California needs to save money so eventually they will fire Jose!
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I probably will revisit this theme again but I need to get it off my chest now. My contempt with Obama's insistent class war on the rich has become boundless.
For a president to appeal to the baser instincts of Americans is despicable. For a president to preach penalizing success and upward mobility is dispiriting at best. For a president to embolden politics of resentment is tragic. Fora president to pit American against American is less than uplifting. Rather than offer leadership he offers petulance. The mere sound of Obama's voice, unlike Chris Matthews shivers up his leg, makes my blood boil.
Liberals have made a political living off presenting themselves as compassionate, caring and protecting the interests of the poor and defenseless while portraying conservatives as heartless lepers. Empirical evidence supports the fact that if you want more of something fund it and if you want more unemployment fund it as they now propose. Continuing pay for unemployment is welfare through the backdoor. Even Clinton recognized welfare was dehumanizing and had boomeranged. Paying for retraining with an end certain is a far better productive solution than creating more couch potatoes. In fact, I thought our glorious First Lady was against slothful eating and caloric indulgence.
Yes, we have an unemployment problem but throwing more money at it is not a creative solution. That approach is what helped destroy public education.
Liberals simply want to continue buying votes with taxpayer money and adding more logs of debt to our fiscal bonfire and why not? Liberals benefit from politics of misery.
Many find nothing great about our nation, many despise our nation and many cannot explain America's exceptionalism. Their policies seem specifically designed to reduce America to a status comparable to many of our so called moral midget friends in Europe, ie. Sweden who just this week paid the price of coddling terrorists.
Obama truly believes government knows best, government should decide fairness, whatever the hell fairness means. He sanctions taking by government and redistributing back and among. Obama would have us believe he is the true economic messiah. Obama is an unprincipled liar and it is little wonder his ratings sink along with the dollar while liberals continue to ignore the people's expressed will.
Meanwhile, American border agents are attacked and assassinated by drug dealing thugs from Mexico and this president sues Arizona for his own failures and ineptness.
Soon we will have a weepy Republican House Leader who is untested and where this all ends is any one's guess.
One would think it cannot get much worse but history shows otherwise.
And, I am not the only one who sees Obama as a failure.(See 1, 1a, 1b and 1c below.)
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For what it is worth Newsmax says stop Start. You decide. (See 2 below.)
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My friend, Khaled Toameh, remains one of the best and most courageous Israeli-Arab reporters. This interview of Khaled is a must read. (See 3 below.)
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Kim is out in Oregon visiting family with her family but before she left she had some cogent advice for Republicans. (See 4 below.)
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Israel and America are at it again. This time Israel has blocked direct access by U.S. Diplomats to IDF Generals. Why? Read the article and learn why Israel is tiring of Obama being disingenuous.
Tonight we had a wonderful evening with friends and our host, a retired Marine Colonel, volunteered that he would return to fight both for our country and Israel. I was taken by his comment and asked why. He said because Israel is our democratic ally, our lone and dependable friend. (See 5 and 5a below.)
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Iraq attacks Christians and the West callously abandons them. No wonder Israelis have a deep seated and justified distrust. (See 6 below.)
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And then there is Obama's chosen war - Afghansitan. How is it going? Not too well it would seem.
We have a CIC who never met a payroll running the economy and who has disdain for the military in charge of war. Truth is stranger than fiction. (See 7 below.)
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Dick
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1)UPDATED: Senate Omnibus Bill: Nearly 2,000 Pages of Runaway Spending and Pork
By Brian Riedl Heritage Foundation
.....This is exactly the kind of secretive, pork-laden, massive spending bill that induced a voter revolt last month. This brazen rejection of transparency and fiscal responsibility is a major reason why federal spending has soared to $30,000 per household (a post–World War II record of nearly 25 percent of the economy) and created trillion-dollar deficits as far as the eye can see.
The Ugly Details
And, in what has become a grand holiday tradition, the Senate stuffed the bill with more than 6,000 earmarks, including:
$450,000 for the World Food Prize in Des Moines, Iowa;
$500,000 for the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate in Boston;
$100,000 for YouthCare in Seattle;
$550,000 to rehabilitate Beacham Street in Massachusetts;
$300,000 to renovate the Josephine Bakhita House in Wilmington, Delaware;
$150,000 to renovate the Tibbits Opera House in Michigan;
$500,000 for streetscaping in Porter County, Indiana;
$200,000 to install solar panels at the Community Food Bank, Inc., in Arizona;
$700,000 to reconstruct Norwood Drive in Pennsylvania;
$500,000 for Denver Bike Sharing;
100,000 for the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway Transportation Museum in Columbus, Mississippi;
$3.5 million to research Formosan Subterranean Termites in New Orleans;
$1 million for peanut research in Athens and Tifton, Georgia;
$500,000 for oyster safety in Florida;
$600,000 for the Lewis and Clark Legacy Trail in North Dakota;
$750,000 for the Monterey Bay Sanctuary Scenic Trail Project in California;
$125,000 to develop a walking trail in Mississippi;
$2 million for an Ice Age National Scenic Trail in Wisconsin;
$250,000 for Pigeon Point Lighthouse in California; etc.
1a)Cantor scores Obama on Israel and ‘What’s wrong with the guy?’
By Robert Wiener
Eric Cantor, who is about to become the second-highest-ranking member of the House of Representatives and its first Jewish majority leader, said President Barack Obama has failed to address both Israel’s strategic needs and Iran’s “atrocious violations of human rights.”
Speaking Dec. 12 in a packed Buttenwieser Hall at Manhattan’s 92nd Street Y, the five-term Virginia Republican replied that “there was a seeming lack of priority placed on this question” when asked about the president’s approach to Iran’s human rights abuses and possible development of nuclear weapons.
He criticized Obama’s Cairo speech to the Muslim world in 2009. “The inherent message was that Israel is to blame. I thought it was very dangerous,” he told moderator Thane Rosenbaum, a lawyer and novelist.
Speaking of the “religious connection the Jewish people have to the Land of Israel,” the congressman said, “There is something about this administration’s policy that misses that point. It dismisses the strategic nature of the partnership. We have got to be there for our ally.”
He said an American demand for a moratorium on Jewish homebuilding in the West Bank and east Jerusalem “sends a signal that we in this country are not going to be the equal arbiter of the situation when one side demonstrates a commitment to peace over and over again and one side cannot and won’t deliver.”
Cantor praised newly elected members of Congress from the Tea Party for “playing a tremendously important role. Republicans picked up 67 seats in the House.”
Asked whether he worried that those isolationist members might oppose foreign aid to Israel as well as other nations, he said many Americans oppose foreign aid, “but I find it convincing to make the case for U.S. investment in Israel.”
Cantor was criticized by Republicans and Democrats alike last month when he floated separating Israel’s aid package from the total foreign aid package.
“Will Israel do better with a Republican majority in the House?” asked Rosenbaum.
“There has been a shift in attitude toward Israel over the last two years,” Cantor replied. “It has been a shift that many worry about. The strong bond will hopefully be a guide to the way the new Republican House will adjust itself toward a dialogue on foreign policy.”
Asked about Argentina’s recent recognition of an independent Palestinian state, following Brazil’s lead, Cantor responded angrily.
“I want this administration to speak out as loudly as it can that it will veto any attempt to put [a similar] resolution through the UN Security Council,” he said.
Such declarations of unilateral Palestinian statehood are “a warning signal. This is not going to stop,” he said. “The Palestinians have been on a mission to declare an independent state without Israel’s acquiescence. We know the anti-Israelism that is out there is the newest iteration of anti-Semitism. The Palestinian state and its backers must accept the right of a Jewish state in the Middle East.”
‘What’s wrong with the guy?’
When Rep. Eric Cantor spoke at the 92nd St. Y on Sunday, the novelty of having a high-ranking conservative Jewish Republican in the heart of liberal Manhattan was not lost on moderator Thane Rosenbaum.
He began by teasing the congressman gently, saying, “Liberals are left to wonder what the hell is wrong with the guy? Was he dropped on his head during his bris?”
Cantor responded that his immigrant grandparents settled in Richmond, Va., and opened a grocery store “and through hard work pulled themselves up into the middle class.”
“My father, an entrepreneur and real estate lawyer, believed in that essence of America, and the Republican Party offered the chance for a Jewish couple to get involved in a party dominated by the conservative Christian community” — most notably two local evangelical ministers with national reputations, Pat Robertson and the late Jerry Falwell.
Rosenbaum noted that Cantor votes with the Right on gun control, embryonic stem cell research, same-sex marriage, and abortion, taking the opposite position on what the Jewish majority considers “progressive” and Jewish values.
“These are liberal progressive values,” said Cantor. “They aren’t necessarily Jewish values.”
1b)'Billionaires On the Warpath'? The GOP needs to address the class-warfare argument in moral terms.
By WILLIAM MCGURN
Say what you will about Bernie Sanders. During his Senate "filibuster" on Friday, the gentleman from Vermont asked a good question: When is enough enough?
The object of Mr. Sanders's ire was the deal between the White House and Republicans that will keep the Bush tax cuts in place. "The billionaires of America are on the warpath," was his explanation. "They want more and more and more."
In his nearly nine-hour remarks, excerpts of which are now going viral on the Internet, he framed the lack of a tax hike for the rich as a surrender to greed. In so doing, he inadvertently raised another question: How come Republicans have such a hard time speaking just as forthrightly about the moral underpinnings of their side of this argument?
In general, Republicans tend to answer these class-warfare screeds with purely functional arguments. How, for example, higher tax rates aimed at "millionaires and billionaires" have a habit of hitting quite a few others (the Alternative Minimum Tax anyone?). How such taxes seldom produce the promised revenue bounty. Or how our real problem is not tax revenues but government spending.
These are all good, solid points, and they have an important place in a debate about policy. Yet they can sometimes convey the impression that the only issue here is about maximizing the return to government.
By contrast, think back to when Barack Obama told Joe Wurzelbacher that he wanted to "spread the wealth around," and the Ohio plumber noted how at odds that high-tax vision was with his pursuit of "the American Dream."
What might a more robustly moral argument look like? For one thing, it would address head-on the rhetoric of greed. One of the Seven Deadly Sins, greed is usually described as an insatiable desire for wealth. If that is true, when taxpayers who want to keep their hard-earned money are compared to politicians who want to take it from them to feed their uncontrolled spending, whose appetite better warrants the word insatiable?
In fact, the desire for higher taxes often seems to justify itself solely by the motive to level down. Mr. Obama suggested as much during a televised campaign debate in April 2008. ABC's Charlie Gibson asked the candidate why he wanted to raise capital gains tax rates even though the experience of the past two presidents—Bill Clinton and George W. Bush—showed that "in each instance, when the rate dropped, revenues from the tax increased; the government took in more money."
Mr. Obama's answer: "Well, Charlie, what I've said is that I would look at raising the capital gains tax for purposes of fairness."
That's the way with most tax-the-rich rhetoric. For all the talk about "fairness," Mr. Obama, Mr. Sanders and their fellow Democrats never really tell us what the magic number for fairness is. Is it 35% of income? 50%? 75%? Though they never commit themselves to an actual number, in each and every case we get the same answer: Taxes should be higher than they are now, for their own sake.
Americans are a more hopeful and less envious people than that. We are now hearing from them. Thus the heart of the tea party's objections to the Beltway status quo is fundamentally a moral one: that Washington is arrogant about how it takes and spends our money.
The American people understand this. It's not just tea partiers or those who work on Wall Street. Many years ago, the activist Michael Harrington—he, like Mr. Sanders, a self-declared socialist—wrote about the experience a friend of his had while campaigning in 1972 for George McGovern among the mostly black and Latina workers of New York City's garment district.
Harrington told his friend that he must have had an easy time selling the candidate, given Mr. McGovern's proposal for a 100% tax on every dollar over $500,000 of inheritance. This, Harrington thought, must have especially appealed to garment workers laboring for very low pay.
The friend informed Harrington how wrong he was: "Those underpaid women . . . were outraged that the government would confiscate the money they would hand down to their children if they made a million dollars." No matter how he tried to tell these garment workers how unlikely they ever were to see a million dollars in their lifetimes, they couldn't get past the idea that the government would take it from them if they did.
As Mr. Sanders reminded us this past weekend, the politics of higher taxes now rests almost purely on stoking resentment. If Republicans hope to regain the moral high ground, they need to remind citizens that the argument for lower taxes and government that lives within its means is not an argument about numbers or federal revenues. It's an argument about the ability of all our citizens to realize their dreams and opportunities.
1c)Why Do They Hate Sarah So Much?
By Victor Volsky
What is the reason why the ruling class, including the GOP establishment, hates Sara Palin so passionately? The left and its propaganda machine have always looked down on conservatives, but the attacks on Sarah Palin are unprecedented for sheer malice, scope, and decibel level. Everything about her incenses the left -- her bubbly personality, her high-pitched voice, her lively manner of speech and facial expressions, her colorful biography and way of life, her large family, her unabashed loyalty to Christian and conservative values.
She is ridiculed mercilessly by hordes of comedians who, plumbing new depths of vulgarity, make a nice living exploiting the Palin Derangement Syndrome. The press watches her, eagle-eyed, and pounces at the drop of a hat, twisting the most innocuous slip of the tongue into a monstrous gaffe, almost a federal crime. For all intents and purposes, she is hounded as Public Enemy No. 1. The left views all Republicans as enemies, but Sarah Palin stands apart; she is treated like dirt, like an alien life form. Why?
And why do the feminists outdo even their male allies on the left, evincing astonishing ferocity in attacking Alaska's former governor? One would think Palin is the one person they should defend and extol as a poster child of feminism, an icon of women's liberation.
Indeed, Sarah Palin rose from humble origins eventually to win the office of governor of Alaska and take the number-two spot on the Republican presidential ticket. She overcame all obstacles without any connections, entirely by dint of talent, hard work, and perseverance. She fearlessly took on the GOP establishment and the oil interests that had dominated Alaska for decades, and she beat them all at their own game. She achieved great success and popularity in all public offices she ever held. And on top of all that, she efficiently juggled public service with homemaking duties, married an Eskimo (the left should be particularly ecstatic on this point -- a minority!), and gave her husband a hand in his business undertakings. She raised a large family and does everything a full-blooded Alaskan male is supposed to do, including killing her dinner.
A woman who can successfully challenge and beat any man, climb any mountain, ford any stream, shatter any glass ceiling -- a feminist dream come true, don't you think? And yet, the feminist leaders seethe with boundless hatred for that "upstart." Why? Granted, Palin is a conservative Republican and thus a natural enemy of the left, of which the feminist movement is an integral and prominent part. Still, this explanation somehow fails to account for the extraordinary viciousness of the feminist attitude, for the stupendous amount of vitriol the feminists spew at the mere mention of Sarah Palin's name. There has to be something else. But what is it?
For decades, the political drama in Washington followed a well-defined pattern, with the two major parties playing distinct roles. Under the conventional scenario, the Democrats, noble and high-minded, fight for the "little guy," defend the helpless minorities, feel the pain of the poor and defenseless, selflessly provide succor to the "victims of social injustice," and pursue an internationalist foreign policy. For their part, the Republicans are Wall Street stooges and loyal henchmen of Big Oil and other paragons of greedy capitalism, who rob the poor to give to the rich and follow the imperialist line in the international arena.
From time to time, the Democrats would go too far in their redistributionist schemes, throw public funds around with too much abandon, push the country too far into the morass of economic distress. Then the irate voters would throw them out and hand the reins of power to the Republicans, who would proceed to clean up the mess under withering fire of criticism and ridicule from the sidelines. Once the ship of state was put back on an even keel, the Democrats would return to power and pick up where they left off. This political two-step has continued over many decades, widely perceived as an eternal, providential order of things. To be sure, the Republicans have been contemptuously treated by their adversaries as junior partners. But the operative word is "partners." Though maligned and denigrated, Republicans' political legitimacy has never been called into question.
Then the Obama era dawned. A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity presented itself to the revolutionary left; its political wet dream finally seemed to be within easy reach. The Democrats controlled all branches of government, and the ongoing economic crisis gave it maximum freedom of maneuver. The new president and his allies grabbed the bull by the horns and set about remaking the country on the radical blueprint. But in their zeal, Obama and the Democrats in Congress badly overreached and made a fatal mistake: they woke up the sleeping giant. The vast, hitherto-silent middle class, alarmed by the inexorable slide of the country into the abyss, woke up and rose to defend the American way of life. The resultant Tea Party movement has been the elite's nightmare come true.
The ruling class love to swear their abiding love for and eternal fealty to the people. They indeed love the "people" -- as an abstract sociological concept. But they despise the populace. Everything about the common people, the denizens of the "flyover country," is alien and offensive to the elites. They can't help contemning those thick-skulled yokels, no doubt rabid racists and homophobes all -- who cling to their religion and their guns, who crow about their stupid moral principles and reject the sacred rights of abortion and gay marriage, who are unable to appreciate the sublime beauty and poignant social message of, say, a crucifix immersed in the artist's urine or a Madonna splattered with elephant dung. So long as the knuckle-draggers stay in their caves and lairs, allowing their betters to rule unopposed, they can be safely ignored. But when they start loudly protesting, threatening the prerogatives of the ruling class, the great unwashed turn into an acute danger.
The left was fit to be tied; it sensed a mortal challenge to its dominance. But a movement is an amorphous mass, difficult to pin down and target. Somebody has to personify it, and so Sarah Palin was chosen to be the face of that horrible entity. When she emerged on the national scene, she was merely a target of widespread ridicule. But with the rise of the Tea Party, derision was augmented by dread. Sarah Palin came to be viewed as the leader of the barbarians at the gates, the commander of the vast hordes of pitchfork-brandishing peasants storming the ramparts of civilized society. In short, in the eyes of the political/cultural aristocracy, she is the embodiment of its worst nightmare: the revolt of the masses against their masters.
This is, above all, why Palin arouses such elemental fear and hatred on the left (and the moderate right, too). To be sure, part of the reason is just plain envy. The darned woman seems to have Teflon skin -- all criticism just rolls off her back without doing any damage.
Worse, everything Palin touches turns into gold. How can one preserve equanimity in the face of her astonishing popularity and jaw-dropping earnings? How can one help wondering about the injustice of it all when "that stupid and ignorant lowbrow from the boondocks" commands such attention, with media hanging on her lips and her every word, her every entry on Twitter or Facebook becomes breaking news -- so much so that she actually seems to be driving the national discourse?
And yet, I submit, the elites detest Sarah Palin primarily out of fear and loathing. They view her as a usurper, as an embodiment of a threat to deprive them of the power and privileges they regard as their God-given right.
And what happens if Sarah Palin actually decides to run for president? Katie bar the door, you ain't seen nothing yet!
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2)The START Treaty Must Be Opposed
Within days, maybe hours, the U.S. Senate will vote on ratifying the New START treaty.
If approved, it will be a dangerous and capricious move that will undermine our security for years to come.
Some Senate Republicans appear ready to cave in to the strong-arm tactics the Obama administration and Sen. Harry Reid are using in their effort to ram through a lame-duck Congress one of the most sweeping nuclear treaties the United States has ever signed, a treaty that has many problems that could jeopardize America's national security.
Make no mistake about it: Limiting nuclear weapons on all sides is a worthy call. As President Ronald Reagan said, "A nuclear war can never be won and must never be fought."
But Reagan also understood that treaties with the Russians must be made deliberatively, be fair to both sides, be verifiable, and be linked to good behavior on the Russians’ part.
None of these attributes would be complied with fully if the United States signed New START today.
Indeed, many who played central roles in Reagan’s arms-control strategy that led to the end of the Cold War are warning that it would be a major mistake to sign and ratify New START.
Among those with sterling conservative credentials urging Senate Republicans to oppose the unprecedented move to pass a major international treaty during a lame-duck session of Congress: former Assistant Defense Secretary Richard Perle, former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton, former national security adviser William P. Clark, former U.S. Attorney General Edwin Meese III, former Reagan administration Assistant Secretary of Defense and Center for Security Policy President Frank Gaffney, and many more.
“We already know there is galactic disagreement between what Russia and the Obama administration say the treaty portends for missile defense,” columnist Andrew C. McCarthy writes on NationalReview.com.
So why the rush to ratify an agreement the meaning of which the principals already disagree on?
Especially when the treaty depends on the good faith of one Vladimir Putin, who ordered Soviet tanks to roll into Georgia as recently as 18 months ago in a reckless military adventure that cost hundreds of civilian lives.
In striking a deal that Russian leaders are delighted with, President Barack Obama conveniently overlooks the fact that his “strategic partner,” Vladimir Putin, is no Mikhail Gorbachev — tragically, far from it.
In fact, Putin has waved a big cudgel to get the Senate to go along with the treaty: If they don’t approve it, he threatens a new arms race and a buildup in Russian forces. And that’s the negotiating partner that the administration, desperate to counter the nuclear ambitions of Iran, has determined to be trustworthy.
When Republicans noted that the preamble of the treaty appears to hand the Russians the long-sought weapon they need to eviscerate the U.S. edge in development of a missile shield to guard against rogue nuclear attacks from Iran or elsewhere, the administration downplayed the significance of treaty language.
As Obama might say: Words matter!
When Senate Republicans offered an amendment to clarify the preamble to ensure the United States can develop missile defenses, Democrats blocked it.
A greater concern, however, is the Russian negotiators’ insistence that President Obama did in fact negotiate a de facto prohibition on further U.S. development of its missile defenses.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov declared that the missile defense strictures are “clearly spelled out in the treaty” and “legally binding.”
Understandably concerned over how such a drastic schism already could exist in the treaty’s interpretation, Republicans asked the administration to release the extensive diplomatic record of the negotiations. The administration has stonewalled that request — but insists it has nothing to hide.
Missouri’s Sen. Kit Bond, who has seen some of the documentation, is urging fellow senators to vote against the measure because he says it is virtually unverifiable.
Perhaps the most serious and immediate flaw is that the treaty ignores the vast imbalance between U.S. and Russian tactical nuclear forces.
By some estimates, Russia maintains 10,000 or more of these smaller tactical nuclear warheads, which can be delivered via artillery shells, cruise missile, short-range tactical missiles, and aircraft.
The post-Cold War U.S. inventory is in the hundreds by some estimates.
Yet the treaty, which would freeze missile launchers at 1,550 for each side, willfully ignores the massive Russian advantage in tactical weapons.
Despite these flaws, a host of Republican senators appear to be lining up to support a treaty that is being pushed through the Senate without proper deliberation, during a lame-duck Congress, no less.
Key senators said to favor New Start include Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine, Bob Corker and Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, John McCain of Arizona, Scott Brown of Massachusetts, and George Voinovich of Ohio. Anyone who wonders why there is such a headlong rush to ratify a treaty that raises grave national-security issues should contact them and demand an answer.
Other shortcomings the treaty raises include:
Like any treaty, New START is only as solid as the inspection regime that backs it up. Critics say the verification measures in the treaty are far weaker than previous arms reduction deals.
Russia already is widely believed to be in violation of other international accords. It failed to abide by international agreements to withdraw all of its forces from South Ossetia following the war in Georgia, and the Strategic Posture Commission has declared that Russia “is no longer in compliance” with agreements to limit deployment of tactical nuclear weapons.
Russia has been loath to cooperate with international sanctions against Iran and has provided anti-aircraft missiles to Venezuela, a close ally of Iran.
Also, Russia continues to engage in Soviet-style espionage against the United States. The latest example was the discovery of a massive Russian “sleeper cell” network in the United States.
Washington Times columnist Bill Gertz recently revealed that a State Department memo extensively documents secret talks between the Russians and the administration on missile defense — despite assurances that no such deal was being discussed. McCarthy writes: “Obama not only is philosophically opposed to robust missile defense, but has actually reneged on missile-defense commitments the nation made to Poland and the Czech Republic.”
Because the new treaty would limit launchers, it encourages the Cold War-era practice of MIRVing, that is, placing multiple warheads on a single missile. The SS-18 of that period was called a “city-buster” because each launcher contained 10 missiles that could be independently targeted to rain death on U.S. cities.
The treaty does not constrain the quality of offensive missiles. Russia is embarking on an extensive modernization program. The administration has promised to do the same for U.S. missiles, but so far the funds have not been requested.
The greatest reason to suspect the true motivations behind the treaty is the inexplicable, headlong rush to ratify it.
Former U.N. Ambassador Bolton points out that, because the administration was unable to meet its Dec. 5 deadline to implement a new inspection regime for ongoing verification, there is no way to know what the Russian military may be doing to make verification more difficult. A simple bridging agreement on verification would be adequate to maintain the current level of security until New START could receive a more thorough review by the new, incoming Congress, he writes.
The Cold War has ended, but Russia continues to maintain a state-of-the-art strategic and tactical nuclear force. This fact, coupled with the questionable fate of democracy in Russia and moves toward authoritarianism there, should give the U.S. Senate pause about signing such a far reaching arms treaty.
Newsmax strongly urges the Senate to table New START for consideration before the new Congress that sits next month. Then, ample time should be given to examine the treaty and appropriate changes made to insure it complies with the Reagan model for such treaties: fair, verifiable, reliable.
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3)Abu Toameh: What the Western Media Misses
By Arsen Ostrovsky
A few days ago, I was fortunate to attend a talk by Israeli Arab journalist Khaled Abu Toameh in Jerusalem.
Toameh gave an incredibly wide ranging talk about the peace process, the double standards rife in the West and the media when it comes to coverage of the Middle East and his perspective as a Muslim Arab of Palestinian descent living in Israel (and you thought you had identity issues!).
Toameh has been working as a journalist for almost 30 years now, covering Palestinian affairs, focusing predominantly on the West Bank and Gaza, including for the Palestinian press under the PLO and for various international media outlets in the US and Europe. He is currently at the Jerusalem Post writing on Palestinian issues. Toameh is also an Israeli citizen living in Jerusalem. In other words, he is aptly qualified to comment on the issues of his discussion.
However, if you expected Toameh to jump on the anti-Israel bandwagon with the familiar cries that Israel is an un-democratic apartheid state responsible for all that is wrong including the bubonic plague or to have a single-minded focus on the occupation, you would have been sorely disappointed.
Instead, he spoke openly, courageously and in his words, said it “as it is. Asked what he thought was the essence of the conflict, Toameh said it was not about money or even settlements, as many so-called pundits often imply, as a precursor to blaming Israel. Rather, his answer was very simple: “This conflict is about Israel’s very existence in this part of the world.
But before you get any conclusions, Toameh is not a card-carrying Zionist or as somebody once asked him “when did you get on the Israel lobby payroll. In his own words, he says: “I’m not pro-Israel, I’m not pro-Palestinian and I’m not pro-American. But as a journalist, I’m pro the facts and pro the truth.
Here are some of Toameh’s illuminating comments:
I asked Toameh how, as an Arab Muslim Israeli, he responds to accusations that Israel is an apartheid state.
His response: “Israel is not an apartheid state. But there are problems and some discrimination with the Arab minority inside Israel. If Israel were an apartheid state, I, for example, would not be allowed to work for a Jewish newspaper or live in a Jewish neighborhood or own a home. The real apartheid is in Lebanon, where there is a law that bans Palestinians from working in over 50 professions. Can you imagine if the Knesset passed a law banning Arabs from working even in one profession? The real apartheid is also in many Arab and Muslim nations, like Kuwait, where my Palestinian uncle, who has been living there for 35 years, is banned from buying a house. The law of Israel does not distinguish between a Jew and an Arab.
As for the uniqueness of the Israeli media in the middle East, Toameh added:
“Israel is a free and open country with a democracy, that respects the freedom of the media. You can basically write any anti-Israel story and still walk in downtown Jerusalem or Tel Aviv without having to worry about your safety. Anyone can be a journalist in Israel.
Toameh says he finds it ironic that as an Arab Muslim living in this part of the world, the only place he can express himself freely is in a ‘Jewish newspaper’, noting that:“We don’t have a free media in the Palestinian area, we didn’t have one when I was working there in the late 70’s and early 80’s, we didn’t have one when the PLO came here after the signing of the Oslo accords and we still don’t have one under Fatah and Hamas.
But what about the media’s need for an anti-Israeli angle on stories? Toameh says that when he tried to alert many of his foreign colleagues that Palestinians were dying because of an internal power struggle or gross corruption by Arafat and the Palestinian Authority, their reflex response was: Where’s the anti-Israel angle to the story? Give us an anti-occupation story. Make our lives much easier. An Arab killing an Arab, that’s not a story for us.
Toameh notes that the same foreign journalists would then ask him: “Are you on the payroll of the Israel lobby? “Do they [the Jews] pay you to say these things against Arafat and the PLO? Toameh’s response to them:“What do the Jews have to do with this? I’m telling you what the Palestinians are saying about there being corruption in the Palestinian Authority. I’m even telling you that the PA is saying that the PA is corrupt.
“It is a sad reflection on the state of society, and in particular, the media industry, that not only are they not sufficiently concerned or outraged at the death of Arabs by Arabs (which coincidentally has claimed many more lives than the Israel –Palestinian conflict), but that they will only muster even an iota of concern if they can put in an ‘anti-Israel’ angle.
On the proposed loyalty oath as well, Toameh offered a pragmatic response: “I have no problem with it because it applies equally to both Jews and non-Jews alike.
One of the biggest and most intractable sticking points has consistently been the Palestinian demand for a right of return, which Israel will not agree to because it would mean the death knell of Israel as a Jewish state.
However, Toameh offers a very simple and pragmatic three stage solution, where the Palestinian refugees could:
1. Go to the future Palestinian state;
2. Resettle elsewhere, including other Arab states; and
3. Be offered compensation.
Most tellingly though, and in a statement seldom ever heard from Arabs (or the West), Toameh then asked: “And what about Jewish refugees that were forced to flee Arab nations, suggesting that the issue of Jewish refugees must also be part of any future solution.
Focusing on the problem from Arab dictatorships and their insistence on inciting their people against Israel, Toameh says that we have a problem in the West in failing to believe what people tell us.
“If Hamas say they want to destroy you, you have no reason not to believe them. And if Ahmadinejad says he wants to destroy you, there’s no need to start analyzing what he means by that. Stop fooling ourselves, and if anyone thinks that Hamas will ever recognize Israel’s right to exist, you’re also living in an illusion. Take it from their mouth directly…the PLO however is different – they will tell you one thing in English and then another in Arabic.
On the subject of Arab dictatorship, Toameh says: “Arab dictators survive by constantly blaming the misery of their people on Jews and the West and never accepting responsibility for anything. And by inciting against Israel and the West, you divert attention from problems at home. Why? Because you always need to make sure that your people are busy hating someone else. If they’re not hating Israel and the West, they might wake up one day and come to you, and God forbid, demand reform and democracy.
The crux of the message is:“If you keep inciting your people, then they ask ‘well, why are we then making peace with the Jews?’ We should be killing them as Hamas is saying’.
So what does Toameh think about Mahmoud Abbas, the PA President?
“Abbas is corrupt, discredited, weak and does not have much power. He is reliant on Israel, whose presence in the West Bank is ironically the only reason he has managed to stay in power.
And if Israel withdrew to the 1967 borders as demanded by Abbas and the PLO:“Abbas will collapse and Hamas will take over the West Bank in less than a day. If I were Israel, I would not give Abbas one inch of land in the West Bank – not for ideological reasons, but to avoid a situation where Hamas and others would take over the area.
When we asked him how best to defeat the extremists, radicals and terrorists like Hamas and Hizbullah, Toameh answered:“The first and most important thing is you go to the Arab governments and tell them, “Stop the incitement that’s feeding these radicals and driving people into their hands. Sometimes there’s no difference between what is written about Israel and the Jews in the papers in Egypt and Saudi Arabia with what is written by Hamas.
Noting again the billions of dollars in aid provided by the US and EU to various Arab dictatorships, Toameh says: In other words, and even more clearly, they should tell them: “Stop calling for my death with my money.
I asked Toameh about what steps were needed to move forward. According to him, the answer is “very simple and involves the following steps:
1) The Palestinians must start investing money (provided to them mainly by the US and EU) for the welfare of their people instead of incitement. Then dismantle all militias, establish a free press and democratic institutions, end the infighting, insist on good governance and speak with one voice so at least we know who we’re talking to. And then, he suggests, they should go speak with Israel and see what it has to offer them.
2) Deal with the enemies of peace – if you weaken the enemies of peace, like Iran, Hizbullah, Hamas, the moderates will rise and start speaking out. But as long as Iran is breathing down the neck and threatening, together with Hamas and Hizbullah, who are threatening to kill anyone who makes concessions, no moderate Arab will ever dare sign an agreement with Israel.
Toameh says:“I don’t even rule out military action against any of them because this is the only language these guys understand. Talking to them and appeasing them is even more dangerous.
3) “We can’t move forward when you don’t have a clear, strong, reliable and credible partner on the Palestinian side says Toameh. According to him: “Abbas is not a partner. He and Fayaad might be nice guys with good intentions – but they cannot deliver. So the PA are not partners because they cannot deliver and Hamas are not partners because they don’t want to be partners.
Addressing the issue of whether there was a clear and credible partner on the Israeli side, Toameh said: “I don’t care who is in government in Israel. There is a partner. And my partner is the Jewish people. Why? Because a majority of Jews have already accepted a two-state solution. I see a majority of Jews who don’t care anymore about Gaza. I see a majority of Jews who want to disengage from the Palestinians. I see a majority of Jews over the last 15 years marching toward moderation and pragmatism. I don’t know today of one Jewish mother that wants to send her son back to the streets of Ramallah or Gaza. I don’t know of one Jew who wants to control the lives of the Palestinians and run their education and health system. Sadly though, while the Jewish public has been marching towards pragmatism and realism and moderation, on the Arab side the message remains no, no and no.
In an incredibly candid address, for me perhaps the most defining statement Toameh made was when I asked him: Would you rather continue living as a member of a minority in Israel or move to another Arab country? Toameh’s response was simple, honest, and telling: “Israel is a free and open democratic country. I enjoy living here and I would rather live as a second-class citizen in Israel, even though I’m not, than a first-class citizen in any Arab country.
In a world where it’s all too easy to turn a blind eye to courage, Khaled Abu Toameh is a welcome breath of fresh air. A man, deeply committed to peace, who is seen as a traitor by many and who bravely continues to put his own life on the line each day, Toameh perhaps says it best himself: “I’m not pro-Israel, I’m not pro-Palestinian and I’m not pro-American. But as a journalist, I’m pro the facts and pro the truth.
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4)Republicans Kick the Spending Dope The GOP passes its first big spending test—barely.
By KIMBERLEY A. STRASSEL
Some Americans might be under the impression that they just watched a lame duck Congress engage in a lame-o budget fight. But Senate Republicans' stunning defeat last night of the Democrats' omnibus spending bill was anything but boring.
What our great nation just watched was the Democratic Party preview its political strategy for the next two years. It also watched a united Senate GOP defeat that approach, though not before a handful of Republicans considered walking straight into the Democratic trap. The whole episode was an early peek at the GOP's biggest challenge going forward.
That challenge is, as it always is, spending. Republicans lost in 2006 primarily because of their profligacy, and they won this year primarily because they swore off that profligacy. It's that simple—and don't think Democrats don't know it. President Obama, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi understand that the surest, quickest and most delicious way to undermine their opponents is to tempt them into renouncing their own promises of fiscal responsibility. The added beauty is that Democrats continue to get exactly what they want: bigger government.
This week Democrats unveiled a $1.2 trillion omnibus, legislation as pure an insult to the electorate as it gets. It was a 1,924-page monstrosity that nobody had time to read. It took 11 spending bills that Democrats couldn't be bothered to pass individually and crammed them into one oozing ball of pork and bad policy, going beyond even the obscene budget of 2010.
Yet to this legislative Frankenstein Democrats carefully attached the spenders' equivalent of crack cocaine. To wit, omnibus author and Hawaii Democrat Daniel Inouye dug up earmark requests that Senate Republicans had made in the past year (prior to their self-imposed ban) and, unasked, included them in the bill. He lavished special, generous attention—$1 billion worth of it—on some reliable GOP earmark junkies: Mississippi's Thad Cochran got $512 million; Utah's Bob Bennett, $226 million; Maine's Susan Collins, $114 million; Missouri's Kit Bond, $102 million; Ohio's George Voinovich, $98 million; and Alaska's Lisa Murkowski, $80 million.
The effect of this dope—just sitting there, begging for a quick inhale—on earmarkers was immediate. Two seconds into the sweats and shaking hands, nine Republicans let Mr. Reid know they'd be open to this bill.
Democrats were euphoric. An omnibus victory, they knew, would subject Republicans to an ugly PR hit. True, the omnibus would pass primarily with Democratic votes. But the headlines would focus on the handful of Republicans who provided the final votes and undermined the GOP's spending message. GOP support for this bill would also tarnish what goodwill Republicans earned for their self-imposed earmark ban.
Better yet, Republican earmarkers would be providing President Obama and Democrats a giant policy victory, undercutting House Republicans before they even got the gavel. Everyone in Washington understands that the most powerful tool that Republicans gained in this election was control over spending bills. The GOP cannot repeal ObamaCare, but it can starve it to death. This is why incoming Speaker John Boehner has been fixated on spending-process reforms that will maximize the GOP's ability to influence administration programs. It's why incoming Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan has spent months gearing up for this battle.
It's also why Mr. Inouye made sure his spending omnibus included more than $1 billion to ramp up ObamaCare—including money to enforce the law's new insurance mandates, to implement Medicaid expansion, to fund some of the 159 new entities created under the law, and even to create a public health slush fund. Republican votes would have abetted ObamaCare and tied House GOP hands until September, when the omnibus ran out.
That didn't happen, but only because Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell accomplished a mini Christmas miracle. The Kentuckian devoted yesterday to making the arguments—both principled and political—to the Spending Nine. He was ultimately persuasive enough, and the earmarkers wise enough, to pull back their support. A very unhappy Mr. Reid was forced to yank the omnibus last night. He will now work with Republicans on a short-term funding bill, a process that should give the incoming GOP House far more influence over upcoming spending decisions.
And the lesson for Republicans (yet again)? Unity and principle rule. Mr. McConnell held his members against ObamaCare, and won an election. He held them on taxes, and forced President Obama to help the economy. And this week, by holding together on something equally straightforward—a promise of fiscal responsibility—Republicans turned what could have been a black eye into a bitter humiliation for Mr. Reid and other supporters of an irresponsible spending blowout.
The good news is that the GOP will be even better positioned to reject the lures next year. Mr. McConnell is getting a batch of more fiscally conservative senators whose numbers will give him some breathing room. And the House is hoping its spending reforms will deny its members even the temptation of pork.
The White House and Democrats will continue to sing the siren song of spending. Every time they do, Republicans would be wise to remember the sweet victory against this omnibus.
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5)US-Israel tiff on security and Iran. US envoy denied direct access to generals
Obama administration and the Netanyahu government have fallen out on issues relating to Israeli security and current estimates of where the Iranian nuclear program stands, military and Washington sources report. Defense Minister Ehud Barak put his foot down Wednesday, Dec. 15, when the president's Special Adviser on the Middle East Dennis Ross arrived in Israel and tried to set up separate interviews with the IDF's incoming and outgoing chiefs of staff and head of intelligence.
Barak had arranged for Lt. Gen. Yoav Galant, who takes over from Lt. Gen. Gaby Ashkenazi in April 2011, and the new Military Intelligence chief Maj. Gen. Aviv Cochavi, to join his briefing session with the US envoy Thursday, Dec. 16 and offer their assessments on security issues and Iran. He thereby drew a line on the practice common in the last couple of years for American officials and officers to apply directly to high IDF officers at any time.
Since 2008, US officials used this freedom of access to go around the Israeli prime minister and defense minister and persuade the army chiefs there was no need of military action against Iran's nuclear sites and Hizballah's buildup of Iranian weaponry. During 2009 and early 2010, hardly a week went by without high-ranking US bureaucrats and generals touching down in Israel and going straight into nonstop meetings with IDF officers.
Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, visited Israel during this period more often than any country in the world other than Pakistan - or even US forces scattered around the world.
In Jerusalem, those visits and meetings came to be characterized as: "Holding Israel's hand against pulling the trigger."
This restraining tactic was abruptly discontinued in March 2010 when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised President Barack Obama to withhold public oratory on the Iranian threat for a year, during which he would give Obama the chance to try his hand at halting Iran's progress toward a nuclear bomb by means of sanctions and diplomatic engagement. While the sanctions were indeed clamped down, the path of diplomacy – in which Israel never believed anyway – is now the subject of a sharp disagreement between Israel and Washington. Jerusalem is in particular furious over the president's handing over of the conduct of talks with Iran to the European Union and allowing its foreign affairs executive Catherine Ashton to run the Six Power (Five Permanent UNSC Members plus Germany) talks with Iran.
Israel contends that leaving the issue in EU hands is a recipe for procrastination. This maneuver when employed by Ashton's predecessor Javier Solana gave Iran all the time it needed to advance toward its objective of a nuclear bomb.
Barak was in Washington only three days ago and held long conferences with Defense Secretary Robert Gates, CIA chief Leon Panetta, Dennis Ross and Vice President Joe Biden. Washington sources report the impression Obama administration officials gained from those meetings was that Israel had hardened its position on military action – deciding, in particular, that the accumulation of weapons from Iran and Syria to Hizballah had gone beyond what Israel found supportable for its security. Indeed, the Israeli defense minister spoke publicly after his round of talks in Washington of "an Israeli expression of concern over the continuing arming of Hizballah with Iranian and Syrian weaponry."
Washington became alarmed. Fearing Israeli was losing patience with US pressure for inaction and that Netanyahu's pledge to Obama might expire sooner rather than later, Denis Ross was sent to Israel to apply the brakes. Deputy Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General James E. Cartwright, who was supposed to accompany him, canceled at the last moment.
Prime Minister Netanyahu and Defense Minister Barak saw the Ross mission following directly on Barak's Washington talks - and especially his bid for individual interviews with top IDF officers - as an attempt by the US administration to go over the heads of the ministers responsible for decision-making and apply the hand-holding stratagem directly to the generals so to keep Israel's fingers off the trigger. This time it was blocked.
5a)Iran reportedly in nuclear fuel swap negotiations
By JPOST.COM STAFF
'Telegraph' reports US, Russia, France and Turkey involved in talks that would supply Teheran with fuel rods in exchange for enriched uranium.
Iran is in negotiations with France, Russia, Turkey and the United States on a nuclear fuel swap deal that Teheran hopes will curb sanctions levied against it, The Telegraph reported on Thursday.According to the report, Iran would send 1,000 kilograms of low-enriched uranium and all of its 30 kilograms stockpile of 20-percent enriched uranium "to a safe location." France and Russia would supply Teheran with fuel rods for the medical isotope reactor Teheran claims it is enriching uranium to power.
An official involved in the talks told the Telegraph, "We think the deal is doable," but cautioned that "there's still a lot of detail to be worked through."
Talks between Iran and the P5+1 ended earlier this month without any signs of progress other than a commitment to meet once again in early 2011 in Turkey.In May, Turkey and Brazil brokered a deal with Iran, in which it agreed to hand over about half of its enriched-uranium stockpile in exchange for fuel in a form that can be used only to run a Teheran reactor that produces medical isotopes. The swap would take place in Turkey. Russia and China backed the deal, which Iran said would be supervised by the IAEA.In December, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told the P5+1 to drop the intent of halting his country's drive for nuclear technology and invited the countries to aid in constructing the 20 planned nuclear power stations.At the time, he said that "Cooperating in different fields like a fuel swap, and political, economic and security issues of the world are topics for negotiations."
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6)Iraq's war on Christians
By Tim Rutten
What amounts to genocide is occurring again, and this time the West has no excuse to remain silent and still
As much of the world once more prepares to celebrate the birth of Christ, it is a melancholy fact that many of the most ancient churches established in his name are being pushed to the brink of oblivion across the region where their faith was born.
The culprits are Salafist Islam's increasingly virulent intolerance, the West's convenient indifference and, in the case of Iraq, America's failure to make responsible provisions to protect minorities from the violent disorder that has persisted since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.
When America intervened to overthrow Saddam Hussein, Iraq's Christians — mostly Chaldeans and Assyrians — numbered about 1.4 million, or about 3 percent of the population. Over the last seven years, more than half have fled the country and, as the New York Times reported this week, a wave of targeted killings — including the Oct. 31 slaying of 51 worshipers and two priests during Mass at one of Baghdad's largest churches — has sent many more Christians fleeing. Despite Prime Minister Nouri Maliki's promises to increase security, many believe the Christians are being targeted not only by Al-Qaida in Iraq, which has instructed its fighters "to kill Christians wherever they can reach them," but also by complicit elements within the government's security services.
The United States, meanwhile, does nothing — as it did nothing four years ago, when Father Boulos Iskander was kidnapped, beheaded and dismembered; or three years ago, when Father Ragheed Ganni was shot dead at the altar of this church; or two years ago, when Chaldean Catholic Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho was kidnapped and murdered; as it has done nothing about all the church bombings and assassinations of lay Christians that have become commonplace over the last seven years.
The human tragedy of all this is compounded by the historic one. The churches of the Middle East preserve the traditions of the Apostolic era in ways no other Christian rites or denominations do. The followers of Jesus were first called Christians in Antioch Syria, and it was there that the Gospels first were written down in Koine Greek. For 1,000 years, the churches of Iraq and Syria were great centers of Christian thought and art. Today, the Christian population is declining in every majority Muslim country in the region and is under increasingly severe pressure even in Lebanon, where it still constitutes 35 percent of the population.
Putting aside America's particular culpability in Iraq, the West as a community of nations has long turned a blind eye to the intolerance of the Middle East's Muslim states — an intolerance that has intensified with the spread of Salafism, Islam's brand of militant fundamentalism. Our ally Saudi Arabia is the great financial and ideological backer of this hatred. In fact, when it comes to religion, the kingdom and North Korea are the most criminally intolerant countries in the world.
Oil and geopolitics prevent the United States and Western European countries from speaking out against what amounts to genocide, though something more sinister than self-interest also is at work. The soft bigotry of minimal expectation is in play, an unspoken presumption that Muslim societies simply can't be held to the same standards of humane, rational and decent conduct that govern the affairs of other nations.
Paradoxically, the one country in the Middle East whose Christian population has grown in recent years is Israel, where more than 150,000 Christians enjoy religious freedom. That lends a particular pathos to the way in which the current persecution of Christians mirrors that which destroyed most of the region's ancient Jewish communities following Israel's establishment in 1948. Iraq, for example, was home to one of the Mideast's largest and most vibrant Jewish populations, one that predated Christianity by many centuries. It was in the great Jewish academies along the Euphrates that the more authoritative of the two Talmuds was argued out and compiled after the Second Temple's destruction. All that was swept away in a wave of hatred, as were all but vestiges of the equally ancient Jewish communities in Morocco, Egypt, Yemen, Syria and, more recently, Iran.
As one of the recent Christian refugees from Baghdad told the New York Times this week, "It's exactly what happened to the Jews."
A world still dazed and distracted by a world war's aftermath stood by and did nothing then. The West has no such excuse now.
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7)Glass Almost Empty
The White House report on Afghanistan is very bleak indeed.
By Fred Kaplan
The Obama administration's long-awaited review of its Afghanistan war strategy—or at least the unclassified five-page summary of it released Thursday—is a bleaker document than it may seem at first glance.
On the one hand, it contains much talk of "significant progress" and "notable" gains in U.S. and NATO military operations. On the other hand, there's at least as much mention of the remaining "challenges" and the fact that even the gains are "fragile and reversible."
But to put the report's findings in these terms suggests a mixed, even glass-half-full picture (things are going well in Column A, not so well in Column B), when in fact it states very clearly that the things going badly make the things going well nearly irrelevant.
Six times in the course of five pages, the report's authors note that, unless Pakistan does a better job of controlling its borders—the western tribal areas, where Taliban leaders find safe haven and move reinforcements and supplies into Afghanistan and back again—the U.S. military successes of recent months are for naught.
For instance, on Page 1, the report defines "our ultimate end state" as "the eventual strategic defeat of al-Qaida in the region," but it adds that this "will require the sustained denial of the group's safe haven in the tribal areas of western Pakistan."
On Page 3: The "denial of extremist safe havens will require greater cooperation with Pakistan along the border with Afghanistan."
On Page 5: "Consolidating those gains [made in the fight against the Afghan Taliban] will require that we make more progress with Pakistan to eliminate sanctuaries for violent extremist networks."
Those italics (all mine) make the point: Clearing the safe havens in Pakistan is not just an important ingredient in achieving our strategic objectives in Afghanistan; it is a requirement. Without it, all other successes are merely tactical and, even then, probably short-lived ("fragile and reversible," as the report puts it).
This point is hardly new. Every military official—from Secretary of Defense Robert Gates to Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to Gen. David Petraeus, commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan—have long stressed that the existence of cross-border safe havens gravely impedes the prospects for strategic success.
Ever since he became president, Barack Obama has dramatically stepped up U.S. airstrikes—mainly with smart bombs fired by CIA drones—against Taliban leaders in those Pakistani sanctuaries. But today's report indicates that, while those strikes have had an effect, the effect has not been large or fast enough—that the Pakistanis themselves have to do more on the ground.
At a White House press conference today, Gates and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton talked about the steadily improving "strategic dialogue" between the United States and Pakistan. Only recently, they said, have the Pakistanis come to realize that the jihadists threatening us in Afghanistan are part of the same "terrorist network"—and thus form the same threat—as the jihadists threatening their own regime. As a result, the Pakistani military has taken action, for instance, moving 140,000 soldiers to the western border with Afghanistan—an extraordinary step—and bearing many casualties as a result.
However, the fact remains, at least for the moment, that the Pakistani political and military leaders are not likely to change much more on this front, for the simple reason that they view India—not the Taliban—as the main threat to their existence.
This has two implications for the war in Afghanistan. First, the Pakistani army will insist on keeping the bulk of its troops on the eastern border with India at the expense of dealing with the Taliban safe havens on the western border with Afghanistan.
Second, the Pakistanis want—in their eyes, they need—to maintain influence inside Afghanistan, as a way to counter India's quite active attempt to gain influence inside Afghanistan (which India is pursuing mainly as a way to encircle Pakistan). And the way that Pakistan maintains this influence is through certain factions of the Taliban.
Earlier this year, Dexter Filkins reported in the New York Times that Pakistan had arrested more than 20 Taliban leaders who were in the process of negotiating peace deals with the Afghan government because they were doing so without involving Pakistan.
In short, U.S. officials may have lectured Pakistanis about the links between the Afghan Taliban and the al-Qaida militants who threaten Pakistan's government. But the Pakistanis see the two as distinct—and, in fact, regard some of the Afghan-based Taliban as their allies or even agents.
U.S. military successes in Afghanistan may alter this dynamic to some degree if more Taliban commanders react by rushing to the negotiating tables in order to avoid further damage. And it's worth noting that, according to Carlotta Gall and Ruhullah Khapalwak's report in Thursday's New York Times, even some Taliban fighters see Gen. Petraeus' recent offensives in Kandahar and Helmand provinces as debilitating setbacks—that is, as huge successes for the United States and NATO.
However, as long as Pakistani leaders deem a presence in Afghanistan to be a vital security need, the war will continue; and as long as tensions remain high with India, Pakistani leaders will continue demanding a presence in Afghanistan.
In other words, a settlement of the war requires a détente between India and Pakistan.
When Obama came into office, he talked about the need for a "regional" solution to the Afghanistan war. U.S. officials say he fully understands India's role in such a solution. But little has been done diplomatically to facilitate this role—to foster negotiations between India and Pakistan.
Part of this is because it's hard. Tensions have been high ever since 1947, when India was partitioned and Pakistan emerged as an independent state. Since then, three wars have erupted between the two countries—in 1965, 1971, and 1999—and at least a half-dozen deadly skirmishes.
Part of this is because the regional politics have grown more complicated. In the weeks following 9/11, Iran supplied the United States with a lot of intelligence about the Taliban. There were even midlevel meetings between the two countries' diplomatic corps over anti-Taliban strategy—a tentative alliance that ended in January 2002, when then-President George W. Bush declared Iran to be a member of the "axis of evil," along with Iraq and North Korea. Now, with the rise of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the brutal suppression of domestic dissidents, Iran is competing with Pakistan and the United States for influence over Afghan President Hamid Karzai.
On Dec. 15, the day before the White House was scheduled to release its strategic review, someone leaked to the New York Times the findings of two National Intelligence Estimates—one on Afghanistan, the other on Pakistan—concluding that the prospects for success seemed grim, precisely because the Pakistanis were not likely to put the clamp on the Taliban sanctuaries inside their territory.
The leak appeared designed to blunt the more optimistic sections of the then-impending strategic review, so U.S. military officials fought back, telling the Time' reporter, Elisabeth Bumiller, that the NIEs—which represented the consensus views of all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies—were completed in October, before the recent gains in Kandahar, and written mainly at CIA headquarters by desk analysts who had no exposure to events on the ground.
We seem to be witnessing the opening salvos of a bureaucratic battle between the military and the intelligence agencies—a battle that may spread to other Washington realms, as Hillary Clinton's State Department appears to side with the military and as some top advisers in the White House share the intelligence agencies' skepticism.
If the fight gets going, it will grow increasingly intense because it will be a contest for the president's heart and mind—specifically to influence his next big decision on the war in July 2011. That's when Obama has said U.S. troops will begin to pull out from Afghanistan. The question is: How many troops will be withdrawn? And will the fairly ambitious counterinsurgency strategy, which the president endorsed in December 2009, be scaled back?
Obama has emphasized many times in recent months that the extent of this pullout will be determined by conditions on the ground. Several officials have suggested that the withdrawals will be minor—an impression reinforced by the recent NATO conference in Lisbon, where the Western allies declared that the military missions wouldn't be turned over entirely to the Afghan military until 2014. And even then, Obama said at today's press conference, a certain number of U.S. and NATO troops will remain, if just to continue training and advising the Afghan forces.
However, some officials see the intelligence estimates as warranting a second look at the whole U.S. strategy in Afghanistan—an inference they see bolstered by the more pessimistic passages of today's strategic review (which itself was the product of several interagency meetings at the National Security Council and which incorporates the views of the intelligence agencies as well as those of the military and other departments).
And so, we're hurled back to a basic question about this war and a tension that stirs ambivalence among many supporters and critics. On the one hand, our chances of success are improved if all the players in the region—Karzai, the Pakistanis, the Taliban, and the Afghan people—are convinced that the United States is going to stay for a long time to come. On the other hand, if our chances are nonetheless dim because of forces largely beyond our control (such as Pakistan's refusal to crack down on the safe havens inside its territory), then maybe it's time to draw down—but if we do that, how do we keep the Taliban from coming to power and al-Qaida from once again expanding its reach?
Nothing about this war gets any easier.
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