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Stella and her new friend! Yes, I also have beautiful older daughters!
She and her husband, Martin, are visiting.
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Dick
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------What Israelis have learned but Obama and far too many Westerners have not is that negotiations and agreements reached with Arabs is only a means to obtain further concessions. Western attitudes are not the same as those of Arabs who proceed from a tribal mentality and a hand shake and/or written agreement does not carry the same meaning. (See 1 below.)
What is the International Criminal Court all about? (See 1a below.)
Derailment! (See 1b below.)
Iran a coming diplomatic disaster (See 1c below.)
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The JNF is a very significant organization focusing on Israel's environment.
The Southeastern representative will be making a presentation at The Landings and I encourage those interested to attend. (See immediately below.)
JEWISH NATIONAL FUND
INVITES YOU TO A SPECIAL BRIEFING ON
ISRAEL: A LEADER IN ENVIRONMENT,
TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANCEMENT AND GLOBAL OUTREACH
TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANCEMENT AND GLOBAL OUTREACH
SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 2015
10:00 AM - 12:00 PM
AT THE HOME OF MARLA AND MORRIS GEFFEN
5 BRECKENRIDGE LANE • SAVANNAH, GA 31411
 |
Hear about Israeli innovations in agriculture,
water and sustainable development from guest speaker, EZRA RAVINS, JNF Shaliach to the Southeast. Ezra is a farmer, head of the agriculture R&D and former mayor of the Central Arava. |
A light brunch will be served • Dietary laws observed
Food prepared by BBJ Food Service
This is not a solicitation event.
RSVP by February 17 to rsvpse@jnf.org with subject line "Savannah Brunch."
For more information, contact Beth Gluck at bgluck@jnf.org or 404.236.8990 x851.
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A Sergeant Major speaks his mind! Semper Fi (See 2 below.)
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What if Israel had bombed and killed civilians? Would the press and media been so benign and allowed an internal investigation before screaming bloody murder? When America kills civilians
it is frequently out of sight of the press and media and therefore never gets reported but you know it happens.
I am neither criticizing or condoning American attacks just simply pointing to press and media hypocrisy against Israel.(See 3 below.)
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Obama said he looked forward to a period of bi-partisanship and working with Republicans but never acknowledged the defeat he and his radical Leftists received in the November Election.
Rather than meet with Boehner and McConnell he chose to meet with the President of Mexico,
then he let it be known he would use his veto pen and I daresay will do all kind of campaign stumping to praise the economic recovery everyone writes about but which remains fragile and sub par.
The decline in oil prices will prove to be a two edged sword because it will result in unemployment and solidify our energy dependency and the strong dollar will result in lower corporate earnings and tax income receipts because of higher prices for American exports.
Then the paltry economic picture developing in Europe and the slowing of the developing economies has negative implications for our own economy.
Finally, if the Fed raises rates, as is predicted, then the dollar will strengthen exacerbating what I have described above. Be careful Obama how far you go out on that recovery limb because when you do unexpected events in the past have tended to saw them off and prove, once again, what an economic and boastful dunce you are. (See 4 below.)
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I have posted this many memos ago but it is worth repeating. (See 5 below.)
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My comments regarding religion were published in the local paper today and my daughter sent me this link and I realized I already posted this Professor's comments several memos ago:http://shar.es/1HDeYG. (See 6 below.)
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1) TEN POINTS REGARDING THE FUNDAMENTAL BREACH BY THE PALESTINIANS OF THE OSLO ACCORDS
Author: Amb. Alan Baker
1. The peace negotiation process as set out in the Oslo Accords was intended to lead to peace between Israel and the Palestinian People and mutual recognition of each other’s “mutual legitimate and political rights” (Preamble, Oslo I and Oslo II).
2. In this context Israel was prepared to compromise on the historic and legal rights of the Jewish People in the area, through greement for peaceful relations.
To this end the parties agreed in the Oslo Accords not to initiate or take any steps that will change the status of the territories pending the outcome of the permanent status negotiations (Oslo II, Article 31(7)).
3. Yasser Arafat, in his September 9, 1993, letter to Yitzhak Rabin, declared that “all outstanding issues relating to permanent status will be resolved through negotiations.”
4. This overall series of commitments and obligations constitutes a contractual framework of obligations between Israel and the Palestinians, signed as witnesses and guarantors by the King of Jordan, the Presidents of the U.S. and Egypt, the Foreign Ministers of the Russian Federation and Norway, the EU and endorsed by the UN.
5. By petitioning the UN, the International Criminal Court and international organizations to recognize them and accept them as a full member state, and by their unification with the Hamas terror organization, the Palestinians have knowingly and deliberately bypassed their contractual obligations pursuant to the Oslo Accords in an attempt to prejudge the main negotiating issues outside the negotiation.
6. This, together with their attempts to delegitimize Israel among the international community and their attempted actions against Israel’s leaders, has served to frustrate any possibility of realization of the Oslo Accords, and as such the Palestinians are in material breach of their contractual obligations.
7. By the same token those countries supporting them are in breach of their obligations and guarantees as witnesses.
8. By all legal standards, according to the accepted and universally recognized laws of contracts and international agreements, a fundamental breach enables the injured party to declare the agreement void and is freed from any further obligations pursuant to the agreement or contract.
9. Therefore the fundamental breach of the Oslo Accords by the Palestinians is indicative of their conscious decision to undermine them and prevent any possibility of their implementation. As such they have rendered the Accords void.
10. In such a situation of fundamental breach and according to all accepted rules of contracts and agreements, Israel has the legitimate right to declare that the Oslo Accords are no longer valid and to act unilaterally in order to protect its essential legal and security.
1a) THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT: WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW
Author: Michael Kooren
Q. What is the International Criminal Court?
A. It is an institution formally established in 2002 to prosecute suspected perpetrators of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes including aggression. Countries around the world — 122 at last count — have acceded to its charter, the Rome Statute, and accepted its jurisdiction. – Though most Western nations have done so, the United States has not ratified the statute, andcritics say Washington supports the court only when its actions suit America’s foreign policy agenda. Israel, like Russia and nearly 30 other countries, originally supported the establishment of the court, but has not ratified the statute.
Q. What is its jurisdiction?
A. According to the statute, the court’s remit is limited to crimes committed after July 1, 2002, or after the date when the country in question adheres to the treaty. Cases can be referred to the court by national governments or by the United Nations Security Council. Because the United States would be unlikely to allow the Security Council to refer a case against Israel, the Palestinians hope to bring cases directly to the court.
By adhering to the treaty, though, the Palestinian Authority also opens the door for others to bring cases against it and against Hamas, the group that dominates the Gaza Strip.
Q. Could the Palestinians bring cases against Israel over events that happened before it signed the treaty?
A. Experts are debating whether the court’s jurisdiction would start from the date of the court’s creation, or from the date in 2012 when the United Nations General Assembly upgraded Palestine’s status to that of a nonmember observer state, or only after the Palestinians completed the formal process of joining the court, most likely in March.
The Palestinians may seek a retroactive investigation of the conflict in Gaza that would date back to June 13, 2014, to coincide with the period being considered by a United Nations Human Rights Council commission of inquiry. That commission is looking into whether international humanitarian and human rights laws were violated during the conflict.
Q. What might the Palestinians ask the court to investigate?
A. The Palestinians say that Israel’s occupation of lands beyond the 1967 armistice lines, its construction of settlements in occupied territory, and the way it uses military force amount to illegal aggression and war crimes. Israeli military actions in Gaza last summer could be a potential case, but Israel could also bring a case against the Palestinians for firing rockets at civilian targets in Israel.
Q. Why is this step important for the Palestinians?
A. As they pursue statehood, the Palestinians see the court as a powerful tool to bring to bear international pressure on Israel after decades of failed peace negotiations and fitful progress at the United Nations, where they won observer-state status in 2012. On Tuesday, the Security Council rejected a draft resolution that would have demanded an end to Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory by 2017.
Q. What political fallout is expected?
A. Both Israel and the United States Congress are likely to respond harshly to the move. American diplomats have repeatedly warned the Palestinians that joining the court would lead to sanctions, and they may cut off $400 million in aid to them. Israel could withhold tax transfers to the Palestinian Authority, restrict officials’ travel and possibly speed up settlement activity. The United States and Israel argue that such unilateral actions before a negotiated solution that would establish a permanent Palestinian state are a violation of the Oslo Accords.
But the step is expected to be well received by the Palestinian public, and to shore up the standing of the Palestinian Authority and its president,Mahmoud Abbas, whose popularity plummeted after the summer conflict in Gaza. In a December poll by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, four-fifths of respondents favored joining more international organizations, and three-fourths approved of joining the International Criminal Court.
International human rights organizations, including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, have also urged Mr. Abbas to join the court.
On yesterday’s New York Times op-ed page, former veteran State Department Middle East hand Dennis Ross made a strong case for the world to stop “giving the Palestinians a pass” for actions intended to derail the peace process. In doing so Ross is taking up the cudgels for the position of the Obama administration against that of its European allies on the question of tolerating a Palestinian diplomatic offensive at the United Nations and the International Criminal Court. Both he and the administration are correct that the Palestinian Authority is sabotaging peace by abandoning negotiations and seeking instead to use international pressure to brand Israel as a pariah. But what Ross leaves out of his argument is as interesting as what he says. The proof that his position is correct lies in the history of his own failures and that of the administrations he served as they wrongly appeased the Palestinians and instead pressured Israel.
Ross deserves credit for mentioning some facts that are almost never mentioned in either the news or opinion pages of the Times. Namely, that the Palestinians rejected three clear offers of peace and independence in 2000, 2001, and 2008 that would have given them a state in almost all of the West Bank, a share of Jerusalem, and Gaza. The first two were turned down flat by Yasir Arafat while his successor Mahmoud Abbas fled the negotiating table rather than be forced to give an answer to the third. He might have added that Abbas refused to discuss a U.S. framework along the same lines in 2014 and blew up those talks that had been painstakingly nurtured by Secretary of State John Kerry.
But in discussing the Europeans’ foolish insistence on backing a Palestinian diplomatic gambit whose only purpose is to avoid peace negotiations rather than jumpstart them, Ross ought to mention the sorry history of U.S. diplomatic efforts that were based on the same wrongheaded premise.
Ross served as a U.S. diplomat for decades and was a principal architect of the Clinton administration’s Middle East policies and subsequently advised candidate Barack Obama and then assumed a major State Department post in his administration. The keynote of both Clinton and Obama’s attitudes toward the Palestinians was a desire to whitewash the Palestinian Authority’s violations of its peace pledges in the Oslo Accords and a predilection to pressure the Israelis instead of the other side. Though some criticized Ross as too disposed to take Israeli attitudes into account, that was in the context of administrations that were dedicated to tilting the diplomatic playing field in the Palestinians’ direction. Even he admitted that the Clinton administration had made a mistake when it decided not to take Arafat’s undermining of the peace process and the PA’s fomenting of hatred against Israel and Jews seriously.
This is a crucial point today because just as Arafat thought he could act with impunity because of the West’s bias against Israel, the same factor motivated Abbas to sandbag Kerry in the peace talks. Indeed, Obama and Kerry were so concerned about not ruffling the Palestinians’ feathers that they responded to Abbas’s decision to make peace with Hamas instead of Israel and to make an end run to the UN by blaming Israel for the problem. Abbas’s conclusion from this decision was entirely logical. If he could behave in such a manner and still be rewarded with praise for himself and attacks on Israel, why shouldn’t he believe that even more of this would yield the same result. But in leading him to this conclusion, Kerry was only making the same mistake that Ross and others in the Clinton and Obama administrations had previously committed.
As right as he may be about the Europeans today, it is churlish of Ross to stand in judgment about their blind behavior without owning up to his past errors and those of the Obama administration. If he wants to lead an effort to evaluate the mistakes that have doomed peace efforts, rather than focusing on the wrongheaded policies of the Europeans, Ross should be looking in the mirror and issuing mea culpas for his own mistakes and those of Obama.
1c) 2015: THE YEAR OF DIPLOMATIC DISASTER IN IRAN?
Author(s): Elizabeth Ruiz
Prognosticators from the LondonTimes to Democratic pundit James Carville are predicting that President Obama this year will finish a deal with Iran regarding its nuclear program. With a record of foreign policy failure, Obama is eager for a seeming success, even if the agreement leaves the mullahs with the capacity to quickly build some nuclear bombs at a time of their choosing. Such an outcome would obviously be a strategic disaster, leaving this country and its regional allies vulnerable to an inveterate enemy driven by an apocalyptic ideology.
Obama and his foreign policy team will bear the brunt of responsibility for this failure, as they should. In addition to displaying sheer incompetence and ignorance in his foreign policy, the president has serially sacrificed our security and interests to political needs. Time and again he has made decisions based on partisan calculations that tried to reconcile the ideological dogma of his left-wing base with the demands that something should be done about global threats.
For example, Obama sent more troops to Afghanistan in 2009 in order to salvage what in his 2008 presidential campaign he called the “good war,” but at the same time he announced a date-certain withdrawal that undercut our forces’ effectiveness and signaled the Taliban to just wait us out. More blatantly, after four Americans, including a diplomat, were murdered in Benghazi several weeks before the 2012 presidential election, his administration camouflaged its responsibility by blaming an obscure Internet video for inciting the violence despite all the evidence to the contrary. The looming bad deal with Iran will be another such sacrifice of the country’s interests, this time to Obama’s “legacy.”
Yet these political machinations have taken place in the larger context of ideas about the conduct of foreign policy that go beyond Obama. At their heart is a view of human nature as unitary, in the sense that all peoples, no matter their religion, traditions, or culture, mostly want the same things we in the West want, and will act to achieve these aims using the same utilitarian calculus. This assumption underlies a second one: that since most people want peace and order, conflict can be resolved through diplomacy, agreements, treaties, and other non-lethal forms of persuasion like economic sanctions. The fundamental weakness of this set of assumptions has been demonstrated repeatedly over the last century––it neglects the irrational motivations of peoples, and the multiplicity of conflicting goods they will pursue no matter how destructive they may be.
Obama came into office having publicly endorsed this foreign policy philosophy. Doing so reinforced the perception that he was the opposite of George Bush, who had been cast by progressives as a cowboy warmonger responsible for the difficulties of the Iraq war. Most important, the received wisdom at the time was that “this president failed so miserably at diplomacy that we’re now forced to war,” as Democratic Senator Tom Daschle said of Bush. Senator Obama, in an important 2007 essay in Foreign Policy, similarly announced that “we must launch a comprehensive regional and diplomatic initiative to help broker an end to the civil war in Iraq,” and he promised to “reinvigorate American diplomacy” as the way to resolve conflicts with Iran and Syria.
Obama’s handling of the Iranians’ pursuit of nuclear weapons has been predicated on these same ideas. Thus he has repeatedly reached out to the Iranians both publicly and secretly, and made concessions to keep them at the bargaining table, only to be met with more belligerent rhetoric and escalating demands, even as the mullahs keep supporting terrorist outfits that have killed our troops, and spinning the centrifuges on their way to a nuclear bomb.
But Obama’s feckless behavior also reflects the mistaken ideas outlined above. Consider his response to The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg last year, regarding Iran’s religious extremism.
“If you look at Iranian behavior, they are strategic, and they’re not impulsive. They have a worldview, and they see their interests, and they respond to costs and benefits. And that isn’t to say that they aren’t a theocracy that embraces all kinds of ideas that I find abhorrent, but they’re not North Korea. They are a large, powerful country that sees itself as an important player on the world stage, and I do not think has a suicide wish, and can respond to incentives. And that’s the reason why they came to the table on sanctions.”
Despite the passing nod to a “worldview” and “theocracy,” Obama reduces the Iranian regime’s behavior to material “interests” that trump religion. He says the mullahs do not have a “suicide wish,” and hence “respond to incentives,” after making a rational calculus of “costs and benefits.” But Obama’s fundamental mistake is in misunderstanding the purpose or aim of these calculations, or of Iran’s desire to be “an important player on the world stage.” As followers of an apocalyptic, messianic version of Shi’a Islam, the mullahs running Iran are after much bigger fish than just being a global “important player.” They are pursuing the religiously inspired precepts of the founder of their state, the Ayatollah Khomeini: “We shall export our revolution to the whole world. Until the cry, ‘There is no God but God’ resounds over the whole world, there will be struggle.”
Moreover, while the secular, materialist Obama thinks the mullahs don’t have a “suicide wish,” from the mullahs’ perspective, the sacrifice of their own and others’ lives is trivial compared to the religiously sanctioned aim of that sacrifice. As Khomeini allegedly said about Iran, “I say let this land burn. I say let this land go up in smoke, provided Islam emerges triumphant in the rest of the world.” For 14 centuries Muslim warriors have claimed that they love death the way infidels love life, and for 14 centuries their actions have proved that claim to be more than rhetoric, most gruesomely on 9/11. Thus we should not assume that the mullahs privilege life over death in the pursuit of their aims.
As Michael Oren wrote a few years ago,
“A nuclear-armed Iran creates not one but several existential threats. The most manifest emanates from Iran’s routinely declared desire to ‘wipe Israel off the map,’ and from the fact that cold war calculi of nuclear deterrence through mutually assured destruction may not apply to Islamist radicals eager for martyrdom. Some Israeli experts predict that the Iranian leadership would be willing to sacrifice 50 percent of their countrymen in order to eradicate Israel.”
This traditionally Islamic triumphalist goal has determined Iran’s behavior for the last four decades. It explains their support of numerous terrorist groups, their genocidal intentions towards Israel, and their relentless pursuit of nuclear weapons, which would reorder the whole region to Iran’s benefit and mark a giant step towards Iranian global dominance. Lacking for now the military force necessary to reach that end, the mullahs have manipulated the negotiating process and exploited the West’s failure of civilizational nerve to make incremental advances. In this they are following the North Koreans, who for decades–– under both Democratic and Republican presidents–– brilliantly played the game of negotiation, “agreed frameworks,” “moratoriums,” Western concessions, and broken promises, until the day it announced it possessed nuclear weapons.
Obama will deserve obloquy if Iran gets the bomb. But let’s not forget the bad ideas that will have facilitated his failure. We can change administrations with our vote. But ideas that have long permeated the minds of millions, especially those entrusted with making a foreign policy that keeps us safe and advances our interests, are not so easily discarded.
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2) A Sergeant Major to tell it like it is!
That's why every visiting Flag officer to any unit will usually speak to the Sergeant Major and get his views on the unit, before talking to the ass kissers.
It's the DUTY of every Sergeant Major to tell it like it is. Sergeants Major do NOT need to kiss any asses and cannot go any higher in rank. The Sergeant Major is the highest ranking enlisted man in any unit they serve in.
Sergeants Major have ONLY one job: "To advise the Commander on ALL matters that pertain to THE ENLISTED PERSONNEL in the unit", and they will ALWAYS tell it like it is, for that very reason!
From the Podium:
J. D. Pendry, Retired Sergeant Major, USMC This retired USMC Sergeant Major has his Stuff together.
"Jimmy Carter, you are the father of the Islamic Nazi movement. You threw the Shah under the bus, welcomed the Ayatollah home, and then lacked the spine to confront the terrorists when they took our embassy and our people hostage. You're the "runner-in-chief."
"Bill Clinton, you played ring around the Lewinsky while the terrorists were at war with us. You got us into a fight with them in Somalia and then you ran from it. Your weak-willed responses to the USS Cole and the First Trade Center Bombing and Our Embassy Bombings emboldened the killers. Each time you failed to respond adequately, they grew bolder, until 9/11/2001".
"John Kerry, dishonesty is your most prominent attribute. You lied about American Soldiers in Vietnam ... Your military service, like your life, is more fiction than fact. You've accused our military of terrorizing women and children in Iraq ... You called Iraq the wrong war, wrong place, wrong time, with the same words you used to describe Vietnam . You're a fake! You want to run from Iraq and abandon the Iraqis to murderers just as you did to the Vietnamese. Iraq , like Vietnam , is another war that you were for, before you were against it."
"The late John Murtha, said our military was broken. He said we can't win militarily in Iraq . He accused United States Marines of cold-blooded murder without proof and said we should redeploy to Okinawa . Okinawa ? And the Democrats called him their military expert! Maybe he suffered a traumatic brain injury while he was off building his war hero resume? He was a sad, pitiable, corrupt, and washed up old fool, not a true Marine. He wouldn't amount to a good pimple on a real Marine's ass, a phony and a disgrace".
Dick Durbin, you accused our Soldiers at Guantanamo of being Nazis, tenders of Soviet style gulags and as bad as the regime of Pol Pot, who murdered two million of his own people after your party abandoned Southeast Asia to the Communists. Then you wanted to abandon the Iraqis to the same fate. History was not a good teacher for you, was it? Lord help us! See Dick run!"
"Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Carl Levine, Barbara Boxer, Diane Feinstein, Russ Feingold, Pat Leahy, Barack Obama, Chuck Schumer, the Hollywood Leftist morons, et al, to name a few ad nauseam: Every time you stand in front of television cameras and broadcast to the Islamic Nazis that we went to war because our former President lied, that the war is wrong and our Soldiers are torturers, that we should leave Iraq, you give the Islamic butchers - the same ones that tortured and mutilated American Soldiers - cause to think that we'll run away again, and all they have to do is hang on a little longer. Now Obama want's to start his own war and half of you idiots support him! "American news media, the New York Times particularly: Each time you publish stories about national defense secrets and our intelligence gathering methods, you become one united with the sub-human pieces of camel dung that torture and mutilate the bodies of American Soldiers. You can't strike up the courage to publish cartoons, but you can help Al Qaeda destroy my country. Actually, you are more dangerous to us than Al Qaeda.
Think about that each time you face Mecca to admire your Pulitzer."
"You are America 's 'AXIS OF IDIOTS.' Your Collective Stupidity will destroy us.. Self-serving politics and terrorist-abetting news scoops are more important to you than our national security or the lives of innocent civilians and Soldiers. It bothers you that defending ourselves gets in the way of your elitist sport of politics and your ignorant editorializing. There is as much blood on your hands as is on the hands of murdering terrorists".
"Don't ever doubt that. Your frolics will only serve to extend this war as they extended Vietnam . If you want our Soldiers home as you claim, knock off the crap and try supporting your country ahead of supporting your silly political aims and aiding our enemies."
"Yes, I'm questioning your patriotism. Your loyalty ends with self. I'm also questioning why you're stealing air that decent Americans could be breathing. You don't deserve the protection of our men and women in uniform. You need to run away from this war, this country. Leave the war to the people who have the will to see it through and the country to people who are willing to defend it."
"Our country has two enemies: Those who want to destroy us from the outside and those who attempt it from within.
Semper Fi".
J. D. Pendry - Sergeant Major, USMC, Retired A very savvy man.
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U.S. Probes Civilian Casualties in Iraq, Syria
Two Airstrikes Under Investigation; Three Others Being Assessed
Smoke rises from the Syrian city of Kobani, following an airstrike by the U.S.-led coalition, on Nov. 17, 2014. ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON—The U.S. is investigating reports of civilian casualties from coalition airstrikes on the extremist group Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, military officials said.
A formal investigation has begun looking at two strikes, one in Iraq and one in Syria, Col. Patrick Ryder, the spokesman for U.S. military’s Central Command, said Tuesday. In addition, three other strikes—two in Syria and one in Iraq—are being assessed to determine whether an investigation is warranted, Col. Ryder said.
The U.S. has said it has the backing of more than 60 countries in the anti-Islamic State campaign, but the number of those participating in airstrikes is far lower. Since the strikes began in August in Iraq and in September in Syria, Washington has said it takes reports of civilian casualties seriously. But before now, it hadn’t acknowledged that it had begun formal investigations of any allegations.
“Central Command is investigating several—what they believe to be credible allegations of possible civilian casualties,” said Rear Adm. John Kirby, Pentagon press secretary.
Col. Ryder said that in all, Central Command officials have looked into 18 allegations of civilian casualties. Of those, five allegations in Syria and eight allegations in Iraq were determined to be unfounded, he said.
Since the beginning of the air campaign, there have been frequent allegations—particularly in Syria—that coalition airstrikes meant to target militants have in fact killed civilians.
Col. Ryder said the allegations had come from various sources, including military reviews, media reports, nongovernmental organizations and other U.S. government agencies.
The two current investigations, Col. Ryder said, resulted from the military’s own review process of results of its strikes.
“We take all allegations of [civilian casualties] seriously no matter the source of the information and review all allegations regardless of the source,” Col. Ryder said in a statement.
Adm. Kirby said that overall, the U.S. air campaign along with Iraq military operations have “halted the momentum” of Islamic State fighters.
“We very much see ISIL largely in a defensive posture inside Iraq,” Adm. Kirby said. “Whatever momentum they had been enjoying had been halted.”
Adm. Kirby said the U.S. has cut back the ability of Islamic State militants to derive revenue from oil, has destroyed hundreds of vehicles and has killed hundred of fighters.
Pressed on the number of militants killed, Adm. Kirby said that the figure wasn’t relevant and said he wouldn’t provide a specific count.
“The goal is to degrade and destroy their capability,” Adm. Kirby said. “We aren’t getting into an issue of body counts.”
But he said U.S. officials believe they have curbed the ability of Islamic State to maneuver and mount offensives.
“We know simply by where they are on the map and how little they are moving that we have blunted the momentum they once had,” he said.
Adm. Kirby also said that inside Syria, Kurdish forces now control “the vast majority” of the city of Kobani. But he said at no point did Islamic State militants control more than 25% of the town.
The U.S. hasn't curbed its airstrikes against Kobani because Islamic State militants is still trying to take the city.
The U.S.-led coalition has conducted more than 500 strikes near Kobani since September, the most heavily targeted area since the campaign began.
Coalition warplanes have conducted about half as many strikes in the second most targeted area, near Mosul and Mosul Dam in Iraq, since August. The U.S.-led coalition has also consistently targeted Kobani since September, with few lulls in its bombing campaign there.
—Felicia Schwartz contributed to this article.
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4) President Congeniality
Obama welcomes the new Congress with a Keystone veto threat.
President Obama welcomed the 114th Congress Tuesday with an Obama-as-usual gesture: The White House said he will veto a bipartisan bill approving the Keystone XL pipeline if it gets to his desk, as seems likely.
The House is expected to approve the pipeline again this week, while John Hoeven (R., N.D.) and Joe Manchin (D., W.Va.) have introduced a Senate bill with 60 co-sponsors that is poised to overcome a liberal filibuster. Mr. Obama’s threat is an attempt to peel off enough Democrats so he doesn’t have to veto.
Mr. Obama claims to want more spending on infrastructure, but apparently not if the financing is from private business rather than taxpayers. The President says Keystone won’t matter to the economy because it will create “maybe 2,000” temporary jobs. But his own State Department reported last year that the project would employ some 10,000 construction workers, and that the $3.3 billion investment would support another 16,000 providing the pipe, tools, trucks and services (insurance, hotel rooms) for the project. There are another 26,000 indirect jobs that come from Keystone workers spending their wages on the likes of food, rent or vacations.
Congress is finally acting in bipartisan fashion because Mr. Obama has delayed his Keystone decision for six years. Members of both parties should move ahead despite the veto threat and call his bluff. At least the country will see who is the real obstacle to faster growth and job creation.
5)Saul Alinsky died about 43 years ago, but his writings influenced those in political control of our nation today.......Recall that Hillary did her college thesis on his writings and Obama writes about him in his books.
Died: June 12, 1972, Carmel-by-the-Sea, CAEducation: University of ChicagoSpouse: Irene AlinskyBooks: Rules for Radicals, Reveille for RadicalsAnyone out there think that this stuff isn't happening today in the U.S.?
All eight rules are currently in playHow to create a social state by Saul Alinsky:There are eight levels of control that must be obtained before you are able to create a social state. The first is the most important.
1) Healthcare – Control healthcare and you control the people
2) Poverty – Increase the Poverty level as high as possible, poor people are easier to control and will not fight back if you are providing everything for them to live.
3) Debt – Increase the debt to an unsustainable level. That way you are able to increase taxes, and this will produce more poverty.
4) Gun Control– Remove the ability to defend themselves from the Government. That way you are able to create a police state.
5) Welfare – Take control of every aspect of their lives (Food, Housing, and Income)
6) Education – Take control of what people read and listen to – take control of what children learn in school.
7) Religion – Remove the belief in the God from the Government and schools
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------8) Class Warfare – Divide the people into the wealthy and the poor. This will cause more discontent and it will be easier to take (Tax) the wealthy with the support of the poor.Does any of this sound like what is happening to the United States?Alinsky merely simplified Vladimir Lenin's original scheme for world conquest by communism, under Russian rule. Stalin described his converts as "Useful Idiots."The Useful Idiots have destroyed every nation in which they have seized power and control. It is presently happening at an alarming rate in the U.S.If people can read this and still say everything is just fine…they are “useful idiots s Gerber said
6) America 2015: If religion declines, what about the future of democracy?
Is religion losing its influence on American life? In 2014, more Americans than ever before—almost three quarters—said yes, according to Pew surveys. Only 22% said religion is increasing its influence. Do you think this trend is good, bad, or indifferent?
If you ask Clay Christensen, a Harvard Business School professor, it’s definitely a bad trend. He relates an experience he had with a Marxist economist from China who was in the U.S. on a fellowship.
Christensen asked if he had learned anything surprising or unexpected.
The Chinese economist’s immediate reaction was this: “I had no idea how critical religion is to the functioning of democracy.” He explained that democracy works not because the government closely monitors and controls people, but because “most people, most of the time, voluntarily choose to obey the law.”
Religion is the reason why people voluntarily choose to do so. People feel accountable to God, not just to society.
The declining influence of religion in America worried the Chinese economist, seeing that the moral bulwark of democracy might be eroding.
Christensen concluded, “If you take away religion, you can’t hire enough police.”
Perhaps this is why an increasing number of Americans say that religion should play a larger role in politics, according to Pew.
The results from the Pew survey show that we are starting 2015 with the perception (perhaps the reality) that the influence of religion is waning in America.
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