An important decision to implement the new global strategy of defense in the missile system was made public in Bucharest. Romania’s Supreme Defense Council today approved the hosting of missile shield elements in Romania. The decision comes following the invitation received from the USA, following the relocation missile shield. The declaration of Romania’s President Traian Băsescu: “In this regard will be launched bilateral negotiations to conclude the necessary agreements. Also, Traian Băsescu reiterated that “the new system is not aimed against Russia”. Please note that for validation, the decision of Romania’s Supreme Defense Council must ratified by the Romanian Parliament. According to Romanian officials, the new system will cover the whole Romanian territory and will be functional from 2015.

U.S. State Department thanked Romania through diplomatic representatives in Bucharest. However, official reaction from Moscow still delayed. “Russia expects convincing explanation from U.S. on missile system elements location in Romania”, declared Friday, February 5, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, visiting Berlin.

It is no secret that sanctions against Iran has been spinning in the public arena for a long time and there are many in Washington including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who feel that sanctions is due to be implemented. Everybody is saying they have exhausted all resources and efforts to bring Iran to the table and now is the time for sanctions…Hold on a minute! What about those hundreds of thousands of protesters marching on the street who are bleeding and calling for reform and removal of Ahmadinejad from power and a return to the polls to vote for a new leader? If we sanction Iran then we are also sanctioning a democracy that exist in Iran and is asking us to help them…In times past I have written to foreign leaders (Israel’s Prime Minister included) and called for them to vote against sanctions, because it would only harm the people who are not responsible for their governments action’s and would be absolutely counter-productive and inhumane to the working class people of Iran. If the West supports sanctions against Iran and the United Nations approves the sanctioning, then what we would be doing is isolating the Iranian people from the rest of the World and helping them to make a pact with the devil against the West.
If sanctions hurt them enough, they will most likely increase the numbers of Shiite radicals in their own country as a result of America’s failure to see things more rationally.
Who Wins:
Those who will profit from sanctions against Iran are the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank who will tax the rest of the planet for Iran’s re-construction and their defaulting on any already existing debts which eventually leads to those developed countries actually owning Iran by default (generosity is not for free)…The money every country gives is borrowed from somewhere…Your generosity is not for free, we have to pay back that money if we did not have that in surplus…The developed nations are the guarantee against default of under-developed economies who suddenly go into bankruptcy due to hyper inflation set in by lack of trade stimulus.
Sanctions Contribute To Global Destabilization
We have a very dangerous destabilization or domino effect happening in our global economy because of too many hot spots in the World as a result of conflict and prolonging of those conflicts which drains resources from more peaceful and productive projects in our world that are needed to heal our planet and the United States once again is going to do opposite of what it says…It is going to commit a crime against humanity because the bank says so.
Sanctions Do Not Work and Have Never Worked. If we are going to promote peace and freedom than we need to arm those who want it and help them to fight it…These weapons do not necessarily have to be a gun or knife, it can be a computer, radio, camera and even plenty of ink cartridges rather than bullets…Every citizen in Iran can help bring change if we support them…The Supreme Leadership of Iran knows the threat the information superhighway poses to them and they fear the pen just as much as the sword or even worse than the sword because the pen can carry poison. I hope that all who see this today will write their Congressman and Senators or whatever representative you have in your country and encourage them to rethink their foreign policy toward Iran…It is not the Iranian people who want to destroy the West and Israel, but a minority of wannabe dictators who happen to be Islamic elitist and want to exploit the issues of Zionism, Western Imperialism and Islam to make money and those less elite are vying for a status as an Iranian Gestapo officer who enjoys the sadistic pleasure of oppressing their own people.
Sanctions Lead To Hidden Taxes On Consumers In Developed Nations:
As a member of a developed nation, you will have taxes levied against your paycheck and you will pay at the check stand when you purchase goods or services especially gasoline which has so many taxes attached and luxury items which less are able to afford due to taxation. Remember every donor nation to the IMF or the World Bank has to borrow money from somewhere and so your nation’s generosity is not for free. It cost you in taxation to be a generous giver. You have a right to ask what are you getting for your money? You have a right to ask who is getting the money and what are you paying for? You have the right to hold your elected officials accountable because it is your money that they are playing with and it is your paycheck that is guaranteeing your government’s ability to pay off the debts of defaulting countries.
This blog will be updated in the near future as things develop…I hope you visit often.
V Peace, Shalom aleichem,Salam Alaykum,Paz,Namaste

China claims it has successfully tested it’s missile defense system on Monday.

I wonder if the Chinese used ‘borrowed’ US technology to build their missile defense system. Breitbart

BEIJING (AP) – China announced that its military intercepted a missile in mid-flight Monday in a test of new technology that comes amid heightened tensions over Taiwan and increased willingness by the Asian giant to show off its advanced military capabilities.

The official Xinhua News Agency reported late Monday that “ground-based midcourse missile interception technology” was tested within Chinese territory.

“The test has achieved the expected objective,” the three-sentence report said. “The test is defensive in nature and is not targeted at any country.”

Via Wired

On a visit today to Vladivostok, Russia’s maximum leader premier said Moscow “must continue developing offensive systems” that could fool or overwhelm U.S. missile defenses.

Not to mention that Russia is thinking at loud about using nukes in preemptive strikes against it’s neighbors.

So this is what Obama gets from Putin, after ditching the missile shield and allies in Eastern Europe, promising to cut nuke stockpiles and to allow Russian inspectors at all US nuke sites.

Every tyrant/dictator is just spitting in Obama’s foreign policy.

December 13, 2009

Our president is making every mistake possible. He scrapped the missile defense shield that the Bush Administration had approved with the Polish and Czech governments, first of all, because he apparently wishes to normalize relations with the Soviet Union, er, I mean with Russia. Those safety shields will offend Vladimir Putin, and we can’t have that. Out they go.

But this tells the world that America doesn’t stand by its friends or by its commitments. We just do what we want. Also, it tells Russia that America will not defend even NATO nations, let alone Georgia, and that the tyranny of its depredations will go unchecked and unchallenged. Big mistake: Obama believes that he can bring Putin around to be a responsible member of the international system, if only you treat him right. This is not true, however: totalitarian movements do not respond to generous overtures with friendship, but with opportunism. Obama is making here the age-old mistake: believing that totalitarian leaders are like us, that they respond as we do. But they do not — they have given themselves to an ideology that they believe understands and sums up everything. They cannot come back from it, they can only go further into crime. 

In Iran, on the other hand, there is a clearly home-grown democracy movement that could not possibly have been planted there by foreign activity. It is a movement that is its own man. But Obama gives it only lukewarm support, because now he is adverse to offending Ahmadinejad and the crazy mullahs. This is capitulation: Obama should vociferously support the democracy movement, and let it be known to the world that America is watching, and that we want freedom to win there, not the insanity of Islamofascism. In college during the 70’s, I had Iranian friends, and they all hated the Shah, it was a given. But they were naive, and they were well-meaning. I know that it’s the likes of them that are now doing the protesting, and I wish those long-ago friends success in bringing down the tyranny that holds Iran imprisoned. Obama’s failure here is huge. He wants his accord with Ahmadinejad, and nothing can stand in the way.

Again, the Rules of Engagement in Afghanistan are overly constricting to U.S. forces, as if the American military was an arm of the U.N. Peacekeeping force. This is absurd — it doesn’t matter how many soldiers we have overseas if we don’t allow them to do their job. And they can’t fight the evil of the Taliban with Rules of Engagement so emasculated that all you can do is defend yourself after being attacked. The Taliban will profit from this if it’s the status quo.

Obama worries too much about international consensus, and that’s why nothing is getting done on his foreign policy watch. He relies too much on negotiation at any cost, and that helps those who have no intention of ever negotiating in good faith. Obama relies too much on posturing, too. Like many radical liberals, he is most concerned about his image as morally and intellectually superior to all of previous history. These radicals don’t realize that their distance from reality, up in their Ivory Tower, does grave damage to the cause of goodness and freedom.

After learning that Metal Gear REX was an offensive weapon instead of a theatre missile defense system, Hal Emmerich (Otacon) is overladen with guilt and tells the story of how his grandfather was involved in the Manhattan Project - and had to suffer with the subsequent guilt for the rest of his life. His father, meanwhile, was born on August 6, 1945 - the day the Hiroshima Bomb was dropped. Hal is determined not to step in his predecessors' shoes - and to prevent his own creation, Metal Gear REX, from unleashing destruction.

“I have a difficult time grasping what we have come to – modifying a person’s essential genetic structure for the sake of creating a better soldier.” – Nastasha Romanenko, In the Darkness of Shadow Moses : The Unofficial Truth, Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons Of Liberty

Download PDF

Several other insightful essays^[1] have been written about Metal Gear Solid – the third Metal Gear game and considered by many to be a ‘reboot’ of the series after its 16bit dormancy.

In this article, I will be retreading some trodden ground (particularly the Richard Dawkins/Neo-Darwinist leanings), but rest assured there is still a lot contained in this article that hasn’t been covered in-depth before.

It also happens that this article is somewhat timely given that Metal Gear Solid was recently re-released on PSN (PlayStation Network) and thus can now be played on both PlayStation3 and PSP. Luckily, the game has aged like fine wine – if you are willing to overlook the obvious downgrade in graphics and controls.

Table of contents

• Chronological timeline
• Recommended reading/viewing
  • Comparisons between Gattaca and Metal Gear Solid
• Themes
  • The Sons of Big Boss
    • Les Enfants Terribles
      • Genetic Limits To Growth
      • Gulf War Brothers And Sisters
      • Genetic diversity
    • Retroviruses and the Human Genome Project
  • The mission
    • Orchestration of the incident
      • Solidus’ mole in FOXHOUND
      • Liquid’s divergence from the plan
    • The Patriots’ Contingency Plan
  • Characters
    • Solid Snake
      • Coerced mission assignment
        • Pharmacological stimulants
        • Snake’s usefulness as a viral vector
      • Nanomachines and the biofeedback loop
      • Gene therapy and the weaponization of the viral vector
    • Liquid Snake
      • Motivation – The Selfish Gene
      • Liquid’s Achilles heel
      • Roy Batty and Liquid Snake
    • Naomi Hunter
      • Involvement in Pentagon bioweapons program
      • Motivation – Genetics As An Axiom For Human Potential
    • Psycho Mantis
      • Psychic powers
        • Extra-sensory perception
        • Psychokinesis and mind control
        • Telekinesis
    • Frank Jaeger/Gray Fox
      • Transhumanist soldier
    • Sniper Wolf
      • On The Origin Of Domestication
        • Social organizations and subsumation
        • Humans and self-domestication
    • Nastasha Romanenko
      • Motivation – Abolition of Nuclear Weapons
  • Government coverup
    • Plausible deniability
    • Nastasha Romanenko’s book
      • Psy-op piece
• Meaning behind words/names/terms
• Footnotes
• Links

Chronological timeline

Chronologically speaking, the events of Metal Gear Solid take place (in preceding order) after Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops, Metal Gear and Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake. Therefore, some exposition is needed before the player can properly understand the following section. Provided for your convenience here is a condensed timeline; the games are listed in chronological order.

Recommended reading/viewing

“We used to think that our fate was in our stars. Now we know, in large part, that our fate is in our genes.” – James D. Watson

(Top, Gattaca): From a gene-centrist perspective, Vincent, being a "borrowed ladder" (or "de-gene-erate" if you may), should, by the very nature of his genes, be unable to keep up with someone like Eugene Morrow in a swimming match. But not only can he keep up with his genetic superior, he actually outperforms him. This leads Eugene to doubt whether or not he is actually so inherently superior to common-bred people as he was led to believe. There is the parable of Adolf Hitler having his entire eugenic creed discredited right in front of everybody when his eugenically superior Aryan supermen lost to a black American athlete (below) in the 1936 Olympics.

This essay on the 1997 movie Gattaca, “The New Eugenics in Cinema: Genetic Determinism and Gene Therapy in GATTACA“, should be read alongside the one you’re reading right now – as both articles cover similar ground.

The essay concludes that Gattaca was “virtually alone among recent popular-culture narratives in its rejection of the genetic-determinist ideology”, and geneticists could not help but to engage in a love/hate relationship with the film. On the one hand the movie vindicated their plight – pointing towards a future where illnesses and diseases can be prevented at birth, but at the same time the film takes a decidedly ‘pro-humanist’ stance that is opposed to all forms of scientific totalitarianism, including the ones that seem to be built on good intentions (on the surface). Its main criticism is that it puts far too much stock in genes, putting unrealistic expectations on genetically superior alpha citizens that they cannot hope to live up to while intentionally discriminating the have-nots who cannot afford such expensive gene therapy or have their children’s genetic features pre-natally determined.

Comparisons between Gattaca and Metal Gear Solid

I would argue that Metal Gear Solid, released a year later, is/was in many ways its videogame contemporary.

There are other narrative similarities between the two. Like the unprivileged “de-gene-erate” character in the film, Solid Snake outdoes his brother Liquid in nearly every battle, despite Liquid having inherited all of his fathers’ dominant genes. Similarly, it is strongly implied that Solid Snake eventually ‘outlasts’ Liquid Snake because of his sheer willpower to survive and his desire to protect Meryl and keep her out of harm’s way. The ending strongly hints at the game’s story being a Gattaca-like renounciation of the gene-deterministic perspective on life that geneticists like to espouse.

Themes

The primary theme of Metal Gear Solid is genetics and a reinvigoration of eugenics due to the successful completion of the Human Genome Project. The game also takes a (somewhat) skeptical stance on Neo-Darwinian thinking as exemplified by Darwin, Spencer and Dawkins – perceiving the gene-centered view on evolution as a dead alley and a restraint on individual potential (see Motivation – Genetics As An Axiom For Human Potential).

The game can also be interpreted as an anti-nuclear screed (see Motivation – Abolition of Nuclear Weapons).

The Sons of Big Boss

“You two are an embarassment from the 1970’s. Our country’s dirty little secret…” – Secretary Of Defense Jim Houseman to Solid Snake, Metal Gear Solid^[Youtube]

There was a third 'son' of Big Boss - Solidus Snake - which received both Big Boss' dominant and recessive genes and thus came as close to being a genetic copy of Big Boss as The Patriots could get. His accelerated aging was by far the most rapid out of the three - at 28 years of age he became the President of The United States (obviously given forged birth certificates by The Patriots) - while looking like a middle-aged man in his mid-'50s.

Big Boss made his bones working as a CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) operative under the codename Naked Snake. His missions involved (among other things) infiltrating Soviet strongholds in the jungle. He goes on to be known as one of the greatest soldiers alive. But Big Boss eventually has a falling out with his former paymasters over a disagreement he has with the puppetmasters who were (unbeknownst to him up to this point) controlling and directing him all throughout his career.

This secret congregation of wealthy and powerful businessmen, called The Patriots, constituted a shadow government. Like any other oligarchy, they prefer secrecy and would rather some frontman take all the blame for decisions made on their behalf. After observing Big Boss’ rising stature as a soldier and military strategist, they immediately foresaw the benefits in having some powerful soldier like Big Boss be one of their frontmen – as a head of state as well as a soldier. But the problem was that such a person had to be controlled and ultimately not turn against the very system that had ‘created’ him so to speak. Given that (which was already a major complication – by the mid ’70s Big Boss was becoming more and more disillusioned with this shadowy cabal) and the inconvenient side-effect of Big Boss having been rendered sterile (this is explained in the ‘prequel’ games – Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater and Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops – this will be covered in an upcoming article), The Patriots decide to try their hand at a human breeding experiment.

Les Enfants Terribles

“You and I were originally octuplets. The other six of our brothers were sacrificed to make us. We were accomplices in murder before we were even born” – Liquid Snake, Metal Gear Solid^[Youtube]

This ’70s project (‘Les Enfants Terribles’) was developed with the specific intent to produce the ultimate supersoldier. It shares some similarities with the positive eugenics experiments of Nazi-Germany (Lebensborn – also see Resident Evil 5 – Wesker’s Eugenic Endgame) – but obviously utilizing far more advanced technology given the wealth of knowledge they had acquired (about DNA and genes, for instance) by the ’70s. The desire to breed a specific subset of human supersoldiers dates back to Plato’s writings in Plato’s Republic. Eva (Big Boss’ lover in the prequel games) participated willingly in this project – they used Big Boss’ DNA to create a fertilized egg cell (zygote) that was then divided into eight separate egg cells.

Six of the eight fetuses inside Eva’s uterus were then intentionally aborted to encourage strong prenatal development in the two remaining ones. Solid Snake got all the recessive genes, while Liquid Snake received all the dominant ones.

Genetic Limits To Growth

There were some safeguards in place to prevent the clones from wreaking havoc in the unlikely event they went rogue. First of all, their reproductive abilities were permanently subdued by implanting them with a ‘terminator gene’ – similar in intent to Monsanto’s Genetic use restriction technology (GURT) used in its pharmacological crops.

The next inherent genetic safeguard was more of a byproduct stemming from the somatic cloning techniques employed to create Solid and Liquid – but The Patriots exacerbated this inherent flaw so as to turn it into a feature. Since cloned organisms often end up with significantly shorter telomeres due to the fact that the DNA has already been divided countless times, the subject will age far more rapidly as opposed to an organism conceived through natural means. In a timespan of just 10 years, Solid Snake would change in appearance from an adult looking to be in his late-’20s to an elderly man rapidly approaching his mid-70s.

Gulf War Brothers And Sisters

“Publicly, the President has been very vocal in his opposition to eugenics experiments.” – Naomi Hunter, Metal Gear Solid^[Youtube]

The game attributes the real cause of the Gulf War Syndrome (still termed Gulf War Syndrome in 1998, now Gulf War Illness) to secret gene therapy experiments whereby Gulf War soldiers were injected with the 'soldier genes' from Big Boss.

But according to Liquid, the eugenic experiments by the U.S. government did not just stop at ‘Les Enfants Terribles’.

Upon hearing from Liquid that the Gulf War soldiers were subjected to gene therapy experiments and injected with Big Boss’ soldier genes during the process, Solid Snake immediately balks at the very idea (the following dialogue excerpt is from the 2004 remake, Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes):

“Solid Snake: Ha! Everyone knows that the Gulf War Syndrome was caused by exposure to pesticides and radiation from depleted uranium rounds.
Liquid Snake: [chuckling] That was just the cover story issued by the Pentagon. First they tried to say it was post-traumatic stress disorder, then chemical or biological weapons. The poison gas detection units and the anti-sarin injections, they were all just to cover up the secret genetic experiments…
Solid Snake: So then… the so-called Gulf War babies that have been reported by Gulf War veterans are…
Liquid Snake: Yes. They, too, are our brothers and sisters^[2].

Out of these initial experiments arose the Next-Generation Special Forces and the Genome Soldiers – both containing much of the same soldier genes as Big Boss as a result of gene therapy.

Genetic diversity

“Have you ever heard of the Asymmetry Theory? Nature tends to favor asymmetry. Those species which have gone extinct all show signs of symmetry.” – Liquid Snake to Solid Snake, Metal Gear Solid^[Youtube]

The basic problem permeating the Les Enfants Terribles project is the same one that has haunted Charles Darwin and evolutionary thinking in the past – yet conveniently it also served its purpose as an insurance policy on The Patriots’ behalf. The basic problem is that of genetic diversity – what Liquid Snake refers to as the ‘Asymmetry Theory’.

Genetic diversity is defined by this Wikipedia article as follows:

“Genetic diversity is a level of biodiversity that refers to the total number of genetic characteristics in the genetic makeup of a species”.^[Wikipedia]

Apparently, genetic diversity plays a big part in determining whether an organism can adapt to its environment and survive. If an organism is not genetically diverse, if the common ancestor that it derives from is on a genetic level too similar, then that species is in danger of dying off due to a certain disease it can not adapt to. Given that, healthy reproduction can become increasingly difficult if a sudden illness causes a swift decline in the overall fitness of a given blood-related species.

Inbreeding and human cloning both lead to a reduction in genetic diversity, and it’s for precisely these reasons that inbreeding and incest has been shunned throughout history without much thought being given as to why^[3].

Because Solid Snake and Liquid Snake are essentially genetic copies of Big Boss, their immune system, too, is identical. What this means that if a virus comes along that their particular immune system cannot adapt to, they are in danger of simply dying off.

This, to Liquid’s mind, solidifies his notion that ‘they’ (meaning him and the other ‘Sons of Big Boss’) are on the verge of death at the genetic level.

Retroviruses and the Human Genome Project

“Science has always thrived on war.” – Hal Emmerich (Otacon), Metal Gear Solid^[Youtube]

As of 2007, the Human Genome Project is considered to be successfully 'completed'. With the mapping of the human genome came an increased understanding of RNA retroviruses and their effects on the human body. The development of race-specific bioweapons as a political tool is now a reality.

The development of RNA retroviruses is intrinsically tied to gene therapy and the Human Genome Project that much of the game’s backstory hinges upon. In previous articles (see Resident Evil 5, and The Impact Of Zombies On Society), we have already elaborated at length on the eugenics movement of the early 20th century and what came out of that.

Metal Gear Solid’s story, taking place in the year 2005, however, has no such need for dwelling on the past, and instead covers eugenics in its current 21st century inception, starting with the Human Genome Project.

The Human Genome Project was initiated by James Watson who directed it from 1988 to 1992. The scope of the project was to map out the entire ‘genomic’ code of humanity. Basically, what this entails is that all of the hereditary information inside a human organism was to be laid bare so scientists could get a better understanding of how humans operate.

Attempts at a better understanding of the inner workings of Man were tried before by the Eugenics Record Office (1910-1944) – information on specific human traits was compiled in a so-called Trait Book, which also tracked information on ‘pedigree’ (superior) families and their specific traits. Of course, by the time the Human Genome Project was initiated, the field of genetics and molecular biology had advanced to such a point that the ERO’s relative efforts were left in the dust – or at worst made a complete mockery out of it.

Now that the genomic code was entirely documented for the first time, scientists could gain a better understanding of the underlying causes of sickness, bacterias and viral strains in humans. With this increase in knowledge, however, came also the distinct possibility of an increase in biological warfare capabilities. For example, specific RNA (Ribonucleic acid) viruses could now be developed that could replicate itself inside a host cell of the target, produce its own DNA from the genomic code of the virus and then incorporate itself into the host’s DNA. Not only selective targeting of individuals was now a possibility, but also the targeting of specific genotypes (meaning people of a certain ethnic trait)^[4]

This, and several other related advancements in viral research, led the Pentagon towards developing military-grade retroviruses for use as biological weapons. The FOXDIE virus would be such a weapon.

The mission

"I hear the terrorist are calling themselves: 'The Sons of Big Boss'". This obvious reference to the Sons of Liberty - the secret society that was formed by the Founding Fathers of the United States - implicates Solidus Snake in the Shadow Moses Incident proceedings. In the spirit of the American Revolutionary War, he is trying to ignite the fire of the revolutionary spirit by pulling off a false-flag operation that will force The Patriots to come out of the shadows. In particular, he wants to wrest control of The Patriots' new weapon, Metal Gear Rex, away from them and use it as a battering ram against them so that he can put the country (and for that matter the world) back in the hands of parliamentary democratic control - or at least keep it outside The Patriots' control.

The whole truth behind the mission was never properly revealed to the player until the release of the second game, Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty. In retrospect, it appears this so-called ‘terrorist hijacking’ of the base was a well-devised ruse by a man trying to exert himself as the leader of his own country by taking out the forces that were manipulating him behind the scenes.

Orchestration of the incident

As revealed in the previous chapter – there was a third ’son’ of Big Boss that happened to be a near-exact replica – Solidus Snake. While Solid Snake would come to experience the same ‘accelerated aging’ phenomenon (most likely a form of Werner syndrome), Solidus Snake in particular was engineered specifically to age markedly faster. This was presumably because The Patriots wanted to groom him for his role as a Presidential Nominee, a figure head of the United States bowing to The Patriots’ every whim. In public life he adopted the alias ‘George Sears’ (most likely a reference to the Civil War General) and became the 43rd President Of The United States.

But Solidus Snake proved to be not quite the willing puppet The Patriots had in mind. While The Patriots did manage to pass through the Metal Gear Rex project and the Genome Soldiers eugenics experiments on Solidus’ watch, he figured he had one last ace in the hole that could turn the tide.

He bided his time until all the chess pieces were into place – Metal Gear Rex being essentially completed and only needing the test data to prove its potential; a pre-arranged meeting between DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) chief Donald Anderson and Arms Tech CEO Kenneth Baker at the disposal facility. The aim was to conduct test experiments of Metal Gear REX’s nuclear launch capabilities in a virtual environment and retrieve the test data. This was to be Solidus Snake’s perfect moment of opportunity to stage a false-flag provocation that would put The Patriots off-guard.

Solidus’ mole in FOXHOUND

Solidus Snake would need some mole as part of the staged insurrection to ensure the central players in the revolt would not derail Solidus’ original plan for Metal Gear REX.

Revolver Ocelot would serve as George Sears/Solidus Snake’s eyes and ears – a double agent pretending to work under Liquid. He was the one that persuaded Liquid Snake to mount his insurrection at the base using the Genome Army and Next-Generation Special Forces to grab hold of Metal Gear Rex. Liquid would then issue his demands to the US Government:

• Hand over the remains of Big Boss
• [after learning Snake was brought in as the carrier of a virus vector] A vaccine for the FOXDIE virus – this was most likely not anticipated by Solidus beforehand, and a change of course on Liquid’s part

If the demands were not met, Liquid would threaten to use Metal Gear Rex as an ICBM launcher.

Liquid’s divergence from the plan

“That Liquid Snake is a smart one…he knows the political climate. His actions were obviously very well calculated…” – Nastasha Romanenko, Metal Gear Solid

It’s not known if Liquid was ever aware he, too, was being used as a pawn. Believing he had full control over the mission, he wanted instead to fulfill Big Boss’ vision of a militaristic nation that was outside the sphere of influence of The Patriots.

Due to his geopolitical savvy, Liquid was in favour of playing superpowers against each other rather than taking them head on (such as: launching a nuke against the United States itself), which would most likely result in mutual assured destruction. This was the reason why he went against Ocelot’s suggestion to set the target for the nuclear strike to be Chernoton, Russia – preferring instead Lipnor, China – the location of a nuclear test site. Firing a nuke on civilian territory would spell the end for any possible future negotiations – but an attack on a nuclear test site could still be concealed from the public by the Chinese government. This way, he could pit the Chinese faction of The Patriots against the American faction – and the latter would be forced to confess to some of its state secrets. At that point he figured the other superpowers in the world would be interested in buying the system from them (Metal Gear Rex and possibly improved Genome Soldiers) – at which point he would sell them to the highest bidder.

Liquid Snake believed in ‘directed guidance’ of conflict – in creating the preconditions of perpetual war between major geographical power blocs (not unlike Nineteen Eighty Four’s take on it) so soldiers such as him would never lose their place in the world. In a way, he’s applying the ‘Selfish Gene’ theory to socio-economical-political phenomena – ensuring he and his ilk would never have to switch careers. There’s a big question mark hanging over his motives – it’s doubtful whether he genuinely wanted to curb The Patriots’ stranglehold over the world to restore some mirage of a free and open society – or whether he was merely in it for the egotistical power trip.

The Patriots’ Contingency Plan

The incident (dubbed the FOXHOUND Rebellion) catches the Pentagon (and, by extension, The Patriots) off-guard: they did not want to let their joint research project Metal Gear REX go to waste, and more importantly, they needed its test data for BDA (bomb damage assessment) purposes. This was the reason why both the DARPA chief (himself an operative and founding member of The Patriots) and ArmsTech CEO Kenneth Baker were both present at the nuclear disposal facility housing Metal Gear – to observe the VR (Virtual reality) simulation and take the data back to the Pentagon on an optical storage medium.

As soon as the Pentagon learns of Liquid Snake’s demands – The Patriots get into play. Obviously they’re not going to give in to his demands, as the remains of Big Boss are the bedrock of all the eugenics experiments performed by the government. So, they develop a contingency plan instead: a lone agent infiltrates the base, takes out the terrorists, retrieves the test data, leaves Metal Gear REX unharmed and returns to base. To achieve full command and control (C2) over the mission, they placed several moles at highly strategic positions of mission command:

Characters

Nearly all of the characters have at least one character flaw. This could be some traumatic event in their past that shaped their character, or some particular doctrine/philosophical creed they adhere to that, in one way or another, leaves them vulnerable to attack.

Solid Snake

“Well, I don’t believe in coincidences. Something funny’s going on.” – Solid Snake, Metal Gear Solid

Back in the good old days of the '80s, Japanese game artists resorted to plagiarizing the likenesses of famous actors in Hollywood films wholecloth with an audacious disregard for copyright infringement; (above-left) Solid Snake as shown on the Metal Gear (1987) MSX/NES boxart; (above right) Michael Biehn from The Terminator (1984); (bottom) Solid Snake in Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns Of The Patriots (2008).

Solid Snake is the twin brother of Liquid Snake. He is the one handpicked by The Patriots to infiltrate the Alaskan nuclear disposal facility at Shadow Moses Island.

Coerced mission assignment

“I should have known you were behind this, Colonel.” – Solid Snake, Metal Gear Solid^[Youtube]

Committing patricide in the name of serving one’s country and restoring world peace was one step too many for Snake’s conscience; after the events of Zanzibarland (Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake), he went into early retirement and started a new life as a dog musher somewhere in Alaska. He wanted nothing to do again with his former profession.

When news broke of Liquid Snake’s ultimatum to the White House, The Patriots set their contingency plan into motion: Roy Campbell was brought out from early retirement to become Snake’s CO (Commanding Officer) once more, while Snake himself was forcibly kidnapped from his home in Alaska and dragged into a holding cell. There he was briefed on the situation by Roy Campbell – and forcibly injected by Naomi Hunter without even having decided to accept the mission yet^[5].

Snake was to infiltrate Shadow Moses Island (a fictional archipelago situated in Alaska) under the auspices of a rescue and reconnaissance operation. Because of the extremely harsh climate, Snake would need some stimulants to keep him alive and alert. This is where Dr Naomi Hunter came in.

Pharmacological stimulants

“That was quite a cocktail.” – Solid Snake, Metal Gear Solid

Solid Snake has received a variety of psychotropic stimulants and chemical injections as part of his mission detail.

Benzedrine: Marketed by the pharmaceutical establishment under the name Amphetamine. Keeps Snake awake and responsive for 12 straight hours.

Antifreeze protein: What Naomi Hunter refers to as an ‘anti-freezing peptide’. Prevents Snake’s blood and other bodily fluids from freezing even at sub-arctic temperatures. Antifreezing proteins are increasingly being used in the real world for a wide variety of purposes – one example being Unilever incorporating it into some of their products, including popsicles and ice creams.

Antifreeze proteins (AFPs) are merely a class of amino acids that certain plants, fungi and bacteria produce to survive in sub-zero temperatures. From the Wikipedia article:

“Antifreeze proteins (AFPs) or ice structuring proteins (ISPs) refer to a class of polypeptides produced by certain vertebrates, plants, fungi and bacteria that permit their survival in subzero environments.”^[Wikipedia]

Nootropics: Also referred to as smart drugs, or memory enhancers. Amphetamine and Ritalin both fall under this category. There are inherent hazards associated with these ’smart drugs’, however, such as serotonin syndrome or addiction to the drug.

Snake’s Usefulness as A Viral Vector

(Top): Solid Snake in Metal Gear Solid being given an inoculation containing the virus; (bottom) Snake Plissken being injected with microscopic explosives that are set to be activated fifteen minutes before the deadline.

In gene therapy, retroviruses are the leading weapon employed in the fight against diseases. Retroviruses are injected into the given subject to attack only the dividing cells.

To give but one specific example: to treat brain cancer, the subject is injected with a retrovirus containing a “suicide gene”. These retroviruses then produce factories in the body churning out massive quantities of their kind in order to then conspire against the dividing cells (cancer cells) and destroy them. The other cells remain unaltered by the virus due to the existence of something termed the “bystander effect”.

It stands within reason that if a virus vector can be used in such a way to alleviate diseases – it could also be used to attack specific DNA sequences for warfare purposes. This is what the Pentagon sought to engineer under its ambitious bioweapons program – of which Dr. Naomi Hunter later became a part of.

The Patriots, with the Secretary Of Defense acting as the official go-between guy, desired to retrieve Metal Gear REX unharmed and dispose of anybody who knew about the project or the shenanigans involving the nuclear disposal site. To do that, a novel approach in dealing with the problem was needed. FOXDIE would fit the bill for a number of reasons:

1. It could be sold to lower-ranking military brass as ‘just a specific vaccine’ the guinea pig had to be injected with that would cause no additional side-effects – and they would think nothing more of it.
2. A lone wolf such as Snake could be sent in under the pretense of a ‘rescue operation’, encounter the ‘targets’ the FOXDIE virus would be specifically designed to target, and infect them in the process -causing immediate cardiac arrest in the target. In essence, they would use Solid Snake as a living and breathing retrovirus carrier – spreading the disease throughout the entire base and killing everyone in its path.
3. Specific high-profile members of The Patriots (such as Donald Anderson, and one would presume Revolver Ocelot) were left conveniently out of the crosshairs.

The Pentagon did not anticipate that the person responsible for much of the breakthrough research involving the FOXDIE virus would essentially yank in a last-minute feature of her own: next to the predefined targets the virus was supposed to eliminate, it would also target the host, Solid Snake, itself – but instead of causing instant death, it would remain dormant inside the body and be activated at some random date in time. The mere knowledge that he could die at any given minute was the added psychological torment Naomi wished to impose upon him for having killed her beloved brother – for the rest of his life, Snake would have to live with the specter of Death looming over his shoulder.

Thus, Solid Snake was unwittingly injected with the FOXDIE virus and remained none the wiser as to the mysterious deaths surrounding the (fake) DARPA chief (in reality Decoy Octopus, one of the FOXHOUND terorrists) and Kenneth Baker until Naomi finally revealed to him the real reason behind the inoculations. By ensuring anyone inside the base who had firsthand information on Metal Gear Rex would never leave the base alive, the Pentagon was in a position to contain the `leakage` of their secret black-ops program. In this respect, it paid off – to a degree. What they didn’t anticipate in all likelihood was that the President would throw a wrench in their plans at the last minute. (a wave of conspicuous assassinations and forced resignations would then ensue – George Sears had to do a Nixon and go into hiding while the Secretary Of Defense was placed under arrest and committed ’suicide’ a few months later)

Nanomachines And The Biofeedback Loop

(Top picture): Your interaction (as the player) with Solid Snake and Naomi Hunter constitutes a quasi-biofeedback loop. Unlike other videogame protagonists, Solid Snake's reactions to his environment remain to a certain degree outside the player's control. This is even more pronounced in the later sequels: in Metal Gear Solid 2, Snake will get sick if he spends too much time in the rain (Bottom picture). Being sick makes him liable to sneeze at certain inconvenient moments - to suppress this, the player can give him a psychotropic drug such as Diazepam. (Middle picture): NASA has patented a biofeedback videogame concept that trains people to change their brainwave activity or other physiological functions while playing popular off-the-shelf videogames.

Naomi Hunter has also been made in charge of administering and monitoring Solid Snake’s health through the various nanomachines she has injected him with.

By having Naomi be available to you at all times by codec to provide you with constant updates on your physical health status, one could argue this constitutes a biofeedback loop of some sort. But unlike Psycho Mantis reading the contents of your memory card and telling you what you already know and have no immediate effect on (ie. Mantis tells you that you like Castlevania based on the fact that a save game is contained on your Memory Card) , in this instance the player is actively participating in breaking the fourth wall.

Let’s have a look at the definition of biofeedback and then bring up the example of Snake smoking a cigarette:

“Biofeedback is a non-medical process that involves measuring a subject’s specific and quantifiable bodily functions such as blood pressure, heart rate, skin temperature, sweat gland activity, and muscle tension, conveying the information to the patient in real-time. This raises the patient’s awareness and therefore the possibility of conscious control of those functions.”^[Wikipedia]

If you call Campbell while you are smoking a cigarette, Naomi will confront you with your ‘dirty deed’ and get into a long-winded monologue explaining which exact gene is being triggered by smoking that will eventually result in the person contracting lung cancer. You can also see the health meter slowly deteriorating while ingesting nicotine. Thus, by observing a detrimental effect to Snake’s health without no obvious benefit to be gleaned from him smoking a cigarette, you (the player) can perhaps be persuaded into adjusting Snake’s behaviour pattern and ditching the cigarette entirely. On the other hand, when Snake needs to pass through a room laden with infrared sensors, he can use the cigarettes to his advantage as the smoke reveals the infrared beams. Alternatively, he could also opt for the thermal goggles – but this is a luxury that you will eventually acquire during the mission – while Snake’s cigarettes are available to you right from the start.

A second example involves another nanomachine Naomi injected you with that protects you against phosphorus-based nerve gas for a short time duration. This is due to the nanomachine containing protopam chloride (PAM), a nerve gas neutralizing agent. A second meter will pop up if you’re in a room with nerve gas seeping in. This meter indicates the amount of time you have left before the PAM supply inside the nanomachine runs out, after which you will have to reach for a Gas Mask or escape the room in some other way.

Another example involves the accuracy of Snake’s hand-eye coordination. This is nearly outside the player’s control – the PSG-1 sniper rifle he gets to equip is a bit on the wobbly side, and to beat Sniper Wolf the player will have to find some way to get Snake to steady his aim so your crosshair in first-person mode won’t float all over the place. There are two ways to achieve this – one, you could opt for the diazepam drug – but these come in short supply, and what’s more, they’re highly addictive. On the other hand, having Snake smoke cigarettes tends to calm him down and have the added side effect of making him a more accurate sharpshooter – but obviously there’s a tradeoff involved here between the amount of health that is depleted by you smoking the cigarettes versus the added accuracy this lends to your sniping abilities. It’s up to the player to weigh the pros against the cons based on the constant influx of health information that gets relayed to him through the User Interface (UI).

The player thus acts as an intermediary between Naomi Hunter and Solid Snake – he doesn’t have complete control over Snake (in the sense that no amount of analog stick manoeuvring will really compensate for Snake’s shoddy aim at times without the player regulating his body in one way or another), he doesn’t have the wealth of knowledge that Naomi has either about prescription drugs and its effects on the body, but he isn’t a complete spectator either and can use the information passed down from Naomi to the player in order to improve Snake’s performance. This is made even more pronounced in Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty – if Snake has been made to stand outside in the rain for too long, he catches a cold and will sneeze from time to time. Needless to say, this will cause a lot of complications once inside the tanker and trying to sneak your way past guards.

Liquid Snake

Liquid Snake is the twin brother of Solid Snake. He is a highly gifted soldier; well-versed in history, calculating, and a great geopolitical strategist. He is the leader of the now-turned-rogue black-ops unit FOXHOUND.

As a testament to his social engineering skills, he manages to fool Snake throughout the entirety of his mission by adopting the identity of his former mentor, Master Miller. This serves a variety of purposes: first, to keep tabs on his progress (see how far along he is) by providing him with help over a codec line; second, use him as an unwitting cog in their plan to activate the nuke on Metal Gear; third, to eventually build confidence between himself and Snake by ratting out Naomi Hunter.

Motivation – The Selfish Gene

“In nature, family members don’t mate with each other. And yet they help each other to survive. Do you know why? It increases the chance that their genes will be passed on to a new generation. Altruism among blood relatives is a response to natural selection. It’s called the Selfish Gene Theory.” – Liquid Snake to Solid Snake, Metal Gear Solid^[Youtube]

According to Dawkins' book, The Selfish Gene, humans are basic survival machine automatons that - like robot vehicles - are blindly programmed to selfishly preserve their own molecules known as genes. Liquid Snake acts accordingly - he's trying to stave off decay by figuring out a solution for the clones' genetic symmetry. In a sense, he performs the act of altruism not as part of his own conscious decision - but rather by initiative of his genes. Since, according to Dawkins, genes only engage in altruism in concert with their kin and natural selection tends to favor group selection, Liquid figures that the only way to stay alive is by preserving his blood brothers, hence the 'Sons of Big Boss' revolution.

Liquid Snake’s prowess as a strategical thinker and exemplary soldier are a direct result of his inheriting all of Big Boss’ soldier genes. But his awareness of the genetic landscape and his ongoing inferiority complex with regards to Solid Snake also tends to narrow his potential.

The main conundrum Liquid Snake finds himself in is that he is ultimately a victim of his own slavish convictions regarding evolutionary Darwinism. Liquid Snake is under the (misguided) perception that he received the brunt of all the recessive genes while Solid Snake was awarded with all the dominant ones. According to Neo-Darwinian orthodoxy, this would mean that Solid Snake would be the superior of the two siblings. Even though he feels cheated and seems to blame Solid Snake for not being the true inheritor of Big Boss’ genetic heritage, he still harbors an intense desire to preserve his gene pool by finding a cure to the ‘genetic symmetry’ problem so that his lifespan and that of the Sons of Big Boss may be extended. He states time and time again to his brother (Solid Snake) that he is intent on carrying out his genetic fate – ie. his genes tell him to put up a fight against ‘natural selection’ so that his genes will be carried to the next generation by way of ‘natural selection’. In essence, he’s trying to beat Lady Luck at her own game.

In his existentialist rantings, Liquid can be repeatedly heard referring to Richard Dawkins‘ ‘Selfish gene’ theory. This theory espouses that genes are inherently selfish – and that the only true act of altruism on the part of a gene is to be found among blood relatives. When a relative of the gene is in danger, its genes will command the individual to protect them, even if it ends up sacrificing the host organism. Dawkins postulates that genes have the capacity to recognize if their kin are in danger – and to make the organism perform a decidedly unselfish act on the part of its genes so that the gene itself will eventually pass on (in some form or another) to another generation. Hence Liquid’s statement that “altruism among blood relatives is a response to natural selection”. When viewed from this perspective, this would make humans and animals alike the mere servants of their constituent parts – ’selfish genes’ that play the role of the proverbial ‘puppetmaster’.

This serves as Liquid’s rationale for saving the Genome Soldiers from the brink of extinction. And to do that, he would need to obtain the remains of Big Boss so that he can research his DNA more thoroughly – hence why it’s among his list of demands from the US government.

Roy Batty and Liquid Snake

The likely source of his inspiration is a similar character from the movie Blade Runner^[6] – Roy Batty, played by Rutger Hauer in the movie.

(Top-left): Roy Batty - Rutger Hauer - in Blade Runner; besides the narrative similarities established in the accompanying paragraph, there are other similarities between Liquid Snake and the Rutger Hauer character. Both character and actor sport the blue eyes and blond hair that is the characteristic of the supposed Aryan ideal that race scientists strove after. Both are the product of genetic-engineering experiments; both wear essentially a long trenchcoat over their bare torso; both take off their top clothes in the final ensuing battle; both display an understanding of genetics. Both are filled with hate for their creator.

Roy Batty is the latest iteration (NEXUS Series 6) in a long assembly line of cybernetic organisms produced by a major genetic-engineering corporation – Tyrell Corporation. As a practical failsafe (because of the NEXUS-6 line’s capacity to have memories and emotional responses), the company gives each cyborg a fixed lifespan of roughly six years.

The cyborgs are mostly used as off-world colony slave workers – if one of them escapes from the off-world colonies and decides to travel to Earth, they are to be hunted down by special police squads known as “Blade Runners”, whose sole duty is to put them into “retirement” – a friendly-sounding euphemism for killing them.

Roy Batty, the leader of a renegade group of NEXUS-6 cyborgs that have travelled to Earth, instigates a rebellion of his own against the very company that created him. Unlike Liquid Snake in Metal Gear Solid, they have no doomsday device to grab hold of that will force the Tyrell Corporation into giving in to their demands. Instead, they opt for a more subtle approach by going through the chain of command. The eye geneticist Cho is approached first, but he offers no solutions other than referring them to JF Sebastian. After they have extracted all useful information out of him, he is subsequently disposed of. JF Sebastian is next on the chopping block – apparently the main designer of the NEXUS cyborgs. He leads them to the pivotal head – Eldon Tyrell, CEO of Tyrell Corporation. The vain hope in all this is that, by threat and intimidation tactics, Tyrell would be able to extend their lifespan.

But alas, the Tyrell boss offers no such respite. The ensuing dialogue between the two sheds some light on Liquid’s conundrum as well:

Eldon Tyrell: The facts of life. To make an alteration in the evolvement of an organic life system is fatal. A coding sequence cannot be revised once it’s been established.
Roy Batty: Why not?
ET: Because by the second day of incubation, any cells that have undergone reversion mutations give rise to revertant colonies, like rats leaving a sinking ship. Then the ship sinks.
RB: What about EMS recombination?
ET: We’ve already tried it. Ethyl methane sulfonate is an alkylating agent and a potent mutagen. It created a virus so lethal the subject was dead before he left the table.
RB: Then a repressive protein – that blocks the operating cells.
ET: It wouldn’t obstruct replication, but it does give rise to an error in replication, so that the newly formed DNA strand carries the mutation and you’ve got a virus again. But, uh, this – all of this is academic. You were made as well as we could make you.^{[Blade Runner: The Script][Youtube]}

Liquid’s Achilles heel

“That’s right! I’m just the leftovers of what they used to make you. Can you understand what it’s like to know that you’re garbage since the day you were born!?” – Liquid Snake to Solid Snake, Metal Gear Solid^[Youtube]

What Liquid doesn’t realize is that by buying wholesale into this notion of being the lesser of two cellular organisms and believing that his genes will ultimately restrict him from ever surpassing his genetically-imposed limits, he restrains himself unnecessarily both in physical and mental terms. After all, at the end of the game Revolver Ocelot informs his boss (Solidus Snake) that the ‘inferior one’ won out after all – inferring that he knew all along that Liquid was the superior one after all, and that he had got it all backwards. It is likely that Liquid was deliberately fed this misinformation to see if it had any detrimental effect on his performance. In the end, it did.

Naomi Hunter

“It’s your genes… they make you predisposed towards violence!” – Naomi Hunter to Solid Snake, Metal Gear Solid^[Youtube]

As a geneticist, Naomi is very useful for providing Snake with information about all sorts of psychotropic drugs that might temporarily improve Snake`s performance, such as diazepam (better known as Valium).

Naomi Hunter is part of Solid Snake’s support team. She has a background in genetic engineering and previously served as the head of FOXHOUND’s medical department prior to the uprising.

Involvement in Pentagon bioweapons program

Naomi conceals an ulterior motive for assisting Solid Snake in the mission. Unbeknownst to Snake until the latter stages of the mission, Naomi happens to bear intense resentment against Snake for killing her surrogate brother in Zanzibar. This seems to be understandable for a number of reasons – Naomi suffers from severe psychological problems due to what she experienced in her homecountry and because of the lack of maternal/parental love. Thus she has no real identity of her own – hence why she turned to genetics in the first place.

After she learns her ‘big brother’ has died, she turns her hatred for Snake into a motivating stimulus that perfectly complements her identity struggle. She takes on the identity of someone else – a real doctor called Naomi Hunter (apparently only ‘Naomi’ is part of her real name and she has no real surname). Through impersonating this person, she succeeds in getting to work for a major private pharmaceutical corporation that is jointly working for the Pentagon on a project to provide medical treatment to the genetically altered soldiers known as the Next-Generation Special Forces.

It is not known whether or not she knew about this before being recruited by the company, but during her stay at the company, she learns Frank Jaeger may not be dead after all. Feeling pity for what little was left of her ‘big brother’ – essentially kept under harsh and overly excessive pharmacological control that disrupted his senses and cognitive functions – she helped him escape from the laboratory and implicated herself in aiding and abetting the murder of Dr. Clark – FOXHOUND’s chief medical scientist.

With Clark gone, Naomi assumes the position of head geneticist of the FOXHOUND medical lab. She eventually becomes involved in the Pentagon’s secret biological weapons program, FOXDIE.

Motivation – Genetics As An Axiom For Human Potential

“You mustn’t allow yourself to be chained to fate, to be ruled by your genes” – Naomi Hunter, Metal Gear Solid^[Youtube]

Is genes all there is to a life organism? A resounding 'no', gene-centric Naomi is forced to conclude. She would be part of a growing number of evolutionary biologists and scientist swho have to come to view the DNA and gene-centric view of evolution with extreme skepticism, suspecting a deterministic ideology is afoot here*.

After being exposed as a spy and placed under house arrest by Colonel Campbell, Naomi Hunter has en epiphany on her career choice at the end of the game.

Born a ‘dirty little orphan’ in Rhodesia (what would be modern-day Zimbabwe today), Naomi lacks a sense of self-identity as she never got to knew her real parents. When her surrogate brother (Frank Jaeger) decides to take her to America, suddenly all sorts of career opportunities open up to her that she wouldn’t have enjoyed at home. Of these, she seeks refuge and salvation in science – genetic engineering, to be precise.

Naomi’s hope was that by analysing her genes and cracking the underlying code of specific genetic sequences, she would be able to deduce who she really is and what she is meant to be doing, and ultimately be able to track down her family lineage and find out who her real parents were.

But at the end of Solid Snake’s mission she feels disillusioned with her ‘faith’ in genetic engineering. She is forced to conclude that for all her accomplishments in the field of genetics, it never gave her any fulfilling answers to the questions she sought in the first place. Moreover, she is now beginning to ponder whether it is extremely backwards (instead of ‘progressive’) to put everything down to one’s “genes”. In this regard, she takes the opposite direction from the Dawkinian school of biological determinism.

In her revised opinion, genetics merely determines the kind of path and capabilities that a person can take – but it does not in any way imply one particular path predetermined by one’s genes. Seen from that perspective, it is possible for Solid Snake to redeem himself – not to merely continue going down the path of a hired killer, but to travel down an alternative path – towards a future entirely unrelated to war and destruction.

What led to her reconsidering her previously unshakeable conviction? Perhaps it came about as a result of what she observed during the Shadow Moses mission; before the mission, she thought of Solid Snake as little more than a ruthless killer without any regard for human empathy. Halfway through the mission, she is forced to revise her assessment – there is still a human aspect to Snake despite his past transgressions (for instance, he cares about Meryl, and depending on whether or not you survived the torture session without giving in, he is even willing to muster up the energy to endure a particularly gruelling torture session to keep Meryl alive).

But perhaps most worrying to her conscience would be the pathological nature of Liquid Snake, Snake’s brother and in many ways his twin shadow. If anything, it served as an example of where her overly fixated perspective on genetics might lead to.

Psycho Mantis

“Humans weren’t designed to bring each other happiness. From the moment we’re thrown into this world, we’re fated to bring each other nothing but pain and misery.” – Psycho Mantis, Metal Gear Solid^[YouTube]

Among his many skills, Psycho Mantis can use extra-sensory perception to peer into people's minds and read his/her future. In the movie The Shining (a Stanley Kubrick film), the family of a prolific writer decide to be the caretakers of a hotel somewhere in the middle of nowhere to get his mind back on track after experiencing writer's block. His young son, Danny, continually catches glimpses of the hotel's ugly past and scary premonitions of future events involving ghost-like figures and mass slaughter. His father eventually becomes subsumed by some malevolent spirit and starts playing with the psychotic fantasy of slaughtering his family. According to an interview with Kubrick, both Danny and the cook of the hotel, Halloran, can telepathically communicate with each other and be able to perceive these visions due to both of them having an innate gift known as extra-sensory perception - which Kubrick wholeheartedly thought to be real**.

Psycho Mantis is one of the members of FOXHOUND now under Liquid’s command. He represents a particular stratagem of military intelligence that the Russians tend to invest more heavily in than their American counterparts.

Psychic powers

As a matter of principle, Psycho Mantis has no need for his fists or guns of any sort. From an early age, Mantis has learned to utilize techniques such as extra-sensory perception, clairvoyance and psychokinesis to confuse his adversaries and thus wage a more sophisticated form of warfare against them.

Some brief explanation of the terms alluded to above is in order.

Extra-sensory perception (ESP)

“ESP research: determining the properties and condition of objects without ever making contact with them and “reading” peoples’ thoughts.” – Timothy L. Thomas, The Mind Has No Firewall, Parameters (Q1 1998), US Army War College Quarterly

Psycho Mantis flaunts these abilities at several points throughout the game. As part of Liquid Snake’s plan to retrieve the nuclear detonation codes so Metal Gear Rex is ready to launch a nuclear weapon, Mantis is instructed to peer into DARPA chief Donald Anderson’s mind and obtain the code. This attempt was a failure on his part – Donald Anderson had surgical implants attached to his brain that acted as a firewall for the mind – preventing his thoughts from being read. (ArmsTech CEO Donald Baker later informs Snake that this is more or less the rule rather than the exception among top brass in the defense industry – this is the first sign that Snake has been fed misinformation by the (purported) DARPA chief who died of a ’stroke’).

Because Meryl Silverburgh has no such mental safeguards, she was easy pickings for Psycho Mantis’ psycho-tronic warfare. He takes complete possession of Meryl at several instances to create a sizeable distance between Snake and her – this way he can control her without Snake catching on. The first time this happens, Snake experiences a mental feedback loop of some sort – Meryl heads for the elevator without waiting for Snake to catch up, then she fires an entire round of ammo at Snake for no real reason – merely to get him off her back – then the elevator finally goes up. After this, we get to see an image of Psycho Mantis inexplicably popping up out of nowhere.

When inquiring on what he thought he just saw, Naomi says it’s most likely ‘psychometric interference’ by Psycho Mantis. Again, this seems to be mostly grounded in real parapsychological research if we go by the following excerpt of the aforementioned US Army War College article, “The Mind Has No Firewall“:

“Solntsev also examined the problem of “information noise”, which creates a dense shield between a person and external reality. This noise may manifest itself in the form of signals, messages, images, or other items of information. The main target of this noise would be the consciousness of a person or a group of people. Behavior modification could be one objective of information noise; another could be to upset an individual’s mental capacity to such an extent as to prevent reaction to any stimulus. Solntsev concludes that all levels of a person’s psyche (subconscious, conscious, and “superconscious”) are potential targets for destabilization.” – Timothy L. Thomas, The Mind Has No Firewall, Parameters (Q1 1998), US Army War College Quarterly

Indeed, the “noise”/”interference” does seem to put up a shield between Meryl and her actual surroundings. Behavior modification seems to be most definitely at play here – in the scene described above, Meryl is not herself and seems to be in control by Mantis himself – but notice also that her mental capacity is so destabilized that she will also not respond to Snake’s pleas to ’snap out of it’. This will segue nicely into the following section of this paragraph, which concerns mind control – and the way in which Mantis actually achieves this hypnotic spell he casts on people’s minds.

Psychokinesis and mind control

“Psychokinesis research: interfering with the thoughts of individuals, on either the strategic or tactical level.” – Timothy L. Thomas, The Mind Has No Firewall, Parameters (Q1 1998), US Army War College Quarterly

The insurrection would have been impossible to pull off without loyal infantrymen safeguarding all the possible points of entry to the base – and, of course, they would prove indispensible for basic patrol, pursuit and reconaisssance work.

Located at the disposal facility were Next-Generation Special Forces units and Genome Soldiers – both having been subjected to gene therapy and being digital copies of Big Boss in their own right. Though some of them joined the FOXHOUND revolution on their own accord, the vast majority of them had to be conditioned in some way to go along with FOXHOUND’s takeover of the base.

This is where Psycho Mantis’ brainwashing techniques came into play. He managed to successfully brainwash the vast majority of the soldiers through a method of psychokinesis that puts the subject into a suggestible state with some form of psychic driving (a process whereby the victim is subjected to a continuously repeating audio message on tape – in this case, it’s a hymn that is looped over and over again). The end result is highly advantageous from a strategic standpoint: highly motivated obedient soldiers with the same ’soldier’ genes that distinguish Liquid and Solid from the rest of the pack.

Telekinesis

“Telekinesis research: actions involving the manipulation of physical objects using thought power, causing them to move or break apart – used against command and control (C2) systems, or to disrupt the functioning of weapons of mass destruction.” – Timothy L. Thomas, The Mind Has No Firewall, Parameters (Q1 1998), US Army War College Quarterly

Psycho Mantis is able to move physical objects by sheer willpower alone. He amply demonstrates this skill to the player by levitating statues, chairs, portraits inside the room and throwing them at Snake. It is ironic that this skill will ultimately redeem himself in the end. After having defeated him, he opens a hidden door for Snake that will lead him to Metal Gear Rex’s underground base. The last sentence he utters is a poignant reminder that had Psycho Mantis not given in to his anger and bitterness felt early on in his childhood, he could have used his extraordinary skills for noble ventures:

“This is the first time I’ve ever used my power to help someone. It’s strange… it feels… kind of… nice.” - Psycho Mantis, Metal Gear Solid^[Youtube]

Another parting gift by Mantis – because Mantis possesses clairvoyance abilities (giving him the ability to observe objects that are not visible to the naked eye), he implants thoughts into Meryl’s mind that enable her to correctly traverse a path littered with unseen Claymore mines -all without incurring harm to herself or Snake.

Frank Jaeger/Gray Fox

“Technological and scientific innovation need not have direct bearing on nuclear or virological research to contribute to the making of weapons of mass destruction.

After all, the Ninja was born of genetic engineering and cybernetic research, which could easily have healed a civilian rather than improved upon a soldier. A scientist cannot plead naivete to the practical products of their own research. The consequences must be anticipated, and the ethical burden of a newly developed technology must ultimately rest with the individual researcher.” – Nastasha Romanenko, In The Darkness of Shadow Moses: The Unofficial Truth, Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons Of Liberty

Just like the game foreshadowed (above), the military applications of exoskeletons have not been lost on the likes of Raytheon (Raytheon Sarcos exoskeleton) and Lockheed Martin (Human Universal Load Carrier).

Solid Snake last came face to face with his former friend in Zanzibarland – on opposite sides of the fence. Both felt it their duty to fulfill their part as proverbial pieces on a grand chessboard – an obligation ranking above friendship or family values. After Snake’s mission in Zanzibarland, Gray Fox was presumed to have died at the hands of his lifelong friend, Solid Snake. This caused Naomi some considerable grief given that Frank Jaeger was her only connection to the past (Jaeger never had the stomach to inform Naomi about the truth behind his decision to raise Naomi – he killed her parents only to show reluctance at having to kill her too – as he later tells Snake: “I was young then, and couldn’t bring myself to kill her too”)

Transhumanist soldier

“We’re not tools of the government or anyone else. Fighting was the only thing, the only thing I was good at, but… At least I always fought for what I believed in. – Frank Jaeger/Gray Fox, Metal Gear Solid^[Youtube]

In truth, Frank survived the fight – albeit horribly wounded and left hanging by a mere thread of his life (most of his body and limbs had been lost due to the impact of several landmines). FOXHOUND’s chief medic, Dr. Clark (nickname ‘Para-Medic’), relished the opportunity to use him as a guinea pig for a new type of project that would combine the field of gene-therapy with cybernetics.

Using the remains of his body as the base for a new type of exoskeleton suit with metallic prosthetics, he was metamorphosed into a ‘cyborg’ ninja. To keep him properly sedated and to alleviate some of the pain, he was fed a heavy dosage of psychotropic drugs. This went on for the better part of four years until Naomi Hunter joined FOXHOUND’s medical staff as an assistant to Dr Clark.

Upon learning this cybernetic ‘Ninja’ was in actuality Gray Fox, she came up with a plan to help him assist in his escape, and take out Dr Clark in the process. (the latter was an act not out of revenge, but by orders of Eva – Dr Clark also happened to be one of the founding members of The Patriots – and therefore ranked high on the hit-list of the anti-Patriots faction that Eva represented).

Sniper Wolf

Sniper Wolf is most likely modelled after famous World War II Soviet Union female sharpshooters (unlike the militaries of other nations such as the US, in the Marxist state both men and women were trained to become snipers). Pictured below is Nina Alexeyevna Lobkovskaya, Russian sharpshooter in WWII, managing an impressive 308 kills.

Sniper Wolf is an Iraqi-Kurdish female sniper of Unit FOXHOUND.

Given the environment in which she was raised in and the harsh living standards that came par for the course (as a Kurd she would be hunted down like dogs and a friend or relative would wind up dead on a daily occasion), she became to identify with the wolf as a personification of herself. Hence it is of no surprise that she objected when the terrorists were planning to put the dogs out of commission when they took over the facility – hence that is why they have given her the nickname. She regularly tends to the wolves as if they are her own family.

On the Origin Of Domestication

“In the Middle East, we don’t hunt foxes, we hunt jackals. Instead of foxhounds, we use royal harriers.” – Liquid Snake, Metal Gear Solid^[Youtube]

Dogs all seem to share one common ancestor: the wolf. There is some debate as to whether wolves ‘evolved’ into dogs by ‘artificial selection’ or ‘natural selection’ (Dawkins would argue the latter in this article from the Times Online, “The Truth Dogs Reveal About Evolution” – but what he really seems to imply is that it’s a mixture of both) – but let’s focus on ‘artificial selection’.

Obviously, a wolf would be a rather dangerous animal to have around as a pet – and too unreliable and self-deterministic to be used as a hunting dog. So a ‘domestication’ and ‘breeding process’ had to be enacted by humans to instill certain traits into the offspring of these animals. Through trial and error, naturalists discovered that by interbreeding less ferocious samples of the species, the outcome would be an even more docile pup. Gradually, by selective breeding, these ‘wolves’ would lose their survival instinct and ‘flight distance’ and instead come to view humans in the same way as they would their mother or father.

This was where the original idea for eugenics came into being – naturalists were convinced that if specific traits could be inculcated into animals by selective breeding programs, the same could naturally be applied to humans. But without digressing too much, at a specific point in time, Dawkins and Coppinger would wager that the wolf lowered its self defense – what they like to term its ‘flight distance’ – the amount of distance between the wolf and a human before the wolf senses danger and makes off or (if aggravated) attack. They would argue this lowering of the flight distance was due to the wolf needing to adapt to its environment and having to find a new food source.

So, if this phenomena – what Dawkins likes to term ’self-domestication’ – came about naturally and explains how wolfs eventually became to be domesticated dogs, could the same be applied to humans or social organizations? Do they, too, lower their flight distance over time and eventually become the prey and the mere cattle of a more able predator? Or do they fight back and try to retain their innate survival instinct? And, if the latter, do they fail as a consequence? That would be as nice a metaphor as any and in keeping with the ’survival of the fittest’ mantra of Herbert Spencer and Darwin alike.

Social organizations and subsumation

The wolves that Sniper Wolf looks after are what

During the Cold War, the CIA-led special operations unit FOX featured such notable names as Naked Snake (AKA Big Boss) and The Boss (Big Boss’ mentor). It wasn’t until after Snake had left the unit and a decade had passed that FOX eventually became rogue and was dead set on attacking the Soviet Union. Obviously fearing the repercussions of such a bold move, Naked Snake and Roy Campbell were sent in to subsume the threat. They formed a special outfit called ‘FOXHOUND’ (the ‘foxhound’ hunts the ‘fox’ – get it?) that had as its specific mission statement to fight against the rebelling members of FOX, and clear the names of the remaining FOX members who were not made complicit in FOX having gone rogue.

After the events of Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops (during which this rebellion takes place), FOX is put to pastures and FOXHOUND takes its place. This takes us to the series of events surrounding the first Metal Gear installment, Metal Gear (for the MSX/NES). Gray Fox^[7] is being held captive in rogue state Outer Heaven and Solid Snake (still a rookie at this point) joins FOXHOUND and is sent in to get him out. It eventually turns out that Big Boss himself had not only chosen Solid Snake specifically to head the rescue operation (he could count on him being relatively inexperienced and being the recessive one out of the two ‘Les Enfants Terribles’ designer sons), but that he was behind Outer Heaven itself – thus, FOXHOUND was compromised from the top down.

After Big Boss was defeated in battle by Solid Snake, Roy Campbell assumed command of FOXHOUND. He retired somewhere between 1999 and 2005, with Liquid Snake taking his place. Under Liquid’s leadership, FOXHOUND became rogue like its predecessor FOX before it – and it took a retired Colonel Campbell being coerced into donning his CO cap again and a similarly blackmailed Solid Snake (who had given up on the job after Zanzibar) to take them out of commission.

Fittingly, instead of the ‘fox hound’ subsuming the ‘fox’ like before, this time a venomous snake was sent in that would infect the ‘fox hound’ and let it die a slow death – but at the snake’s own expense eventually. We see here a recurring pattern of one particular social organisation becoming too foolhardy – too risky – and losing that ‘optimal flight distance’ it once had – that convenient middle ground between too bold and too flighty. It is then domesticated in rapid succession by a follow-up and eventually subsumed – but the successor will repeat the same mistake over again and the cycle repeats itself.

Humans and self-domestication

“I finally understand. I wasn’t waiting to kill people… I was waiting for someone to kill me… A man like you… You’re a hero. Please… set me free…”^[8] – Sniper Wolf, Metal Gear Solid[Youtube]

But there’s another parallel. Psycho Mantis made it known to Solid Snake that this “selfish, atavistic desire to pass on one’s seed” inherent in each and every living thing on this planet was enough to make him physically ill. In a similar vein, Sniper Wolf has no real wish to pass something on to the next generation – whether it be an idea/concept or a child.

Time and time again, it is established that nearly every FOXHOUND member Snake takes out has given up the sheer willpower to pass something on because of what they experienced in their traumatic childhood that shaped them to become the way they are now. You could make the case that Sniper Wolf was shortening her “flight distance” partly out of some “self-domesticating” process – but the only domestication process available in her line of work is to either become a stooge for your paymasters (in which case you become the proverbial ‘dog of war’), or stick to your pride and hope that someone on the battlefield will eventually put you out of ‘retirement’.

Nastasha Romanenko

“According to the military doctrine which is the basis for NATO expansion, a preemptive nuclear strike may be undertaken if there is a sufficient threat of a regional conflict spreading to a large-scale war.”^[9] – Nastasha Romanenko, Metal Gear Solid

This Ukrainan woman holds very strong views on the issue of nuclear technology - partly as a result of losing her parents and being rendered insterile by the radiation in the Chernobyl Disaster. The number of people she portends to have died as a result of the disaster has been proven to be the result of wideranging misinformation on the part of the media***.

Nastasha Romanenko is a freelance Ukrainian weapons analyst. She provides Snake with information on nuclear weapons and general weapon systems through codec.

DIA (Defense Intelligence Agency) officer Richard Ames (coincidentally her ex-husband) forced her into accepting the mission assignment. As a member of NEST (Nuclear Emergency Search Team), she would prove to be an essential asset to Snake’s support team given her immense wealth of knowledge on nuclear matters.

As she became privy to all the shenanigans of the mission and Ames’ somewhat coy demeanor, she started to suspect more sinister motives were afoot here. Eventually she learns that a cabal led in part by Ames and Secretary of Defense Jim Houseman are really running the show – and were using Snake not as part of a rescue operation, but as part of a contingency plan that would leave Metal Gear Rex intact at the expense of every single living thing inside the base.

The information that Snake was to retrieve from Kenneth Baker (CEO of ArmsTech) – the data disc – was the only item of importance, but seeing as Ocelot (a double agent working in secret for George Sears, the 43rd President of the United States) made off with the data and Metal Gear Rex was already destroyed by Snake, there was no further reason for The Patriots to muck about. It’s at this point that Jim Houseman exerts complete control over the operation and starts removing key personnel from Snake’s support team, eventually removing Snake’s CO entirely – rendering him a sitting duck. Being an asset of The Patriots, Houseman then orders a nuclear strike on the facility – in an effort to cover up the whole event.

More and more Nastasha begins to realize that, given her security detail, she is not safe, either. To protect herself, she attempts to transmit important data from her cell phone to a remote server whenever Ames isn’t around (hint: the toilet). But Ames later reveals to her it was all fruitless anyway – the military equipment they installed at her home in order to communicate with Snake intercepted the ‘data’ before it ever got to its destination.

Motivation – Abolition of Nuclear Weapons

There is a heavy-handed nuclear weapons abolitionist bend to the Metal Gear Solid series – but nowhere is this more pronounced than in Nastasha’s character.

The McGuffin of the game is a large bipedal tank capable of launching a nuclear warhead without the need for a rocket propulsion system. This makes it undetectable by radar. Conveniently, Metal Gear REX falls outside the scope of any currently existing nuclear non-proliferation treaties – and can ostensibly be sold as a theater missile defense system with the client remaining none of the wiser of its capacity to carry and fire ICBMs.

Whoever gets hold of Metal Gear REX would cause an immediate rift in the global power structure and potentially upset the future signing of any START-type treaties. For those unfamiliar with the Cold War, these were treaties signed between the Soviet Union and the United States aimed at reducing the stockpile of nuclear weapons. At worst, a weapon like Metal Gear REX could be the prime instigator for World War III – as it gives any country in the world a first-strike capability that other nationstates will find hard to counter.

Obviously the recurring anti-nuclear message is an issue Hideo went to great lengths to include all throughout the games – he laments that the current generation was born into a world where nuclear deterrence capacities are regarded as the norm. Hideo has said in an interview with a videogame website, that by including these messages into his videogames, he hopes he can get people to think about the need for ‘wars’, ‘armies’ or ‘nuclear weapons’.

Government coverup

The Shadow Moses Incident, if ever brought to light, would bring so many illegitimate black-ops activities by the federal government into the spotlight that it would put a massive dent in the US government’s credibility.

Plausible deniability

Instead of outright denying the story, then, the US government instead opts for a more subtle approach to information warfare – namely, muddy the waters. It presents to the public what it purports to be a factual account of the incident (while in reality being merely a tissue of lies and omissions), and through the fourth branch of the government, the media, it attempts to ridicule any alternative viewpoint that might go against the official story.

Nastasha Romanenko’s book

In an effort to reveal the truth on what happened that day, Nastasha Romanenko pens a hefty book detailing her involvement in the events leading up to the Shadow Moses Incident. Mainstream media coverage veers from semi-serious op-eds to complete disbelief.

In the second game (Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons Of Liberty), it is established that The Patriots see themselves as the arbiter of all information trafficking – they want to control all flows of information and the ability to gauge the ‘accuracy’ or ‘context’ of such information before allowing it to be released in the wider world. From a Darwinian perspective, they act as the process of ‘natural selection’ – only certain ‘genes’ (in this case memes – units of information) are allowed to pass themselves on to the next generation (or, within the context of this example: the written word; the Internet; music; movies; documentaries; videogames). But even with The Patriots’ vast monopoly of the media and its sway on public opinion, they are still not able to exert their control each and every book that gets printed by a small publishing house.

Psy-op piece

“But even if you had managed to get this data out into the world, that wouldn’t have guaranteed your safety. No one would have believed yet another conspiracy theory, least of all the press.” – Richard Ames to Nastasha Romanenko, In the Darkness of Shadow Moses : The Unofficial Truth, Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons Of Liberty

So in the case of Nastasha Romanenko’s book, The Patriots decide to engage in another operation – that of a counter-psychological operation (psy-op in short). They get another author, a ‘purported’ beat reporter who appears to be nothing of the sort, to write a totally fictitious and off-the-wall backstory around Nastasha Romanenko’s book – and release it as an unofficial abridged version of Nastasha’s book.

This book, called ‘The Shocking Conspiracy Behind Shadow Moses‘, by Gary McGolden, reveals its mock-satirical intent early on in the story. It begins with the author revealing to the reader that he was abducted by aliens in his early childhood – and that ever since then he has a small hole behind his ears. After this mundane excursion into UFO/Area 51-territory, he starts weaving in Nastasha Romanenko’s Shadow Moses book into the largely fictional backstory that is the whole premise behind his book^[10].

By mixing in the ridiculous with the factual information provided by Romanenko, they (The Patriots) succeed in discrediting the whole story in the court of public opinion. Eventually, Shadow Moses joins the pantheon of ‘conspiracy theories’ that are so often the focus of ridicule by the mainstream press. Just like in the real world, the kneejerk attitude to label everything and anything a ‘conspiracy theory’ betrays a certain self-governing mindset – an analogy can perhaps be found in George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty Four/1984. In that book (and the very good 1984 movie), basic trains of thought are divided into roughly two categories: ‘doublethink‘ and ‘thoughtcrime‘. The language itself has been butchered so immensely that almost all semblance of meaning has been lost, and the public has been rendered illiterate to the point that they can no longer argue or debate something based on the relative merits of a given theory – nor do they feel any need to pontificate or elaborate on a given subject unless told by the established media to talk about it. What’s more, the language does not allow for any of those subtleties.

‘Thoughtcrime‘ encompasses all negative things that could ever be attributed to a given subject – whether it be ‘plagiarism’, ‘fraud’, ‘anti-government sentiments’, ‘conspiracy theory-mongering’, ‘heresy’, and so on. In a similar way, the word ‘conspiracy theory’ is used today as an all-encompassing term to swipe any subject under the rug and provoke an instant knee-jerk reaction amongst one’s peer group – to get them to regard the individual engaging in ‘conspiratorial thinking’ as a ‘nut’ or a ‘crazy person’. The relative merits and the arguments which he presents to support this theory does not even so much matter – what matters is that he has been attached with this stigma that automatically excludes him from his peer group who regard themselves to be relatively sane.

Meaning behind words/names/terms

For more trivia, visit IMDB’s Trivia page for Metal Gear Solid.

Footnotes

1. ^{[^]}The following articles all approach the series’ storyline from a somewhat different perspective, and they all make for highly interesting reading. None of them are specifically about ‘Metal Gear Solid 1′, though, which gave me an opportunity to add something to the equation here.

Link: – http://junkerhq.net/MGS2/ (JunkerHQ: An analysis on genetics, evolution and information regarding Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty)
Link: – http://www.adilegian.com/patriotslegacy.htm (The Patriots’ Legacy – by James Clinton Howell)
Link: – http://www.metalgearsolid.org/Articles/Features/a-comparison-between-orwells-q1984q-and-kojimas-qmetal-gear-solidq-series.html (MGS TUS: A Comparison Between Orwell’s “1984″ and Kojima’s “Metal Gear Solid” Series)

2. ^{[^]}Since Metal Gear Solid’s release in 1998, Gulf War veterans have made some progress in their fight for recognition and treatment of various diseases incurred in the Gulf War. For starters, the misnomer ‘Gulf War Syndrome’ has been jettisoned by psychiatrists in favour of ‘Gulf War Illness’ – previously Gulf War veterans were being told it was ‘all in the head’ – now real substantial evidence has emerged that the exposure to sarin gas has had some detrimental health effects. The experimental Anthrax vaccinations using squalene as an additive were also found to be highly unsafe and unreliable – but they are not seen as the prime cause of the Gulf War Illness.

Link: – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_War_Illness (Wikipedia: Gulf War Illness)
Link: – http://www.bu.edu/bostonia/spring09/gulf-war/ (Bostonia: Gulf War Syndrome Gets real – BU experts evaluate the science for landmark federal report – Spring 2009)
Link: – http://health.usnews.com/articles/health/healthday/2009/03/24/gulf-war-syndrome-may-stem-from-chemical-exposure.html (US News: Gulf War Syndrome May Stem From Chemical Exposure – 3/24/2009)
Link: – http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80beats/2008/11/18/gulf-war-syndrome-is-a-real-illness-federal-study-finds/ (Discover Magazine: Gulf War Syndrome Is a Real Illness, Federal Study Finds – 18/11/2008)
Link: – http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/09/090901150944.htm (Science Daily: Researches To Discuss New Study On Gulf War Illness Treatment At Military Health Research Forum – 1/9/2009)

3. ^{[^]}Inbreeding has always been endemic in the upper classes – owing to the human-directed breeding experiments that had taught them the art of breeding in certain traits and characteristics into cattle. They figured the same could be applied to humans, and that if an elite family with ’superior’ genes interbred with each other, the result would be even more prodigious offspring.

This turned out not to be the case, however, and the Darwin family is a prime example of this. Charles Darwin married his first cousin, Emma Wedgewood, and produced 10 children with her – all suffering from one particular health affliction or another. What worried Darwin most of all was that nearly all of his children had inherited his own health ailments. For instance, Charles Darwin had this propensity for stress-induced vomiting – which his daughter Henrietta inherited. At least two of his children died – one while still an infant (Charles the younger), the other dying at the age of 10 (Annie). Darwin suspected Major Leonard Darwin of being “rather slow and backward”; his second daughter, Elizabeth, “shivers & makes as many extraordinary grimaces as ever”.

Several of his sons and daughters did manage to land their way into prestigious institutions where they carried the baton for ‘eugenics’ – Major Leonard Darwin in particular was made President of the International Congress On Eugenics (an incredible honor bestowed on Darwin’s son given that Francis Galton was the preceding President and had been for all intents and purposes the grandfather of the entire movement)

This article from the University of Alberta, Canada suggests that the Darwin family, fearing that their inbred and dysgenic traits prevented them from having a normal lifestyle, applied their own insecurities and dysgenic nature to society at large – a genetic case of ‘passing the buck’ in the name of a feigned ‘deep concern with the proliferation of sub-normal working class children in town” – all of which perhaps were of more healthy breeding stock than the Darwins intent on passing through all sorts of enforced eugenic laws.

Link: – http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/jan/19/charles-darwin (Guardian.co.uk: Steve Jones Explores The Obscure Chapters of Charles Darwin’s Life – 01/19/2009)
Link: – http://www.folio.ualberta.ca/36/08/05.html (University of Alberta: Eugenics began as a family affair, says historian – Evolutionary theorist feared inbreeding in his own clan – 11/12/1998)
Link: – http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1134/is_9_114/ai_n15855369/ (Natural History: Good breeding: Darwin doubted his own family’s “fitness.”)

4. ^{[^]}A document published by the Project For The New American Century (a neoconservative thinktank) in 2000, written exactly a year before 9/11, alluded to this and other potential avenues for American military dominance throughout the 21st century. The document was entitled “Rebuilding America’s Defenses” and can be read in full on their homepage.

It also insinuated that this ‘process of transformation’ (as in: the transformation from a more restrained military doctrine to a more active and ambitious one) would be slow, unless some precipitating event were to occur that would be on the scale of Pearl Harbor. Read into that what you will.

Link: – http://www.newamericancentury.org/RebuildingAmericasDefenses.pdf (New American Century: Defense and National Security – Rebuilding America’s Defenses – September 2000 [PDF])

5. ^{[^]}Numerous parallels exist between Snake’s mission briefing and the one Snake Plissken receives in Escape From New York (obviously, it has long since been established that Solid Snake/Big Boss are modelled after the Snake Plissken character – right down to Naked Snake/Snake Plissken’s eyepatch and voice actor David Hayter’s gruff imitation of Kurt Russell)

• Blackmail
  • In Metal Gear Solid: Solid Snake has retired from FOXHOUND and is forcibly dragged into a mission briefing room. Solid Snake and Snake Plissken both show indifference to serving their nation or any loyalty to the Flag.
  • In Escape From New York: Snake Plissken is a convicted criminal and bank robber that is being forced by the US Government to go it alone in a top-secret mission to rescue the President – who has been taken hostage somewhere in the maximum-state security prison known as New York. Like Snake in MGS, he tells his Commander he doesn’t give a damn about his country or the President.
• Injections/Virus
  • In Metal Gear Solid: Solid Snake is given various injections – ranging from an anti-freezing peptide to nootropics. What Snake isn’t told, however, is that as part of the injection he contracted an RNA retrovirus that has the ability to target specific gene sequences in specifically designated people and cause immediate cardiac arrests. Worse, Naomi later reveals to Snake that she included him as part of the ‘dead list’ – but set the incubation rate to a random number. Like the NEXUS-6 replicant Leon relays to Blade Runner Deckard: “Nothing is worse than having an itch you can never scratch.”
    When Snake shows reluctance at being inoculated by Naomi, she soothingly alleviates his fear by responding in a thick British accent: “What’s wrong? [giggle] You don’t like shots?^[Youtube]“
  • In Escape From New York: Snake Plissken is injected with microscopic explosives that will blow open his arteries in 24 hours. This is to dissuade Snake from abandoning the mission and trying to run off. He is promised that, in the likelihood he completes the mission successfully, they will defuse the explosives. Unlike Solid Snake, Snake Plissken is told this beforehand almost immediately after the inoculation.
    Snake Plissken comments at one point: “I don’t like needles”.
• Radar
  • In Metal Gear Solid: Snake is told that one of the hostages he needs to rescue, DARPA chief Donald Anderson, has been injected with a location device that gives off a signal. This can be picked up by his Soliton radar system.
  • In Escape From New York: The President wears a vital signs bracelet on his arm – Snake is given a radar device that can pick up the signal.
• Geopolitical summit/meeting within given deadline
  • In Metal Gear Solid: Snake is told that the President Of The United States and the President of the Russian Federation are scheduled within the given time limit (24 hours) to host a summit where the START III treaty will be signed.
  • In Escape From New York: The leaders of the United States, China and the Soviet Union are set to host a meeting within the given time limit (24 hours) where an important issue will be discussed – nuclear fusion.
    PS: obviously, the Soviet Union was dissolved in 1990, and Escape From New York takes place in 1997; at the time of the film’s release (1981), it seemed highly unlikely that the Soviet Union would be gone by 1997

This article by N’Gai Croal in Newsweek points to even more similarities between the ‘Escape From’ franchise and Metal Gear Solid. The cancelled screenplay for the 1995 prequel to Escape From New York, Escape From LA, features a villain that has succeeded in creating numerous clone copies of Snake Plissken. He intends to turn a sizeable profit by selling them to mercenaries and guerrilla fighters (and this is key: since this is the prequel to Escape From New York and Snake Plissken somehow succeeds in blowing himself up along with the entire factory plant containing the clones, this would entail that the Snake Plissken we get to see in Escape From New York is one of the few surviving clones – just like Solid Snake is a clone of Big Boss).

Link: – Escape From New York (1981): (1 | 2)
Link: – http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/levelup/archive/2007/10/01/more-parallels-between-metal-gear-solid-and-escape-from-new-york.aspx (Newsweek: The Twin Snakes – Examining More Curious Parallels Between The Franchises Metal Gear Solid and “Escape From New York” – 1/10/2007)

6. ^{[^]}Even the music sounds similar at places – for instance, compare the game’s ‘Escape’ theme from the soundtrack to the end credits theme Vangelis did for Blade Runner. When listening to the ‘Escape’ theme music track, go to 0:53 to hear the sound effects reminiscent of the ones Vangelis used in the Blade Runner soundtrack. There are doubtless other tracks in the Metal Gear Solid soundtrack that have a similar Vangelis vibe to them.

7. ^{[^]}Gray Fox (the character) is most likely a reference to Darwin’s Fox. This was a peculiar wolf found on San Pedro Island that was mistaken by Charles Darwin for being a fox – hence the title Darwin’s Fox. He took a specimen with him during his infamous HMS Beagle voyage. According to Wikipedia, it was long held that Darwin’s Fox was a subspecies of the South American Gray Fox.

Link: – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwin%27s_Fox (Wikipedia: Darwin’s Fox)
Link: – http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/11/darwins-wolf/ (Wired: Darwin’s Wolf Mystery Solved – 3/11/2009) [other wolves that caught Darwin's interest whose origins remained a mystery - until now]

8. ^{[^]}Several of Sniper Wolf’s cutscenes evoke memories of Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket. Just like in the movie, a female sniper shoots a soldier (Meryl Silverburgh in this case) in the field with the intention of drawing in more comrades that will come rushing in to his/her aid. Snake is left with no option but to retreat, find himself a sniper rifle and return back to the position where Meryl was shot so he can try to take her out. Unlike the North-Vietnamese sniper in Full Metal Jacket, Sniper Wolf does not seem intent on killing Meryl – when Snake returns, Meryl is gone and has been taken into captivity. It’s up to the player to decide later on whether Meryl will live or die (the canonical ending is the one where she lives. Before Metal Gear Solid 4: The Guns Of The Patriots was announced, it was erroneously assumed that Meryl had died.)

Another sequence highly reminiscent of Full Metal Jacket is the one where Sniper Wolf (as a final request to Snake before she dies) asks him to hand her the gun she has been using up until this point.

“My gun… give it to me. She’s a part of me…” – Sniper Wolf, Metal Gear Solid

This is part of the military indoctrination process – what’s known as the Rifleman’s Creed. The intent is to create a symbiotic bond between the soldier’s mere existence as a human being and his military artillery, such as a rifle. It states in no uncertain terms that a soldier is useless without his rifle, and that he should protect it as if it were his best friend. After having to recite this ‘creed’ day in day out, it becomes so ingrained in the person’s mind that he or she really starts to identify with this ‘piece’ of wood and iron as a surrogate spouse. As can be seen in Sniper Wolf, it has certainly had its desired effect on her.

Link: – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rifleman%27s_Creed (Wikipedia: Rifleman’s Creed)
Link: – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2G551KpNnA0 (Full Metal Jacket: Rifleman’s Creed)

9. ^{[^]}What Nastasha is referring to here is what is known as the NUTS (Nuclear Utilization Target Selection) doctrine – which has been formally adopted by NATO. In essence it is the exact opposite of MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction), which was the agreed-upon doctrine between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

MAD is a doctrine that acts on the presupposition that both competing countries have such a massive stockpile of nuclear weapons that it would be foolhardy for any of the two nations to strike each other – since it would result in the annihilation of both. Several science fiction novels and movies entertain such a scenario actually unfolding – but by the involvement of an unknown third party – a sentient supercomputer that provokes Russia into attacking the US with a full nuclear payload by attacking it [Russia] first with nuclear weapons – resulting in the annihilation of both countries and much of the worldwide human population – but leaving the sentient supercomputer (which is largely situated underground) mostly intact to inherit the Earth along with its progeny. Examples such as Harlan Ellison’s I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream comes to mind, as well as the movie franchise which plagiarized its central plot premise – The Terminator.

After the fall of the Soviet Union and the Berlin Wall, MAD largely fell out of favour due to hubrism on the part of the western allies. Lately there has been much heated controversy surrounding the missile shield being built in Poland and Ukraine – which Russia regards as an imminent threat to its nuclear deterrence strategy.

President Obama has not been forthright on this issue – in this misleadingly titled article, ‘Obama scraps Bush-era Europe missile shield‘, it says that the previous missile shield program has been ’scrapped’ in favor of a more cost-effective and proven equivalent. It thus by no means lauds the end of this provocative gamble in nuclear standoffs – and the rhetoric about it being intended for a hypothetical Iranian ‘missile threat’ reeks of regurgitated Bush-era war propaganda.

Meanwhile, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates – an accomplice in the Iran-Contra scandal, friend of foreign policy hawk Zbigniew Brzezinski, and most likely the founder of the CIA’s Arab Legion – seems as determined as ever to get a missile shield into place.

Link: – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_utilization_target_selection (Wikipedia: Nuclear utilization target selection)
Link: – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_assured_destruction (Wikipedia: Mutual Assured Destruction)
Link: – http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32889934/ (Obama scraps Bush-era Europe missile shield – 17/9/2009)
Link: – http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/17/AR2009091700639.html?hpid=topnews (MSNBC: Obama Shifts Focus Of Missile Shield – 18/9/2009)
Link: – http://russiatoday.com/Politics/2009-10-20/al-qaeda-cia-arab.html (Russia Today: ‘Al-Qaeda is CIA Arab Legion’ – 10/20/2009)

10. ^{[^]}An obvious sign (as if it needs any telling) that Gary McGolden has concocted a satirical piece can be found in the name given to his partner-in-chief, John-Dee (‘a hardcore Alaskan and a tuna fisherman’, apparently). He approaches this man for advice on how to get into the offshore nuclear disposal facility (Shadow Moses), which is off-limits to the general public. Besides the fact that the solution he comes up with is patently absurd, the name is the biggest give-away that the author is having some fun with its readership – ‘John Dee’ (1527-1608) was by all accounts the first international secret agent in world history, and the inspiration behind Ian Fleming’s character James Bond.

Like Bond, John Dee was a secret agent travelling all across the world at Her Majesty’s behest (at the time Queen Elizabeth I of England). He used ‘007′ as his personal alias to the Queen – the double ‘O’s were supposed to represent her Majesty’s eyes (as in: John Dee served as her majesty’s eyes and ears while abroad). John Dee’s main business while travelling the world was in promoting ‘free trade’ – in essence, what this meant was getting foreign countries to adopt and work with Britain’s financial system with as minimal amount of fuss as possible. This could be a likely explanation for why Ian Fleming’s character has as his last name ‘Bond’ – as a reference to the stock-in-trade (pun not intended) of his real-life inspiration.

Link: – http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/uk/2000/newsmakers/2503023.stm (BBC: Will the real James Bond stand up? – 22/11/2002)
Link: – http://cosmiccipher.blogspot.com/2006/11/james-bond-007-john-dee-royale-tale.html (The Cosmic Cipher: James Bond 007 & John Dee – A Royal Tale – 13/11/2006))

*. The gene-centered view on evolution has received a lot of criticism from evolutionary biologists and scientists alike. The most well-spoken of these is Richard C. Lewontin. As a geneticist himself, he has been a leading critic of scientific doctrine and ideology – in particular Neo-Darwinism. This interview conducted by the University of California comes as highly recommended.

Link: – http://globetrotter.berkeley.edu/people3/Lewontin/lewontin-con0.html (Science and Politics: Conversation with Richard C. Lewontin)
Link: – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBZJWyGh1EI (YouTube: Conversations with History – Richard C. Lewontin)

**. From an interview with Michel Ciment:

“Stanley Kubrick: Since I have always been interested in the topic, I think I was as well informed as I needed to be. I hope that ESP and related psychic phenomena will eventually find general scientific proof of their existence. There are certainly a fair number of scientists who are sufficiently impressed with the evidence to spend their time working in the field.”

Kubrick wasn’t alone in this – he was most likely swayed by Arthur Koestler’s ‘The Roots Of Coincidence‘ – one of the first books published in the West that came out in defense of parapsychology and suggested a possible scientific basis for it by connecting the dots between concepts such as extra-sensory perception and elements of quantum mechanics. In a letter Kubrick wrote in defense of A Clockwork Orange, he lashed out at someone who suggested a ‘fascist’ subtext to the film by challenging him whether or not he had read Arthur Koestler’s book The Ghost In The Machine – a book by an ‘anti-fascist’ which Kubrick felt perfectly represented some of his views and influences while making the film.

Link: – http://www.visual-memory.co.uk/amk/doc/interview.ts.html (Stanley Kubrick On The Shining: An Interview with Michel Ciment)
Link: – http://books.google.com/books?id=apbst3-ZYNoC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_navlinks_s#v=onepage&q=&f=false (Google Books – Kubrick: The Definitive Edition – by Michel Ciment)
Link: – http://books.google.com/books?id=hU05AAAAIAAJ&q=the+roots+of+coincidence&dq=the+roots+of+coincidence (Google Books – The Roots Of Coincidence – by Arthur Koestler – 1972)
Link: – http://books.google.com/books?id=GobyYUN_Jl8C&q=the+ghost+in+the+machine&dq=the+ghost+in+the+machine (Google Books – The Ghost In The Machine – by Arthur Koestler – 1967)

***. Michael Crichton points out in this article that the number of deaths and injured by radiation due to the Chernobyl Disaster are massively exaggerated.

“The initial reports in 1986 claimed 2,000 dead, and an unknown number of future deaths and deformities occurring in a wide swath extending from Sweden to the Black Sea. As the years passed, the size of the disaster increased; by 2000, the BBC and New York Times estimated 15,000-30,000 dead, and so on…

Now, to report that 15,000-30,000 people have died, when the actual number is 56, represents a big error. Let’s try to get some idea of how big. Suppose we line up all the victims in a row. If 56 people are each represented by one foot of space, then 56 feet is roughly the distance from me to the fourth row of the auditorium. Fifteen thousand people is three miles away. It seems difficult to make a mistake of that scale.”^{[Michaelcrichton.com]}

According to an United Nations report in 2005, the “largest public health problem created by the accident” was the “damaging psychological impact [due] to a lack of accurate information… [manifesting] as negative self-assessments of health, belief in a shortened life expectancy, lack of initiative, and dependency on assistance from the state.”.

In other words, the mere information and massively overinflated impact it would have on life expectancy, miscarriages and genetic defects – the mere psychological shock factor led to a self-fulfilling prophecy. This, in itself, could be regarded as a psychological operation, or, more pertinently, a quasi-biofeedback loop (quasi in the sense that there’s no measuring of a person’s bodily functions involved, such as blood pressure, heart rate, skin temperature, muscle tension, and so on). The vast majority of people who experienced some type of defect from the Chernobyl disaster – it is stated here – rendered themselves sick on their own accord based on the information they were fed.

Contrast this to what Nastasha says during the game (keep in mind that the game was released in 1998 – and a subsequent remake in 2004 – so it’s highly likely Kojima based this on the commonly accepted data sources at the time):

“600,000-700,000 people were evacuated. Over 650,000 children suffered the effects of radiation poisoning. Between 1986 and 1993, 12,000 children died…” – Nastasha Romanenko, Metal Gear Solid

Link: – http://www.michaelcrichton.com/speech-complexity.html (MichaelCrichton.com: Complexity Theory and Environmental Management – 6/11/2005)

Links

Link: – The New Eugenics in Cinema: Genetic Determinism and Gene Therapy in GATTACA
Link: – World of Longplays – Metal Gear Solid
Link: – GameFAQs: Metal Gear Solid Game Script
Link: – New York Times: The Shootout Over Hidden Meanings in a Video game – 6/22/2008)
Link: – Google Books – Popular Mechanics (May 1994) – Gene Wars

For the official record, it was not Dick Cheney who first accused Barack Obama of dithering over Afghanistan while our troops languished and died.  It was the Pentagon.  From September 22, 2009:

In interviews with McClatchy last week, military officials and other advocates of escalation expressed their frustration at what they consider “dithering” from the White House.

From September 18, 2009:

Those officials said that taking time could be costly because the U.S. risked losing the Afghans’ support. “Dithering is just as destructive as 10 car bombs,” the senior official in Kabul said. “They have seen us leave before. They are really good at picking the right side to ally with.”

Obama has turned “dithering” into a weapon of mass destruction against American foreign policy.  Our allies are being forced to make increasingly tough decisions as to whether we really are the horse they should bet their lives on.  And our enemies are resurgent, believing that the president who has demonstrated a lack of resolve will withdraw if they can pile up a high enough body count.

On November 7 there will be another election in Afghanistan.  And there will not be anywhere near enough troops to provide adequate security.

There would have been, had Obama accepted his own handpicked general’s assessment.  But there won’t be.  It seems increasingly likely that the resurgent Taliban will be able to thwart the elections, creating an ongoing political instability which will cascade into a major failures against stability in Afghanistan.

But Obama is not just dithering in Afghanistan.  Rather, his entire foreign policy is based on dithering.

A nuclear-armed Iran capable of destroying Israel, capable of blockading the Strait of Hormuz and causing oil prices to quintuple, capable of launching a wave of global jihad such as the world has never seen, looms.

October 24, 2009
Barack Obama’s policy on brink of collapse as Tehran does last-minute nuclear stall

President Obama’s policy of diplomatic engagement with Iran is close to collapse as Tehran backtracks on a crucial deal aimed at cutting its stockpiles of nuclear fuel.

Iran agreed a deal “in principle” at talks in Geneva to ship the majority of its low-enriched uranium overseas for reprocessing into nuclear fuel that could be used for a medical research reactor.

A deal outlining this was finalised in Vienna this week and a deadline of midnight tonight was set for the agreement to be sealed with Tehran.

The framework deal, along with an offer to allow international inspectors into its newly-revealed enrichment plant at Qom, was hailed as evidence that Iran was responding positively to the diplomatic track.

Today, however, with just hours until the deadline, Iran has turned the table on its foreign interlocutors with a rival proposal, demanding that it be allowed to buy higher enriched uranium directly from abroad. [...]

The counter-proposal was outlined on Iranian state television today as the clock ticked down to the midnight deadline. “The Islamic Republic of Iran is waiting for a constructive and confidence-building response to the clear proposal of buying fuel for the Tehran research reactor,” state television quoted an unnamed source close to Iran’s negotiating team as saying. [...]

Russia and China’s reluctance to consider new sanctions is forcing Washington to seek a coalition of willing allies to impose their own economic blockade on Iran if efforts to get UN sanctions fail.

Tehran’s latest move comes straight from a well-thumbed Iranian playbook and looks like yet another stalling tactic to test the West’s resolve and buy time to avert new sanctions. But Western patience is growing thinner by the day, with diplomats warning that the apparent breakthrough in Geneva on October 1 may be less positive than it first seemed.

Anxiety is now growing about what will happen on Sunday when inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) arrive in Iran to inspect the long-hidden nuclear plant at Qom.

“It’s like Groundhog Day,” a senior Western diplomat involved in the Iran negotiations said. “Except in Groundhog Day you wake up every day and everything’s the same. With this, you wake up every day and everything’s just a little bit worse.” [...]

Britain, France and Israel believe that Iran has all the know-how it needs to build a bomb and that weaponisation studies have continued despite Tehran’s insistence that it halted them years ago.

The IAEA has called Western intelligence on weaponisation “compelling” and chided Iran for refusing to answer questions on the subject.  Iran remains in breach of five UN resolutions calling on it to halt enrichment until outstanding questions about a military dimension to the programme are resolved.

And Obama is displaying his steely resolve…

Western diplomats had initially said the international powers would not accept any attempt to drag out the negotiations beyond Friday.

However, the United States said that it was now prepared to wait for Iran’s reply.

… by showing even less resolve than France.  In answer to the question, “Why Is a World Leader Distancing Himself From President Obama?”:

One major sticking point has been President Obama’s softer stance on Iran, while President Sarkozy prefers a more hawkish approach. Sarkozy said last month: “I support America’s outstretched hand. But what has the international community gained from these offers of dialogue? Nothing but more enriched uranium and centrifuges.”

This on top of other remarks Sarkozy has made about Obama’s naivete and weakness:

Sarkozy: “We live in the real world, not the virtual world. And the real world expects us to take decisions.”

Even pantywaist Europe is calling Obama a pantywaist.  And that is the definition of “pathetic.”

Our enemies have been smelling a weakling in the White House since Obama won the election.  Obama talked tough when he had to to win the election, but that tough talk was always a lie.

We are looking at exactly the same scenario regarding Iran as George Bush faced regarding Iraq; namely, veto-wielding permanent member UN nations that will thwart any meaningful or legitimate sanction that could truly stop the rogue nation’s quest for weapons of mass destruction.  This has been the case for years.  We cannot rely on international consensus as the basis for our security; it will let us down every single time.

Nor can we rely upon dialogue with evil tyrants to achieve our foreign policy objectives.  What I said a year ago last August in that regard is even more true now.  You simply cannot negotiate with an untrustworthy partner who does not want peace.

As far back as April of 2008 I pointed out that the election of a Democrat to the White House would guarantee a nuclear-armed Iran, concluding:

Allow me to guarantee you that a Democratic administration will see a nuclear Iran. Given their policy on Iraq, it becomes an implicit campaign promise. And it will see a nuclearized Middle East. Democrats have spent forty years proving that they are cowards who will not stand by their allies, and their actions will come home to roost.

A Republican president can say to the Iranians, “We went in to Iran when we thought they might attack us, Iran. And I promise that will do the same to you if you continue your weapons program.” And no one can question that. A Republican president can say to Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Egypt, “We stayed with Iraq and defended them even when it was difficult, and we’ll do the same for you.” and no one can question that.

And it’s actually even worse than I thought.  In Barack Obama, we have a president who has repeatedly demonstrated he is toothless as an enemy, and treacherous as a friend.  Subsequent to that piece, Obama reneged on a major missile defense deal with key Eastern European allies in order to appease a hostile Russia – who gave us nothing in exchange for our betrayal.  And if that wasn’t bad enough – we sold out Poland to Russia on the 70th anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Poland in 1939.

Barack Obama will not go to war with Iran to prevent them from developing nuclear weapons.  And Iran knows that.  Iran also knows that their Russian and Chinese allies will prevent any sanction that could truly hurt them from passing the useless United Nations.

As a result of Obama’s dithering, the world’s worst terrorist state will soon have the bomb, and the ballistic missile capability to deliver that bomb.  And when they get it, the world will change in very scary ways.

…if somebody is actually out to get you.  And it isn’t foolishness if you intentionally do something monumentally stupid with malice and forethought.

John at Powerline engages in a little Hopey-Changey in regards to Obama’s surrender of the missile shield to Russia that wasn’t even pointed at Russia.  He is hoping that Obama wasn’t a fool for giving up such a bargaining chip and actually got some unpublicized deal for it even though the Russians, who are playing him for a fool have come out more belligerent than ever.  But Obama didn’t shut down the missile shield to appease the Russians.  He didn’t shut down the missile shield as a bargaining ploy.  He shut it down to satisfy the demands of liberal dogma that had opposed it on some sense of principle since its inception.

It is the Left’s desire to destroy the power of the United States.  Always has been.  And Obama is all about Leftist dogma.  Stopping the missile shield, a) gives up a defensive position without a fight thereby weakening the US military posture, b) alienates allies in order to isolate the US from its usual circle of friendly nations, and c) emboldens Obama’s circle of dictator acquaintances.  In Obama’s mind, giving up the shield without quid pro quo is a feature, not a bug.

Headlines today:  Obama wins Peace Prize!

First off, I can’t see what kind of “prize” Obama deserves at this point and more importantly, “peace” certainly doesn’t come to mind when thinking of Obama.

(Of course, with previous winners like Jimmy Carter, Al Gore, and Yasser Arafat, Obama is now in good Leftist, America-hating, Israel-despising company)

Webster’s definition of peace:

“1 : a state of tranquillity or quiet: as a : freedom from civil disturbance b : a state of security or order within a community provided for by law or custom <a breach of the peace>”……..3 : harmony in personal relations
4 a : a state or period of mutual concord between governments b : a pact or agreement to end hostilities between those who have been at war or in a state of enmity

So one would assume that for the President of the United States to win a “Peace Prize” he would have had to have a hand in suppressing civil disturbance at home and abroad and bringing security to communities throughout the world.  He also would have achieved solid pacts with other governments resulting in mutual peace. And if this is a “prize’, that President would have to be unprecedented and spectacular in such achievements.

Let’s research what Obama has done to deserve such a “prize”.

Let’s start with Iraq….that country is mostly quiet and, within the last 7 years,  MILLIONS have been freed from the oppression of dictatorial leader, Saddam Hussein.  They have a security system and military trained by US forces for protecting the citizens of Iraq from those who would do it harm.  And democracy is evident and on the rise in Iraq.

So  for Iraq, I definitely believe the President responsible for freeing millions from oppression, suppressing civil disturbances, and lending new life to the citizens of Iraq is worthy of a Prize for Peace…..

….so Ok…I can see why they awarded Oba..m….OH….wait a minute….Obama didn’t free those millions nor suppress civil disturbance and create a harmony in Iraq…..GEORGE W. BUSH did…..

Oh, and by the way, Barack Hussein Obama opposed the Iraq War at every turn…and voted against the surge that finally ended much of the civil disturbance in Iraq….

So, nope…he didn’t win for his work in Iraq….one could argue that Obama has been working actively AGAINST peace in Iraq what with opposing the achievements made there.

It must be Obama’s work in Iran…..you know how he has suppressed Iran’s abilites to create nuclear weapons and has defended Iranian citizens who desperately protest for freedom….

OH…wait….since Obama has been President, Iran has revealed a second nuclear facility, Obama is weak on sanctions for Iran, and Obama has yanked US money from the freedom-loving people/protesters of Iran.

An Iranian woman, among others,  is shot in cold blood by her own government and Obama calls it a “problem” ….and that’s about all he’s had to say about it…

Remember her?  Let’s ask her family about Obama’s peace prize, shall we?

AFP Photo

Perhaps Obama has won the prize for his defense of Eastern Europe?

No, wait, he has removed the plans for missile shields in Poland and the Czech Republic….so they are more vulnerable to the Russians.

Perhaps Obama won the prize for bringing hope and change and civil discourse back to America?

Let’s see:
Union Thugs enter protests and fights break out

Pelosi compares Tea Party protesters to Nazis

Reid calls right wing protesters evil-mongers

In the last nine months, the time ”peace-monger” Obama has been in office, unprecedented numbers turn out to protest Big Government, most who’ve never protested a day in their lives

So much for domestic civility and peace…..

OK…then Obama must be unprecedented in his defense of human life and living in peace?Wrong again…..

Obama must then have a great domestic agenda and results in 9 months?

US Budget Deficit Triples (in 9 months) under Obama

Employment at 9.8%, up over 50% since he came into office ( & even after Obama must-have stimulus that predicted a ceiling of 8%)

(Source: Gateway Pundit)

So I, like many others, find Obama quite undeserving of this “prize”…..so why him and why now?

Personally, I believe that in this day and age, Nobel Peace Prize winners must show an antipathy or outright hatred of the United States, US Military, Israel, Freedom, or all of the above….

Obama fits that bill!  Obama talks down his country at every chance, is plummeting us further into economic turmoil, removing freedoms, and knocking the US off its superpower status pedestal.   Gateway Pundit said it well:

Obama’s bankrupted the US economy and destroyed the morale of our military.
No wonder he was awarded the Nobel.

Meanwhile… George W. Bush liberated 50 million people from two of the most violent regimes in history and brought democracy to the Middle East and what did he get?…
Spit on.

But ultimately, this reasoning may be fresh on the trail of the main reason Obama received the “prize” and received it only 9 months into his term.  From Rush Limbaugh’s comments this morning:

“This fully exposes the illusion that is Barack Obama,” Limbaugh told POLITICO in an e-mail. “And with this ‘award’ the elites of the world are urging Obama, THE MAN OF PEACE, to not do the surge in Afghanistan, not take action against Iran and its nuclear program and to basically continue his intentions to emasculate the United States.”

Limbaugh continued: “They love a weakened, neutered U.S and this is their way of promoting that concept. I think God has a great sense of humor, too.”

So, General McChrystal….there went your additional troops in Afghanistan!  Chances of the US bombing Iran’s nuclear facilities, small as they were, are nada now!

Other thoughts on this laughable “prize” feat for Obama:

New York Daily News: President Barack Obama Nobel Peace Prize win mocks award

Allahpundit at HotAir.com: Obama wins Nobel Peace Prize. No, really.

Taliban condemns Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize

Michelle Malkin: Story of Obama’s life: “Rather than recognizing concrete achievement…”

…to the tune of $1.2 M for the overnight junket says one report.   If it was a game, the score was Michelle + Oprah = O says another report.

The Obama luster has been coming off of President Obama here in the States lately.  Now with a “last place showing”, which was worse than anyone anticipated – even it he hadn’t made the trip we wouldn’t have finished in a worse position!   In light of this ”snub”, it appears that perhaps the loss of luster is happening internationally as well.  In my opinion, there are two primary reasons for this last place showing.  One is a weak showing as the  leader of the free world, and two is his dishonesty and untrustworthiness as was internationally revealed with the Missile Shield about face.  And so quickly, too, after confirming his support for the program. 

As I and others have pointed out, everything that Obama utters has a truth time limit on it.  It may be the truth as he sees it at the instant it is spoken, but by the next speech, all bets are off and he may proclaim the exact opposite as truth.  We have found that out here in the US with who he’s puts in as czars and with the healthcare issue.  Will he or won’t he sign the healthcare bill if it doesn’t have the public option.  (I bet we all know what he’d do!)  The world got a real good example of his vacillation with his smack in the face of Poland and other Eastern European countries and his concession to Russia over the Missile Shield program.  And I’m sure the world is watching him as closely as we are here, but they’re not being fooled like some Americans are.

So, Obama is playing a game, huh?  Okay.  Let’s play out that analogy just one more time.  Strike one was turning his back on a promise he made last spring to Eastern Europe to not leave them without the shield, vulnerable to attack.  Strike two is his inability to persuade the IOC to hold the Olympics in Chicago.  Strike three – do I hear healthcare coughing?  Do I hear a death rattle?

‘Blue Dogs’ key in turning back ObamaCare
Three Republican lawmakers have warned a gathering of conservative activists in Washington, DC, there will be disastrous fallout if the House healthcare bill is signed into law.

Vote pending on ouster of Billy Graham’s grandson
The Florida megachurch founded by the late evangelical leader D. James Kennedy will vote Sunday on whether to dismiss his recently chosen successor.

Perspective: A plea to Obama to attend church
Mr. President, one excellent way to demonstrate your Christian commitment — which some Americans question — and provide spiritual nurture for yourself and for your family, is to attend church consistently.

Nurse practitioners to perform abortions?
Pro-life laws recently passed in Arizona are being challenged in state and federal courts.

Feature: The New Abolitionists – sex trafficking worldwide
It is widely accepted by all who study human trafficking that there are more slaves today than there were during the three centuries of TransAtlantic slave trade combined.

Disgruntled Values Voters Urged to Take Back America

Former Baptist World Alliance Leader Nilson Fanini Dies at 77

Over 50 Groups Call for End to Faith-Based Hiring Policy

Atheist Groups Increase on School Campuses

‘I Am Second’ Movement Puts Christ First 

‘Reckless’ Debt Could Lead U.S. Into Another Economic Crisis, Gov. Pawlenty Says
Washington (CNSNews.com) – Deficit spending and government debt are reaching a level that could culminate in another economic crisis as big as the one that hit the United States last year, Minnesota’s Republican Governor Tim Pawlenty told CNSNews.com. “It’s going to massively burden our children and our grandchildren,” he said.

Huckabee Wins Values Voters Straw Poll; Rivalry with Romney Re-Emerges
Washington (CNSNews.com) – It is beginning to look a lot like 2012 — or in some respects, like 2008 again — as potential Republican presidential contenders gathered in Washington this past weekend for the annual Values Voters Summit. On Saturday, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee finished first among conservative voters in a straw poll ballot, while Mitt Romney, Huckabee’s rival for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination, came in a distant second with 74 votes.

‘Abortion President’ Makes False, Misleading Statements on Health Bill, Congressman Says
Washington (CNSNews.com) – President Barack Obama’s assertion that the Democrat-backed health care overhaul would not publicly fund abortions is “demonstrably false and extraordinarily misleading,” Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.) told the conservative Values Voters Summit on Friday. Smith predicted that abortions would increase by as much a one third if the Democrats’ health care legislation is enacted.

Former Miss California Urges Conservatives to Be Examples of Civility
Washington (CNSNews.com) – “We as conservatives need to be an example – because we know the Left won’t be — of tolerance, respect and just how to be civil,” former Miss California Carrie Prejean told an enthusiastic audience at the Values Voters Summit over the weekend. The annual event is sponsored by the political action arm of the conservative Family Research Council.

Votes to Defund ACORN Are Just Political Cover, Republican Lawmaker Says
Washington (CNSNews.com) – Although both the House and Senate have voted to de-fund the liberal activist group ACORN, it’s unlikely such a proposal will be enacted any time soon, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) told CNSNews.com.

Salazar May Delay Decision on Offshore Oil and Gas Drilling Ban Until 2012
(CNSNews.com) – Monday, Sept. 21, is the deadline for public comment on the Interior Department’s five-year plan, which includes proposals to open 300 million acres off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts and off the coast of Alaska to drill for oil and natural gas. But a decision on offshore drilling may not come until 2012.

GOP Congressmen Say Science ‘Czar’ Should Explain His Views
(CNSNews.com) – Republican lawmakers say White House science adviser John Holdren should return to Congress and explain his views, including his notion that a baby who has already been born “ultimately” might become a human being if given the proper resources. Holdren has not explained his statement, despite repeated requests for clarification.

Boehner Says Democrat Health Care Plan Is Dead
(CNSNews.com) – House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) said Sunday that the health-care plan that President Barack Obama is pushing in Congress is now dead and will not pass. “There’s been no bipartisan conversation on Capitol Hill about health care,” Boehner said in an interview with “Meet the Press” host David Gregory.

Obama’s Approval Rating Drops Below 50 Percent Among Middle-Income Americans, Says Gallup Poll
(CNSNews.com) - President Obama’s approval rating has dropped below 50 percent among middle-income Americans, according to tracking done by the Gallup Poll during the period from September 7-13. Among Americans in the middle-income brackets, however, the president’s approval rating has now dropped below 50%.

Harsh Realities Await as Obama Heads to United Nations
(CNSNews.com) – President Barack Obama’s appearance in New York on Monday for a packed program of international meetings promises to be more of a test than his previous outings onto the global stage. Some important U.S. relationships have come under strain in recent weeks, at a time when building cooperation to tackle global challenges is as crucial as ever.

Arab Who Vowed to Burn Israeli Books Still Leads Race to Head U.N. Culture Agency
(CNSNews.com) – An election for the top post at the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) will go into a fourth round of voting on Monday. The four remaining candidates include a controversial Egyptian who has been been part of a government which advocacy groups say violates free speech.

‘Honor killing’ could await Rifqa in Sri Lanka
A former Muslim who now heads a Southern Baptist seminary says Rifqa Bary faces certain death in her native Sri Lanka if she’s not allowed to stay in the U.S.

Perspective: Islam on the march in DC
If past media coverage is any gauge, America is about to get a giant, mushy Hallmark card on behalf of Islam on Friday.

‘Rent-a-Mob’ (ACORN) deserves investigation
Former Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee is calling on House and Senate negotiators to completely defund the liberal activist group ACORN — an organization he calls “Rent-a-Mob.”

Billy Graham’s grandson to remain pastor of megachurch
A grandson of evangelist Billy Graham will continue to lead the Florida megachurch founded by the late evangelical leader D. James Kennedy.

‘Soft preaching’ produces hard people
Popular Christian author John MacArthur says one can look to Jesus when it comes to dealing with false teachers and bad theology.

‘Creation’ Producer Called Out for ‘Too Controversial for Religious America’ Claim

Authors Document Explosion of Multi-Site Churches

Fla. Couple Defends Decision to Shelter Teen Convert

Survey: Most Americans Want Health Care Plan to Bar Abortion Funding

Anglican Head Calls on U.S., Iraqi Gov’t to Protect Iranian Exiles

Obama’s New Claim That 30 Million ‘Cannot’ Get Health Insurance Not Supported by Census Bureau
(CNSNews.com) – In his Sept. 9 speech to Congress, President Barack Obama unveiled a new claim that 30 million Americans “cannot” get health insurance, but that statistic is not supported by the latest definitive data produced by the Census Bureau.

Czech President Says His Nation Accepts Obama’s Decision to Cancel Missile Defense System
Washington (CNSNews.com) – Czech Republic President Vaclav Klaus told CNSNews.com on Monday that his country has “accepted” last week’s move by U.S. President Barack Obama to abandon missile defense plans in Eastern Europe.

Republicans Urge Obama to Heed Gen. McChrystal’s Call for More Troops
(CNSNews.com) – Leading Republican senators are pressing President Barack Obama to heed the advice of his top general in Afghanistan by approving Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s request for “more forces,” including additional U.S. combat troops.

Honduras on Edge After Ousted President Slips Back Into Country
(CNSNews.com) – Honduras was on a political knife-edge overnight Monday after ousted president Manuel Zelaya slipped back into the country, took refuge at the Brazilian embassy and said he would seek talks with the interim government to “restore democracy.” Zelaya timed his clandestine homecoming just two days before he is scheduled to address world leaders gathered at the U.N. General Assembly in New York.

U.S. Counsels ‘Strategic Patience’ in Caucasus, But Skeptics Question What That Means
(CNSNews.com) – The Obama administration wants Georgia to exercise strategic patience” in the face of Russia’s regional policies, a senior State Department official said Monday. But that official insisted the concept was not a new doctrine and should not be read as counseling acquiescence or “doing nothing.”

White House Defends Archiving Comments from Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, Twitter Sites
(CNSNews.com) – The Obama administration said that archiving citizen postings on White House social networking sites, such as Facebook and MySpace, is just a matter of following the law. It dismissed any suggestion that there might be something “sinister” about collecting such information. CNSNews.com first reported on Sept. 1 that the White House is seeking a private contractor to archive comments posted on the social networking sites maintained by the White House.

Religious Leaders to Gather Ahead of G-20 Summit to Press for Action

‘Orphan Sunday’ Campaign Aims to Hold Hundreds of Events Nationwide

Hispanic Evangelicals Warn Against ‘Xenophobic’ Health Care Reform

U.N. Day of Peace Gets Religious Groups Praying

Christian Girl Kidnapped to Force Father to ‘Reconcile’

Obama Will Spend More on Welfare in the Next Year Than Bush Spent on Entire Iraq War, Study Reveals
(CNSNews.com) – As a candidate for president, Barack Obama decried the financial toll that the Iraq war was taking on the economy, but Obama’s proposed spending on welfare through 2010 will eclipse Bush’s war spending by more than $260 billion. Obama’s spending proposals call for the largest increases in welfare benefits in U.S. history, according to a report by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank.

Bush Blamed for Strained Ties as Obama Takes Center Stage at United Nations
(CNSNews.com) – As President Obama prepares to address the United Nations for the first time on Wednesday, the tone has been set by top administration officials who are blaming a disengaged Bush administration for cool relations between the U.S. and the international community. In a recent speech previewing this week’s U.N. General Assembly sessions, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton did not once cite the U.N.’s failings or its need for reform as factors in the strained relationship.

Biden: ‘I Want Insurance Companies to Make Money’
(CNSNews.com) – At a speech to the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, Vice President Joe Biden said Tuesday that he was not against insurance companies making a profit. Biden’s remarks contrast with the harsher views taken by other Democrats in recent months about health insurance companies, including President Barack Obama.

New Push Wednesday to Post House Bills Online Before Lawmakers Vote on Them
(CNSNews.com) – A Democrat has joined a Republican in trying to force action on a bill that would require the House to post the final text of major bills online at least 72 hours before voting on them. The idea is to give Americans time to read legislation that may affect their lives and wallets.

Notre Dame Basketball Coach Says Obama ‘Team’ Should be Prepared to ‘Foul a Little Bit’ on Health-Care Reform
Washington (CNSNews.com) – The men’s basketball coach at Notre Dame says that it is time for the president’s “team” to play offense and “even foul a little bit” to advance health-care reform. Mike Brey used the basketball metaphor to convey the urgency he and other coaches feel about the need for health-care reform.

Ways and Means Chairman: ‘Illegal Aliens–I Mean They Do Get Health Care’
(CNSNews.com) – House Ways and Means Chairman Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) suggested in an interview with CNSNews.com last week that the health care reform plan under consideration in Congress will save money by moving illegal aliens off the roles of “uninsured” people where the cost of the health care they do get is absorbed by people who are insured and where they benefit from federal expenditures. Rangel’s spokesman later clarified to CNSNews.com, however, that illegal aliens are not covered under the House health care bill, which was drafted in part by the Ways and Means Committee that Rep. Rangel chairs.

Hoyer Wants More Facts on ACORN Before Pulling Funding
(CNSNews.com) – House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said Tuesday that Congress needs to gather more facts before it decides whether to cut off all federal funds for ACORN, the liberal nationwide network of community-based organizations. “I think we’re going to be looking at what in fact are the facts here with respect to ACORN. Once we find out what the facts are then we’ll be in a better position to make a determination [on funding].”
Obama’s First Middle East Summit Yields Little Progress
(CNSNews.com) – President Obama on Tuesday told the protagonists in one of the most intractable conflicts of the last century to “disentangle” themselves from history and “take risks for peace.” The president summoned Israeli and P.A. leaders to a summit on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in New York to chide them on slow progress, but there was little sign afterward that either side was nearer agreement on the thorny issue of Israeli settlements.

House Republicans Believe National Endowment for the Arts Acted Unlawfully to Promote Obama’s Agenda, Seek Probe
(CNSNews.com) – House Republicans are seeking a congressional investigation and information from the White House to determine whether the National Endowment for the Arts — in a recent conference call with grant recipients — urged them to create works that would support the legislative agenda of President Barack Obama. “The Lobbying Act and the Hatch Act are there to make sure we do not see government personnel and assets used for political purposes,” Rep. John Kline (R-Minn.), ranking member of the House Education and Labor Committee, told CNSNews.com.

Obama’s Policies Would Redistribute Nearly $1 Trillion in Wealth Every Year
(CNSNews.com) - By 2012, nearly $1 trillion from the top 30 percent of American families will be redistributed among the bottom 70 percent, if President Barack Obama’s proposals on taxes, health care, and climate change become law, according to the Tax Foundation. “Even if none of Obama’s policies becomes law, the extent of income redistribution is remarkable,” Scott Hodge, the group’s president, said.

Democrats Drum for Public Option, While Republicans Urge ‘Responsible Solutions’
(CNSNews.com) – “Hi, I’m the public option, and I need your help.” With those words, liberal activists are making a pitch “to set the record straight” on a key element of the Democrats’ health care overhaul plan.

Ahmadinejad Ignores Nuclear Dispute, Rails Against Israel and U.S. at United Nations
(CNSNews.com) – Largely upstaged by Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi’s earlier diatribe, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s fifth annual address to the U.N. General Assembly on Wednesday evening was a relatively low-key affair, punctuated by religious terminology and his trademark attacks against the U.S. and Israel. There were empty seats across the chamber during the hour-long speech, including those of the U.S. and Israel, while some Western delegates left as he spoke.

Christian Leaders Call for U.S. Sanctions to Prevent Iran from Completing Nuclear Program
(CNSNews.com) – Christian leaders representing over 28 million evangelicals, Roman Catholics, and other Christians are calling on Congress and other world leaders for urgent action to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. The U.S., they said, should immediately initiate a boycott of arms sales to Iran.

U.S., Jewish ‘Conspiracy’ and ‘Islamophobia’ Blamed for Arab’s Defeat in U.N. Election
(CNSNews.com) – In a rare victory for Western democracies at the United Nations, a controversial Egyptian favored to win the top post at UNESCO, the U.N.’s cultural agency, lost his bid to a European candidate, despite having been endorsed by the Arab, Islamic and African blocs. The 64 year-old agency will have its first woman director-general — Bulgarian candidate Irina Bokova.

‘African King of Kings’ Makes Waves in New York, Offers to Move U.N. to Libya
(CNSNews.com) – It took 40 years in power before Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi decided to address the U.N. General Assembly, and he made up for it on Wednesday, delivering a long, disjonted address in which he tore up the U.N. Charter and laid out his vision for revolutionizing the Security Council. “We are content and happy if Obama can stay forever as the president of the United States of America,” he said.

Iran Cannot Be Allowed to Obtain Nuclear Weapons, Say Christian Leaders

ELCA Head Urges Clergy to Restrain Divisive Activities

ABC to Probe ‘The Ten Commandments’ in New Series

Seattle Church Has Triplets

Chinese Officials Secretly Offer to Pay Destroyed Megachurch

Administration Will Cut Border Patrol Deployed on U.S.-Mexico Border
(CNSNews.com) – Border Patrol Director of Media Relations Lloyd Easterling confirmed this week that his agency is planning for a net decrease of 384 agents on the U.S.-Mexico border in fiscal 2010, which begins on October 1. This comes as 1,300 miles of border fence is not under effective control; the Justice Department admits that vast stretches of the border are “easily breached”; and the Government Accountability Office revealed that three persons “linked to terrorism” and 530 aliens from “special interest countries” were intercepted at Border Patrol checkpoints last year.

CDC Has Made ‘Limited’ Improvements to Security of Bio-Safety Labs
(CNSNews.com) – The federal Centers for Disease Control has taken “limited action” to improve security around labs that house deadly pathogens, but it lacks a plan to make other needed changes to protect those labs from terrorism, the Government Accountability Office said this week.

GOP Leaders to Block Health Nominees Unless HHS Lifts Medicare Gag Order
(CNSNews.com) – Senate Republican leaders are threatening to block the nominations of President Barack Obama’s health nominees until the Health and Human Services Department drops its “gag order” on private health care companies that prevents them from communicating with senior citizens about the health care reform bill.

CBO Testimony Echoes Insurers’ Claims About Cuts to Medicare Advantage Program
(CNSNews.com) – The director of the Congressional Budget Office has testified that the Obama administration’s health care proposal would cause sweeping cuts in Medicare Advantage benefits and services. Insurance giant Humana has run afoul of the Obama administration by saying the same thing.

Poll: Big Majorities Say Objective Journalism Is Dead and that Media Back Obama
(CNSNews.com) – Two-thirds (67.9 percent) of Americans surveyed think that “objective and fair journalism is dead,” while an overwhelming 89.3 percent believe the news media played a role in the election of President Barack Obama. That’s according to a poll conducted this month by the Sacred Heart University Polling Institute.

Human Rights Not High on Agenda As Clinton Meets With Leader of Repressive Regime
(CNSNews.com) – Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met this week with the leader of one of the world’s most repressive regimes but human rights abuses were not high on the agenda. “We’ve only got a certain amount of time [in bilateral meetings], and so we touch on the most important things,” Assistant Secretary of State Robert Blake Jr. told reporters after Clinton’s talks in New York with Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov.

Mideast Quartet Challenges Key Policy Position of Israel’s Prime Minister
(CNSNews.com) – Ratcheting up international pressure on Israel, the powerful entity known as the Mideast Quartet on Thursday confronted Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on a key policy position – the insistence on “reciprocity” in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. The United States, Russia, European Union and United Nations also urged Israel to “freeze all settlement activity, including natural growth.” a position at odds with that held by current and previous Israeli governments.

Conservative Black Pastors Endorse Obama’s Health Care Plan

Faith Leaders Seek to Move Up Poverty on G-20 Agenda

Pro-Lifers Avoid Protests, Promote Prayer in 212 Cities

Student-Led Prayer Movement Marks 20th Year

Chuck Colson Denounces Therapeutic Church Model

Will the US pull out of Afghanistan?

Now that the Great Appeaser is becoming friend of Islamic nations in the Middle East, will US admit defeat and pull out of of Afghanistan?

I think he will use pulling the troops out of Afghanistan as a friendly gesture to his new-found Muslim friends. He’ll defend his action as a new direction of diplomacy and ask his friends to give him something so that he can justify his action.

He did the same thing to Russia by unilaterally pulling the star-war like missile shield defensive program from Eastern Europe. He was immediately praised by Russia because the missile-shield program was much hated by Putin? Or was it because he was praised by his world peace vision instead?

Bwahahaha.  President Pantywaist.  That is too funny.  Could you imagine the US press calling him that.

Way to go, UK.  Gateway Pundit has more.

Well, the Russian leader was impressed anyway.

Gerald Warner describes the president’s decision to turn his back on our staunch allies in Eastern Europe.
The Telegraph Blog reported:

Barack Obama’s chances of re-election in three and a half years’ time may be evaporating at unprecedented speed, but his presidential ambitions could still be realised in another direction. He would be a shoo-in to win the next Russian presidential election, so high is his popularity now running in the land of the bear and the knout. Obama has done more to restore Russia’s hegemonial potential in Eastern and Central Europe than even Vladimir Putin.
His latest achievement has been to restore the former satellite states to dependency on Moscow, by wimping out of the missile defence shield plan. This follows on his surrender last July when he voluntarily sacrificed around a third of America’s nuclear capability for no perceptible benefit beyond a grim smile from Putin. If there is one thing that fans the fires of aggression it is appeasement.
Despite propaganda to the contrary, 58 per cent of Poles were in favour of the missile shield. But small nations must assess the political will of larger powers. Thanks to President Pantywaist’s supine policies, the former satellite states can see that they are fast returning to their former status.

Gateway Pundit: Gerald Warner: President Pantywaist Restores the Satellite States to Their Former Owner

Today as the speeches at the United Nations have wrapped up and the G-20 Summit is going into its second day, we are left with the material to analyze and critique or praise.

I think the biggest stars of this years summit whether you like them or not were Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Muammar Ghadafi, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The one who is the most controversial is Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who is in the spotlight because of his bipolar and manic like behavior on the World stage.

One minute he’s talking religion and the next he is rambling about the destruction of Zionism and what he perceives as American imperialism…Many in the international community including the International Atomic Energy Agency believe that Iran is developing nuclear weapons and Israel believes they are going to use them to wipe them off the face of the Earth as President Ahmadinejad has said on numerous occasions, but the question is does Iran really need nuclear weapons to take on the Western powers?

I think the answer to that question is “No”, plain and simple. My reasons for saying that are because there are less expensive and yet effective ways of taking on the West. This is being demonstrated in Afghanistan and Iraq where people who live in a less modern environment are learning how to improvise and inflict heavy losses upon U.S. and NATO forces who are the most modern military powers in the World.  The attacks on September 11, 2001 demonstrated what terrorist can achieve with limited resources.  Al Qaeda caused more destruction for a few hundred thousand dollars or less than what an F-16 carrying a few hundred thousand dollars in munitions normally does…Iran who is suppose to be a state sponsoring terrorism is making a paradigm shift if they are following the same route as the industrial military complex in the United States which is spending more money than Al Qaeda and all terrorist organizations combined and yet is suffering from bad publicity.

Iran is not in the financial position to continue going forward with its nuclear weapons program if it does have one and everything so far is indicating they have the intention to use their nuclear facilities to make weapons grade materials…But the fact is they will not have that much material to use to build a strategic nuclear weapon and maybe not even enough to build a tactical nuclear weapon even with the current amount of centrifuges …Then there is the delivery capability they are still needing to develop which is being explored with the Shahab missile program, but its still in the medium and short range.  There is still alot of money to spend before they even arrive at being a regional nuclear threat.  The fact that President Obama had scaled back the European Missile Shield which was based on intelligence assessments supports this.

So with that in mind could it be that Iran’s nuclear program is really just a propaganda scheme to divert attention from its real game plan which is to help destroy American credibility in the Middle East and the World?

Iran has been playing the propaganda war and has help from many other organizations like Hamas, Hezbollah, and news outlets like Al-Jazeera and not for profit media like Link TV who claim to be fair and unbiased yet sympathize more for the bad guys like the elitist in Washington think tanks.  Today we already see the news reports from Afghanistan playing like the Tet offensive of 1968 in Vietnam with the Generals almost saying we are losing the war against the Islamic extremist.

We have a financial meltdown that started in the United States with Lehman Brothers, and still are experiencing the effects like aftershocks with banks failing in record numbers that hasn’t been since 1929, and this failure was helped along by $100 dollar a barrel crude oil which caused the price of goods and services to go up as a result of transportation and energy cost rising with oil prices.  prior to the oil price hike, the people George W. Bush classified as the “Axis Of Evil” gathered at an OPEC summit meeting in 2008 calling for oil price increases…President Hugo Chavez and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad both called for $100 a barrel oil price index and in  just a little over nine months their dream came true.

The buzz going around about Iran developing nuclear weapons may also be to get the Israelis to lunge too quickly and cause damage to their credibility by their own actions with collateral damage?

There is also the possibility that Iran could seek to disrupt the U.S. economy with cyber warfare and sabotaging major corporations in the United States who do business with their enemies (particularly Israel). And that may not only apply to U.S. companies. If such a move did occur it could have a detrimental effect on the global economy.

There is more than one way to stop Iran’s ambitions and I think we should all not be quick too lunge, but not too slow to do anything. There is hope in Iran and that hope is the millions of people who no longer want President Ahmadinejad to be President any longer and want democracy and lasting peace and prosperity.  There are options that all parties who have  vested interests can live with (eg; Russia,China,Germany) and Israel could sleep better at night if we all took the right course of action rather than just react without a long term strategy and consideration for our global partners.

If the West is to have credibility it must take actions that are fiscally responsible and politically sound and respectful of other nations it wants to have as a partner in peace.

If you’ve been watching the news…

President Obama just stabbed the people of Poland and The Czech Republic right in the back, with his “new and improved” Missile Defense Plan. He’s abandoning the missile bases that protected Eastern Europe, and then he’s going to use “sea-based” platforms.

Well, okay, but… they better have “hair-triggers.” I mean, a missile can only do so much…

I bet “old Brezhnev” is rolling in his grave… laughing.

Now, I know things were messed up when he took office, but Jeez… It’s one thing to screw up the American economy, enslave our children for generations with the interest on trillions of dollars of “give-away debt”, cripple the nation’s industrial trade, and throw American families to the wolves.

It’s another to throw “your friends” under the bus, the first chance you get.

In a matter of months, Obama has undermined American values, hope, and our future as anything but “closet socialists.” And now, on top of that, he’s single-handedly destroyed everything that Eastern Europeans have been working for, since the end of WWII.

The Poles and the Czechs have had our backs for a long time. They’ve gone out on a limb to help America, for a long time. And how does Obama reward them?

He throws THEM to the wolves. Man, he kisses “Oil Sheik butt” like a “brown-nosing buffoon“, but his friends? He slaps them right in the face.

We have just proven to two countries who had allied themselves with us for defense purposes that we don’t care about our word to protect them. And to make matters worse, we will NOT come to their aid.

You think all other countries relying on us (until today) are not paying attention to that?

Oy.

The idea that Iran can’t launch a strike against Poland is stupid, and saying it publicly just confirms that you are filled with ignorance.

And that only confirms what I’ve suspected for a while… I – and lots of others – DO doubt Obama’s intelligence. From the reported IQs, he isn’t even in the “mentally gifted” category. So he’s not even in the top third of intelligence in the US. 33% of us are smarter than he is.

Unfortunately, 33% won’t carry an election.

Just because you can read a teleprompter, you’re a liberal and you look good in a 42-Long…  doesn’t mean you’re smart. But apparently possessing all of those “skills” WILL get you elected.

Iran has already demonstrated that it has the capability of launching a missile that will reach Warsaw. Combine that missile with Iran’s objective of going “nuclear”, and you’ve got a very large crater.

Are you forgetting that there is already an Iranian satellite floating around up there in space, keeping an eye on all of us?

And I hate to be the one to call ‘Bullshit‘…

… but I wonder how much actual response time you’ll get, when you’re trying to catch missiles being lobbed up over a fence.

In order to defend yourself against an incoming missile, you have to:

• Detect the missile launch in the first place,
• Decipher it for exactly what it is,
• Activate your “defensive” missiles, and THEN…
• Successfully shoot it down before the damned thing is out of range.

How much of a hair trigger do you want “defense theaters” on?

Man, you thought that Air Traffic Controllers had bad days! Can you imagine?

Well, at least they won’t be lobbing them over OUR fence, right? Ah jeez… This is just madness… again.

And, Iran notwithstanding… The idea that Russia poses no threat to Poland, or The Czech Republic just doesn’t wash. THAT is just stupidity magnified on an Olympian scale…

Tell that to anyone in Georgia or the Ukraine.

And then jump the hell back, because I guarantee you that they’re gonna spit.

None of this should really surprise you, as this is the same guy who has:

Picked trade fights with Canada and Mexico, sat on trade treaties with Colombia and South Korea, battled Israel over West Bank settlements, ignored Japan in deciding to talk with North Korea, and sanctioned Honduras for its sin of resisting the encroachments of Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez.

This isn’t just about Poland and the Czech republic, people. The system was supposed to defend Europe and the east coast of the U.S.

Plus, we do have a few friends left, I think… Maybe… Frankfurt, London and Paris are in Europe too.

And, we already know that the interceptors in California and Alaska can barely cover the East Coast.

People have already said that : “Unless the Missile Shield is directed against missiles coming from Russia, it won’t work.”

There is absolutely no sea-based defense for Russian missiles – there are roughly 450 – 500 ICBMs and another 150 to 200 sea launched ballistic missiles. And then there are the cruise missiles.  Okay, we ponied up 10 more interceptors to be deployed. One interceptor per each 50 land based ICBM?

Yeah, that’s gonna work…

Just to play the “devil’s advocate” for a second… do you suppose this is part of a grander scheme? We can all safely assume that Israel is going to attack Iran here shortly.  And to do it, some suspect that Israel will fly over US airspace. Iran, seeing it coming, will try to mine the Persian Gulf – but the US or Israel will attack the Iranian Navy simultaneously.

Color me “a leisure suit wearin’ cripple”…

And… Russia supports Iran by selling them LOTS of gasoline. Perhaps they won’t now that Obama has given in on those land-based missiles.

Holy Hand fulla Socialist Poop, Batman! I’m getting a headache!

I wonder what the Russians think of all this?

Hell, for that matter, I wonder what the Russians think of all this “New American Policy” over the last few months?

Well, the fine folks at Pravda (the new Russian news magazine, not the old newspaper that was abolished in 1991, or the Rock Band) ran this article on April 27, 2009.

Not THIS “Pravda”!!

This”PRAVDA”

(Sure, it’s before Obama kicked Poland in the nuts, but it’s gonna open your eyes, I guarantee…)

This is a direct cut/paste: (All I’ve done is to format it by deleting some extra spaces.)

American Capitalism Gone With A Whimper

It must be said, that like the breaking of a great dam, the American descent into Marxism is happening with breath taking speed, against the back drop of a passive, hapless sheeple, excuse me dear reader, I meant people..

True, the situation has been well prepared on and off for the past century, especially the past twenty years. The initial testing grounds was conducted upon our Holy Russia and a bloody test it was. But we Russians would not just roll over and give up our freedoms and our souls, no matter how much money Wall Street poured into the fists of the Marxists.

Those lessons were taken and used to properly prepare the American populace for the surrender of their freedoms and souls, to the whims of their elites and betters.

First, the population was dumbed down through a politicized and substandard education system based on pop culture, rather then the classics. Americans know more about their favorite TV dramas than the drama in DC that directly affects their lives. They care more for their “right” to choke down a McDonalds burger or a Burger King burger than for their constitutional rights. Then they turn around and lecture us about our rights and about our “democracy”. Pride blind the foolish.

Then their faith in God was destroyed, until their churches, all tens of thousands of different “branches and denominations” were for the most part little more then Sunday circuses and their televangelists and top protestant mega preachers were more then happy to sell out their souls and flocks to be on the “winning” side of one pseudo Marxist politician or another. Their flocks may complain, but when explained that they would be on the “winning” side, their flocks were ever so quick to reject Christ in hopes for earthly power. Even our Holy Orthodox churches are scandalously liberalized in America..

The final collapse has come with the election of Barack Obama. His speed in the past three months has been truly impressive. His spending and money printing has been a record setting, not just in America’s short history but in the world. If this keeps up for more then another year, and there is no sign that it will not, America at best will resemble the Weimar Republic and at worst Zimbabwe.

These past two weeks have been the most breath taking of all. First came the announcement of a planned redesign of the American Byzantine tax system, by the very thieves who used it to bankroll their thefts, losses, and swindles of hundreds of billions of  dollars. These make our Russian oligarchs look little more then ordinary street thugs, in comparison. Yes, the Americans have beat our own thieves in the shear volumes. Should we congratulate them?

These men, of course, are not an elected panel but made up of appointees picked from the very financial oligarchs and their henchmen who are now gorging themselves on trillions of American dollars, in one bailout after another. They are also usurping the rights, duties, and powers of the American congress (parliament). Again, congress has put up little more than a whimper to their masters.

Then came Barack Obama’s command that GM’s (General Motors) president step down from leadership of his company. That is correct, dear reader, in the land of “pure” free markets, the American president now has the power, the self-given power, to fire CEOs and we can assume other employees of private companies, at will. Come hither, go dither, the centurion commands his minions.

So it should be no surprise, that the American president has followed this up with a “bold” move of declaring that he and another group of unelected, chosen stooges will now redesign the entire automotive industry and will even be the guarantee of automobile policies. I am sure that if given the chance, they would happily try and redesign it for the whole of the world, too. Prime Minister Putin, less then two months ago, warned Obama and UK’s Blair, not to follow the path to Marxism, it only leads to disaster. Apparently, even though we suffered 70 years of this Western sponsored horror show, we know nothing, as foolish, drunken Russians, so let our “wise” Anglo-Saxon fools find out the folly of their own pride.

Again, the American public has taken this with barely a whimper…but a “free man” whimper.

So, should it be any surprise to discover that the Democratically controlled Congress of America is working on passing a new regulation that would give the American Treasury department the power to set “fair” maximum salaries, evaluate performance, and control how private companies give out pay raises and bonuses? Senator Barney Frank, a social pervert basking in his homosexuality (of course, amongst the modern, enlightened American societal norm, as well as that of the general West, homosexuality is not only not a looked down upon life choice, but is often praised as a virtue) and his Marxist enlightenment, has led this effort. He stresses that this only affects companies that receive government monies, but it is retroactive and taken to a logical extreme, this would include any company or industry that has ever received a tax break or incentive.

The Russian owners of American companies and industries should look thoughtfully at this and the option of closing their facilities down and fleeing the land of the Red as fast as possible. In other words, divest while there is still value left.

The proud American will go down into his slavery without a fight, beating his chest, and proclaiming to the world, how free he really is.

The world will only snicker.

Stanislav Mishin© 1999-2009.. «PRAVDA.Ru».

<snip>

Makes you think, doesn’t it? Hmmm?

Say it with me:

“Russia is not a threat anymore, Russia is not a threat anymore, Russia is not…”

Wow, I feel better already! How about you?

I’m reminded of something Henry Kissinger said, about Jimmy Carter;

“The Carter administration has managed the extraordinary feat of having, at one and the same time, the worst relations with our allies, the worst relations with our adversaries and the most serious upheavals in the developing world since the end of the Second World War.”

Smacks of the familiar, don’t it?

Is it just me? If anyone really thinks we actually won the Cold War, just try watching Putin’s lips the next time Obama speaks next to him. Look real hard, and you might just see Putin’s lips moving. In other words, if you want to know what position Obama may take on any given foreign policy issue, you might want to ask Putin first.

So now Russia AND Iran have figured out what Korea has known for decades…

• Keep whining!
• Keep opposing!
• Keep implying that someday you MIGHT care about what America thinks…
• … and eventually some left wing, bleeding heart liberal will cave in and give you exactly what you want.

“Hope and Change” my ass…

More like; “Bend over and grease up, because here he comes”!

Next up: “Full Retreat in Afghanistan! Film at 11pm!!”

Stay Tuned!

No need to search for obscure reasons or ulterior motive when scrutinizing the change in direction introduced by President Obama in the US defense policy after President’s refusal to install the so-called missile shield. The expected partial deployment on European territory was one of the pillars of Bush’s failed strategy against international terrorism.

Obama’s resolution involved several decisions of domestic and foreign policy, all high draft. On the one hand, the strong US defense industry will not feel aggrieved, since this is not about trying to cut off a program that would produce significant benefits, but to transform the land-based missile defense system installed on other naval platforms. The technical explanations do little to the case except to deny the accusation that the US and its allies could be defenseless against a suspected terrorist attack with missiles.

The adopted solution presupposes a more thorough risk assessment, dismissing the idea that Iran is able to hold mid-term long-range missiles and reduce the anticipated missile threat from shorter range. The fact that the current US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, who was also in charge during the Bush administration, supports and implement this change in strategy, is a smart move by Obama. The US President skillfully – and to the surprise of many who did not understand his decision– maintained R. Gates at the same position –the very same that had fully supported the failed military strategy of the former president.

Russia expressed rapidly and unambiguously its favorable opinion about this amendment and countries most directly concerned which are Poland and Czech Republic shall cover up that Europe defense is a common issue that affects all countries rather than a result of bilateral agreements of some of them with the American superpower – in order they appease their peculiar and atavistic fears towards Russia, however reasonable their historical reasons may seem.

Nor should it surprise that the new Secretary General of NATO – an alliance that since the Soviet Union collapsed is looking for a suitable place in the global system of supranational military organizations – is enthusiastically pointing to a new strategy that does not see an almost mandatory enemy in Russia but an appropriate and necessary ally, by which NATO can continue to keep alive, despite all previsions – a treaty that was precisely born to fight today’s new ally.

Subsequently, Mr. Rasmussen, in his first public comments of some significance since in August he took over from NATO, suggested combining missile defense systems of US, NATO and Russia into a single one. However, when asked about specifics of the plan he did not know how to respond and referred to further clarification of the military leaders –quite understandable since the NATO HQ itself was surprised by the swift and unexpected decision by the US president.

Obama, therefore, takes firmly the helm of US foreign policy. He will face a tough offensive from his political rivals. Senator McCain already warned the decision as a “serious error” that “potentially undermines US leadership as perceived in Eastern Europe”. The most obsessive US right wing – the very same which identifies traits of socialism and even communism in Obama’s plan to extend health coverage to every citizen – will go on with its campaign of denigration, with the helpful support from the most extreme republicans.

Obama definitely buries the former US policy, which divided Europe with the invasion of Iraq – one might remember the shameful pamphlet to support Bush policy, signed by many conservative European leaders, including Berlusconi, Aznar and Barroso, together with the joint efforts of three Eastern European countries, significantly Poland and the Czech Republic. The ensuing releasing in the Wall Street Journal allowed the most US reactionary forces to contempt the “old Europe” (led by France and Germany), who opposed the war, while praising the “new Europe” – the latter, whilst supporting Bush’s illegal adventure, showed a mixture of servility and excitement to establish a special relationship with the American superpower, that is trying to came closer to develop relationships with influential people (UK), in sum expecting benefits, as Jeb Bush, the dreadful brother of the former US president, who ruled his fiefdom in Florida, decreed when visiting Madrid: “This relationship between the United States and Spain will provide benefits that cannot be imagined today.”

The way Obama has to pass through is easier said than done and he will need all his personality resources to face opposition from the social sectors – within and outside the US –who worshiped Bush and still share his reactionary ideology and highlight his disastrous decisions.

The Future Missile Defense Program !

From Patriot Humor @ The Patriot Post

….

A we are But we really are not , moment from Russia !

ZURICH (Reuters) – Russia’s top general said on Monday that plans to deploy missiles in an enclave next to Poland had not been shelved, despite a decision by the United States to rethink plans for missile defense in Europe.

But a former Russian diplomatic negotiator indicated he thought the deployments in Kaliningrad region, bordering Poland, unlikely to go ahead. Alternative U.S. proposals for sea-based defenses appeared less likely to raise Kremlin objections.

President Barack Obama’s decision to scrap a land-based missile defense system has been welcomed by Russia, which had threatened to deploy short-range Iskander missiles in Kaliningrad if the United States refused to drop the plans.

The Kremlin always said Russia would only deploy the missiles as a counter-measure if Washington went ahead with its missile shield. Moscow said the shield threatened its national security and would upset the strategic balance in Europe.

On Saturday Russian deputy defense minister Vladimir Popovkin said in an interview that “naturally we will scrap the measures that Russia planned to take” in response to the shield and specifically named Iskander deployment as one of them.

….

Personally, it never made a bit of sense to me what the Russians were so pissed about.  10 interceptor missiles in Poland, why in the world would the Russians care when they obviously have quite a few more than 10 missiles?  I know that in reality, Russia was angry about some of their former satellite states getting too chummy with the U.S., but to me they just went nuts.  They actually planned on placing missiles near the interceptors that had no other purpose than to be a target.  Which would not sound so strange were it not for the fact that Russia kept telling the world that their actual attack missiles had more than enough countering capability to foil any known interceptor missile.  I mean if their missiles could simply send out chaff, or flares, or whatever the heck it was that they did to not get shot down, why on earth would Russia care if we placed interceptor missiles anywhere? 

But it seems that the planned missile shield system has been scrapped in favor of a system that might actually work, though the proposed system looks to be more limited in ability.  I would prefer a proven but limited ability to some crap that we are not even sure is going to work at all, because if a rogue launch ever does occur, it will not be the time for some lame-ass excuse as to why the gazillion dollar new system failed (we forgot to turn it on because it was Sunday, or whatever).

Now many on the right are angry that we are no longer going to be placing missiles where the last President said we were, and even the fact that Defense Secretary Gates has come out and said that the new plan is a better one seems to do little for those yelping about how we are giving in.  And they were so happy that President Obama kept Gates on instead of replacing him, oh well, nothing lasts forever.

One of the things Obama has most wanted to prove was that he isn’t Bush — as though no matter how stupid his policies might be, as long as they aren’t Bush’s they must be good.

Well, Obama aint Reagan, either.

Obama appears to intend to not only roll back every Bush policy, but the fundamental victory of the Reagan presidency over the U.S.S.R.

Friday, September 18, 2009
Mark Steyn: Obama helping Putin restitch Iron Curtain
Scrapping of U.S. missile defense plans hands big victory to Russia’s new czar.

Was it only April? There was President Barack Obama, speaking (as is his wont) in Prague, about the Iranian nuclear program and ballistic missile capability, and saluting America’s plucky allies: “The Czech Republic and Poland have been courageous in agreeing to host a defense against these missiles,” he declared. “As long as the threat from Iran persists, we will go forward with a missile defense system that is cost-effective and proven.”

On Thursday, the administration scrapped its missile defense plans for Eastern Europe. The “courageous” Czechs and Poles will have to take their chances. Did the “threat from Iran” go away? Not so’s you’d notice. The dawn of the nuclear Ayatollahs is perhaps only months away, and, just in case the Zionists or (please, no tittering) the formerly Great Satan is minded to take ‘em out, Tehran will shortly be taking delivery of a bunch of S-300 anti-aircraft batteries from (ta-da!) Russia. Fancy that.

Joe Klein, the geostrategic thinker of Time magazine, concluded his analysis thus:

“This is just speculation on my part. But I do hope that this anti-missile move has a Russian concession attached to it, perhaps not publicly (just as the U.S. agreement to remove its nuclear missiles from Turkey was not make public during the Cuban Missile Crisis). The Obama administration’s diplomatic strategy is, I believe, wise and comprehensive – but it needs to show more than public concessions over time. A few diplomatic victories wouldn’t hurt.”

Golly. We know, thanks to Jimmy Carter, Joe Klein and many others, that we critics of President Obama’s health care policy are, by definition, racist. Has criticism of Obama’s foreign policy also been deemed racist? Because one can certainly detect the first faint seeds of doubt germinating in dear old Joe’s soon-to-be-racist breast: The Obama administration “needs to show more than public concessions over time” – because otherwise the entire planet may get the vague impression that that’s all there is.

Especially if your pre-emptive capitulations are as felicitously timed as the missile-defense announcement, stiffing the Poles on the 70th anniversary of their invasion by the Red Army. As for the Czechs, well, dust off your Neville Chamberlain’s Greatest Hits LP: Like he said, they’re a faraway country of which we know little. So who cares? Everything old is new again.

It is interesting to contrast the administration’s “wise” diplomacy abroad with its willingness to go nuclear at home. If you go to a “town hall” meeting and express misgivings about the effectiveness of the stimulus, you’re a “racist” “angry” “Nazi” “evilmonger” “right-wing domestic terrorist.” It’s perhaps no surprise that that doesn’t leave a lot left over in the rhetorical arsenal for Putin, Chavez and Ahmadinejad. But you’ve got to figure that by now the world’s strongmen are getting the measure of the new Washington. Diplomacy used to be, as Canada’s Lester Pearson liked to say, the art of letting the other fellow have your way. Today, it’s more of a discreet cover for letting the other fellow have his way with you. The Europeans “negotiate” with Iran over its nukes for years, and, in the end, Iran gets the nukes, and Europe gets to feel good about itself for having sat across the table talking to no good purpose for the best part of a decade. In Moscow, there was a palpable triumphalism in the news that the Russians had succeeded in letting the Obama fellow have their way. “This is a recognition by the Americans of the rightness of our arguments about the reality of the threat or, rather, the lack of one,” said Konstantin Kosachev, chairman of the Duma’s international affairs committee. “Finally the Americans have agreed with us.”

There’ll be a lot more of that in the years ahead.

There is no discreetly arranged “Russian concession.” Moscow has concluded that a nuclear Iran is in its national interest – especially if the remorseless nuclearization process itself is seen as a testament to Western weakness. Even if the Israelis are driven to bomb the thing to smithereens circa next spring, that, too, would only emphasize, by implicit comparison, American and European pusillanimity. Any private relief felt in the chancelleries of London and Paris would inevitably license a huge amount of public tut-tutting by this or that foreign minister about the Zionist Entity’s regrettable “disproportion.” The U.S. defense secretary is already on record as opposing an Israeli strike. If it happens, every thug state around the globe will understand the subtext – that, aside from a tiny strip of land on the east bank of the Jordan, every other advanced society on earth is content to depend for its security on the kindness of strangers.

Some of them very strange. Kim Jong-il wouldn’t really let fly at South Korea or Japan, would he? Even if some quasi-Talibanny types wound up sitting on Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal, they wouldn’t really do anything with them, would they? OK, Putin can be a bit heavy-handed when dealing with Eastern Europe, and his definition of “Eastern” seems to stretch ever further west, but he’s not going to be sending the tanks back into Prague and Budapest, is he? I mean, c’mon …

Vladimir Putin is no longer president but he is de facto czar. And he thinks it’s past time to reconstitute the old empire – not formally (yet), but certainly as a sphere of influence from which the Yanks keep their distance. President Obama has just handed the Russians their biggest win since the collapse of the Iron Curtain. Indeed, in some ways it marks the restitching of the Iron Curtain. When the Czechs signed their end of the missile-defense deal in July, they found themselves afflicted by a sudden “technical difficulty” that halved their gas supply from Russia. The Europe Putin foresees will be one not only ever more energy-dependent on Moscow but security-dependent, too – in which every city is within range of missiles from Tehran and other crazies, and is, in effect, under the security umbrella of the new czar. As to whether such a Continent will be amicable to American interests, well, good luck with that, hopeychangers.

In a sense, the health care debate and the foreign policy debacle are two sides of the same coin: For Britain and other great powers, the decision to build a hugely expensive welfare state at home entailed inevitably a long retreat from responsibilities abroad, with a thousand small betrayals of peripheral allies along the way. A few years ago, the great scholar Bernard Lewis warned, during the debate on withdrawal from Iraq, that America risked being seen as “harmless as an enemy and treacherous as a friend.” In Moscow and Tehran, on the one hand, and Warsaw and Prague, on the other, they’re drawing their own conclusions.

I am still just as stunned by the Obama betrayal of a fundamental American commitment as the Poles and Czechs.  I mean, stop and think about it:

Obama announces his betrayal of Poland and Czechoslovakia on the anniversary of the inevitable result of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain’s selling of Eastern Europe down the river to Hitler and Stalin.  The rationale?  That Iran is farther behind on its ballistic missile technology than had been previously believed.

And, yet, on that very same day, we learn that a confidential report from the International Atomic Energy Agency says that Iran – contrary to previous intelligence assessments – can now make a nuclear bomb whenever they damn well want to.  And we become even more aware that the IAEA has been more intent on covering up Iranian (and before that Iraqi) development of weapons of mass destruction.

And my gosh, wasn’t it Democrats who kicked Bush for relying too much on intelligence assessments that can well be faulty?  Even when not only U.S. intelligence, but every single major intelligence service in the world, supported the primary conclusion that Saddam Hussein had WMD?  Why on earth does the same Barack Obama who as a candidate demonized Bush over trusting faulty intelligence on Iraq now so implicitly trust intelligence that Iran is not working on long-range missiles?

And then the very next day following that terrible 70th anniversary of September 17, 1939, Iran – which by the way can make nuclear bombs – shows just how insane they are by releasing a statement that denies the Holocaust occurred and vows that Israel’s days are numbered.

On September 17, 2009, President Barack Obama unilaterally abrogated a security agreement with two of its key Eastern European allies – who have been so loyal to America that they have kept troops in Iraq and Afghanistan – in order to appease an unfriendly Russia.  And the only thing worse than this capitulation to Russia is the despicable timing of said capitulation.

As Mark Steyn states in his title, this will result in a seismic shifting of Eastern European nations away from the untrustworthy United States and toward Russia.  All of Eastern Europe is in play: Poland, Czechoslovakia, Ukraine, Lithuania – and especially already-attacked Georgia – are now aware that they are basically on their own with a hungry Russian bear looming over them.

September 17, 2009 was a shameful day for Barack Obama and a shameful day for the nation that he represents.