Various Foreign Policies! ISIS Could Get Dirtier!

Obama and U.N. Iran Policy Stance!
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You can learn a lot by knowing history. Even studying our dollar bill can be revealing. (See 1 below.)
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ISIS going dirty.  Not out of the realm of  happening. (See 2 below.)

Meanwhile, Obama is prepared to send dollars to Iran and look the other way so he can strengthen that renegade nation and save his peace legacy. (See 2a below.)
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Recap of candidates' claims regarding their foreign policy initiatives. (See 3 and 3a below.)
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Dick
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 1) On the rear of the One Dollar bill, you will see two circles. Together, they comprise the Great Seal of the United StatesThe First Continental Congress requested that Benjamin Franklin and a group of men come up with a Seal. It took them four years to accomplish this task and another two years to get it approved. 

If you look at the left-hand circle, you will see a Pyra

Every American who can should visit these two places.  It was one of the most memorable and informative  trips we have taken. Bone chilling is the way I would describe it. (See 1 below.)mid.

Notice the face is lighted, and the western side is dark. This country was just beginning. We had not begun to explore the west or decided what we could do for Western Civilization.  The Pyramid is uncapped, again signifying that we were not even close to being finished. Inside the Capstone you have the all-seeing eye, an ancient symbol for divinity. It was Franklin 's belief that one man couldn't do it alone, but a group of men, with the help of God, could do anything. 'IN GOD WE TRUST' is printed on this currency.                   The Latin above the pyramid, ANNUIT COEPTIS, means,  'God has favored our undertaking.' The Latin below the pyramid, NOVUS ORDO SECLORUM, means,  'a new order has begun.' At the base of the pyramid is the Roman numeral for 1776. (MDCCLXXVI) If you look at the right-hand circle, and check it carefully, you will learn that it is on every National Cemetery in the United States . It is also on the Parade of Flags Walkway at the Bushnell, Florida National Cemetery , and is the centerpiece of most heroes' monuments. Slightly modified, it is the seal of the President of the United States , and it is always visible whenever he speaks, yet very few people know what the symbols mean.                          The Bald Eagle was selected as a symbol for victory for two reasons: First, the eagle is not afraid of a storm; he is strong, and he is smart enough to soar above it. Secondly, he wears no material crown. We had just broken from the King of England. Also, notice the shield is unsupported. This country can now stand on its own. At the top of that shield there is a white bar signifying congress, a unifying factor. We were coming together as one nation. In the Eagle's beak you will read, ' E PLURIBUS UNUM' meaning, 'from many - one.' Above the Eagle, we have the thirteen stars, representing the thirteen original colonies, and any clouds of misunderstanding rolling away. Again, we were coming together as one. Notice what the Eagle holds in his talons. He holds an olive branch and arrows. This country wants peace, but we will never be afraid to fight to preserve peace. The Eagle always wants to face the olive branch, but in time of war, his gaze turns toward the arrows. An (untrue) old-fashioned belief says that the number 13 is an unlucky number. This is almost a worldwide belief. You will almost never see a room numbered 13 -- or any hotels with a 13th floor. But think about this: America, which relies on God (not a number) to direct and lead, boldly chose: 13 original colonies, 13 signers of the Declaration of Independence , 13 stripes on our flag, 13 steps on the pyramid, 13 letters in 'Annuit Coeptis', 13 letters in ' E Pluribus Unum,' 13 stars above the eagle, 13 bars on that shield, 13 leaves on the olive branch, 13 fruits, and if you look closely, 13 arrows. And finally, notice the arrangement of the 13 stars in the  right-hand circle. You will see that they are arranged as a Star of David. This was ordered by George Washington who, when he asked Haym Solomon, a wealthy Philadelphia Jew, what he would like as a personal reward for his services to the Continental Army. Solomon said he wanted nothing for himself, but he would like something for his people.The Star of David was the result.  Few people know it was Solomon who saved the Army through his financial contributions...then died a pauper. Haym Solomon gave $25 million to save the Continental Army, money that was sorely needed to help realize America’s --our-- freedom and independence  from England. Therein lies America ’s Judeo-Christian beginning.

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2)  A Nuclear-Armed ISIS? It's Not That Farfetched, Expert Says

By Patrick Tucker

A Harvard researcher says the terror group might be closer to wreaking some sort of radioactive havoc than we think.

The murder of a security guard at a Belgian nuclear facility just two days after the Brussels attacks, coupled with evidence that Islamic State operatives had been watching researchers there, has re-ignited fears about ISIS and nuclear terrorism. Some experts, including ones cited by the New York Times and others, dismiss the possibility that ISIS could make even a crude nuclear bomb. But Matthew Bunn, the co-principal investigator at the Project on Managing the Atom at Harvard’s Belfer Center, says that the threat is quite real.

Belgium has seen numerous suspicious events related to nuclear material and facilities. In August 2014, a worker at the Doel-4 nuclear power reactor opened a valve and drained a turbine of lubricant. The valve wasn’t near any nuclear material, but the act caused at least $100 million in damage and perhaps twice that. Later, Belgian authorities discovered that a man named Ilyass Boughalab had left his job at Doel-4 to join the Islamic State in Syria. (His last background check was 2009.)

In November, shortly after the Paris attacks, Belgian authorities arrested a man named Mohammed Bakkali and discovered that he had video surveillance footage of an expert at Belgian’s SCK-CEN nuclear research facility in Mol. It now seems that the footage was collected by Ibrahim and Khalid el-Bakraoui, two of the suicide bombers in the recent Brussels attacks.

Then on March 24, a guard was found shot at Belgium’s national radioactive elements institute at Fleurus. A Belgian prosecutor declared the death unrelated to terrorism and denied reports that the guard’s security pass had been stolen and hastily de-activated.

No matter what happened at Fleurus, mounting evidence points to ISIS’s intention to cause nuclear havoc, whether by damaging a nuclear facility, spiking a conventional bomb with radioactive materials, or even building a fission bomb with highly enriched uranium.

The first concern is that sabotage could create a Fukushima-like environment in central Europe. But to pull that off, Bunn writes in a blog post obtained prior to publication by Defense One, militants, criminals or terrorists would need a lot of specialized knowledge of the plant’s security features and measures and how to defeat them.

Just before the most recent attack in Belgium, SCK-CEN deployed armed troops to Belgium’s four nuclear sites.

Dirty Bombs

But beefing up security at explicitly nuclear sites still leaves a lot of radioactive material less well protected. “Radiological materials are available in many locations where they would be much easier to steal, in hospitals, industrial sites, and more,” than at the SCK-CEN center, Bunn wroteSuch materials can allow a terrorist to turn a regular-size blast into a catastrophe that renders an entire area essentially poisonous, greatly increasing the costs of cleanup and the long-term danger to survivors, first responders, etc. In 1987, four people died in the Brazilian city of Goiânia from exposure to cesium salt, derived from junked medical equipment.

Bunn points to a recent report from the Nuclear Threat Initiative, which notes that the material to make a dirty bomb exists in “tens of thousands of radiological sources located in more than 100 countries around the world.”

In 2013 and 2014, there were 325 incidents of radioactive materials being lost, stolen, or in some way unregulated or uncontrolled, according to the report, which cites estimates from the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation.

One material of particular concern is Cesium-137, or Cs-137. A byproduct of fission that’s commonly used in radiation cancer therapy,“it exists in many places much less well protected than SCK-CEN,” Bunn writes.

The ultimate nightmare takes the form of a nuclear bomb composed of highly enriched uranium. Bunn wrote that stealing highly enriched uranium from SCK-CEN would have been very difficult for the Brussels suicide bombers. And yet, he wrote, “The Times story largely dismissed – wrongly, in my view – the idea that the HEU at SCK-CEN might have been the terrorists’ ultimate objective, saying that the idea that terrorists could get such material and make a crude nuclear bomb ‘seems far-fetched to many experts.’”

Citing a recent Belfer Center report, he wrote, “repeated government studies, in the United States and elsewhere, have concluded that this is not far-fetched.”

One key passage in the report offered this insight, that according to the International Atomic Energy Agency, 13 incidents of the “illegal possession, sale, or movement” of highly enriched uranium occurred between 1993-2014. None of those involved material over a kilogram, not nearly enough to build a nuclear bomb. But “Incidents involving attempts to sell nuclear or other radioactive material indicate that there is a perceived demand for such material. The number of successful transactions is not known and therefore it is difficult to accurately characterize an ‘illicit nuclear market.’” 

It’s hard to tell how successful an assault on a facility like SCK-CEN would be if attempted by two lone gunmen, even if they had kidnapped an expert. But ISIS’s attraction to nuclear material, and perhaps even a nuclear bomb, seems to be growing. 

Patrick Tucker is technology editor for Defense One. He’s also the author of The Naked Future: What Happens in a World That Anticipates Your Every Move? (Current, 2014). Previously, Tucker was deputy editor for The Futurist for nine years.

2a)

Obama’s Not-so-Mixed Message to Iran

By JONATHAN S. TOBIN 

On Wednesday, along with key European allies, the United States sent a 

letter to United Nations officials protesting Iran’s recent illegal ballistic 

missile tests, in which it made clear its desire to wipe Israel off the map. The letter was part of an effort to set up a Security Council session in which the 

West would seek “appropriate responses” to the tests of missiles that are “inherently capable of delivering nuclear weapons” that were in “defiance” 

of the world body’s resolutions.

On its face, that sounds encouraging. Having invested so much of his 

diplomatic and political capital on a nuclear deal with Iran, President Obama can’t be perceived as indifferent to the Islamist regime’s flaunting its 

contempt for the notion that it is rejoining the international community. But despite the tough-sounding language in the letter, we already know the 

effort at the UN is a farce.With Russia already signaling that it will veto any attempt to punish the Iranians for their missile tests, any UN action on the 

issue is impossible, and Obama knows it.

However, the administration had a different response to Iran’s provocations 

the same day. Speaking to the Carnegie Endowment for Peace in Washington, Secretary of the Treasury Jack Lew had no comfort for those hoping for a 

robust American riposte to Iran’s threats and violations. Far from speaking

of increasing the wrist-slap sanctions that the U.S. imposed on those 

Iranians involved in procuring materials for the missiles earlier this year, Lew poured cold water on the whole idea of using economic restrictions to 

influence Tehran. Lew’s message was that Washington needed to signal to

Iran that it was prepared to ease sanctions, not increase them.

Despite the evidence of Iran’s aggressive intentions flaunted on their 

state-run media, Lew preferred to talk about Iran keeping its words in the 

initial months after the implementation of the nuclear deal. He’s right that 

there have been no reported violations of the weak terms of the accord, 

under which the Iranians not only got to keep their nuclear infrastructure but were rewarded with a huge cash bonus of approximately $100 billion and 

the lifting of international sanctions. Iran also only has to wait a decade for 

the deal to expire to get their nuclear weapon. But rather than wait and see

if the Iranians will stick to their word for a longer period, the administration

not only wants to keep the rewards flowing but to increase them.

As I noted last week, Lew had already started making noises about lifting 

the restrictions on the Iranians using dollars in international transactions. He removed all doubt about that on Wednesday when he spoke of bein

“willing to ease sanctions.” Though couched in the language of 

responsibility, the message was clear. The Obama administration is all about carrots and no sticks when it comes to Iran:

We must be conscious of the risk that overuse of sanctions could undermine our leadership position within the global economy, and the effectiveness of our sanctions themselves.

Let’s think about that for a moment. In the view of the man in charge of the country’s economic strategy, American leadership depends on appeasing 

a vicious, aggressive, anti-Semitic regime that hates the U.S. and our allies. He actually fears that the world will think less of the United States if it stands 

up for its principles or even makes minimal gestures via sanctions to ensure that Iran isn’t rewarded for its bad behavior.

The secretary’s comments are clearly a shot fired at Congress in an attempt to prevent an effort at imposing more sanctions on Iran as a result of its missile defiance. That effort, sponsored by Republicans, presents a challenge to Democrats who promised to hold Iran accountable for its behavior after they backed the nuclear deal. But, like the administration, even many pro-Israel Democrats have lost interest in the Iranian threat in the aftermath of the 

Senate filibuster that allowed the pact to be implemented without even an 

up or down vote (something that the Democrats apparently think is more important when it comes to Supreme Court nominations).

As the Agence France Presse report on Lew’s remarks noted, this is a big 

deal to Iran because they are frustrated about the fact that the U.S. 

sanctions — as opposed to the ones agreed to by the international 

community — imposed by Congress make it harder for them to profit from 

the post-deal gold rush of European companies heading to Tehran. But as 

was the case throughout the nuclear negotiations when presented with a moment where they could exert the considerable economic leverage given 

them by the U.S. economy, the Obama administration again prefers to give 

away the store rather than use it to make Iran behave.

The Iranians greatly profited from Obama’s appeasement-minded 

negotiating strategy during the talks, and they hope to do just as well now. 

But the stakes involved in this issue are greater than just the dollars the 

Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps would like to get their hands on as they invest in international terror. American weakness now is a guarantee that 

Iran will continue to push the envelope on missiles and cheat on their 

nuclear commitments, making their eventual possession of a weapon all the more certain.

As the Foundation for Defense of Democracies said in a response to Lew’s statement:

Sanctions work not when the U.S. merely imposes them on Iranian companies, but when foreign businesses stop doing business with these Iranian entities because they believe that Treasury is using objective measures to determine which entities pose illicit finance risks. When companies see Treasury’s actions as political rather than merit-based maneuvers, that’s when sanctions as a credible instrument of coercive statecraft will be damaged beyond repair.

Rather than succumbing to Obama’s campaign for more rewards to the ayatollahs and their terrorist-sponsoring regime, Congress must be 

galvanized into action by Lew’s remarks. With Russian support for Iran 

ensuring that the UN won’t do a thing, it is up to the House and Senate to strengthen sanctions on Iran and to demand that Lew enforce the law as it 

now stands rather than give another bonus to Tehran payable in U.S. dollars.

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3)

The four foreign policies

By Charles Krauthammer 

After dozens of contests featuring cliffhangers, buzzer-beaters and a ton of flagrant fouls, we’re down to the Final Four: Sanders, Clinton, Cruz and Trump. (If Kasich pulls off a miracle, he’ll get his own column.) The world wants to know: What are their foreign policies?

Herewith, four candidates and four schools: pacifist, internationalist, unilateralist and mercantilist.

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(1) Bernie Sanders, pacifist.

His pacifism is part swords-into-plowshares utopianism, part get-thee-gone isolationism. Emblematic was the Nov. 14 Democratic debate , which was supposed to focus on the economy but occurred the day after the Paris massacre. Sanders objected to starting the debate with a question about Paris. He did not prevail, however, and answered the first question with some anti-terror pablum that immediately gave way to an impassioned attack on his usual “handful of billionaires.”

Sanders boasts of voting against the Iraq War. But he also voted against the 1991 Gulf War. His reaction to all such dilemmas is the same anti-imperialist/pacifist reflex: Stay away, but if we must get involved, let others lead.

That’s for means. As for ends, Sanders’ foreign policy objectives are invariably global and universal, beginning above all with climate change. The rest is foreign-policy-as-social-work do-goodism, most especially undoing the work of U.S. imperialism.

Don’t be surprised if President Sanders hands Guantanamo Bay over to the Castros, although Alaska looks relatively safe for now.

Closest historical analog: George McGovern.

(2) Hillary Clinton, internationalist.

The “Clinton/Obama” foreign policy from Ukraine to Iran to the South China Sea has been a demonstrable failure. But in trying to figure out what President Clinton would do in the future, we need to note that she often gave contrary advice, generally more assertive and aggressive than President Obama’s, that was overruled, most notably keeping troops in Iraq beyond 2011 and early arming of the Syrian rebels.

The Libya adventure was her grand attempt at humanitarian interventionism. She’s been chastened by the disaster that followed.

Her worldview is traditional, post-Vietnam liberal internationalism — America as the indispensable nation, but consciously restraining its exercise of power through multilateralism and near-obsessive legalism.

Closest historical analog: the Bill Clinton foreign policy of the 1990s.

(3) Ted Cruz, unilateralist.

The most aggressive of the three contenders thus far. Wants post-Cold War U.S. leadership restored. Is prepared to take risks and act alone when necessary. Pledges to tear up the Iran deal, cement the U.S.-Israel alliance and carpet bomb the Islamic State.

Overdoes it with “carpet” — it implies Dresden — although it was likely just an attempt at rhetorical emphasis. He’s of the school that will not delay action while waiting on feckless allies or farcical entities like the U.N.

Closest analog: Ronald Reagan.

(4) Donald Trump, mercantilist.

He promises to make America strong, for which, he explains, he must first make America rich. Treating countries like companies, he therefore promises to play turnaround artist for a foreign policy that is currently a hopeless money-losing operation in which our allies take us for fools and suck us dry.

You could put the Sanders, Clinton and Cruz foreign policies on a recognizable ideological spectrum, left to right. But not Trump’s. It inhabits a different space because it lacks any geopolitical coherence. It’s all about money. He sees no particular purpose for allies or foreign bases. They are simply a financial drain.

Imperial Spain roamed and ravaged the world in search of gold. Trump advocates a kinder, gentler form of wealth transfer from abroad, though equally gold-oriented.

Thus, if Japan and South Korea don’t pony up more money for our troops stationed there, we go home. The possible effects on the balance of power in the Pacific Rim or on Chinese hegemonic designs don’t enter into the equation.

Same for NATO. If those free-riding European leeches don’t give us more money too, why stick around? Concerns about tempting Russian ambitions and/or aggression are nowhere in sight.

The one exception to this singular focus on foreign policy as a form of national enrichment is the Islamic State. Trump’s goal is simple — “bomb the s­­­­­­­­--- out of them.” Yet even here he can’t quite stifle his mercantilist impulses, insisting that after crushing the Islamic State, he’ll keep their oil. Whatever that means.

Closest historical analog: King Philip II of Spain (1556-1598).

On Jan. 20, one of these four contenders will be sworn in as president. And one of these four approaches to the world will become the foreign policy of the United States.

Don’t say you weren’t warned.

3a) Subject: Libya undermines Clinton’s foreign policy credentials - George Will

Republican peculiarities in this political season are so numerous and lurid that insufficient attention is being paid to this: The probable Democratic nominee’s principal credential, her service as secretary of state, is undermined by a debacle of remarkable dishonesty. 

 Hillary Clinton’s supposedly supreme presidential qualification is not her public prominence, which is derivative from her marriage, or her unremarkable tenure in a similarly derivative Senate seat. Rather, her supposed credential is her foreign policy mastery. Well.

She cannot be blamed for Vladimir Putin’s criminality or, therefore, for the failure of her “reset” with Russia, which was perhaps worth trying. She cannot be blamed for the many defects of the Iran nuclear agreement, which was a presidential obsession. And she cannot be primarily blamed for the calamities of Iraq, Syria and the Islamic State, which were incubated before her State Department tenure. Libya, however, was what is known in tennis as an “unforced error,” and Clinton was, with President Obama, its co-author.

On March 28, 2011, nine days after the seven-month attack on Libya began and 10 days after saying that it would last “days, not weeks,” Obama gave the nation televised assurance that “the task that I assigned our forces [is] to protect the Libyan people from immediate danger and to establish a no-fly zone.” He said that U.S. forces would play only a “supporting role” in what he called a “NATO-based” operation, although only eight of NATO’s 28 members participated and the assault could not have begun without U.S. assets. Obama added: “Broadening our military mission to include regime change would be a mistake.” 

The next day, a Clinton deputy repeated this to a Senate committee. And then-Defense Secretary Robert Gates said at the time that no vital U.S. interest was at stake. Recently, he told the New York Times that “the fiction was maintained” that the goal was to cripple Moammar Gaddafi’s ability to attack other Libyans. This was supposedly humanitarian imperialism implementing “R2P,” the “responsibility to protect.” Perhaps as many as — many numbers were bandied — 10,000 Libyans. R2P did not extend to protecting the estimated 200,000 Syrians that have been killed since 2011 by Bashar al-Assad’s tanks, artillery, bombers, barrel bombs and poison gas. 

Writing for Foreign Policy online, Micah Zenko, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, notes that “just hours into the intervention, Tomahawk cruise missiles launched from a British submarine stationed in the Mediterranean Sea struck an administrative building in [Gaddafi’s] Bab al-Azizia compound, less than 50 yards away from the dictator’s residence.” A senior military official carefully insisted that Gaddafi was “not on a targeting list.” This was sophistry in the service of cynicism: For months, places he might have been were on targeting lists. 

The pretense was that this not-really-NATO operation, with the United States “supporting” it, was merely to enforce U.N. resolutions about protecting Libyans from Gaddafi. Zenko, however, argues that the coalition “actively chose not to enforce” the resolution prohibiting arms transfers to either side in the civil war. While a senior NATO military official carefully said “I have no information about” arms coming into Libya, and another carefully said that no violation of the arms embargo “has been reported,” Zenko writes that “Egypt and Qatar were shipping advanced weapons to rebel groups the whole time, with the blessing of the Obama administration.” 

On May 24, 2011, NATO released a public relations video showing sailors from a Canadian frigate, supposedly enforcing the arms embargo, boarding a rebel tugboat laden with arms. The video’s narrator says: “NATO decides not to impede the rebels and to let the tugboat proceed.” Zenko writes, “A NATO surface vessel stationed in the Mediterranean to enforce an arms embargo did exactly the opposite, and NATO was comfortable posting a video demonstrating its hypocrisy.” 

On Oct. 20, 2011, Clinton, while visiting Afghanistan, was told that insurgents, assisted by a U.S. Predator drone, had caught and slaughtered Gaddafi. She quipped: “We came, we saw, he died.” She later said that her words expressed “relief” that the mission “had achieved its end.” 

Oh, so this military adventure was, after all, history’s most protracted and least surreptitious assassination. Regime change was deliberately accomplished by the determined decapitation of the old regime, and Libyans are now living in the result — a failed state. 

Stopping in Libya en route to Afghanistan two days before Gaddafi’s death, Clinton said, “I am proud to stand here on the soil of a free Libya.” If you seek her presidential credential, look there.

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