DW's predecessors held the middle ground in the mid-east, but he is seen as a solid Israel ally. During the Hezbollah conflict, even the moderate Muslims raged as they saw dead children pulled from the ruble on their TVs. All knew that U.S. made planes dropped the bombs. Further, the Hezbollah leader and troops were celebrated as heros leaving us as the villains. It was all a great time for terrorist recruiters.
Logic states that DW enabled the conflict in two ways. First, his negligence in the area allowed the U.N. negligence allowing a Hezbollah buildup. Second, his Iraq fiasco emboldened Iran, hence Hezbollah.
--Homeland Security C-
On the other side of the coin, we need to appeal to hearts and minds in the world at large and of the terrorists in particular. All ways should be explored to penetrate the extremist's flawed mind-set--a real challenge. A lesser challenge would be to simply improve our world image. We know how to do that. We did it before--before the arrival of DW.
Our image has plummeted in the last five years throughout the world--even with our closest. For instance, Briton's favorable view has fallen from 83% to 56% and Germany's has fallen from 78% to 37% while that of the Muslims are in the low single digits. It's reported that our foreign policy and the dislike for DW has driven these numbers. DW obviously thinks more along the lines of external force and internal politics with little thought about hearts and minds.
--Missile Defense C
With the emerging nuclear threat, our missile defense is becoming more visible, but the view is not all that great since the system is not all that great.
After John Bolton encouraged DW to break the ABM treaty with Russia, DW rushed a ridiculed ABM system he inherited into operational status. Each ABM missile carries a single, large "kill vehicle" The system had not tested well and drew massive criticism. It would be overwhelmed by an incoming ICBM with many warheads, decoys and sub munitions if it did work. Worse, decoy detection has been very problematic.
As DW was pushing his ABM plan, an outside person submitted another plan to previous President Ford through the back door who forwarded it to Rumsfeld. The plan defined an ABM missile carrying many, autonomous, miniature kill vehicles (MKVs), with each MKV assigned a target in flight. Then, rather than being overwhelmed while trying to detect decoys, the MKVs will launch from the mother missile and kill everything in sight. That very concept is now being implemented by the U.S. Missile Defense Agency, Valuable time has been lost but maybe there's hope.
--Environment/Global Warming F -
DW alienated the world (before 9/11) by walking from the Kyoto earth warming treaty. He said reducing would be just too costly--the leader of the wealthiest and greatest polluter, while over 120 other countries signed on. A major step back from winning hearts and minds. Further, states and industries are now going green with increased profits, better products, expanded employment and a better world.
--Energy D-
A good chunk of our oil money sent overseas is detrimental to our security. A Herculean effort should have been and should be in place to stem that outflow. DW did, of course, propose more drilling then dropped it.
Much could be done in many various ways in areas such as DW's drilling, alternatives, efficiency and conservation. Obviously, all but drilling kills two birds by reducing oil use and pollution/warming. The bully pulpit should be worn to a frazzle by now from overuse as DW tried to coax folks to conserve. It was reported that the government provides generous subsidies to the very profitable big oil with little to nothing going to clean energy. The oil lobbyists at work.
The drive to increase mpg is history. It is known that mileage of 40 mpg and much better is doable. That could be huge. Our car industry would have been saved as well if the government had imposed tougher mpg standards a while back. Those lobbyists do get around
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