Seven toes to Go! Carter Should'veTaken Fonda!

Having now shot off three toes Obama has only seven to go. At the rate Obama is proving capable of shooting himself in the foot he might not have enough toes left to stand by the end of the campaign.

While speaking of feet, Zev Chafets wrote an interesting piece recently suggesting Israel must stand on its own two feet. Though Israel should be and is thankful for having the U.S. as an ally, in the final analysis, Chafets writes no nation should rely upon the kindness of another with respect to its survival. According to Chafets it would be unwise for Israel to accept a U.S. to pledge, even if one was forthcoming, because it could ultimately lead to overbearing political implications.

After Iran announced 6000 new centrifuges on the eve of Israel's 60th birthday and GW's silence, Chafets concludes the U.S. has played its final card, its hand has been called and GW 's final bluff has been called.

Israel is capable of defending itself and should continue to embrace policies that leave it free to act in its own defense. (See 1 below.)

Carter moves along his merry way laying wreath on Arafat's grave. One Nobel Winner to another. What a pitiful, bitter ex-president. Carter should have taken Jane Fonda along for company. (See 2 and 3 below.)

Bellicosity continues as Iran ups war of words. As Norman Podhortez wrote recently, has WW 4 already begun? Will Iran's posture eventually lead to a hot war as Israel concludes it has no choice? (See 4 below.)

Daniel Pipes continues to write about Europe and where it is heading. (See 5 below.)

Thomas Sowell concludes what I have been stating all along - Obama is a living lie. (See 6 below.)

Dick


1)Exclusive: Amid new Iranian threat, Israel connects to America’s Ballistic Missile Early Warning System

Israel requested the hook-up to the BMEWS for early warning to defend itself against Iranian missile attack. Tuesday, April 15, Iran’s deputy C-in-C Mohammad Reza Ashtiani threatened to eliminate Israel from “the scene of the universe” if it launches a military attack on the Islamic state.

Military sources report the system operates from three global centers – the US Thule Air Base in Greenland, where the 12th Space Warning Squadron is located; the Clear Air Force Station in Alaska and the British RAF long-range radar station at Fylingdales, Yorkshire, in England.

This is the third time Israel has been connected to the BMEWS. The first was in 1991 before the first Gulf War and the second in 2003 before the US invasion of Iraq. Then, Israel feared Iraqi missile attack, which indeed materialized in 1991. Now, US military sources interpret the request as signifying Israel’s sense of the need to prepare for an Iranian missile attack in the not-too-distant future.

Such an attack could develop from a US or Israeli strike against Iran, or any war situation involving Israel, Syria or Hizballah. Tehran might also stage a pre-emptive strike if early intelligence was received of an impending US or Israeli attack on Iran, Syria or Hizballah.

These sources stressed that Iran could even decide to lash out against Israel after the event in reprisal for an American assault, not necessarily on its nuclear sites but on Revolutionary Guards bases involved in directing, arming and training militias for attacks on US troops in Iraq. In such a contingency, Tehran could decide to hit back at US bases and strategic sites in the Persian Gulf and Middle East at large, including Israel.

The hook-up to the US early warning system will give Israel a better chance to prepare its Arrow and Patriot missile defense systems – and the US to prepare its own Israel-based Patriot batteries - in good time to ward off an Iranian missile attack. The BMEWS would start beaming data on an incoming Iranian missile at the launching stage and before it is airborne.

American military sources have no doubt that if an Iranian missile barrage targets Tel Aviv, Israel will counter with a missile attack on Tehran or Damascus.

2) Carter to meet Hamas official in Ramallah, lays wreath on Arafat's grave


Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter said he'll meet with a Hamas leader at a West Bank reception Tuesday, a sign he has not been cowed by criticism of his plans to meet with the militant Palestinian group.

During his time in Ramallah on Tuesday, the former U.S. president visited the grave of late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, where he laid a wreath.

Carter added that he sought permission to enter the Islamist-ruled Gaza Strip as well but was turned down. Carter did not single out Israel by name for having turned down his request to visit Gaza however all of the border crossings between Israel and Gaza are controlled by Israel.

Nasser al-Shaer has been invited to a reception in the West Bank town of Ramallah along with other prominent Palestinians, officials close to Hamas said Tuesday.

Shaer is a leading Hamas member from the West Bank who served as deputy prime minister in the Palestinian coalition government that disintegrated last summer after Hamas violently seized control of the Gaza Strip.

Asked by The Associated Press if he would meet Shaer on Tuesday, Carter replied, Yes. He offered no further details.

Both the U.S. and Israeli governments have already expressed displeasure at Carter's overtures to Hamas, an Islamic group responsible for the deaths of hundreds of Israelis and labeled a terrorist organization by both countries. Carter is to meet Khaled Meshal, the group's political leader, in Damascus, Syria, on Friday.

During his visit to Israel earlier in the week, Carter has said isolating Hamas is counterproductive and volunteered to serve as a conduit between the group and the U.S. and Israeli governments.

"I'm not a negotiator. I'm someone who might provide some communication. I'm going to try to make [Meshal] agree to a peaceful resolution, both with Israel and with Hamas's Palestinian rivals," Carter said Thursday.

Carter said he had requested permission to enter Gaza from Israel, but Israel turned him down. He might meet with other Hamas leaders while visiting Syria, he said.

Israel's top leaders, in a stinging rebuff, have avoided meeting Carter. Only Shimon Peres, the country's ceremonial president, met with the former U.S. leader, and took that occasion to tell Carter that his planned meeting with Meshal was a grave mistake.

In Washington, U.S. State Department spokesman Tom Casey told reporters Monday that the U.S. has made clear our views that we did not think now is the moment for him [Carter] or anyone to be talking with Hamas.

The U.S. would be happy to hear Carter's reflections on his visit with Hamas, but it would not likely change the administration's views on the militant group, Casey said.

3) Jimma, tyranny's enabler
By Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.


Jimmy Carter's pathetic need for political rehabilitation following a presidency widely regarded as one of the worst in American history is once again making news. He reportedly will meet this week with Khaled Mashaal, the Syrian-based leader of the Muslim Brotherhood's Palestinian arm, Hamas - an internationally recognized terrorist organization.


Mr. Carter maintains this is no big deal since he has met with Hamas officials before. Indeed, in keeping with his Carter Center's self-appointed status as global election monitor, the former president did officiate in January 2006 when the Brotherhood's terrorists defeated those of Fatah led by Yasser Arafat's longtime crony, Mahmoud Abbas.


In point of fact, it seems there is scarcely a serious bad actor on the planet with whom Jimmy Carter has not met. He is a serial tyrant-enabler, the very personification of Rodney King's risible appeal, "Can't we all get along?" Mr. Carter has come to epitomize the notion that "dialogue" is always in order, no matter how odious or dangerous the interlocutor - or the extent to which they or their agendas will benefit from such interactions.


As Barak Obama (whom Carter has all but endorsed) is as wedded as the former President to the idea of condition-free dialogue with tyrants, it is worth reflecting on just a few of the many example's of how this Carteresque practice has produced disastrous results:

* In 1979, then-President Carter undermined the Shah of Iran and made possible the Ayatollah Khomeini's return to Iran and subsequent Islamic revolution. Although the uber-mullah returned the favor with the sacking of Embassy Tehran and seizure of its personnel that assured Carter's would be a one-term presidency, the regime thus born has ever since been a blight on its own people and a state-sponsor of terror and nuclear wannabe that represents an ever-growing menace to its region and the world.

* In 1994, Citizen Carter made a mission to Pyongyang at a time when then-President Bill Clinton was first confronting evidence of North Korea's illegal pursuit of nuclear weapons. The former president's intervention gave rise to a deal that lent invaluable prestige to the regime, perpetuated its hold on power and utterly failed to preclude the North's acquisition of a nuclear arsenal.

* In 2004, Jimmy Carter ignored abundant evidence of official vote-rigging and election fraud in a Venezuelan referendum, handing victory to Hugo Chavez and clearing the way for the most destabilizing accretion of power in the Western hemisphere since Fidel Castro's communist revolution in Cuba - a model and inspiration for Chavez.


In short, thanks in no small measure to Jimmy Carter's proclivities and meddling, the world is a considerably more dangerous place. Following his lead now will make it more so, for three reasons:


First and foremost, "talking" to tyrants legitimates them. Dictators go to great lengths to conjur up the perception of authority and permanence. They are particularly anxious to do so for domestic consumption, to ensure their continued rule. To the extent that outsiders recognize, to say nothing of embrace, them, it enhances their stature at home and validates their misconduct on the world stage.


Second, such efforts generally have the effect of emboldening these thugs. After all, they are being rewarded for bad behavior. The result is predictable: even worse behavior. That can mean redoubled efforts to: acquire nuclear weapons, destabilize their neighbors, raise the price of oil and engage in other activities inimical to U.S. interests.


Third, it is ironic but true that - even as Carter-style enabling of tyrants makes matters worse - it typically encourages in this country the impression that vexing problems with those regimes have been made more tractable. Diplomatic placeboes reduce the perceived need and popular support for more effective, albeit more difficult, alternatives.


It is instructive that even an Israeli government known for appeasing terrorists has finally had it with Jimmy Carter. Israel's ceremonial head of state, President Shimon Peres, met with him Sunday for the purpose of publicly denouncing Carter's "activities over the last few years [that have] caused great damage to Israel and the peace process." Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and his foreign and defense ministers have gone so far as to decline requested meetings with Carter.


The one possible up-side of the latest instance of tyrant-enabling by Jimmy Carter is that it puts in sharp relief an issue that should feature prominently in the 2008 U.S. elections: Do we want to entrust the job of commander-in-chief to someone who believes, as Mr. Carter does, that dialogue with our sworn enemies - notably, Iran, and its vassal, Syria - is a good and necessary step?


This is, of course, the oft-repeated position of Barak Obama and other Democratic opponents of the effort to secure victory in Iraq. Is it the view though of what the former condescendingly calls "ordinary" Americans, people who have generally shown more common sense than the likes of Messrs. Carter and Obama?


In the final analysis, Jimmy Carter will be best remembered by history as a man whose time in and out of high public office was almost unblemished by success. Notwithstanding a Nobel Peace Prize (given by an awards committee avowedly anxious to rebuke President Bush) and assorted good works on behalf of Habitat for Humanity, his role as a tyrant-enabler will be an object of scorn and derision rather than the vindication he so transparently, and desperately, seeks.




4) Iran: We'll 'eliminate Israel' if it launches attack


Iran will destroy Israel if Israel attacks Teheran, Iranian deputy chief of staff, Mohammad Reza Ashtiani, warned Tuesday in response to a threat issued last week by National Infrastructure Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer.


"We are not worried by the recent Israeli maneuvers, but "If Israel wants to take any action against the Islamic republic, we will eliminate Israel from the scene of the universe," the Iranian Mehr agency quoted him as saying.

Ben-Eliezer had warned that "Iran will be wiped off the face of the earth if it dares to fire any missile at us."

Later in the week, Ben-Eliezer would not retract his statement: "I do not regret the threats I directed at Iran and its leaders. I am sick of receiving threats to Israel's existence on a daily basis."

5) Europe or Eurabia?
by Daniel Pipes


The future of Europe is in play. Will it turn into "Eurabia," a part of the Muslim world? Will it remain the distinct cultural unit it has been over the last millennium? Or might there be some creative synthesis of the two civilizations?

The answer has vast importance. Europe may constitute a mere 7 percent of the world's landmass but for five hundred years, 1450-1950, for good and ill, it was the global engine of change. How it develops in the future will affect all humanity, and especially daughter countries such as Australia which still retain close and important ties to the old continent.

I foresee potentially one of three paths for Europe: Muslims dominating, Muslims rejected, or harmonious integration.

(1) Muslim domination strikes some analysts as inevitable. Oriana Fallaci found that "Europe becomes more and more a province of Islam, a colony of Islam." Mark Steyn argues that much of the Western world "will not survive the twenty-first century, and much of it will effectively disappear within our lifetimes, including many if not most European countries." Such authors point to three factors leading to Europe's Islamization: faith, demography, and a sense of heritage.

The secularism that predominates in Europe, especially among its elites, leads to alienation about the Judeo-Christian tradition, empty church pews, and a fascination with Islam. In complete contrast, Muslims display a religious fervor that translates into jihadi sensibility, a supremacism toward non-Muslims, and an expectation that Europe is waiting for conversion to Islam.

The contrast in faith also has demographic implications, with Christians having on average 1.4 children per woman, or about one third less than the number needed to maintain their population, and Muslims enjoying a dramatically higher, if falling, fertility rate. Amsterdam and Rotterdam are expected to be in about 2015 the first large majority-Muslim cities. Russia could become a Muslim-majority country in 2050. To employ enough workers to fund existing pension plans, Europe needs millions of immigrants and these tend to be disproportionately Muslim due to reasons of proximity, colonial ties, and the turmoil in majority-Muslim countries.

In addition, many Europeans no longer cherish their history, mores, and customs. Guilt about fascism, racism, and imperialism leave many with a sense that their own culture has less value than that of immigrants. Such self-disdain has direct implications for Muslim immigrants, for if Europeans shun their own ways, why should immigrants adopt them? When added to the already-existing Muslim hesitations over much that is Western, and especially what concerns sexuality, the result are Muslim populations that strongly resist assimilation.

The logic of this first path leads to Europe ultimately becoming an extension of North Africa.

(2) But the first path is not inevitable. Indigenous Europeans could resist it and as they make up 95 percent of the continent's population, they can at any time reassert control, should they see Muslims posing a threat to a valued way of life.

This impulse can already be seen at work in the French anti-hijab legislation or in Geert Wilders' film, Fitna. Anti-immigrant parties gain in strength; a potential nativist movement is taking shape across Europe, as political parties opposed to immigration focus increasingly on Islam and Muslims. These parties include the British National Party, Belgium's Vlaamse Belang, France's Front National, the Austrian Freedom Party, the Party for Freedom in the Netherlands, the Danish People's Party, and the Swedish Democrats.

They will likely continue to grow as immigration surges ever higher, with mainstream parties paying and expropriating their anti-Islamic message. Should nationalist parties gain power, they will likely seek to reject multiculturalism, cut back on immigration, encourage repatriation of immigrants, support Christian institutions, increase indigenous European birthrates, and broadly attempt to re-establish traditional ways.

Muslim alarm will likely follow. American author Ralph Peters sketches a scenario in which "U.S. Navy ships are at anchor and U.S. Marines have gone ashore at Brest, Bremerhaven or Bari to guarantee the safe evacuation of Europe's Muslims." Peters concludes that because of European's "ineradicable viciousness," its Muslims "are living on borrowed time" As Europeans have "perfected genocide and ethnic cleansing," Muslims, he predicts, "will be lucky just to be deported," rather than killed. Indeed, Muslims worry about just such a fate; since the 1980s, they have spoken overtly about Muslims being sent to gas chambers.

Violence by indigenous Europeans cannot be precluded but nationalist efforts will more likely take place less violently; if any one is likely to initiate violence, it is the Muslims. They have already engaged in many acts of violence and seem to be spoiling for more. Surveys indicate, for instance, that about 5 percent of British Muslims endorse the 7/7 transport bombings. In brief, a European reassertion will likely lead to on-going civil strife, perhaps a more lethal version of the fall 2005 riots in France.

(3) The ideal outcome has indigenous Europeans and immigrant Muslims finding a way to live together harmoniously and create a new synthesis. A 1991 study, La France, une chance pour l'Islam (France, an Opportunity for Islam) by Jeanne-Hélène Kaltenbach and Pierre Patrick Kaltenbach promoted this idealistic approach. Despite all, this optimism remains the conventional wisdom, as suggested by an Economist leader of 2006 that concluded that dismissed for the moment at least, the prospect of Eurabia as "scaremongering."

This is the view of most politicians, journalists, and academics but it has little basis in reality. Yes indigenous Europeans could yet rediscover their Christian faith, make more babies, and again cherish their heritage. Yes, they could encourage non-Muslim immigration and acculturate Muslims already living in Europe. Yes, Muslim could accept historic Europe. But not only are such developments not now underway, their prospects are dim. In particular, young Muslims are cultivating grievances and nursing ambitions at odds with their neighbors.

One can virtually dismiss from consideration the prospect of Muslims accepting historic Europe and integrating within it. U.S. columnist Dennis Prager agrees: "It is difficult to imagine any other future scenario for Western Europe than its becoming Islamicized or having a civil war."

But which of those two remaining paths will the continent take? Forecasting is difficult because crisis has not yet struck. But it may not be far off. Within a decade perhaps, the continent's evolution will become clear as the Europe-Muslim relationship takes shape.

The unprecedented nature of Europe's situation also renders a forecast exceedingly difficult. Never in history has a major civilization peaceably dissolved, nor has a people ever risen to reclaim its patrimony. Europe's unique circumstances make them difficult to comprehend, tempting to overlook, and virtually impossible to predict. With Europe, we all enter into terra incognita.

6) A Living Lie
By Thomas Sowell

An e-mail from a reader said that, while Hillary Clinton tells lies, Barack Obama is himself a lie. That is becoming painfully apparent with each new revelation of how drastically his carefully crafted image this election year contrasts with what he has actually been saying and doing for many years.

Senator Obama's election year image is that of a man who can bring the country together, overcoming differences of party or race, as well as solving our international problems by talking with Iran and other countries with which we are at odds, and performing other miscellaneous miracles as needed.

There is, of course, not a speck of evidence that Obama has ever transcended party differences in the United States Senate. Voting records analyzed by the National Journal show him to be the farthest left of anyone in the Senate. Nor has he sponsored any significant bipartisan legislation -- nor any other significant legislation, for that matter.

Senator Obama is all talk -- glib talk, exciting talk, confident talk, but still just talk.

Some of his recent talk in San Francisco has stirred up controversy because it revealed yet another blatant contradiction between Barack Obama's public image and his reality.

Speaking privately to supporters in heavily left-liberal San Francisco, Obama let down his hair and described working class people in Pennsylvania as so "bitter" that they "cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them."

Like so much that Obama has said and done over the years, this is standard stuff on the far left, where guns and religion are regarded as signs of psychological dysfunction -- and where opinions different from those of the left are ascribed to emotions ("bitter" in this case), rather than to arguments that need to be answered.

Like so many others on the left, Obama rejects "stereotypes" when they are stereotypes he doesn't like but blithely throws around his own stereotypes about "a typical white person" or "bitter" gun-toting, religious and racist working class people.

In politics, the clearer a statement is, the more certain it is to be followed by a "clarification," when people react adversely to what was plainly said.

Obama and his supporters were still busy "clarifying" Jeremiah Wright's very plain statements when it suddenly became necessary to "clarify" Senator Obama's own statements in San Francisco.

People who have been cheering whistle-blowers for years have suddenly denounced the person who blew the whistle on what Obama said in private that is so contradictory to what he has been saying in public.

However inconsistent Obama's words, his behavior has been remarkably consistent over the years. He has sought out and joined with the radical, anti-Western left, whether Jeremiah Wright, William Ayers of the terrorist Weatherman underground or pro-Palestinian and anti-Israeli Rashid Khalidi.

Obama is also part of a long tradition on the left of being for the working class in the abstract, or as people potentially useful for the purposes of the left, but having disdain or contempt for them as human beings.

Karl Marx said, "The working class is revolutionary or it is nothing." In other words, they mattered only in so far as they were willing to carry out the Marxist agenda.

Fabian socialist George Bernard Shaw included the working class among the "detestable" people who "have no right to live." He added: "I should despair if I did not know that they will all die presently, and that there is no need on earth why they should be replaced by people like themselves."

Similar statements on the left go back as far as Rousseau in the 18th century and come forward into our own times.

It is understandable that young people are so strongly attracted to Obama. Youth is another name for inexperience -- and experience is what is most needed when dealing with skillful and charismatic demagogues.

Those of us old enough to have seen the type again and again over the years can no longer find them exciting. Instead, they are as tedious as they are dangerous.