Wimp Virus Spreads, Now Infects The Pentagon!

Bowing to the Saudis may become a way of life because 'Greens' hold Liberals hostage, Obama needs their votes, his policies have caused us to lose any remnant of American influence in the region and he wants to keep us energy dependent because he seems unable to shake off the influence of his Muslim upbringing. (See 1 below.)
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China turns the other cheek and Hezbollah waits and prepares - for now! (See 2 and
2a below.)

Meanwhile, Leon Panetta, Obama's new Sec. of Defense, says the West, and most particularly Israel, must learn to live with a nuclear Iran because attacking them would cause a disruption in economic activity.

The Wimp virus has spread from the White House, The State Department and now infects The Pentagon. Where is Paul Revere when we need him. (See 3 below.)
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An LTE I wrote which will probably not get published: "Whenever the Editorial Board of the local paper needs a refresher course in Far Left Liberal orthodoxy they post an LTE by David Nagle.

If Liberals truly believed their own tripe, that Capitalism is evil, why not shutter all grocery stores, where choice is available, and revert to FDR's Soup Kitchens where government could select and provide the soup of the day!

The administration might begin with Obama's "Green Split Pea Duck Soup" to remind us of what a gutless president we have who wants to keep us energy dependent while he garners votes for re-election.

Yes, disparity in wealth has widened and all the filthy rich got there by nefarious means so let's rob them and redistribute. Perhaps Obama is a step ahead and began this populist mal-adventure with Solyndra payoffs to 'his crowd.'

The administration could then follow with an energy soup named 'Blind Chou-der' and next 'Holder's Fast and Furious bouil-la-baisse' for the eat on the go crowd parading aimlessly on the streets of America.

Liberals have no successful policies that elevate the bottom. Thus, they feel compelled to lower the top thus, destructive government bureaucracies can grow and populist welfare egalitarianism can remain alive and well.

So, the Far Left's key to our nation's survival and prosperity is for anarchist Americans to attack their fellow countrymen ('persons' for the PC'ers amongst us) while Iran goes nuclear, Europe implodes because of Socialism and China goes shopping for corporations, energy and other Western goodies on Black Thursday.

Happy Thanksgiving to all those Liberal/Progressive Turkeys out there with their scatter brained ideas. They deserve what they get but why inflict their viral lunacy on the rest of us?"
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Thank you Obama and a Happy Thanksgiving to you. (See 4 below.)

Finally, more evidence how Obama's incompetence has led to missteps which are backfiring. (See 4a below.)
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Dick
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1) Juggernaut Arabia
By David Ignatius

RIYADH -- Over this past year of Arab Spring revolt, Saudi Arabia has increasingly replaced the United States as the key status-quo power in the Middle East -- a role that seems likely to expand even more in coming years as the Saudis boost their military and economic spending.

Saudis describe the kingdom's growing role as a reaction, in part, to the diminished clout of the United States. They still regard the U.S.-Saudi relationship as valuable, but it's no longer seen as a guarantor of their security. For that, the Saudis have decided they must rely more on themselves -- and, down the road, on a wider set of friends that includes their military partner, Pakistan, and their largest oil customer, China.

For Saudi watchers, this change is striking. The kingdom's old practice was to keep its head down, spread money to radical groups to try to buy peace, and rely on a U.S. military umbrella. Now, Riyadh is more open and vocal in pressing its interests -- especially in challenging Iran.

The more-assertive Saudi role has been clear in its open support for the ouster of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who is Iran's crucial Arab ally. The Saudis were decisive backers of last weekend's Arab League decision to suspend Syria's membership (though they also supported the organization's waffling decision on Wednesday to send another mediation team to Damascus).

Money is always the Saudis' biggest resource, and they are planning to spend it more aggressively as a regional power broker -- roughly double their armed forces over the next 10 years and spend at least $15 billion annually to support countries weakened economically by this year's turmoil.

The enormous military expansion was signaled this past week by Gen. Hussein al-Qubail, the chief of staff. Because of "surrounding circumstances," he said, the Saudis would spend more to achieve "the highest degree of combat readiness."

Overseeing the arms buildup will be a new defense minister, Prince Salman bin Abdul-Aziz, described by Saudis as a strong manager during his many years as governor of Riyadh. This contrasts with what foreign analysts say was the loose discipline (and occasional corruption scandals) under his predecessor, Prince Sultan, who died in October after 48 years as defense minister.

Saudi sources provided an unofficial summary of the defense buildup. The army will add 125,000 to its estimated current force of 150,000; the national guard will grow by 125,000 from an estimated 100,000; the navy will spend more than $30 billion buying new ships and sea-skimming missiles; the air force will add 450 to 500 planes; and the Ministry of Interior is boosting its police and special forces by about 60,000. The Saudis are also developing their own version of the U.S. Joint Special Operations Command.

The doubling of ground forces is partly a domestic employment project, but it's also a signal of Saudi confidence.

The Saudi shopping list is a bonanza for U.S. and European arms merchants. That's especially true of the air force procurement, with the Saudis planning to buy 72 "Eurofighters" from EADS, and 84 new F-15s from Boeing. The rationale is containing Iran, whose nuclear ambitions the Saudis strongly oppose. But Riyadh has an instant deterrent ready, too, in the form of the Pakistani nuclear arsenal that the Saudis are widely believed to have helped finance.

Big weapons purchases have been a Saudi penchant for decades. More interesting, in some ways, is their quiet effort to provide support to friendly regimes to keep the region from blowing itself up in this period of instability. The Saudis have budgeted $4 billion this year to help Egypt, $1.4 billion for Jordan, and $500 million annually over the next decade for Bahrain and Oman. They will doubtless pump money, as well, to Syria, Yemen and Lebanon once the smoke clears in those volatile countries.

"In outlays, we've budgeted $15 billion a year just to keep the peace," says one Saudi source, adding up the economic assistance to Arab neighbors. But that's hardly a stretch for a country that, by year-end, will have about $650 billion in foreign reserves.

The Saudis speak more charitably of the United States than they did a few months ago, after reassuring visits by Vice President Joe Biden and national security adviser Tom Donilon, and close military and intelligence cooperation continues. But President Barack Obama is seen as a relatively weak leader who abandoned his own call for a Palestinian state under Israeli pressure. The U.S. isn't exactly the god that failed, but its divine powers are certainly suspect in Riyadh.
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2)Softly, Softly: Beijing Turns Other Cheek — For Now
Walter Russell Mead

The cascade of statements, deployments, agreements and announcements from the United States and its regional associates in the last week has to be one of the most unpleasant shocks for China’s leadership — ever. The US is moving forces to Australia, Australia is selling uranium to India, Japan is stepping up military actions and coordinating more closely with the Philippines and Vietnam in the South China Sea, Myanmar is slipping out of China’s column and seeking to reintegrate itself into the region, Indonesia and the Philippines are deepening military ties with the the US: and all that in just one week. If that wasn’t enough, a critical mass of the region’s countries have agreed to work out a new trade group that does not include China, while the US, to applause, has proposed that China’s territorial disputes with its neighbors be settled at a forum like the East Asia Summit — rather than in the bilateral talks with its smaller, weaker neighbors that China prefers.

Rarely has a great power been so provoked and affronted. Rarely have so many red lines been crossed. Rarely has so much face been lost, so fast. It was a surprise diplomatic attack, aimed at reversing a decade of chit chat about American decline and disinterest in Asia, aimed also at nipping the myth of “China’s inexorable rise” in the bud.

The timing turned out to be brilliant. China is in the midst of a leadership transition, when it is harder for important decisions to be taken quickly. The economy is looking shaky, with house prices falling across much of the country. The diplomatic blitzkrieg moved so fast and on so many fronts, with the strokes falling so hard and in such rapid succession, that China was unable to develop an organized and coherent response. And because Wen Jiabao’s appearance at the East Asia Summit, planned long before China had any inkling of the firestorm about to be unleashed, could not be canceled or changed, premier Wen Jiabao was trapped: he had to respond in public to all this while China was off balance and before the consultation, reflection and discussion that might have created an effective response.

In this position, he acted prudently, which is to say he did as little as possible. His public remarks were mild. He did not pound his fist (or, like former Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, his shoe) on the table. He did not rage against and upbraid his neighbors. He did not launch tirades about American arrogance and aggression. He uttered no threats but renounced no claims; he even participated in a quick unscheduled meeting with President Obama.

The effect of this passive and low key response (the only thing really, he could have done) is to reinforce the sense in Asia that the US has reasserted its primacy in a convincing way. The US acted, received strikingly widespread support, and China backed down.

That is in fact what happened, and it was as decisive a diplomatic victory as anyone is likely to see. Congratulations should go to President Obama and his national security team. The State Department, the Department of Defense and the White House have clearly been working effectively together on an intensive and complex strategy. They avoided leaks, they coordinated effectively with half a dozen countries, they deployed a range of instruments of power. In the field of foreign policy, this was a coming of age of the Obama administration and it was conceived and executed about as flawlessly as these things ever can be.

It will not change the fundamental dynamics of a re-election race shaped so far by voter concern about poor economic performance, but the effects of the President’s re-assertion of American primacy in the Pacific will reinforce the public perception that he has grown into the foreign policy side of his job. He looked very presidential in Asia; those things count.

But a successful opening is not the same thing as a final win. The opening American gambit in the new great game was brilliant, but China also gets a move. On the one hand, the sweep, the scope and the success of the American moves make it hard for China to respond in kind; on the other hand, the humiliation and frustration (and, in some quarters, the fear) both inside the government and in society at large over these setbacks will compel some kind of response.

China, mindless conventional “decline” wisdom to the contrary, is much weaker and poorer than the United States, yet it is Chinese power rather than American supremacy that China’s neighbors most fear. China’s diplomacy faces an infuriating paradox: If it accepts the renewal of a US-based order in Asia it looks weak and is forced into an inferior political position; if it openly fights that order it alarms its neighbors into clinging more closely to Uncle Sam.

This reality constrains China’s response in many ways, but China cannot remain passive. China must now think carefully about its choices and to work to use all the factors of its power to inflict some kind of counterblow against the United States. Look for China to reach out much more intensively to Russia to find ways in which the two powers can frustrate the US and hand it some kind of public setback. Pakistan? Iran? Afghanistan? Palestine?


Regionally, China may try to detach one or more countries from the American system by some combination of economic influence and political ties. It will take advantage of the fact that the other Asian powers do not want the United States to be too dominant; they may fear China more than they fear us, but their aim is to maximize their own independence, not to strengthen US power.

Longer term, the conviction in the military and among hard liners in the civilian establishment that the US is China’s enemy and seeks to block China’s natural rise will not only become more entrenched and more powerful; it will have consequences. Very experienced and well informed foreign diplomats and observers already warn that the military is in many respects becoming independent of political authorities and some believe that like the Japanese military in the 1930s, China’s military or factions within it could begin to take steps on critical issues that the political authorities could not reverse. Islands could be occupied, flags raised and shots fired.

Certainly any Chinese arguments against massive military build ups will be difficult to win. The evident weakness of China’s position will make it impossible to resist calls for more military spending and an acceleration of the development of China’s maritime capacity.

Many people in China (and elsewhere for that matter) believe that China’s massive holdings of US debt give China great power in the international system. Via Meadia thinks that those ideas are largely wrong and that any efforts to treat those reserves as a political instrument would be more likely to harm China than the United States. After all, a mass sell-off of China’s reserves would drive down the dollar — meaning in the first instance that China would take a massive hit on the value of the securities it was selling, and then that China’s markets in the US and likely also Europe would collapse in the ensuing global economic firestorm. The US would likely emerge from this faster and in better shape than China.

Nevertheless, the belief that China’s foreign reserves are an asset that can somehow be played to win political points is a strong one in China, and there will be great pressure in Beijing to play this card at the first available opportunity. What that might mean in practice is hard to predict, but US diplomats, bankers and strategists will need to keep in mind that China will be looking to weaponize its dollar hoard.

An intense debate in China will now turn even more pointed. There will be some who counsel patience, saying that China cannot win an open contest with the US and that its only hope is to stick with the concept of “peaceful rise”: eschewing all conflict with the US and its neighbors, behaving as a “responsible stakeholder” in the US-built international system, and growing richer and more powerful until such a time as alternative strategies can be considered. That in my opinion is China’s wisest course.

Others will argue that the international system as it now exists, and American power in it, are weapons in the hands of a country which is deeply hostile to China and its government and that the US will not rest until China, like Russia, has been reduced to impotence. They think (they really do) that our aim is to overthrow the Communist government, replace it with something weak and ineffective — as in Yeltsin’s Russia — and then break up its territory the way the Soviet Union broke up. Taiwan, Tibet, Xinjiang, perhaps more will be split off until China is left as a weak and helpless member of an ever more ruthless American order. To act like a “responsible stakeholder” in the international system would be to tie the knot in the noose intended to hang you; China must resist now, and ally itself with everyone willing to fight this power: Iran, Russia, Syria, Venezuela, Pakistan, perhaps even Al-Qaeda. And rather than trying to prop up the international capitalist system, China should do what it can to deepen crises and aggravate tensions.

I think this course leads to a strategic dead end for China and China’s diplomats are much too experienced and knowledgeable to be taken in by it. The military and nationalist public opinion may be more vulnerable to arguments of this kind. These forces are too strong to be completely excluded from China’s policy making; expect some provocative push back.

The US has won the first round, but the game has just begun. The Obama administration and its successors will now have to deal with a long term contest against the world’s most populous country and the world’s most rapidly developing economy. The Obama administration may not have fully counted the costs of the new Asian hard line; for one thing, it is hard to see significant cuts coming in defense spending after we have challenged China to a contest over the future of Asia. It’s possible that less drama now might have made America’s point as effectively while reducing the chance of Chinese push back, but there is not a lot of point in debating that now.

Given where things now stand, follow through will be as important as the first steps; the US must now try to make it as easy as possible for China to accept a situation that, in the short to medium term at least, it cannot change.



2a)Hezbollah Waits and Prepares
By NICHOLAS BLANFORD


On a recent Saturday afternoon, a radar operated by French United Nations peacekeepers picked up a pilotless Israeli reconnaissance drone crossing into south Lebanon. It was given no more attention than any of the dozens of other surveillance missions flown by the Israelis in Lebanese airspace each month.

But when the drone passed above Wadi Hojeir, a yawning valley with steep, brush-covered slopes, it abruptly vanished from the radar screen. The startled peacekeepers contacted the Lebanese army, and a search of the rugged valley was conducted in the early-evening gloom. Nothing was found.

No one can recall the last time that an Israeli drone malfunctioned over Lebanon and crashed, and there were no reports of antiaircraft fire. The Israelis have said nothing. Neither has Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant group and arch foe of Israel. The peacekeeping force is now abuzz with speculation that Hezbollah may have found a way of electronically disabling drones.

It is food for thought as tensions escalate once more between the West and Iran, Hezbollah's ideological patron, over the Islamic Republic's nuclear ambitions. A report by the International Atomic Energy Agency released last week claimed that Iran has been engaged in "activities relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive device." It was the IAEA's toughest report yet on Iran, and it was preceded by a flurry of articles in the Israeli press saying that the Israeli government was seriously considering a strike against Iran's nuclear facilities.

Iran has delivered its own warnings. Brig. Gen. Masoud Jazayeri, the deputy chief of the country's armed forces, was quoted saying that "the smallest action by Israel [against Iran] and we will see its destruction." He added that plans for retaliation were already in place.

Many analysts believe that those plans could include directing Hezbollah to unleash its military might against Israel, pummeling it with thousands of long-range rockets, placing the Jewish state's heartland on the frontline for the first time since 1948.

Hezbollah and Israel last came to blows in July 2006, when the Lebanese militants fought the Israeli army to a surprise standstill in the valleys and hills of south Lebanon. Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah's charismatic leader, proclaimed a "divine victory" against Israel, but since then he has been careful not to provoke another round of fighting.

But the quiet has not stopped the two sides from making feverish preparations for another encounter, one that neither Hezbollah nor Israel wants but that both believe is probably inevitable.

The rate of recruitment into Hezbollah's ranks has soared. New recruits are bused to secret training camps in the Bekaa Valley, where they endure lengthy marches over the craggy limestone mountains carrying backpacks weighed down with rocks. They learn fieldcraft and weapons handling, and some go on to receive advanced training in Iran. The military instruction is interspersed with religious and cultural lessons, teaching them the importance of jihad, martyrdom and obedience to Hezbollah's religious figurehead, currently embodied by Ayatollah Ali Khameini, the supreme leader of Iran.

Hezbollah never divulges details of its ever-improving military capabilities, but reports claim that the organization has amassed as many as 50,000 rockets, including guided missiles that can strike targets in Tel Aviv. Hezbollah fighters have repeatedly hinted that they are being trained to slip across the border into Israel in the next war, a development to which Sheikh Nasrallah himself referred for the first time in a speech earlier this year.

Still, even as it has evolved into the most formidable nonstate military force in the world, Hezbollah faces its greatest array of challenges since emerging in the early 1980s.

It is in the spotlight of an international tribunal based in the Netherlands which has indicted four party members for their alleged role in the 2005 assassination of Rafik Hariri, an iconic Lebanese statesman. Hezbollah has denied any involvement in the killing of Mr. Hariri by a truck bomb.

Of far greater consequence for the group is the bloody upheaval in Syria, where protests against the regime of President Bashar al-Assad have left some 3,500 dead since mid-March, according to the U.N. For Hezbollah and Iran, the collapse of the Assad regime would upset the strategic balance in the Middle East, rupturing an alliance between Damascus and Tehran that has endured for 30 years and only grown stronger in the past decade under the presidency of Mr. Assad.

Syria is an important conduit for the transfer of arms to Hezbollah, but more crucially it is Iran's only solid ally in the Arab world, granting Tehran an influential toehold on Israel's northern border and providing strategic depth for Hezbollah.

Hezbollah's repeated declarations of support for Mr. Assad have eroded the party's popularity not only among the majority Sunnis in Syria, who make up the bulk of the opposition, but also more generally in the Arab world as the regional "cold war" intensifies between Shiite Iran and mainly Sunni Arab states, led by Saudi Arabia.

Sheikh Louay Zouabi, a Syrian Salafist cleric who was in Lebanon recently to drum up support for the opposition, listed Iran followed by Hezbollah as his two main enemies. The Assad regime came in third place. "Assad is third because it is natural for him to want to kill me because I am trying to overthrow him," he said. "But why do Iran and Hezbollah want me dead? What have I done to them?"

Hezbollah's popularity in Lebanon has declined since the heady days of the 1990s, when the Lebanese, regardless of sect, broadly backed Hezbollah's resistance campaign against Israel's occupation of south Lebanon. The Israelis left 11 years ago, but Hezbollah refused to disarm, and today the fate of its weapons lies at the heart of Lebanon's gaping political divide. Hezbollah insists that its robust military wing serves as a defense for Lebanon against possible Israeli aggression.

"Israel will not wage a new war against Lebanon—not because of its nobility, ethics, or commitments to international resolutions, but rather because it cannot guarantee its success," Mohammed Raad, the head of Hezbollah's parliamentary bloc, said recently.

But skeptics point to Hezbollah's ties to Iran and accuse it of serving the deterrent needs of Tehran rather than the defensive interests of Lebanon.

The dilemma for Hezbollah is that launching a war against Israel in response to an attack on Iran will reap massive destruction on Lebanon and on Hezbollah's core Shiite constituency—all for the sake of defending the nuclear ambitions of a country lying 650 miles to the east.

Hezbollah officials remain coy on the organization's likely reaction to an attack on Iran. Much would depend on the scale of the strike and the political situation in the Middle East. Sheikh Nasrallah recently said that neither the U.S. nor Israel is in a position to launch a fresh war in the Middle East, describing media speculation about a possible attack on Iran as "intimidation."

Meanwhile, Hezbollah's cadres concentrate on their relentless training and military planning, with a single-minded focus on the next conflict with Israel.

"Let them attack Iran. It will be great," said a young, stocky Hezbollah fighter named Khodr. "It will mean that Israel is finished."

—Mr. Blanford is a Beirut-based correspondent. His new book is "Warriors of God: Inside Hezbollah's Thirty-Year Struggle Against Israel."
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3)EDITORIAL:The Financial Future Of The World Is On Israel
By:Howard Galganov


US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, in a trip to Canada this week, to take part in a conference of Defense Ministers, was busy telling Israel NOT to attack Iran in order to take out their Nuclear Arms Program, because it could damage world economic stability.

EXCUSE ME . . . ?

Maybe I’m not as smart as Panetta. And maybe my understanding of geo politics doesn't come with a university degree . . . but I understand this:

Panetta - Obama’s Secretary of Defense is putting dollars and cents above and ahead of Israel’s very existence.

There’s no way for Panetta or anyone else to spin this. Iran, in the likes of Ahmadinejad and the Mad Mullahs have made it absolutely clear - THAT THEY WANT AN ISRAELI HOLOCAUST.

I wonder what part of that Panetta seems not to understand? And why and how the whole world’s economy will collapse if Israel defends itself?

To me . . . the answer couldn’t be more transparent – SCREW THE Jews, and keep the global economy stable - even if that ridiculous premise is just 1% true.

So, where’s the surprise in this?

If Israel does not take out the Iranian Nuclear Arms Program because of successive US Presidents and Secretaries of Defense and of State, it will be on the heads of all Israeli Prime Ministers who didn’t do the right and courageous thing because of external pressure.

Make no mistake about this - The vast majority of the world will be much happier if the ONLY Jewish State on the planet would simply disappear, and that INCLUDES just about every US President from Truman on, with the only possible exception being Ronald Reagan, since Israel has become a “pain in the ass” to most leaders.

American Presidents LOVE to give LIP SERVICE of their love and devotion to Israel, which is BALONEY.

Think about this for a minute – Which US President DIDN’T demand that Israel return land to the Arabs that Israel won legitimately in a host of wars in addition to making “painful Concessions” to the Palestinians for peace?

Which US President ever made any real DEMAND upon the Arabs, INCLUDING the so-called Palestinians for anything that would favor Israel?

And if any of you says that George W Bush was a great friend to Israel, ask yourself how?

At one point, Bush’s demands on Israel so infuriated Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, that Sharon declared: “I’m not Neville Chamberlain, and Israel is not Czechoslovakia”, in reference to how British Prime Minister Chamberlain sold out the Czechs to the Nazis on the altar of appeasement in the hopes for peace.

All US Presidents have established major troop deployments all over the world to defend their friends and allies, including the Gulf Arab States who aren’t America’s friends or allies, not to mention Afghanistan and Iraq where the sky’s been the limit.

BUT THERE’S NEVER BEEN AN AMERICAN DEPLOYMENT TO ISRAEL IN A SHOW OF FORCE.

And, if anyone reading this wants to bring up the 2-3 BILLION dollars Israel receives (annually) from the USA as a real show of friendship – DON’T.

That 2-3 BILLION dollars Israel receives every year goes back with much MORE to the USA in arms procurements, feeding America’s HUGE military industry.

Israel also provides unimaginable INTELLIGENCE to the USA on Middle Eastern events, and a massive military presence without putting Americans at risk.

And because of how Israel routinely CREAMED the Arabs who used Soviet (Russian) equipment, technologies and strategies in successive wars that cost Israel no shortage of blood, death, and trauma, the Soviet Union was shown to be no match for the American equipment used by the Israelis.

And “speaking” of technologies . . . America’s military is brimming with Israeli technologies that are second to none. What’s that worth?

It has been said by no shortage of military people in the know, that the way Israel constantly defeated the Soviet’s Arab Proxy armies was as much and more of a cause to the fall of the Iron Curtain as anything else.

Now think about what the USA has been given in return for the TRILLION plus dollars, the THOUSANDS of American lives lost, and tens of thousands of permanently wounded American men and women, not to mention the hundreds of thousands who have been psychologically wounded, who’ve sacrificed so much for Arabs and Asian Moslems in Iraq and Afghanistan?

Pakistan gets MORE than 1 BILLION dollars from the US every year. Egypt gets MORE than 2 BILLION dollars per year from the US. How’s that working out for America?

So, how exactly is the 2-3 BILLION dollars Israel receives in “aid” a bad deal for America?

NOW ASK YOURSELF THIS:

If any American President REALLY was in REAL support of Israel, why has each President since 1967 refused to locate the US Embassy to Jerusalem, which is Israel’s REAL Capitol, and has been Israel’s Capitol for some 3000 years?

Israel has done well with most past US Presidents, because it has always been politically expedient for Presidential Candidates to show support for Israel.

BUT HERE’S A TERRIFYING REALITY FOR ISRAEL AND JEWS EVERYWHERE:

Today . . . there is a President in the White House who wants to see Israel “PUT IN HER PLACE”, more I think than he wants to get reelected, and will find every scurrilous way to make that happen just in case he doesn't get reelected.

And if there was ever proof for what this President thinks of Israel, it is in what Obama’s Secretary of Defense said publicly this past week, that in effect; the Stability of the Global Economy SUPERCEDES Israel’s Survival.

WHO IS IT WHO SHOULD DECIDE WHETHER ISRAEL LIVES OR DIES?

Sometimes in life . . . choices are just as stark and as clear as that.

IT’S ALL UP TO BENJAMIN NETANYAHU:

Does Israel’s Prime Minister sacrifice Israel on the altar of appeasing Obama? Or does he take out the Iranian Nuclear Armament Program to save Israel?
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4)The Tipping Point and the Crossroads
By Steve McCann

The United States finds itself at a crossroads, facing a stark reality it can no longer ignore or leave to future generations. We are presently on an irreversible path toward inevitable failure and second-class status. It all started forty-eight years ago, we now can see. The distance America has traveled down this road over the past forty-eight years -- a comparatively short period within the historical life of a nation -- is astounding.

All of us, when we approach the twilight of our years, have one event or a year that is indelibly etched in our memory. For me, it is 1963. I was attending college in Washington, D.C. during one of the most memorable times in the recent history of that city. I was among the 200,000 at the Lincoln Memorial on August 28th to hear Martin Luther King deliver his "I Have a Dream" speech. To this day I can still hear his voice and words, as they remain in the forefront of my memory. But the most profound and compelling experience during my years in the United States came three months later on November 25, 1963.

On that Monday morning, I stood along Connecticut Avenue, less than a block from St. Matthew's Cathedral -- a witness to the funeral of President John F. Kennedy. I was amongst the hushed and melancholy crowd as the body of the president passed by, the silence pierced by the hooves of six gray horses pulling the caisson bearing the flag-draped coffin slowly making its way to the church. I watched as Jacqueline Kennedy, in her stoic and determined manner and escorted by Robert and Ted Kennedy, walked those final blocks to the cathedral. I saw presidents, royalty, and prime ministers from all corners of the globe in procession behind her -- there to honor the fallen president.

After the funeral mass at the cathedral, I caught sight of the First Lady clutching the hands of her six-year-old daughter, Caroline, and her three-year old son, John Jr., as they stood on the upper steps of the church watching the casket being placed on the caisson for the final journey to Arlington National Cemetery. It is to this day an indelible and haunting portrait I cannot forget.

As the funeral procession passed by on its way to Arlington, I was struck by the poignant image of the riderless horse, symbolic of the loss of a nation's leader, following the remains of the president. I was overwhelmed with a sense of dread and apprehension as I asked myself the question: what course will the country that only twelve years before had generously and with open arms welcomed me, a displaced war orphan, into the American family choose?

Unfortunately, the answer was not long in coming. In short order, America turned dramatically to the left, following the path of the socialist democracies of Europe. Within four years, a war, forced upon the American people and mismanaged by its leaders, had spawned massive unrest easily exploited by the radical elements in the country, thus allowing their ideology to metastasize within the American society. Less than five years after his unforgettable speech at the Lincoln Memorial, Martin Luther King lay dying on the balcony of a Memphis hotel -- the victim of an assassin's bullet. The civil rights movement, so vital to the renewal of the nation's ideals, was soon hijacked by those who traffic in either violence or racial intimidation.

President Lyndon Johnson, shamelessly exploiting the nation's shock over the death of its youthful president, steered the nation onto the course of massive government intervention into the day-to-day lives of all Americans and unbridled social spending, as exemplified by his "War on Poverty," the passage of Medicare, and expanded welfare programs. The inexorable transfer of unbridled power to Washington and the political expedient of unsustainable promises to the American people, in exchange for their votes, had begun.

Over the past 48 years, the Democratic Party has become the unabashed promoter of these policies, while the Republican establishment, with a few exceptions like Ronald Reagan, have become the enablers. The United States is now on the verge of national bankruptcy, accelerated dramatically over the past three years by Barack Obama.

In stark economic statistics, the comparison between the nation in 1963 and today is as follows (all 1963 financial statistics in 2011 dollars):

1963 2011% Difference

Population
186.2 million 312.1 million +67.6%

Annual Gross Domestic Product
$ 4.6 Trillion $ 15.1 Trillion +228.2%

Annual Government Spending (all levels)
1.3 Trillion 6.1 Trillion +369.2%

Total National Debt
2.3 Trillion 15.1 Trillion +556.5%

Annual Interest on the Debt
73.0 Billion 333.0 Billion +356.2%

Annual Government Social Spending
437.7 Billion 3,673.0 Billion +739.2%

Unfunded Future Liabilities (est.)
12.5 Trillion 107.0 Trillion +756.0%

Median Household Income
37,718.00 49,445.00 +31.1%


*For the year 2010 (http://www.usgovernmentspending.com) (http://www.ncpa.org/pub/bs662) (http://www.census.gov/prod/2011pubs/p60-239.pdf)

While the GDP has more than tripled during these past 48 years, median income has remained stagnant thanks in part to government spending, which grew fivefold. Government now siphons off 41% of the GDP as compared to 28% in 1963. This is an untenable trajectory, one that can no longer be justified or sustained. But instead, it is destined to dramatically accelerate and further erode the standard of living for all Americans if the policies of Barack Obama remain intact.

The Obama administration has already accumulated over $4 trillion in debt in just three years, adamantly refusing to curtail spending and pursue policies designed to grow the economy. As the European Union marches toward an inevitable collapse, which will impact American banks and financial markets, and as the world economy falters, there is no fall-back position for the United States; it has spent, printed, borrowed, and committed itself to massive guarantees which have placed the country into a position of potential insolvency.

However, it is not just the unrestrained growth of government and misguided fiscal and monetary policies that have brought the country to the precipice; it is also the denigration of American society and the transformation of the American ruling class -- a large percentage of whom subscribe to radical political philosophies. This is a ruling class that has access to trillions of dollars and the unchecked power of government at its disposal -- a byproduct of which is the astronomical rise in political corruption and cronyism (most recently exemplified by the "Green Energy" scandals in the Obama administration).

This process had its beginning in 1964 through 1968 as the Johnson administration's mishandling of the Vietnam War spawned a broad antiwar movement. It was promptly seized upon by the true believers on the left as a recruiting pool; leftists proclaimed to the gullible that the United States was an unjust and repressive tool of capitalism. The siren song of a classless society wherein all are treated equal and there are no absolutes found eager ears. Many traditions based on the religious foundation of the country and the societal and ethical guidelines which sprang from them came to be viewed as standing in the way of allowing select segments of the population to experience absolute freedom to do as they pleased.

Thus, an increasing portion of the citizenry either was sympathetic to or chose to ignore the gradual infiltration of leftist ideology. Its proponents now dominate the entertainment industry, education, the media, unions, and, the largest prize, the Democratic Party. Statist ideology by its nature does not respect or recognize the uniqueness of each individual, as the collective, governed by an exclusive ruling class, and total state control of the economy is the endgame.

All the upheaval and radicalism spawned in the decade of the 1960s has culminated in the election of Barack Obama. He was born in 1961, the son of avowed Marxist parents. Not only in his childhood, but during all of his formative years, he was immersed in the extremism of the left. He knows no other course of action. He is incapable of and has no interest in understanding the dilemma the country faces except that it accelerates the transformation of an allegedly "unfair and racist" society. The combination of the fiscal path chosen by Lyndon Johnson and the statist policies pursued by Obama and today's Democratic Party has greatly accelerated the potential collapse of the United States.

Thus, America is at a crossroads. If Barack Obama, the most extreme president in American history, is re-elected and the current governing class remains in place, there will be no turning back. The worst fears that came over me on that Monday in November of 1963 will come to pass, and the assassination of John F. Kennedy will have been the tipping point that precipitated the fall of a great nation.


4a) Jordan's Abdullah in Ramallah for talks on Syria, Hamas, Israel-Palestinian issue

Jordan's King Abdullah II arrived in Ramallah at very short notice for his first visit in more than a decade. He came wearing two hats – one for Saudi Arabia and the Gulf emirates and one for the Obama administration. His talks with the Chairman of the Palestinian Authority will cover Mahmoud Abbas' approaching reconciliation with the rival Hamas and an attempt to revive the stalled Israel-Palestinian peace dialogue.

Washington sources report the Jordanian King is on a mission for the US, Saudi Arabia and Israel to pull Abbas back to stable relations with Washington before he crosses the brink and aligns the Palestinian Authority with the fundamentalist Hamas. In the light of imminent events in Syria, this step will take the PA across the Middle East divide and place it in the Iranian-Syrian Middle East orbit.
President Barack Obama's special envoy David Hale was in Ramallah Sunday, Nov. 20 to warn Palestinian leaders against further moves towards appeasing Hamas after Abbas offered to fire Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad in favor of a Hamas appointee.

Hale warned Abbas if he goes through with this move the US followed by West Europe will sever ties with the Palestinian Authority. He will not be forgiven for hitching his cart to Hamas, thereby strengthening the hand of Syria's Bashar Assad and enhancing Iranian influence with the Palestinians at the most crucial peak of the West's confrontation with Damascus.

The American envoy offered the Palestinian leader a last chance to save his people from this dangerous course: Invite King Abdullah to Ramallah and inform him – not Washington – that the PA had chosen to resume negotiations with Israel, a choice which would automatically freeze his evolving ties with Hamas.

Washington reckoned the dramatic impact of the royal visit to the West Bank would sway Palestinian opinion into accepting an alliance with Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the United States as preferable to the Hamas option.

Hale left Ramallah without a final answer. But soon after, Palestinian sources let it be known that Abbas had never sought Fayyad's departure or ever wanted him replaced by a Hamas candidate. T

These leaks Sunday night were taken to mean that Abbas was beginning to step back from his high-speed rapprochement with Khaled Meshaal, the Damascus-based political chief of Hamas. Abdullah's visit to Ramallah will determine if he is willing to go all the way.

The pro-American Jordanian king, who is backed politically and militarily by Saudi Arabia, the Gulf emirates and Turkey, emerged in the last week or two as the unified Arab spokesman on the Syrian crisis.

He was the first Arab ruler in a BBC interview broadcast Monday, Nov. 11, to tell Bashar Assad publicly to resign. While the Saudis and Qataris steered the Arab League into suspending Syria and arm anti-Assad rebels, they chose Jordan's Abdullah to be the public voice representing the League consensus on Syria to the Arab world.

The day after Abdullah told Assad to go, the "Free Syrian Army" launched its first organized attacks on Assad's military command centers, government facilities and party headquarters in and around Damascus.

This was no chance happening. The Arab world backed by the West is piling on the diplomatic, economic and military pressure to force the Assad regime into breaking point. It is fully coordinated with Israel's Prime Minster Binyamin Netanyahu and will be redoubled in the coming days.

Factored into this squeeze on Assad were the warnings Israel's chief of staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz twice addressed to the Hamas rulers of Gaza in the last ten days: He has said the IDF will no longer put up with missile attacks by Palestinians in the Gaza Strip disrupting life in southern Israel.

Sunday, he spoke of the coming military operation against Gaza and said it would be would be instigated by Israel and be "orderly and painful."
These warnings carried a message to Abbas that the IDF was poised for a military operation against Hamas which would scuttle any understanding he forged with the Palestinian fundamentalists and he would be smart to back down in good time.
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