Dick Berkowitz, has written a booklet entitled:"A Conservative Capitalist Offers: Eleven Lessons and a Bonus Lesson for Raising America's Youth Born and Yet To Be Born."
By Dick Berkowitz - Non Expert
Dick wrote this booklet because he believes a strong country must rest on a solid family unit and that Brokaw's "Greatest Generation" has morphed into "A Confused, Dependent and Compromised Generation."
He hopes this booklet will provide a guide to alter this trend.
You can now order a .pdf version from www.brokerberko.com/book that you can download and read on your computer, or print out if you want. Cost is $5.99
In several weeks the book will be available in soft cover format at a cost of $10.99.
Booklet illustrations were by his oldest granddaughter, Emma Darvick, who lives and works in New York.
Testimonials:
Dick, I read your book this weekend. I hardly know where to start. You did an excellent job of putting into one short book a compendium of the virtues which only a relatively short time ago all Americans believed. It’s a measure of how far we have fallen that many Americans, perhaps a majority of Americans, no longer believe in what we once considered truisms. I think your father would have agreed with every word, but the party he supported no longer has such beliefs.
I would like to buy multiple copies of your booklet..
You did a great job. I know your parents would have been proud and that your family today is proud.
Mike
You wrote a great book. The brevity is one of its strong points and I know it was hard to include that in and still keep it brief. Your father in haste once wrote an overly long letter to our client, then said in the last sentence, “I’m sorry I wrote such a long letter, but I didn’t have time to write a short one.”
"Dick, I indeed marvel at how much wisdom you have been able to share with so few words. Not too unlike the experience in reading the Bible. I feel that with each read of "A Conservative Capitalist Offers:…." one will gain additional knowledge and new insights…
Regards, Larry"
Dick ,
Your book is outstanding! Due to illness, I've been unable to read it in entirety until today .Your background is often very similar to mine (e.g. Halliburton's influence was very important in my life), and your thoughts reflect very closely the the teachings that I received from my parents and granddad. I will write a more detailed statement in the near future!
All the best, Bob
Your book is outstanding! Due to illness, I've been unable to read it in entirety until today .Your background is often very similar to mine (e.g. Halliburton's influence was very important in my life), and your thoughts reflect very closely the the teachings that I received from my parents and granddad. I will write a more detailed statement in the near future!
All the best, Bob
Regarding your booklet, I have begun to read it and look forward to finishing it this weekend. Congrats on getting it published and on the great reviews. I know how much this booklet means to you and how important getting this message out to the public is.
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This from one of my best friends and fellow memo reader.
Two bright men respond to double standards.
Tom Sowell: " If you truly believe in the brotherhood of man, then you must believe that blacks are just as capable of being racists as whites are."
Dennis Prager: "If a conservative, evangelical Christian candidate for national office said that he defined himself by his religious beliefs, liberals would be screaming that the wall between church and state was in danger of being taken down."
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Tonight Obama was his feisty self and he persisted in defining Romney with falsehoods and mis-characterizations. That is Obama's fall back strategy and style in view of his disappointing accomplishments.Worked for a while but no longer.
Obama answers a question by expanding broad brush commentary that tangentially connects to the question leaving very little time to answer the actual question asked. He had no ability to resolve the Libyan issue and he was less than honest about his energy policies among other comments.
Romney held his own but missed some responses that would have scored points specifically with respect to the president's time sequences regarding Libya.
As for Crowley, she did what her motherly instinct called for - she misspoke in Obama's favor, gave him about 10% more clock time and stopped Romney several times from finishing his thoughts but then we knew to be prepared for that. This is not sour grapes because Romney did fine but it is a fact of life that is ruining our sense of national balance .
Nothing sweet and soft about Candy just an old jaw breaker type.(See 1, 1a, 1b and 1c below.)
Furthermore, I submit if Obama will lie to the Americans regarding Libya what must the Israeli's be thinking regarding Obama and Iran?
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The SIRC has taken upon itself to set forth some myths on a variety of topics and then respond. As a board member I chose foreign policy. This is what I have written. (See 2 below.)
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Walter Williams' thinking is anathema to liberals and progressives because he contradicts their views. The problem is further exacerbated by the fact that Williams is more right than wrong.
It is the Thomases, Williams', Sowell's, Cosby's and Marcuses black Americans should be listening to and following not the Obama's and other Democrat slave drivers. (See 3 below.)
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Fordo it is. (See 4 below.)
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Dick
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1)Once Biden, Twice Barack
By William L. Gensert
Let's face it, how can you improve on perfection? And make no mistake, Romney's shellacking of Barack the King in the first debate was perfection. Obama minions in the press couldn't spin abysmal failure -- maybe that would have been possible for moderate failure, but with the spectacularly horrible performance the President turned in on October 3rd, it was impossible. In the end, almost the only person in America who thought Obama won was Barack Obama -- and that in itself says a lot.
I guess you had to read the transcript.
The questions in this debate were different -- pay equity, gun control and immigration played prominent roles. It almost didn't sound like these were undecided voters -- perhaps disappointed voters instead. Which I suppose is the best you'll do in New York City and its environs. Yet, despite finally having things comfortably within his pay grade, Obama in many respects was no better than the first time.
He lost the first debate on style. He lost this one on content.
Obama improved style-wise, but to paraphrase Dennis Green, he was who we thought he was. His body language was a mess -- often sitting as if he needed the rest, while the older Romney, stood easily.
And a smirk is a smirk even if it is not accompanied by scarily white teeth.
Later, when he could feel victory slipping away he often looked down during answers. Yet, no longer in a coma, the President was much better. Obama thought he won the first debate, but by the look on his face throughout the entire evening, I would wager, he knows he lost this one.
Romney's strategy in their first mix-up was to show the nation who he was and who Obama was. It was a thorough debunking of the image Obama had spent a half billion in advertising dollars to create -- that he was a greedy, businessman, stealing from the poor to reward the 1 %. But it also served to show the world that the myth of 'Barack the messiah' was just that -- myth, and nothing more.
This debate was about letting Barack be Barack, a man so deeply buried in the Barack bubble, that he doesn't realize platitudes are not enough. No one is going to vote for hope and change this time around. And Obama spent the night alternately defending or bragging about the last 4 years, without ever presenting a template for the next 4. Many Americans are coming to the conclusion that Barack Obama is simply not that bright. Despite his reputation for brilliance, when asked for his ideas, he had none.
It didn't start out well for Romney, he ducked the first question from a student about the availability of employment after college, by basically saying he knows what it takes to create jobs, whereas Obama lawyerly listed a litany of potential jobs in green energy, manufacturing and infrastructure.
"I know what it takes" is no more a plan than "hope and change."
As a former boxer (1976 Golden Gloves), I thought I recognized what Romney was doing -- he was trying to see what Obama had. Or maybe he was just nervous, but he gave Obama the first round. Thereafter, it was all Romney. Romney attacked Obama and his record with ease and effectiveness -- sticking and moving, sticking and moving. He challenged him face to face, but with respect for the champ, while Obama clearly had no respect for him.
Romney killed on energy, at one point, asking the President a direct question on drilling, which forced Obama to sit down. To know the significance of this, watch the moment with the sound off. It's a standing 8 count.
Obama was all hot air and light of day on energy and the only green people saw was the color of his face while listening to Romney's case for realizing America's energy potential.
Romney battered Obama on taxes and his broken promises and failed policies. The last half hour saw a defeated Obama just trying to finish the fight on his feet. With his whole plan of presenting Romney as the mad man across the water, lying in shambles, Obama lost by decision. After a few more questions, it would have been by a KO.
Crowley tried to help. After all, what is the point of being bought and paid for if you don't at least try? But, overall, she couldn't. She picked the questions she thought would allow the President to shine, but a pig is still a pig despite the lipstick.
Crowley may have thought she was helping the President by saying he called the death of our Ambassador to Libya a terrorist attack from the beginning, but her legalistic parsing of what the President actually said in the aftermath of the Stevens' assassination will only remind voters of Clinton, famously questioning what the definition of "is" is.
Romney's reminder that Obama went to Vegas to campaign after he knew of Chris Stevens' murder was priceless. Obama and Crowley looked like they were one second away from crying in their beers.
In any case, her stutteringly shoddy defense will serve to make many, who weren't paying attention before, pay attention now, and that's not good for a man proud of leading from behind.
Obama has spent a lifetime surrounded by people who think as much of him as he does. There isn't anyone to tell him the truth, but I suspect after this debate, he knows the truth. "They" will call it a win, but the President knows he lost. One need only have looked at his face during the proceedings.
Never a detail-oriented wonk -- more of a big idea guy -- Obama was ineffective against someone with numbers and policies. "Hope' may sound good in a speech, but how many times can you say it in a debate?
For 3 ½ years, and indeed longer, Barack the messiah was so revered and worshipped in the media that the press were willing to shed the dignity of impartiality to support him and burnish 'Obama the myth,' never questioning or disagreeing -- or even mentioning the foolish things he did or silly things he said.
The natural progression from myth to god eluded Barack Obama -- and this angers him. He wanted an unexpected and unprecedented victory of historic proportions (to Barack, et al. all things are unexpected, unprecedented and historic), and unexpectedly, without precedence he lost by historic proportions. And unlike the first debate, the President realizes he lost.
It wasn't even close.
1a)Romney Wins the Three-Way Debate at Hofstra
By Janice Shaw Crouse
Not only did President Obama come into the second presidential debate more aggressive and prepared, but he brought a secret weapon -- the moderator, Candy Crowley. At two pivotal moments, Ms. Crowley, typically a relatively fair reporter, showed her bias and changed the course of the debate.
First, she backed up Mr. Obama's assertion that he had called the attacks at Benghazi a "terrorist attack" in a Rose Garden event on the day after the tragedy. (After the debate, she reversed her assessment and stated that she was in error.) Second, she consistently let Obama stay two minutes ahead of Mr. Romney in terms of time, and at the end of the debate, Obama had a full three-minute advantage. In addition, at the end of the debate, Crowley gave Obama the last two minutes for a peroration where he gave new arguments (including the "47 percent") without fear of rebuttal.
Further, throughout the debate, Crowley thanked Obama for his remarks with a very deferential "Thank you, Mr. President"; she merely turned away from Romney at the end of his time. Thus, the town hall-style format ended up being a three-way debate, with Romney facing two opponents.
Even against those odds, Romney came away the winner. Obama improved his performance and clearly was more engaged in the second debate, but at best, he tied Romney on content and lost significantly on delivery and style.
In the debate training sessions prior to the second debate, Obama's team worked to make him more aggressive and willing to confront Romney, while the Romney team worked to get their candidate to be empathetic, to show the dramatic differences between the two men, and to clarify the critical choice facing voters in just three weeks. Obviously, Obama learned his lessons well: he was aggressive and confrontational. Likewise, Romney presented the choice facing voters in clear and unequivocal terms and with an empathetic manner toward the audience and a respectful tone toward the president -- even though he pointed out their differences quite aggressively. Romney spoke in a low-pitched tone of voice, seemed in control, and appeared level-headed as he hammered home the president's dismal record over and over again and constantly brought the focus back to unemployment, the unprecedented accumulation of debt, the frightening increases in the deficit, and the need for job-creation and a simplified tax code.
As the two candidates for president entered the debate, Romney had the wind at his back; Romney's poll numbers are surging, and he is the man with momentum, while Obama is struggling.
Pundits agreed that it was a make-or-break event for the president. In that sense, Obama did well; he did not turn in another abysmal performance. He was prepared and seemed confident; he had his usual rapport with the audience and seemed energetic and focused. His high-pitched voice, though, revealed his tension, anger, and lack of control; he came across as whiny and touchy. His constant refrain accusing Romney of lying was annoying, especially when accompanied by his air of superiority and condescension. In contrast, Romney pointed out several areas where the two candidates agreed, and even when they passionately disagreed, Romney was respectful of the president.
The media kept talking in the run-up to the debate about the necessity for the president to "bring women home" from their defection to Romney after the first debate. So the two men spent an inordinate amount of time talking about women. The tone and confrontational manner of the second debate, though, was not female-friendly and defeated any attempt to draw women to anyone's side. Romney did score points, however, by pointing out that in the past four years, over 580,000 women have lost jobs, and 3.5 million more women are in poverty. The two candidates physically invaded each other's space and directly contradicted each other to the point of discomforting the immediate audience as well as those viewing on television.
Obama continued his hackneyed attacks on Romney, calling him a hypocrite and a liar over and over again. He repeatedly echoed the phrase "What Mr. Romney just said isn't true." He also continued the race and class warfare that has characterized his campaign -- and indeed, his administration -- to the effect that Romney favors the rich over the middle class and disdains the poor. Romney, for his part, continued to focus on the fact that Obama's policies have "crushed the middle class" and that his experience throughout his business and political career has proven that he knows how to turn bad economic circumstances around.
Obama was never able to adequately defend his record, nor did he present a vision or plan for his second term that would reverse the dismal litany of failures that Romney cited in a long monologue that detailed specific ways in which Obama's policies have led to crushing the middle class.
While the candidates have pointedly avoided discussing the social issues, Romney directly addressed the connection between the breakdown of the family and the nation's cultural problems, including the current economic crisis. He talked passionately about the need for children to have a mom-and-dad family and the necessity for cultural changes in order to curb the violence that plagues the nation.
In summary, on content the candidates tied, having an equal number of points in their favor. But the president needed to dominate the debate; instead, he merely held his own, and with his high-pitched, whiny voice and condescending manner, he lacked Romney's gravitas. Mr. Romney was more presidential than the man who has held the office for four years -- even when it was a three-way debate.
Janice Shaw Crouse, Ph.D. is a former presidential speechwriter (Bush 41), and her doctoral dissertation analyzed the Carter-Ford presidential debates. She is a spokeswoman for the Concerned Women for American Legislative Action Committee.
1b)Leaks, Lies, and Libya: How Not to Inform a Nation
By Larry Bailey
While the current administration has strayed far from Barack Obama's 2008 campaign promise that it would be the most transparent government in history, nothing so points to its failure to keep that promise as have events of the past two years.
Starting with the killing of Osama bin Laden in May 2011, the Obama administration has, in a very real sense, "informed" Americans of current events via selective and random leaks (many of them apparently unintentional). For example, on the day after the bin Laden mission, both the president and the vice president identified SEAL Team 6 as the unit executing the mission.
One might call this a "leak in plain sight," but a leak it was, carrying with it every negative connotation in the word. From the perspective of my military mind, the identification of a specific unit as responsible for the death of bin Laden should, if it ever happened at all, have been the result of intelligence-gathering of the highest order on the part of America's al-Qaeda enemy. That information surely should not have been provided "free of charge" by the nation's commander-in-chief.
What damage, one asks, did the release of that information cause to the national defense? One of the principal elements of information on the enemy, I was always taught, was the identification of the unit with which one was in closest contact (the technical term for this is "order of battle"). This is the most important element of the quintessential "know-your-enemy" adjuration. Armed with this gem of knowledge, one is enabled to exact revenge upon or counter future attacks by an enemy.
How does this apply to SEAL Team 6? Simple -- al-Qaeda now does not have to spend the time or to expend the resources required to ferret out information about who killed its leader. In fact, it is a safe bet that even now, its planners are devising ways to exact revenge against the SEALs and their families. In my view, it is only a matter of time before these brave men and their loved ones become targets of international Islamic terror.
A second discouraging element concerning the events surrounding the bin Laden mission was President Obama's claiming of virtually all the credit for the execution of the mission ("I directed the secretary of defense...," "I directed SEAL Team 6...," etc.). The penalty for Obama's "spiking the football" as he took credit for the bin Laden raid will, of course, be assessed on others.
Recent insider accounts of the planning of the raid indicate that Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and the Joint Chiefs of Staff virtually ignored Obama when the time came to order the SEALs into action. At least two sources claim that he was playing golf when the raid was launched and that he was brought into the White House Situation Room and told of the mission only after the SEALs' task force had crossed into Pakistani airspace.
Why was Obama not apprised of the launching of the raid? According to those same sources, it was because Valerie Jarrett, Obama's most trusted adviser, had on three previous occasions convinced the president not to launch an attack against bin Laden's compound, despite certain knowledge that he was "at home" and vulnerable. Secretary Panetta and his inner circle clearly understood that Obama would probably never authorize the attack.
This situation mirrored that of the Maersk Alabama incident, in which that ship's captain, Richard Phillips, was being held hostage by three armed pirates in a Maersk Alabama lifeboat. It was only the assessment of the situation by all the on-scene U.S. personnel, the initiative of the commanding officer of the USS Bainbridge, and the marksmanship of the SEAL snipers aboard her that saved the life of Captain Phillips.
The White House was, fortunately for Captain Phillips, kept out of the moment-to-moment decision-making process. The military was beginning to learn that Obama and his minions could not be depended on when crunch-time came, so they acted.
Nevertheless, Obama clearly snatched as much glory unto himself as he thought he could get away with in the aftermath of the Maersk Alabama incident, despite the fact that he was not involved in any of the decision-making that led to the successful conclusion of the standoff.
A more recent example of the Obama style of leadership is that of the events surrounding the September 11 attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya. So many lies have been told by administration figures, including the president himself, that the truth is becoming known only through Obama's other signature method of crisis management: leaks.
Almost without exception, official utterances concerning the attack have been false or, at best, misleading. When it became known that the U.S. ambassador to Libya and three other Americans had been killed, the first description of the incident contended that the assault was simply the overreaction of a mob protesting a Mohammed-denigrating video. Obama himself stated that this was the case.
It took the better part of a month, but gradually the truth became clear: the assault on the consulate was carried out on the eleventh anniversary of 9/11 by a Libyan offshoot of al-Qaeda. The assault was planned and executed with that date in mind, as has become increasingly apparent from unofficial sources within the Department of State and the U.S. intelligence community. In fact, there was no mob outside the consulate; the attack was a discrete event arising from nothing but hatred against America.
So here we have the irony of leaked information providing an accurate account of how four Americans were sacrificed to the ineptitude of an administration that refused numerous requests by both the State Department and military personnel in Libya for a greater security presence in that chaotic country.
Jennifer Rubin, writing in the Washington Post on October 12, sums up the Benghazi situation nicely: "The Libya debacle is not merely a case of inadequate security. It is a case of willful blindness to the progress of al-Qaeda in a locale that the Obama team had boasted was a grand success for its "leading from behind" strategy. The administration, despite every available bit of evidence, continued to cling to a false narrative, and to repeat that narrative to the public, because it refused to recognize that Libya was a terrorist victory, not a U.S. success story."
Finally, and unbelievably, Americans are now being "treated" to a blatantly political movie, SEAL Team SIX: The Raid on bin-Laden (or The Raid), that blends lies and leaks into a deadly combination of political deception. The team writing and shooting the movie, working under the leadership of Obama sycophant/bundler Harvey Weinstein, was granted unprecedented access to highly classified information in the making of The Raid. This reportedly included viewing intelligence documents and interviewing SEALs who were on the raid itself.
That such a paean to America's "Dear Leader" is being shown on national television (the National Geographic Channel) two days prior to the election is clearly no accident. It is, however, a predictable result of how Obama uses "information" -- an admixture of truth, lies, and leaks -- to produce a desirable political result.
One has every reason to suspect that the movie will be both a witches' brew of political puffery and a confirmation of the observation that Barack Obama will stop at nothing to indulge his narcissism -- and to promote his re-election on November 6.
One can only hope that the American public will recognize "The Raid" for what it is -- electioneering at the expense of truth.
-Larry Bailey, Captain (SEAL), USN (Ret.
The United States condemns in the strongest terms this outrageous and shocking attack. We’re working with the government of Libya to secure our diplomats. I’ve also directed my administration to increase our security at diplomatic posts around the world. And make no mistake, we will work with the Libyan government to bring to justice the killers who attacked our people.
Since our founding, the United States has been a nation that respects all faiths. We reject all efforts to denigrate the religious beliefs of others. But there is absolutely no justification to this type of senseless violence. None. The world must stand together to unequivocally reject these brutal acts.
Already, many Libyans have joined us in doing so, and this attack will not break the bonds between the United States and Libya. Libyan security personnel fought back against the attackers alongside Americans. Libyans helped some of our diplomats find safety, and they carried Ambassador Stevens’s body to the hospital, where we tragically learned that he had died.
It’s especially tragic that Chris Stevens died in Benghazi because it is a city that he helped to save. At the height of the Libyan revolution, Chris led our diplomatic post in Benghazi. With characteristic skill, courage, and resolve, he built partnerships with Libyan revolutionaries, and helped them as they planned to build a new Libya. When the Qaddafi regime came to an end, Chris was there to serve as our ambassador to the new Libya, and he worked tirelessly to support this young democracy, and I think both Secretary Clinton and I relied deeply on his knowledge of the situation on the ground there. He was a role model to all who worked with him and to the young diplomats who aspire to walk in his footsteps.
Along with his colleagues, Chris died in a country that is still striving to emerge from the recent experience of war. Today, the loss of these four Americans is fresh, but our memories of them linger on. I have no doubt that their legacy will live on through the work that they did far from our shores and in the hearts of those who love them back home.
Of course, yesterday was already a painful day for our nation as we marked the solemn memory of the 9/11 attacks. We mourned with the families who were lost on that day. I visited the graves of troops who made the ultimate sacrifice in Iraq and Afghanistan at the hallowed grounds of Arlington Cemetery, and had the opportunity to say thank you and visit some of our wounded warriors at Walter Reed. And then last night, we learned the news of this attack in Benghazi.
As Americans, let us never, ever forget that our freedom is only sustained because there are people who are willing to fight for it, to stand up for it, and in some cases, lay down their lives for it. Our country is only as strong as the character of our people and the service of those both civilian and military who represent us around the globe.
1c) Here’s why Candy Crowley was out of line.
The United States condemns in the strongest terms this outrageous and shocking attack. We’re working with the government of Libya to secure our diplomats. I’ve also directed my administration to increase our security at diplomatic posts around the world. And make no mistake, we will work with the Libyan government to bring to justice the killers who attacked our people.
Since our founding, the United States has been a nation that respects all faiths. We reject all efforts to denigrate the religious beliefs of others. But there is absolutely no justification to this type of senseless violence. None. The world must stand together to unequivocally reject these brutal acts.
Already, many Libyans have joined us in doing so, and this attack will not break the bonds between the United States and Libya. Libyan security personnel fought back against the attackers alongside Americans. Libyans helped some of our diplomats find safety, and they carried Ambassador Stevens’s body to the hospital, where we tragically learned that he had died.
It’s especially tragic that Chris Stevens died in Benghazi because it is a city that he helped to save. At the height of the Libyan revolution, Chris led our diplomatic post in Benghazi. With characteristic skill, courage, and resolve, he built partnerships with Libyan revolutionaries, and helped them as they planned to build a new Libya. When the Qaddafi regime came to an end, Chris was there to serve as our ambassador to the new Libya, and he worked tirelessly to support this young democracy, and I think both Secretary Clinton and I relied deeply on his knowledge of the situation on the ground there. He was a role model to all who worked with him and to the young diplomats who aspire to walk in his footsteps.
Along with his colleagues, Chris died in a country that is still striving to emerge from the recent experience of war. Today, the loss of these four Americans is fresh, but our memories of them linger on. I have no doubt that their legacy will live on through the work that they did far from our shores and in the hearts of those who love them back home.
Of course, yesterday was already a painful day for our nation as we marked the solemn memory of the 9/11 attacks. We mourned with the families who were lost on that day. I visited the graves of troops who made the ultimate sacrifice in Iraq and Afghanistan at the hallowed grounds of Arlington Cemetery, and had the opportunity to say thank you and visit some of our wounded warriors at Walter Reed. And then last night, we learned the news of this attack in Benghazi.
As Americans, let us never, ever forget that our freedom is only sustained because there are people who are willing to fight for it, to stand up for it, and in some cases, lay down their lives for it. Our country is only as strong as the character of our people and the service of those both civilian and military who represent us around the globe.
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2) Myth on Foreign Policy: More friendliness and diplomacy are the
By Dick Berkowitz
President Obama began his first year in office convinced (and indeed he campaigned on the theme)
that President Bush portrayed a sense of belligerence that was conducive to enraging our alleged
foes. Obama’s counter to that was a world tour that tried to reset our relationships.
He also apologized for using waterboarding on a few al-Qaeda captives, and promised we would
never use that form of “torture” again. He also vowed to close Guantanamo Naval base because it
too was a symbol of our belligerence by housing prisoners taken from the battlefield against
terrorists. He also banned the word “terrorism” from official communiqués in the state department,
and wanted to try noted WTC planners in criminal court in Manhattan – site of the World Trade
Center attacks on our sovereignty. He also seemed open to the Palestinian view on peace in the
Middle East, versus the view of our long time ally Israel
His receipt of the Nobel Piece prize early in his term appeared to be an endorsement by the liberal
European establishment that his new direction was the right one: Engage and meet with Iran; don’t
threaten them, but try all forms of diplomacy different from the Bush Doctrine’s “You are either with
us or you are against us.”
After all Bush “got us into two wars that weren’t paid for”: Afghanistan and Iraq. According to
Obama, Afghanistan was the more important because that was where bin Laden was. Obama’s
view was: “Bush’s belligerence created more enemies who wanted to attack us.” Of course, George
Bush wasn’t around on the first terrorist attempt to topple the World Trade Center in February 1993,
or to destroy an American symbol of war – the U.S.S. Cole in Yemen in October 2000.
This Obama resetting of relations courted the Russians by reneging on missile defenses for
Western Europe allies in Poland and the Czech Republic. The Russians would surely respond with
future concessions in trying to convince Iran not to produce a nuclear weapons capability.
Obama also expedited our exit from Iraq (after the surge had worked to pacify the lingering
insurgents war) in favor of escalating the war in Afghanistan – the so-called “Good War”. However,
he did not accept the full recommendations of the military leaders in the field on force needs, but he
simultaneously announced their withdrawal with a future date certain. Obama’s inexperience
showed again as he believed this act would surely assuage the anti-war wing of his party, who
didn’t want any troops on foreign soil in the first place.
Results of the Obama Doctrine
Now almost four years has transpired under Obama's more compassionate and empathetic policy,
we can perhaps judge the results of the change.
Iraq is now less of a friend than we thought and a bit too cozy with neighboring Iran. Perhaps they
fear the U.S. will totally withdraw from the Middle East, and who wants to be on the enemy’s list of
the next nuclear power –Iran?
Afghanistan is scheduled for a complete withdrawal of American troops, but its economy is much
more fragile than Iraq’s, with much less oil resources, and a history of intense tribal feuding.
Pakistan is furious with the U.S. for invading its sovereign airspace without permission to kill bin
Laden. It also claims much collateral damage from the almost exclusive use of drones to take out
(kill) al-Qaeda targets. The use of drones as an execution tool also limits the ability to interrogate
the targeted before hand to learn of future terrorist attack plans. It is widely accepted that
aggressive techniques were successful in not only preventing major follow-up attacks on U.S. soil,
but also led us to the site of bin Laden’s secret lair in Pakistan for the past six years. Perhaps the
Pakistanis are embarrassed he was holed up so close to their national military academy without
detection.
Egypt is now denying it is an ally of America (even though it was one) and formerly helped to keep
relative peace in that area contiguous to Israel. Under Obama the U.S. abandoned Hosni Mubarak
as the Arab Spring was enfolding. Initially Egyptians behaved as if they wanted true democracy to
reign in place of the Mubarak dictatorship. The ultimate winners were the Muslim Brotherhood, who
have a long history of supporting fundamental Islam and a desire to rid the Middle East of Israel
(and Christians as well).
Syria's Assad continues to murder his own people by the thousands in a desperate attempt to hang
onto power. Meanwhile, we fail to apply the same pressure and support we did in Libya to prevent
its internal bloodshed. One Obama administration response is that the Syrian rebels are infiltrated
by al-Qaeda and the takeover group may be worse than Assad. (Maybe we didn’t quite decimate al
Qaeda by the drone program after all.)
Meanwhile the feckless UN just stands by and watches as it has for most of the population
massacres over the past twenty years (in Croatia, Bosnia, Rwanda, Chechnya, the Sudan). Even
Bill Clinton took unilateral U.S. action to prevent another massacre in Kosovo.
Libya was a victory for the U.S. of sorts, as we led from behind – supplying planes, weaponry and
money to the ostensible carriers of military support, France and the UK. As evidence of the still
fragile instability, we were unable to prevent the absolute ignominy of the September 11, humiliation
and killing of a sitting U.S. Ambassador (an act of war under most circumstances because our
embassies are considered part of U.S. territory and therefore, sovereign).
The obvious planning of that atrocity was terrorist-based, with an al-Qaeda affiliate, but the U.S.
representatives went to great extremes to label it a spontaneous uprising due to a several month
old film allegedly produced in the U.S. which put the religion of Islam in a bad light. Most observers
consider the Administration’s motives as an attempt were to divert attention from the fact that al
Qaeda was not quite dead, since only two weeks earlier, there was much celebration at the
Democratic convention of Obama’s signature foreign policy success – the capture and killing of
Osama bin Laden.
The entire Middle East is now viewed as erupting in flames, with American flag burning as well as
Obama's effigy burning. These “bumps in the road” as articulated by President Obama may signify
the Arab Street hasn’t yet shown us love and respect from our new, less belligerent face.
Iran Needs More Than a “Reset” of Our Relation
Israel's Prime Minister has a different view of Iran from President Obama. Netanyahu's message to
the UN General Assembly set forth a clear course of action to prevent further disasters of colossal
proportions due to Iran’s achieving nuclear warhead capability.
Sanctions have proven insufficient. They are more painful to Iran’s population than to its fanatical
leaders.
Threats of mutual assured destruction – which worked in the cold war with the Soviet Union –
seemingly have no effect on the religious obsessive Iran leadership, who are elated at the prospect
of removing Israel by a nuclear attack. Even if there is a nuclear retaliation, Iran could survive it as a
nation, but Israel could not. So future Iranian fundamentalists would be the winner, as current ones
would earn martyr status.
A further risk of a nuclear Iran is that they would not hesitate to give bombs to Islamist radicals who
would use them against other symbols of western modernism – Europe and the U.S. Bombing
countries to a level of a century ago is not a problem to radical Islamists in keeping with their desire
to rule the world through the establishment of a new Caliphate.
Therefore the only workable strategy, according to Netanyahu, is: Draw a clear red line beyond
which Iran dare not cross.
Iran must dismantle its uranium enrichment program before it reaches a Stage Two 90% capability
of making an atomic bomb. It has already finished Stage One – 70% capability. Its enrichment
facilities for doing the development are in clear sight of the world. Its statement that it is for
peacetime energy purposes is uniformly scoffed at by the West. This drawing of the line must be
made by a credible source believed to have the capability and willpower to inflict catastrophic harm
to Iran nuclear program.
The reason the enrichment program is so crucial as the source of the red line is that it is the only
piece that is observable. The rest may be underground – more centrifuges under a mountain in
Qom and detonators almost anywhere.
With such credible drawing of the red line, Netanyahu believes Iran will comply. They already
backed down from such redlines due to a prior threat to close the Gulf of Hormuz, through which
35% of the world’s oil supply flows.
Could Israel be the bearer of this credible demand? Absolutely.
Could President Obama present such a credible deterrent? You decide.
Could another president of the U.S. make the cogent case for Iran to back down? You decide.
When does this red line need to be made? According to Netanyahu, nothing is absolute on
intelligence reports, but making it much more than six months from now may be too late.
……………….
Dick Berkowitz is a retired head of the Institutional Sales Department at Oppenheimer & Company’s
Atlanta office.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------3)
Poverty Nonsense
Here's a recent statement frequently suggested by leftist academics, think tank researchers and policymakers: "People were not just struggling because of their personal deficiencies. There were structural factors at play. People weren't poor because they made bad decisions. They were poor because our society creates poverty." Who made that statement and where it was made is not important at all, but its corrosive effects on the minds of black people, particularly black youths, are devastating.
There's nothing intellectually challenging or unusual about poverty. For most of mankind's existence, his most optimistic scenario was to be able to eke out enough to subsist for another day. Poverty has been mankind's standard fare and remains so for most of mankind. What is unusual and challenging to explain is affluence -- namely, how a tiny percentage of people, mostly in the West, for only a tiny part of mankind's existence, managed to escape the fate that befell their fellow men.
To say that "our society creates poverty" is breathtakingly ignorant. In 1776, the U.S. was among the world's poorest nations. In less than two centuries, we became the world's richest nation by a long shot. Americans who today are deemed poor by Census Bureau definitions have more material goods than middle-class people as recently as 60 years ago. Dr. Robert Rector and Rachel Sheffield give us insights in "Understanding Poverty in the United States: Surprising Facts About America's Poor" (9/13/2011). Eighty percent of poor households have air conditioning. Nearly three-fourths have a car or truck, and 31 percent have two or more. Two-thirds have cable or satellite TV. Half have one or more computers. Forty-two percent own their homes. The average poor American has more living space than the typical non-poor person in Sweden, France or the U.K. Ninety-six percent of poor parents stated that their children were never hungry during the year because they couldn't afford food. How do these facts square with the statement that "our society creates poverty"? To the contrary, our society has done the best with poverty.
Maybe the professor who made the statements about poverty -- who, by the way, is black -- was thinking that it's black people who have been made poor by society. One cannot avoid the fact that average black income today is many multiples of what it was at emancipation, in 1900, in 1940 and in 1960, even though average black income is only 65 percent of white income. There is no comparison between black standard of living today and that in earlier periods. Again, the statement that "our society creates poverty" is just plain nonsense.
What about the assertion that "people weren't poor because they made bad decisions"?
The poverty rate among blacks is 36 percent. Most black poverty is found in female-headed households, but the poverty rate among black married couples has been in single digits since 1994 and stands today at 7 percent. Today's black illegitimacy rate is 72 percent, but in the 1940s, it hovered around 14 percent. Less than 50 percent of black students graduate from high school, and most of those who do graduate have a level of academic proficiency far below that of their white counterparts. Black men make up almost 40 percent of the prison population.
Here are my several two-part questions: Is having babies without the benefit of marriage a bad decision, and is doing so likely to affect income? Are dropping out of school and participating in criminal activity bad decisions, and are they likely to have an effect on income? Finally, do people have free will and the capacity to make decisions, or is their behavior a result of instincts over which they have no control? As a black person, I'm glad that the message taught to so many of today's black youths wasn't taught back in the 1930s, '40s and '50s, when the civil rights struggle was getting into gear. The admonishment that I frequently heard from black adults was, "Be a credit to your race."
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------4)All of Iran’s advanced enrichment centrifuges now removed to Fordo
Iran's IR-2 centrifuge
As US president Barack Obama and his Republican challenger Mitt Romney prepared for their duel on foreign policy in Long Island, Tuesday night Oct. 16, Iran moved was on the move to present them with an accomplished fact: Its nuclear program's high-speed uranium enrichment plant has now been entirely sequestered in the fortified underground Fordo site near Qom, intelligence sources report.
On Iran, the differences between President Obama and Mitt Romney are significantly nuanced: Obama pledges not to let Iran acquire a nuclear weapon, i.e., build a bomb, whereas Romney promises to prevent Iran acquiring a nuclear capability, i.e., attain the capacity for building one – a point which US intelligence believes will upon us in six months.
This estimate may not fully take into account Iran’s accelerating momentum. With the advanced IR-2 and IR-4 centrifuges, its enrichment plants can turn out more 20 percent enriched uranium at greater speed than ever before and so reach Iran's one-ton target before then.
Our sources disclose that, racing against time, Tehran managed to install the last four clusters of 174 centrifuges each inside in “Fordo’s B Chamber” shortly before European Union foreign ministers approved toughened sanctions in Brussels Monday, 15 Oct.
Our sources disclose that, racing against time, Tehran managed to install the last four clusters of 174 centrifuges each inside in “Fordo’s B Chamber” shortly before European Union foreign ministers approved toughened sanctions in Brussels Monday, 15 Oct.
The 27-nation block tightened restrictions on Iran’s central bank, halted the import of natural gas and listed 30 firms and institutions as targets for asset freezes, including the National Iranian Oil Company exporter and the National Iranian Tanker Company.
Tuesday, Iran denounced the new European Union sanctions as “inhuman,” vowing they will not force any retreat on the country’s nuclear program.
The remarks by Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast underlined Iran’s insistence that it can ride out Western economic pressures. The new EU measures will not force Iran to surrender and back down from enriching uranium, he declared. “This sort of act will encourage the Iranian nation to continue on its way, strongly.”
This is in line with Tehran’s consistent response to every form of pressure, financial, economic, intelligence or military, which is to whip up its nuclear program for an extra spurt and leave no assault unanswered.
Saturday, Oct. 6, shortly after Fordo power lines were disabled by sabotage, causing small fires which damaged some centrifuges, Tehran sent Hizballah to launch a stealth drone over Israeli air space and beam back images of the Dimona nuclear reactor. Those images will soon be released. The lesson for the West was this: You may hit the Fordo power supply, but our arm is long enough to reach the Israeli reactor. And our payback for new European sanctions is faster centrifuges.
In Jerusalem, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu thanked the EU for the new sanctions at a reception Tuesday Oct. 16 for European envoys. “We’ll know they are achieving their goal when the centrifuges stop spinning,” he added.
He knew when he spoke that the sanctions had had the opposite effect. And like Obama and Romney, he knows what Iran plans next. Military and intelligence sources report that the Iranians are preparing to change the “active formation” of the Fordo centrifuges and adapt them for refining uranium up to the 60 percent level, a short step before the weapons grade of 90 percent. The conversion is expected to be ready to go in the second half of December or early January, 2013.
US and Israeli intelligence experts on Iran recently arrived at a consensual assessment that Fordo was the only site capable of producing uranium enriched to the high 90 percent level.
Iran has therefore leapt across another red line in its steady advance toward a nuclear capability and is about to across its next.
Iran has therefore leapt across another red line in its steady advance toward a nuclear capability and is about to across its next.
Conscious that a moment of decision was at hand, British Prime Minister David Cameron Monday night informed Anglo-Jewish leaders that he had called Netanyahu to ask him not to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities but allow more time for sanctions to have an impact.
Cameron was undoubtedly acting on a request from the White House in Washington.
But both the British and Israeli prime ministers haven’t forgotten that only a few weeks ago, Israel had marked with a red line a fully operational Fordo which had to be stopped before it was buried out of reach in “an immune zone.”
But both the British and Israeli prime ministers haven’t forgotten that only a few weeks ago, Israel had marked with a red line a fully operational Fordo which had to be stopped before it was buried out of reach in “an immune zone.”
That line was crossed this week and still Israel has refrained from action.
What this means for Tehran is that, so long as Israel heeds the “advice” coming from Washington and London, and President Obama holds back from the “October surprise” proposed by one of his insiders, Tehran need not be afraid to go forward and start refining uranium up to 60 percent and, from there, all the way up to the manufacture of a nuclear bomb without hindrance.
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