How's this for apocalyptic literature.
This was written by a pastor's wife in biblical prose as a commentary of current events.It is brilliant.
And it came to pass in the Age of Insanity that the people of the land called America , having lost their morals, their initiative, and their will to defend their liberties, chose as their Supreme Leader that person known as The One.
He emerged from the vapors with a message that had no meaning; but he hypnotized the people telling them, "I am sent to save you. My lack of experience, my questionable ethics, my monstrous ego, and my association with evil doers are of no consequence. I shall save you with hope and Change. Go, therefore, and proclaim throughout the land that he who preceded me is evil, that he has defiled the nation, and that all he has built must be destroyed.
And the people rejoiced, for even though they knew not what The One would do, he had promised that it was good; and they believed.
And The One said, "We live in the greatest country in the world.
Help me change everything about it!"
And the people said, "Hallelujah! Change is good!"
Then he said, "We are going to tax the rich fat-cats."
And the people said "Sock it to them!" "And redistribute their wealth."
And the people said, "Show us the money!"
And then he said, "redistribution of wealth is good for everybody.
And Joe the plumber asked, "Are you kidding me? You're going to steal my money and give it to the deadbeats??"
And The One ridiculed and taunted him, and Joe's personal records were hacked and publicized.
One lone reporter asked, "Isn't that Marxist policy?" And she was banished from the kingdom.
Then a citizen asked, "With no foreign relations experience and having zero military experience or knowledge, how will you deal with radical terrorists?"
And The One said, "Simple. I shall sit with them and talk with them and show them how nice we really are; and they will forget that they ever wanted to kill us all!"
And the people said, "Hallelujah!! We are safe at last, and we can beat our weapons into free cars for the people!"
Then The One said "I shall give 95% of you lower taxes."
And one, lone voice said, "But 40% of us don't pay ANY taxes."
So The One said, "Then I shall give you some of the taxes the fat-cats pay!"
And the people said, "Hallelujah! Show us the money!"
Then The One said, "I shall tax your Capital Gains when you sell your homes!"
And the people yawned and the slumping housing market collapsed. and he said.
"I shall mandate employer-funded health care for every worker and raise the minimum wage. And I shall give every person unlimited healthcare and medicine and transportation to the clinics."
And the people said, "Give me some of that!"
Then he said, "I shall penalize employers who ship jobs overseas."
And the people said, "Where's my rebate check?"
Then The One said, "I shall bankrupt the coal industry and electricity rates will skyrocket!"
And the people said, "Coal is dirty, coal is evil, no more coal! But we don't care for that part about higher electric rates."
So The One said, Not to worry. If your rebate isn't enough to cover your expenses, we shall bail you out.
Just sign up with the ACORN and you troubles are over!"
Then he said, "Illegal immigrants feel scorned and slighted. Let's grant them amnesty, Social Security, free education, free lunches, free medical care, bi-lingual signs and guaranteed housing...
"And the people said, "Hallelujah!" and they made him king!
And so it came to pass that employers, facing spiraling costs and ever-higher taxes, raised their prices and laid off workers.
Others simply gave up and went out of business and the economy sank like unto a rock dropped from a cliff.
The banking industry was destroyed. Manufacturing slowed to a crawl.
And more of the people were without a means of support.
Then The One said, "I am The One- The Messiah - and I'm here to save you! We shall just print more money so everyone will have enough!"
But our foreign trading partners said unto him. "Wait a minute. Your dollar is not worth a pile of camel dung! You will have to pay more...
And The One said, "Wait a minute. That is unfair!!"
And the world said, "Neither are these other idiotic programs you have embraced.
Lo, you have become a Socialist state and a second-rate power. Now you shall play by our rules!"
Are you kidding me? You're going to steal my money and give it to the deadbeats??"
And The One ridiculed and taunted.
And the people cried out, Alas, alas!!What have we done?
But yea verily, it was too late.
The people set upon The One and spat upon him and stoned him, and his name was dung.
And the once mighty nation was no more; and the once proud people were without sustenance, shelter or hope.
And the Change The One had given them was as like unto a poison that had destroyed them and like a whirlpool that consumed all that they had built.
And the people beat their chests in despair and cried out in anguish, Give us back our nation, our pride and our hope!!
But it was too late and their homeland was no more.
You may think this is a fairy tale, but its not. Its happening RIGHT NOW.
1a)
 |
Fellow Citizen,
America the Economic Superpower is circling the drain. You can either wake up and start fighting back or kiss this great country of ours goodbye.
Ever since 1913, we’ve been fighting a losing battle to control our financial destiny. What looked like a slow decline just a few years ago has now turned into a mad rush to become a banana republic.
The root of the problem is the Federal Reserve. Its simple mission of monetary stability has been corrupted forever. Today, in broad daylight, it is devaluing the dollar, creating an unstoppable inflationary bubble and trashing the savings of everyone who relies on a fixed income.
And let’s not forget the two other culprits in this fine mess: a federal government that is utterly corrupt and a Wall Street crew that is raising the practice of greed and fraud to new heights.
You can defend yourself from all three of these evil forces. But you have to move now.
Your first move is to get your hands on my new FREE report detailing the full scope of this shocking three-way conspiracy to ruin this great country.
Only then can you start fighting back.
Do it now, before it’s too late.
Regards,
 Richard C. Young
Editor, Intelligence Report |
|
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2)As of October 7, my just-released ebook, What I Miss About America, ranked #1 in books on political leadership onAmazon. Apparently, I'm not the only one who misses the lost world of American greatness.
Word of mouth is driving the book's success, not flashy publicity campaigns. Please help spread the word to your friends, family and neighbors. When we figure out what we're missing, we'll know what we have to rebuild and restore.
Warm regards,
Stella Paul
Here's a review of What I Miss About America from American Thinker.
What I Miss About America (a book review)
by Eileen Toplansky
Humor is often used to mask pain, to give hope, and to "momentarily extract ourselves from the misfortunes of existence." In order to understand the joke, irony or satire, it is necessary to put the situation in context.
Enter Stella Paul, author of the newly published gem of an e-book entitled What I Miss About America: Reflections from the Golden Age of Hope and Change. Stella's pithy sayings capture the angst of Americans who are angry and terrified at what President Barack Hussein Obama has wrought during his first term.
A writer for American Thinker and PJ Media, Stella Paul explains in her e-book's introduction that "...ever since we entered the [Obama] Golden Age of Hope and Change in 2009, it feels as if the bounce and sparkle have left town. What's moved in is fear and all its clammy cousins, like anxiety, panic, and dread. We're afraid of the future [and we're] in debt and going broke and everybody's riled up and nervous."
Her hard-hitting aphorisms highlight Obama's continuing assault on American values. Repeatedly, he has squelched the core values, the idealism and self-reliance of Americans.
And like so many other Americans who have "had a lifelong love affair with America [Stella is] not quitting now." The stakes are simply too high.
Each of her pointed observations begins with What I Miss About America and include simple nuggets of truth. The hyperlinks are mine and are intended to remind the reader of how Obama has transformed America.
A government that doesn't push junk science, junk bonds, and TSA agents who touch your junk
A president whose background isn't more closely guarded than the formula for Coke
A dollar that's worth 100 cents and isn't signed by a tax cheat
Search and destroy missions going after enemy guerillas, not successful business executives
Kids operating lemonade stands without the SWAT team getting involved
Small business owners taking a vacation every year, and the First Lady taking fewer than 32
Energy from Shell Oil, not from taxpayer-funded shell companies like Solyndra.
A president who would never, ever bow to the Saudi king, the Chinese premier, the Japanese prime minister or the mayor of Tampa
Defense officials saying "jihad" out loud, without looking scared as a 3-year-old in a haunted house
A president outraged by defamation of America, not of Islam
When it was illegal for Congress to pass any bill over 2,699 pages or weighing more than Barney Frank
Free Speech for everyone, even Jews, Christians, and straight white males
When we begged for mercy from God, not from Chicago politicians
Writing this line without the government reading it
After thoroughly enjoying Stella Paul's e-book, I was reminded of the intrinsic message in the following classic joke of how the Jewish people "made comedy from the most discouraging situations that history put before them:
The Lord makes it known that in two weeks' time he will submerge the earth under a second GreatFlood.
Governments have different reactions:
1. The president of the United States has all savings distributed, lifts taxes, and suspends all fiscal measures.
2. The Russian government orders the distribution of all inventories of goods and declares an unlimited holiday.
3. The prime minister of Israel gives a speech in the Knesset: - 'Honorable Parliamentarians, we have just two weeks to learn to live under water.'
In the days before the Post-American President, we would all recognize the subtle humor of the joke. Optimistic Americans, purveyors of capitalism, would initiate a spurt of growth and create a way out of the impending challenge. Our leaders would lift taxes and eliminate fiscal restrictions which would result in a boon of ideas.
The Russian leaders, on the other hand, would make sure that everyone suffered equally since this is always the end result of communism. With no particular desire to tackle the problem, the "unlimited holidays" would, of course, end as mobs of distraught people overwhelmed the street and chaos ensued.
Sadly, the Israelis, knowing only too well that disaster always follows them, would decide that the impossible needed to be made possible if one were to survive.
The above scenarios were in tandem with the historical narrative of each nation. But under the 44thPresident, the enthusiasm and competitiveness that has always marked America has been squelched. In fact, Obama is most comfortable with the Marxist approach to governance. American suffering will truly begin in earnest should this man be re-elected for a second term.
Stella Paul's timely e-tome is a warning, a reminder, an alarm that America is now under constant threat. Daily, Obama chips away at our fundamental freedoms. With only a few short weeks away to the election that will truly change the course of history, Stella Paul reminds us that if Barack Obama remains in office, "there's nowhere else to go" and the American dream that has sustained so many for so long will come to an end.
Purchase What I Miss About America and pass it along to your friends, neighbors and relatives. It is an important wake-up call if you sincerely believe that "America is worth fighting for."
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3)NAACP Tries to Kill the Golden Goose
By Robert Weissberg
The last 75 years have seen remarkable civil rights progress. As Jesse Jackson would put it, African-Americans have gone from the outhouse to the White House. Foremost in this campaign has been the NAACP (and its closely aligned Legal Defense Fund). Cataloging this progress might fill an entire library.
But, successes acknowledged, like all successful, long-lived organizations, the NAACP faces what is sometimes called the March of Dimes problem (the March of Dimes once fought polio). In a nutshell, what's an organization to do after it has accomplished nearly all of its goals? (The March of Dimes turned to birth defects after helping conquer polio.)
This is hardly easy, and finding a new cause to energize the troops and sustain donations can, alas, lead to ill-advised quests. Unfortunately, this is exactly what now transpires in New York City, where the NAACP (along with multiple other civil rights organizations) has filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education claiming the two-and-half-hour multiple choice exams for two of the city's academically elite schools violates the 1964 Civil Rights Act since blacks and Hispanics are admitted far below their proportion in the city (two-thirds of the admitted students are Asian).
Here are the facts. As in all cities, New York City high schools range in academic rigor. Eight high schools limit their enrollments to the very top, and two, Stuyvesant and Bronx High School of Science, admit students solely on tests measuring verbal and mathematical skills. Critically, the exclusive use of these tough tests is legally protected by a 1971 state law, so everything else, from grades to letters of recommendation, counts for naught (the other elite schools have more leeway).
The City once tried to make these schools more racially and ethnically diverse while still upholding the law by establishing a pre-high school program limited to blacks and Hispanics. This program was ruled unconstitutional. In the 2012-13 school year, for example, only two percent of the 967 students offered admission to Stuyvesant were African-American.
So, what does the NAACP argue? These tests, it is claimed, are racially discriminatory despite the veneer of objectivity. In their words, the tests are "unjustified, [and have a] racially disparate impact." Moreover, it is asserted that these tests have never been shown to predict a student's academic potential even though many of these schools' graduates go on to distinguished careers (Attorney General Eric Holder is one such graduate). The complaint further adds that diversity suffers from an overwhelmingly white and Asian student body.
Is the NAACP still advancing the African-American civil rights agenda? A little thought will demonstrate the opposite -- if successful, this complaint will make matters worse, especially for poor blacks and Hispanics. Consider the opportunity costs, all the lawyer fees and data-collection -- money that could be better-spent on tutoring smart kids within hailing distance of passing the test. Less obvious, but perhaps of greater long-term consequence, is the tactic of beseeching unelected Washington bureaucrats to reverse laws enacted by a democratically elected state legislature. Surely if the NAACP's argument is as strong as claimed, they should lobby the state legislature in Albany, where the policy can be openly debated. After all, this is far more democratic than seeking a Washington bureaucrat's fatwa. And what if new, less sympathetic bureaucrats come into power if Romney wins? Is this any way to run education?
But ultimately of greater consequence is what can happen to the city when top academically oriented high schools are subverted by racial quotas. Clearly, despite all the rhetoric about academically talented blacks and Hispanics being deprived of an important pathway to success, the academic quality of Bronx Science and Stuyvesant will suffer, and, of the utmost importance, those now admitted thanks to quotas will not substantially benefit. It is bizarre to insist that youngsters who struggle with intermediate calculus will suddenly get smarter if put in a classroom with those anxious to move on to advanced calculus. This is learning by osmosis. If anything, stereotypes about blacks and Hispanics being challenged by tough academics will only be strengthened. These newly diversified schools may also have sacrifice advanced instruction in favor of remedial courses to boost black and Hispanic graduation rates.
Now consider the parents of those top-scoring students who just miss out being admitted to Bronx Science or Stuyvesant. Many are recent poor Asian and Russian immigrants who depend on free public schools to advance up the economic ladder, and few can pay the sky-high tuition of the city's top private schools (typically $30,000 a year or more). Nor can they afford to move to the wealthy suburbs that typically offer public education on a par with what Bronx Science or Stuyvesant offers.
The most likely scenario will be a boom in after-school tutoring (including free online instruction from such places as MIT), and when it comes time to take the SATs, nothing real will change. At most, local high schools serving these students who would have otherwise attended the elite schools will improve.
Nevertheless, the familiar pattern of Asians (and whites) out-scoring blacks and Hispanics would remain unchanged. The only upside is that the newly admitted blacks and Hispanics could claim to have attended an academically rigorous high school, but, guaranteed, they would be asked when they graduated, and this newfound prestige might then be discounted if they entered post-racial quotas (which means that those blacks and Hispanics who would have been admitted under the old system would be the big losers). In brief, blacks and Hispanics will have gained very little academically. (A similar academic disaster occurred in 1970, when open admissions were tried at the City's top universities.)
The damage gets worse. Top public schools are always a magnet for smart immigrants, who energize a city's economy. This has little to do with race or ethnicity. Every year, thousands of Caribbean and African blacks flock to New York City to take advantage of quality free education, and if the quality declines, they may go elsewhere. It is hardly an accident that Holder's immigrant family chose New York City versus, say, Detroit.
All in all, killing off top education -- even if the casualties are only a few thousand -- can have dire economic consequences for those who depend on an economically healthy city, and here's the bottom line: this disproportionally hurts poor blacks and Hispanics. New York City currently thrives financially, and the resultant tax revenue means more municipal jobs, better-funded education and social services, and a vibrant private job-creating-sector economy.
Want to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs? Kill off quality public education. And this is exactly what the NAACP is attempting to accomplish. They should find a more promising cause.
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4)Old Interview Sheds New Light on Obama's Debate Flop
By Jack Cashill
In February 2001, Julieanna Richardson, as part of an oral history on black Americans called "History Makers," interviewed Barack Obama at length.
Although the 10,000-plus-word interview offers no Eureka moments, it does help demystify Obama's debate failure and deepens the doubt that he uniquely authored his own memoir, Dreams from My Father. Kudos to attorney Barron Sawyer for bringing this interview to light.
Richardson seems to capture the 39-year-old state senator as he was -- cautious, ambitious, and more than a little vain. Given his ambitions, Obama confined his discussion to topics that would not derail his political career. When asked about his influences, for instance, he did not mention Frank Marshall Davis, his communist mentor from Hawaii, or any of the other communists and fellow travelers he cited in Dreams, like Langston Hughes, Richard Wright, W.E.B. DuBois, and Frantz Fanon.
Off the cuff, here as always, Obama did not impress. His vocabulary was pedestrian, his syntax uninteresting, his thinking more or less off-the-shelf, and his use of the phrase "you know" maddening. True, people write in a different style from how they speak, but usually not that different. The reader of Dreams had a right to expect more from "the best writer to occupy the White House since Lincoln" than this interview offers.
These limitations would not even be an issue if Obama and his acolytes acknowledged them. Before Wednesday, they did not. Based on little more than Dreams and his ability to read well, Obama supporters thought Obama a genius and did not shy from saying so. Obama shared their opinion. "I had learned as an organizer to be able to articulate a position and express myself in clear ways that served me well as a law student and, ultimately, as a lawyer as well," he told Richardson.
That talent was not exactly evident to Wednesday's debate audience. To the dispassionate observer, it never has been evident. Obama was not "off his game" in Denver. That was his game. As a student of Obama, I was not at all surprised by the outcome. I had been predicting it.
Complicating Obama's debating posture was his inability to express his truest sentiments. As he told Richardson, he had long been asking himself, "... how do we bring about more just society? You know, what are the institutional arrangements that would give people opportunity?" He had learned as a boy in Indonesia that the wealthy were not "smarter or more able" than the poor, but rather "craftier, stronger or luckier, or more ruthless."
As Obama matured, he projected what he saw in Indonesia to America and came to see that the "racism in the United States is just one expression of sort of a broader set of injustices that you see around the world." Unable to voice his core beliefs in the debate, Obama lacked a true organizing principle around which to order his thoughts. This problem will plague him in the foreign policy debate as well, perhaps even more.
The social philosophy on display in the interview did not vary much from that expressed in Dreams, at least not in content. The real difference was in tone. Absent in the interview was any hint of the anger that prompted Dinesh D'Souza to title his book on Obama The Roots of Obama's Rage. In Dreams, Obama proved particularly eloquent on the subject of angry black males, himself included. Phrases like "full of inarticulate resentments," "knotted, howling assertion of self," "unruly maleness," "unadorned insistence on respect," and "withdrawal into a smaller and smaller coil of rage" laced the book.
In Dreams, Obama recounted any number of personal racial slights as well. On one occasion a tennis coach touched Obama's skin to see if the color rubbed off -- and this in Hawaii, mind you. On another mystifying occasion, Obama barely refrained from punching out a white school chum because the kid made a sympathetic allusion to Obama's outsider status. On a few occasions, he scolded his mother for romanticizing the black experience, and then, of course, he chastised his grandmother, first in the book, and later before the world, for daring to let a black panhandler intimidate her.
It is unlikely that the real Obama ever felt this way. He told Richardson that his childhood in Hawaii was "idyllic" and that "the image that [he] had of being a black American was almost exclusively positive." He added that "all the children around me were of some mixture, and so I was not unusual or untypical in Hawaii." He mentioned not a single racial affront.
Friendly biographer David Remnick conceded that Obama "darkens the canvas" in Dreams and that many of the grievances recited were "novelistic contrivances." Biographer David Maraniss said much the same thing, telling Ben Smith of Buzzfeed that Obama falsified his bio largely to portray himself as "blacker and more disaffected" than he really was.
What neither biographer asked, however, was whether Obama darkened the canvas of his own accord. There is overwhelming evidence, in fact, that he had help. As I relate in my book, Deconstructing Obama, that evidence leads to neighborhood editor and terrorist emeritus, Bill Ayers. Skin color aside, Ayers and Obama had much in common. Both grew up in comfortable white households; attended idyllic, largely white prep schools; and have struggled to find an identity as righteous black men ever since.
"I also thought I was black," wrote Ayers only half-jokingly in his 2001 memoir, Fugitive Days. He read all the authors Obama did -- James Baldwin, Leroi Jones, Richard Wright, Malcolm X, Frantz Fanon -- and misspelled Fanon's name the same way Obama did. Just as Obama resisted "the pure and heady breeze of privilege" to which he was exposed as a child, Ayers too resisted "white skin privilege," or at least tried to.
In Fugitive Days, "rage" ruled. Ayers told of how his "rage got started" and how it evolved into an "uncontrollable rage -- fierce frenzy of fire and lava." In fact, both Ayers and Obama spoke of "rage" the way that Eskimos do of snow -- in so many varieties, so often, that they felt the need to qualify it, as Obama did when he said "impressive rage," "suppressed rage," or "coil of rage."
In the interview with Richardson, the audience sees no sign at all of the raging Obama and, for that matter, very little sign of the writer Obama. Obama told Richardson he was "a very good writer" -- he is not -- but he offered this tidbit in an academic context. He spoke not a word about the writer's craft and volunteered no information about Dreams. When Richardson offered that the book was "beautifully written." Obama stumbled around to deflect the conversation:
Yeah. Well, you know, I think that, you know, as I wrote about in the book, 'Dreams From My Father,' which is really sort of an exploration of my father and my mother and what legacy they left me, I think a lot of my early memories are sort of an almost idyllic sort of early childhood in Hawaii where there weren't many things to worry about, and I think everybody's childhood, to some degree, is like that.
Sentences like this clunker tell us why the genius Obama lost the last debate and why he will lose the next one.
4a)The Empty Chair Speaks
By Arnold Cusmariu
The consequences of being in over one's head are hilariously illustrated in the noir classic The Third Man (1949, directed by Carol Reed -- not, as some believe, Orson Welles.)
Pulp-western writer Holly Martins, arriving in post-WWII Vienna to take up a job his childhood buddy Harry Lime had promised him, is left to his own devices after Lime dies under mysterious circumstances. Needing cash and a plane ticket home, Martins agrees to deliver a lecture on the modern novel to a local cultural association.
A writer who considers Zane Grey his literary hero cannot be expected to know much about James Joyce and stream-of-consciousness techniques. Though clueless, Martins nevertheless gives it his best shot, hemming and hawing until the snobbish audience gets bored and leaves -- except for a couple of thugs in trench coats.
Now, imagine that Martins had shared the stage with a literary critic -- e.g., Joyce expert Harry Levin, taking turns to answer questions from the audience -- a town hall debate on the modern novel. It would have been apparent right away who the real thing was and who the impostor. Martins' bumbling answers would have drawn laughter.
The president did a Holly Martins in Denver.
But wait -- it's worse than that.
President Obama after nearly four years in office is supposed to know a great deal about the subject matter of the evening's debate. It should have been easy for him to assess the status of economy and explain why re-electing him would fix the problems his first-term policies had failed to fix, while claiming that Romney would make things worse.
Instead, Obama was unfocused and ill at ease; he got lost in convoluted sentences and reacted with criticisms that Romney had addressed but minutes earlier. There was a clear and distinct impression that Obama was reading off a mental teleprompter rather than going with the flow. His body language suggested arrogance and condescension.
Many explanations have been offered for the president's incompetent performance. Al Gore wiped out the little credibility he had left by suggesting the altitude was to blame. Racist excuse-mongers claimed in all seriousness that Obama couldn't match Romney's vigorous performance without coming across as an angry black man.
Once the left's blood pressure returned more or less to normal -- except maybe Chris Matthews', owing to his near-apoplectic rant -- the line of march turned to pure Marxism. Romney and the rich in general manage to win only because of immoral tactics (such as lying) against the pure-as-the-driven-snow proletariat they exploit mercilessly.
Some have noted that Romney's fast start proved difficult to counter because Obama thought the barrage of negative campaign ads had left his opponent demoralized. This point reveals an important truth: a politician slow to react in a mere debate would fare poorly in a national emergency, as demonstrated by the post-Benghazi mess.
There is a chance that Obama himself came to Denver disheartened, having realized that his Middle East policy lay in tatters. Massive failure at home and now abroad can make for a serious one-two psychological punch. Maybe Obama performed poorly because it dawned on him that his presidency has been an utter failure. Hmmm...nah.
My own explanation why the president showed up to take the equivalent of a final exam unprepared is simple: he entered the White House as the most unprepared president in over a century and has stayed that way. His natural abilities are far more limited than Americans were led to believe, preventing him from learning much on the job.
On the first point, there's no need to go over the credentials of Obama's predecessors in any detail. The responsibilities that readied politicians from Teddy Roosevelt to George W. Bush for the highest office in the land are well-known. By comparison, Obama's stint as state legislator and his brief tenure in the Senate were utterly inadequate preparation.
On the second point, much has been made of Obama's allegedly stellar career at Harvard Law School, his election as president of the school's Law Review, and his constitutional law lectureship. Few bothered to see (let alone say) the obvious: Obama's academic fast track was due primarily to his status as an affirmative action candidate.
Let's face it: the University of Chicago and other elite law schools were under intense pressure to add underrepresented minorities to their faculties. Obama's offer to teach a course on race and law met a need. Politics is no different. As Joe Biden blurted out: "I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy ... that's a storybook, man."
Were some influential Democrats so enraged after the Denver fiasco that they entertained suicidal thoughts of asking Obama to step down? I'm sure of it. I'm just as sure they realized they had no alternative but to keep going ("Forward."), learn lessons from the first debate, and apply them to the next round at Hofstra University on 16 October.
- Democrats miscalculated badly in allowing a pampered amateur to wing it against a competent and experienced opponent who is able to hit the ground running. Obama will undergo extensive coaching this time, which means Governor Romney must prepare even more thoroughly.
- Without the teleprompter, Obama is lost. We can expect human versions thereof among members of the town hall audience, planted there to keep the president on message or remind him when he forgets something important. Team Romney must try somehow to minimize the number of Obama acolytes in the crowd.
- Moderator Candy Crowley from CNN is less likely than Jim Lehrer to let go of the reins. As part of the MSM faithful genuflecting before The Anointed One, she will try to stack the deck against Romney. With millions of women watching, the governor cannot afford to alienate Crowley. Charm and humor are called for.
- Topics not raised during the first debate, such as Bain Capital, the 47% miscue, and personal investments and taxes paid, are bound to come up. Romney should simply admit mistakes and challenge Obama to do the same. If the president declines, Romney must have a list ready. There are plenty of mistakes to choose from.
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- 5)
| IDF: The Logistic Failures Will Not Be Repeated |
"In the 2nd Lebanon War, we had sufficient logistics supplies and food, but
they did not always reach the troops on the ground," says the head of the
IDF Logistics Branch, Brig. Gen. Itzik Cohen. "We are now prepared to
transfer supplies by air, land and sea"
The Logistic Failures Will Not Be Repeated
By Amir Rapaport
In July 2006, IDF troops operating in southern Lebanon near the end of the
Second Lebanon War were looking for any way to quench their thirst. In an
attempt to satiate this thirst, the troops drank stagnant water out of
storage containers owned by Lebanese civilians, and even looted soft drinks
from local stores. Any water bottle obtained was consumed immediately.
Dehydration was only one problem in a long series of logistic failures
throughout the Second Lebanon War.
"During the Second Lebanon War, there was no shortage of logistic items,"
says Brigadier General Itzik Cohen, the head of the Logistics Branch at the
IDF's Technological & Logistics Directorate, in a special interview with
IsraelDefense. "We had sufficient inventories of food, water, and
ammunition. The problem was that the items did not reach the forces that
needed them."
Brig. Gen. Cohen is familiar with southern Lebanon. He grew up in Moshav
Avivim, located right near the border. When he was seven years old, he was
severely injured in a shooting attack when terrorists ambushed a bus
carrying schoolchildren from the Moshav. Twelve schoolchildren and guardians
were killed in the incident. To this day, Cohen has shrapnel embedded in his
face. Despite this injury, Cohen eventually began his service in the IDF as
a soldier in the Golani Infantry Brigade, and subsequently advanced to
senior positions in the IDF's logistics layout.
In the event of another war in Lebanon, will things be any different?
"Yes," Cohen says emphatically.
The Failures of the Second Lebanon War
In an attempt to analyze the failures of IDF logistics during the Second
Lebanon War, Brig. Gen. Itzik Cohen points out that the Logistics Branch he
currently heads was disbanded only a few months prior to the war.
In the summer of 2006, the IDF disbanded the divisional logistic groups that
were responsible for resupplying combat divisions. As in past wars, the
operations of the divisional logistic groups was cumbersome, often got lost,
and even mistakenly overtook armored columns or blocked important advance
routes.
Another problem encountered during the Second Lebanon War was the failure of
combat logistics – the forces on the ground advanced faster than the rate at
which the logistic routes breached for them were laid. The food and water
carried by combat troops for one or two days of combat operations was
consumed long before supplies were delivered to them – if such deliveries
were even made. Not to mention, the attempts to deliver supplies using ATVs
and llamas – South American beasts of burden – were unsuccessful.
The issue of logistics, so it seemed, was of low priority for commanders,
and the result was reports of hungry and thirsty troops deep inside hostile
territory. In dire need of supplies, C-130 Hercules transporters paradropped
supplies to the forces on the ground in SAM-infested areas. This dangerous
operation put the pilots, aircraft, and equipment at risk. In some cases,
the equipment was not dropped close enough to the IDF combat elements. In
other incidents, equipment was dropped directly into the hands of Hezbollah.
According to Brig. Gen. Itzik Cohen, as part of the lessons from the war,
not only did the IDF reestablish the GHQ Logistics Branch, but also
resurrected the divisional logistic units (although in a reduced format
compared to the divisional logistic groups disbanded prior to 2006). Each
divisional logistic group now has 700-800 vehicles, compared to 1,200
vehicles used in the old divisional groups.
"After the Second Lebanon War, a structured process of drawing lessons and
conclusions was put into effect. Maj. Gen. Dan Biton led this effort, first
as head of the IDF GHQ Doctrine & Training Directorate, and subsequently as
head of the Technological & Logistics Directorate," explains Cohen.
A few months after the Second Lebanon War, the port of Ashdod in southern
Israel was closed for a month to unload equipment and ammunition delivered
to Israel to raise inventory levels, which had been mostly below the red
line prior to the outbreak of hostilities.
"I estimate that 90% of the lessons of the war have been addressed very
effectively. For example, following the war, operational competence indices
were set for all of the logistic units, as was previously the norm only in
the IAF. These indices are based on such criteria as the training standards
of the forces, equipment quality, inventory levels, and more. In most units
today, the level of competence is around 90%. Contrary to the practice that
prevailed until 2006, in order to go below the red line, even for one
specific item, the express authorization of an officer at the rank of
general is required. Without such express authorization, no equipment may be
issued from emergency inventories.
"We have covered a lot of ground with regards to the equipment of the
reservist units as well. We are currently in the process of completing the
replacement of personal gear and war-like stores in all units. Soldiers will
never again arrive at the front lines without suitable gear.
"Most importantly, following the war, the Logistics Corps was removed from
the responsibility of the Ground Forces Branch (to which it had been
subordinate a short while before) and once again, became subordinate to the
GHQ Logistics Directorate. In addition, we established unified
responsibility in the field of logistics – from the GHQ to the level of the
individual soldier.
"Beyond that, the logistics issue was incorporated in all IDF operational
plans. Today, no plan is drawn and no exercise is conducted without fully
incorporating logistics planning. During the Second Lebanon War, many IDF
commanders did not consider logistic issues a part of their responsibility,
mainly because they had become accustomed, over many years of low intensity
combat operations in the territories, to a state where logistics support was
delivered to them, all the way to the end units on the ground. Now, IDF
commanders understand that as part of conducting combat operations, they
must be responsible for logistic supplies on the ground, and that without
logistics, their combat operations cannot be continued.”
What about opening logistic routes? Assuming that the rate of advance of the
(combat) forces is faster than the rate at which the routes are opened, how
will you deliver supplies to the ground forces?
"Today we have options of delivering supplies through aerial, land, and
naval routes,” says Cohen. Though he did not wish to go into further detail,
Cohen relates that a major share of the developments initiated by the IDF
GHQ Technology & Logistics Directorate were intended to re-supply the forces
through airlifting. Examples include the Flying Elephant project, a
GPS-based unmanned paraglider undergoing development at Elbit Systems,
portable water purification systems for forces in the field, and fire-proof
diesel containers, which will be able to accompany tanks and bulldozers in
combat, if necessary.
In the event of another war against Lebanon, logistics centers will endure
heavier fire than that in 2006. How are you preparing for this?
"We understand that the threat has changed and that the fire we took in 2006
was only a sample compared to what we can expect in the event of another
war, so we made the necessary adjustments.
"Among other things, we are conducting call-up exercises for reserve units
under the assumption that the process will take place under heavy fire. We
provided protection to the mobilization centers, dispersed our equipment and
inventories throughout the country, and trained the logistics personnel to
fight under fire. A part of our concept is to disperse the command posts as
well. Each logistics command post that may come under attack has an
alternative command post.
"Additionally, based on the assumption that the roads will come under fire,
we developed a comprehensive command plan for the routes in cooperation with
the Israeli Police, the Ministry of Transportation, the IDF Homefront
Command, and other elements. Generally, the Technological & Logistics
Directorate is fully responsible for the logistics of the IDF Homefront
Command, and far-reaching changes were made in this field as well, based on
the lessons learned from the Second Lebanon War."
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6)
Reporter Lara Logan brings ominous news from Middle East
BY LAURA WASHINGTON
This was no ordinary rubber chicken affair. That was my reaction to the extraordinary keynoter at Tuesday’s Better Government Association annual luncheon.
Lara Logan, a correspondent for CBS’ “60 Minutes,” delivered a provocative speech to about 1,100 influentials from government, politics, media, and the legal and corporate arenas. Such downtown gatherings are a regular on Chicago’s networking circuit. (I am a member of the BGA’s Civic Leadership Committee, and the Chicago Sun-Times was a sponsor).
Her ominous and frightening message was gleaned from years of covering our wars in the Middle East. She arrived in Chicago on the heels of her Sept. 30 report, “The Longest War.” It examined the Afghanistan conflict and exposed the perils that still confront America, 11 years after 9/11.
Eleven years later, “they” still hate us, now more than ever, Logan told the crowd. The Taliban and al-Qaida have not been vanquished, she added. They’re coming back.
“I chose this subject because, one, I can’t stand, that there is a major lie being propagated . . .” Logan declared in her native South African accent.
The lie is that America’s military might has tamed the Taliban.
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