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Stella loves Sally and Chunky Blake is 6 months and standing. Soon he will be ready for college. Go Blake!
===
We are leaving Sept. 10, heading to Louisville to visit our daughter, her husband and our granddaughter. Then we go to Chicago to visit another daughter and her husband. From there we go to Milwaukee to pick up the Bourlands' for a drive around the eastern shore of Wisconsin and Door County. Then the Bourlands return to The Landings and we drive to Birmingham , Mi. to visit another daughter and her husband. While there we will celebrate Rosh Hashanah, The Jewish New Year and then back to The Landings before Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement.
Once again, we are driving the entire trip. You will be pleased to know you will not be getting any memos.
Therefore,I would like to take this early opportunity to wish all my family, friends and fellow memo readers the Happiest, Healthiest and best ever of New Years. Let it be one of peace.
===
As I have warned in the past, whenever I leave town strange things often happen. (See 1 below.)
By the time I return Putin could have decided to take all of Ukraine, ISIS could have invaded Jordan, and the cease fire between Hamas and Israel could have imploded because of an unprovoked Hamas rocket attack (See 2 below.), Britain and/ or some European country could be attacked by radical Islamists who no longer exist. Meanwhile, Obama should have attended a few more fund raisers, played many rounds of golf and still be thinking about what strategy, if any, to employ.
It is increasingly evident, Obama does not like to make decisions which carry risks of being wrong and would rather criticize those who do. Some, who defend him, praise him for being cautious. Obama apparently forced his Sec. of Defense and the Chief of Staff to back pedal because they got ahead of him and said ISSIS was a threat, whereas, Obama sees them as simply 'bad beheaders' and/or 'misguided Muslims!'
I remain bemused by those who attack me, and sidestep what I have said but then that is typical of those who are incapable of being objective when their idol is being criticized. Bless their soul!
===
Obama is disarming America, Liberals want to disarm the police and these Democrats are asking the U.N. to do it.
I do not own a gun , a rifle or any weapon but our constitution allows those who want to to do so and Ferguson is just another reminder why it might be a good idea.
The best weapon America has against those who hate our nation, want to see our nation defanged and brought down is our Constitution. However, when the broad precepts of our Founding Fathers, and amendments, are not enforced or are re-interpreted by those who believe their views are more in keeping with what should be, we are all threatened and weakened.
This is simply another reason why I distrust not only Obama but also so many of those he has appointed to high office. (See 2 and 2a below.)
====
Click on Glick. (See 3 below.)
Do words have meaning or are they simply a way of 'messin around.?' (See 3a below.)
===
Dick
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1) Jihadists Steal Commercial Jets, Raise 9/11 Fears
Jihadists have stolen several commercial jetliners in Libya, raising concerns with intelligence officials about 9/11-style terror strikes as the 13th anniversary approaches, several news reports say.
The Algerian news site al-Fadjr on Aug. 6 said 11 aircraft went missing from Tripoli International Airport during fighting between militias, IHS Jane's 360 reports, but says the Algerian report was "probably not credible."
Subsequently, Mohamed Frikha, CEO of the Tunisian airline company Syphax, told Tunisia's Shems FM that two Airbus-A320 aircraft belonging to Libyan company Ifriqiya were missing from Misratah, Jane's reports.
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2) If you vote Democratic it might be a good idea to think about this.
HOORAY a 53-46 vote.
The U.N. Resolution 2117 lists 21 points dealing with firearms control, but perhaps of most interest is point number 11. It:"CALLS FOR MEMBER STATES TO SUPPORT WEAPONS COLLECTION and DISARMAMENT of all UN countries".
By a 53-46 vote - The U.S. Senate voted against the U.N. resolution. HOORAY.
This is that brief, glorious moment in history when everyone stands around... reloading.
Now, Which 46 Senators Voted to Destroy Us? Well, let their names become known ! See below … If you vote in one of the states listed with these 46 "legislators" vote against them.
In a 53-46 vote, the Senate narrowly passed a measure that will stop the United States from entering into the United Nations Arms Trade Treaty. The Statement of Purpose from the Senate Bill reads: "To uphold Second Amendment rights and prevent the United States from entering into the United Nations Arms Trade Treaty." The U.N. Small Arms Treaty, which has been championed by the Obama Administration, would have effectively placed a global ban on the import and export of small firearms. The ban would have affected all private gun owners in the U.S. and had language that would have implemented an international gun registry, now get this, on all private guns and ammo.
Astonishingly, 46 out of our 100 United States Senators were willing to give away our Constitutional rights to a foreign power.
Here are the 46 senators who voted to give your rights to the U.N. Baldwin (D-WI) Baucus (D-MT) Bennett (D-CO) Blumenthal (D-CT) Boxer (D-CA) Brown (D-OH) Cantwell (D-WA) Cardin (D-MD) Carper (D-DE) Casey (D-PA) Coons (D-DE) Cowan (D-MA) Durbin (D-IL) Feinstein (D-CA) Franken (D-MN) Gillibrand (D-NY) Harkin (D-IA) Hirono (D-HI) Johnson (D-SD) Kaine (D-VA) King (I-ME) Klobuchar (D-MN) Landrieu (D-LA) Leahy (D-VT) Levin (D-MI) McCaskill (D-MO) Menendez (D-NJ) Merkley (D-OR) Mikulski (D-MD) Murphy (D-CT) Murray (D-WA) Nelson (D-FL) Reed (D-RI) Reid (D-NV) Rockefeller (D-WV) Sanders (I-VT) Schatz (D-HI) Schumer (D-NY) Shaheen (D-NH) Stabenow (D-MI) Udall (D-CO) Udall (D-NM) Warner (D-VA) Warren (D-MA) Whitehouse (D-RI) Wyden (D-OR) What? No Republicans?
2a) PERHAPS the giant wasn't so gentle
...................the rest of the story. If a 300 pound 6'6" guy comes at you with intent to harm , in a confined space like a house, you better shoot him.
Especially if "he" thinks you are there to arrest him.
It appears this policeman shot Brown several times in "non-lethal" areas trying to stop him. Otherwise why would he have been shot so many times in the arm and side?........and after he had been hit in the eye by this "gentle giant"!!!
You won't see much defense of this cop by the media. They like "race" stories better than "all the story" or "objective reporting".
Think about how much you have heard in the media in defense of this officer or at least his side of this story.
Why isn't the media releasing photos of Police Officer Darren Wilson's injuries after he was assaulted by "the unarmed black teenager"?
Could he have been punched in the face before he emptied his weapon into the drugged "unarmed teenager?"...this is what a broken eye socket looks like.
But, of course, all of the above is pure speculation and the other side of the story that was not featured by the media and reporters in their desire for sensationalism which sells papers and advertising.
Is it possible these same media types and reporters, or their like minded brethren, are the ones assigned to report the story about how Israel disproportionately killed Gazans who were shielding Hamas rocket launchers.?
When a democratic people can no longer trust the Fourth Estate to report all the news in a factual and unbiased manner this is a seriously dangerous matter because we must depend upon them for complete and factual information in order to make decisions that are justifiable.
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3)The unfinished war
By Caroline B. Glick
The war with Hamas is not over. What we are experiencing today is a temporary cease-fire.
The most basic reason the war is not over is because Hamas has no existence outside its war against the Jewish state. Hamas exists to obliterate Israel. The goal of each round of fighting is to soften Israel up for the next round.
Hamas will only stop fighting when it is defeated. And Israel did not defeat Hamas.
Not only did Israel not defeat Hamas, according to Haaretz, senior IDF commanders are now lobbying the government to enable Hamas to credibly claim victory.
According to Amos Harel, senior IDF commanders want Israel to bow to Hamas’s demands for open borders with Israel and for the steady transfer of funds to Hamas’s treasury.
Harel quoted a senior IDF source who said that if Israel doesn’t give in to Hamas’s demands for open borders, Hamas will renew its attacks at the end of September.
In the senior commander’s words, “If we can assist [Hamas] by expanding fishing grounds and easing restrictions on border crossings of people and goods into and from Israel, this will help maintain the quiet.”
So to delay the next Hamas onslaught against us, the IDF is lobbying the government to surrender to Hamas.
This behavior demonstrates two basic truths about Hamas’s war against Israel.
First, it is impossible for Israel to deter Hamas, but Hamas has apparently deterred the IDF General Staff.
During Operation Protective Edge Hamas absorbed massive blows to its war machine. The IDF destroyed Hamas’s offensive tunnels that penetrated into Israel. It destroyed thousands of Hamas’s rockets, missiles and launchers. It killed hundreds of Hamas fighters, including some top commanders.
And yet, less than a week into the cease-fire, the IDF prefers to capitulate to Hamas’s demands, and so allow Hamas to recoup its losses, rather than face its depleted forces on the ground in four weeks.
In other words, despite the blows it suffered, it is Hamas that has deterred the IDF.
Harel’s report is just the most recent indication that the IDF senior command echelon is Hamas’s ace in the hole. Throughout the war, news reports revealed that under Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Benny Gantz, the General Staff refused to present the security cabinet with any viable plan to defeat Hamas. And now, having failed to defeat Hamas, they insist that it is Israel that should surrender.
Hamas went to war with Israel because its back was up against the wall. Due to Egypt’s decision a year ago to seal its borders with Gaza, Hamas lost the ability to expand its arsenal, fuel Gaza’s smuggling-based economy and pay its terrorists their salaries.
Its leadership figured that the best way to reopen its supply lines was by going to war against Israel. The risk-averse behavior of the General Staff both during the war and today tell Hamas’s leadership that they were right.
The General Staff’s behavior isn’t the only reason that Hamas thinks aggression is the way to go. The US and Europe have gone out of their way, both during the fighting and today, to show Hamas that they are right to attack Israel.
US President Barack Obama adopted Hamas’s demand for open borders as the officialposition of the US government almost at the outset of the conflict.
He sought to replace Hamas foe Egypt as mediator with Hamas’s principle state sponsors Qatar and Turkey.
Under Obama the Federal Aviation Administration instituted a discriminatory and unwarranted flight ban on Israel. The repercussions of that move continue to harm Israel’s economy.
Today, the US and the EU are working together at the UN Security Council to draft a resolution that would see the deployment of international military forces to Gaza. The defined role of the force would be to oversee Gaza’s demilitarization, seemingly in line with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s demand.
But the notion that UN forces would take any steps to disarm Hamas is absurd. The minute such forces arrive in Gaza they will become human shields preventing Israel from defending itself against Hamas aggression. If they are deployed to Gaza, then in the next round of Hamas’s war against the Jews, IDF troops will have to constrain their offensive operations still further to avoid killing Western forces.
In other words, the deployment of such a force in Gaza will make it all but impossible for Israel to fight Hamas in the future.
The current discussions at the Security Council tell Hamas it is winning.
By attacking Israel, the genocidal jihadist group won the support of the West. At the UN today the US and the EU are crafting a resolution that will allow it to attack Israel from behind Western human shields.
So between the IDF General Staff and the West, Hamas now knows that all they have to do to survive, thrive and expand their war on Israel, is shake the tree. Something will fall out that will reward their aggression.
If they pay any price at all, it will involve nothing more than the death of the civilians of Gaza. And Hamas leaders couldn’t care less. For them, the death of civilians is yet another means of attacking Israel.
Facing this dire state of affairs, our leadership must dedicate itself today to preparing for the next round of war.
To this end, Israel must begin acting in three areas, now.
First, Israel must use whatever means it has at its disposal to scuttle the US’s attempts to pass any resolution related to Gaza at the UN Security Council.
Second, the government must clean the stables in the IDF General Staff.
Gantz is due to complete his tour of duty in February. Prime Minister Netanyahu and Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon need to use his departure as an opportunity to replace not only Gantz but several other senior generals. Their replacements must be commanders who understand that the role of the IDF is to win wars, not lose them.
To date, Netanyahu and Ya’alon have given no indication of their intentions. Senior ministers and the public should use both the General Staff’s support for surrender and its lack of strategic ambition and tactical imagination during the war as a means of pressuring Netanyahu and Ya’alon to conduct a major shakeup of the General Staff.
Finally, the time has come for Israel to expand its military industries.
During the war both the US and European governments placed obstructions in the path of IDF resupply.
Israel cannot remain dependent on undependable foreign military suppliers. Israel needs to develop its own production lines, starting immediately.
We have the technology. We have the economic wherewithal. And we have the external markets to cover the costs of development.
True, this is a long-term undertaking.
But it has to begin now.
Residents of the south are livid at the government for opting for a ceasefire rather than mounting a full invasion of Gaza and dismantling Hamas piece by piece, terrorist by terrorist. As they see it, Operation Protective Edge failed to bring them the security they deserve and require to lead normal lives.
There is much validity to their claims. Hamas’s declarations of victory would sound far more disingenuous if the IDF’s leadership wasn’t intent on proving them right.
Their celebrations would ring hollow and even pathetic if the Americans and Europeans weren’t laboring to set up a mechanism to prevent Israel from fighting in the future.
As it stands, the only way for our leaders to prove their credibility now is by rejecting Hamas’s demand for open borders, even if doing so will require us to go back into battle in a month. After we have seen what Hamas is capable of, the notion that we should allow them to resupply and so rebuild and expand their military capabilities is simply outrageous.
Every general even obliquely tied to this initiative should be given his walking papers.
So too, our leaders need to demonstrate that they understand the nature of the diplomatic battlefield whose contours are being designed in Washington as well as Europe. To meet this threat, we must devise a clear plan to scuttle the cease-fire initiative at the Security Council, and we must diminish our dependence on our unreliable defense partners by building our own production lines.
Absent these responses, it is difficult to see how we will weather the next rapidly approaching storm. Absent these responses it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the time has come for new elections.
3)The unfinished war
By Caroline B. GlickThe war with Hamas is not over. What we are experiencing today is a temporary cease-fire.
The most basic reason the war is not over is because Hamas has no existence outside its war against the Jewish state. Hamas exists to obliterate Israel. The goal of each round of fighting is to soften Israel up for the next round.
Hamas will only stop fighting when it is defeated. And Israel did not defeat Hamas.
Not only did Israel not defeat Hamas, according to Haaretz, senior IDF commanders are now lobbying the government to enable Hamas to credibly claim victory.
According to Amos Harel, senior IDF commanders want Israel to bow to Hamas’s demands for open borders with Israel and for the steady transfer of funds to Hamas’s treasury.
Harel quoted a senior IDF source who said that if Israel doesn’t give in to Hamas’s demands for open borders, Hamas will renew its attacks at the end of September.
In the senior commander’s words, “If we can assist [Hamas] by expanding fishing grounds and easing restrictions on border crossings of people and goods into and from Israel, this will help maintain the quiet.”
So to delay the next Hamas onslaught against us, the IDF is lobbying the government to surrender to Hamas.
This behavior demonstrates two basic truths about Hamas’s war against Israel.
First, it is impossible for Israel to deter Hamas, but Hamas has apparently deterred the IDF General Staff.
During Operation Protective Edge Hamas absorbed massive blows to its war machine. The IDF destroyed Hamas’s offensive tunnels that penetrated into Israel. It destroyed thousands of Hamas’s rockets, missiles and launchers. It killed hundreds of Hamas fighters, including some top commanders.
And yet, less than a week into the cease-fire, the IDF prefers to capitulate to Hamas’s demands, and so allow Hamas to recoup its losses, rather than face its depleted forces on the ground in four weeks.
In other words, despite the blows it suffered, it is Hamas that has deterred the IDF.
Harel’s report is just the most recent indication that the IDF senior command echelon is Hamas’s ace in the hole. Throughout the war, news reports revealed that under Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Benny Gantz, the General Staff refused to present the security cabinet with any viable plan to defeat Hamas. And now, having failed to defeat Hamas, they insist that it is Israel that should surrender.
Hamas went to war with Israel because its back was up against the wall. Due to Egypt’s decision a year ago to seal its borders with Gaza, Hamas lost the ability to expand its arsenal, fuel Gaza’s smuggling-based economy and pay its terrorists their salaries.
Its leadership figured that the best way to reopen its supply lines was by going to war against Israel. The risk-averse behavior of the General Staff both during the war and today tell Hamas’s leadership that they were right.
The General Staff’s behavior isn’t the only reason that Hamas thinks aggression is the way to go. The US and Europe have gone out of their way, both during the fighting and today, to show Hamas that they are right to attack Israel.
US President Barack Obama adopted Hamas’s demand for open borders as the officialposition of the US government almost at the outset of the conflict.
He sought to replace Hamas foe Egypt as mediator with Hamas’s principle state sponsors Qatar and Turkey.
Under Obama the Federal Aviation Administration instituted a discriminatory and unwarranted flight ban on Israel. The repercussions of that move continue to harm Israel’s economy.
Today, the US and the EU are working together at the UN Security Council to draft a resolution that would see the deployment of international military forces to Gaza. The defined role of the force would be to oversee Gaza’s demilitarization, seemingly in line with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s demand.
But the notion that UN forces would take any steps to disarm Hamas is absurd. The minute such forces arrive in Gaza they will become human shields preventing Israel from defending itself against Hamas aggression. If they are deployed to Gaza, then in the next round of Hamas’s war against the Jews, IDF troops will have to constrain their offensive operations still further to avoid killing Western forces.
In other words, the deployment of such a force in Gaza will make it all but impossible for Israel to fight Hamas in the future.
The current discussions at the Security Council tell Hamas it is winning.
By attacking Israel, the genocidal jihadist group won the support of the West. At the UN today the US and the EU are crafting a resolution that will allow it to attack Israel from behind Western human shields.
So between the IDF General Staff and the West, Hamas now knows that all they have to do to survive, thrive and expand their war on Israel, is shake the tree. Something will fall out that will reward their aggression.
If they pay any price at all, it will involve nothing more than the death of the civilians of Gaza. And Hamas leaders couldn’t care less. For them, the death of civilians is yet another means of attacking Israel.
Facing this dire state of affairs, our leadership must dedicate itself today to preparing for the next round of war.
To this end, Israel must begin acting in three areas, now.
First, Israel must use whatever means it has at its disposal to scuttle the US’s attempts to pass any resolution related to Gaza at the UN Security Council.
Second, the government must clean the stables in the IDF General Staff.
Gantz is due to complete his tour of duty in February. Prime Minister Netanyahu and Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon need to use his departure as an opportunity to replace not only Gantz but several other senior generals. Their replacements must be commanders who understand that the role of the IDF is to win wars, not lose them.
To date, Netanyahu and Ya’alon have given no indication of their intentions. Senior ministers and the public should use both the General Staff’s support for surrender and its lack of strategic ambition and tactical imagination during the war as a means of pressuring Netanyahu and Ya’alon to conduct a major shakeup of the General Staff.
Finally, the time has come for Israel to expand its military industries.
During the war both the US and European governments placed obstructions in the path of IDF resupply.
Israel cannot remain dependent on undependable foreign military suppliers. Israel needs to develop its own production lines, starting immediately.
We have the technology. We have the economic wherewithal. And we have the external markets to cover the costs of development.
True, this is a long-term undertaking.
But it has to begin now.
Residents of the south are livid at the government for opting for a ceasefire rather than mounting a full invasion of Gaza and dismantling Hamas piece by piece, terrorist by terrorist. As they see it, Operation Protective Edge failed to bring them the security they deserve and require to lead normal lives.
There is much validity to their claims. Hamas’s declarations of victory would sound far more disingenuous if the IDF’s leadership wasn’t intent on proving them right.
Their celebrations would ring hollow and even pathetic if the Americans and Europeans weren’t laboring to set up a mechanism to prevent Israel from fighting in the future.
As it stands, the only way for our leaders to prove their credibility now is by rejecting Hamas’s demand for open borders, even if doing so will require us to go back into battle in a month. After we have seen what Hamas is capable of, the notion that we should allow them to resupply and so rebuild and expand their military capabilities is simply outrageous.
Every general even obliquely tied to this initiative should be given his walking papers.
So too, our leaders need to demonstrate that they understand the nature of the diplomatic battlefield whose contours are being designed in Washington as well as Europe. To meet this threat, we must devise a clear plan to scuttle the cease-fire initiative at the Security Council, and we must diminish our dependence on our unreliable defense partners by building our own production lines.
Absent these responses, it is difficult to see how we will weather the next rapidly approaching storm. Absent these responses it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the time has come for new elections.
3a) Obama’s Messy Words
This story is included with an NYT Opinion subscription.
There are things that you think and things that you say.
There’s what you reckon with privately and what you utter publicly.
There are discussions suitable for a lecture hall and those that befit the bully pulpit.
These sets overlap but aren’t the same. Has President Obama lost sight of that?
It’s a question fairly asked after his statement last week that “we don’t have a strategy yet” for dealing with Islamic extremists in Syria. Not having a strategy, at least a fixed, definitive one, is understandable. The options aren’t great, the answers aren’t easy and the stakes are enormous.
But announcing as much? It’s hard to see any percentage in that. It gives no comfort to Americans. It puts no fear in our enemies.
Just as curious was what Obama followed that up with.
Speaking at a fund-raiser on Friday, he told donors, “If you watch the nightly news, it feels like the world is falling apart.” He had that much right.
But it wasn’t the whole of his message. In a statement of the obvious, he also said, “The world has always been messy.” And he coupled that with a needless comparison, advising Americans to bear in mind that the rise of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, the rapacity of Putin, the bedlam in Libya and the rest of it were “not something that is comparable to the challenges we faced during the Cold War.”
Set aside the question of how germane the example of the Cold War is. When the gut-twisting image stuck in your head is of a masked madman holding a crude knife to the neck of an American on his knees in the desert, when you’re reading about crucifixions in the 21st century, when you’re hearing about women sold by jihadists as sex slaves, and when British leaders have just raised the threat level in their country to “severe,” the last thing that you want to be told is that it’s par for the historical course, all a matter of perspective and not so cosmically dire.
Where’s the reassurance — or the sense of urgency — in that?
And maybe the second-to-last thing that you want to be told is that technology and social media amplify peril in a new way and may be the reason you’re feeling especially on edge. Obama said something along those lines, too. It’s not the terror, folks. It’s the tweets.
Is the president consoling us — or himself? It’s as if he’s taken his interior monologue and wired it to speakers in the town square. And it’s rattling.
When he came along, many of us were fed up with misinformation and “Mission Accomplished” theatrics and bluster. America had paid a price for them in young lives.
And we were tired and leery of an oversimplified, Hollywood version of world affairs, of the Manichaean lexicon of “evil empire” and “axis of evil.” We longed for something less rash and more nuanced.
But there’s plenty of territory between the bloated and bellicose rhetoric of then and what Obama is giving us now. He’s adopted a strange language of self-effacement, with notes of defeatism, reminding us that “America, as the most powerful country on earth, still does not control everything”; that we must be content at times with singles and doubles in lieu of home runs; that not doing stupid stuff is its own accomplishment.
This is all true. It’s in tune with our awareness of our limits. And it reflects a prudent disinclination to repeat past mistakes and overreach.
But that doesn’t make it the right message for the world’s lone superpower (whether we like it or not) to articulate and disseminate. That doesn’t make it savvy, constructive P.R. And the low marks that Americans currently give the president, especially for foreign policy, suggest that it’s not exactly what we were after.
In The Washington Post on Sunday, Karen DeYoung and Dan Balz observed that while Obama’s no-strategy remark “may have had the virtue of candor,” it in no way projected “an image of presidential resolve or decisiveness at a time of international turmoil.”
And no matter what Obama ultimately elects to do, such an image is vital. But in its place are oratorical shrugs and an aura of hesitancy, even evasion, as he and John Kerry broadcast that the United States shouldn’t be expected to act on its own. Isn’t that better whispered to our allies and negotiated behind closed doors?
Echoing Hillary Clinton to some degree, Senator Dianne Feinstein just complained that Obama was perhaps “too cautious.”
Not in what he says, he’s not. Not when he draws and then erases red lines. Not with his recent adjectives.
“Messy” is my kitchen at the end of a long weekend. What’s happening in much of Syria and Iraq is monstrous.
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