==
Netanyahu must not respond to Hamas in a Western manner, appealing to their common sense and concern for their children.
He must respond in the only language they understand - total destruction and the delivery of pain and suffering.
Bibi must disregard the messages from the bleeding hearts who believe Hamas is Israel's equal. Hamas is led by animals and humans need not apply. (See 2, 2a and 2b below.)
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If Republicans in Congress had guts they would take Obama's over the board border money demand from the budget of The IRS's no smidgen fund! (See 3 below.)
Krauthammer has a solution. (See 3a below.)
And this from the other 'see no evil' because it is GW's fault perspective. (See 3b below.)
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Finally, off to Tybee!
===
Dick
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1) Obama: Dancing Barefoot on the Embers
I can remember several times when Obama just started to laugh in public at various disasters triggered by his policies.
Happy laughter now seems to be the official White House reaction to domestic and international chaos and human suffering. You could call it leading with Obama’s big strength -- a great smile on TV -- while avoiding the worst of his weaknesses -- his inability to actually solve anything.
About a year ago when painfully high black unemployment figures were mentioned, especially among young black men, Obama gave a happy smile in response. Then when “NATO” (i.e., the U.S.) started to bomb and overthrow the stabilizing regime of Gadaffi in Libya in a plot to arm Syria’s Al Qaeda rebels with American weapons, including MANPADS, Obama gave us his fabulous movie star smile after being asked whether U.S. Presidents should not ask Congress forauthorization to go to war. Now those weapons are being used by ISIS to kill people in Syria and Iraq, as it is marching on Baghdad and el-Maliki, our supposed ally. When the administration is asked to stop the march of barbarism in Iraq, it just gives a collective shrug. What, me worry?
Now the ISIS has a reported 88 pounds of enriched uranium and half a billion dollars stolen from Mosul banks, but “administration officials” are telling us not to worry.
Who me? I din’t do nuthin’!
Obama has a nasty, devilish streak, part of his oppositional-defiant disorder. Since he has two and a half years left in the most powerful political office in the world, how much more damage can he do? Quite a lot. And how long will it take for the U.S. media to actually tell the plain and obvious truth? Because Obama the “community disorganizer” has finally torn off the mask. A psychiatrist might be worried about this process of dropping the mask.
Last week Obama “joked” that a White House cake “might have crack in it,” and Michelle looked suitably shocked, but crack cocaine is no joke for the millions of blacks and whites who are hooked on it. This is like joking about slavery, because purified cocaine is the slave-maker of our times. But come to think of it, this White House has done nothing about literal slave-taking of African children by Boko Haram Islamists in Nigeria, hundreds of little girls and boys sold by the ancient Muslim slave trade, in a grim imitation of the Atlantic slave trade that ended 150 years ago -- in the West, but not in Africa or the Middle East.
“Inappropriate laughter” describes the president’s behavior. The last time I remember that was Bill Clinton breaking up with the giggles at Ron Brown’s funeral. Ron Brown was the bag man who had died in a suspicious airplane crash from a suspiciously round bullet hole in his skull. Another occasion for presidential laughter.
Washington looks increasingly like a piratical madhouse. But we are not alone. In Europe, the imperialistic socialists of Brussels have rendered their own voters just as helpless as we are, while taking massive amounts of loot from such civilized folks as the Saudis, Iranians, Gadaffi, and Saddam. In the latest outrage, our sometime ally Britain is turning its parliamentary freedoms over to Brussels, allowing a Eurocrat from Luxembourg -- a tiny duchy best known for money laundering -- to take on the new presidency of the European Union, without the benefit of a single popular vote. The new gent in charge is significantly named Jean-Claude Juncker -- like the goose-stepping Junckers who ran Prussia before Bismark unified Germany into one, single, Europe-conquering Empire.
The European Union is another Bismarckian effort to turn Europe into a centralized empire, the political fantasy of every conqueror from Julius Caesar onward. And the EU is doing it by deliberately creating an unelected ruling aristocracy without a single popular vote. To keep the German currency strong, all of the weaker economies in Europe are being sacrificed, and Mr. Juncker has boasted that “we will just ignore them” if the voters ever object.
Obama is a Eurosocialist of the Third World variety, taking us on a course to centralized planning and crony capitalism without the consent of the governed. He is doing it using the Alinsky method of making things worse to make them better. That suicidal strategy has never worked. Today there is not a shred of evidence that it will work this time around. Obamanism is much pain with no gain.
The only hope is that the media-numbed American people will come to their senses before it is too late. So far, the voters have failed just as badly as our political/media power players.
Abe Lincoln’s last, best hope of mankind is failing, and the ancient tyrannies of the world are smelling blood. Two and a half more years of Obama, in a world where terrorists now have nuclear materials, and Washington tells us to put on a happy face. Richard Cheney was right, and our political leadership is sailing the ship of state straight onto the rocks.
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2)
| PM Netanyahu's Statement at the Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv |
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, today (Friday, 11 July 2014), at the Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv, issued the following statement: "This is the fourth day of Operation Protective Edge. The IDF, the ISA and the security forces are fighting Hamas with increasing intensity. As of now we have hit over 1,000 Hamas', Islamic Jihad and other terrorist organizations' targets, and we are still busy. The pace of attacks in this operation is double that of Operation Pillar of Defense and the military strikes will continue until we can be certain that the quiet has returned to Israeli citizens. I would like to make it clear that no terrorist target in the Gaza Strip is immune but it must be pointed out that Hamas's leaders, commanders and activists are hiding behind the residents of Gaza and they are responsible for any injury to them. The difference between us is simple. We develop defensive systems against missiles in order to protect our civilians and they use their civilians to protect their missiles. And this is the entire difference: They fire indiscriminately at our civilians and our cities in order to attack them. Sometimes they hit soldiers by mistake. We strike at their armed forces and sometimes we hit civilians by mistake. I made this point and many others clear in recent days in the conversations I have held with major world leaders. I had a good conversation last night with US President Barack Obama, also with Russian President Vladimir Putin. I had good talks with all of them, with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and British Prime Minister David Cameron, and of course with French President Francois Hollande. To all of them I said something simple no country would accept its civilians being fired at without a harsh response. I said that I would not allow Israel's citizens to live in this reality. No international pressure will prevent us from operating with full force against a terrorist organization that calls for our destruction. We will continue to strongly hit all those who try to attack us and we will continue to take determined and prudent action to protect our home front, the citizens of the State of Israel. Iron Dome is a great asset to our national security and I think that it is additional proof of the technological superiority of the State of Israel. This is one of the more impressive developments in defensive war materiel in recent decades. In recent years, my governments , this is my second government have invested billions in home front defense; Iron Dome was a considerable portion of this sum, and we are working to cover the entire country with systems that can intercept missiles from any distance. And perhaps the most important defense in the end, with certainty, is your strength, citizens of Israel. The strength that you have been showing helps us in conducting this operation in a responsible and sagacious manner. I ask only one thing of you continue to listen to the instructions of IDF Home Front Command, they both save lives and prevent Hamas from realizing the goals that it has set. We will continue to do whatever we need to guard over you but I also ask you to do what is necessary in order to guard your lives and those of your children. I am proud of the way in which you have been conducting yourselves and I am proud of your support. I am proud to be your Prime Minister." |
2a) Retribution Not Messaging is What Israel Needs
As Israel embarks on yet another operation against Hamas and by extension its new governmental partner, the Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority, it might do well to reconsider why Israeli deterrent “messaging” doesn’t seem to get through to the Palestinian Arabs.
“Messaging” may seem like an odd term to use when referring to a military operation, but under Israel’s current military doctrine, that is exactly the intent of its current operation and the two that preceded it (Pillar of Defense and Cast Lead), as well as Israel’s 2007 Lebanon campaign. Israel no longer seeks to win wars, or even to exact retribution. Rather it operates to convince its adversaries to improve their conduct through carefully modulated military operations.
There are many inside and outside the Israeli political/military establishment who consider this policy a success. They might point to the relative quiet on the Lebanon border since 2007, or periods of relative calm along the Gaza border following each Israeli operation in that area. But such assertions carry loads of caveats.
With the Palestinian Arabs, the idea that Israel’s messaging works depends, as a certain former president might say, on your definition of “quiet.” Israel’s Gaza border is never quiet in the sense that any other country judges its borders quiet. Nor are the Palestinian-governed areas of the West Bank really quiet. Hamas and other Palestinian groups attack Israel all the time, just not with the frequency and range of targets that occur during “flare-ups” like we have now. The year after Israel’s “successful” Pillar of Defense operation (2013) saw a doubling of terror attacks according to Israel’s internal security force, Shin Bet.
The current flare-up, beyond being related to the ill-advised and farcical Kerry/Obama peace attempt, stems directly from the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teenagers by Hamas terrorists in the West Bank, and a subsequent revenge murder by a few Israeli civilians.
The murders and revenge murder allow us to cut through a lot of the cant and blather and get to the heart of the matter. We’ll start with a rhetorical question.
What is the most fundamental function of government? Is it providing free contraceptives to sexually active young women? Stirring up public hysteria over planetary climate cycles? Providing food, shelter and comfort for illegal aliens? Defending the nation against attack? You get a zero if you answered yes to any of the above. The most fundamental government function, at the most basic level, is exacting revenge.
Common defense in humans is instinctive, as it is in most social animals. Wolves and lions don’t need governmental structures to defend the pack or pride. Even social insects organize common defenses.
On the other hand, seeking vengeance seems to be an instinctive but very human trait. In hunter-gatherer societies, where the family/clan is the only social unit, it is the responsibility of that unit, or a designee, to exact vengeance. As clans evolved into tribes and the first proto-governmental structures evolved, exacting vengeance became a tribal/governmental imperative, just as families/clans had functioned on a smaller scale for most of human prehistory.
This was a critical step in the evolution of larger human organization. The family/clan surrendered the responsibility and freedom of exacting vengeance in return for the tribe’s assurance that it would get the job done.
As tribes turned into civilizations and individuals and families surrendered more and more freedom and power to government, exacting revenge against enemies, foreign or domestic, became a complex aspect of governance that increasingly attenuated natural human aggression and the desire for vengeance from its actual implementation. Today, especially in advanced Western societies, exacting revenge is actively discouraged. Governments have increasingly abrogated this responsibility, seeing as “uncivilized.”
However, in tribal societies, the concept of vengeance attacks remains alive and well.
Arab societies, especially Palestinian Arab society, remain essentially tribal. Arabs have always been a tribal people. Muhammad united the Arabs for the first time under the banner of Islam, but for the most part it did not take. Upon his death there was immediate dispute over whether his successor should be a blood relation, which resulted in the Sunni/Shia schism which persists violently to this day.
The first real Arab civil government (technically the second caliphate) was theUmayyad Caliphate, which lasted less than a century, and was riven by factional disputes, during which time three “Muslim civil wars” were fought. As in this period, almost all Muslims were Arabs -- Islam having not yet become a true universalist religion -- these were essentially Arab tribal wars.
The succeeding Abbasid Caliphate was Arab only in name. It was administered largely by Persians and later Turks. Well before the Abbasid’s fall to the Mongols in 1258, the Arab experiment in non-tribal centralized government essentially came to an end. And while the Arabs have had, and continue to have, the odd kingdom or “country” here and there, they remain an essentially tribal people. Current events stretching across the Arab world, from Tunis to Baghdad, bear this out. The Palestinian refusal to accept a state, though offered many times, is part and parcel of this phenomenon.
Much of Israel’s problem in dealing with the Palestinians is that the Palestinians Arabs operate on tribal imperatives, while the Israelis try to address them in terms acceptable to modern Western sensibilities. It doesn’t work, and never will work. Polls show that most ordinary Palestinian Arabs want to continue the conflict with Israel, and support rocket fire and attacks against Israeli population centers. This is part of a bottomless need for vengeance dating from the so-called Nabka -- the Palestinian term for the "disaster" stemming from the founding of Israel. That theNabka was inflicted on the Arabs by Jews -- an inferior people in the Arab/Muslim psyche -- makes the need for ongoing vengeance even more acute. Nothing short of the destruction of the enemy (Israel and the Jews) will satiate it. Moreover, the creation of a “Palestinian” state has nothing to do with it.
In the decades after its founding, Israeli governments, acting as effective governments must, engaged in purely retaliatory actions in response to Arab attacks, punctuated here and there by punishing military campaigns that allowed the tiny state to grow and prosper, and which eventually forced peace agreements (Egypt and Jordan) or long-term armistice (Syria.)
But with the Palestinian Arabs, for a variety of reasons, the Israelis long ago ceased to operate on a retributive basis, and rather have sought to appease them through grants of territory (Gaza and much of the West Bank), release of captives, and tribute (disguised as aid.) After the heinous slaying of the Israeli teens, the Israeli government typically failed to act. This proved too much for some Israelis, and a small number sought retribution on their own, slaying (in equally heinous fashion) an Arab teen.
The current Gaza operation is not retributive either. It continues to be a “messaging operation” in accord with Israeli doctrine, and so a futile operation, as recent history has shown. Until an Israeli government realizes and acknowledges this, Israeli will continue to fight one war, while the Arabs fight another. It is a war Israel might still lose.
2b) The time has come for America to stand up
By Caroline B. Glick
When asked: "How did it come to this?" Here's the detailed answer.
A must-read for activists and truth seekers
What is Hamas doing?
Hamas isn't going to defeat Israel.
It isn't going to gain any territory. Israel isn't going to withdraw from Ashkelon or Sderot under a hail of rockets.
So if Hamas can't win, why is it fighting?
Why rain down destruction and misery on millions of Israelis with your Iranian missiles and your Syrian rockets and so invite a counter assault on your headquarters and weapons warehouses, which you conveniently placed in the middle of the Palestinians on whose behalf you are allegedly fighting?
Hamas is in a precarious position today. When the terror group took over Gaza seven years ago, things were different. It had a relatively friendly regime in Cairo that was willing to turn a blind eye to all the missiles Iran, Syria and Hezbollah were sending over to Gaza through the Sinai.
Hamas's leaders were comfortably ensconced in Damascus and enjoyed warm relations with both Saudi Arabia and Iran.
International funds flowed freely into Hamas bank accounts from Fatah's donor-financed Palestinian Authority budget, through the Arab Bank, headquartered in Jordan, through the UN, and when necessary through suitcases of cash transferred to Gaza by couriers from Egypt.
Hamas used these conditions to build up the arsenal of a terror state, and also to keep the trains running on time. Schools were open. Government employees were paid. Israel was bombed. All was good.
Today, Hamas, the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, faces an Egyptian regime that is locked into a life-and-death struggle with the Brotherhood. To harm Hamas, for the past year the Egyptians have been blocking Hamas's land-based weapons shipments and destroying its smuggling-dependent economy by sealing off the cross-border tunnels.
Syria and Hamas parted ways at the outset of the Syrian civil war when Hamas, a Sunni jihadist group was unable to openly support Bashar Assad's massacre of Sunnis.
Fatah has lately been refusing to transfer payments to Hamas due to Congressional pressure to cut off the now-illegal flow of aid to the joint Fatah-Hamas unity government. As for Hamas's banker, stung by terror victim lawsuits, the Arab Bank now refuses to transfer monies to Hamas from third parties. The UN is also hard-pressed to finance the terror group's bureaucracy.
In Gaza itself, al Qaeda affiliates including ISIS have seeded themselves along with the Iranian proxy Islamic Jihad. These groups challenge to Hamas's claim to power. Lacking the ability to pay government employee salaries, Hamas is hard-pressed to keep its rivals down.
Given these circumstances, it was just a matter of time before Hamas opened a full-on assault against Israel.
Jew hatred is endemic in the Muslim world. Going to war against Israel it is a tried and true method of garnering sympathy and support from the Muslim world. At a minimum it also earns you the forbearance, if not the support of the US and Europe. And you get all of these things whether you win or lose.
When Saddam Hussein shot 39 Scud missiles at Israel during the 1991 Gulf War, he didn't attack because he thought doing so would destroy Israel. He attacked Israel because he was trying to convince the Arab members of the US-led international coalition to abandon the war against him.
Moreover, when Saddam launched the Scuds against Israel, he knew that Israel wouldn't be able to retaliate. He knew that the US would force Israel to stand down in order to maintain the support of his Jew hating fellow Arabs in its coalition.
So attacking Israel was a freebie that he only stood to gain from.
Hezbollah's leaders also never deluded themselves into believing their group can conquer Israel. But by attacking the hated Jews, they were able to present themselves and their Iranian bosses as the guardians of the Muslims worldwide.
Then there was the US's response.
As it protected Saddam from Israel in 1991, so in 2006, the US gave Hezbollah the upper hand in the war. Then secretary of state Condoleezza Rice forced Israel to accept a ceasefire with Hezbollah that placed the illegal terror group on equal legal and moral footing with Israel. This US legitimization of Hezbollah enabled the Iranian proxy to intimidate its Sunni and Christian compatriots in Lebanon and coerce them into accepting effective Hezbollah control over the entire state.
As for Hamas, from the outset of Hamas's previous missile campaigns in 2009 and 2012, the Obama administration made it clear to Israel that it would not tolerate Israeli strikes that were comprehensive enough to wipe out Hamas's capacity to continue attacking Israel. In other words, President Barack Obama chose to protect Hamas -- an illegal terrorist organization, waging a war of indiscriminate, criminal missile strikes against Israeli civilians - from Israel.
Today, Hamas has every reason to take heart from the responses it has received so far from its current offensive.
In the internal Palestinian arena, Fatah, Hamas's partner in the Palestinian Authority unity government is standing shoulder to shoulder with Hamas.
As the Jerusalem Post's Khaled Abu Toameh reported, Fatah militias in Gaza are actively participating in the Hamas-led missile campaign against Israel. Fatah terrorists have boasted shooting dozens of rockets and mortars at Ashkelon and Sderot.
Wednesday Palestinian Media Watch reported that Fatah posted a placard proclaiming that the military wings of Fatah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad are "brothers in arms" united by "one God, one homeland, one enemy and one goal."
Fatah chief Mahmoud Abbas is Hamas's diplomatic champion. Indeed, his wild accusations against Israel have moved from the realm of exaggeration to rank incitement that raises concern he is planning to open a second front against Israel from Judea and Samaria.
Although Egypt has still not indicated a willingness to support Hamas, the longer Hamas is able to continue attacking Israel, the more difficult it will become for Egypt to continue to seal off the border between Gaza and Sinai. Hamas's war strengthens the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.
Then there is the Obama administration.
To date, Obama administration spokesmen have been mouthing prepared statements blaming the hostilities on Hamas and supporting Israel while praising its restraint. But at the same time, they have been transmitting messages which indicate that Obama is more intent than ever to give Hamas a victory even as it continues to rain down terror on Israel. As Tel Aviv, Hadera and Jerusalem absorbed their first missile salvos from Gaza on Tuesday, Obama's Middle East envoy Philip Gordon spoke at Haaretz's "peace" conference.
It was a jaw dropping performance.
Gordon blamed Israel for the failure for the administration's efforts to broker a peace deal between Israel and the PLO while effusively praising Fatah leader and Hamas partner Abbas.
And it only went down from there.
After insisting Israel is insufficiently committed to peace, Gordon threatened to withdraw US support for Israel at the UN and so open the door to the criminalization of Israel by the corrupt international body.
"How will we prevent other states from supporting Palestinian efforts in international bodies, if Israel is not seen as committed to peace?" he asked rhetorically.
Gordon's remarks were not disputed by the State Department. And State Department spokespersons themselves have continued to absurdly insist that Hamas is not a member of the Fatah-Hamas unity government.
From Hamas's perspective, the Obama administration's response to its aggression is an invitation to keep going. Gordon's speech allayed any concerns they may have had how the US would respond.
Hamas no know that the US will coerce Israel into standing down while Hamas is still standing, and so enable the jihadists to claim victory and place Egypt in a bind.
And as with Hamas, so with Hamas's Iranian sponsors.
On July 20, the US and its partners are supposed to conclude a nuclear deal with Iran. Many Western experts and even some Israeli ones insist that Iran's nuclear weapon program is not a serious threat to Israel because Iran's primary aspirations have little to do with Israel.
Iran, they say, wants nuclear weapons in order to dominate the Persian Gulf, and through it, the Muslim world as a whole. Iran's targets, it is argued, are Mecca and Medina, not Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.
While this is probably true, it is certainly irrelevant for Israel's strategic assessment. The same dynamics that inform Hamas's decision to launch its offensives against Israel inform Iran's thinking about how it will use a nuclear arsenal. Iran would not attack Israel with nuclear weapons because it wishes to conquer Israel, per se. Iran would attack Israel with nuclear weapons because doing so would give it a massive public relations boost in its campaign to dominate the Persian Gulf generally, and Saudi Arabia in particular. In other words, far from being a hindrance to accomplishing its central goal, Iran views attacking Israel as a means of advancing it.
Unfortunately for Israel, just as the US has made clear that it opposes Israel taking any offensive steps to destroy Hamas's capacity to rain terror on its citizens, so the Obama administration, through word and deed has made clear that it will defend Iran and Iran's nuclear weapons program from Israel.
The talks that are set to conclude next week can only bring about bad or worse results for Israel. In recent days and weeks, Iranian leaders have said that that the only deal they will sign is one that will facilitate their nuclear weapons program by giving international license to theri massive uranium enrichment activities. So if a deal is concluded, it will give the imprimatur of the US, the UN and the EU to a nuclear-armed Iran.
If no deal is concluded, the Obama administration will undoubtedly continue to protect Iran's nuclear installations from Israel in the hopes of concluding an agreement with Iran at a later date, perhaps after the Congressional elections in November.
In an op-ed in Haaretz published this week, Obama wrote, "While walls and missile defense systems can help protect against some threats, true safety will only come with a comprehensive negotiated settlement. Reaching a peace agreement with the Palestinians would also help turn the tide of international sentiment and sideline violent extremists, further bolstering Israel's security."
Unfortunately, Obama misses the point completely. As the dozen agreements Israel already signed with the Palestinians show, pieces of paper are meaningless if they don't reflect the underlying sentiments of the populations concerned.
Peace can only come to Israel and its neighbors when the Muslim world liberates itself from its hatred of Jews. Until that happens, everyone from Hamas to Hezbollah to Fatah to al Qaeda to Iran and beyond will continue to view attacking Israel as the best way to make a name for themselves in the world, and the best way to get the attention - and support -- of the West.
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3)The Insiders: More IRS smidgens show up. ‘Perfect.’
Anyone paying attention to the Internal Revenue Service scandal has been waiting for the next smidgen to drop. Well, two more hit pretty hard this week. At the president’s next encounter with the media, I will scream collusion if no one asks him for his exact definition of a “smidgen,” and if he thinks he has seen a smidgen of corruption yet. At this point, only the most gullible or culpable can continue to claim there is no compelling evidence in this case. Given the delays, lies and stonewalling, there is no viable argument against a special prosecutor
In a stunning revelation this week, it was disclosed that former IRS official Lois Lerner told colleagues,“we need to be cautious about what we say in emails” and then proceeded to ask the IRS IT department, in an e-mail, “if [instant messaging] conversations were also searchable.” When she was told they were not, she e-mailed back, “Perfect.” This is a smoking gun e-mail in that it makes plain she had a cover-up in mind. There is no other plausible explanation.
Who knows how many of her colleagues and allies are breathing a sigh of relief upon learning that their e-mails to Lerner were destroyed and their instant messages not recorded? I think Lerner must have a sizable silent cheering section in Washington; people who are rooting for her to hang tough in pleading the Fifth and hoping that she does not go wobbly on them. I’ll bet her government retirement check is one check that never gets lost in the mail or delayed.
It gets even better. In another disclosure, Lerner’s attorney said that previous emphatic statements he had made declaring that Lerner did not print hard copies of her e-mails were not lies, just a “misunderstanding.” In this case, it is obvious what happened. When Team Lerner discovered that not keeping hard copies of some e-mails – which are considered government records – would in itself violate the law, it changed its story. It’s as simple as that.
The coordination among the Democrats and Lerner is remarkably brazen, even by today’s standards. While she lies low taking the Fifth, her mouthpieces in the Democratic caucus recite talking points that only she could approve. For example, during House oversight hearings on the scandal, Democrats seem to recite with great precision what Lerner did or did not do, what she knew and when she knew it. So while she hides the truth, protects her gang and stays clear of a perjury charge or worse, elected members of the Democratic party declare her innocence and tell her self-serving story.
Anyway, as long as Lerner stays cool and the Obama Department of Justice has her back, the administration obviously thinks it can run out the clock on this scandal. But these revelations are definitely meaningful smidgens. At what point does a flock of smidgens become irrefutable evidence that deserves an independent examination?
Thanks to House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) and other GOP leaders who refuse to shrug and quit, the Democrats’ denials, excuses and alibis are getting harder to make. After all, in Washington being guilty is still a bothersome disadvantage.
3a)Here's How Obama Can Fix America's Border Crisis
As is his wont, President Obama is treating the border crisis — more than 50,000 unaccompanied children crossing illegally — as a public relations problem. Where to photo op and where not. He still hasn't enunciated a policy. He may not even have one.
As is his wont, President Obama is treating the border crisis — more than 50,000 unaccompanied children crossing illegally — as a public relations problem. Where to photo op and where not. He still hasn't enunciated a policy. He may not even have one.
Will these immigrants be allowed to stay? Seven times was Obama's homeland security secretary asked this on "Meet the Press." Seven times he danced around the question.
Presidential press secretary Josh Earnest was ostensibly more forthcoming: "It's unlikely that most of those kids will qualify for humanitarian relief. ... They will be sent back."
This was characterized in the media as a harder line. Not at all. Yes, those kids who go through the process will likely have no grounds to stay. But most will never go through the process.
These kids are being flown or bused to family members around the country and told to then show up for deportation hearings. Why show up? Why not just stay where they'll get superior schooling, superior health care, superior everything? As a result, only 3% are being repatriated, to cite an internal Border Patrol memo.
Repatriate them? How stone-hearted, you say. After what they've been through? To those dismal conditions back home? By that standard, with a sea of endemic suffering on every continent, we should have no immigration laws. Deny entry to no needy person.
But we do. We must. We choose. And immediate deportation is exactly what happens to illegal immigrants, children or otherwise, from Mexico and Canada. By what moral logic should there be a Central American exception?
There is no logic. Just a quirk of the law — a 2008 law intended to deter sex trafficking. It mandates that Central American kids receive temporary relocation, extensive assistance and elaborate immigration/deportation proceedings, which many simply evade.
This leniency was designed for a small number of sex-trafficked youth. It was never intended for today's mass migration aimed at establishing a family foothold in America.
Stopping this wave is not complicated. A serious president would go to Congress tomorrow proposing a change in the law, simply mandating that Central American kids get the same treatment as Mexican kids, i.e., be subject to immediate repatriation.
Then do so under the most humane conditions. Buses with every amenity. Kids accompanied by nurses and social workers and interpreters and everything they need on board. But going home.
One thing is certain. When the first convoys begin rolling from town to town across Central America, the influx will stop.
When he began taking heat for his laxness and indecisiveness, Obama said he would seek statutory authority for eliminating the Central American loophole. Yet when he presented his $3.7 billion emergency package on Tuesday, it included no such proposal. Without it, tens of thousands of kids will stay. Tens of thousands more will come.
Why do they come? The administration pretends it's because of violence and poverty.
Nonsense. When has there not been violence and poverty in Central America? Yet this wave of children has doubled in size in the past two years and is projected to double again by October. The new variable is Obama's unilateral (and lawless) June 2012 order essentially legalizing hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants who came here as children.
Message received in Central America. True, this executive order doesn't apply to those who came after June 15, 2007. But the fact remains that children coming across now are overwhelmingly likely to stay.
Alternatively, Obama blames the crisis on Republicans for failing to pass immigration legislation.
More nonsense. It's a total non sequitur. A comprehensive law would not have prevented the current influx. Indeed, any change that amnesties 11 million illegals simply reinforces the message that if you come here illegally, eventually you will be allowed to stay.
It happens that I support immigration legislation. I support amnesty. I have since 2006. But only after we secure the border.
Which begins with completing the fencing along the Mexican frontier. Using 2009 Government Accountability Office estimates, that would have cost up to $6.6 billion. Obama will now spend more than half that to accommodate a mass migration that would have been prevented by just such a barrier.
But a fence is for the long term. For the immediate crisis, the answer is equally, blindingly clear: Eliminate the Central American exception and enforce the law.
It must happen. The nightmare will continue until it does. The only question is: How long until Obama is forced to do the obvious?
3b)
The United States/Mexico border is NOT broken—this crisis actually shows the border is secure.
3b)
The So-Called Immigration Border Crisis Is Neither
By Sally Kohn
We have had an immigration crisis for a long time in the United States. Now we also have a humanitarian crisis. It’s important we understand the distinction—and do something to solve both. Some clarifying facts are in order.
Central American children are fleeing their countries because of violence.
Central America is facing unprecedented gang warfare and violence. These criminal gangs especially target young people; if you don’t join, there are violent consequences. A young boy told the Women’s Refugee Commission, “In El Salvador, there is a wrong—it is being young. It is better to be old.” Young people face terrible threats in migrating, often alone, to the United States or elsewhere—muggings, theft, kidnappings, rape, death—but as The Washington Post reports, “that stuff, and worse, was at home.”
According to Vox, between 2009 and 2012 a civilian was more likely to be killed by violence in Guatemala, Honduras, or El Salvador than killed in Iraq at the height of the insurgency. Data analysis has shown that as the homicide rates go up, so do the number of unaccompanied kids migrating.
Just like children and families fleeing Syria or Iraq or any violence-torn part of the world, children and often their mothers as well as fleeing Central America. There is a humanitarian crisis there that is spilling over across the region, including into the United States.
Central American kids are NOT fleeing their countries because of U.S. immigration policy.
Republicans are largely accusing that when President Obama granted immigration reprieve to so-called Dreamers—young undocumented immigrants already in the United States and brought here when they were children—his actions encouraged other people to immigrate, especially these kids from Central America. This highly partisan accusation falls flat with the facts.
The number of kids escaping Central America began to increase in 2009. There was a lull and then another uptick beginning in 2011. Both periods clearly predate President Obama’s enactment of DACA (Deferred Action for Child Arrivals) in 2012. Under any conception of linear time, there’s simply no possible argument for causality.
Added to this is the fact that Central American kids are trying to come to the United States but they’re also trying to go elsewhere. Mexico, Panama, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Belize are all seeing an increase in Central Americans seeking asylum as well.
Also, if American immigration policy were actually the draw, we would see an increase in kids migrating from all countries, not just Central America. But the number of Mexican children trying to cross the border into the United States has decreased in recent years. It seems reasonable to conclude that U.S. immigration policy is simply not driving this current crisis.
The United States/Mexico border is NOT broken—this crisis actually shows the border is secure.
This one would seem self-evident: The fact that we have a humanitarian crisis of an unprecedented number of unaccompanied children in the custody of United States Border Patrol proves that these kids aren’t “slipping through” our “broken border” but are being stopped and detained.
Republicans are generally accusing otherwise, using the rise in kids seeking asylum here to gin up their perennial insistence that our border is not sufficiently secure—an excuse they’ve used to derail immigration reform in the past and are using to stall humanitarian aid in this crisis.
One would hope simple logic would prevail. We’re not seeing an uptick of unaccompanied undocumented kids from
Central America showing up in Iowa. They’re in dreadfully over-crowded and ill-equipped government facilities, deteriorating conditions that are why this is a humanitarian crisis within our own borders. Over the first 8 1/2 months of fiscal year 2014, 52,193 unaccompanied children have been taken into custody by the Border Patrol.
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