Remember the fuss over Y2K as the world prepared to usher in the new millennium (depending on how you read the calendar)? Some folks spent big bucks gearing up for a computer crisis. Nothing happened.

10 years later, as we prepare to usher in a new decade, too much is happening and we have a lot more than computer viruses to fret over. This is the post-9/11 age. Forget about futuristic technology and the fact that computers and cell phones are now as common as pens and pencils. Everything is seemingly heightened these days, including our national security and vulnerability, thanks to a diffident, slow moving president and clueless administration.

How safe should we feel when:

• Gitmo goons continue to be released to fight another day and open restaurants in swanky beach locales?

• The remaining Gitmo terrorists will soon be housed on American soil?

• The 9/11 masterminds will soon be tried in a Manhattan kangaroo court near Ground Zero and a building that will soon house a mosque?

• Our soldiers continue to be hamstrung by rules of engagement seemingly designed to give the enemy the edge?

• President Obama meets with Lebanese President Michel Suleiman after the Bush administration avoided meeting with the Hezbollah-accepting country’s reps?

• Iran’s response to the US’s weak “let us inspect your nuclear facilities” request is petulance, silence and stalling? Obama & Co. should have delivered sterner ultimatums. Instead, with the deadline for cooperation fast approaching, there’s no sign that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is going to accede to our demands. In fact, the only response we’ve received is Iran’s vow to build 10 more nuke facilities in the coming years. Oh and then there’s that missile test Iran delivered as an early Christmas gift. Instead of good faith efforts to quell international tensions, Iran continues to take advantage of a too-nice America.

• Obama’s administration leaves Israel to fend for itself, as has no other American administration?

• A Nigerian Muslim terrorist with ties to al-Qaeda nearly blows up a Detroit-bound plane, in spite of the thug’s being on a terrorist no-fly list?

• Homeland Security Director Janet Napolitano claims “the system worked” in the wake of the Detroit incident? (Apparently, Napolitano’s knee-jerk delusional instinct was to defend Homeland Security procedures in spite of the evidence before her.)

• President Obama waits several days before interrupting his Hawaiian vacation to deliver a tepid statement on the Detroit terror incident?

• The Obama administration scraps plans for a Poland and Czech Republic nuclear defense system in favor of a floating operation conjured up by “Don’t mess with Joe” Biden?

• The administration and our military worry more about political correctness and racism accusations than about securing our country and empowering our soldiers?

• Obama sends a personal letter to Kim Jong-il, all but begging American-hating North Korea to engage in nuke talks?

• Our pacifist president – in spite of any tough talk delivered in his Nobel Peace address – wants to give away the nuke farm and radically downscale our weaponry, simply to court Russia, a fragile country all too willing to see America grow weaker if it means giving little in return?

Have we missed anything? Of course – a lot, really – and that may be the scariest point of all. As we wrap 2009 and prepare to launch 2010, America – ostensibly the world’s greatest super-power – seems to be a very weak, confused and vulnerable place these days.

Happy New Year.

Credit Obama & Crew for thumbing their nose at Israel, as has no other American presidential administration. This president has done everything but embrace Hamas openly (and that’s been close, since he’s funneled money to Palestinian organizations that are ultimately siphoned off and put to use by Hamas).

We’ve seen Iran’s growing tyranny against angry citizens who want a more democratic way of life. We’ve seen its antiquated administration rig elections that left in place toxic leaders who were in turn acknowledged by Obama, even though other major powers steered clear of such affirmations.

And how has President Ahmadinejad rewarded the world? By stalling the UN’s nuclear inspection tours; by finally letting them in and agreeing to ship its enriched nuclear material out of Iran, then reneging on that promise; by responding to UN sanctions not with a diminishment of its nuclear program but to expand it and build 10 more nuclear plants in the coming years; and according to British intelligence, by finally perfecting a nuclear trigger that will substantially advance its ability to fire its nuclear weaponry.

But perhaps Iran’s most flagrant mockery of the sanctions America and others have threatened them with is its firing of a new missile powered by solid fuel that will increase the country’s distance and precision ability to strike others (“Iran Test-Fires Its Longest Range Missile,” FOX News, December 16, 2009, http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,580341,00.html).

Where does this leave Israel? In increasingly dire straights. It’s clear that Ahmadinejad will continue to steer Iran as he and his religious backers see fit. It’s also clear that Iran’s ultimate goal, once it has the power to do it, is to destroy Israel with a nuclear blast.

And unfortunately, it’s also clear that Israel will not get much help from America under the current US president, who’s clueless about a lot of matters, including foreign policy. What has Obama really done for Israel except to send delegates like Defense Secretary Robert Gates over there to implore the country to practice patience? And what has such patience yielded? Months of increasingly truculent behavior by Iran.

Countless articles, documentaries and films recently heralded the Woodstock Festival’s 40^th anniversary. Few of the retrospectives mentioned the soldiers dying in Vietnam as stoners rocked out in rural New York.

Something similar is happening now. Afghan War Commander General McChrystal requested 40 thousand additional troops weeks ago. Instead of complying, President Barrack Hussein Obama continues to stall even as he attends to matters he deems more important than losing a war.

But Obama must consider the 2016 Olympics his most pressing political matter. He wants the games held in Chicago. So of course, he and First Lady Michelle are jetting off to Copenhagen– in separate planes – to make a personal appeal to the Olympic Committee. Never mind that the cost of Obama alone making the four thousand mile trip aboard Air Force One will set American taxpayers back anywhere from $300K to $500K, each way (Penny Starr, CNS News, September 30,2009, http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/54762).   After all, there’s no other way to get in touch with the Olympic Committee except to go meet it face-to-face, right?

The Afghan war should be tops on Obama’s list. Instead, he’s doing anything but making a decision on whether or not to honor General McChrystal’s troop request. That stall is costing us lives. McChrystal admitted on last Sunday’s 60 Minutes that he’s spoken to Obama just once in the past 70 days. Never mind that there’s a chain of command in place and Obama wants McChrystal to communicate with the Pentagon first. The president can do better than have a single direct communiqué with his on-site commander in 70 days. To do otherwise is an insult to McChrystal and every soldier who volunteered to serve his country in any way it deems necessary.

Funny how Obama continues to hedge – and liberals continue to give him a pass – on an Afghan war decision. Remember how the libs crucified President George W. Bush for not taking a firmer stance on Afghanistan? Remember how they vilified W for the troop surge in Iraq, which finally turned things around?

Truth be told, the Iraq surge was a resounding success. And in that fact is the key to Obama’s fudging on a similar Afghan surge. Sure, angering liberals may account for part of the president’s hesitancy, but there’s also this to consider: To give McChrystal the additional troops he requested would be tantamount to admitting that W was right in ordering the Iraq surge.

In fact, George W. Bush was right about a lot of things. He was right about the Iraq surge and he was right about Iran. Recall that Bush was laughed at for treating Iran as a dangerous enemy determined to join the nuclear arms community. Now we’ve learned that Ahmadinejad and company have long been cooking up uranium in hidden sites throughout the country.

W understood what President Ronald Reagan understood all too well: peace is best upheld through strength. Iran wouldn’t be processing nuke fuel and preparing an Israel doomsday bomb if Reagan, George W. Bush and VP Cheney were still in power.

And neither Reagan nor W would be running a fool’s errand to Denmark in order to secure a round of games while our troops are pleading for help.

By Oscar De Los Santos

We’ve heard a lot about Henry Louis Gates, Jr’s, arrest in Cambridge last week. Why? Because President Obama wedged his way into the incident. Michelle Malkin asserts that Obama weighed in on Gatesgate because he’s a “racial opportunist” (“Today Show,” July 29, 2009). The president will soon be playing bartender to fix his gaffe – but the truth is that even after the Obama-Gates-Sgt. Crowley summit, Gatesgate will continue to draw attention from more pressing matters.

Let’s not forget that an American soldier is still being held hostage in Afghanistan and seven men were recently arrested in North Carolina for conspiring to commit terrorism. These events and several others should remind our government and the American people not to shirk matters of national security.

Even as he orders our defense budget trimmed, cancels orders for military equipment and ignores the need to implement U.S. missile defense systems abroad, Obama is trying to sell socialized medicine to America and planning a White House beer bust.

Obama’s need for Oktoberfest in July is also security related – but it deals with a local matter into which the president should not have stepped. But he did, and as a result, he’s had to devote considerable time to cleaning up the mess.

The last question of his Obamacare press conference last week focused on Gates’ arrest. After admitting he didn’t have all the facts, Obama forged ahead with a cavalier opinion. In so doing, he scrubbed any progress he made on his health-care obsession.

If you’re concerned about Obamacare, there’s a positive side to Gatesgate. The president’s Bidenesque faux pau – saying, “The Cambridge police acted stupidly” when they arrested Gates – completely de-railed his push for so-called universal health care.

But ultimately, Gatesgate joins the health-care debate in pulling America’s attention away from pressing matters of national security. That’s dangerous. The worst thing we can do right now is to be complacent about our safety.   If we lull ourselves into a false belief that things are looking more positive overseas; if we let ourselves believe that we can pull out of Afghanistan prematurely; if we allow ourselves to obsess on Obama’s three-ring self-promotion circus, then we’re in big trouble.

The current administration needs constant watchdogging. Otherwise, its questionable actions go unchecked. To wit, shouldn’t we be concerned:

·        that the Obama administration is so hell-bent on helping ousted Honduran despot Zelaya regain power that it’s virtually lobbying for Zelaya’s reinstatement even as it cuts U.S. aid to the country? (Don’t we have enough on our plate without getting involved in this chaos?)

·        that American and British military authorities are pursuing dialogue with allegedly moderate members of al-Qaeda? (Who but brainwashed pacifists believe that there are mild-mannered al-Qaida among the bad?)

·        that Obama & Co. continue to throw Israel under the bus in its troubles with Hamas and Iran?

·        that Russia has declared it won’t exert any pressure on Iran to curb its nuclear ambitions?

·        that North Korea continues to violate sanctions – and advertise what it has for sale to interested parties – with each missile test?

These points illustrate major flaws in the current administration’s thinking. Gatesgate has led to a forthcoming meeting that’s more about helping Obama do damage control to his image than getting into a fruitful discussion of racism. Let’s not let the preoccupations of a narcissistic president and a publicity-seeking scholar steer attention away from more pressing matters that involve keeping America safe.

There’s a disturbing video clip making its way around the Internet. It features President Barack Hussein Obama dashing up to Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, shaking his hand exuberantly and then bowing to Putin. We can quibble about whether it’s an actual bow or not, but it’s very close. Given Obama’s past supplicating behavior – his literal and figurative bowing to people who don’t care for America – this could well be a bow.

Certainly, the president’s antics in Russia constitute a bow to the country. Obama wasted no time in deeding away the American National Security farm when he got there. And things might get worse if he decides to toss our nuclear missile defense system plans into the bargain.

We heard that a guarded Prime Minister Putin spent the first 50 minutes or so of their meeting lecturing Pupil Obama on Cold War history.  The truth is that it’s in part because of our missile defense shield plans that Putin can't stand America.  He and President George W. Bush got along initially, but things soured when Bush wouldn’t budge on plans to erect a nuke shield in Poland. Putin isn’t happy that we still have those plans on the table.

Now Obama seems ready to scrap those defense plans, even though he hasn't out and out stated so.  Given his pacifist idealism, we must suspect that Obama has every intention of giving away the missile defense farm.  Long before he became president, Obama was showcasing pacifism. Andy McCarthy points out a 1983 Columbia campus newspaper article the New York Times recently unearthed. In “Breaking the War Mentality,” Obama quoted Rastafarian Peter Tosh song lyrics (“Obama: Student Radical,” National Review, July 6, 2009, http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NDEyMGNkZTI4MWE1ZjU4MzBiZjcwZjJhNzMyYzljYTA). In the article, Obama reflects, “When Peter Tosh sings that ‘everybody’s asking for peace, but nobody’s asking for justice,’ one is forced to wonder whether disarmament or arms control issues, severed from economic and political issues, might be another instance of focusing on the symptoms of a problem, and not the disease itself” (“Obama’s 1983 College Magazine Article,” New York Times, http://documents.nytimes.com/obama-s-1983-college-magazine-article#p=1). What idealistic profundity! Catch us as we swoon! Who didn’t anticipate a future national leader after reading that stunning missive?

Obama has already gift-wrapped a third of our nukes to Russia.  In turn, Russia is letting us cut across their backyard on land and on air as we fight the Afghan war.  They’ve also thrown a few antiquated rotting missiles into the mix. Who’d want them? Who has state-of-the-art technology? Who comes out a winner here? A genuine no brain barter just took place, and Russia came out the winner.

Even more disturbing: Ralph Peters contends that “the Russians don’t care much about our warhead numbers . . . What they really wanted – and got – was a US cave-in regarding limits on our nuclear-capable bombers, submarines and missiles that could leave us with as few as 500 such systems, if the Russians continue to have their way as the final details are negotiated” (“Desperate Deal,” New York Post, July 7, 2009).

Since “President Obama even expressed an interest in further nuclear-weapons cuts” (Ralph Peters, “Desperate Deal”), OK believes the next step for our pacifist prez may well be to scrap our U.S. nuclear missile defense system.

Iran is moving ever closer to having nuclear capabilities. The U.S. needs the nuke defense shield to keep Amoudinajad in check. Can we trust Russia to police Iran for us? Obama think so. He wants Russia to strong-arm Iran into cutting its nuclear program.

An attempt to forge a stronger U.S.-Russian alliance makes sense – but we should be prepared to flex our own muscle instead of relying on a former prime adversary to solve an impending crisis.

By the way, cutting through Russia saves the U.S. a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of what the porkulus bill cost us.  So money isn't an issue.  It's having an idealistic president in charge of America; a president whose actions repeatedly signal diffidence for the welfare of the American people and re-election and legacy building as his ultimate goals.

Conservatives leaders like Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush never deeded the National Security Farm, nor did they waver in their resolve to protect America.  Obama is already doing the former and hasn't begun to do the latter.