In the early years our kids came with a friend of their choice but now they are all married, except for one, and with kids, except for two, so the parents continue the tradition.
We just returned from our special week and were fortunate to have good weather, plenty of beach time, some excellent meals always accompanied by wine and assorted beer and challenging tennis .
===
The Couples! Gil/Mary Ann-Susan/Bob -
Me and Lynn - Gail/Drew
The Guys! Bob, Gil, Me and Drew
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
Lynn and Your's Truly! The Girls! Lynn, Susan,Mary Anne and Gail!
===
While I was away Putin bent over and Obama sent Sec, Kerry to kiss his behind which he dutifully did.
Meanwhile, Obama was dissed by most of the Middle East leaders he invited to Camp David where he proceeded to pledge, in the weakest fashion, that America stood with them should they be attacked by the very terrorists Obama refuses to name, other than to call them JV'ers. (See 1 below.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
Hillarious continues to avoid the press and media so she will not have to respond to questions about her incompetency (Benghazi and Russian Reset Button to name a few) , the destruction of her computer, questionable, if not unlawful, behaviour while Sec of State as she continued to engage in self dealing and enrichment.
ABC's prize newscaster was found to have ignored a matter that called into question his integrity and Jeb Bush got caught up in being confused regarding a hypothetical question involving Iraq.
Meanwhile, China continues to expand their ownership of the waters in their part of the world by building bases to service their expanding naval fleet while we shrink ours.
From a domestic standpoint Obama continues to engage in back handed praise of the nation's police , questions the religious faith of Americans and attacks Sen. Warren for expressing herself.
===
Elliot Abrams will be here in February 2017, as the honored guest speaker at the SIRC President's Day Dinner. (See 2 below.)
We are fortunate that a person of Elliot's broad experience has agreed to be with us.
As you know, our 2016 President Day speaker is Allen West and we are delighted he is coming as well.
Also, before I leave for our over two month drive coast to coast (bus man holiday) I again remind you we have two excellent TRUE PERSPECTIVE meetings coming up in July and August . (See 2a below.)
===
This TRULY is the last memo before we go on our coast to coast trip beginning May 20.
Have a great summer.
Pray for our nation as Obama continues to bring about radical change, shreds our Constitution and Republicans get blamed for trains running of their tracks!
===
Dick
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1)
- Guess Who Is NOT Coming to Camp David For Dinner?
When it comes to this White House's much-maligned Middle East policy the chickens are coming home to roost as their eggs crash onto President Obama's face.
In the wake of reaching a so-called Iran nuclear framework agreement (I prefer the more apt "Memorandum of Misunderstanding") Obama came out to the Rose Garden and declared his intent to convene a "Camp David Security Summit" among the U.S. and the eight Sunni Arab members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). The goal of this Thursday's summit was to assuage Gulf states that the U.S. was not blind to their security concerns as it negotiated a nuclear agreement with Iran. It was part and parcel of the Administration's vaunted diplomatic offensive to neutralize critics of its Iran nuclear handiwork - the Saudis and its Sunni Arab allies being quite vocal skeptics. The White House even penciled in before the gathering a face-to-face meeting between the President and newly Saudi crowned King Salman - to manifest the durability of U.S. - Saudi friendship.
Guess who's not coming, even after they had all RSVP? Six out of the eight Sunni Arab leaders, including King Salman (only the Kuwaiti and Qatari monarchs are currently planning to attend, along with lesser officials from the other GCC states).
That's quite the Shanda! (a Yiddish expression for "embarrassing!")
In the annals of official diplomatic snubs this is the equivalent of a ten point on the Richter scale no matter how the White House clumsily spins the debacle. John Kerry was just in Riyadh last week meeting with King Salman supposedly obtaining the King's blessing for his participation. Although Kerry reportedly secured the King's attendance, something clearly went very wrong over the weekend. Although the Saudis had warned Kerry that a Camp David summit would only be as good as its achievements...not its instagrams, Kerry assured the Saudis that President Obama would be "open" to new security guaranties and more sophisticated arms transfers. As it turns out, one could drive a Mack truck through the word "open."
As Kerry was flying around Europe the White House leaked over the weekend that the President had no intent (or would it even try to seek Congressional approval) to enter into any formal mutual defense agreement with the GCC at the Camp David summit, nor to seriously consider anti-Iran ballistic missile cooperation, nor agree to Saudi and Emirati requests to transfer sophisticated Air Force F-35 jet fighters to GCC members.
To make matters worse, the already skittish Israelis and their Congressional allies made it clear they would never agree to a formal mutual defense agreement between the GCC and the U.S., especially when the U.S. and Israel do not have any formal security agreement of their own. Just think of the optics here: Israel's very existence is at risk by Iran's nuclear program and export of terror weaponry to Hamas and Hezbollah and the Obama Administration is caught straying into conjecture whether it would enter into some form of a mutual defense agreement with Sunni Arab states!
Kerry assured National Security Adviser Rice he had his Saudi ducks lined up for the summit. But Kerry has proven time and again to be a very poor interpreter of Arab intent -- even with a good translator in tow. This is, after all, the Secretary of State who promised to produce a final Palestinian-Israeli peace in 9 months, and who assured the world that Syria would never again use chemical weapons again against its people - assurances he privately conveyed not only to the Saudis, but to the Jordanians and Israelis, as well. The Saudis and their allies are tiring of Kerry's happy talk. Aren't we all?
So instead of a kiss on the cheeks the Saudis and their allies just slapped Obama on the face.
After seven excruciating years of Obama-orchestrated fallow summits (counter-terrorism, Muslim outreach, Africa leaders, to name just a few) it is so, so clear this White House simply cannot muster the wherewithal to undertake the equivalent of diplomatic "mise en place" or to make sure the heavy policy lift occurs afterwards. So the Camp David summit symbolic collapse is emblematic of what chronically ails Obama's foreign policy - proper preparation and proper execution - with credible strategy in between. Committing the same errors over and over again and expecting different results...that's the defining trait of Obama's Middle East policies.
Why should anyone be surprised? After all, who is fooling who here? The Saudis and their Arab allies had made it very clear in recent weeks that a Camp David summit which fails in its core mission to produce tangible security agreements to impede Iranian post-nuclear deal designs (and not a nice little, empty communique) is simply a waste of good food. The laundry list of Sunni Arab apprehensions about U.S. Middle East policy just keep piling up. Iran seizes unarmed merchant vessels in the Arabian Gulf and U.S. nuclear negotiators keep on plugging away. Syria's Assad is caught once again using chemical weapons against his people - hardly a yawn from the Rose Garden despite Obama's vaunted red line. And Tehran is significantly increasing its flow of arms and more money into the hands of Hamas in the West Bank and in Gaza, and Kerry accuses his critics of being "hysterical" about a deal. Moreover, the Saudis are facing a real debacle in Yemen and the U.S. is simply unable to translate American support into positive, durable Yemeni facts on the ground, in the air, or on the seas.
The fundamental problem is not mistimed invitations or diplomatic snubs. The crisis in the Middle East has devolved into a duel pitting Saudi Arabia and the Iran against each other in regional theaters of competition: Yemen, Gaza, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, the Persian Gulf. The Saudis (and their apprehensive Gulf allies) have every reason to fear Washington's lack of resolve, and White House communiques have proven hollow in the past.
Keen Middle East observers assert the Obama Administration is just playing for time with the Saudis and their GCC allies: that once a nuclear agreement is reached with Iran and Team Obama does its end-of-term undeserved victory lap Sunni Arab states will have to step up to the plate and fend for themselves against an Iranian adversary more or less free to assert its regional aspirations without check. That is the trajectory Obama's inexperienced foreign policy team has - by default and by design - created for the GCC, Israel, and the next U.S. president. When Obama agreed to straightjacket the U.S. into a single-minded nuclear negotiation with Iran at the expense of any other Iranian misconduct it lost all leverage - leverage to influence Iran's conduct in Yemen, Syria, Gaza, much less to gain the release of American hostages -- so assuring the GCC states, particularly the Saudis, that the U.S. will remain a strategic partner in the face of Iranian duplicity and U.S. inaction is a formula for diplomatic snubbing -- or worse. Iran's conduct during each stage of the nuclear dossier only magnifies Washington's miscalculation - everything is off the table with Iran except reaching a nuclear deal. Whether there is or isn't a nuclear agreement with Iran, what is Obama's real alternative to allay GCC and Israeli concerns as Iranian Revolutionary Guards romp across the region -- nothing I have seen so far from this White House constitutes an alternative.
It is a fundamentally flawed legacy as those chickens now come home to roost.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------2)Council on Foreign Relations
Reminders About Iran
During the three-month period between April 2 and June 30, Iran and the P5+1 are supposed to negotiate a comprehensive agreement about Iran’s nuclear program. The United States has been careful not to exacerbate relations with Iran, with the Obama administration trying hard not to upset any apple carts. The theory seems to be that there are hardliners in Iran (who are just like our own hardliners, the administration appears to believe) and we mustn’t annoy them.
So it is interesting to see how Iran is conducting itself during this period. The answer is clear: it is practicing no restraint whatsoever. The best example of this may be its seizure of the cargo ship Maersk Tigris which was plying the waters of the Gulf. This seizure has forced the United States to provide naval escorts to some American and British ships, and it served notice on the world that Iran would use military force when it pleased, negotiations or no negotiations.
A second example is the espionage charge against the imprisoned Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian. He has been in an Iranian jail since July, 2014, and the ludicrous espionage charge is not simply a reminder of the nature of Iran’s “legal” system; it is also a slap in the face of President Obama. There was really no reason for Iran to charge an American journalist with espionage during this three-month period except to show Americans and their president how little they think of us–and how confident they are that nothing, nothing at all, will lead President Obama to back away from doing this nuclear deal.
Yesterday came another reminder of the nature of the Iranian regime. Here’s the AP story, from The Washington Post:
One of Iran’s most prominent human rights activists, Narges Mohammadi, has been arrested by state security forces and detained in Tehran’s Evin Prison, her husband said Wednesday.
Mohammadi is close to Iranian Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi. Her activism includes promoting women’s rights and campaigning to end the death penalty.
Her husband, Taghi Rahmani, told The Associated Press that about 10 people showed up at Mohammadi’s house early Tuesday morning to detain her — a show of force he called “very provocative.”
“Narges is a human rights activist. … She hasn’t done anything wrong,” said Rahmani, who lives in exile in France.
Mohammadi was a vice president of Ebadi’s now-banned Defenders of Human Rights Center. Ebadi herself left Iran after the disputed re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2009, which touched off unprecedented protests and harsh crackdowns by authorities.
Rahmani said his wife suffers from a health condition, made worse by confinement in small spaces, that causes temporary muscular paralysis.
Mohammadi previously was imprisoned in April 2012 to begin serving a six-year sentence following a 2010 conviction related to anti-government crimes. She was released on medical grounds in July 2012.
Last week, she told the New York-based International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran that an Iranian court had charged her with a number of national security crimes related to her activism.
The group said she is accused of propaganda against the state, assembly and collusion against national security, and establishing an illegal group, the “Step by Step to Stop Death Penalty” campaign.
So in the course of a mere three weeks, Iran has given us these powerful reminders of the nature of its regime, its defiance of international law, and its contempt for the United States and President Obama. Meanwhile Foreign Minister Zarif travels the world, offering assurances of Iran’s good faith and pacific intent. Zarif is a salesman, or put more nicely a diplomat, but not a policymaker, and the policymakers are showing us week after week the true nature of the regime. If we pay more attention to Zarif’s speeches and interviews than to the actual conduct of the regime, we have nothing and no one to blame but ourselves and our illusions about the Islamic Republic.
2a) VERY IMPORTANT: MUST ATTEND True Perspective Presentations!!!!
The purpose of The SIRC's "True Perspective " program is to inform the public on topics of keen current interest. We work hard at seeking experts on the topics presented.
July 14, James Van de Velde speaks at The Landings. Jim's talk will be on cyber security and how ISIS is using the social media to convey their message. His presentation is at 5PM at The Plantation Club
Jim's talk is open to the public and I encourage 'Townees' to attend as well as Landings residents.
This is Jim's resume: "
Then, on August 11, Professor Robbie Friedman, will discuss the proposed Iran Agreement and matters relating thereto, including the impact on regional nations, America, Europe etc.
Robbie's resume is:
2a) VERY IMPORTANT: MUST ATTEND True Perspective Presentations!!!!
The purpose of The SIRC's "True Perspective " program is to inform the public on topics of keen current interest. We work hard at seeking experts on the topics presented.
July 14, James Van de Velde speaks at The Landings. Jim's talk will be on cyber security and how ISIS is using the social media to convey their message. His presentation is at 5PM at The Plantation Club
Jim's talk is open to the public and I encourage 'Townees' to attend as well as Landings residents.
This is Jim's resume: "
James Van de Velde, Ph.D., a Lecturer Johns Hopkins University and Adjunct Faculty at the Georgetown University, is also a Lieutenant Commander in the US Naval Intelligence Reserves where he teaches at the National Intelligence University. He is also an Associate for the consulting firm, Booz Allen Hamilton. He is a former White House Appointee in the US Department of State for nuclear weapons arms control under President George H. W. Bush, a former Lecturer and Residential College Dean at Yale University, and a former career Foreign Service Officer for the US State Department of State. Dr. Van de Velde currently consults with US Cyber Command on US cyber strategy. He has consulted previously on national security affairs with Special Operations Command, the Open Source Academy, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the National Counter Proliferation Center, the National Counter Terrorism Center, the US Joint Staff, and the US Department of Treasury. Dr. Van de Velde is an Associate Member of the International Institute of Strategic Studies and has held fellowships at the Center for International Security and Arms Control at Stanford University and the US-Japan Program at Harvard University. Dr. Van de Velde received his B.A. from Yale University in 1982 and his Ph.D. in National Security Affairs from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy in 1988."
Then, on August 11, Professor Robbie Friedman, will discuss the proposed Iran Agreement and matters relating thereto, including the impact on regional nations, America, Europe etc.
Robbie's resume is:
- "Georgia State University
Robert_FriedmannInternational terrorism, Incitement and terrorism, Challenges to Israeli societyDr. Robert R. Friedmann is director of the Georgia International Law Enforcement Exchange and Professor Emeritus of Criminal Justice at Georgia State University’s Andrew Young School of Policy Studies. He was the Distinguished Chair of Public Safety Partnerships (2007-2010) and served as Chair (1989-2002) of the Criminal Justice Department at Georgia State University. Dr. Friedmann received his B.S. (Sociology and Anthropology, and Philosophy) from the University of Haifa, Israel (1974); his M.A. and Ph.D. (Sociology) from the University of Minnesota (1978); and his M.S.S.W. (Social Work) from the University of Wisconsin-Madison (1981).
His interest and published work focus on community policing, terrorism, and crime analysis. His books include: Community Policing: Comparative Perspectives and Prospects, (1992), Criminal Justice in Israel: An Annotated Bibliography of English Language Publications, 1948-1993 (1995), Crime and Criminal Justice in Israel: Assessing the Knowledge Base toward the Twenty-First Century (1998), A Diary of Four Years of Terrorism and Anti-Semitism: 2000-2004 (2005; two volumes), and 28 Letters (2012). He also authored numerous articles and research reports on crime and criminal justice focusing on policing and public safety. He was the recipient of several federal grants to improve crime data.Dr. Friedmann chaired the Georgia Commission to Assess State Crime Laboratory Needs into the 21st Century; he is a Member of the Georgia Association of Chiefs of Police (GACP), and a Member of the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) and its Community Policing Committee. He assisted in security planning and preparation for the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta, for the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, Greece, for the 2012 Olympic Games in London, and for the G-8 in Sea Island, Georgia. He served as a member of the Fulton County Court House Security Commission and he serves on the advisory board of the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism, Herzliya, Israel, the Research Institute for European and American Studies, Athens, Greece, and is a member of the executive committee of The International Counter-Terrorism Academic Community.Dr. Friedmann works closely with a number of police departments, in the U.S. and internationally, on community policing and homeland security.- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
No comments:
Post a Comment