Is Obama Poised to Cede US Sovereignty?

Diplomatic Rubes

Posted 10/30/2009 07:45 PM ET

Iran Nukes: The mullahs ruling Islamofascist Iran are having a fine laugh at the easily beguiled infidels running U.S. foreign policy. First they agree to a nuclear "diplomatic breakthrough." Then they say no.

The week before last, when Iran's negotiators agreed to send most of its enriched uranium out of the country, diplomats in the U.S. and Europe were popping the champagne corks.

But last week Iranian officials backtracked on the agreement reached in Vienna to send three-quarters of its nuclear material to Russia for processing, after which it would be returned. Some 2,600 pounds of uranium was to be shipped by mid-January.

The pact was supposed to give the U.S. a year of extra time to work its negotiating magic on the Islamist terror state, as well as hold off an attack by Israel on Iran's nuclear facilities.

In 1981, out of self defense, the Jewish state successfully used F-16s to bomb Iraq's Osirak nuclear reactor.

On Friday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu used a meeting with U.S. Mideast envoy George Mitchell to endorse, albeit cautiously, the agreement the U.S. thought it had, apparently in an attempt to be seen as part of a united international front opposing Iran rather than a hawkish outsider.

The International Atomic Energy Agency head,>>>

Rare-earth metals more precious than ever

Anxiety over possible Chinese domination of crucial materials in new technologies sparks a push for U.S. production.

MOUNTAIN PASS, Calif. — Fear of a shortage of rare-earth metals used in high-tech military and industrial products has spawned global efforts to reopen abandoned mines, including the formidable Mountain Pass Mine in California's Mojave Desert.

Discovered in the 1940s by uranium prospectors, Mountain Pass contains an array of rare earths, including cerium and lanthanum, in concentrations almost double those found at the world's biggest rare-earth mine, China's Bayan Obo.

"You're looking at the greatest rare-earth deposit in the world," says operations manager John Benfield as he ushers a visitor around the 2,200-acre site 60 miles southwest of Las Vegas.

Benfield's employer, Molycorp Minerals in Colorado, has just begun a two-year effort to restore Mountain Pass to its former role as a leading global producer. Those plans were given a boost recently amid fears that China was poised to ban exports of some of the scarcer rare-earth metals and to sharply limit shipments of others.

Although the Chinese government has sought to allay those concerns, a possible ban served as a reminder that the Asian nation is nearly the sole source worldwide for rare-earth metals and is likely to remain so for at least the next two years.

"You always want multiple sources for your raw materials," said Jim Hedrick, commodity specialist with the U.S. Geological Survey. "There could be a natural disaster that significantly disrupts the supply, or there could be geopolitical issues."

The reopening of the mine and related processing facilities would create about 900 jobs at Mountain Pass – about 100 people work there now – and provide U.S. companies with a reliable source for many key rare-earth metals.

These minerals, such as samarium>>>

'NATO Has the Watches, We Have the Time'

• OCTOBER 26, 2009, 9:38 P.M. ET

By JAMES SHINN

Those of us in the Bush administration who were responsible for its "Afghan Strategy Review" kept our mouths shut when we handed over the document to the Obama transition team last fall. We didn't want to box in the new administration.

And when President Barack Obama and his advisers rolled out their own Afghanistan strategy on March 27, I was quietly pleased. It came to basically the same conclusion we had: The paramount goal was to squash terrorism through counterinsurgency and better governance in both Afghanistan and Pakistan.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs promised the press corps at the time that its strategy would be "fully resourced." Later, in August, Gen. Stanley McChrystal's assessment of the situation in Afghanistan was leaked. It was a road map to implement precisely the Obama strategy that was announced in March.

But one key element of both the Bush and Obama strategies is getting lost in the debate—that we must apply the military and economic resources for the time required to achieve our goals. As the Obama administration's March 27 White Paper notes, "There are no quick fixes to achieve U.S. national security interests in Afghanistan and Pakistan."

The average counterinsurgency war lasts>>>

Remains of Long-Missing WWII Airman Given to Family in California

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

HIGHLAND, Calif. — For two decades after her son's bomber went down in the Pacific Ocean during World War II, Vella Stinson faithfully wrote the U.S. government twice a month to ask if his body had been found — or if anyone was looking.

The mother of six strapping boys went to her grave without the answer that has finally reached her two surviving sons 65 years later: the remains of Sgt. Robert Stinson are coming home.

Military divers recovered two pieces of leg bone from the wreckage of a B-24J Liberator bomber found at the bottom of the ocean off the coast of the island nation of Palau. DNA testing showed the femur fragments belonged to the 24-year-old flight engineer who died in combat on Sept. 1, 1944.

Stinson's remains arrived under U.S. Air Force escort Wednesday and will be buried Friday at Riverside National Cemetery with full military honors. In between, the body will be kept at a mortuary less than 100 yards from the home where Stinson grew up with his brothers.

"He's not someplace on a little island or at the bottom of the ocean. He's home," said Edward Stinson, who was 9 when his brother died.

For Robert Stinson, the journey home was far from a sure thing.>>>

Thank You For Serving

Did Weapons Fail U.S. Troops During Afghanistan Assault?

Sunday, October 11, 2009

WASHINGTON — In the chaos of an early morning assault on a remote U.S. outpost in eastern Afghanistan, Staff Sgt. Erich Phillips' M4 carbine quit firing as militant forces surrounded the base. The machine gun he grabbed after tossing the rifle aside didn't work either.

When the battle in the small village of Wanat ended, nine U.S. soldiers lay dead and 27 more were wounded. A detailed study of the attack by a military historian found that weapons failed repeatedly at a "critical moment" during the firefight on July 13, 2008, putting the outnumbered American troops at risk of being overrun by nearly 200 insurgents.

Which raises the question: Eight years into the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan, do U.S. armed forces have the best guns money can buy?

Despite the military's insistence that they do, a small but vocal number of troops in Afghanistan and Iraq has complained that the standard-issue M4 rifles need too much maintenance and jam at the worst possible times.

A week ago, eight U.S. troops were killed at a>>>