By Mark Mix
Home day care providers would be forced into unions
You need only to pick up a newspaper or turn on the television to be reminded that threats facing America are becoming more serious and diverse.
Tensions are escalating by the day on the Korean Peninsula. North Korea has declared that it is in a state of war with its neighbor to the south, and its untested young despot, Kim Jong-un, has been photographed meeting with his generals flanked by charts showing the trajectory of missiles aimed at U.S. targets.
It wasn't that long ago that the question posed by the Foundation for Defense of Democracies' (FDD) annual national security conference — "Dictators and Dissidents: Should the West Choose Sides?" — would have seemed easier to answer. But what happens when victory by the dissidents leads not to democracy but to totalitarian rule?
The makers of a documentary on radical Islam are defending their work after Mayor Michael Bloomberg criticized the showing of it where police officers were gathered.
Within days, the Obama Pentagon is expected to decide which supplier to rely upon for what is, arguably, the cornerstone of America's ability to project power for the next 40 years: the next-generation aerial-refueling tanker known as the KC-X. The choice for this role - which is worth conservatively $40 billion - would seem to be a no-brainer. The obvious winning candidate to produce and maintain 179 tankers for decades to come would be a reliable, experienced and responsible U.S. manufacturer: Boeing.
A panel of national security experts who worked under Republican and Democratic presidents is urging the Obama administration to abandon its stance that Islam is not linked to terrorism, arguing that radical Muslims are using Islamic law to subvert the United States.
It's new for the stack of stuff to be read on those long, thoughtful autumnal nights. And it's free.
Conservative national security officials are wondering what is going wrong inside the Bush White House. The choice of a retired Marine Corps general known for his liberal political views as a candidate for a "czar" over the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan has many scratching their heads and wondering whether the president is aligning his administration with the defeatists now opposing the war.
The very nature of state-directed terrorism today, says R. James Woolsey, former director of the Central Intelligence Agency, means that such attacks are largely surreptitious, their origin hidden in the vast expanse of the oceans.
"Act Three is often very ugly," he added. "Those who support totalitarianism ... come to the fore."
Blog: Conference mulls the hard choice between dictators and dissidents →
