in select Afghan areas to that country's forces over the next 18 to 24 months, with an eye toward ending the American combat mission there by 2014, officials said yesterday.
The phased four-year plan to wind down American and allied fighting in Afghanistan will be presented at a NATO summit meeting in Lisbon, Portugal, this week, the officials said. It will reflect the most concrete vision for transition in Afghanistan assembled by civilian and military officials since President Obama took office last year.
The plan is similar to the phased withdrawal strategy implemented in Iraq which transferred security duties to Iraqi forces. The lingering question remains, how does this sit with the president's party, many who were adamant against any surge of forces into Afghanistan, and want U.S. brought home now!
A couple of key upcoming events will challenge an already weakened president still reeling from the disastrous mid-term elections. Next month the Afghan counterinsurgency review strategy evaluates the surge of U.S. forces into Afghanistan, the July 31st 2011 Afghan draw-down, and finally the change of personnel in key national security positions.
Let's see what the future brings!
The mid-term elections are behind us. Families are preparing to celebrate Thanksgiving with friends and loved ones. But there is one segment of this Nation that will not be able to celebrate Thanksgiving with their families. These gallant men and women are miles away defending our Nation from evil forces who seek our utter destruction. The armed forces are fighting for freedom in Iraq and Afghanistan and other areas of the world so families can live without fear of those that might do us harm.
Today, we honor all veterans who have aided in the cause of freedom, whether in the days of sunlit peace or in the cold conflict of war. It is imperative we remember all those who have sacrificed for the warm embrace of liberty. Yet, too often our veterans are relegated to second-class citizens, never fully receiving the heroic recognition they aptly deserve.
People desire heroes. Once found heroes are adored and revered. Too often those heroes are praised for their entertainment or athletic prowess.
One hero that deserves our recognition will be awarded the Nation’s highest military decoration – the Medal of Honor, presented by President Obama on November 16th . His name: Army Staff Sgt. Salvatore Giunta, a 22-year-old rifle team leader. On the night of Oct. 25, 2007, he was serving in Afghanistan’s Korangal Valley when Taliban insurgents attacked his squad. The approaching combatants formed an L-shaped ambush, splitting Giunta’s squad into two groups. Giunta braved enemy fire and pulled a squad member back to cover.
He later saved another soldier while trying to connect with the other half of his squad. He saw two insurgents carrying off the second squad member and recovered him while shooting and killing one enemy fighter, wounding and driving off others.
Let us not forget the words of President John F. Kennedy, who stated, “Our serviceman and women are serving throughout the world as guardians of peace—many of them away from their homes, their friends and their families. They are visible evidence of our determination to meet any threat to the peace with measured strength and high resolve. They are also evidence of a harsh but inescapable truth - that the survival of freedom requires great cost and commitment, and great personnel sacrifice.”
We live in a society where the few are sacrificing for the many. Sadly, people often speak of freedom and say that defending liberty is for someone else’s son, not theirs. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates commented in a speech at Duke University about the lack of ROTC programs at many of most prestigious universities. He said, “Over the past generation many commentators have lamented the absence of ROTC from the Ivy League and other selective universities. Institutions that used to send hundreds of graduates into the armed forces now struggle to commission a handful of officers every year.”
Upon returning from Iraq, an Army Colonel was invited to a cocktail reception on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. The son of the host and hostess was interested in military affairs, he suggested that since the United States Military Academy was just up the river from New York City, perhaps he should consider applying. The hostess put her arm around her son and replied, “No, no, no! He has much more important things planned for his life.” She patted the Colonel on the arm and said, “But I’m glad we have people like you to protect us.”
If we are to be one Nation, where in the preamble of the constitution it states, “We the people of the United States”, then all of us must serve together, not just a select group to sacrifice for the many. President Kennedy stated in his famous inaugural address, “My fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country".
It’s humbling to know that many veterans have served this nation proudly in the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, and Coast Guard of this great nation, realizing that freedom is not free, following in the illustrious tradition of previous generations, who sacrificed everything to serve in Americas Armed Forces.
This Veterans Day, let’s take the time and remember all those who serve in the armed forces of this great nation, as well as those who have served the cause of freedom but never came home, who lay oft times unappreciated in battlefields graves across the globe. In the last century their lives have ended in places called Belleau Wood, the Argonne, Omaha Beach, Salerno, and half way around the world on Guadalcanal, Tarawa, Iwo Jima, Pork Chop Hill, The Chosin Reservoir, and hundreds of rice paddies and jungles in Vietnam.
In our lifetime they have fallen in the Persian Gulf, Somalia, the mountains of Afghanistan; Fallujah, Nasiriyah, Ramadi, and on the streets of Baghdad.
Freedom is too precious a gift not to acknowledge a remembrance to the gallant warriors who served in the Armed Forces of the United States. Let’s honor all who serve. It’s the least we can do!
In politics everything is local, and the mid-term elections were no exception, as the focal point of the election was the economy and nothing else. Anything associated with foreign related issues was relegated to second tier status, but that all will change in 2011.
Starting next month, the president and Congress will now have to deal with issues that were never debated or discussed. The first beginning on December first, when the presidents deficit reduction committee will unveil its recommendation for reducing the size of the federal debt, which will also include defense spending.
That same month the Afghan review strategy will give its assessment on how the surge strategy is working in Afghanistan, as we ready ourselves for July 31, 2011 Afghan draw-down, in which commanders on the ground reiterate its condition's based.
Next year the president will be selecting a new Secretary of Defense to replace current Secretary Robert Gates. Also, a majority of senior level military leaders will be retiring, including Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen. The president has the chance to shape his national security staff, but will be forced to do so with diminished Senate Democrats who need to confirm these appointments.
Trade deals have been left to languish as the president has been beholden to organized labor, and other nations have jumped in to fill the gaps; including China.
"It's the economy stupid!", was a catch phrase of the 1992 presidential election, but foreign policy also affects the economy!
With the mid-term elections over, and the president overseas on his trip to Asia, in an interview on 60 minutes the president stated, "What is a danger is that we stay stuck in a new normal where unemployment rates stay high," the interview Aired last night. In the same interview he commented, "People who have jobs see their incomes go up. Businesses make big profits. But they've learned to do more with less. And Don't hire. And as a consequence, we keep on seeing growth that is just too slow to bring back the 8 million jobs that were lost."
If the nation is ever going to be able to reduce the ballooning federal debt it has to get the nation back to work. The lack of revenue and huge government spending is now considered by many in the national security community as more threatening to the security of this nation then international terrorism.
The president believes that more government action is needed to spur hiring, unfortunately President Obama fails to realize that countless small businesses are reeling from his economic policies. Small businesses are over burden by regulation, taxes and failure to get credit. Many of the largest banks in the country are not lending to small businesses or start-up companies.
The president needs to understand small businesses account for 80% of the jobs in this country, you help help small business you help America!
For the first time since May, the economy generated a net gain of 151,000 jobs, but the unemployment rate remains unchanged at 9.6%. The high unemployment numbers was a key factor in the repudiation of the president's economic polices and the Democratic party.
Employers added a net total of 151,000 jobs last month-more than double what analysts expected-the Labor Department said. That compares with a revised 41,000 jobs lost during September. Analysts had forecast a gain of 60,000 positions, making the report the most promising reading on the economy in a month.
The job gains were concentrated in relatively few sectors: retailers added 27,900 positions, likely in preparation for the holiday season. Temporary agencies added 34,900. Restaurants and bars hired 24,000 people.
The economy is going to have to create far more jobs just to keep up with population growth, and this will again fuel partisan battle over extending the Bush Tax cuts set to expire on Jan 1, 2011.
