But when I do, I eat Obama's"
Vladimir Putin
/===
=
===
More mendacity. and Tobin on too much balance. (See 1 and 1a below.)
===
Tragic statistics and all because of GW, Koch brothers and NRA, etc..
Has nothing to do with Progressive concepts, PC'ism and government destruction of education, family structure and personal responsibility. etc. (See 2 below.)
===
Leaked 2016 Convention Schedule of Demwit Party! (See 3 below.)
What I do not understand is why do Bernie and Hillarious embrace radicals who scream "Black Lives Matter?"
If "Black Lives Matter" then why are so many Black Citizens killed by their own which Bernie, Hillarious and Obama seldom rebut?.
I would suggest all pursuing respectful, and lawful lives "Matter." As for those who kill them "what difference does it make?"
===
John Fund's associate on stealing elections! (See 4 be;low.)
===
MEMRI posts the actual words of Iran's Khamenei.. (See 5, 5a and 5b below.)
I have met Boaz Ganor in Israel and I have read his latest book on Counter Terrorism . Boaz is a brilliant and highly respected expert and consults with the FBI and other counter terror agencies worldwide.
I doubt Ganor believes global warming is the greatest threat to America and Israel but 'what difference does it make. Facts no longer sell! (See 5c below.)
===
Leave it to the brass in the Pentagon to want gold plated planes.:
About 8 minutes long, worth watching... the situation is appalling from both a warrior’s and taxpayer’s point of view...
===
I do not own one and people think I am a dinosaur.
===
Prager shoots from the lip! (See 6 below.)
===
Finally, let's review The Clinton Foundation! (See 7 below.)
===
I have never been a fan of Dennis Ross but it appears the pigeons he helped to release are now coming home to roost. (See 8 below.)
===
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------\1) Anyone who believes Voltaire’s familiar adage that history never repeats itself invariably confronts Karl Marx’s challenge that history does exactly that: “first as tragedy, then as farce.” There can be no doubt where Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and his acolytes stand on this philosophical disagreement. They are true-believing Marxists who faithfully reiterate hoary lies about the imagined murder of innocent Palestinian boys by evil Israelis.
Fifteen years ago, a France 2 broadcast ostensibly revealed a 12-year-old Palestinian boy dying from Israeli gunfire in his father’s arms. Filmed in Gaza only days after Ariel Sharon’s controversial visit to the Temple Mount had sparked Palestinian rioting in Jerusalem that launched the second intifada, the poignant image of terrified Muhammad al-Dura moments before his (presumed) death went viral. Israeli cruelty, vividly documented and endlessly transmitted, became a mantra that inspired, among others, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (who slit the throat of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl) and Osama bin Laden.
Months after the al-Dura incident, an IDF investigation concluded that if the boy was indeed killed it could not have been by Israeli bullets. By then, however, Muhmmad al-Dura’s martyrdom had become an inspirational mantra for the second intifada. But an Israeli government inquiry launched 12 years later revealed the mendacity of Palestinian allegations (and likely French complicity). In scenes not shown by France 2, al-Dura was seen alive raising his arm and turning his head toward the cameraman — after his presumed death.
The Israeli investigation revealed that no bullets, either from the boy or his father, were ever produced; the time of his admission to a Gaza hospital preceded the shooting; and the tragedy of his “death” went unnoticed by reporters or other cameramen on location at the time. In sum: If al-Dura was killed, it was not by Israeli soldiers — not then, and not there. Palestinian false accusations, declared Israeli Minister Yuval Steinitz, constituted “a modern-day blood libel against the state of Israel.”
Fast forward 15 years to last week, when Abbas mendaciously accused Israel of “executing our boys in cold blood,” mentioning 13-year-old Ahmed Manasra as one of the innocent victims. This time, however, the invented lie of Israeli child-murder was quickly exposed. The next day, Israeli officials released footage showing Manasra, who had joined his cousin in stabbing an Israeli boy, very much alive and comfortably recuperating from his injuries in Hadassah Medical Center, while being spoon-fed by an Israeli nurse. Abbas continued to claim that the boy had been killed.
Manasra’s story was vastly more self-incriminating than Abbas had malevolently claimed. He and his older cousin, Hassan, were videoed stabbing a 13-year-old boy and a 25-year-old man in the Pisgat Ze’ev neighborhood of Jerusalem. Both cousins were wielding knives as they chased their targeted victims, before critically wounding the Israeli boy. When Israeli police arrived, Hassan Manasra attacked them with his knife and was killed. Ahmed, taking flight, was hit by a car and immobilized until evacuated to the hospital.
The picture of Ahmad Manasra, “the Palestinian child who was left to bleed on the street,” claimed Palestinian official Saeb Erekat, “clearly shows Israel’s disregard for human life.” But, from his hospital bed, Manasra explained that he was motivated by reports that Israel – precisely as Abbas had falsely claimed — was preparing to attack the Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount. With the knife his cousin gave him, he admitted, “I went there to kill Jews.”
The New York Times, in yet another egregious example of its unremitting penchant for moral equivalency in its coverage of Israel, headlined the story: “Conflicting Accounts of Jerusalem Strife Surround a Wounded Arab Boy.” In translation: a lie had conflicted with the truth, but the Times declined to distinguish between them. The article referred to “conflicting versions of reality” before noting that Manasra was not dead, as Abbas had claimed. Only paragraphs later, after noting Palestinian falsehoods, did it quote Prime Minister Netanyahu’s blunt statement: “He’s not dead – he’s alive. He’s not innocent – he tried to kill, murder, knife to death an innocent Israeli youngster.” The concluding paragraphs, once again, focused on Palestinian denials and falsehoods as if they deserved credibility.
Now that President Obama has supported Israel’s right “to protect its citizens from knife attacks and violence in the streets,” perhaps the Times will finally feel more comfortable exposing Palestinian violence and mendacity without also blaming Israel. But given its history, don’t bet on it.
Jerold S. Auerbach is a frequent contributor to The Algemeiner.
1a)
Too Much Balance Leads to Violence
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2)Welfare: Who’s on It, Who’s Not?
Among natives, blacks receive cash handouts at more than three times the white rate; Hispanics at more than twice the white rate. Rates for black and Hispanic immigrants are relatively lower due to often-ignored restrictions on immigrant use of these programs.
Among all households, native blacks and Hispanics receive food handouts at three times the white rate; for Hispanic immigrants, the figure is four times the white rate. Among households with children, nearly all immigrant Hispanics–86 percent–get food aid. Native blacks and Hispanics aren’t far behind, with rates of 75 and 72 percent, respectively.
According to data in the CIS report, there are 39.88 million households in the US receiving some sort of means-tested welfare….and who do you think they’re going to vote for??
How Noncitizens Can Swing Elections (Without Even Voting Illegally)Commentary By
2)Welfare: Who’s on It, Who’s Not?
A striking 82 percent of black households with children receive welfare–double the white rate. Hispanic families are not far behind blacks.
Among natives, blacks receive cash handouts at more than three times the white rate; Hispanics at more than twice the white rate. Rates for black and Hispanic immigrants are relatively lower due to often-ignored restrictions on immigrant use of these programs.
Among all households, native blacks and Hispanics receive food handouts at three times the white rate; for Hispanic immigrants, the figure is four times the white rate. Among households with children, nearly all immigrant Hispanics–86 percent–get food aid. Native blacks and Hispanics aren’t far behind, with rates of 75 and 72 percent, respectively.
According to data in the CIS report, there are 39.88 million households in the US receiving some sort of means-tested welfare….and who do you think they’re going to vote for??
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3)Good Morning....This E-mail has been leaked out early...Some of the speakers may have to be changed, i.e. Hilliary may be in prison, etc....Most of the program seems true and makes sense to me....I will not be there, but I hope the Demwits enjoy this outstanding event planned for them.....God Bless America !
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4)
11:15 AM – Free Lunch, "medical" marijuana, and bus ride to the Convention.
Forms passed out for Food Stamp enrollment
2:30 PM – Group Voter Registration for Undocumented Immigrants
4:00 PM – Opening Flag Burning Ceremony – sponsored by CNN
4:05 PM – Singing of "God #$% America ", led by the Righteous Reverend Jeremiah Wright
4:10 PM – Pledge of Allegiance to Comrade Obama.
4:15 PM – Ceremonial "I Hate America" led by Michelle Obama.
4:30 PM – Tips on "How to keep your man trustworthy true to you while you travel the world" – Hillary Clinton
4:45 PM - "How to have a successful career without ever having a job, and still avoid paying taxes!" – Al Sharpton / Jesse Jackson Seminar
5:30 PM – Hillary Clinton speaks on "Being broke and not being able to pay your mortgages" via Satellite with event attendees given autographed souvenir photographs of Hillary and Chelsea dodging Sniper Fire in Bosnia.
5:45 PM – Tribute to All 57 States – Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi
6:00 PM – General vote on praising Baltimore rioters, and on using the term "Alternative Shoppers" instead of "looters"
7:30 PM – The White House "Semantics Committee" meeting to figure out how NOT to acknowledge that Muslims are killing non-Muslims all over the world
daily. Followed by general vote on now terming Muslim Terror as "Random Acts of Islamic Exuberance"
9:00 PM – "Liberal Bias in Media – How we can make it work for you" Tutorial – sponsored by CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, the Washington Post and the New York Times
9:15 PM – Tribute Film to the Brave Freedom Fighters still incarcerated at GITMO – Michael Moore
9:45 PM – Personal Finance Seminar - "Businesses Don't Create Jobs" - Hillary Clinton
10:00 PM – Group Denunciation of Bitter Gun Owners and Bible Readers.
10:30 PM – Ceremonial "We Surrender" Waving of the White Flag to Afghanistan, Russia and ISIS
How Noncitizens Can Swing Elections (Without Even Voting Illegally)Commentary By
Hans von Spakovsky is an authority on a wide range of issues—including civil rights, civil justice, the First Amendment, immigration, the rule of law and government reform—as a senior legal fellow in The Heritage Foundation’s Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies and manager of the think tank’s Election Law Reform Initiative. Read his research.
In an article in Politico, Mark Rozell, acting dean of the School of Policy, Government, and International Affairs at George Mason University, and Paul Goldman, a weekly columnist for the Washington Post, point out a fact that should greatly concern all Americans: that the presence of millions of noncitizens, both legal and illegal, could tilt the presidential election toward the Democrat Party and decide the election in favor of the eventual Democratic nominee.
Voter Fraud Happens
As I have outlined in many different articles and a recent book on voter fraud, illegal voting by noncitizens is a growing
problem. Most election officials are not taking the steps necessary to detect or stop it, and many prosecutors including thecurrent Justice Department seem reluctant to prosecute it.
A study released in 2014 by three professors at Old Dominion and George Mason Universities in Virginia concluded that 6.4 percent of the noncitizen population voted illegally in the 2008 election, enough to have changed the outcome of various contests in a number of states.
That includes the winner of North Carolina’s electoral votes, which went to Barack Obama by a relatively small margin, since a majority of foreign-born residents favor the Democratic Party. That may also be why Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, the governor of a battleground state, vetoed a bill that would have required jury commissioners to provide local election officials with the names of individuals called for jury duty from the state’s voter registration list who were excused for not being U.S. citizens.
Some States Have Congressional Districts They Shouldn’t Have
But as Rozel and Goldman accurately point out, noncitizens may be changing the outcome of presidential elections even without voting illegally. This is related to the problem of some states having more representatives in Congress than they should, and others being shortchanged unfairly due to the huge—and growing—population of illegal aliens whom the Obama administration and its political allies want to provide permanent amnesty.
All of this stems from the way apportionment is conducted. There are 435 members of the U.S. House of Representatives. Under Sec. 2 of Article I of the Constitution and Sec. 2 of the Fourteenth Amendment, every ten years, after the “Enumeration” (the Census), we redistribute those 435 seats based on the “whole number of persons in each State.” In other words, the number of members of the House that each state gets is based on the total population of each state relative to the total population of the U.S., which includes noncitizens. Thus, the upwards of 12 million illegal aliens present in the U.S., combined with other aliens who are here legally but are not citizens and have no right to vote, distort representation in the House.
Various studies have been done on the effects of this distortion, including by Leonard Steinhorn of American University and scholars at Texas A&M University and the Center for Immigration Studies. If you calculate the results based on the latest Census numbers, according to Steinhorn, ten states each are short a congressional seat that they would otherwise have if apportionment were based on citizen population: Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, and Pennsylvania.
States with large numbers of illegal aliens and other noncitizens have congressional seats they otherwise would not have (and should not be entitled to): California (five seats), Florida (one seat), New York (one seat), Texas (two seats), and Washington State (one seat).
This is fundamentally unfair, because these states are benefiting from illegal conduct and gaining political representation for individuals who have no entitlement to such representation or to even be present in the country.
How Noncitizens Affect The Electoral College
This also twists our presidential election process. Under our Electoral College system as laid out in Article II, Sec. 1, the number of electors that each state receives is a combination of its two senators and the number of representatives it has in the House (the one exception is the District of Columbia, which gets three votes courtesy of the Twenty-Third Amendment). Thus, states like California have more Electoral College votes than they should, while other states like Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio are shorted in their Electoral College votes.
As Goldman and Rozell say, this “math gives strongly Democratic states an unfair edge in the Electoral College.” When you look at the makeup of the states that have lost/gained Electoral College votes and what would happen if apportionment were based on citizen population, then:
[T]hree of the states that would gain electoral votes are Democratic. The remaining seven are fairly put in the GOP column. Combining the two halves of the citizens-only population reapportionment, states likely in the Democratic column suffer a net loss of four electoral votes. Conversely the must-win Republican leaning states total a net gain of four electoral votes. These are the four electoral votes statistically cast by noncitizens.
Four electoral votes may seem minimal, but we have had a number of presidential elections in our history decided by a very small margin, such as the 1876 race between Rutherford Hayes and Samuel Tilden, which was decided by one electoral vote: 185 to 184. The 2000 race was decided by only a slightly higher margin: Bush (271) vs. Gore (266).
Goldman and Rozell point out that Romney won 24 states in 2012. Three battleground states important to Obama’s victory were Florida, Ohio, and Virginia, which have 60 combined electoral votes. If Romney had won these states, too, he would still have had only 266 electoral votes, four short of the 270 needed to win. But according to Goldman and Rozell, if the Electoral College were apportioned according to citizens, then if Romney had won Florida, Ohio, and Virginia, the electoral votes of those states combined with the other 24 Romney won would have given him the 270 votes needed to be president.
The misallocation of electoral votes in apportionment gives Democrats a clear advantage. “This is why counting illegal immigrants and noncitizens significantly reduces the chances of the GOP winning the presidency.”
No one doubts that we should count noncitizens, whether they are here legally or illegally, in the Census, so that we have an accurate count of the population of the U.S. for a myriad of sound public policy reasons. But as Goldman and Rozell say, there is no “persuasive reason to allow the presence of illegal immigrants, unlawfully in the country, or noncitizens generally, to play such a crucial role in picking a president.”
It is a felony under federal law for a noncitizen to vote in our elections because voting is a right given only to American citizens. It is a precious right that must be earned by becoming a citizen. Giving aliens, particularly those whose first act was to break our laws to illegally enter the country, political power in Congress and allowing them to help choose our president strike at the very heart of our republic and what it means to be an American.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
5)
5)
| |||
On October 18, 2015, the day set as Adoption Day for the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the Iranian leadership continues to come out with statements opposing Iran's approval of it.
In the past few days, Iranian officials have clarified that Iran's Majlis, Supreme National Security Council, and Guardian Council have not approved the JCPOA; Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei tweeted, and posted on his Facebook page, an announcement titled "Negotiation With America Is Forbidden"; and other Iranian officials have stated that Iran is expecting the U.S. to announce that the sanctions have been terminated, not suspended as the JCPOA stipulates.
 Khamenei's Facebook and Twitter announcement: "For America negotiations with the Islamic Republic of Iran means penetration. This is their definition of negotiation and they want to open the way for imposition. Negotation with America is forbidden, because of its countless detriments and because of alleged advantages of which it has none whatsoever." @Khamenei_ir, October 16, 2015.
In light of these developments, it is not clear whether Iran will officially announce its "adoption" of the JCPOA. It is also not clear whether the U.S. will announce its suspension of sanctions and the E.U. will announce its termination of sanctions, as per the agreement.
The following are statements by Iranian officials on the matter:
Guardian Council secretary-general Ayatollah Jannati said in his October 16, 2015 Friday sermon in Tehran: "There are those who think that approval by the Majlis means approval of the execution of the agreement in Iran. This is not so. Majlis approval regarding the nuclear agreement is not [approval of] its execution. The nuclear agreement was discussed in the Supreme National Security Council and council members expressed their opinion about it and gave their approval regarding its execution. But Leader [Khamenei] still has not signed it. The Majlis's work concerns the framework of the nuclear agreement, that is, it places on the government the responsibility for carrying out the reciprocal steps in exchange for America's steps...
"Caution should be taken, because the side that we are facing [i.e. the U.S.] customarily breaks its promises and does not keep them. What the P5+1 does in the matter of executing the nuclear agreement must be examined...
"The termination of the sanctions must be taken seriously. If they are terminated, it is a sign that the nuclear talks and agreement have yielded results. But if the other side breaks its promises and instead of terminating the sanctions [merely] freezes or suspends them, this shows that the nuclear agreement was useless. Our hope is that the sanctions will be terminated...
"If we do not stand fast against the other side, then the next day they will say that we must officially recognize Israel, give equal rights to men and women, cancel executions, sever relations with Hizbullah, and so on."[1]
On October 17, 2015, Guardian Council spokesman Nejatollah Ebrahimian said: "The [Guardian] Council did not approve the JCPOA, but rather the Majlis plan on the JCPOA. This means that neither the Majlis nor the Guardian Council have approved the content of JCPOA [itself] – which constitutes neither opposition nor agreement to the content [of the JCPOA]. The JCPOA remains a political document, not a legal one."[2]
A few days earlier, on October 14, 2015, Majlis speaker Ali Larijani said: "We agreed to the negotiations because we wanted the sanctions on Iran terminated. These negotiations became an agreement, so that the sanctions would be terminated and the nuclear knowledge would continue and not stop... The JCPOA was examined at various conferences, and we explicitly approved it in the Majlis. If the other side does not terminate the sanctions, [the nuclear facility at] Natanz will renew its activity."[3]
He also said, on October 18, 2015: "The JCPOA was not immediately approved in the Majlis; there was a process, and the Supreme National Security Council was involved in this, and eventually this agreement was reached. Some opposed the JCPOA, and some agreed to it, but the strongest opinion was to define a framework and set conditions [for executing the JCPOA], and this opinion was eventually accepted...
"We have not approved the JCPOA in the way that the other side [i.e. the U.S.] has said. We also have not said that it should be executed as is, but rather that the JCPOA should be placed in the framework of the steps taken by the Supreme National Security Council. Ultimately, this council's approvals are sent for the approval of the Leader [Khamenei].
"We felt there was a risk in the matter of the termination of the sanctions, or of their reinstatement by the Western side on various pretexts. In this situation, we must stop the agreement and produce 190,000 [centrifuge] SWU [Separative Work Units] within two years. Additionally, Iran could be threatened militarily, and in this case as well the nuclear agreement must be stopped.
"Likewise, the inspections must be conducted according to international law, and there is an absolute ban on inspections of military centers and national security [sites] except with the approval of the Supreme National Security Council, [and this requires] the ultimate approval of the Leader [Khamenei]."[4]
[1] Fars (Iran), October 16, 2015.
[2] Kayhan (Iran), October 17, 2015.
[3] Tasnim (Iran), October 14, 2015.
[4] Tasnim (Iran), October 18, 2015
5a)MSNBC Airs Palestinian Jihad Propaganda Map
Last Friday, MSNBC aired a segment featuring a Palestinian propaganda map that is a total fabrication, a pack of lies that contradicts established historical fact and is part of The Political Swindle of the Century, a.k.a “The Plight of The Palestinian People.”
Watch this MSNBC “news segment.” The maps they show of the steady diminishing of Palestinian territory at the hands of Israel are, quite simply, lies. The fallaciousness of the map MSNBC used is demonstrated by one simple fact: the flag of Palestine before 1948 featured the Star of David. This is further proof (as if we needed any more) of the falsity of the vicious historical revisionism by the Muslim world to erase the Jewish State and create a mythical Islamic narrative surrounding five thousand years of Jewish history.
Shany Mor, the former director for foreign policy of the Israeli National Security Council, explains it all in a devastating article in The Tower, setting the historical record straight. Mor notes that before the modern Jewish state was founded in 1948, there was no “State of Palestine.” “The simple fact,” he says, “is that none of pre-1948 Palestine was under the political authority of Arabs or Jews. It was ruled by the British Mandatory government, established by the League of Nations for the express purpose of creating a ‘Jewish National Home.’ It was also—contrary to the claims of innumerable pro-Palestinian activists—the first time a discrete political entity called ‘Palestine” existed in modern history. And this entity was established in order to fulfill a goal that was essentially Zionist in nature.”
Mor notes that one way the map is misleading is that it labels all land that wasn’t owned by Jews as Palestinian: “But this lie is compounded by another that is even more epic in scope: Labeling every single patch of land not owned by the JNF as Arab or Palestinian. This was quite simply not the case. We have incomplete data on land ownership in modern Palestine, and even less on Arab property than Jewish property, partly due to the very complicated nature of property law in Ottoman times. But anyone’s map of private property in Mandatory Palestine from this period would be mostly empty—half the country is, after all, desert. It would show small patches of private Jewish land—as this map does—alongside small patches of private Arab land, as this map shamelessly does not.”
Antisemites and anti-Israel agitators often use doctored maps to show Israel’s supposed aggression over the past century. The map claims are made by haters who either choose to have no knowledge of the facts or more typically, no moral compass. Their agenda is clear. These maps are a blood libel against the Jewish state.
My now-famous “savage” ads, stating “In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man; support Israel, defeat jihad,” were a response to antisemitic ads that ran featuring those very doctored maps. We expect this kind of moral depravity from the usual suspects, but it’s a whole other thing for MSNBC to use them to try and explain away the Islamic genocide against the Jews.
Yet MSNBC has a pattern of Jew-hatred. On Thursday, MSNBC’s reporter in Jerusalem (Ayman Mohyeldin) was caught red-handed portraying a Damascus gate stabbing by a rabid “Palestinian” terrorist as an Israeli execution of an innocent Palestinian. What’s the difference between Ayman and the Muslim terrorist who, disguised as a journalist, stabbed an Israeli soldier? Very little.
MSNBC has come out as a full-on propaganda outlet for Islamic Jew-hatred. MSNBC is notorious for its uber-left, sloppy “reportage,” but the Jew-hatred they have brazenly displayed covering the wave of jihad-terror in Israel is shocking.
The fact is that Palestine is Israel — the Jewish homeland. And MSNBC is a shameless shill for the genocidal Palestinian jihad. Before the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, there were Palestinian Muslims and Palestinian Jews living in the British Mandate of Palestine. And the Palestinian Muslims were conducting pogroms against the Palestinian Jews — much the way they are today. Same war, same hate, same motive — Islamic Jew-hatred. It’s in the Quran.
Pamela Geller is the President of the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI),
5b)
Putin Unleashed
By any objective measure, Russia has made a strategic decision to challenge America for dominance in the Middle East. Despite depressed global oil prices and economic sanctions intended to curb his Ukraine adventurism, Vladimir Putin is pursuing an undisguised effort to expand Moscow’s military power, political heft, and economic influence in a region long under Washington’s sway. Barack Obama has made no effective response, and none seems in prospect. The recent Obama-Putin meeting at the United Nations did not change that underlying reality.
 Vladimir Putin, Russia
At a minimum, Russia’s Middle East actions today uncannily resemble Scoop Jackson’s characterization of the Soviet Union as an “opportunistic hotel burglar who walks down the corridors trying all the door handles to see which door is open.” The Kremlin is probing for U.S. weaknesses, meddling across the region in ways unprecedented since Anwar Sadat expelled Soviet military advisers in the 1970s, reversed Egypt’s global orientation, and thereby ultimately enabled the Camp David accords with Israel.
Russia is not pursuing its objectives alone. It is strengthening allies and proxies such as Syria and Iran that regularly assist Moscow or undertake parallel, reinforcing initiatives to advance their own agendas. The ongoing, perhaps accelerating, region-wide deterioration of state structures facilitates Moscow’s assertiveness.
Russia’s recent rapid buildout of an air base at Latakia, Syria, is a palpable demonstration of military muscle, complementing its longstanding Tartus naval facility. Near term, it buttresses Bashar al-Assad’s rump Syrian regime, which is already heavily dependent on Iran (directly and through Hezbollah) and facing enormous battlefield pressure from ISIS, al-Nusra, and the remaining Syrian “moderate” opposition.
Far more important, however, Latakia is clear evidence of Russia’s new, sweeping strategy of challenging America. All too typically, Obama was caught by surprise, still waiting, as he has since Syria’s civil war erupted, for Moscow to partner with Washington to oust Assad from power. John Kerry asserted that Russia’s new air assets were merely for “force protection,” neglecting to explain what the objectives are of the force being protected! Indeed, just days later, the “force protection” force attacked non-ISIS targets in Syria, after warning U.S. planes to leave Syrian skies.
Well before Latakia, Russia was already testing U.S. vulnerabilities. Putin’s successful February visit with President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in Cairo led directly to substantial military sales to Egypt, the first since the 1970s, sending a powerful signal of regional realignment. And Moscow is certainly not complaining about Sisi’s suppression of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Most visibly threatening, Russia is selling Iran its S-300 air defense system (not to mention other advanced weapons and nuclear reactors when sanctions disappear because of the Vienna nuclear deal). Once deployed, the S-300 will end any prospect of Israel preemptively striking Iran’s nuclear-weapons program.
Obama, faced with Russia’s assertive faits accomplis, remains lost in a post-Vienna ideological rapture, unable or unwilling to see the consequences of his passivity and disinterest. Expressing “concern” over Russia’s new Latakia base joins a lengthening list of Obama “concerns” that elicit only his rhetoric, nothing more.
Looking ahead, with Assad and Iran operating from much stronger positions, we face the risk that regional ideological adversaries will act in concert when their interests align, as in the 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact dividing Poland. The gravest threat to U.S. interests, after a nuclear Iran, is the Russia-Iran-Syria axis reaching a modus vivendi with the Islamic State. A “truce” would allow ISIS to consolidate its new state from the rubble of Syria and Iraq (presumably with Kurdistan de facto independent) and concentrate on its highest-priority targets: the Arabian Peninsula’s apostate, heretic oil-producing monarchies.
With Putin explaining the historical precedent, ISIS and Iran could divide up the goods. Iran would tighten its hold on Baghdad and focus on Bahrain and Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province, with their large Shiite populations, while ISIS goes after the other Gulf Cooperation Council countries and the holy cities of the Hijaz. Tender Western ears may find this cold-blooded, but the regional and religious logic is straightforward. The inconvenient betrayal of one side by the other can come later.
Russia’s challenge to America, if unmet, promises far-reaching benefits for its entente and comparable harm to us and our friends. Consider Turkey: Although increasingly unreliable under Recep Tayyip Erdogan, it remains nonetheless NATO’s eastern linchpin. Moscow’s assertiveness directly threatens Ankara. Russia is outflanking Turkey in Syria, while strengthening Assad’s regime. The Islamic State would be secure on its other borders (at least temporarily), and independent Kurdistan would catalyze problems in Turkey’s fraught relations with its own Kurds. A rising, nuclear Iran with dynastic Islamic pretensions needs no elaboration. All that should worry even Erdogan.
China, another potential partner, has already conducted naval maneuvers with Russia in the eastern Mediterranean and is expanding its blue-water capabilities in nearby Pakistan. China’s interests and ambitions, including possibly massive investment in Iran’s hydrocarbon reserves, will only grow.
America’s friends are not waiting for Washington to wake up, as Benjamin Netanyahu’s recent trip to Moscow shows. Russia’s growing Syrian military presence constrains Israel’s self-defense options, which Jerusalem cannot allow to proceed unchecked. Obviously Russia’s emerging challenge is not alone in roiling the Middle East. Terrorism, radical Islam’s continuing menace, and an accelerating nuclear arms race also demand responses.
Israel wants Russia to fully appreciate these dangers, to which Obama seems indifferent. Netanyahu is hedging Israel’s bets on the United States, perhaps permanently, calculating that Moscow’s strategy ultimately rests on Russian national interests, no matter what Washington’s vaporings reflect. The Gulf Arab monarchies are also hedging. In their neighborhood, leaders must deal with facts, not fantasy.
Moscow’s unabashed Middle East challenge would normally prompt a countervailing U.S. strategy, at least if the president hadn’t pirouetted off to another region or back to “fundamentally transforming” America. Seven years after Obama’s election, however, it is hardly likely that his answer to Russia and other threats will stray from his unvarying pattern of doing next to nothing except at the last ditch. Accordingly, America’s presence in the Middle East, its vital interests and its alliances will continue to deteriorate until a new president takes office. The ground under our feet, which has already shifted dramatically since 2009, will continue shifting for 16 months toward an increasingly unsustainable position.
In policy terms, therefore, simply reversing Obama’s direction—ordering a 180-degree turnabout from his course—would at best leave us managing America’s decline. That is unacceptable. We should not rest at whatever low ebb we inherit in 16 months, but instead climb out of the hole Obama is still digging.
Prompt, decisive, and muscular corrective actions must start on Inauguration Day 2017, before the opportunity is lost. The new president must not be diverted from restoring America’s position in the Middle East and globally, both for geostrategic reasons and precisely because of our continuing, pressing economic problems. We must restore sufficient international stability to enable robust economic growth, and we must have economic growth to maintain a strong international presence, especially in the Middle East.
America’s strategy must bring Russia back to earth, which means, somewhat ironically, first implementing an effective policy regarding Ukraine and other former Soviet republics before Putin gulls Europe into lifting economic sanctions. Putin is on weaker ground in Ukraine than Obama has ever understood. A vigorously led NATO can strengthen deterrence and support Ukraine’s military capabilities and political will, thereby raising the costs and risks of Russian adventurism close to home. Moscow must relearn a key lesson from the USSR’s collapse, namely that expeditionary efforts in distant regions can be dangerous distractions. Standing up to Russia in Europe will produce considerable benefits in the Middle East.
In the region itself, the first priority must be to convince Israel, Turkey, and the Arabs that Washington has not permanently lost its moorings, holding illusions that Iran under the mullahs is a responsible, nonthreatening power. Stressing Russia’s entente with Iran would demonstrate clearly why Russia is not their new best friend.
Washington must additionally lead a serious effort to destroy ISIS without bolstering Iran or Assad, with the Arabs and Turkey making substantial military and financial commitments to that effort. Left to themselves, the regional powers lack both the military competence and the political coherence needed to coalesce against ISIS. However tempted some are to say, “It’s their problem, let them handle it,” they (and we) need U.S. leadership and military power. Even Obama says his ultimate goal is destroying ISIS. We simply need to start doing so in 2017.
Persuading Egypt, the Gulf monarchies, and others not to purchase Russian weapons systems or nuclear reactors will also be an urgent priority. If that allows further harsh measures against the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and elsewhere, so be it. We should recall Jeane Kirkpatrick’s warning of the dangers of replacing “moderate autocrats friendly to American interests with less friendly autocrats of extremist persuasion.”
Iran’s nuclear program must be eliminated. Abrogating the Vienna deal on day one is the easy part. We will also need enormous diplomatic efforts to resurrect the international support Obama has dissipated, based on evidence reflecting the certain Iranian violations of Vienna already underway. Ultimately, military action is inevitable. Others may disagree, for now, but they must at least believe (and show it) that they are willing to strike Iran if necessary, something Obama has assiduously resisted. We should also affirmatively declare supporting the overthrow of Tehran’s mullahs to be U.S. policy; there will be no Middle East peace and stability until that regime lies on history’s ash heap.
This is a tall order, but necessary. Republicans must make 2016 a national-security election and nominate someone who understands the urgent strategic perils the next president will face—worldwide, but especially in the Middle East.
John R. Bolton, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, served as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations in 2005-06.
5c) Terrorism epidemic
By Boaz Ganor
Terrorism is the deliberate use of violence against civilians to achieve political goals. Israel is in the midst of a wave of terrorist attacks caused by nationalistic and mostly religiously-motivated terrorists, who are fueled by incitement blaming Israel for attempting to profane the Aksa Mosque and change the status quo on the Temple Mount.
These inciting messages have been vocalized for a long time by Palestinian terrorist organizations and in particular by Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), but they received additional impetus when Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas joined the chorus of instigators calling for Israel to stop “contaminating the Temple Mount” and King Abdullah II of Jordan blamed Israel for undermining the status quo. These declarations served as catalysts that spurred young, incensed and impassioned protesters to hit the streets and take the law into their own hands by killing and wounding Israelis.
Israeli and Palestinian spokespeople repeatedly warn the Israeli public that the current escalation signals the onset of the third intifada. Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in fact desires it to be officially declared the third intifada.
However, the scope of the riots is confined, and they are concentrated in very specific neighborhoods and areas in east Jerusalem and the West Bank – as is the case with the sporadic protests in Israeli Arab population centers. This is (still) far from an intifada (popular uprising), and is rather a wave of terrorism. Such waves usually occur against similar backdrops, in proximity to each other, and very often one attack influences the next as each attack serves as a role model inspiring more terrorists to carry out similar attacks. This state of affairs creates a terrorism epidemic.
The current wave is a conglomeration of attacks carried out by incited “lone wolves” who use “cold” weapons – knives, axes, vehicles, etc. These attacks are also limited in terms of the damage they inflict and the number of casualties they cause (in comparison to attacks involving explosives, firearms and suicide bombers), but are more difficult to avert due to lack of preliminary intelligence information warning of an impending attack.
In the case of traditional “organized terrorism” (terrorist attacks carried out by terrorist organizations), where there are usually a number of activists involved in the initiation, planning, preparation and implementation of the attacks, security forces are often able to prevent the attack before it occurs. However, in the present situation, we are experiencing a deluge of “self-initiated” attacks, each beginning and ending in the raging mind of an incensed young man or woman, and usually there are no other accomplices involved.
The escalation of the past few weeks should not surprise anyone, and we can even say that it was to be expected.
The fact that the Israeli-Palestinian political process has been in a total deadlock for years – regardless of whether the Israeli government and or Palestinian Authority are to blame – has contributed to the rising tension in Jerusalem and the West Bank and to the creation of a highly explosive atmosphere. Thus, the diplomatic campaign against Israel recently launched by Mahmoud Abbas in the international arena, together with the riots at the Aksa Mosque that usually occur around Succot, did nothing to quell the tension in Jerusalem and its environs. From this perspective, the accusing finger should be pointed at both leaders – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Abbas, who share the responsibility for creating conditions that enabled Hamas and other organizations to deteriorate the state of security in and outside of Jerusalem.
Despite his apparent support for the two-state solution (as he first announced in the “Bar-Ilan Speech” in 2009 and recently verified at the UN summit), Netanyahu with his present and previous governments has not offered any political initiative. Nor have they pushed for any feasible solution or even deflation of the conflict.
Abbas and the PA have invested most of their energy in hounding Israel from the rear at every possible international forum while raising real and bogus obstacles which prevent the renewal of political discourse between the sides.
This wave of “cold” attacks does not deliver the good that the Palestinians expected and hoped for, as it is shedding more Palestinian blood then Israeli. Therefore, and due to the decision of Abbas to take measures to halt the terrorist attacks, it is safe to believe that this wave of terrorism will dissipate in a few days or weeks. The question remains whether it might be replaced with a more deadly wave of terrorism (suicide attacks or rockets), or a popular uprising in the West Bank, or alternatively whether the situation will be stabilized. The answer depends on the policies that will be adopted by the Israeli and the Palestinian leaderships.
What can and should be done, then, in order to mitigate the situation and halt the deterioration? Just as the security deterioration began from a position of incitement, discouragement and a lack of political prospects, the solution is to end the incitement, and to get back on the track of productive discussion between the Israeli and Palestinian leaderships. As the Palestinian incitement was inducing conspiracy messages of alleged Israeli efforts to change the status quo in Temple Mount – Israel needs to publicly ratify the agreed details of the status quo on the Temple Mount.
Israel should also ratify the key role of the king of Jordan, Abdullah II, as the custodian of the Islamic holy sites in Jerusalem. Israel should enable King Abdullah to monitor the upholding of the status quo, both by the Israeli side and by the Palestinian side. That, for example, can be achieved by installing closed-circuit cameras around and in the Temple Mount that will be monitored by Jordan.
Simultaneously, Israel should come up with a list of clear messages to the Palestinian people: on the one hand, warning anyone who engages in acts of violence and terrorism that they will pay a high price for their deeds, and on the other hand a political message that will increase hope and encourage pragmatism among the Palestinians. Israel must come forth with a new and sincere political initiative instead of being unwillingly dragged into negotiations with the Palestinians in the wake of international pressure. The PA must terminate the flow of incitement spread by PA leaders, opposition factions and terrorist organizations, and enforce order in the West Bank and Jerusalem.
The PA must pause the diplomatic campaign it is waging against Israel, and both sides must increase security cooperation as recognition of mutual interests. Above all, Israel and the Palestinians must take actions to rebuild a trusting relationship, while moving forward together toward a long-term solution to the conflict.
Boaz Ganor is the founder and executive director of The International Institute for Counter-Terrorism (ICT), and the dean and Ronald S. Lauder Chair in Counter- Terrorism of the Lauder School of Government, Diplomacy & Strategy at the Interdisciplinary Center (IDC), Herzliya.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
6)-.
Prager: The Right Does Have Answers on Guns, Mr. President"I would ask every politician who argues for more gun laws, and every anti-gun activist, just two questions.
On the assumption that there are good and bad people on both the right and the left and that everyone is horrified by mass shootings, how is one to explain the great divide between right and left on the gun issue as it relates to these mass murders?
Why does the left focus on more gun control laws, and why doesn’t the right?
One reason is quintessentially American. Most Americans believe that it is their right — and even their duty — to own guns for self-protection. Unique among major democratic and industrialized nations, Americans have traditionally believed in relying on the state as little as possible. The right carries on this tradition, while the left believes in relying on the state as much possible — including, just to name a few areas, education, health care and personal protection.
A second reason for the left-right divide is that the left is uncomfortable with blaming people for bad actions. The right, on the other hand, is far more inclined to blame people for their bad actions.
Thus, liberals generally blame racism and poverty for violent crimes committed by poor blacks and Hispanics, while conservatives blame the criminals. Likewise, during the Cold War the left regarded nuclear weapons as the enemy while conservatives saw Communist regimes that possessed nuclear weapons as the enemy. It was the arms, not the values of those in possession of the arms, that troubled the left.
The third reason for the left-right divide on guns is that the two sides ask different questions when formulating social policies. The right tends to ask, “Does it do good?” The left is more likely to ask, “Does it feel good?”
Attitudes toward the minimum wage provide an excellent example.
As I noted in a recent column, in 1987, The New York Times editorialized against any minimum wage. The title of the editorial said it all: “The Right Minimum Wage: $0.00.”
“There’s a virtual consensus among economists,” wrote the Times editorial, “that the minimum wage is an idea whose time has passed. Raising the minimum wage by a substantial amount would price working poor people out of the job market.”
In 1987 the Times editorialized against having any minimum wage because it asked the question: “Does it do good?”
Twenty-seven years later, the same editorial page wrote the opposite of what it had written in 1987, and called for a major increase in the minimum wage.
Why? Did the laws of economics change? Of course not.
What changed was the question the Times asked. Having moved further and further left, the Times editorial page was now preoccupied not with what does good, but with what feels good. And it feels good to raise poor people’s minimum wage.
So, too, on gun control. Immediately after the killings in Oregon, President Obama expressed great anger over Congress’s unwillingness to pass more gun laws. But neither he nor other left-wing gun control advocates tell us what law or laws — short of universal confiscation of guns (which is as possible as universal deportation of immigrants here illegally) — would have stopped any of the mass shootings that recently occurred.
To liberals it feels good to declare a college a “gun-free zone.” Does it do good? Of course not. It does the opposite. It informs would-be murderers that no one will shoot them.
On gun violence, the left doesn’t ask, “What does good?” It asks, “What feels good?” It feels good to call for more gun laws. It enables liberals to feel good about themselves; it makes the right look bad; and it increases government control over the citizenry. A liberal trifecta.
Are federal background checks a good idea? The idea sounds perfectly reasonable. But if they wouldn’t have prevented any of the recent mass shootings, they would have been no help.
So, then, short of universal confiscation, which is both practically and constitutionally impossible, what will do good? What will reduce gun violence?
One thing that would make incomparably more difference than more gun laws is more fathers, especially in the great majority of shooting murders — those that are not part of a mass shooting. Why aren’t liberals as passionate about policies that ensure that millions more men father their children as they are about gun laws? Because such thinking is anathema to the left. The left works diligently to keep single mothers dependent on the state (and therefore on the Democratic Party). And emphasizing a lack of fathers means human behavior is more to blame than guns.
Another is to cultivate participation in organized religion. Young men who attend church weekly commit far fewer murders than those who do not. But this too is anathema to the left. The secular left never offers religion as a solution to social problems. To do so, like emphasizing fathers, would shift the blame from guns to the criminal users of guns.
I would ask every journalist who cares about truth to ask every politician who argues for more guns laws, and every anti-gun activist, just two questions:
“Which do you believe would do more to decrease gun violence in America — more gun laws or more fathers?” “More gun laws or more church attendance?”
Barack Obama says, “Our gun supply leads to more deaths. The GOP has no plausible alternative theory.”
The GOP does. But as usual, few Republicans say what it is. And no liberal wants to hear it.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
7)-The Clinton Scam:
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 8)- THE PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER IN MIDEAST, ALLIES GAUGE RELIABILITY of the U.S.
By Dennis Ross
Dennis Ross has been an adviser or diplomat in the George H.W. Bush, Clinton, and Obama administrations and is the author of "Doomed to Succeed: The U.S.-Israel Relationship From Truman to Obama"
| |||
11:00 PM
No comments:
Post a Comment