Weakness Personified. In Other Words Obama Is Letting The World Turn Upside Down And He Does Nothing. Kinda Like Fiddlin' While The World Burns!

In three latest crises, why are we not leading?

Charles Krauthammer - The Kansas City Star,  December 9th, 2013

Three crises, one president, many bewildered friends.
The first crisis, barely noticed here, is Ukraine’s sudden turn away from Europe and back to the Russian embrace.
After years of negotiations for a major trading agreement with the European Union, Ukraine succumbed to characteristically blunt and brutal economic threats from Russia and abruptly walked away.
This is no trivial matter. Ukraine is not just the largest country in Europe, it’s the linchpin for Vladimir Putin’s dream of a renewed imperial Russia, rolling back the quarter-century advancement of the “Europe whole and free” bequeathed by America’s victory in the Cold War.
The U.S. response? Almost imperceptible. As with Iran’s ruthlessly crushed Green Revolution of 2009, the hundreds of thousands of protesters who’ve turned out to reverse this betrayal of Ukrainian independence have found no voice in Washington. Can’t this administration even rhetorically support those seeking a democratic future, as we did during Ukraine’s Orange Revolution of 2004?
A Washington Post headline explains: “With Russia in mind, U.S. takes cautious approach on Ukraine unrest.” We must not offend Putin. We must not jeopardize Obama’s precious “reset,” a farce that has yielded nothing but the well-earned distrust of allies like Poland and the Czech Republic, whom we wantonly undercut in a vain effort to appease Russia on missile defense.
The second crisis is the Middle East — the collapse of confidence of U.S. allies as America romances Iran.
The Gulf Arabs are stunned at their double abandonment. In the nuclear negotiations with Iran, the U.S. has overthrown seven years of Security Council resolutions prohibiting uranium enrichment and effectively recognized Iran as a threshold nuclear state. This follows our near-abandonment of the Syrian revolution and de facto recognition of both the Assad regime and Iran’s “Shiite Crescent” of client states stretching to the Mediterranean.
Equally dumbfounded are the Israelis, now trapped by an agreement designed less to stop the Iranian nuclear program than to prevent the Israeli Air Force from stopping the Iranian nuclear program.
Better diplomacy than war, say Obama’s apologists, an adolescent response implying that all diplomacy is the same, as if a diplomacy of capitulation is no different from a diplomacy of pressure.
What to do? Apply pressure. Congress should immediately pass punishing new sanctions to be implemented exactly six months hence — when the current interim accord is supposed to end — if the Iranians have not lived up to the agreement.
The third crisis is unfolding over the East China Sea, where, in open challenge to Obama’s “pivot to Asia,” China has brazenly declared a huge expansion of its airspace into waters claimed by Japan and South Korea.
Obama’s first response — sending B-52s through that airspace without acknowledging the Chinese — was quick and firm. Japan and South Korea followed suit. But when Japan then told its civilian carriers not to comply with Chinese demands for identification, Washington told U.S. air carriers to submit.
Which, of course, left the Japanese hanging. It got worse. During Vice President Joe Biden’s visit to China, the administration buckled. Rather than insisting on a withdrawal of China’s outrageous claim, we began urging mere non-enforcement.
Again leaving our friends stunned. We should be declaring the Chinese claim null and void, ordering our commercial airlines to join Japan in acting accordingly, and supplying them with joint military escorts if necessary.
This would not be an exercise in belligerence but a demonstration that if other countries unilaterally overturn the status quo, they will meet a firm, united, multilateral response from the West.
Led by us. From in front.

Biden Tells Chinese Students To Challenge The Government And Religious Leaders. Would We Allow That In The US? Seems We Put Those Who Challenge The Government On Hate Group Lists.

Strain over security zone evident in Biden talks

Wednesday, December 4th 2013, 9:59 am

By Josh Lederman Associated Press

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In a sharp rebuff to the United States, China accused Washington on Wednesday of taking Japan's side in a tense clash over disputed islands in the East China Sea, underscoring rising regional friction as visiting Vice President Joe Biden met with Beijing's leaders.

Emerging from a private meeting with President Xi Jinping that went considerably longer than scheduled, Biden appeared somber and subdued. In a brief appearance before reporters in which he took no questions, Biden did not go into details on differences over China's newly declared restricted flying zone. Instead, he spoke of a "new model of major country cooperation," saying U.S.-China relations must hinge on trust and a positive notion of each other's motives.

The awkward kickoff for a series of official meetings in Beijing followed Biden's speech earlier Wednesday urging young Chinese citizens to challenge orthodoxy and the status quo. The vice president drew an implicit contrast between the authoritarian rule of China's government and the liberal, permissive intellectual culture he described in the United States.

Neither Biden nor Xi made public mention of the clash over disputed territory that has pitted China against the United States and its Asian allies.

An editorial in the state media China Daily charged, however, that Washington "is turning a blind eye to Tokyo's provocations," calling that the "root cause of the tensions." It said that "the United States is wrongly pointing an accusing finger at China for `unilaterally' changing the `status quo' in the East China Sea."

Biden told reporters after his initial talks with Xi that the relationship between the two major powers will significantly affect the course of the 21st century. If the U.S. and China can get that relationship right, the possibilities are limitless, he said to reporters who were allowed in briefly after the vice president met with Xi.

Biden said he came to Beijing because complex relationships require sustained engagement at high levels. He said Xi's candor and constructive approach had left an impression on him.

"Candor generates trust," Biden said. "Trust is the basis on which real change — constructive change — is made."

The two leaders had a second meeting involving larger delegations and a working dinner planned for later Wednesday.

Absent from Biden's public comments was any discussion of U.S. concerns over China's new air defense zone. Only a day earlier, Biden pledged to raise those concerns "with great specificity" with Xi and other Chinese leaders, adding that China's move was deeply concerning.

"This action has raised regional tensions and increased the risk of accidents and miscalculation," Biden said in Tokyo Tuesday after meeting with Japanese President Shinzo Abe.

Japan has been on edge for the past two weeks since China unilaterally declared any planes flying through the zone must file flight plans with Beijing. The airspace sits above tiny islands that are at the center of a long-running territorial dispute between China and Japan.

The U.S. refuses to recognize the zone, but Biden has avoided calling publicly for Beijing to retract it, wary of making demands that China is likely to snub. Rather, the vice president hoped to persuade China not to enforce the zone or establish similar zones over other disputed territories.

After meeting with Biden, Xi said the U.S.-China relationship had gotten off to a good start this year "and has generally maintained a momentum of positive development." But he said the global situation is changing, with more pronounced challenges and regional hotspots that keep cropping up.

"The world as a whole is not tranquil," Xi said through a translator, adding that the U.S. and China shoulder important responsibilities for upholding peace. "To strengthen dialogue and cooperation is the only right choice facing both of our countries."

Added Biden, "The way I was raised was to believe that change presents opportunity."

In his speech earlier to young Chinese citizens waiting at the U.S. embassy to get visitor visas processed, the vice president said: "I hope you learn that innovation can only occur where you can breathe free, challenge the government, challenge religious leaders." Biden told young Chinese citizens waiting at the U.S. embassy to get visitor visas processed.

"Children in America are rewarded — not punished — for challenging the status quo," he said.

Biden's comments were not immediately reported by Chinese state media and were not likely to be widely known in China. A one-minute excerpt of his speech posted by the Sina news website included Biden's comment about challenging the "status quo," but left out the one about challenging the government.

When Biden arrived later at the Great Hall of the People, a ceremonial edifice steps away from Tiananmen Square, any tensions between the U.S. and China were papered over as Chinese Vice President Li Yuanchao welcomed him with an elaborate honor guard. A military band played the two countries' national anthems as Biden and Xi stood amid the massive hall's marble floors and crisscrossing red carpets.

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Associated Press writer Ian Mader contributed to this report.

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We Are Pushing All The World's Buttons. Is The US On A Binge To Start A War?

US Violates “Defense Zone” After Chinese Threat to Shoot Down Aircraft

Asia on the verge of a full blown arms race

Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
November 26, 2013

In a move designed to challenge China’s “air defense zone,” the US flew two B-52 Bombers over disputed islands in the East China Sea just days after Beijing implicitly threatened to shoot down aircraft entering the area.

Image: B-52 Bomber (Wikimedia Commons).

Over the weekend, China released a map which included the clustered Senkaku islands and warned that all aircraft entering the zone must immediately identify themselves to Chinese authorities and face “emergency military measures.”

However, the US flew two B-52 bombers through the zone during a training mission today without notifying Beijing. There was no response from China. In conducting the mission, the Pentagon followed through on its promise that US pilots would not switch on their transponders and would defend themselves if attacked.

“We have continued to follow our normal procedures, which include not filing flight plans, not radioing ahead and not registering our frequencies,” said US Colonel Steve Warren.

Although the B-52 flyover was part of a pre-planned exercise, it has been characterized as a clear act of defiance against China’s territorial claims.

Japan responded to the Chinese threat by accusing Beijing of engaging in “profoundly dangerous acts that unilaterally change the status quo,” adding that the defense zone was “not valid at all.”

According to the Telegraph’s Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, the escalating crisis represents a “watershed moment for the world” and means “Asia is on the cusp of a full-blown arms race.”

“Even if the immediate crisis can be defused, we are clearly sliding into a new Cold War,” writes Evans-Pritchard, adding, “One misjudgment by either side in the East China Sea could change our world entirely. If you are not concerned, perhaps you should be.”