Tag: Barack Obama

Woodward’s Book Claims that Former President Obama Considered Preemptive Strike on North Korea

| September 13, 2018

Assuming this claim is true in Woodward’s latest rumormongering book, I don’t see what the problem is with the US President weighing the options available to address the North Korean nuclear issue.  Obviously after been given the information President Obama decided not to do it:

Former U.S. President Barack Obama mulled a preemptive attack on North Korea after its fifth nuclear test in 2016, according to a book released Tuesday.

Obama was deeply disturbed to learn that North Korea had conducted its biggest-yet nuclear detonation on Sept. 9, 2016, with the North claiming the new nuclear bomb could be mounted on a ballistic missile, journalist Bob Woodward wrote in “Fear: Trump in the White House.”

“Even with his intense desire to avoid a war, Obama decided the time had come to consider whether the North Korean nuclear threat could be eliminated in a surgical military strike,” the book claims.

“The North Korean threat had not been diminished, and in September 2016 Obama posed a sensitive question to his National Security Council: Was it possible to launch a preemptive military strike, supported by cyber attacks, on North Korea to take out their nuclear and missile programs?” it continues.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link, but the closest the US came to a preemptive strike was during the Clinton Administration when the nuclear issue first came up.  Strike planning was called off after Jimmy Carter’s unilateral intervention by traveling to Pyongyang. It does make me wonder how different things would be now if the Clinton administration did in fact launch this strike on North Korea’s nuclear program?

Picture of the Day: Barack Obama Meets with President Moon in Seoul

| July 4, 2017

Moon meets Obama in Seoul

South Korean President Moon Jae-in (R) and former U.S. President Barack Obama pose for a photo during their meeting at the presidential office Cheong Wa Dae in Seoul on July 3, 2017, in this photo released by the presidential office. Obama has visited South Korea to attend a leadership conference organized by the vernacular daily Chosun Ilbo. (Yonhap)

North Korea Tells President Obama to Get “Packing” from the White House

| January 20, 2017

The Kim regime has some parting words for the outgoing President:

North Korea told outgoing President Barack Obama to get “packing” as it denounced a recent U.S. crackdown against human-rights abuses in the isolated communist state.

The United States blacklisted seven senior North Koreans, including leader Kim Jong Un’s sister, and two agencies last week, citing links to such abuses.

The State Department also released a report saying North Korea’s rights record is among the worst in the world.

The North’s state-run Korean Central News Agency called the moves “desperate efforts” by the Obama administration “to keep afloat their hostile policy” toward Pyongyang before leaving the White House.

Donald Trump is to be sworn in as U.S. president on Friday.

“Obama would be well advised not to waste time taking issue with [others’] ‘human rights issue’ but make good arrangements for packing in the White House,” KCNA said in a commentary posted Monday.

“He had better repent of the pain and misfortune he has brought to so many Americans and other people of the world by creating the worst human rights situation in the U.S. during his tenure of office,” it added.  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read more at the link, but on a positive not at least the North Koreans did not use any racial slurs when referring to the President.

Chelsea Manning Sentence Commuted and General Cartwright Pardoned By President Obama

| January 19, 2017

Between Hillary Clinton and now Chelsea Manning and General Cartwright it just shows that there is different strokes for different folks when it comes to mishandling classified information:

Chelsea Manning

President Barack Obama on Tuesday overruled his secretary of defense to commute the sentence of former Army soldier Chelsea Manning, who was convicted of stealing and disseminating 750,000 pages of documents and videos to WikiLeaks.

The decision — which a senior defense official told CNN was made over the objections of Secretary of Defense Ash Carter — immediately touched off a controversy in the closing days of the Obama administration.  A former intelligence official described being “shocked” to learn of Obama’s decision, adding that the “entire intelligence community is deflated by this inexplicable use of executive power.” The official said the move was “deeply hypocritical given Obama’s denunciation of WikiLeaks’ role in the hacking of the (Democratic National Committee).”  [CNN]

Here is a thought question?  If Manning wasn’t transgender would she have gotten the commuting of her sentence?  It doesn’t matter now and Manning is undoubtedly going to be hero of the anti-war left when she is released in May.

With General Cartwright’s pardon what I found most interesting was the details of how he was caught by the FBI as a leaker in the first place:

General James Cartwright

The Stuxnet campaign appears to have been successful, and its disclosure, originally in a front-page New York Times story and a book by Sanger, helped burnish Obama’s national security credentials leading up to his 2012 reelection campaign. But FBI agents, after obtaining his email traffic, soon identified Cartwright — who had by then retired but continued to serve on the Defense Policy Board — as a key suspect. When he was interviewed in November 2012, Cartwright initially denied that he ever discussed classified information with Klaidman and Sanger. Then, FBI agents showed him his email correspondence with Klaidman. At that point, Cartwright “took off his glasses, started rubbing his eyes and told interviewing agents, ‘You got me’,” according to a court filing by prosecutors last week.

The agents then showed Cartwright an email exchange he had with Sanger. After reading through the email, “Cartwright was shaking, losing color in his face and clearing his throat. Cartwright attempted to explain the email; however, his speech became slurred and he subsequently slumped over in his chair and lost consciousness,” according to the court filing.

Cartwright was immediately rushed to the hospital. After his release a few days later, he agreed to another interview with the FBI and confessed that he had indeed discussed classified information with the journalists. He formally pleaded guilty last September and was due to be sentenced next week.  [Yahoo News]

It just amazes me that someone of General Cartwright’s stature is leaking highly classified information to a reporter via email.  He has to know that intelligence agencies would be targeting such emails for collection purposes.

President Obama Tells New Korean Ambassador To Eat A Lot of Bulgogi

| October 26, 2014

I think it is pretty accurate that President Obama has a close relationship with a the new US Ambassador to Korea:

U.S. President Barak Obama made a surprise appearance at the swearing-in ceremony Friday of new U.S. Ambassador to South Korea Mark Lippert in a show of his closeness and friendship with the new envoy, officials said.

Obama showed up at the end of the ceremony at the State Department, South Korean Ambassador to Washington Ahn Ho-young said during his own reception for the new ambassador later in the day. Ahn quoted Obama as telling him, “Give Mark Lippert a lot of bulgogi.” [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link.