How Can Anyone in Their Right Mind Vote For Democrats This Time?

I have just returned from another road trip.  This time to visit our son, daughter in law and our granddaughter in Pittsburgh for their tenth anniversary.

While there we visited to Warhol Museum and my understanding of him, his extraordinary talent and creativity was vastly enhanced.
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While away, as usually happens when I leave, market volatility increased.  I had earlier stated I thought we were overdue for a reaction. Now that it has occurred I still believe the market will, at the very least, retest the recent low and as random terrorism now becomes a reality and closer to home I believe emotions will keep the market under pressure. Fundamentally, the market should be able to rally by year end barring some significant terrorist shock which I cannot rule dismiss.

In a few days the 2014 elections will have come and gone and unless Republicans win decidedly it is possible the inability of  Senate candidates in La. and Ga. to win a majority may cause the status of who controls The Senate to be deferred and thus more uncertainty and negative psychology..

We also have growing evidence that is being leaked, the policeman in Ferguson , Mo. who killed Mr. Brown, may in fact, have been justified and that will result in more trouble for that city and the nation. Nothing will convince blacks that the killing was justified because the rabble rousers will resurface.

I find it mystifying why anyone in his right mind would vote for a Democrat considering the terrible record this President has achieved.

As for Ms. Nunn, her first official vote will be to re-elect Harry Reid as Majority Leader should  Democrats retain control of The Senate.

Whether Republicans win control of The Senate, Obama and his EPA will certainly move to destroy what is left of the coal industry, he  will do whatever he can to allow illegal immigrants to become voting citizens and he will allow Iran to obtain nuclear status.

As Obamacare's postponed rules and regulations finally take hold their negative impact on our economy will become increasingly evident.

So what does Obama have to show for six years.

a) Slowest economic recovery in history.

b) Resistance to make America energy independent.

c) Collapse of our influence throughout the world and most specifically in The Middle East.

d) A level of confusion and despair that has brought Obama's poll numbers down around his ankles and even his own party members don't want him to show his face.

 This says it all.


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Israel makes continued weapon breakthroughs.  (See 1 below.) but also fails to change its public image as it continues to be defined by its enemies and detractors. (See 1a below.) 
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Sowell on irresponsible education and predatory journalism. (See 2 and 2a  below.)
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More on Iranian appeasement. (See 3 below.)

Iran remains the main threat.  (See 3a below.)
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Victor David Hanson on Obama's Middle East failures.  (See 4 below.)
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Canada gets the headlines but Israel continues to see  'infants' killed by Palestinian terrorists encouraged by the words of Abbas!  (See 5 below.)

Just another work place incident!
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Kerry link ISIS' success in recruiting to Israel's intransigence.  

The man is beyond stupid.  He is dangerous but then so is his boss..  (See 6 below.)
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Dick
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1)  ISRAEL SUCCESSFULLY TESTS “NAVAL IRON DOME 

Author:  Shlomi Diaz 

Upgraded Israeli Barak missile intercepts mock-Yakhont anti-ship cruise missile in secret test • Test is part of upgrade of Israel's naval defenses, which also protect civilian drilling rigs • Syria, Hezbollah believed to possess Yakhont missiles.

The Israeli Navy secretly tested an upgraded anti-missile system designed to protect naval vessels several months ago. The test was crowned a success.

The defense system, which uses Barak missiles, was upgraded to confront the growing threat of Russian-made Yakhont anti-ship cruise missiles.

The Yakhont missiles pose a threat mainly because of their potential use by Israel's neighbors. Russia has been supplying Syria with Yakhont missiles since 2010. Hezbollah, in southern Lebanon, is also believed to possess these shore-based missiles.

The test was conducted as part of a general overhaul of the navy's defense systems, which also provide protection for offshore drilling rigs.

Not all the details of the test were released, but according to the military, the exercise involved a mock-Yakhont missile fired from sea, which was successfully intercepted by the Israeli Barak missile, fired from an Israeli Navy missile boat.

The Israel Defense Forces have been upgrading the Barak system for years. According to defense officials, the advancing enemy technology requires Israel to constantly upgrade its defenses.

IDF officials confirmed that the success of the latest test ensures maximum protection from the threat of these cruise missiles. The officials further remarked that the naval defense system is modeled after the Iron Dome rocket defense system, which has successfully protected most of the Israeli homefront from projectiles fired from Gaza.

They added that the latest upgrade was in the system's ability to identify projectiles fires at ships.

The Israeli defense system was developed by Rafael and Israel Aerospace Industries. The mock-Yakhont missile used in the test was developed by an Italian company.

1a)

Lauder to Post: Israel is being defined by it’s enemies By SAM SOKOL Israel allows itself to defined abroad by its enemies, World Jewish Congress President Ronald Lauder said.

Israel allows itself to defined abroad by its enemies, World Jewish Congress President Ronald Lauder said on Monday. Speaking to the Jerusalem Post while in Israel for a gathering supporting persecuted Christians throughout the region, Lauder explained that he believed that Israel was falling behind in the battle over its image abroad. Referencing Sweden’s recent recognition of a Palestinian state in the absence of a negotiated resolution to the conflict, Lauder said that the Palestinians “have been sending delegations up there for years working on the country” and that the Arab world has spent “hundreds of millions, if not billions of Dollars on public relations.” Israel, he said, “has paid almost nothing” and the Jewish state “needs a certain amount of PR.” Lauder suggested that given the “strategic imperative” of presenting its case before a world audience, Jerusalem should build one less warplane and put the money towards hasbara, the Hebrew term for public diplomacy. “Israel is being defined by its enemies,” he continued. “Israel should be defining itself and should be defining its enemies.” Jewish life in Europe has been made more difficult by a growing Muslim population on the continent but dire predictions of the end of Jewish life there are overblown, Lauder believes. Taking France as the “worst case,” he said that while this summer’s anti-Israel and anti-Semitic protests were frightening, only a small percentage of French Muslims took part, indicating that a majority wish to live in peace. In order to “get beyond the agitators” increased government involvement, a “strong stance” against racism, is necessary, he continued. “I was recently in berlin at [Berlin's] Brandenburg gate with chancellor Merkel, saying that there is no place for anti-Semitism in Germany, with thousands of people in front of us and that had a major effect . The minute the government starts taking a strong hand in this we see it diminish,” said Lauder. While immigration to Israel by French Jews has risen significantly and many French Jews have indicated a desire to emigrate, “they are not leaving” in great numbers, he said. “They just want to live in peace.” While leaders in France, Germany and Italy have all taken positive steps towards combating anti-Semitism, Lauder said that he believes that England is “moving backwards” with its upcoming non-binding vote on recognition of a Palestinian state. “While only symbolic, it says a lot,” he stated. Lauder also critiqued the international community for declining to link funding the rebuilding of Gaza with demilitarization or the entrance of Fatah as a governing entity in the coastal territory, explaining that “we will never get another opportunity” to do so. “This is the only way to take them [Hamas] out,” he explained, adding that with Hamas retaining power in Gaza, the possibility of a Hamas takeover in the West Bank following a peace agreement will remain a serious worry. Much of Lauder’s trip has been focused on the of the persecution and murder of Christians in the region and he said that he finds it ironic that he, as the leader of a Jewish organization, is one of those leading the charge on this issue. “I don’t know why he world is so silent and doesn’t realize what is happening, the slaughter. Were talking about the slaughter of thousands of Kurds in a town no one has heard of before yet there are tens of thousands of Christians being slaughtered and no one talks about it. I don’t understand it,” he said. “The world is silent and they are silent because there is no one beating the drums and yet they are talking about Gaza day in and day out but they don’t talk about what is happening to the Christians.” Christians populations are dropping precipitously in “the birthplace of the Christian world” and the only place in which the Christian population is actually growing is in Israel, he said. “In the case of Gaza what you had was a well oiled PR campaign to make Israel Goliath and them David. There is no campaign like that by the Christians because they never had that type of campaign and that’s the question: why not. And since we the WJC has started speaking about it its gotten some traction.”

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2) Irresponsible 'Education'

By Thomas Sowell 

Goddard College's recent decision to have its students addressed from prison by a convicted cop killer is just one of many unbelievably irresponsible self-indulgences by "educators" in our schools and colleges.

Such "educators" teach minorities born with an incredibly valuable windfall gain -- American citizenship -- that they are victims who have a grievance against people today who have done nothing to them, because of what other people did in other times. If those individuals who feel aggrieved could sell their American citizenship to eager buyers from around the world and leave, everybody would probably be better off. Those who leave would get not only a substantial sum of money -- probably $100,000 or more -- they would also get a valuable dose of reality elsewhere. 

Nothing is easier than to prove that America, or any other society of human beings, is far from being the perfect gem that any of us can conjure up in our imagination. But, when you look around the world today or look back through history, you can get a very painfully sobering sense of what a challenge it can be in the real world to maintain even common decency among human beings. 

Living just one year in the Middle East would be an education in reality that could obliterate years of indoctrination in grievances that passes for education in too many of our schools, colleges and universities. You could go on to get a postgraduate education in reality in some place like North Korea. 

If you prefer to get your education in the comfort of a library, rather than in person amid the horrors, you might study the history of the sadistic massacres of the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire or the heart-wrenching story of Stalin's man-made 1930s famine in the Soviet Union that killed as many millions of people as Hitler's Holocaust did in the 1940s. 

Mao's man-made famine in China killed more people than the Soviet famine and the Nazi Holocaust combined. And we should not deny their rightful place in history's chamber of horrors to the 1970s Cambodian dehumanization and slaughters that killed off at least a quarter of the entire population of that country. 

What about slavery? Slavery certainly has its place among the horrors of humanity. But our "educators" today, along with the media, present a highly edited segment of the history of slavery. Those who have been through our schools and colleges, or who have seen our movies or television miniseries, may well come away thinking that slavery means white people enslaving black people. But slavery was a worldwide curse for thousands of years, as far back as recorded history goes. 

Over all that expanse of time and space, it is very unlikely that most slaves, or most slave owners, were either black or white. Slavery was common among the vast populations in Asia. Slavery was also common among the Polynesians, and the indigenous peoples of the Western Hemisphere enslaved other indigenous peoples before anyone on this side of the Atlantic had ever seen a European. 

More whites were brought as slaves to North Africa than blacks brought as slaves to the United States or to the 13 colonies from which it was formed. White slaves were still being bought and sold in the Ottoman Empire, decades after blacks were freed in the United States. 

What does all this mean? 

In addition to the chilling picture that it paints of human nature, it means that Americans today -- all Americans -- are among the luckiest people who have ever inhabited this planet. Most Americans living in officially defined poverty today have such things as central air-conditioning, cable television, a microwave oven and a motor vehicle.

A scholar who spent years studying Latin America said that what is defined as poverty in the United States today is upper middle class in Mexico. 

Do we still need to do better? Yes! Human beings all over the world are not even close to running out of room for improvement. 

There is so much knowledge and skills that need to be transmitted to the young that turning schools and colleges into indoctrination centers is a major and reckless disservice to them and to American society, which is vulnerable as all human societies have always been, especially those that are decent.


2a) Predatory Journalism
By Thomas Sowell
The New York Times is again on the warpath against what it calls "predatory lending."

Just what is predatory lending? It is lending that charges a higher interest rate than people like those at the New York Times approve of. According to such thinking -- or lack of thinking -- the answer is to have the government set an interest rate ceiling at a level that will be acceptable to third parties like the New York Times.

People who believe in government-set price controls -- whether on interest rates charged for loans, rents charged for housing or wages paid under minimum wage laws -- seem to think that this is the end of the story. Yet there is a vast literature on the economic repercussions of price controls.

Whole books have been written just on the repercussions of rent control laws in countries around the world.

These repercussions include the housing shortages that almost invariably follow, the deterioration of existing housing and the shift of economic resources -- both construction materials and construction labor -- from building ordinary housing for the general public to building luxury housing that only the affluent and the rich can afford, because that kind of housing is usually exempted from rent control.

There is at least an equally vast literature on the repercussions of minimum wage laws. Unemployment rates over 20 percent for younger, less skilled and less experienced workers have been common, even in normal times -- with much higher unemployment rates than that during recessions.

Against this background of negative repercussions from various forms of price control, in countries around the world, why would anybody imagine that price controls on interest rates would not have repercussions that need to be considered?

Yet there is remarkably little concern on the political left as to the actual consequences of the laws and policies they advocate. Once they have taken a stance on the side of the angels against the forces of evil, that is the end of the story, as far as they are concerned.

Low-income people often get short-terms loans when they run out of money to meet some exigency of the moment. The interest rates charged on such unsecured loans to people with low credit scores are usually higher than on loans to people whose higher incomes and better credit histories make them less of a risk.

Crusaders against such loans often make the interest rate charged seem even higher by quoting these interest rates in annual terms, even when the loan is actually repayable in a matter of weeks. It is like saying that a $100 a night hotel room costs $36,500 a year, when virtually nobody rents a hotel room for a year.

Because those who make unsecured short-term loans are usually poor and often ill-educated, the political left can cast the high interest rates as unconscionably taking advantage of vulnerable people. But similar economic principles apply to more upscale short-term lending to well-educated people who have valuable possessions to use as collateral.

A small-time businessman who suddenly finds that he does not have enough cash on hand, or readily available from a bank, to pay his employees this week, knows that if he doesn't pay them this week he may not have any employees next week -- and can face lawsuits the week after that.

There is an upscale lending market available to such people, where he can use his expensive personal possessions as collateral to get the money he needs immediately.

He can borrow more money than the poor can borrow, and at not as high an interest rate. But his interest rate can still be 200 percent if figured on an annual basis -- even though he may be able to pay off the loan next month when his customers pay him what they owe him, so he is paying only a small fraction of that hypothetical 200 percent, just as the poor are paying only a small fraction of the hypothetical 300 percent or 400 percent that they are charged.

Editorial demagoguery against "predatory" lending might well be called predatory journalism -- taking advantage of other people's ignorance of economics to score ideological points, and promote still more expansion of government powers that limit the options of poor people especially, who have few options already.

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3)  Assessing the Iran Appeasement Project

By Jonathan S. Tobin

Supporters of détente with Iran can almost taste it. After years of having to listen to even a liberal Democratic president vow to stop the Islamist regime’s drive for nuclear weapons and regional hegemony, Tehran’s apologists are tantalized by the prospect that President Obama will go all the way and sign on to a comprehensive nuclear agreement with Iran that will, they hope, put an end to the confrontation between the U.S. and Iran. If true, it will mark a major victory for Iran and present a clear and present danger to both the West and Israel as the regime will be immeasurably strengthened and undeterred from its nuclear dreams.

But though such a pact is not yet signed, Laura Rozen, one of the leading cheerleaders for this effort, writes in Al Monitor today that a lot of the credit (or blame, depending on your point of view, belongs to William Luers of the United Nations Association. While future historians probably label Luers as a minor figure among this generation’s Guilty Men who worked to appease a dangerous and possibly genocidal rising power, especially when compared to the central role played by President Obama and Secretary of State Kerry. But Luers’ work to normalize a government that ought to remain beyond the pale for decent people nevertheless deserves thorough scrutiny.

Luers, 85, is a former veteran diplomat who served in Moscow as head of the State Department’s Soviet Affairs desk and later as ambassador to Czechoslovakia before the fall of the Communist empire. In the last decade, however, he has devoted himself to fostering good relations with Iran, and becoming according to Rozen’s sources, the driving force behind a “track 
2 dialogue” bringing together members of the Iranian regime with Americans. Luers and those backing his effort have also promoted The Iran Project, a think tank devoted to Iran détente and pooh-poohing concerns about the nuclear threat from Tehran.

The Iran Project is backed by major figures within the U.S. foreign policy establishment and has found an eager audience in the media for its reports downplaying the Iranian threat and promoting the virtues of friendship with the ayatollahs even as the regime’s domestic oppression and promotion of terror abroad has increased. More importantly, it has played a not insignificant role in convincing the Obama administration to abandon the president’s pledges to end Iran’s nuclear program and isolate the rogue regime and to pursue the current diplomatic track that Luers and his friends believe is so close to a happy conclusion.

What was the secret to their success?

First, it must be admitted that they have worked the system perfectly in championing the notion of a newly moderate Iran, a campaign that received a major boost when the seemingly more moderate and reasonable Hassan Rouhani replaced the seemingly irrational Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as president of Iran last year. Since President Obama came into office determined to pursue a policy of “engagement” with Iran only to be repeatedly rebuffed by the Islamists. But advocates of the notion that Iran was only waiting to be embraced by the U.S. didn’t have to struggle too hard to get both the president and Kerry to try again. Their zeal for a deal overcame their common sense and the West wound up forfeiting the enormous economic and political leverage it had over Iran when an interim nuclear agreement was signed last November. That deal didn’t significantly lessen Iran’s ability to build a bomb but it did start the process of unraveling the international sanctions on the regime that had been so painstakingly built up in previous years.

Second, Luers and company worked hard to cause opinion makers and administration officials ignore the truth about Iran. The idea of Iranian moderation, whether in the form of Rouhani, a veteran regime official who has boasted of deceiving Western negotiators in the past or others taking part in back channel talks sponsored by the appeasers, was always farcical. There has been no change in Iranian policies either at home (where oppression of dissidents is no less fierce than before and official anti-Semitism is rampant) or abroad (as Iran’s terrorist auxiliaries continue to kill and its rogue ally Assad butchers hundreds of thousands of innocents) in the last year. But the point of the Iran Project isn’t to highlight actual change but to promote the idea that the act of diplomacy will itself start the process of making Iran more peaceful.

In Luers’ world Iran is not a hostile power driven by extreme Islamist ideology, bent on regional hegemony and determined to use terror and armed force to intimidate moderate neighbors and support those bent on Israel’s destruction but a reasonable government just waiting for the right offer to be welcomed into the community of nations. In other words, appeasement of this evil government is just a rational response to a difficult problem that can be solved by diplomacy.

This is disturbing enough but what comes across in Rozen’s adoring article about Luers is the diplomat’s indifference to the dangers of the course that he has helped chart. The Iran Project has worked hard to emphasize the downside of confronting Iran over its nuclear effort but done little to point out the hazards of a policy of appeasement.

Interestingly, Rozen points out that Luers befriended Vaclav Havel when the latter was a dissident during the era of Communist rule in Prague. But we hear nothing about a similar effort to support those working to change regimes in Tehran. Indeed, the last thing the Iran Project seems interested in is anything that seeks to undermine the despotic rule of the ayatollahs. As with those who opposed President Ronald Reagan’s labeling of the Soviet Union as an “evil empire,” the Iran appeasers will hear no evil about their negotiating partners even if it means whitewashing a dangerous theocracy bent on obtaining a nuclear weapon.

If a nuclear deal is signed, it will be a triumph for Luers but it will not mark a new period of understanding between Iran and the United States. Iran’s character is as unchanged as its dangerous strategic goals. The only thing that will be altered is the West’s ability to resist an Islamist regime whose nuclear ambition will, at the very least, signal the start of an era of increased instability in the Middle East and bloodshed that will be worsened by the power the appeasers are handing Tehran.

Instead of celebrating Luers, honest observers should be ignoring his advice and pleading with the president to step back from this course of appeasement before it is too late to reverse the damage to Western security that has already been caused.

Jonathan S. Tobin is senior online editor of COMMENTARY magazine and chief political blogger at www.commentarymagazine.com. He can be reached via e-mail at: jtobin@commentarymagazine.com


3a) Iran Remains the Threat in the Middle East

by Prof. Efraim Inbar

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: The novelty of the Islamic State, as well as the magnitude of the threat it poses, are greatly exaggerated. Iran remains the main threat to stability in the Middle East. Its journey toward a nuclear arsenal must be stopped.

The emergence of the Islamic State (IS) on the battlefields of the civil war in Syria, and its subsequent spectacular successes in conquering parts of Syria and Iraq, have grabbed international attention. The gruesome pictures of IS’s barbaric beheadings supplied to the international media has only added to IS’s notoriety. The Islamic State’s quest to establish a new bloody Caliphate became a cause célèbre.

Many pundits have decided that the Islamic State is fundamentally changing the Middle East and they grope for new strategies to meet the challenge. In reality, however, the novelty of the Islamic State, as well as the magnitude of the threat it poses, are greatly exaggerated.

This organization is a reflection of the rise of radical political Islam in the Middle East over the last decades. Islam has always been a central component in the identity of the peoples of the Middle East. While Egypt, Iran and Turkey succeeded in maintaining a strong ethno-statist parallel identity, most of the Arab states have failed to instill statist identities through their education system. This means that primordial identities, tribal or sectarian, usually were stronger than the demand for loyalty by the particular states.

Moreover, many of the Arab states failed to modernize and deliver basic services, allowing for alternative Islamist structures to do a better job in providing education, medical and social work services to the impoverished masses. It is worth noting that the Muslim Brotherhood was established as early as 1928. Ever since, it has developed grassroots by trying to take care of the masses, while subverting the statist order in Muslim states with the goal of building a new Caliphate. Pan Arabism – a popular ideological inclination among the Arab elites – also undermined the legitimacy of the statist order, reinforcing Pan-Islamist impulses. Among the Shiites, the religious zeal turned Iran into an Islamic Republic in 1979 that has been trying since then to export its version of radical Shiite Islam.

For decades, it was the security services, probably the only well-functioning governmental agency, which provided stability, law and order. But maintaining a monopoly over the use of force was a challenge that has not been met successfully by the statist order established after the end of World War I and it has been disintegrating for quite a while. We have seen a failed state develop – where there is no monopoly over the use of force, but a myriad of militias – in Lebanon since the 1970s. In Yemen, there was a civil war in the 1960s which created much instability to this very day. Somalia is the best know example of a failed state. Meanwhile, the Palestinian Authority turned into a battlefield among competing militias almost immediately after its establishment in 1994. Strong dictators held Libya and Iraq together, but when they were gone these states became failed political entities. The Assad republican dynasty seems to have gone in the same direction.

Therefore, the Islamic State of today, which displays religious extremism and transnational tendencies, is the result of historic dynamics in the fledgling Arab civilization. Any long term look at the performance of the Arab states could reach the gloomy conclusion that their societies are doomed to poverty and political instability for a long while yet.

While the military and political successes of the Islamic State seem remarkable, its achievements are taking place in a political limbo with no real power to oppose it. The Islamic State has not faced yet any real test in state building and in overcoming violent opposition. Therefore, it is probably much too early to conclude that the Islamic State is able to govern and impose law and order in the swaths of land it has conquered.

Will it be spared the typical processes of fragmentation taking place among radical groups? Can the Islamic State take on Turkey or Iran – the rising powers in the Muslim Middle East? Can this organization be more dangerous to Israel than Hamas – a sister radical Sunni entity?

If the Islamic State is able to consolidate its conquests into a coherent state and turns south to take the energy riches of the Gulf, then it might become a real strategic actor. But any progress toward such a scenario will galvanize tremendous opposition by the Gulf States, including Saudi Arabia. Then the huge amounts of petro-dollars will be able to buy some security in the face of such an imminent danger. Even a confused Obama administration might eventually figure out what is at stake.

Therefore, the current situation does not yet warrant a change in the strategic assessment. Much of the fragmented Arab world will be busy dealing with its domestic problems for decades, minimizing the possibility that it will turn into a formidable enemy for Israel or the West.

It is crystal clear that the Iran-led Shiite axis remains the main threat to stability in the Middle East. Iran’s journey toward a nuclear arsenal – a true game changer – must be stopped. Unfortunately, the gullible West seems to continue to appease Iran, while the “threat” of the Islamic State serves as a welcome diversion.

Prof. Efraim Inbar, director of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, is a professor of political studies at Bar-Ilan University, and a Shillman/Ginsburg fellow at the Middle East Forum

BESA Center Perspectives Papers are published through the generosity of the Greg Rosshandler Family

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4)                                         RUINS OF THE MIDDLE EAST  

By Victor Davis Hanson                                                                 

 Obama’s unfortunate Middle East legacy was predicated on six flawed assumptions: (1) a special relationship with Turkey; (2) distancing the U.S. from Israel; (3) empathy for Islamist governments as exemplified by the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt; (4) a sort of non-aggression agreement with Iran; (5) expecting his own multicultural fides to resonate in the region; (6) pulling out of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Let us examine what has followed. Obama’s special relationship with Recep Erdogan proved disastrous from the get-go, as Erdogan immediately began to provoke Israel and promote Islamist revolutionaries. Turkey today not only dislikes the U.S., but also poses an existential problem for the West. It is a NATO member that is antithetical to everything NATO stands for: the protection of human rights and constitutional government against the onslaught of aggressive totalitarian regimes. Turkey is now operating like the old Soviet Union in using murderous proxies to enhance its own stature; for example, it finds ISIS useful in whittling down the Kurds. As a rule of thumb, any enemy of Erdogan’s Turkey — Israel, the Kurds, Greek Cyprus, Greece, Egypt — is likely to be far more friendly to the U.S. and NATO than are other nations in the region. If Turkey were attacked by ISIS, Syria, Iran, or the Kurds, would Belgium or Greece send in its youth under NATO’s Article V?

What did ankle-biting Israel accomplish other than giving Hamas a green light to send rockets into the Jewish State in hopes that we might do something stupid like slow down scheduled arms shipments to Israel or shut down Ben Gurion Airport for a day? Israel has nothing to do with the slaughter in Libya or Syria or Iraq, but it is a constant reminder that the United States is indifferent to its friends while it courts its enemies. As Obama’s new policy against ISIS is shaping up, Iran is emerging as more of an ally in his eyes than is Israel. Our once-close relationship with Egypt is ruined. All that is left is U.S. foreign aid to Cairo, largely because we have no idea of how not to give a near-starving Egypt assistance. Obama, under the guidance of Hillary Clinton, Samantha Power, and Susan Rice, gyrated from Mubarak to Morsi to el-Sisi, as the U.S. went loudly full circle, from disowning the pro-American kleptocrat to embracing the anti-American theocrat to humiliating the neutral autocrat.

Obama kept quiet when a million Iranian protesters hit the streets in 2009 to show their disgust with theocratic corruption. Apparently the American president thought the pro-American tendencies of the young protesters were proof of their inauthenticity. Or  perhaps he saw them as sort of neocon democracy-pushers who would ruin his own chances of using his multicultural gymnastics to partner with Teheran. Our serial deadlines for stopping uranium enrichment proved empty. Ending the tough sanctions has brought nothing but delight to the ayatollahs. In the view of Iraq and Syria, somehow the U.S. has become a de facto ally of the greatest enemy to peace in the region. Obama did not wish to stay in Iraq and work with the Sunni minority by pressuring the Maliki government. He threatened the Iranian puppet Assad and then backed off, and he ridiculed alike the dangers of the savage ISIS and the potential of the Free Syrian Army. Meanwhile, the U.S. is sort of bombing on and off to save the innocent and thereby helping the Iran–Assad–Hezbollah alliance.

In order to win over the Islamic street, Obama has tried almost everything to remind the Middle East that America is no longer run by a white male conservative from a Texas oil family. His multifaceted efforts have ranged from the fundamental to the ridiculous. The Al Arabiya interview, the Cairo Speech, the apology tour, the loud (but hypocritical) disparagement of the Bush-Cheney anti-terrorism protocols, the new euphemisms for jihadist terror, the multicultural trendy pronunciation of Talîban and Pâkistan, and references to his father’s religion and his own middle name resulted in American popularity ratings in many Middle Eastern countries lower than during the Bush administration. In the Middle East, the only thing worse than being unapologetically proud of past U.S. foreign policy is being obsequiously ashamed of it.

There were no Americans dying in Iraq when Barack Obama pulled the remaining troops out in order to win a reelection talking point. Iraq was a functioning state, saved by the successful U.S. surge. That’s why both Obama and Joe Biden praised the post-surge calm. When Obama bragged that he had ended the Iraq War (which was ended in early 2009) and then brought our troops home, he gave the Maliki government a green light to hound its Sunni enemies and reboot civil strife in Iraq, in a way that soon birthed ISIS. The same sort of Saigon 1975 scenario will follow in Kabul early next year, if Obama goes ahead with recalling all U.S. peacekeepers from Afghanistan. In just two flippant decisions, the prophet Barack Obama sowed the wind, and now we are reaping the whirlwind that followed from perceptions of U.S. decline, foreign-policy indifference, and a new void in the Middle East.

At this late date, amid the ruins of the last half-century’s foreign policy from Libya and Egypt to Syria, Iraq, and Iran, the U.S. should hunker down and distance itself from its enemies and grow closer to its few remaining friends. We need to arm the Kurds, and help them to save what is left of Kurdish Syria. We should inform Erdogan that either he joins the fight against ISIS or we will welcome a large and autonomous Kurdistan and would prefer that Turkey leave NATO, as it should have long ago. We should forget the “peace process” and recognize that Hamas is an existential enemy of America and almost all our friends, and instead encourage an alignment of Egypt, the Kurds, Jordan, Israel, and a few of  the saner Gulf States against both ISIS and the new and soon-to-be-nuclear Iranian Axis…The present chaos of the Middle East was caused by our withdrawal from Iraq and a widespread sense that the U.S. had forfeited its old responsibilities and interests, and was either on the side of the Arab Spring Islamists or indifferent to those who opposed them. Tragically, while order may soon return, it is likely to be as a sort of Cold War standoff between a pro-Russian, pro-Chinese — and very nuclear – Iranian bloc, and a Sunni Mesopotamian wasteland masquerading as a caliphate, run by beheaders and fueled by petrodollars, with assistance from Turkey and freelancing Wahhabi royals from the Gulf.

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5)

Netanyahu blames Abbas incitement for Jerusalem terror attack

By LAHAV HARKOV

Prime Minister orders reinforced security forces in capital; politicians on Right action should have been taken earlier to stop violence.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas encouraged violence against Jews in Jerusalem, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said following the vehicular terror attack in Jerusalem Wednesday. "This is how Abbas' partners in government [Hamas] act. This is the same Abbas who, only a few days ago, incited toward a terrorist attack in Jerusalem," he said. Netanyahu ordered that security forces in Jerusalem be reinforced following the attack, consulting with Public Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch, Israel Police Commissioner Insp.-Gen. Yohanan Danino and Shin Bet Director Yoram Cohen. "Not even Satan could create sufficient vengeance for the blood of a three-month-baby," Economy Minister Naftali Bennett said. "An enemy that murders babies must be treated as such." Bennett called for police to treat every rock-thrower and arsonist as a terror attack. Politicians on the Right blamed what they called the government's complacency toward ongoing violence in Jerusalem for leading to the attack. Housing and Construction Minister Uri Ariel, whose ministry is a short walk from the Ammunition Hill light rail station, where the attack took place, said "the violence in Jerusalem reached its peak today. The reality in recent months of repeated violent incidents by [Arabs] must stop. "It started with throwing rocks and Molotov cocktails and continued to deteriorate and today, unfortunately, Jewish blood was spilled," he said. Ariel demanded that Netanyahu and Aharonovich take action against those who seek to harm Israeli citizens and increase police forces in Jerusalem to stop the deterioration of security in the capital. Knesset Finance Committee chairman Nissan Slomiansky (Bayit Yehudi) called to put an end to the "silent Intifada" and bring security back to the streets of Jerusalem. "Once again we see that any concessions in Jerusalem, specifically on the Temple Mount, is seen by the other side as weakness and increases terrorism," he posited. "The time has come for the Government of Israel to give clear instructions and the means for security forces to act against the rock-throwing and other attacks." MK Danny Danon (Likud) said there is a war in Jerusalem and terrorism must be fought without hesitation. "The blood of Jerusalem's residents has become cheap. The time has come to stop the rioters, the Arabs of east Jerusalem who are led by extremist leaders. They have to know that there is zero tolerance for such acts," he stated. MK Eli Yishai (Shas) said the government's apathy toward the wave of rock-throwing in east Jerusalem encourages terrorists. "For a long time, residents of Jerusalem are hopeless hostages in facing the growth of Arab rioting. A terrorist is a terrorist, whether he is throwing a rock or holding a gun. They face the same fate and they should be stopped with the same determination," he said. Yishai called to demolish terrorists' homes to deter others from carrying out attacks. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 6)-- Kerry Links ISIS Recruiting Success to Israel by IPT News Israeli government officials are fuming over remarks made by Secretary of State John Kerry Thursday which connected the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict to waves of international recruits flocking to the terrorist group ISIS. "As I went around and met with people in the course of our discussions about the ISIL coalition," Kerry said, "the truth is we – there wasn't a leader I met with in the region who didn't raise with me spontaneously the need to try to get peace between Israel and the Palestinians, because it was a cause of recruitment and of street anger and agitation that they felt – and I see a lot of heads nodding – they had to respond to." In a Facebook post written in Hebrew, Israeli Communications Minister Gilad Erdan wrote, "I actually respect Kerry and his efforts, but every time he breaks new records of showing a lack of understanding of our region and the essence of the conflict in the Middle East I have trouble respecting what he says." Naftali Bennett, the Israeli economy minister, blasted Kerry for linking ISIS, which seeks an Islamic caliphate in Syria, Iraq and beyond, to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, saying it "gives a boost to global terrorism." "It turns out that even when a British Muslim beheads a British Christian, there will always be those who blame the Jews," Bennett said, alluding to the beheading earlier this month of British aid worker Alan Henning. The killer, believed to be the same man who beheaded American journalists James Foley and Steven Satloff, speaks with a British accent. Kerry's statement, made at a State Department reception celebrating the Muslim Eid al-Adha holiday, is a bit of a contradiction to President Obama's statement during a speech to the United Nations last month. While also calling for peace talks to resume, Obama acknowledged that "the situation in Iraq and Syria and Libya should cure anybody of the illusion that the Arab-Israeli conflict is the main source of problems in the region." And there's another obvious point Kerry doesn't seem to understand. The radical Islamists in ISIS, like radical Islamists in Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hizballah and others, absolutely reject any peaceful settlement between Israel and the Palestinians. It is codified in their founding charters and repeated statements. Their only acceptable outcome is Israel's destruction. Given that, it's difficult to understand how a peaceful resolution guaranteeing a Jewish homeland in Israel and a Palestinian state, would do anything but ignite new fury and spike the number of recruits seeking to join the jihad.