The president knows you cannot negotiate with those who will not negotiate but he does not care because he has an agenda that does not square with facts. (See 1 and 1a below.)
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Does Obama want to pick a fight with The Catholic Church? Never assume he does not know what he is about. (See 2 below.)
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The president applies more pressure regarding conclusions about Iran and gets Israel to back down? (See 3 below.)
Is this because the October surprise to get himself re-elected is in the making? (See 3a below.)
Expect more assassination attempts. (See 3b below.)
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Cliff May speaks out about the importance of listening to the Syrian resistance movement. (See 4 below.)
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Do not trust what Obama says regarding education and school choice because he is too beholden to the Teacher's Unions. Ghetto kids don't vote and can't contribute money. Teachers and their unions can and do so who cares about those 'dumb' black kids anyway? (See 5 below.)
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It is all big one shell game and we are the suckers. Just spend and spend. That's what it is all about. Keep adding those straws to Uncle Sam's back until he breaks. (See 6 and 6a below.)
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Free lunches lead to three meals a day and the cost ultimately becomes prohibitive but not to those who do not pay.
When did you ever get something for nothing from government and/or politicians?? If you did it is generally worth what you paid!(See 7 below.)
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Dick
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The Mahdi Does Not Negotiate - Neither Should We
Several years ago, prior to my retirement from the CIA, I was meeting with
a senior Iranian asset in the Middle East. I had finished debriefing him on
the intelligence he had to provide, and we had launched into a more
expansive conversation about the overall direction of American policy
toward Iran. I was trying to explain the rationale behind our sanctions
regime and the thought process that had led us to conclude that we could
persuade the Islamic Republic of Iran to modify its behavior.
The asset interrupted me. "You really don't have any idea who you are
dealing with, do you?" he asked. I told him I was not sure I understood
what he meant. The source elaborated. We were under the illusion we were
dealing with rational actors. We were not. We were under the illusion we
were playing a game, which would stretch out over many years. Our
adversaries in Iran shared no such belief. They expected this conflict to
reach its climax in the very near future.
They also knew, to a moral certainty, that they would win.
Iran is an overwhelmingly Islamic nation, and almost all Iranians belong to
the Twelver sect of the Shia branch of Islam. This sect awaits the return
of the 12th Imam, or Mahdi, a direct descendant of the Prophet Muhammed
anointed by Allah himself. According to the Twelvers, the Mahdi has been in
hiding in caves since the 9th century.
The Mahdi has been hidden for 1,200 years now, but he will return just
before the Day of Judgment. According to the Hadith, his return will be
preceded by three years of chaos, violence and cataclysmic events. He will
rule over the world for a period of seven years, eliminate all tyranny and
oppression, and usher in an era of peace. He is, in many ways, the Muslim
equivalent of the Jewish Messiah or the Second Coming of Christ. He is,
however, the only one of these apocalyptic figures who expressly intends
violent world conquest. Some Twelvers, including the current president of
Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and the Iranian Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali
Khameinei, believe that they are to prepare the way for the return of the
Mahdi. In order to do so, they are to bring on the state of chaos and
destruction, which will precede the Madhi's return. The worse things get;
the faster they win.
The source's point was not simply to remind me of the tenets of the Twelver
sect, with which I was already familiar. It was to stress the literal sense
in which these tenets were understood by Ahmadinejad, Khameinei and their
supporters. These were not, the source stressed, metaphors or
parables. Ahmadinejad did not understand the story of the Mahdi to be a
reference to some end state in which the world would live in peace and
harmony. He understood it in a completely literal, simplistic way. He
accepted it word for word as the absolute truth. The Mahdi was, in effect,
an Islamic superman. When he returned he would crush the infidels and
apostates and create an Islamic empire that would control the entire
planet. No one would be able to stand against him. And, he was coming
soon. As the source noted, the "End of Days" were not events of some
distant future. They were around the corner. He guessed that Ahmadinejad
probably thought in terms of a reappearance of the Mahdi within 18 months
to two years.
Negotiation is all about leverage. Go onto a car lot and try to strike a
deal with a guy who can hardly keep up with demand, and you're not going to
have a lot of luck. Ask a guy who hasn't sold a car in month to make you an
offer, and it may well be your lucky day.
Sanctions don't provide a lot of leverage over individuals who know as an
article of faith that their secret weapon is about to emerge from his
hiding place and slay their enemies.
Negotiation is also about rationality. At the height of the Cold War, no
matter how bad relations between the United States and the Soviet Union
were, we could always count on the Russians to be cold, calculating and
rational. They might wish our destruction with every fiber of their beings,
but they had no delusions about divine intervention. They understand,
perhaps better than we did, the brutal, hard calculus demanded by reality.
None of that applies to our confrontation with Iran. Until such time as
there has been a true sea change inside of Iran, negotiation and discussion
is largely useless. We may choose to engage in it so that we are seen by
the rest of the world as flexible and open to dialogue. We may choose to
engage in it in order to buy time. We should be under no illusion that
there is any real chance of such dialogue leading to a meaningful, lasting
modification of Iranian behavior. None of this is to suggest that we
ought, therefore, rush to engage the Iranians in a conventional military
conflict. We could no doubt make quick work of what passes for an Iranian
Navy and clear the skies of Iranian aircraft in short order, but unless we
are prepared to physically occupy Iran, neither of those things will solve
our problem. We will still be faced with an implacable foe. And, in any
event, another major conventional commitment of resources at this time in
American history is probably the last thing we need.
It is an argument for a completely pragmatic, realpolitik approach to Iran.
Negotiations will not work. Sanctions may physically weaken the Islamic
regime and limit its ability to do harm, but they will not make it change
course. We would prefer not to have to go to war. So, we should, therefore,
take all measures short of open war to actively frustrate the objectives of
the regime.
What that means in practice is this. If the Iranians need materials for
nuclear weapons programs or other military purposes, we should deny them to
them. To the extent possible we should look for all available means of
dismantling and handicapping existing weapons programs. If necessary, and
consistent with our laws and values, we should deny the Islamic regime
access to the personnel it needs to continue to chart its present
course. In other words, we should accept that we cannot expect the Iranians
to alter their behavior or their attitudes and focus instead on physically
preventing them from achieving their goals.
I have no illusions about the implications of the course of action I am
suggesting. It is, in all likelihood, a recommendation that we conduct what
amounts to a shadow war against Iran for the foreseeable future. However
open-ended and however unsatisfactory this course of action may be,
however, it is infinitely preferable to the alternative, which is to allow
the Iranians to arm themselves with nuclear weapons and to continue to
destabilize the Middle East and Central Asia.
Charles Faddis is a former CIA operations officer who served 20 years in
the Near East and South Asia. He retired in May 2008 as head of the CIA's
WMD terrorism unit. He also is an author and consultant.
I think these are very true words, delivered with urgency and honesty, however to a limited audience. Unfortunately they are not heard by a world that has always chosen to turn a deaf ear to the plight of the Jewish people, and does not want to hear these words. As someone who rarely sends you email garbage, or has never sent you an email before, and more importantly the son of holocaust survivors, I urge you to watch this, listen to this mans words and be prepared for the hatred that will be directed toward every Jew in the world when the inevitable Israeli strike takes place. Muslin hatred and violence will move to the back page replaced by Anti Israel, Anti Semitic rhetoric the like of which we haven't seen since the Nazi's. Once the piling on starts about the Israeli aggressors there can be no apathy or guilt by Jews in the US. There can by no sympathy for innocents killed in this Israeli air strike. Remember 9/11 loud and clear and think how Israel lives. Bombs dropping on schools, terrorist threats every day, an active army guarding borders and buses and cafes and parks. Surrounded by enemies, and fighting for it's survival they will have no choice but to strike first against this regime. They are alone. The world still doesn't care! If they did we wouldn't be approaching this point. Send this to everyone you know Jew and gentile alike. Prepare them to think of this now, before it happens, before the ultimate spin. And when it happens do not hang your head in shame of what Israel had to do. Stand up, no jump up! Pump your fist in the air like Arafat did when the Trade Center fell, and know that what happened before will not happen again without a fight. Israel has the capability of lighting up the entire middle east oil fields. If it comes to that the world will be very sorry for their apathy because it will be a very cold place all winter long. Gary .....
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2)Obama's Catholic Church Gambit: Lessons from American Communists
By Paul Kengor
A fascinating theory has been advanced by Dick Morris, which, in turn, is being considered by Rush Limbaugh and other leading conservatives. Morris speculates that the Obama HHS mandate on contraception, sterilization, and abortifacients is a fight with the Catholic Church that Team Obama wants -- and with the focus based narrowly on contraception, not abortifacients.
Dick Morris may be right. It seems no accident that Obama publicly noted that the vast majority of Catholic women use contraception. Yes, the vast majority does, but the vast majority does not support abortifacients -- that is, "contraceptive" drugs that cause or induce an abortion.
Obama is underscoring "contraception" generally, not abortifacients specifically. Sadly, our superficial media, which reflexively ramrods everything into a 10-second sound-bite, is aiding and abetting his tactic. Again and again, I hear reporters refer to Obama's mandate not as a mandate on "contraception, sterilization, and abortion-inducing drugs" (which it is), but as simply one on "contraception."
If Obama can successfully frame the debate that way, which should be easy with the American public, he can make great headway on this assault on the Roman Catholic Church. He will appeal to many apathetic Roman Catholics as well as many Protestants who disagree with the Catholic Church on contraception. Among non-evangelical Protestants, Obama will find lots of sympathy from the liberal mainline denominations that flew off the hinges decades ago, and some of which are members of the hideous Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice. Their split with Rome over matters of birth has roots in the Episcopal Church's embrace of contraception a century ago.
Speaking of a century ago, if this is indeed a gambit by Obama to pit religious believers against the Catholic Church, it would be nothing new from the radical left. Consider some examples:
In my book, Dupes, I shared the case of Anna Louise Strong. Strong was an editor to the flagship publication of the communist front Friends of the Soviet Union, which masterfully manipulated progressives like Upton Sinclair. We published a photo of Strong and Sinclair together on the "Friends" editorial page, where a stoic Sinclair vows to "expose the lies and slander" against poor old Joe Stalin -- maligned by those mean American anti-communists.
Anna Louise Strong was a loyal American Bolshevik. In a July 1953 report, Congress described her as "one of the most active agents for the Communist International." She did dutiful propaganda work for Moscow, shamelessly arguing that Stalin had "conquered wheat," even publishing a widely read pamphlet by that name, when, in fact, Stalin launched a famine that killed millions.
Among Strong's propaganda work was to enlist Protestant clergy against the Catholic Church. One egregious example was an incendiary letter to the editor Strong placed in the October-November 1941 issue of The Protestant. There, she made the claim that the Vatican was calling for religious freedom in the USSR not because the Soviets were blowing up churches, killing priests, and gulaging nuns, but because the Church was seeking control of Russia. This was ludicrous, but it was just what some anti-Catholic Protestants wanted to hear.
That letter from Strong was so deceptive and such blatant Soviet propaganda that it was highlighted by Congress in a major report on subversive activities by American communists.
Among the communist organs that Anna Louise Strong wrote for was the Chicago Star, known to locals as the "Red Star." The editor-in-chief and co-founder of the Star was Obama's childhood mentor, Frank Marshall Davis, who was a card-carrying member of Communist Party USA.
Davis, too, targeted the Catholic Church. He wrote articles with titles like "The church's weakness," reprimanding Rome, the American bishops, and the Catholic laity for their anti-communism. In an October 1947 piece, Davis growled that "the Catholic hierarchy" had launched a "holy war against communism."
Indeed it had. As communists knew well, the Roman Catholic Church had been issuing scathing indictments of communism since the publication of Marx's Communist Manifesto in 1848 -- yes, that far back -- not to mention in encyclicals by Pope Leo XIII, Pope Pius X, and others. Communists were furious when the Catholic Church issued a brilliant, blistering 1937 encyclical on atheistic communism, titled Divini Redemptoris, which called communism a "satanic scourge."
Committed communists like Frank Marshall Davis thus took on the Catholic Church.
Davis left the Chicago Star in 1948 to head for Hawaii, where he wrote for another communist-controlled newspaper, the Honolulu Record, and where he continued to confront the Catholic Church. In one column, titled "Challenge to the Church" (September 29, 1949), Davis framed communism as friendly to Christianity and anti-communism as un-Christian. An atheist, Davis painted an image of Judgment Day, where anti-communist Christians would be called to account for opposing communism. "The Christian churches, and the Catholic church in particular," asserted Davis, "are making a grievous error in their shortsighted belief that the major enemy of Christianity is Communism." Not only was Soviet Russia not anti-religious, insisted Davis, but Stalin had spared the planet of Hitler's "anti-Christian paganism." Christians ought to thank Stalin, not criticize him.
In another typical column from this period, Frank Marshall Davis referred to anti-communist Christians as "the Pontius Pilates of 1949."
In short, American communists and the radical left generally have long targeted the Roman Catholic Church. They know their enemy, one that is both spiritual and eternal. They have long attempted to pit Protestants and Catholics against each other. It's an old art, really, that's today totally forgotten.
And so, is this tactic being resurrected right now under Barack Obama? Is this more of the "fundamental transformation" we were promised -- elected by oblivious Americans in November 2008?
If Obama can frame his mandate as a matter of contraceptive freedom -- rather than an obvious constitutional affront on religious liberty -- he may be able to successfully pit large numbers of Protestants and even many Catholics against the institutional Catholic Church. It would be the kind of religious agitation that would make the Marxists of the last century -- particularly Obama's mentor -- very proud. How's that for "hope" and "change"?
Paul Kengor is professor of political science and executive director of the Center for Vision & Values at Grove City College. His books include The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism and Dupes: How America's Adversaries Have Manipulated Progressives for a Century. He is currently writing a book on Frank Marshall Davis.
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3)
Defense Minister Ehud Barak with Army Chief Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz
By suddenly stating, contrary to all informed estimates, that Iran’s nuclear arms program has not yet reached the point of no return, Israel’s Defense Minister Ehud Barak implied that Israel was in no hurry to strike its nuclear facilities, a message for which Washington has been angling for months.
In a Kol Israel interview from Turkey, Thursday, Feb. 16, the defense minister’s pronouncement contradicted every reliable evaluation, including those of Military Intelligence Chief Maj. Gen. Aviv Kochavi on Feb. 2 and his predecessor Amos Yadlin who wrote on Jan. 26 that Iran had passed the point of no return four or five years ago. But his words were a perfect fit for the recent assertions by US President Barack Obama and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta that Israel had not yet made up its mind to attack Iran
.Kochavi’s information was detailed: He reported that Iran had amassed 10 kilos of 20-percent enriched uranium and four tons of uranium enriched to 3.5 percent. In his view, nothing remains to stop Iran building a bomb but a decision by its ruler. Once taken, Iran’s nuclear program could produce its first bomb or warhead by the end of this year or early 2013 and four or five by 2015.
The defense minister backtracked on a second issue: While noting that Iran was scattering or burying its nuclear facilities to “impede a surgical strike,” he avoided his previous estimate that no more than three to six months were left before all those facilities had been hidden in what he himself called “zones of immunity.”
Before these changes in outlook, Barak was indirectly criticized by Obama administration officials for underlining the mortal threat to Israel of a nuclear Iran. One official complained, “Israelis are looking at the problem too narrowly.”
The defense minister also toed the Washington line on the show Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad put on Wednesday by inserting a home-made 20 percent grade nuclear fuel rod in a research reactor in Tehran. Listing its nuclear successes, the Iranians also claimed they had installed 3,000 fourth generation centrifuges in Natanz to speed up enrichment to 20 percent.
The US State Department spokesperson dismissed Iran’s claims as “not terribly new and not terribly impressive” – implying there was no cause for rushing into military action.
Barak put it this way: “They are describing a situation that is better and more advanced than the one they are in, in order to create a feeling among all the players that the point of no return is already behind them, which is not true.”
Military and intelligence sources recall that, when two years ago, Ahmadinejad and other Iranian officials boasted they were on the way to self-production of nuclear rods and ending their reliance on Russia, American and Israeli insiders belittled the claim. Two years on, Iran has indeed made the leap and is also advancing rapidly on the plutonium-based weapons track.
If Iran can supply all the nuclear fuel rods for fueling the Bushehr reactor, which is now running on recycled fuel rods from Russia, it will be able to use these rods to produce plutonium for nuclear bombs or warheads.
Why the defense minister suddenly changed course is unclear. It is also hard to know if Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu okayed his radical departure from Israel’s information strategy on the nuclear Iran issue.
What is apparent, is that the change of tune coincides with the reports circulating in Washington and Jerusalem that the US and Iran have agreed to resume nuclear talks shortly.
Those sources point to an article in the New York Times by Dennis Ross, President Obama’s former senior adviser on Iran, entitled “Iran is ready to talk.” Ross is too experienced to go out on a limb and make this sort of statement without being sure of his facts.
3a)
3a)U.S. MILITARY TOLD TO PREPARE FOR IRAN OPS
Special Forces ordered to be ready '1 March through October'
By F. Michael Maloof
WASHINGTON – Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta believes that Israel could attack Iran in an April-to-June timeframe, and there apparently has been a decision made for the U.S. to help in an assault on the radical Islamic nation’s nuclear facilities.
U.S. military sources tell WND that the Pentagon has begun preparations for “a number of operational plans and counter-operations,” with a Feb. 22 due date for submitting the plans.
There also is a request for identifying U.S. forces “by 1 March with a ‘through’ date of October.”
The military sources indicated that U.S. forces will be augmented by an Aegis warship, presumably one of the two in the U.S. carrier task forces scheduled to be in the Persian Gulf.
The U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln carrier task force already has re-entered the Gulf.
The Aegis combat system on U.S. Navy ships is used to track and guide weapons to destroy intended targets and to act as a protective shield to counter ballistic missile threats.
The U.S. carrier task forces returned and have recently been augmented to patrol around the Strait of Hormuz, which the Iranians have threatened to block if the Islamic republic is attacked or if increased sanctions are put into effect to halt the export of oil.
Pentagon spokesman Navy Cmdr. Bill Speaks told WND there was “nothing to what your sources are saying,” but he also quickly added that the Pentagon “doesn’t discuss what future contingency plans we have, and I am not going to discuss this with you.”
Panetta first revealed the prospect of Israeli action in a Feb. 2 published interview with Washington Post columnist David Ignatius, although the defense secretary was quick to point out that his comments were not intended to send any type of signal.
In that interview, Panetta told Ignatius that he had cautioned the Israelis that “the United States opposes any attack,” although the columnist pointed out that this was not a direct quote.
Until now, the Obama administration has stated that it doesn’t want to be involved in any conflict with Iran unless U.S. assets are attacked – in which case there would be a strong U.S. response.
The apparent U.S. war plans, based on what U.S. military sources tell WND, suggest that the U.S. may not wait for an attack on U.S. assets before responding and instead may be preparing to assist the Israelis in an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities.
Panetta first made his comments following meetings with Israeli officials who said that an Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities would come before entering a “zone of immunity,” or point beyond which it would be impossible to halt what Israel believes is a program to make nuclear weapons.
Iran contends that its nuclear development program, which includes enrichment, is for peaceful purposes and is its “inalienable right” as a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, or NPT.
Iran also has allowed inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency, or IAEA, to look at its facilities.
Iran also has stated that it needs the enriched uranium to fuel its nuclear reactors.
Iran has a few research reactors and has a larger reactor built by the Russians at Bushehr. Discussions are under way between Iranian and Russian officials for the construction of addition reactors.
The Iranians contend that they have enriched uranium up to 20 percent, which is a level needed for medical purposes. Enrichment greater than 90 percent is needed to make nuclear weapons, but U.S. analysts assess that Iran has run into some technical obstacles precluding that level of enrichment to date.
On Wednesday, Iran announced that it had loaded the first batch of its home-made uranium rods into a Tehran research reactor, since it was unable to obtain them from other countries due to the Western-imposed sanctions.
Israel is assessed by the U.S. intelligence community to have some 400 strategic and tactical nuclear weapons. Unlike Iran, however, Israel refuses to be a signatory to the NPT.
In addition, the Jewish state has consistently forbidden access by the IAEA to its 24-megawatt reactor at the Negev Nuclear Research Center in Dimona and the five-megawatt Center for Nuclear Research reactor at Nahal Sorek.
Israel also intends to build a number of civilian nuclear plants for energy and has suggested building one as a joint project with Jordan under French supervision.
Possible U.S. military preparations to assist Israel coincide with the revelation by similar sources that the Israelis have dispatched a number of naval vessels under cover into the Arabian Sea and that they are moving into its northern regions just off of Iran.
According to the U.S. military sources, the Israeli vessels were positioned at the mouth of the Gulf of Oman which leads to the Strait of Hormuz.
Placement of the covert naval vessels in the northern Arabian Sea allows Israel to use them as a standoff C4ISR, or Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance platform.
This would give the Israelis the capability of not only intelligence-gathering on Iranian communications of its missile and air defense activities but also to coordinate attacks employing jet fighters, missiles and missile-carrying submarines in the event Israeli forces get the order to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities.
Such an attack also would require knocking out Iran’s ground-to-air missile facilities along its coast and near intended targets.
In addition, U.S. military sources tell WND that missile propellant for Israel’s nuclear-capable Jericho II missiles continues to be handled.
Propellant preparation for the Jericho II missiles coincides with recent comments by Israeli officials who say that any attack on Iran would include the intermediate Jericho II missiles equipped with high explosives.
There also are indications of “new and different” large scale coordinated joint Israeli military force exercises.
War-planners tell WND that there would be a multi-pronged approach by Israel using a combination of its nuclear-capable Jericho II missiles, attacks using its fleet of U.S.-supplied F-15E Strike Eagles and commandos to gather forensics at the sites and help illuminate the targets.
Sources say that if Israel were to use the U.S.-supplied F-15 jet fighters in a pre-emptive strike on Iran, there may be some concern at the State Department of a major violation of the munitions control limits placed as a condition for their use for defensive purposes.
F. Michael Maloof, a writer for WND’s G2Bulletin, is a former senior security policy analyst in the office of the Secretary of Defense.
3b)Iranian bombs in diplomatic mail?
Officials suspect that bombs used in recent spate of global terror attacks produced in same Tehran lab, smuggled out of Iran via unscreened diplomatic mail
By Itamar Eichner
Security officials are looking into the possibility that bombs used in the recent spate of terror attacks against Israeli targets worldwide were produced in the same Tehran lab and smuggled out of Iran via diplomatic mail.
Notably, diplomatic mail items are exempt from security screening and x-raying, thereby making it easier for Iranian terror masters to provide perpetrators with explosive devices.
Iran's elite al-Quds force, which is affiliated with the Revolutionary Guards, is believed to be behind the recent bombings in New Delhi and Bangkok, as well as the foiled attack in Tbilisi, Yedioth Ahronoth reported Thursday.
Israeli officials say the global terror offensive in fact started several months ago and includes numerous terror operations, most of them foiled by security forces worldwide before materializing. The instructions to carry out the attacks are believed to have arrived directly from Tehran and to have received the blessing of Iran’s top leaders.
Israel warns Iran
Iran’s willingness to assume such risks and generate friction with other states attests to the huge pressure faced by Tehran and its difficulty in coping with economic sanctions, the assassination of nuclear scientists, and the American threat to operate in the Hormuz Straits, officials said.
Initial probes show that the Iranians are aiming to carry out attacks at any price and are trying to identify Israeli vulnerabilities. As Israel’s ambassadors enjoy a high level of security, Iranian terrorists are believed to be setting their sights on low-level diplomats and the spouses of Israeli envoys.
Meanwhile, sources in Israel estimate that the global terror offensive will continue. Officials have decided to adopt a series of precautionary measures, including the reinforcement of security arrangements at Israeli embassies, issuing requests for local authorities to boost security, and instructing Israeli diplomats to change their routine activities.
Moreover, Israel has been conveying explicit warnings to Tehran, warning Iran that Jerusalem will not remain idle in the face of the Iranian terror offensive.
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4)Listening to the Syrian Resistance
By Clifford D. May
Assad has created a humanitarian crisis --- and a strategic opportunity
Thanks to the marvels of modern technology, members of the resistance movement inside Syria were able to have a secure conversation last week with a small group of foreign-policy mavens in Washington, D.C. What they told us boils down to this: A revolution is under way. On one side is the dictator Bashar al-Assad, backed by Iran’s rulers, Hezbollah, and Vladimir Putin’s Russia. On the other side are ordinary Syrians, facing bombs and bullets with the kind of courage exhibited in Tiananmen Square. Meanwhile, those who should be their allies dither.
“Why is Syria not as important as Egypt and Libya?” asked “Muhammad,” one of the resistance leaders on the Skype call connecting the offices of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies with an undisclosed location outside Damascus. His comments were translated by FDD fellow Ammar Abdulhamid , a prominent Syrian dissident who was forced into exile in 2005. “We are facing a killing machine,” Muhammad added. Indeed, the Assad regime is estimated to have slaughtered more than 7,000 Syrian men, women, and children to date. “We are not asking for any boots on the ground,” he added. So what do they want? Supplies, equipment, secure communications technology — and, yes, the means to defend themselves, their families, their homes, and their communities.
Recent upheavals in the Middle East, mislabeled “the Arab Spring,” have so far brought change only to countries where those in power had been cooperating with the U.S.: Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and Yemen. By contrast, the 2009 uprising against Iran’s anti-American theocrats was brutally suppressed, while Western leaders lifted not a finger and said hardly a word. If Assad manages to remain in power, the lesson will be that it has become less dangerous to be America’s enemy than to be America’s friend.
This formulation, I suspect, goes a long way toward explaining Russia’s staunch backing of Assad. Putin is sending a message to his fellow autocrats everywhere: Moscow, unlike Washington, can be counted on when the chips are down.
The resistance leaders we spoke with sounded determined: They will not give up, even if it costs them their lives. But they also are frustrated: They are facing helicopters, armor, and artillery. They have only small arms — and not enough for all those willing to fight.
Muhammad called the diplomatic debate over Syria that has been taking place at the U.N. a “farce.” Another resistance leader — Abu Alnour is his nom de guerre — said that the Arab League also has proved useless and, besides, cannot be trusted. As for Turkey, Muhammad said it is “only capable of words, it seems.”
The United States continues to be seen as the resistance movement’s last, best hope because, Muhammad said, Americans are “the only ones who protect democracy and human rights in the world. They are the only ones who actually do that. So we are hoping that they will review their position.”
What these besieged revolutionaries may not appreciate is how disillusioned many Americans have become. In recent memory, American power has been deployed to defend Kuwaitis, Bosnians, Kosovars, and, yes, Iraqis and Afghans. We did not necessarily expect deep affection in return, but we were hoping for better than the animus that is directed at us by so many in the Islamic world (an increasingly accurate label).
Some Americans have become skeptical of Muslims who claim to be democrats. Others have come to believe that while there are Muslim freedom fighters, they are too small a minority to be significant. Recent developments in Egypt, where Muslim Brothers and Salafis won an overwhelming majority of the votes in the recent elections — and now are holding hostage Americans who came to Egypt to assist with democratic reform — have reinforced such views.
All of which misses this point: Americans should support the revolutionaries in Syria based on strategic self-interest at least as much as altruism. Assad is an enemy of the United States. He facilitated the killing of hundreds of American in Iraq and arranged the assassinations of pro-Western Lebanese leaders who dared defy Syrian domination.
And he is the handmaiden of Iran, the most significant national-security threat facing the United States today. Oil-rich and perhaps soon to be armed with nuclear weapons, Iran’s rulers intend to lead what they see not as an Arab Spring but as a global Islamic ascendancy and a jihad against the West. However, because they are Persian and Shia, they need a bridge into the Arab and Sunni worlds. Assad has been providing that bridge. Syria also has been Iran’s land link with Hezbollah, which, thanks to Iranian money and weapons, is now the dominant force in Lebanon.
Assad’s downfall would represent a major strategic defeat for Teheran. It also would fan the suppressed flames of revolution within Iran, where, thanks to increasingly tough sanctions, the economy is in steep decline.
Iran’s rulers get it. That’s why the head of Iran’s elite Quds force, Qassem Suleimani, is reportedly in Syria, along with hundreds if not thousands of what might be accurately labeled Iranian storm troopers, advising and training Assad’s forces how to more efficiently kill demonstrators and smash the Free Syrian Army. Syrian resistance leaders say the Quds force is assisting with everything from monitoring protesters’ use of text messages to training snipers.
“We are in communication with people inside the regime who . . . are passing on information about Iran’s and Hezbollah’s involvement,” said Muhammad. “There is an actual training camp run by Hezbollah near Damascus. The people who maintain security inside Damascus, many of them are Hezbollah members.”
Assad’s forces, said Abu Alnour, need such foreign assistance because they are “demoralized. They cannot take over territories, and the only reason that the soldiers are fighting is because they are afraid of getting shot as defectors if they don’t.”
Ammar Abdulhamid added, “We are talking about people who are well positioned. When they make the decision to defect, they want to make sure that there is a place to go to, there is protection for them and their families, and at the same time, they want to feel assured a little bit that the international community has made up its mind about the Assad regime.”
That would require, at a minimum, the establishment of safe zones, perhaps protected by a NATO-led no-fly zone as was established in Libya. Marc Ginsberg, a Democrat who served as ambassador to Morocco under President Clinton, recalled that when the rebel-held city of Benghazi was threatened, President Obama “marshaled his top officials to explore every conceivable avenue to thwart Gaddafi’s forces.”
By contrast, Ginsberg added, “while the appalling massacre of innocent civilians escalates daily across Syria, and images from Homs and other Syrian cities are far worse than anything witnessed in Libya. . . . President Obama has so far not evidenced much in the way of Libya-style resolve.”
The day after our Skype conversation, at least 137 civilians, including eleven children, were killed by government forces. Hadi al-Abdullah of the Syrian General Revolutionary Council, based in Homs, told a reporter for Al-Arabiya that missiles were being launched from a nearby military college and that helicopters were “targeting all those who are trying to help the wounded.” He asked, “Is this not a massacre?”
Of course it was. But what is mislabeled the “international community” is highly selective about which massacres require action and which may be regretted and dismissed. Our friends in Syria are right: If Americans won’t provide leadership — protecting civilians while advancing the West’s security interests — no one will.
Clifford D. May is president of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, a policy institute focusing on terrorism. A veteran news reporter, foreign correspondent and editor (at The New York Times and other publications), he has covered stories in more than two dozen countries, including Iran, Pakistan, Sudan, Ethiopia, China, Uzbekistan, Northern Ireland and Russia. He is a frequent guest on national and international television and radio news programs, providing analysis and participating in debates on national security issues.
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5)Obama's War on School Vouchers
The president downplays school choice in his new $3.8 trillion budget.
By JASON L. RILEY
In his State of the Union address last month, President Obama spoke about the importance of kids staying in school and even urged states to raise the dropout age to 18. So it's passing strange that his new $3.8 trillion budget provides no new money for a school voucher program in Washington, D.C., that is producing significantly higher graduation rates than the D.C. public school average.
The Opportunity Scholarship Program offers vouchers to low-income students to attend private schools. A 2010 study published by Patrick Wolf of the University of Arkansas found that the scholarship recipients had graduation rates of 91%. The graduation rate for D.C. public schools was 56%, and it was 70% for students who entered the lottery for a voucher but didn't win.
Because the president's teachers union allies are opposed to school choice for poor people, Mr. Obama ignores or downplays these findings. He repeatedly has tried to shutter the program, even though it is clearly advancing his stated goal of increasing graduation rates and closing the black-white achievement gap.
The good news is that House Speaker John Boehner, who went to bat for the voucher program last year when the Obama administration attempted to phase it out, said yesterday through a spokesman that the funding cuts won't stand. The bad news is that we have a president who is more interested in doing right by teachers unions than doing right by ghetto kids confined to failing schools.
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6)Obama’s budget shell game
By Michael Goodwin
A British politician once noted, “A lie can be halfway round the world before the truth has got its boots on.” He could have been talking about President Obama’s latest whopper.
Unlike so many others, this presidential prevarication isn’t limited to a single anecdote or speech. This one runs to more than 2,000 pages and weighs a reported 10 pounds.
It’s Obama’s $3.8 trillion budget and it is to truth what night is to day. To call it a “campaign document,” as Republicans have, doesn’t do it justice. Ditto for calling it a “wish list,” as reporters have.
It is a fraud, a scam, a wooden nickel, pure and unadulterated flimflam.
As such, it neatly captures the moral bankruptcy of Obama’s presidency. Trapped by the failure of his policies and the laws of economics and politics, he inadvertently reveals that he is serious about nothing except re-election.
Acting like a candidate running in a party primary instead of a president with a duty to govern, he glues reams of fictional numbers to the fantasies of a community organizer. Presto — he’s a man with a vision of utopia he can read from a TelePrompTer.
To judge by his claims, he has adopted the credo that the end — four more years — justifies the means. Those means include a willingness to say anything that serves him. Freed from duty and facts, he submits his concoction to Congress as an official document under presidential seal.
The outrage is . . . where? In the fourth year of this national error, deviancy has been defined down so far that a monstrous dereliction of the basic duty to make a budget is met with a shrug of the shoulders. Apparently, we no longer expect any better from him.
This plan will get the same number of votes Obama’s last budget got in the Senate. That one was defeated 97-0. So the stalemate will continue and he will compound the lie by pretending it’s not his fault.
It has now been more than 1,000 days since Democrats, who hold a Senate majority, which is all they need for budget measures, adopted one. And Majority Leader Harry Reid, perhaps to spare the president from another embarrassment, refuses the simple formality of a vote this time.
“We do not need to bring a budget to the floor this year,” he said, declining to offer even backhanded praise for Obama’s presentation. Reid knows he couldn’t muster more than a handful of votes for this hoax.
Conscience won’t allow most Dems to decimate the military, as Obama proposes. Nor will they follow him in refusing to recognize the debt and deficit as mortal threats to the nation.
Even party dead-enders aren’t in the mood to raise taxes on virtually every worker for yet another round of “stimulus.” They know rancid pork when they smell it and most aren’t interested in risking their careers to endorse it. With Athens burning, few want to follow the Greek model of economics.
It is tempting, then, to see a silver lining, to believe that Obama has had his turn and that his vision for America is now so exposed as a delusion that it and he will be swept aside.
But to judge from the polls, that is far too optimistic. Facts don’t always prevail and truth is often slow to get its boots on.
Besides, America is scared, and for all the country’s cynicism about Washington, lies from the Oval Office still can fool nearly half the people. Sometimes, the bigger they are, the harder they are to recognize.
Mayor puts church in lurch
There he goes again. Chalk up another mayoral mangling of the First Amendment.
“The Constitution seems to me to be pretty clear,” Mayor Bloomberg said in defending his decision to evict dozens of churches from city schools.
“I’ve always thought that one of the great things about America is that we keep a separation” between church and state, he told reporters Monday, “and the more clear that separation is, the more those people who want to be able to practice their religion will have the opportunity to do so.”
The mayor is confused, but consistent in his politically liberal interpretation.
His decision follows a Supreme Court ruling that the city could prohibit worship services, but not meetings or other religious-based activities in schools. The small congregations can’t afford places of worship, so they paid to use public facilities when schools were not in session.
It was a harmless accommodation for worthy groups, but the mayor didn’t like it. The court didn’t say the city must evict, only that it could.
Bloomy’s cold choice to evict reflects an odd view of the Constitution he demonstrated in other cases. In sympathy with Occupy Wall Street hooligans, he cited freedom of speech in letting them camp in Zuccotti Park for two months. Finally, the police moved in after a judge said tents were not protected by the First Amendment — a point repeatedly argued in this paper.
He also used First Amendment cover to push for a mosque near Ground Zero, blasting as bigots those who disagreed. He was confusing a land-use issue with suppression of religion, as there are hundreds of mosques in New York. Notably, his commitment to separation of church and state didn’t stop him from secretly using government officials to pave the way for the mosque.
The mayor turned 70 yesterday in good health, so there’s lots of time to get right with the Constitution. Let’s hope he does.
Quinn’s no-win
Considering Council Speaker Christine Quinn’s latest liberal sop, there are two choices: Either she doesn’t understand Economics 101, or she thinks we don’t.
Pushed by unions whose backing she wants for a mayoral run, Quinn is said to be ready to hike the pay for more private workers on city-subsidized projects. The “prevailing wage” would apply to workers on any project getting city subsidies, not just those at city-owned buildings.
The result will be another sneaky hit to taxpayers. Contractors won’t pony up the extra pay. They’ll just demand higher city subsidies to pass along to the workers.
Allah-ver Stone Jr.
In the midst of Iran’s building war against the world, Oliver Stone’s son has converted to Islam in the Iranian city of Isfahan, AFP reports. Sean Stone, a filmmaker like his wacky father, told the French news agency that “the conversion to Islam is not abandoning Christianity or Judaism, which I was born with. It means I have accepted Mohammad and other prophets.”
His words prove again the observation that “youth is wasted on the young.” As for Sean’s dad, what’s his excuse?
Newt ‘cue’less
Newt Gingrich is facing calls from some conservatives to quit the presidential race so Rick Santorum can have a better chance against Mitt Romney. Gingrich declines, saying he’s not going anywhere.
He can say that again.
6a)MILLER: How Obama will waste your money
Liberal priorities see a $1.5 trillion increase in new budget
By Emily Miller
President Obama clings to the fantasy that he can tax and spend the country out of malaise and into prosperity. Instead of showing restraint in the face of our $15.4 trillion debt, the budget he released Monday included $1.5 trillion in new outlays that will ensure plenty of cash for programs that inspire his liberal base in an election year.
Mr. Obama was only held back by the budget caps which the Republicans insisted on in last summer’s debt-ceiling deal. This forced modest cuts in a few areas of the government, but he meets his targets by adding $1.9 trillion in new taxes.
“Thanks to a series of gimmicks, the president’s new budget creates an illusion of fiscal responsibility that ensures an American debt crisis,” House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, Wisconsin Republican, told The Washington Times. “This budget is a record fourth straight budget with deficits over $1 trillion and continues already failed stimulus spending policies.”
According to the committee’s calculations, the president has asked for a whopping $966 billion in expenditures in the name of creating jobs. This Stimulus 2.0 includes a six-year, $476 billion surface transportation reauthorization measure, which is an 80 percent boost from the previous bill. The White House wants to send $50 billion out the door next year, supposedly for roads, bridges, walking paths, trains and runways. This time, however, the Obama administration acknowledged that the jobs aren’t shovel-ready, writing that, “infrastructure projects take time to get underway.”
At a White House briefing on Monday, the president’s economic advisers made a point of mentioning the high rate of unemployment among construction workers, who just happened to be largely labor union backers of the president’s campaign.
Another part of the new stimulus spending is devoted to Mr. Obama’s high-speed-rail pipe dream. His budget asks for $47 billion over six years to bankroll the pricey train sets. Bizarrely, the White House does not acknowledge that the costly program was defunded entirely by congressional Republicans for 2012. If the GOP keeps the House in the November elections, Mr. Obama’s choo-choos will be permanently derailed.
The budget also justifies extending the 99-week unemployment insurance because it generates “up to $2 of economic activity for every $1 spent.” Gene Sperling, director of the White House National Economic Council, told reporters on Monday that paying people not to work gave the “most bang for the buck” for job creation.
The whoppers don’t end there. Despite congressional opposition, Mr. Obama continues to ask for a 0.5 percent pay hike for government employees for 2013. The document then says this would “free up” $28 billion over 10 years to fund other government programs. Only fuzzy Washington math could explain how paying higher salaries creates more money to spend on other government programs.
One look through Mr. Obama’s fourth blueprint for fixing the economy and the American people should say, “Katy, bar the door.” We don’t need more spending, more taxes and bigger government. The 2010 election succeeded in slowing the red ink being spilled in Washington. Hopefully the 2012 election will bring in an administration whose budgets are more firmly rooted in reality.
Emily Miller is a senior editor for the Opinion pages at The Washington Times.
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7)GOLDBERG: The price of free health care
Loss of freedom is too costly a sum
By Jonah Goldberg
“It’s not about contraception,” thundered GOP presidential contender Rick Santorum. “It’s about economic liberty. It’s about freedom of speech. It’s about freedom of religion. It’s about government control of your lives. And it’s got to stop!”
He was talking, of course, about the Obama administration’s recent decisions first to force large religious employers to pay for birth control and “preventive services” (including sterilization and abortifacient drugs) and its subsequent decision to demand that the relevant insurance companies provide them for “free” instead.
The “accommodation” - the White House rightly refuses to call it a compromise - is a farce. If you’re paying for health insurance - or if you self-insure, as many institutions do - shifting responsibilities to the insurance companies doesn’t shift the costs, just the paperwork. A Catholic hospital would still pay for the services; there just wouldn’t be a line item for it in the monthly insurance bill.
That’s not accommodation; that’s laundering.
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius claims the move will save money - an ounce of prevention saves a pound of “cure” - so religious institutions will incur no additional costs. If that’s true, why haven’t those greedy insurance companies been doing it all along?
If anything, President Obama has made the situation worse. The White House fact sheet seems to offer no exemption for religious institutions - or for anyone else: “Under the new policy … women will have free preventive care that includes contraceptive services no matter where she [sic] works.” That sounds like a complete win for the “Get your rosaries off my ovaries” crowd to me.
Of course, if religious institutions don’t want to violate their consciences, they can simply stop offering health insurance (providing yet another example of how Mr. Obama misled voters when he promised that the Affordable Care Act wouldn’t cause anyone to lose his or her current coverage). That would at least allow religious organizations to uphold their principles. The result, however, would be to force taxpayers to subsidize practices many find morally abhorrent. In other words, Mr. Obama’s solution is to make paying taxes a moral dilemma for many pro-lifers.
I think Mr. Santorum’s argument is entirely right: This is about freedom, full stop. When we empower bureaucrats and politicians to make such huge personal decisions for us, it becomes impossible to avoid trampling on liberty. The Roman Catholic Church was simply the first in the leviathan’s path.
If you look at the genetic and neuroscience revolutions waiting just offstage, the future holds enormous promise for personalized health care, including individualized genetic therapies. Yet the government is marching faster and faster toward wholesale approaches that prioritize the health of the system over the health of patients. It is impossible to imagine the myriad arbitrary abuses and petty tyrannies that could result.
It’s amazing that liberals and libertarians can see eye to eye on ending federal bullying on the sale of raw milk but liberals see no threats from a federal takeover of health care and the transformation of insurers into de facto branches of the government.
The freedom argument is old hat now. Obamacare supporters shrug off horror stories from Canada and Britain about concerns such as waiting periods and denied services - and hypothetical scenarios of “death panels.”
Well, here’s something to ponder: If Mr. Santorum’s warning doesn’t scare you, maybe Mr. Santorum should. Personally, I think his detractors are determined to turn him into a right-wing caricature (a cause he has aided more than once). He’s been prodded about homosexual marriage, contraception, radical feminists and his religious faith in the hopes that he will say something embarrassingly juicy for the MSNBC crowd.
But let’s imagine the caricature is fair and he really is the boogeyman Rachel Maddow and Co. say he is. Worse, all his talk about “freedom” is just code for the right-wing version of progressive social engineering; i.e., he wants to turn women into breeders a la “The Handmaid’s Tale.”
Is that who you want in charge of your health care? If not him, what about some other conservative president down the road?
It’s really this simple: A government empowered to steamroll the people with rosaries has the same power to trample the ones with ovaries. If you’re afraid of Rick Santorum, you should be afraid of Obamacare.
Jonah Goldberg is editor-at-large of National Review Online, a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and the author of the forthcoming book “The Tyranny of Cliches” (Sentinel HC, May 2012).
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