The Obama administration’s weak response to WikiLeaks

From Investors Business Daily.

Excerpt:

The horror we feared would happen is here. Friday, the New York Times reports the Taliban is studying 75,000 classified U.S. documents posted on WikiLeaks for names of informants, potential defectors and others who cooperated with American and NATO forces in Afghanistan.

“We are studying the report,” a gleeful Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told the Times. “If they are U.S. spies, then we know how to punish them.”

That means death for any Afghan who ever cooperated with us because those reports are loaded with names, identifying villages, parentages and potential defectors. WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange threatens to publish more documents and publicly sneers at the prospect of deaths, mockingly saying the U.S. should launch criminal inquiries on U.S. soldiers instead.

[…]Last year, President Obama committed to the counterinsurgency plan of General Stanley McChrystal… [which] …requires soldiers to enter villages, develop informants and prioritize protecting civilians instead of wall themselves off in fortresses without intelligence. The WikiLeaks leak pretty well blows years of that hazardous and delicate work out of the water.

But the immediate problem is the death sentences ahead for Afghans who have cooperated with us — and any U.S. soldier who may die now that Afghans can no longer trust us.

And the White House response to Assange:

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen warns that Assange may “already have blood on his hands.” The White House response is to focus on begging Assange, who leaked the documents, to stop.

“Well, we can do nothing but implore the person that has those classified, top secret documents not to post anymore,” said spokesman Robert Gibbs on Friday.

The Democrats are imploring Assange to stop. Begging him to stop undermining the safety and security of our country. Begging him to stop exposing American forces to attacks. Is that strong leadership on national security?

Can you imagine that many people in the armed forces actually voted for Obama?

CBS News discovers that adult stem cells produce more treatments

Story here from CBS News. (H/T Hot Air via ECM)

Excerpt:

A few months ago, Dr. Thomas Einhorn was treating a patient with a broken ankle that wouldn’t heal, even with multiple surgeries. So he sought help from the man’s own body.

Einhorn drew bone marrow from the man’s pelvic bone with a needle, condensed it to about four teaspoons of rich red liquid, and injected that into his ankle.

Four months later the ankle was healed. Einhorn, chairman of orthopedic surgery at Boston University Medical Center, credits “adult” stem cells in the marrow injection. He tried it because of published research from France.

Einhorn’s experience isn’t a rigorous study. But it’s an example of many innovative therapies doctors are studying with adult stem cells. Those are stem cells typically taken from bone marrow and blood – not embryos.

For all the emotional debate that began about a decade ago on allowing the use of embryonic stem cells, it’s adult stem cells that are in human testing today. An extensive review of stem cell projects and interviews with two dozen experts reveal a wide range of potential treatments.

This is important because embryonic stem cell research involves the destruction of human beings. Real little people that would grow up just like you and me. You have to destroy the embryo in order to get embryonic stem cells.

Related posts

Upcoming apologetics events in Dallas, Atlanta and Calgary

Calgary, Alberta

First, the Faith Beyond Belief team is doing a Calgary event with Canadian scholar Craig Evans.

Details:

September 24-26, 2010

Various events in local churches and colleges with Dr. Craig Evans

The event schedule is here.

If you would like to donate, you can donate at the web site. The Faith Beyond Belief team informs me that they could really use your support, and please tell them that WK (me) sent you.

Craig Evans is first-rate scholar who is respected across the ideological spectrum. He has been doing stuff with John Ankerberg, participating in debates with John Dominic Crossan, and debating against Bart Ehrman. Canadians should be thrilled to get someone of his caliber in their country. The fact that the organizers have not neglected to schedule academic outreach events is significant. Calgary is the best city in Canada, and located next to the Rocky Mountains.

Dallas, Texas

Then, this one in Dallas.

Details:

November 5-6, 2010

2010 On Guard Christian Apologetics Conference

Denton Bible Church in Denton, Texas.

The event schedule is here.

I am a huge fan of Denton Bible Church, and I would love to live on the north side of Dallas, if anyone can find me a good computer science job there as a Java programmer. Denton Bible Church rocks – I believe they did a debate with William Lane Craig and Keith Parsons before, which you can listen to on the comprehensive William Lane Craig Debate page.

Atlanta, Georgia

Then, this one in Atlanta.

Details:

November 18-20, 2010

2010 Evangelical Philosophical Society Apologetics Conference

Here is the event schedule.

Johnson Ferry Baptist Church in Marietta, Georgia.

I’m going to see if I can go to the one in Atlanta to meet a whole bunch of my blog friends. I would say that the odds are very, very good that I will be there. The north suburbs is another place I would like to live – Rep. Tom Price’s district is super conservative.

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November 5th and 6th, 2010

Friday: 7:30pm to 9:30pm

Saturday: 8:30am to 4:00pm