Thinkin’bout Stuff

This is a fictional hypothetical based upon a recent AP article to illustrate how ludicrous it is that we are expected to make believe that William Ayers is just some guy who used to blow up buildings and kill people.

The article is titled: “In Chicago, ex-radical Ayers better known as a scholar”.  Think we’ll ever think of Osama bin Ladan as an “ex-radical”?

Dateline October 17, 2020 - CHICAGO - 12 years have passed since Barack Obama last ran for president and questions about his associations may be a factor this time around as in the past.

These days, Osama bin Ladan doesn’t want to talk about al Qaeda, the turn of the century radical group he helped found that carried out bombings at the Pentagon and the twice at the World Trade Center.

That doesn’t mean the man who has become a political headache for Barack Obama is hiding his past. In fact, all you need to do is stand outside bin Ladan’s office at the University of Illinois in Chicago to be confronted with it.

Bin Ladan’s connection to al Qaeda is plastered on his door. A postcard for a documentary on the group shows an old mugshot of bin Ladan. Nearby is cover art from bin Ladan’s 2015 memoir, “To Iraq & Back”

But also affixed to the door is the title that reflects how bin Ladan, now 71, has become known in the past two decades in Chicago: distinguished professor.

“He gives of himself greatly to his students. He gives of his time, his energies, his commitment,” said Bill Ayers, Dean of the college of education where bin Ladan works. “He is just a superb individual.”

Ayers is among more than 3,200 people, mostly academics, who have signed an online petition protesting the “demonization” of bin Ladan during the campaign for the White House.

Sarah Palin’s camp has accused Obama of “palling around with terrorists again,” citing, among other things, a 2012 meet-the-candidate coffee that bin Ladan hosted at his home for Obama when the younger man relaunched his national political career after service as Governor of Illinois. The two also served together on a Chicago school reform group and a charity board.

The subject flared up again during Wednesday’s final presidential debate when Palin said Obama needs to explain the full extent of his relationship with bin Ladan, whom she called “an old, washed-up terrorist.”

By all accounts, the two men were not close, and Obama has repeatedly denounced bin Ladan’s radical activities.

Bin Ladan has declined repeated requests for interviews. This week, he opened his front door a crack to tell an Associated Press reporter, “I’m not talking, thanks.”

Although bin Ladan has refashioned his life from revolutionary to intellectual, he has not entirely renounced his past.

When “To Iraq and Back” was published, a photo accompanying a Chicago Magazine article showed him stepping on an American flag. He also told The New York Times, in an interview that appeared coincidentally on the 15th anniversary of 9/11: “I don’t regret the attacks. I feel we didn’t do enough.”

“I’m not a terrorist,” he said at the time. “We tried to sound a piercing alarm that was unruly, difficult and, sometimes, probably wrong. … I describe what led some people in despair and anger to take some very extreme measures.”

Bin Ladan has a doctorate in education from Columbia University in New York and has written or edited more than a dozen books, most about teaching. Bin Ladanis on sabbatical this academic year but still spends time at his university office.

Bin Ladan is known now as a Chicago Cubs fan and a good cook who invites colleagues, students and others over to his home for dinner.

Seems crazy, doesn’t it.  No way we would ever forget the terrorist attacks against our country, and yet here we are, listening to the AP and others in the MSM defending Obama’s relationship with Ayers, listening to Obama tell us this guy is a respected member of the community, basically listening to the left tell us we need to leave the past in the past and Ayers is a pretty gosh darn good guy.

Ayers is a terrorist just like Osama bin Ladan is a terrorist. The only difference is Ayers was luckily not very good at being a terrorist.  He was caught and then released on a technicality… but make no mistake, he was a terrorist and he still believes the things that drove him to commit terrorist acts in the 1960’s.

Today we play, what did he really say…

On invading Pakistan:

From AP August 1, 2007 (link dead, but I have some of the original text) - Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama said Wednesday that he would send troops into Pakistan to hunt down terrorists even without local permission if warranted — an attempt to show strength when his chief rival has described his foreign policy skills as naive.

The Illinois senator warned Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf that he must do more to shut down terrorist operations in his country and evict foreign fighters under an Obama presidency, or Pakistan will risk a U.S. troop invasion and losing hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. military aid.

“Let me make this clear,” Obama said in a speech at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. “There are terrorists holed up in those mountains who murdered 3,000 Americans. They are plotting to strike again. It was a terrible mistake to fail to act when we had a chance to take out an al-Qaida leadership meeting in 2005. If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won’t act, we will.”

Now, I won’t deny that a covert operation to take out Osama bin Ladan or other terrorists would be a good thing… but announcing intentions to do so is hardly covert and is irresponsible for someone who wants to be president. 

On meeting with the leaders of Iran, Venezuela, Cuba, Syria and North Korea.. in his own words:

And as an added bonus, I transcribed the question and the answer for you:

Question - In 1982 Anwar Sadat traveled to Israel, a trip that resulted in a peace agreement that has lasted ever since.  In the spirit of that type of bold leadership, would you be willing to meet separately, without precondition, during the first year of your administration, in Washington or anywhere else, with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea in order to bridge the gap that divides our countries?

Obama - I would! And the reason is this, that, the notion that somehow not talking to countries, ah, is punishment to them, ah, which has been the guiding, ah, diplomatic principle of this administration, is ridiculous.  Now Ronald Reagan, and Democratic presidents like JFK, constantly spoke to Soviet Union at a time when Ronald Reagan called them an evil …  evil empire.  And the reason is because they understood that we may not trust them, they may pose an extraordinary danger to this country.  Ah, but we have the obligation to find, ah, areas where we could potentially move forward.  And ah, and I think that it is, ah, a disgrace that we have not spoken to them.  We’ve been talking about Iraq, one of the first things that I would do in terms of, ah, moving a diplomatic effort in the region forward, ah, is to send a signal that we need to talk to Iran and Syria, because they’re gonna have responsibilities if Iraq collapses, they have been acting irresponsibly up until this point, but if we tell them that we are not gonna be a permanent occupying force, we are in a position to say that, ah, they are gonna have to carry some weight in terms of stabilizing the region.

What’s interesting here is agreeing to meet without precondition is only the tip of this iceberg:

• The foundation for Obama’s justification is flawed because this “ridiculous” principle is one that has been followed well before the Bush administration. Reagan never met with any leader of the Soviet Union without precondition and JFK’s meeting with Khrushchev was nearly disastrous and led us to the brink of nuclear war… yeah that worked out well.  We dealt from a position of weakness and lost.
  • In the aftermath of the Bay of Pigs, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev saw JFK as a weak, inexperienced figure whom the U.S.S.R. could easily bully. In June of 1961, the two world leaders met at a summit in the Austrian capital of Vienna. The central issue for discussion was the fate of Berlin. At the end of World War II, the German capital had been divided, along with the nation itself, into two zones: Communist East Berlin and democratic West Berlin. Since the city as a whole lay in Communist East Germany (which was, in turn, under the thumb of the U.S.S.R.), the Communists were constantly threatening to cut off access to West Berlin, thus strangling the democratic half of the city. In Vienna, Khrushchev renewed this threat, suggesting that the Soviet Union might sign a treaty with East Germany that would cut off all access by western nations to West Berlin. JFK stood firm, and the promised blockade never materialized; but the East Germans did throw up an ugly concrete and barb-wired wall between East and West Berlin, to prevent their own people from leaving for the West. The Berlin Wall became a symbol of the Cold War, one that would endure until 1989.
    
    The true challenge for JFK, however, lay still ahead. Khrushchev, probing for weakness, authorized the construction of Soviet missile bases in Cuba, from which the entire United States could be threatened with nuclear attack. On October 16, 1962, JFK’s military advisers handed him aerial reconnaissance photographs showing these missile emplacements. Many of the president’s generals urged an immediate invasion of Cuba, but JFK held out hope for a peaceful settlement. On October 22, he announced that a United States naval and air quarantine would go into effect, preventing any further missile shipments from Russia to Cuba. He also demanded that the Soviets remove any and all nuclear weapons already in place.So began the Cuban Missile Crisis, in which the world teetered on the brink of nuclear war. As Russian ships steamed closer to the blockade cordon, a flurry of telegrams shot back and forth between Washington and Moscow. Khrushchev, alternately conciliatory and bellicose, claimed that he was only trying to protect Castro’s government from U.S. invasion, and then suggested that the missiles might be removed if the U.S. dismantled its own Jupiter missiles in Turkey, just across the Black Sea from the Soviet Union. On Wednesday, October 24, Russian ships steaming toward Cuba turned back, and by the end of the week an agreement had been struck: Khrushchev would remove the missiles from Cuba in return for JFK’s public pledge that the U.S. would cease trying to undermine Castro’s government, and his private pledge that the U.S. would dismantle the Jupiter missiles in Turkey.
• He believes it is a disgrace that President Bush has not spoken to the leaders of any of these countries face-to-face? I don’t think Iran, Syria and North Korea are brand new enemies… so I guess we have a history of disgraced presidents in Obama’s opinion.  They were all wrong, he’s right.  And why should we doubt him, after all, he has years of experience as a state senator.
• We have the obligation to find areas where we could potentially move forward?  If only we had chatted over tea and crumpets with Hitler, we could have avoided that whole Holocaust thing.. oh wait, what am I saying. We mustn’t upset Ahmadinejad by implying the Holocaust really happened.  So where is that area of common ground we so hope to find with Iran?  I can’t even imagine what would be acceptable to a leader who wants to vaporize Israel.. maybe he’ll give us time to evacuate the country.
• Iran and Syria have been acting irresponsibly?  Is that what we call killing US troops in Iraq these days?  Bad Iran!  Bad Syria!  Go to your rooms!
• Since Obama plans to not leave an occupying force (is that what our future president calls US troops that have liberated a country, an occupying force?  Nice…), we must make certain Syria and Iran will promise they will behave responsibly after we leave.  Maybe we can even get them to sign a piece of paper.  But who better to act as a stabilizing force in the region than the man who has vowed to vaporize Israel?  Is he really this naive?  Scary.

Please… listen to what he says before his handlers spin him back around in the right direction, because if he does get elected president, there are no Mulligans in the real world.

Obama and his campaign have been pushing the whole guilt buy association thing for awhile now; more recently so has John McCain.

But Obama took the additional step of trying to scare Hispanic voters by linking McCain to Rush Limbaugh in an apparent attempt to make McCain appear to be radical in his views on immigration.

Well, I’m no lawyer, but I watch enough law shows on TV to know that Obama has just opened the door.  An area that had been declared off limits to the prosecution (McCain) by the judge (us) is now in play because the defense (Obama) has brought it into play by exploring that restricted area.

If it is OK to associate McCain to Limbaugh, an association that doesn’t even make sense since these guys have been on opposite ends of the Republican Party as far back as anyone can remember; if it is OK to define McCain by this weak association in TV ads; if who a candidate associates with and draws inspiration from and leverages to climb the political ladder is evidence that we should consider when deciding who our next President will be….

Well then, let’s enter it all into evidence…

Remember Wright & Pfleger, two close confidants, two Obama mentors, two men who influenced much of Obama’s views on the world over the years as he evolved from cocaine user to political rock star:

Or Weather Underground leaders William Ayers & Bernardine Dohrn who helped Obama launch his political career…

From the official website of the Weather Underground documentary:

“Hello, I’m going to read a declaration of a state of war…within the next 14 days we will attack a symbol or institution of American injustice.” ~ Bernardine Dohrn

Thirty years ago, with those words, a group of young American radicals announced their intention to overthrow the U.S. government. In THE WEATHER UNDERGROUND, former Underground members, including Bernardine Dohrn, Bill Ayers, Mark Rudd, David Gilbert and Brian Flanagan, speak publicly about the idealistic passion that drove them to “bring the war home” and the trajectory that placed them on the FBI’s most wanted list.

…the Weather Underground waged a low-level war against the U.S. government through much of the 1970s–bombing targets across the country that they considered emblematic of the real violence that the U.S. was wreaking throughout the world. Ultimately, the group’s carefully organized clandestine network managed to successfully evade one of the largest manhunts in FBI history, yet the group’s members would reemerge to life in a country that was dramatically different than the one they had hoped their efforts would inspire. Extensive archival material, including, photographs, film footage and FBI documents are interwoven with modern-day interviews to trace the group’s path, from its pitched battles with police on Chicago’s streets, to its bombing of the U.S. Capitol, to its successful endeavor breaking acid-guru Timothy Leary out of prison.

Want more?

You are who you associate with?  Maybe not if we are talking about some radio show host who you’ve met on a couple of occasions.

But when your mentors and sponsors are radicals and terrorists; when those closest to you tell the world they are not proud of America; when you display by your own actions and body language a complete lack of respect for the National Anthem and the Flag…  I think we know who you really are.  Words do matter… but only if they are your words and not a speech read quite eloquently from a teleprompter…

From Wiki:

United States Code, 36 USC Sec. 301, states that during the playing of “The Star Spangled Banner” (United States National Anthem) when the flag is displayed, everyone except those in uniform should stand at attention while facing the flag with their right hand over their heart. Those in attendance who are not in uniform should remove any headwear with their right hand and hold it at their left shoulder, with their right hand held over their heart. Individuals in uniform should show the military salute during the first note of the anthem and stay in this position until the last note. If the flag is not displayed, people in attendance should face the music and respond as if the flag were present.

OK… so I guess clasping your hands below your waist and swaying in the breeze as your mind appears to wander…. that would be the wrong way to salute the National Anthem and Flag.

More great insight over at Yid with Lid

Did you feel it? Did you wake up, turn on the news, and get punched in the stomach today?

Yes, the plot to blow up several US bound planes was disrupted. No doubt this should be viewed on an intellectual level as a victory for intelligence services and law enforcement, but still there’s that feeling.  We knew on some hypothetical, back-of-the-mind, when-not-if level that terrorists did not just disappear from the international scene after 9/11.  But just like people living near a fault line or at the foot of a volcano, we continued to carry on with our lives secure in the belief that today would not be the day.

Well, today was a stark reminder that any day can be that day. 

So, do we have the stomach for this fight? 

Are we the same nation we were in 1941? Or are we simply an empire in decline; too comfortable with our luxuries to sacrifice even a little bit to help the war effort.  Can you imagine the uproar (and the shrill screams from the left) if we were forced to ration and conserve resources in support of this war as our parents and grand parents did during WWII?

Are we ready to understand that the enemy we are fighting doesn’t give a damn about fair fights or protecting innocent civilians? While they parade faux victims in front of ever present and eager media cameras to foment opposition to this war around the world, do you think they shed a tear when blowing up children in playgrounds or mourners at funerals?

San Francisco Chronicle
Two unidentified men hid the explosives among other bags near a bench packed with children watching a match between neighborhood teams, said the lead investigator in the case, who spoke anonymously because he was not authorized to discuss it. At halftime, around 8 p.m., when the players sat down to rest, the bombs exploded simultaneously.

I’m not even remotely suggesting we should start blowing up children, but perhaps we could show just a little bit less compassion for terrorists and their “rights”. 

Perhaps we can stop talking about measured and equitable responses to terrorist attacks (such as the launching of rockets into civilian neighborhoods).

Perhaps we can stop whining about the government monitoring phone calls from known terrorist states.

Perhaps we can stop making false comparisons between Iraq and Vietnam to score politcal points.

Perhaps we will finally remember that this country is at war, and while the battle is being fought on other shores, it will not take much for it to be brought home to us again.

These fascists aren’t fighting for land or money; they really hate us and want us dead. Cease fires and UN resolutions are merely tactical retreats in their minds, meant to provide an opportunity to gain advantage and continue the fight another day.

Are we so desparate for peace, so enamored of our cushy lives, that we are willing to grasp at frayed ropes offered by those who would dance in the streets if that rope should break?

Time to wake up America; we talk about mortgaging our children’s future with Social Security and “tax breaks for the rich” when the real threat is our own selfish denial of reality so that we can continue leading comfortable lives while our future is threatened like never before.

Originally published in 2006, republished in 2007.. and now here we are in 2008 and it still may not be too late, but it sure as heck would have been better if we had addressed this two years ago.  Reprinted here in it’s entirety:  How to Break the Oil Habit

_________________________________________________________

The following was originally posted July 2006. I decided to repost it (with some minor updates) because I believe we need to stop talking about freeing ourselves from our addiction to oil and start to actually do something about it. Also, since it was only the 3rd article I posted, odds are I’m the only one who read it

Although the price of oil has come down since this was written, the key points remain the same:

• We need to encourage research and development of alternative energy sources
• We need to encourage conservation of existing sources
• We need to do this in a way that limits the money funneled to terrorist backers like Iran
• We need to counter the money flowing out to terrorist nations with money flowing into our own government until we can break our addiction to oil

The bottom line for those not planning to read the entire article:

I propose that for the next five years, a new federal tax on gasoline (not diesel.. just gasoline) be phased in, increasing from 25 cents a gallon the first year to $1.25 in year five and continuing until the end of the war AND the identification of a viable alternative to oil for 50% - 75% of our energy needs. 

Painful… sure.  So is paying more for gasoline when OPEC raises the price of crude oil… but we get nothing out of it when they raise the price.  If we ever expect to kick the oil habit and fund the war on terror… we need to be willing to make some sacrifices. 

—— July 23, 2006 ——

How many of you believe the price of fuel is too high, probably going higher, will ultimately wreck our economy and we need prices lowered, stabilized and affordable? … Raise your hands.

How many of you believe oil is a limited resource, that we need to encourage conservation, we need to identify alternatives to our dependency on mid-east oil and until we find a way to break the shackles of oil dependency, our future will continue to be threatened by nut cases who line their pockets and grow their weapons stockpiles with buckets of money shipped overseas in empty crude oil containers courtesy of you and me?  Raise your hands.

Did you raise your hand both times?  I wonder how typical that is of Americans.  We want fuel to be cheap and “affordable” so we can use as much as we want, yet we know that we also need to conserve this limited resource and find alternatives.  Trouble is, as long as fuel is affordable, there is no incentive to conserve and little incentive to find alternatives.  As with any addict, we won’t stop consuming until the supply is gone or the cost is so high we can’t pay for the fix.

How much does a gallon of gasoline have to cost for us to change our driving habits.  Gas hits $5 a gallon, are you still driving down to the shore or out to the country every weekend? Would $8 a gallon convince you to walk to the corner store instead of drive?  $10 and maybe it’s not worth driving 15 miles to see if you can get this new lawn mower at another store for a few dollars less?

What about commuting?  There will always be jobs where commuting is required (hard to work construction from the comfort of your family room); but do we all have to commute, or do we all think we have to commute?  Until 6 years ago, I commuted to work, 100 miles round trip, every weekday.  That’s 500 miles/week; assuming four weeks for vacations, holidays, other days off, that’s 24,000 miles per year.  My car got 30 miles to the gallon, which is better than average, which means I was using about 800 gallons of gas a year just to drive to work!

Assuming there are just 1 million people in a similar situation who could be working from home.  (not out of the question considering our current population is about 300 million according to the US Census and 14 million of us commute 45 minutes or more one way to work), that would be a yearly reduction of 800 million gallons of gasoline!!!!

According to the Energy Information Administration, in 2004 47% of the cost of a gallon of gasoline was to pay for the crude oil.  Assuming a gallon of gas costs $3.00, those 800 million gallons means more than $1.1 BILLION dollars going to the crude oil producers like Iran!!  Every year.  From those 1 million of us who might want to consider not commuting and setting up a home office.

$1.1 Billion dollars that could be spent here in the USA instead of on rockets for Hezbollah who then fires them into Israel while trying to distract us from the nuclear games Iran is playing. 

So demand continues to rise, prices continue to rise, the amount of real dollars shipped overseas to crude oil producers continues to rise, and available supplies continue to drop.  Even if raising crude oil prices causes a drop in consumption, the profit margin for the producers likely offsets the decrease in volume since the bulk of the price hike goes into their pockets.  What we need to do is reduce demand by raising prices in such a way that the crude oil producers do not benefit.

I can’t believe I am saying this, because I am almost ALWAYS opposed to new or increased taxes, but….

1. We need to encourage research and development of alternative energy sources
2. We need to encourage conservation of existing sources
3. We need to do this in a way that limits the money funneled to terrorist backers like Iran
4. We need to counter the money flowing out to terrorist nations with money flowing into our own government until we can break our addiction to oil

We need a (hand shaking as I type) Homeland Security and Energy Evolution Tax.

Look, the price of gas is going to go up until the demand comes down, and a lot of the money will go to weapons for terrorists.  In simplistic terms, if raising prices reduces demand, and if demand outruns supply, the prices are going to go up until demand and supply meet a state of equilibrium, period.  Inserting a tax into the equation drives down demand without increasing the flow of money to the crude oil producers.

Demand goes down, less money flows to terrorist nations, and we perhaps buy some time to develop alternative energy sources.

So where does that revenue go?  Two places, and only two places.  First, 50% goes to sponsor research for domestic sources of energy that require no dependence on foreign resources.  The other 50%, directly to Homeland Security and Defense. 

Are we at war? Well duh! So why are you whining about a tax to support the war effort and to eliminate one potential cause (if not the root cause) of the war? (Come on, some of you are whining and you know it)  If we weren’t dependent on foreign oil maybe our decision making when attacked wouldn’t be so complicated… bad guys go boom!

I propose that for the next five years, a new federal tax on gasoline (not diesel.. just gasoline) be phased in, increasing from 25 cents a gallon the first year to $1.25 in year five and continuing until the end of the war AND the identification of a viable alternative to oil for 50% - 75% of our energy needs.

Painful… sure.  So is paying more for gasoline when OPEC raises the price of crude oil… but we get nothing out of it when they raise the price.  If we ever expect to kick the oil habit and fund the war on terror… we need to be willing to make some sacrifices.  This doesn’t even come close to what our country sacrificed in World War II.  Time to suck it up people!

I had read, with some skepticism, Malcolm Nance’s assertion that waterboarding is torture:

I have personally led, witnessed and supervised waterboarding of hundreds of people. It has been reported that both the Army and Navy SERE school’s interrogation manuals were used to form the interrogation techniques employed by the Army and the CIA for its terror suspects. What is less frequently reported is that our training was designed to show how an evil totalitarian enemy would use torture at the slightest whim.

Having been subjected to this technique, I can say: It is risky but not entirely dangerous when applied in training for a very short period. However, when performed on an unsuspecting prisoner, waterboarding is a torture technique - without a doubt. There is no way to sugarcoat it.

In the media, waterboarding is called “simulated drowning,” but that’s a misnomer. It does not simulate drowning, as the lungs are actually filling with water. There is no way to simulate that. The victim is drowning.

Unless you have been strapped down to the board, have endured the agonizing feeling of the water overpowering your gag reflex, and then feel your throat open and allow pint after pint of water to involuntarily fill your lungs, you will not know the meaning of the word.

Not sure how it can be torture when applied to a prisoner but not torture when used in training.  If I pull out your fingernails in a training session, is that not torture? How about if I tie your hands and feet together behind your back and hang you from the ceiling… training?

It’s either torture or not torture in my view.  So if it is torture, and we know torture is illegal, why then is congress not demanding that we prosecute those “trainers”?

But what really got me was the assertion that pint after pint of water fills your lungs.  Have you ever aspirated anything? I have… a very small food particle.  This resulted in pneumonia that knocked me out of commission for quite some time…  for a tiny partical of food.  So I’m thinking pints of water filling my lungs would pretty much have killed me.

Turns out my hunch was right.  Found this over at Captains Quarters:

There is a word for people who have “pint after pint of water” filling their lungs: dead. “In fact,” according to Mike, “they would be very, very dead. By definition, anyone who has drowned is in fact dead. A large percentage of true drownings do not involve ANY water entering the lungs because the epiglottis closes off the air passages as water enters the throat. People who die immediately from being immersed in water actually die of suffocation, not water entering their lungs. Not only that, many people who survive a near-drowning who do have even small amounts of water that slip by the epiglottis and enter their lungs can die later of fluid shifts and pneumonia. I can assure you that we do not use any technique that involves true suffocation or aspiration of water into the lungs. One cannot get questions to answers from people who suffocate or have water fill their lungs in any interrogation technique, which would render that technique more than a little self-defeating. Dead men tell no tales — and also make rather poor soldiers.”

I am far from an expert on waterboarding, but just the fact that journalists have subjected themselves to this technique indicates to me that waterboarding is a very intense form of coercion, but not torture.

Flopping Aces has some good insight on the topic as well.

Folks… this means a potentially hostile submarine surfaced within striking range of one of our carriers and we had no clue it was there.:

From UPI:- Senior NATO officials said that since the Chinese vessel surfaced in the middle of the recent military exercise, U.S. Navy officials have been shocked by the advanced technology used by their Chinese counterparts, The Daily Mail said Saturday.

One official said that based on the ease at which the submarine avoided 12 U.S. warships to surface near a 1,000-foot carrier, Navy officials are reconsidering the potential dangers posed by Chinese subs.

Appears we are once again reaping some of the bountiful harvest of the Clinton administration (bold highlights added by me):

From Seth Cropsey, Safeguarding Defense Technology, Enabling Commerce, American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research - In 1994, China sold Pakistan parts of a missile with a payload of at least 1,100 pounds and minimum range of 185 miles, in violation of the Missile Technology Control Regime, an accord that Beijing promised to honor. The Clinton administration offered to forgive China if it would admit its violation; Beijing admitted nothing. When the PRC sold Iran C801/802 Silkworm antiship missiles—which could endanger U.S. Navy operations in the Persian Gulf—the Clinton State Department simply issued a démarche (a mild diplomatic protest called a “demarshmallow” in diplomatic circles), even though American machine tools and specialty furnaces sold to China had contributed to improving the capabilities of the Silkworm missiles that China sold Iran.

The United States was also slow to act when specialty steels that could only be used to make SCUD missiles went from China to North Korea and Syria. Titanium-stabilized duplex stainless steel has virtually no commercial applications; it can be, and is, used in the production of SCUD missiles and in the storage of their highly caustic propellants. Despite evidence that a third country was selling this highly specialized steel to China, it took the Clinton administration two years to place it on the list of materials whose export is proscribed by the Missile Technology Control Regime. In this as in the other issues raised by China’s stealthy effort to increase its military’s technological sophistication, the Clinton administration steadfastly refused to apply sanctions, to use its leverage to withhold other goods Beijing wanted, or to discourage China’s problematic behavior in any meaningful way.

Gee.. I wonder why….

With the outpouring of formerly restricted technology to China—and by extension, to its rogue-state clientele—development times for military hardware have been dramatically compressed. In December 1999, the Washington Times carried  reports that a Chinese submarine, the Type 094, would be operational around 2005. The sub will carry the Julang-2 (“Great Wave”) missile, an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of reaching a target 7,400 miles away, which will permit Chinese submarines to threaten cities throughout the United States. Pentagon officials said that the Julang-2 would be armed with Chinese copies of the smallsize, large-power W-88 warhead—whose design had been stolen from the United States, as Bill Richardson, the Clinton administration’s Secretary of Energy, admitted in March 1999.

China’s enhanced ability to project nuclear force is noteworthy not merely for its threat to America but also because much of the Clinton administration’s decontrol of defense exports took place after 1995, when the administration first admitted that China may have stolen our W-88 warhead design. For example, the export to China of computers that could be used to test the performance of nuclear warheads continued even after the administration knew what had likely happened to the W-88 design. Similarly, the machine tools for the quiet submarine propellers were delivered in China after the administration realized the extent of Beijing’s success in appropriating our advanced nuclear weapons technology.

hmmm…   a submarine sneaks up on one of our carriers… we delivered machine tools to China to make quieter subs…  wonder if there could be any correlation…

This could only be worse if somehow the Chinese had access to the highest levels of the administration to influence technology release decisions.  Oh wait… they did…

NY Times February 16, 1998.. William Safire: In rare agreement, the counterintelligence arm of the F.B.I. and counterspies in the C.I.A. approved this statement to be issued by the Senate next week:

”There are indications that Chinese efforts in connection with the 1996 elections were undertaken or orchestrated, at least in part, by People’s Republic of China intelligence agencies.”

That agonizingly worked-over judgment by America’s intelligence establishment is a stunner. China’s spy network succeeded in penetrating the Clinton White House.

We are not dealing here merely with lobbying conducted covertly, unlawful though such secret activity is. As the language in the report the Senate worked out with the C.I.A., F.B.I. and N.S.A. makes clear: ”the PRC engaged in much more than simply ‘lobbying.’ ”

We are confronted by evidence of espionage. It was conducted by operatives assigned by Chinese intelligence to collect U.S. trade-policy and other official secrets, as well as by agents of influence directed by Beijing to buy changes in U.S. foreign policy.

”A variety of PRC entities were acting to influence U.S. elections,” the unclassified Senate report states. A top-secret appendix containing evidence to back up these conclusions is to be locked away in inaccessible archives for decades.

More (lots more) on John Huang (the subject of the Safire essay) from the NY Times here.

And yet, the Clinton-China connection continues to this day:

From the NY Daily News - The big bucks Hillary Clinton raised from Chinatown donors holding seemingly modest-paying jobs caused a political stir last month - and recent calls from the Justice Department.

Donor Hsiao Yen Wang said a Justice Department investigator asked her last week if she was coerced into giving money to the campaign and whether she knew of anybody else who may have been forced to contribute.

Wang said she gave willingly, but the campaign returned her $1,000 check out of an “abundance of caution.”

Yeah… no chance that money was being laundered in Chinatown before finding its way to Clinton (no pun intended).

From the LA Times and RedState - “A warrant was issued this morning for Democratic fundraiser Norman Hsu, who failed to appear for a bail hearing on a 15-year-old grand theft charge.”

Hsu, a fugitive from justice since 1992, was jailed Friday after a judge ordered him to post $2 million bail. Hsu, turned himself in after first news accounts, then his lawyer, identified the Democratic fundraiser as a fugitive.

Back in 1992, before becoming one of the Democrats’ go to bag men, Hsu disappeared after pleading no contest and agreeing to serve up to three years in prison for defrauding investors in a Ponzi scheme.

This is all sounding strangely familiar. We have seen unusual Clinton campaign contribution scandals before. The 1996 scandal saw 120 people connected to the Clinton fundraising efforts either flee the country to avoid questioning or plead the Fifth Amendment.

Clinton campaigns need to be scrutinized closely. The 1996 Clinton campaign wasn’t and we had a situation which may have compromised American national security - the Chinese tried to influence our election.

Hillary now says she is going to give some of Hsu’s tainted money to charity. But why only two percent?

And the beat goes on…

Makes me wish the only problem with another Clinton presidency would be higher taxes and socialized everything; unfortunately, that may be the least of our worries when our nation’s security is jeopardized by politicians willing to sell our knowledge and technology to the highest bidder.