US can’t afford to ignore Iran

While Iran claims it wants to join the world community, shedding its rogue nation status, its actions tell a different story.

Iran’s state sponsored hackers are attacking key American companies and trying to break into U.S. government computers regularly (Iranian hackers targeting major US companies, Dec. 15). Their nuclear program continues, as they ignore deadline after deadline in the ongoing international talks. And they are developing missiles capable of attacking the United States under the umbrella of their so-called space program.

{mosads}The FBI’s warnings about Iran’s online warfare threat need to be heeded by beefing up our cybersecurity efforts. And with warnings about Iran’s nuclear program coming from the intelligence community, we need to protect ourselves against nuclear missile attack by expanding our Ground-Based Midcourse Defense (GMD) missile shield. This means deploying more interceptors at the two West Coast bases, adding new radars and launch detection sensors to the system, and building a new base closer to Iran in the Northeast. After nine successful tests where the GMD shot down a ballistic missile, clearly this defensive capability is worth fully funding.

Iran’s actions reaffirm their rogue nation status. No amount of rhetoric can change that, so we need to prepare.

From Otis H. Brooks Jr., Dayton, Ohio

Obama the anti-ideologue

Rape is a heinous crime. To Rolling Stone magazine, however, it was so egregious that vetting the victim’s story was, well, unnecessary. The calculus was simple: You can take the risk of throwing a venerable institution like the University of Virginia and its Greek institutions under the proverbial bus provided you advance the larger narrative there is a war on women in our culture. In short, the end justifies the means.

Sadly, this do-whatever-it-takes-to-make-the-trains-run-on-time approach has become standard operating procedure for the far left in this country.

And the enabling mechanism? President Obama’s allegiance to whatever policies “work.” At first blush that sounds like a good thing. The anti-ideologue. There is a downside, however. No longer tethered to any guiding principles (see: the U.S. Constitution) we are basically off-roading with only his good intentions lighting the way.

Relieved? Hardly.

In the next two years, this president, freed from having to confront another election, can now be who he really is: a radical leftist.

Attribute the deaths of two blacks in Ferguson and New York City to racism when the weight of the evidence suggests otherwise? Go for it. Sanctions on Israel? Why not. Release details on the CIA’s interrogation methods and inflame tensions in an already deadly part of the world? Sure. And that is just looking at the headlines from the previous week! I shudder to think what the next two years of this president’s administration will bring.

I am a rock solid conservative Republican. I have believed up to this point that no matter how the left provokes us we must keep our heads and stay above the fray so we can win the presidency in 2016. My attitude, though, is beginning to change. If our politics are turning into a street fight, at what point do we drop the Queensberry rulebook and engage? Stay the course, you say. Great, and suffer no lasting damage as a result? Good luck with that. Just ask Muhammad Ali what the rope-a dope strategy did for him.

No, the left’s uber arrogance and ruthlessness are wearing thin. Limiting our response over the next two years to stunts or political grandstanding is increasingly looking lame to me. I never thought I would say it, but Ted Cruz may be right, it is time to be bold!

From Jim Eschrich, Lenexa, Kan.

Cuba remains a communist threat

Bill Clinton, chastising concerned Republicans at a Democrat’s 2012 campaign fundraiser, said, “Nobody’s seen a communist in over a decade!” The assembled wealthy Democrats thundered approval.

Now that President Obama has re-established diplomatic relations with communist Cuba, isn’t it time for someone prominent to correct Clinton’s disinformation, even admonish him for it?

Communism hasn’t simply evaporated as a mortal threat. Nuclear-powered communist North Korea just hammered our First Amendment. Along with communist red China (not just “China,” as the media whitewashes this dangerous Asian giant) stages nonstop cyberattacks against our military and commercial enterprises. These are full-blown communists Clinton and those Democrats can’t see.

Marxism was a well-documented element in Obama’s upbringing, even woven through his own autobiography. Now that he has chosen, unilaterally, to welcome the communist dictators who brutally rule Cuba, Clinton’s stinging deception more than ever requires rebuke.

Alive and kicking, communism is. It remains tied for first place on America’s enemies list, despite attempts by swaths of American leftists pretending it isn’t there, now making nice with people seeking to destroy us, who attack us daily.

From Alan Korwin, Scottsdale, Ariz.