My response was that: "this same media and Cronkiecaused us to lose Viet Nam "
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Romney's plan is logical and has proven in the past to work. However, he must be forceful in explaining it against Obama's false and mocking portrayal of why it would not work. (See 1 below.)
Romney needs to tie Warren to Obama and show why she is his Far Left spiritual teacher. (See 1 and 1a below.)
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Just more evidence how pro Obama polling goes to any length to prostitute itself.
Polling of this kind is worthless unless spreading propaganda is the goal. If that be the case, then one could argue the scare tactic might be effective because there are those who are incapable of deciphering and are taken in by such or who have an agenda to perpetuate untruths. (See 2 below.)
Yes, there are those like Capeheart who take contrived trash poll results and run with them thus, perpetuating the big lie that McCarthy used effectively until he was brought down by his own drunken personality and venomous lust for power. (See 2a below.)
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I submit Cruz's Texas victory is evidence supporting my view about the passionate undercurrent and mood more likely to sweep Romney in and Obama out of office. There is an intense desire on the part of Americans, of all political persuasions, to turn this nation around, to reject the misguided and extreme philosophy of the Warrens and Obamas. This deep seated desire to embrace freedom, have less government and bring back old fashioned Capitalism is not understood by the elite media and press because they are blinded by their own extreme biases. They are out of touch with the nation about which they report. (See 3 below.)
Scoff and deride if they will but mayor attacks on the Dan Cathy's and Chick fil A's of America are resented, touch a deep sense of disgust and will serve to light fires and raise passions against such causing a voter boomerang which the media and press elite are incapable of capturing.
It would be ironic, indeed, if the outrageous attacks by chicken mayors and their kind in the press and media were beaten by the Chick fil A rooster thereby, costing Obama the election.
If I am proven wrong then the America I knew and grew up in is gone for all times. (See 3a below.)
If I am proven wrong then the America I knew and grew up in is gone for all times. (See 3a below.)
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They still don't get it! (See 4 below.)
And, Cliff May writes about after the fall and he is not talking about the weather! (See 4a below.)
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They still don't get it! (See 4 below.)
And, Cliff May writes about after the fall and he is not talking about the weather! (See 4a below.)
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Dick
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1)Glenn Hubbard: The Romney Plan for Economic Recovery
Tax cuts, spending restraint and repeal of Obama's regulatory excesses would mean 12 million new jobs in his first term alone
By GLENN HUBBARD
We are currently in the most anemic economic recovery in the memory of most Americans. Declining consumer sentiment and business concerns over policy uncertainty weigh on the minds of all of us. We must fix our economy's growth and jobs machine.
We can do this. The U.S. economy has the talent, ideas, energy and capital for the robust economic growth that has characterized much of America's experience in our lifetimes. Our standard of living and the nation's standing as a world power depend on restoring that growth.
But to do so we must have vastly different policies aimed at stopping runaway federal spending and debt, reforming our tax code and entitlement programs, and scaling back costly regulations. Those policies cannot be found in the president's proposals. They are, however, the core of Gov. Mitt Romney's plan for economic recovery and renewal.
Chad Crowe
In response to the recession, the Obama administration chose to emphasize costly, short-term fixes—ineffective stimulus programs, myriad housing programs that went nowhere, and a rush to invest in "green" companies.
As a consequence, uncertainty over policy—particularly over tax and regulatory policy—slowed the recovery and limited job creation. One recent study by Scott Baker and Nicholas Bloom of Stanford University and Steven Davis of the University of Chicago found that this uncertainty reduced GDP by 1.4% in 2011 alone, and that returning to pre-crisis levels of uncertainty would add about 2.3 million jobs in just 18 months.
The Obama administration's attempted short-term fixes, even with unprecedented monetary easing by the Federal Reserve, produced average GDP growth of just 2.2% over the past three years, and the consensus outlook appears no better for the year ahead.
Moreover, the Obama administration's large and sustained increases in debt raise the specter of another financial crisis and large future tax increases, further chilling business investment and job creation. A recent study by Ernst & Young finds that the administration's proposal to increase marginal tax rates on the wage, dividend and capital-gain income of upper-income Americans would reduce GDP by 1.3% (or $200 billion per year), kill 710,000 jobs, depress investment by 2.4%, and reduce wages and living standards by 1.8%. And according to the Congressional Budget Office, the large deficits codified in the president's budget would reduce GDP during 2018-2022 by between 0.5% and 2.2% compared to what would occur under current law.
President Obama has ignored or dismissed proposals that would address our anti-competitive tax code and unsustainable trajectory of federal debt—including his own bipartisan National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform—and submitted no plan for entitlement reform. In February, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner famously told congressional Republicans that this administration was putting forth no plan, but "we know we don't like yours."
Other needed reforms would emphasize opening global markets for U.S. goods and services—but the president has made no contribution to the global trade agenda, while being dragged to the support of individual trade agreements only recently.
The president's choices cannot be ascribed to a political tug of war with Republicans in Congress. He and Democratic congressional majorities had two years to tackle any priority they chose. They chose not growth and jobs but regulatory expansion. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act raised taxes, unleashed significant new spending, and raised hiring costs for workers. The Dodd-Frank Act missed the mark on housing and "too-big-to-fail" financial institutions but raised financing costs for households and small and mid-size businesses.
These economic errors and policy choices have consequences—record high long-term unemployment and growing ranks of discouraged workers. Sadly, at the present rate of job creation and projected labor-force growth, the nation will never return to full employment.
It doesn't have to be this way. The Romney economic plan would fundamentally change the direction of policy to increase GDP and job creation now and going forward. The governor's plan puts growth and recovery first, and it stands on four main pillars:
• Stop runaway federal spending and debt. The governor's plan would reduce federal spending as a share of GDP to 20%—its pre-crisis average—by 2016. This would dramatically reduce policy uncertainty over the need for future tax increases, thus increasing business and consumer confidence.
• Reform the nation's tax code to increase growth and job creation. The Romney plan would reduce individual marginal income tax rates across the board by 20%, while keeping current low tax rates on dividends and capital gains. The governor would also reduce the corporate income tax rate—the highest in the world—to 25%. In addition, he would broaden the tax base to ensure that tax reform is revenue-neutral.
• Reform entitlement programs to ensure their viability. The Romney plan would gradually reduce growth in Social Security and Medicare benefits for more affluent seniors and give more choice in Medicare programs and benefits to improve value in health-care spending. It would also block grant the Medicaid program to states to enable experimentation that might better serve recipients.
• Make growth and cost-benefit analysis important features of regulation. The governor's plan would remove regulatory impediments to energy production and innovation that raise costs to consumers and limit new job creation. He would also work with Congress toward repealing and replacing the costly and burdensome Dodd–Frank legislation and the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. The Romney alternatives will emphasize better financial regulation and market-oriented, patient-centered health-care reform.
In contrast to the sclerosis and joblessness of the past three years, the Romney plan offers an economic U-turn in ideas and choices. When bolstered by sound trade, education, energy and monetary policy, the Romney reform program is expected by the governor's economic advisers to increase GDP growth by between 0.5% and 1% per year over the next decade. It should also speed up the current recovery, enabling the private sector to create 200,000 to 300,000 jobs per month, or about 12 million new jobs in a Romney first term, and millions more after that due to the plan's long-run growth effects.
But these gains aren't just about numbers, as important as those numbers are. The Romney approach will restore confidence in America's economic future and make America once again a place to invest and grow.
Mr. Hubbard, dean of Columbia Business School, was chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under President George W. Bush. He is an economic adviser to Gov. Romney.
1a)Why Elizabeth Warren Wants America to Be More Like Communist China
Warren thinks China's infrastructure spending is a model for the U.S.
Massachusetts residents who tuned in to the Olympics opening ceremony saw a new 30-second campaign commercial from the Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, Elizabeth Warren, that said America should be more like Communist China.
“We've got bridges and roads in need of repair and thousands of people in need of work. Why aren’t we rebuilding America?” asks Warren, a professor at Harvard Law School who served in the Obama administration. “Our competitors are putting people to work, building a future. China invests 9% of its GDP in infrastructure. America? We’re at just 2.4%. We can do better.”
The ad juxtaposes robust Chinese cranes and dump trucks with decaying American bridges and idle but sympathetic-looking American workers wearing hard-hats.
Warren has been in the news lately as an inspiration for President Obama’s “you didn’t build that” comment. And Mr. Obama himself has been making somewhat similar points about infrastructure on the campaign trail. On July 27, the same day Warren announced her new ad, Mr. Obama, campaigning in Virginia, said, “I think it makes sense for us to take half the savings from war and let’s use it to do some nation-building here at home. Let’s make sure that we’re rebuilding our roads and our bridges. Let’s build broadband lines into rural communities and improve our wireless networks and rebuild our ports and airports. We can put people to work right now doing the work that America needs done.”
Warren’s approach is so flawed that it’s amazing that her campaign would spend the money on putting it into a prime-time Olympics commercial that was presumably designed not to alienate people but rather to get them to vote for her. You really have to see it to believe it.
The first problem is mathematical. U.S. gross domestic product is about $15 trillion a year. Increasing infrastructure “investment” to the 9% Chinese level that Warren cites would mean an additional $1 trillion a year in government spending. That’s an immense spending increase. To put it in context, the entire federal government spent about $3.6 trillion in 2011, on revenues of about $2.3 trillion.
Where would this money come from? Not tax increases, right? Warren has already reportedly promised nearly a trillion dollar tax increase, spread over ten years, by raising the estate tax, imposing the Buffett Rule, and letting the Bush tax cuts expire for those earning $250,000 a year or more. But that money, she has said, would go toward deficit reduction. If Warren really wants to spend $1 trillion a year more on infrastructure, she’d need to eliminate all national defense spending ($705 billion) or all Social Security spending ($730 billion) and then find another more than quarter trillion dollars. Or else she’d have to go on the biggest borrowing or taxing binge in American history.
Math, though, is hardly the only problem with emulating China’s approach to infrastructure spending. History is another. America and China are at different junctures in our development. America built a lot of bridges, tunnels, and highways in the 1950s and 1960s when China was stuck under Communism. A lot of China’s spending now isn’t going to outpace America but to catch up with things that we’ve had here for decades, like potable water and a population that is mostly non-rural.
Finally, not all of China’s infrastructure spending is worth emulating. The Chinese Communist treatment of those who stand in the way of their projects makes Robert Moses, the mastermind of so many of New York’s neighborhood-destroying highways, look like Mother Teresa. For example, the group International Rivers reports that 1.2 million people were displaced to construct the Three Gorges Dam. That $40 billion project also reportedly had devastating effects on the Chinese river dolphin, river sturgeon, and paddlefish.
China is able to spend so much on infrastructure because it’s an unfree country. It lacks the rule of law that lets American community groups wage legal and political battles against big government projects. Warren may protest that when she’s talking about “infrastructure” she mainly means maintaining existing roads and bridges, not building brand new projects that flatten urban neighborhoods or destroy scenic rivers. But that’s not what’s happening in China.
One of the ironies here is that some of the lawyers opposing big proposed American infrastructure projects on environmental or eminent domain or racial discrimination grounds were trained by Warren and her colleagues at Harvard Law School and at other similar institutions like the University of Chicago, where Barack Obama taught after attending Harvard Law School. Such opposition, sometimes spurious, can succeed in delaying and raising the cost of private development projects even if the opponents ultimately do not prevail in court or in the political process. Free-market fans tend to like the eminent domain suits and dislike the ones about snail darters, and it is a distinction worth maintaining.
But if the choice is between having people like Elizabeth Warren and Barack Obama in law schools training students to block these infrastructure projects, or having them in the government taxing the rest of us to pay for more of them, I’m glad to live in America rather than Communist China. Here in America, at least, the people may not get to elect the law professors, but we sure do get to vote on the president and senators.
Ira Stoll is editor of FutureOfCapitalism.com and author of Samuel Adams: A Life.
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2)-Propaganda poll shows Obama ahead
The survey shows Obama up 6 in Ohio and Florida and 11 in Pennsylvania. These are all bigger margins than Obama received when he won all three states in 2008 -- Florida (2.8%), Ohio (4.7%). Pennsylvania(10%). It seems unlikely that Obama would be doing better in these states than he did 4 years ago. If you look at page 9 of the detailed results provided by the pollster (now linked to the New York Times and CBS for these state polls), you get the answer for the odd results:
Those surveyed revealed who they voted for in 2008. Here are the results by state (Page 9):
Florida: Obama 53%, McCain 40%Ohio: Obama 53%, McCain 38%Pennsylvania: Obama 54%, McCain 40%.
In other words, the bias towards Obama voters is 10% in Florida and Ohio, and 4% in Pennsylvania, compared to how people actually voted in these states in 2008.
These results are as valuable as the media that sponsored them. It is a shame that Quinnipiac, which was once respected, has thrown in with the propagandists
2a)Battleground state trouble for Mitt Romney
A new poll from Quinnipiac University, the New York Times and CBS News of three key swing states is extraordinarily good news for President Obama. There’s no other way to describe it. He’s ahead of presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney in Florida (51 percent to 45 percent), Ohio (50 percent to 44 percent) and Pennsylvania (53 percent to 42 percent). Now you understand my enthusiasm.
Think about it. Folks are worried about the economy. Obama is the incumbent and is being held responsible for the anemic recovery. Unemployment remains above 8 percent nationally. And it doesn’t appear as though it will come down anytime soon. Yet, in this poll of likely voters in those three swing states, the president is ahead. Yeah, yeah, this is a snapshot in time and, these numbers are bound to change. But there are four nuggets in this survey that should make Chicago happy and Boston cringe.
Nugget One: “Which comes closest to your view of Barack Obama’s economic policies?”
Likely voters in all three states have a rosier view of where things are going than I’d expected when you combine the percentages of those who responded “Improving the economy and will continue to” and “Not improved, but will if given time.” In Pennsylvania, it’s 56 percent of likely voters. In Florida, it’s 55 percent. And in Ohio, it’s 54 percent.
Nugget Two: Women want Obama
The president leads among this vital constituency. In Florida, he snags 51 percent. In Ohio, he grabs 58 percent. And in Pennsylvania, Obama has the support of 59 percent of likely women voters there.
Nugget Three: Tax the “rich”
A key policy for Obama’s presidency and his reelection is the expiration of the Bush tax cuts for incomes higher than $250,000. Republicans scream class warfare and that this would be a tax increase on job creators. Unfortunately for them, their argument is losing big in those states. They are all for it in Florida (58 percent), Ohio (60 percent) and Pennsylvania (62 percent).
Nugget Four: “No difference”
The question was straightforward: “If Mr. Obama/Mr. Romney is reelected/elected, do you think his economic policies would help or hurt your financial situation?” And as Mike Barnicle said on “Morning Joe” today, the response to this question is perhaps the most devastating to the Romney campaign. “Won’t make any difference” was the response of 37 percent of likely voters in Pennsylvania and 34 percent in Ohio for both men. But in Florida, 34 percent Romney “won’t make any difference” while 36 percent said the same about Obama.
Romney has built his entire campaign around being a better steward of the economy than the president. He’s hammered Obama over the sluggish recovery, the deficits, the spending, everything. Yet, he’s not breaking through to the folks in these key battleground states. You’d think that he would at least be ahead of the president in the “Would help” category. Nope. Romney is tied with Obama on this response in Ohio (26 percent.) Romney beats Obama in Florida (31 percent to 23 percent), but “Won’t make a difference” comes out on top with 34 percent. With the margin of error plus or minus 3 percetage points, Romney’s advantage in Pennsylvania (26 percent) over Obama (23 percent) is a statistical tie.
At this moment in time in these battleground states, Romney’s economic message just isn’t getting through. And it’s because Romney has a credibility problem. I’ll explain in the next post.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------3)Tea Party-Backed Cruz Wins Texas GOP Senate Race
The Tea Party trumped the institution in Texas on Tuesday, propelling attorney Ted Cruz to an upset victory over Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst in the nationally watched Republican primary for the Lone Star State's open U.S. Senate seat.
Cruz, a 41-year-old Cuban-American who is expected to win the general election in November (Texas hasn't elected a Democrat statewide since 1994), has pledged to bring his unbending conservatism to the upper chamber. The Tea Party’s upset win is significant given the widespread rumors of its demise. But Cruz’s victory signals that the grassroots movement has not just endured but is now woven into the fabric of the Republican Party, some observers say.
In the race to replace retiring Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, Cruz defeated Dewhurst by an impressive 14 points in the runoff election for the GOP nomination.
Political observers have had their eyes on Cruz for some time, but beating a politically well-connected candidate with deep pockets in this big and expensive state at one time seemed improbable. Several factors led to Dewhurst’s downfall -- some beyond his control but many of them avoidable.
The Republican primary was originally supposed to take place in March, when Cruz’s name recognition was low and his campaign infrastructure less expansive. But a legal kerfuffle over the state’s redistricting process pushed the election to May. Dewhurst won that crowded competition by 11 points, but failed to garner above the 50 percent required to avoid a runoff. The second chance and extra time allowed Cruz, who had never before run for elected office, to introduce himself to more voters, motivate the grassroots, and attract support from big-name national figures such as former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint.
Gov. Rick Perry put his weight behind Dewhurst in the early going and appeared in ads for him in the state. His top political adviser ran the Dewhurst campaign, which might have become too big for its own good. Analysts say Dewhurst underestimated Cruz and that negative advertising meant to define his little-known opponent may have backfired by actually introducing him to more voters. Most of the Republican state senators in Texas backed Dewhurst, who has run that body since becoming lieutenant governor in 2003. In addition to his expansive political ties, the wealthy former energy company executive was well financed. According to reports, he donated $19 million of his own fortune to this campaign.
Meanwhile, Cruz got busy cultivating the grassroots and tapping local conservative activists to organize on his behalf. Observers say Cruz made himself accessible by attending forums and events, exhibited strong message discipline and managed to make retail politics work in the large state. A late-summer primary in which the heat and other distractions might have discouraged the less enthused from voting may have benefited Cruz, who was joined by Palin and DeMint at a rally attended by more than 1,000 people last weekend.
Analysts, though, say Cruz could not have won on his own. He had significant financial and organizational support from conservative groups. Club for Growth spent over $5 million on the race, including $1.5 million in the final week. Much of that money went toward running negative ads against Dewhurst. The lieutenant governor outraised and outspent Cruz, but the insurgent had enough financial help from outside groups to stay more than competitive on the air and on the ground. FreedomWorks, one of the first groups to back Cruz over a year ago, put $700,000 towards this contest. The group tapped its 100,000 members in the state, put out 125,000 door hangers, made 1 million phone calls, and enlisted people from 40 different states to place calls on behalf of Cruz.
“This was the big enchilada for us,” Brendan Steinhauser, director of federal and state campaigns for FreedomWorks, told RCP. To run a grassroots effort in such a big state signals “we can win anywhere and everywhere,” he said.
Indeed, the implications of Cruz’s victory will likely reach beyond this red state’s borders. Steinhauser says the win will energize Tea Party conservatives to be active in elections next year -- including the Virginia governor’s race -- and congressional legislative sessions. Steinhauser says activists in Tennessee and South Carolina are already talking about ways to oust prominent Sens. Lamar Alexander and Lindsey Graham, respectively, and replace them with conservatives in the mold of Cruz. Conservative groups were already successful in defeating longtime moderate Republican Sen. Dick Lugar in Indiana this year.
“The spark of the Tea Party takeover . . . will inevitably carry on to propel fiscal conservative candidates like Jeff Flake in Arizona and Josh Mandel in Ohio to victory as well,” Amanda Shell, FreedomWorks’ campaigns coordinator, said in a statement after Cruz was declared the victor.
“This race is going to have a demonstration effect,” said Jim Henson, director of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin. “It has opened up the willingness of groups to play more forcefully in the electoral arena. It’s a demonstration of how you get to the right of the incumbent” or the equivalent of an incumbent.
The Tea Party was unable to do that in Utah this year, where longtime Sen. Orin Hatch recognized his vulnerabilities early on, organized a strong campaign operation and ran to the right. The Tea Party also wasn’t able push through a viable alternative to Mitt Romney for the Republican presidential nomination. These scenarios, combined with heightened partisan gridlock on Capitol Hill, brought the movement’s strength and longevity into serious question. Cruz won the nomination the same week Ohio Republican Rep. Steve LaTourrette announced his retirement, citing unbearable congressional brinksmanship.
But risky partisan bickering doesn’t deter Tea Party and other conservative groups that believe “the motivating factor, certainly for Republicans and independents, [is] people actually want real reform and serious spending reductions,” says Steinhauser. The group is still aiming for the “hostile takeover of the Republican Party.” And the Cruz victory is “an indicator of where we are heading in the future.”
Asking whether the Tea Party is alive or not is the wrong question, says Henson. “The question is: What is the Tea Party doing and in what context? The Tea Party has been incorporated into the dynamic of Republican Party politics.” For example, an affiliated group sponsored a debate in the Cruz-Dewhurst race. “It has become part and parcel of the GOP primary process,” says Henson, who notes that that “comes with assets and liabilities.”
3a)"Chick-Fil-A Appreciation Day" Sparks Nationwide Turnout
People across the country are turning out in droves supporting 'Freedom of Speech' Appreciation Day at Chick-Fil-A restaurants. FNC's Eric Bolling conducts a phone interview with Former Governor of Arkansas, Mike Huckabee, to discuss the reasons why this issue has become so important to so many people.
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4)Obama's Body Count
By Michael Widlanski
Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton feel that Osama bin Laden's death and the drone attacks show that they have mastered national security and foreign policy. They are wrong.
4)Obama's Body Count
By Michael Widlanski
Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton feel that Osama bin Laden's death and the drone attacks show that they have mastered national security and foreign policy. They are wrong.
Counting bodies and sorties proves little. As Einstein said, "[n]ot everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts."
President Obama's term in office has left entire regions where U.S. influence has waned and U.S. interests have been defeated. Thousands protested in the Islamic world, seeking "Hope and Change," but found that it was only a cynical slogan. Millions now wonder: does America remember what it means to be "the leader of the free world"?
Obama sent an ambassador to Syria -- over Congress's express objection. Bashar Assad began slaughtering 20,000 of his people. Obama did nothing about the bloody repression in Iran, but he did help oust a far less despotic regime in Egypt, ushering in the Muslim Brotherhood -- the organization that spawned Hamas and al-Qaeda. Now Obama-Clinton pretend that the Muslim Brothers are moderates.
Secretary Clinton is often struck dumb by Arab-Islamic extremism. In 1999, she hugged Suha Arafat, wife of the PLO leader. Arafat said (in Clinton's presence) that Israel used poison gas on Arabs and poisoned their wells. Clinton was silent. Clinton, who hugged Arafat, now embraces Obama's bashing of Israel.
When an Israeli judge found that Israelis have a right to build on land bought in the West Bank, the State Department said all Israeli settlements were "illegitimate" -- a term Obama likes.
Clinton kept quiet when Egypt's Islamist foreign minister declared, in a joint press conference, that keeping the peace treaty with Israel was contingent on Israel getting out of the West Bank entirely. Clinton acquiesced when Islamist Turkey banned Israel from taking part in NATO exercises and top counter-terror forums.
Turkey helps Hamas. Israel is the world's greatest foe of terror. Clinton helps Turkey.
Clinton's sad performance is not limited to the Mid-East. She led a "reset" in ties with Russia that is now a fiasco. She unveiled a huge button ostensibly labeled "reset" in Russian but actually reading "overcharge" -- an apt depiction of the failure of U.S.-Russian ties and the Obama-Clinton foreign policy in general.
There was no reset. Russia's leaders returned to brutal autocracy, invading Georgia, threatening Ukraine and Poland, assassinating political foes, and opposing the U.S. wherever possible. But Obama-Clinton think they can charm Russia into moderation.
Obama put his arm around Dmitri Medvedev -- the puppet of Russian chief Vladimir Putin -- and confided that, after the inconvenient U.S. elections, he (Obama) would be "flexible" about Russian demands.
Obama's first major foreign venture was to Islamist Turkey, whose leader, Recep Erdoğan, dreams of leading a caliphate (like Egypt's leader Muhammad Morsi). Obama thinks Turkey's Erdoğan is a "moderate" and might mediate between the U.S. and Iran. For America's most pro-Islam president ever, this makes sense. Both Erdoğan and the ayatollahs share the dream of leading a new Islamic caliphate.
This is but a small sample of Obama-Clinton foreign policy failures. The list of successes has only bin Laden on it, and Obama should paraphrase what he just said about success: "you didn't do that by yourself" and "somebody helped you."
Obama's biggest terror test is yet to come: dealing with a terror state that wants to be a nuclear power -- Iran. During this testing period, Obama will listen to his "inner voice," his closest advisor, Valerie Jarrett, who speaks Farsi and was born in Iran.
Jarrett has also been Obama's emissary to U.S. Muslims, many of them rich Iranian donors. The day after the Iranian-aided terror attack on Israelis in Bulgaria, the White House hosted a day-long conclave with Iranian-Americans, including the leader of the National Iranian-American Council (NIAC), who said Israel invited the terror attack in order to have an excuse to attack Iran. Ms. Jarrett was featured at the event.
Later, perhaps coincidentally, The New York Times reported that a senior Obama official said the Iranian terror attack was "in retaliation for the assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists, for which Iran has blamed Israeli agents." The Times report again quoted the senior Obama official saying, "This was tit for tat."
In other words, the day after an Iranian terror attack, the White House hosted pro-Iranian groups, and a senior U.S. official adopted the Iranian narrative: "tit for tat."
As President Obama wonders what to do or -- more likely -- not to do about Iran, it is good that he has both the ear and the inner voice of Iran. As they say in Farsi, "o-ba-mah": "He is with us."
Dr. Michael Widlanski, an expert on Arab politics and communications, is the author of Battle for Our Minds: Western Elites and the Terror Threat, published by Threshold/Simon and Schuster. He was strategic affairs advisor in Israel's Ministry of Public Security and teaches at Bar Ilan University.
4a)After the Fall
By Clifford D. May
When his regime ends, will a new slaughter begin?
Call me a squish but I can’t be blasé about mass murder. The genocide carried out by the Communists in Cambodia in the 1970s, and the slaughters of Tutsis by Hutus in Rwanda in 1994, of Muslims by Serbs in Srebrenica in 1995, of Darfurians by Sudanese jihadis in recent years — these were shocking, appalling atrocities by any standard. They also were failures of American and European leadership proof that the “international community” is a fiction and that the United Nations is useless.
So when President Obama justified the intervention in Libya based on fear of a “bloodbath” — following Moammar Qaddafi’s vow to show “no mercy” to rebels in the country’s east — I was supportive. “We knew that if we waited one more day, Benghazi — a city nearly the size of Charlotte — could suffer a massacre that would have reverberated across the region and stained the conscience of the world,” Obama said.
Across the Mediterranean, many Syrian opponents of Bashar al-Assad took that to mean there was a red line the dictator would not be permitted to cross. Other Syrians argued that Obama was not sincere: that his concern for Libya derived from Europe’s thirst for oil and distaste for North African refugees. As the Syrian death toll has mounted — estimates are now near 19,000 — this interpretation has become difficult to dispute.
Western reluctance to take steps to stop Assad’s butchery created a vacuum al-Qaeda has been attempting to fill. When the U.S. was in Iraq, Assad facilitated the flow of foreign jihadi killers across his eastern border. Now the jihadis are coming home to roost — with three of Assad’s top deputies killed by a bomb on July 18.
In that, there is rough justice but not irony: The jihadis seek domination in Iraq (where al-Qaeda attacks have been rising sharply since the U.S. withdrawal), Syria, Yemen, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Mali — whatever lands they can get their bloody hands on. They will accept help from anyone who will give it. But Islamists, like Communists, are not burdened by such bourgeois sentiments as gratitude. That should have been among the key lessons we learned after helping the mujahedeen end the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.
Assad’s killing machine has been weakened and may be defeated — I can’t predict when. What can be foreseen: The day Assad falls, there will be an explosion of anger not just against him and his inner circle, but against all Alawites, his minority sect (about 12 percent of the population), and against those Christians who long ago decided that an alliance with Assad was their least-worst option. The jihadis will take the lead in this butchery — and make every effort to remain leaders thereafter. What will be the American and European response?
Former CIA analyst Bruce Riedel is among those arguing that “one of the priorities of the international community after Assad falls will be to protect the Alawite community and its allies from vengeance.” Color me dubious. After failing to take serious steps to protect Assad’s victims, we’re going to make it a “priority” to prevent revenge against those viewed as Assad’s accomplices?
On the other hand, I can’t go as far as my colleague Lee Smith, who wrote: “The idea that the Assad regime and its supporters warrant American protection simply because they are a minority group is not only strategically incoherent but immoral. . . . Does anyone believe that in the aftermath of World War II it was the role of the United States to save the Nazis and their allies from the Red Army? Of course not.”
American forces in Europe did indeed turn a blind eye not only to Soviet brutality but also as the French roughly settled scores with fellow citizens who had been cozy with German invaders. But that was then, this is now — I’m not sure the same rules apply. And there is this to consider: What would follow the slaughter of Syrian Alawites and Christians? What kind of Syria could be built on this graveyard?
Such concerns have policy implications. To stop Assad’s carnage as soon as possible requires providing material support to Syrian rebels — very carefully and probably covertly. We want our Syrian friends — we do have some — in possession of more money and guns. That will not only help them defend themselves against Assad’s troops now, it also will enhance their strength vis-à-vis other factions later. What’s more, Obama has said many times that we are at war with al-Qaeda. Surely that implies we should not permit al-Qaeda to get the upper hand — not in Syria, not in Iraq, not in Africa, not anywhere.
When the fighting is over, the last thing we should want to see is the rise of yet another strongman. A regime dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood would be no victory for freedom either.
Other outcomes can be imagined. Syria is a mosaic of ethno-religious communities. Good fences will be required to make them good neighbors. Start with Syria’s Kurds, who have been aloof from the fighting, relatively safe in their northeastern territories. In a post-Assad Syria, they’ll want substantial autonomy. They should have it within a federal Syria that guarantees minority rights — to Alawites, Christians, Druze, and other groups. Al-Qaeda won’t like that, Iran and Hezbollah won’t like that, and some in the Sunni majority won’t like it either. But those who hope to rebuild Syria as a decent country, independent and at peace within its borders, should readily grasp the benefits.
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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