OBAMA TALKS TOUGH ON CHINESE ISLANDS,.... THEN RUNS AWAY

OBAMA TALKS TOUGH ON 

CHINESE ISLANDS,....

THEN RUNS AWAY

In public, Obama Inc. sounds tough and determined that China's artificial islands don't represent a legitimate territorial claim.

Also Wednesday, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter talked tough on China, referring to its increasingly aggressive military posture in the Pacific region.

In a reference to China's construction of islands in the South China Sea, for which it then asserts air and sea rights, Carter continued: "There should be an immediate and lasting halt to land reclamation by all claimants. We also oppose any further militarization of disputed features."

Like Obama, he warned China that the U.S. would not back down and would project its authority.

"There should be no mistake: The United States will fly, sail and operate wherever international law allows, as U.S. forces do all over the world," Carter said. "America, alongside its allies and partners in the regional architecture, will not be deterred from exercising these rights.

"After all, turning an underwater rock into an airfield simply does not afford the rights of sovereignty or permit restrictions on international air or maritime transit," he added.

In Obamaville though, all this is hot air and empty noise. Obama is a coward who bullies Americans, but cringes and bows whenever an enemy of the United States pushes him around. That was the empty rhetoric meant to fool the few Americans who still believe in Obama.

Here's the pathetic reality.

 The Obama administration has restricted the U.S. Pacific Command from sending ships and aircraft within 12 miles of disputed Chinese-built islands in the South China Sea, bolstering Beijing’s illegal claims over the vital seaway, Pentagon leaders revealed to Congress on Thursday.

“The administration has continued to restrict our Navy ships from operating within 12 nautical miles of China’s reclaimed islands,” Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Sen. John McCain (R., Ariz.) said in opening remarks criticizing the failure to guarantee safe passage for international commercial ships in Asia.

“This is a dangerous mistake that grants de facto recognition of China’s man-made sovereignty claims,” he said.

McCain, however, noted that the U.S. restrictions on close-in island military flights and ship visits were continuing despite the provocative dispatch of five Chinese warships in an unprecedented deployment to waters within 12 miles of Alaska’s Aleutian Islands—at the same time President Obama was concluding a recent visit to the state earlier this month.

A visibly angered McCain told Shear the best way to assert that international waters around the islands do not belong to China would be for American ships to make 12-mile passages by the disputed islands. “And we haven’t done that since 2012. I don’t find that acceptable, Mr. Secretary,” he said.

Adm. Harry Harris, commander of the U.S. Pacific Command, was asked if he is authorized to order ships to travel within 12 miles of any of the man-made islands and answered, no. Harris also said no U.S. surveillance aircraft have flown directly over any of the islands.

Brave Obama ran away. When danger reared its ugly head, he bravely turned his tail and fled and gallantly he chickened out. Bravely taking to his feet, He beat a very brave retreat.

So while Obama makes empty noises about China seizing land, and empty noises about Russia seizing land and empty noises about Iran's nuclear program, he has conceded all three. Everything else is just empty talk about all the "options" we have, once that smart diplomacy has gotten through appeasing the enemy.

Bravest of the brave, Barack.

Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is a New York writer focusing on radical Islam.