“Si vis pacem, para bellum.” If you want peace, plan for war. The adage is attributed to the 4th or 5th century Latin author Publius Flavius Vegetius Renatus’s tract De Re Militari book 3. This fundamental wisdom is being ignored by President Obama, one of two recent Commanders-in-Chief who never spent a day in uniform, let alone under fire.

In a recent American Thinker commentary by Jim Yardley, he said, “It is apparent that the president, in developing his strategy, used the same extensive knowledge, his superior intellect, and worldly wealth of experience that he brought to his strategy for his $800-billion stimulus, his strategy for providing cost-free health care to millions of Americans, and his strategy for using ‘smart diplomacy’ to defuse not spots around the world.”

Perhaps receiving the Nobel Peace Prize barely months into his first year as President has convinced Obama that he is the man to get all our enemies to join hands and sing Kumbaya. Obama accepted the prize that has gone to other seekers of peace like Yassir Arafat, founder of the Palestinian Liberation Organization or co-winners, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and Al Gore. The IPCC and Gore have led the greatest hoax of the modern era, global warming, and Arafat rejected every effort at peace offered by Israel by going back on his word and using terrorism to achieve his goals.

There is no question that the announced cuts to the U.S. military budget are, in part, the result of the domestic run up of debt and borrowing the followed the financial crisis of 2008; itself the result of bad government policies regarding the wholesale granting of mortgages to people who could not afford homes, then bundling those bad mortgages and selling them as assets to the banks.

While the economy is showing some small signs of regaining its footing, the government is still borrowing forty cents of every dollar it spends and has shown no real intent to reduce spending.

While this is occurring we have a President who has made clear his antipathy of the role of the military. A recent Wall Street Journal editorial noted that “The Pentagon shouldn’t be immune to fiscal scrutiny, yet this Administration has targeted defense from its earliest days and has kept on squeezing. The White House last year settled with Congress on $450 billion in military budget cuts through 2012, on top of the $350 billion in weapons programs killed earlier,” adding “Taken altogether, the budget could shrink by over 30% in the next decade.”

Following a 1993 attempt to destroy the World Trade Center Osama bin Laden, a still largely obscure Islamic fanatic, declared war on the United States in 1996. In 2001, al Qaeda succeeded, killing nearly 3,000. To underestimate the intent of his successors to destroy the nation would be a grave error. To think that his assassination along with the killing of a relative handfull of other al Qaeda leaders has ended the threat is wishful thinking.

To think that the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq will not at some point result in the possible breakup of that nation or the withdrawal from Afghanistan will rid us of the threat of Islamic fanaticsim is still more wishful thinking.

Right now and ever since 1979, the threat of Iran is the largest facing the Middle East and the West. Its leaders have never made a secret of its intent to acquire nuclear weapons, to threaten all other Middle Eastern nations, as well as Europe and America is on a par with the threat the rise of Nazism posed in Germany in the 1930s.

After World War Two, America emerged as a superpower and it took on the role of global policeman. No military prescience predicted the attack on South Korea by North Korea, nor was our strategy in Vietnam successful. We had earlier failed to anticipate the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor despite efforts to keep out of the war that had begun in 1939.

The lesson that should have been learned is that overwhelming military strength contributes greatly to avoiding wars.

President Obama is ignoring that. It is not, however, to say that he is taking Iran lightly. In early January, thousands of U.S. troops were deployed to Israel and senior U.S. military sources say they anticipate they will remain through the year. Obstensively, they are there to participate in joint U.S.-Israeli war games. They will be joined by a U.S. aircraft carrier and, as we know, we have a task force in place in the event the Iranians try to close the Strait of Hormuz through which passes one sixth of the world’s oil supplies.
The U.S. could be energy independent in a decade if the Administration and Congress would remove the obstacles to accessing our enormous reserves of coal, oil and natural gas, but that remains unlikely as this is written.

The decision to reduce the size of our military to 490,000 troops from 570,000 could not come at a worse time. Air and naval assets, we’re told, will be maintained. Holding evacuated or captured territory requires “boots on the ground.” The decision of former President Bush to “surge” in Iraq by increasing troop strength turned a potential defeat into a success. A war-weary America and the current Iraqi regime wanted us out and we are out.

Meanwhile Egypt that underwent “the Arab Spring” has fallen into the hands of a militant, anti-American and anti-Israel Muslim Brotherhood. Turkey has joined the Islamic frenzy, the future of Syria remains unknown, so anyone who thinks that military action anywhere, but especially in Iran, is not a real potential is not paying attention.

President Obama’s claim that “the tide of war is receding” is likely to rank with British PM Neville Chamberlains claim of “peace in our time” after a visit with Hitler.

It is wishful thinking or worse. It is the deliberate effort to ignore the dangers in the world. Shifting military personnel and assets to Asia acknowledges China’s rising power, but U.S. military leaders have warned against a war in Asia for decades. It is doubtful the Chinese want one.

What is not in doubt is that this is the wrong time to reduce our military strength and capabilities. We did that after World War One and paid a price for it. President Obama’s policies put us in the same peril.

© Alan Caruba, 2012

 

WesternFront America

First, allow me to explain that, yes, I know it is not popular, today, to point out the obvious. Ok. Maybe I should have phrased that this way: “…to point out what SHOULD be obvious.”

Before I proceed, I’d like to encourage my readers to browse the websites of foreign news services. If I have learned anything at all (since Al Gore invented the Internet) it is this: The US mainstream media cannot be trusted. They have an agenda and that agenda does not necessarily include dissemination of the truth. As a card-carrying member of the press for many years, I have always been aware of the left-leaning bias of the US media. That is not to say the same leftist bias does not exist in overseas media because it most certainly does.

Having said that – were you aware that right at the moment the Obama Administration is announcing plans to cut the US defense budget the US is preparing for another war in the Middle East? Did you know that we have been quietly building an armada of naval assets in the Gulf of Oman just off the shores of Iran? Did you know this naval armada consists of warships from the US, the UK, France, Israel, and others?

Looking west a bit we see US, French, and British warships, standing off the Syrian coast, facing off with Russian warships including a Russian aircraft carrier task force.

My regional newspaper is printed in a military town, home to one of the largest military bases in the US, and yet, I see very little information in it’s pages concerning this build-up of military might in the waters of the Middle East. Why?

I’ll make the answer as straight forward and simple as I possibly can. There re two parts to the complete answer: 1) Obama is seeking reelection. 2) Obama is seeking to reduce the military budget to gain more money to spend on his leftist agenda for America.

At the risk of being called an “alarmist” allow be to make it plain: I AM alarmed.

So when will this war begin. Well, let me put it this way: The Iranians should carefully watch Obama’s poll numbers. If those numbers continue their slide downwards, the Iranians are going get the heck bombed out of them.

Americans are extremely reluctant to change Presidents in the middle of a war. Obama knows this and is expected to act accordingly.

Some conservative writers and commentators expect that war in the Middle East is currently scheduled for October 2012. That would be the famed “October Surprise.”

On the other hand, those in my camp believe the Iranians, in all their hyped-up passion, will do something stupid like firing on a tanker or a US warship or aircraft, or even worse, make an attempt to close the Straits of Hormuz by sewing it with mines and other hazards to maritime traffic. That would be the spark that would bring down the considerable wrath of that naval armada lying off their shores.

Then there are the Israelis. They have had enough of Iran’s threats and Iran’s war on Israel by proxy. Israel’s secret war of sabotage in Iran can only deliver limited success at delaying and derailing Iran’s race to build or acquire a nuclear bomb. Israel could decide, at any moment, that enough is enough and launch their fighter-bombers and cruise missiles at Iran’s nuclear facilities. Even if it only buys a few months or a couple of years of breathing space for Israel, it is becoming clear there is no other way to effectively deter Iran from building their coveted Islam Bomb.

The situation in the Middle East today is far, far, more dangerous than the US media is reporting. A single spark will ignite a devastating war that will affect practically every nation on earth to some degree or other.

Those of us who continue to sound the warning bell of a huge war in the Middle East are being compared to the boy Peter in the story of “Peter and the Wolf.” An article at Haaretz.com noted that those who make such public comparisons seem always to leave out the end of Aesop’s famous tale of the boy who called wolf too much. In the end, the wolf actually DID come — and the sheep were slaughtered. (SOURCE)

So, with that ending in mind, I have no concern about continually pointing to those dark, foreboding, clouds gathering in the east. Since the mainstream media seems to be ignoring a certain war to protect Obama’s prospects in the coming election, someone must stand as a watchman on the ramparts and sound the alarm when clouds of dust from the approaching armies of the enemy is sighted and when the sound of distant war drums is heard.

Today those dust clouds are clearly seen over the horizon and the pounding of the drums can be heard in the distance — and we are sounding the alarm.

J. D. Longstreet
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VOTE CONSERVATIVE IN NOVEMBER 2012
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Conservative? Then visit “INSIGHT on Freedom” at http://www.csadispatch.blogspot.com/ Find conservative comment on nearly everything at “INSIGHT on Freedom!”

 

WesternFront America

With the US and the world economy in such a sad state it may seem somewhat ridiculous to be worrying aloud about whether or not the United Nations recognizes Palestine as a state. But believe me, it is one of the moments in history that can be spoken of and will be written of as a “tipping point.” It is so important that the vote itself may well produce a new world order.

I continue to believe the Palestinians are not nearly so interested in a state of their own as they are in totally destroying the state of Israel.

There is a heck of a lot of history behind this Palestinian and Israeli conflict. Let’s review a bit of that history.

Did you know that the area and the people, erroneously called Palestinians, were offered a state of their own back in the 1930’s? Bet you didn’t know that.

It seems we have to go over the history of the rejected Palestinian state over and over and I can only surmise the public school system and the university and college systems in the US simply don’t teach it!

Look, the plain truth is… the people, calling themselves Palestinians, have been offered a state of their own at least three times since the 1936 Arab revolt. They have flatly turned it down every time! Yes! The first offer made by the Peel Commission in the 1930s offered them a vast piece of real estate much larger than that offered to the Jews… and … they turned it down!

UN Resolution 181 passed soon after the Second World War gave Israel 55% of the so-called Palestine and the Palestinians 45%. The Jews accepted and in doing so recognized that Palestine would become a state next door to them. They accepted that. But the Arabs rejected it, flat out, and started another war against the Jews, which they promptly lost.

It has been 60 years now and the whining and moaning is still coming from the “woe is me” crowd who called themselves Palestinians.

The problems between Israel and the Palestinians are not because Israel has settled some disputed land. No! The cause of all the trouble in that “center of the earth” strip of land is due entirely to the Arabs refusal to accept the existence of a Jewish state called Israel, or called anything else, for that matter. That is the crux of the problem.

“Right of Return” is far more dangerous to the state of Israel than an all out attack by their Arab neighbors. You’re going to hear more and more about the Palestinians demand for a Right of Return.

So what is the Right of Return? “The idea of the right of return is to demand that Israel allow the descendants of the 750,000 Palestinians who were displaced in 1948 and their families (which now stands at almost 4 million) back into Israel and give them full compensation for their troubles. Even if only half of these Palestinians returned, it would alter Israel’s identity as a Jewish state and effectively create a second Palestinian state. One assumption made under the right of return is that all the Arabs that lived in Israel proper were forcibly expelled from their homes in 1947 and 48. This is a myth. While historians know for a fact that a small number of the 750,000 displaced Arabs were forcibly expelled by Zionist militias (a famous example being Deir Yassin), honest and impartial historians also know that a large number of this 750,000 strong population left on their own, either to avoid an upcoming war between the Zionists and the Arabs, or to join the Arabs in the fighting against the newly established state.” (From: http://www.themiddleeastnow.com/nopalestinianstate.html)

The Palestinians will obfuscate, and delay, and continue to carry on their war to wipe Israel from the face of the map. They will use any means to do it. This requested vote in the UN is just another tool they will use in their never ending attempt to destroy Israel.

So why do I continue to insist that a Palestinian state will lead, almost immediately, to war between Israel and the State of Palestine? The answer is so simple it is appalling to me that the world does not see it.

Look, the moment Palestine occupies a piece of ground that is considered strategic to the survival of Israel the shooting war will begin. When the war begins there will be a re-alignment of nations supporting both the Palestinians and the Israelis. The nations of the world will be, once again, at each other’s throats.

So, YES, this coming vote in the UN is important in the extreme. I do not think it possible to over estimate just how important it is to the entire world.

The Palestinians are running a “con game” on the entire world and on the UN in particular. Otherwise, they would have taken their request to the General Assembly where that would have won, at least, “Observer State” status most likely in an overwhelming vote. But instead — they are said now to have decided to take their request to the UN Security Council where it is sure to be vetoed by, at least, the United States. Why? Because if the US vetoes it, THAT will be considered a political victory for the Palestinians and will add another tool to their arsenal for use against Israel AND the United States.

That maneuver alone should underscore that their intent is not so much statehood as it is the total destruction of the state of Israel.

If the nations of the world want the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian to end, then they should get out of the way and allow them to go at each other until one or the other is wiped out. As a student of history, I have no doubt who will be standing when the dust clears.

J. D. Longstreet

 

WesternFront America

The people who have given us bagels and lox, potato latkes, and chicken soup, in addition to the Old Testament, Albert Einstein, and a list of Nobel Prize winners as long as your arm, are in for yet another interesting week.

Last week, Palestinian Chairman Mahmoud Abbas announced that the Palestinian Authority would not make a bid for statehood at the United Nations. That may have had something to do with massive pressure from the United States, Europe, and Saudi Arabia.

You can always trust a Palestinian’s word, right? Wrong. The next day, September 15, Abbas said the PA had changed its mind and would go to the UN Security Council to ask that it grant statehood to Palestine, admitting it as a full-fledged member.

He must have gotten a call from Turkey’s Prime Minister, Tayyip Erdogen, who has been spoiling for a war with Israel and has been urging the Arab League to join in. It might have something to do with Erdogen’s beef with Greece that announced that it will begin drilling for natural gas on Monday, September 19, in Cyprus’s offshore Aphrodite field. The Turkish air force has been watching the rig, owned by Houston-based Noble Energy, move from Israel to Cyprus.

This is probably as good a way to start World War Three as any. It has nothing to do with Israel and everything to do with the decades of bad blood between Greece and Turkey that includes a divided Cyprus.

Israel, founded in 1948, has been through five wars with its “neighbors”, endless terrorism and rocketing, and has been openly threatened with nuclear destruction by Iran.
The only thing I can guarantee you is that Israel will be blamed for whatever happens.

This week is also the occasion for the United Nations celebration of “Durban III.” It is an anti-Semitic, anti-Israel hate fest in which every other nation in the world that practices racism is ignored and Israel is identified as the lone offender; largely because the Palestinians have refused every offer of peace and statehood made to them.

To demonstrate what an obscenity the event is, one of the keynote speakers will be Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran’s president and longtime Holocaust denier. A number of nations, including U.S., Canada and Great Britain, have already made it known they will not sit through another Ahmadinejad vituperation. Israel’s PM, Bibi Netanyahu, will be on hand to offer a response.

Anyone who still thinks the United Nations is about peace needs to pay closer attention. It is about being a global central power with authority over all the nations of the world.

Durban III is about “racism.” So how does that square with a statement by Maen Arewikat, the PA Ambassador to the United States, who last week said that an independent Palestinian state would take steps to force Jews living in the West Bank to leave. In an interview with USA Today, he said it would be in the best interest of Israelis and Palestinians to “be separated.” The Nazis had a word for this, “Judenrein.”

Elliot Abrams, a former U.S. National Security Council officer, told USA Today that “No civilized country would act like this.”

The United States has already made it clear that it will veto a resolution for Palestinian statehood in the UN Security Council. So far the Palestinians have rejected the Oslo Accords and every other laborious diplomatic effort to get them to settle for peaceful coexistence. They could have had statehood after the UN partitioned the former British mandate that led to Israel’s establishment, but they rejected that option in favor of trying to drive the newly minted Israelis out of their ancestral homeland.

Jordan was among those nations that lost the 1967 war. The Israelis occupied the West Bank, a name Jordan gave to the ancient Israeli provinces of Judea and Samaria. The only reason Israel has not annexed the West Bank is that asserting such a claim would add a million Arabs to its population, none of whom have any love for Israel. Meanwhile, over the years, Israeli “settlements” have grown up on the West Bank.

President Obama has made it clear that he wants Israel to return to its 1967 borders. Netanyahu has made it clear that they are indefensible.

The turmoil of the “Arab spring” has altered the cold peace that had existed between Egypt and Israel. The Israeli embassy in Cairo was attacked last week and the Israelis withdrew its staff. How many times do the Egyptians have to be defeated in war before they conclude it’s a bad idea?

The Palestinian demands have Jordon on alert as well. Jordan doesn’t want to have to absorb more Palestinian refugees into its population, thus making them a majority of the Hashemite kingdom created by the British after World War One. They tried to overthrow the former king once and he drove them into Lebanon.

The Syrian despot is busy crushing a revolution. Lebanon which used to belong to the Lebanese is now controlled by Hezbollah, a Palestinian organization backed by Iran and sworn enemies of Israel.

And how do the Palestinians have a state when the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, an Iranian-backed group located in Gaza, are at each other’s throat? If it is possible, Hamas hates Israel more than the PA.

The Palestinian dilemma is that they cannot get along with each other and no other nation in the region wants to have anything to do with them.

What will happen at the United Nations this week?

What will happen if Turkey decides to attack the oil rig off the Grecian part of Cyprus?

What will happen when the Israelis who have a defense pact with the Greeks respond?

How does NATO deal with two of its member nations going to war? What affect will this have on its role in the liberation of Libya?

It’s tough enough for the Israelis and Jews around the world to deal with the growing anti-Semitism that has been spread and nurtured by Muslims, but this irrational hatred, the well spring of the Holocaust, could set off a series of events initiated by such hatred.

Having destroyed the World Trade Center towers ten years ago, World War Three would be Islam’s gift to the world.

© Alan Caruba, 2011

 

WesternFront America

I was eleven years old when Israel declared its independence and sovereignty in 1948 with the blessing of the United Nations. World War Two and the Holocaust were over barely three years and many of Europe’s Jews needed a state of their own to rebuild their lives. Jews from throughout the Middle East were forced to flee nations in which they had lived for centuries. Over time Israel would absorb Russian Jews and others from around the world.

Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon attacked Israel days after its formal establishment. They were defeated. They would attack again in 1967 and 1973. In the course of these wars, the Arabs that had been living in Palestine, as Israel was known due to the post World War One British mandate, fled or were displaced.

They would become the world’s oldest refugee group and the only one to which a UN agency would be solely devoted, absorbing U.S. and other funding to maintain their status as opposed to helping them assimilate into neighboring Arab nations.

The Zionists, mostly secular and mostly socialist Jews from Europe and Russia who had come to Palestine earlier to prepare the path to statehood were rather surprised to find so many Arabs living there. At the time, Palestinians regarded themselves mostly as people living in southern Syria. Others were Bedouin. They were not “Palestinians”, nor had there ever been a Palestinian state.

Debating what the Israelis should do regarding the Palestinians has become a constant topic of U.S. foreign policy as well as that of most nations. It is, however, a debate that can only be decided by the Israelis and Palestinians and it is a cliché to say that one cannot achieve peace with someone who repeatedly says they want to kill you.

I have written about Israel over the years and maintained that it had a historic right to the land. After more than sixty years of ceaseless jihad—happening still—I have come to regard Palestinians as (1) intractably intent on driving out the Jews and (2) and incapable of establishing a state of their own.

Granting the Palestinians statehood when they have been denied the right to vote by their own leaders since 2005 says it all. Israel has been a true democracy since its founding. Neither the Palestinian Authority, nor Hamas, has any intention of permitting true democracy for their own people.

After reading Hirsh Goodman’s new book, “The Anatomy of Israel’s Survival”, it has made me realize the terrible choices Israel faces. The problem that confronted the original settlers of Israel still challenges its existence. Resolving the issue of the Palestinians says Goodman must be recognized IF it is at all possible.

As much as I hated and rejected the term “occupier” as applied to Israel the truth is that it has been an occupier of the West Bank as the result of wars waged against its right to exist, but an occupier nonetheless. That said, the Palestinians have always refused to accept any peace terms offered, as often as not greeting them with terror campaigns directed against Israel.

Hirsh is a senior research associate at the Institute for National Security at Tel Aviv University. Between 1986 and 1989 he was the strategic fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Born in South Africa in 1946, his family immigrated to Israel in 1965 where he has lived in Jerusalem. He’s been a journalist and, as such, has had a front row seat on the politics, the wars, the intifadas, and all other aspects of life in Israel.

The Israel he describes is one with a parliamentary government that is divided by far too many political parties, each representing competing views and agendas, and largely dysfunctional except in the unifying threat of an attack. It is a very small nation; its population largely concentrated in its major cities.

In Jerusalem, Jews went from being 74% of the population in 1967 to 64% by the end of 2010. “Today there is virtual parity between 5.7 million Jews and 5.4 million Arabs in Israel and the territories.”

In a decade the Arabs will outnumber the Jews of Israel.

It is demography, the study of population increases and declines that poses a greater challenge to the future of Israel than even hostile neighbor states. It is increasingly essential to establish peace with the Palestinian Authority to provide Israel’s Arabs with a nation of their own, though many who are already Israeli citizens will likely choose to remain citizens in the only Middle Eastern nation to offer them freedoms found in no other.

Hamas in Gaza, hostile even to the PA, is a problem that will have to be dealt with later.
Hirsh puts it bluntly. “Can Israel survive? Of course it can. The question is what kind of Israel it will be and what kind of neighbors it might enjoy. How Israel tackles the internal issues of the Hareidim (ultra orthodox) and the Israeli Arabs is important, even critical.”

“But even more important, the nature of Israeli survival depends on whether it remains an occupier or a tyrannical overlord. In continued occupation lies the deepening of internal dissent between the settlers and the rest of Israel, between the Right and the left, those who claim to speak in the name of God and the rest of us. Occupation will lead to the erosion of Israel’s moral fiber.”

And Hirsh knows that “Israel is not totally the master of its own destiny. It cannot make peace by itself. It cannot alone influence, let alone control, what happens in the region.”
What is happening is the widespread movement of Arabs to rid themselves of the dictators that have run nations from the Maghreb nations where Africa meets the Mediterranean, Tunisia, Libya and Egypt, and others such as Syria’s Assad and even some Gulf nations like Bahrain.

How the Middle East looks after the dust settles is anyone’s guess. If history is any guide, these nations will simply replace old despots with new ones.

So long as the Palestine issue exists it conveniently provides Israel’s neighbors and others the excuse to condemn it. Until the election of President Barack Hussein Obama, the United States had always been a steadfast ally, but he has undermined that long relationship.

Thus Israel, a pariah among nations with far worse records in war, peace and human rights faces some terrible choices. One choice, its right to self defense and to exist as Jewish state is non-negotiable.

(Mr. Hirsh’s data regarding Israel’s demographic makeup is challenged by others with alternative data.)

© Alan Caruba, 2011

 

WesternFront America

The creation of a Palestinian state will do nothing to bring stability to the Middle East region. In fact, there will be more war, more instability, and more suffering.

A Palestinian state would effectively open up a front that starts ten miles from Tel Aviv and reaches 1,000 miles deep across the Arabian Peninsula to Teheran. That, alone, will be cause for Israel to go on their highest military alert and stay there 24 hours a day, seven days a week. In other words… all the time.

The buffer zone Israel counts on to give her time to activate her reserves and get them mobilized will no longer exist. That short period of time, so vital for the defense of Israel, will be gone. Therefore, Israel will have no choice but to adopt what, for all practical purposes, will be a “state of war” as a normal, everyday, lifestyle.

There is a school of thought, in Israel, which says Israel would not be the first target of a Palestinian State military. That distinction, according to this theory, must go to the country of Jordan whose population is 80% Palestinian. This line of thinking has it that the Palestinians will want to complete the coup against the Hashemite Kingdom they began back in 1970.

A new Palestinian State will certainly want to clear the region of its one remaining moderate, western-oriented Arab state. Once that job is completed and their military enlarged by the “Jordanian/Palestinians,” THEN they can turn their attention to Israel.

How dimwitted is it for the US to put any trust in the government of a state whose children’s textbooks teach “holy war” against Israel?

Lets see: Right now we have Libya, Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, Syria, and Afghanistan giving The United States a pain in the posterior and the Obama Regime is dead set on adding even more trouble with a state of Palestine? Again, I ask, how dimwitted is this?

But, I forget! We have the “creame de la creame” in DC, the “best and the brightest” of the academicians, many of whom seem to be educated beyond their collective abilities, concocting these schemes from left-wing dreams of “group-hugs” among nations.

So, we must ask ourselves just how prepared are the Arabs (aka Palestinians) for statehood, anyway? Has there been any preparation for oh, say, industrialization? How about their work on developing export markets? Have they given any thought to negotiating trade arrangements with their next-door neighbor, Israel? I think we all know the answer to all the above is… NO.

So, it is safe, then, to assume that a state of Palestine would be wracked with poverty which will require billions of dollars in foreign aid from which the chieftains will bleed off their shares and get rich while piling up hordes of cash in numbered bank accounts far from the Middle East.

A recent report from Arutz Sheva(www.IsraelNationalNews.com) said the following: “ … Meanwhile on Wednesday, Israel’s Ambassador to the United States Michael Oren said the PA statehood bid would likely jeopardize all existing agreements between the PA and Israel.

In an interview with Foreign Policy magazine, Oren said the move would render invalid economic treaties, including export, import, and water sharing, as well as security cooperation agreements.

Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz said Wednesday the statehood bid at the United Nations is a greater threat to Israel than terrorism.

“This Palestinian initiative represents a more serious threat than that posed by Hamas,” Steinitz told Voice of Israel radio.”

Too, there is the very real concern that should the UN grant Palestine statehood, Iran will very quickly turn it into an Iranian state. The conflagration we are experiencing in the Middle East today is a stroll in the park compared to what would happen with Iran and Israel sharing a common border.

No, a Palestinian state will only ensure the continuation of war, terrorism, and bloodshed. The one thing we can be sure of is — it will not bring anything resembling peace to the Middle East.

J. D. Longstreet

 

WesternFront America

I’m Shocked, Shocked, I tell you!

Like the famous scene from the classic movie “Casablanca” the whole thing concerning Iran trafficking in weapons in Iraq is a sham. I mean, of course, our government’s expression of surprise and pretended annoyance. It has been common knowledge for YEARS. Why, now, is it suddenly being spotlighted?

Anyone with the slightest interest in America’s war efforts in the Middle East has known this was a common occurrence all along. Why, all of a sudden, is the Obama Administration making a big deal over it?

Maybe we should investigate WHY we feel it necessary to dissect any and every action of our vaunted leader in the White House.

We have become so accustomed to the double dealing, the constant stream of lies and near lies, coming from this administration, that we have come to view everything out of the Obama White House (and its Czars and flunkies in charge of the various government “agencies”) through the lens of truth endeavoring to filter out the untruths and as much deception as we possibly can. It ain’t easy!

Look, America has been fighting a proxy war with Iran for, well, nigh on to ten years, at least, just in Iraq and Afghanistan. That doesn’t even take into account all the other trouble spots around the globe where the US is in some degree of conflict with forces sponsored by the “mad mullahs” of Iran.

And it didn’t begin with Iraq or Afghanistan. It began with the Carter administration and the dethroned Shah of Iran. Iran and America have been at direct and indirect odds ever since.

It is a pretty sure bet that Iran will simply take over Iraq when the last American troops leave. The stage is being set for that eventuality even now.

In Afghanistan, the shadow war is a little less clear but the assassination of Ahmed Wali Karzai, the half brother of Hamid Karzai the President of Afghanistan, would lead one to believe that efforts to gain a vantage point from which to take control of Afghanistan, when the Americans leave, is on-going.

If makes no sense to me that the American military is involved in Libya, in a limp-wristed attempt to unseat Gaddafi, and not involved in operations to destroy Iran’s fast moving efforts to acquire nuclear bomb making skills and materials. Has the Obama administration decided the US CAN live with a nuclear-armed Iran? It certainly seems that way. If so, then THAT is another reason to show Mr. Obama the door in November of 2012.

Make no mistake about it. The US IS going to face off with Iran in a shooting war — sooner rather than later. It seems to me that fighting an enemy that does not have nuclear capabilities is better than going head to head with another atomic power.

Procrastination is NOT our friend, especially when the enemy is working around the clock to develop weapons to potentially wipe a small nation of the map, and smash even moderately sized nations (such as those in eastern Europe) back to the Stone Age.

The world has been warned, many times over, that Iran is seeking hegemony in the Middle East. Once they acquire nuclear weapons they will have it.

Waiting for Israel to take out Iran’s nuclear capabilities is not going to work. Not so long as Obama is in the White House.

Israel does not trust Obama and his minions. They believe he has shown entirely too much favor toward Islamic nations and too much DISFAVOR towards Israel, to be trusted as an ally in any kind of military action against an Islamic country. They reason, rightly, that one cannot continuously look over one’s shoulder while in mortal conflict. With Obama as an ally, Israel reasons that deciding who is the greater threat to them (in the midst of battle) would be a deterrent to Israel in winning a military confrontation with Iran. Therefore, whatever Israel does against Iran — expect it to be totally covert with no notice to the US until their actions are a fait accompli.

In the meantime, removing American troops from the Middle East only allows Iran to slip its leash.

America needs a huge military base, of its own, in the Middle East for ongoing and future operations in that theatre. I suspect such a base now exists … in Iraq. However, that doesn’t mean the Obama administration will not abandon it to the Iraqis/Iranians. Such is the naiveté of Obama and his cohort in both the White House and the Congress.

Most everyone, with common sense, knows America is leaving Iraq … temporarily. We will be forced to return to Iraq, and probably Afghanistan, in the not too distant future. Whether fighting Iraqis, Afghanis, or Iranians, America’s job is NOT DONE in the Middle East!

So long as America depends on the nations of the Middle East for the fuel to run our republic, we have no choice but to remain engaged with them — even if that means going to war against them, or defending them.

Until America comes to it’s senses and decides to use its own petroleum resources and stop relying on tribal countries and socialist countries for the life blood of our economy we will be harnessed to them much the same as a man having a wolf by the throat. He (we) can’t turn loose. To be free of the wolf, the wolf must be “put down.”

America is in desperate need of leadership with common sense. We need a leader who will confront Iran and plant the flag declaring we will not tolerate Iran’s efforts toward hegemony in the Middle Eastern powder keg. The world is tired of the constant bickering, squabbling, fighting, killing, and general “hell raising” from a group of countries that refuse to grow up and join the 21^st century world.

Obama is NOT that leader!

J. D. Longstreet

 

WesternFront America

By Michael R. Shannon

It was somewhat disconcerting last week to witness the man our MSM assures us is the essence of cool, calm and collected resorting to the Redneck Philanderer’s defense.

Yet there was President Obama — at the AIPAC conference — defending his latest Mideast stumble by essentially asking the 10,000 member audience if they were going to believe him or their lying eyes.

This is what happens when your governing style tends toward pronouncements from on high. Obama sabotaged his latest peace plans by making the unprecedented declaration that any final agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority “should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps.”

Government by edict is very popular under this administration and remains a big hit with unelected, unresponsive regulatory agencies, but it is markedly less popular outside Obama’s amen corner.

During a White House meeting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu informed Obama that the ’67 lines were indefensible and he has no intention of agreeing to Obama’s pre–condition.

The photos from that meeting are priceless. While Netanyahu was dissecting Obama’s latest fantasy–based initiative, Obama stares at him like a petulant, sulky adolescent. You can almost see him thinking, “Yeah, well wait ‘til I tell Hillary, then we’ll see who’s the big talker.”

Which is why Obama was at the AIPAC conference explaining that what he said didn’t really mean what he said.

An excellent rule of thumb for evaluating the sincerity of any Obama statement is this simple test: if his position would garner a unanimous vote of approval in the Harvard faculty lounge, Obama really means it.

AIPAC attendees take note.

In an earlier AIPAC speech during the 2008 campaign, Obama proclaimed to wild applause that “Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel, and it must remain undivided.” That firm commitment lasted until he left the building and was criticized by leftists and pro–Arab pressure groups. Now Jerusalem will be part of a joint custody arrangement — the kind where both parties have restraining orders.

Arabs are just as pleased with this new pre–negotiation condition as they were over Obama’s last edict that instructed Israel to ban any new “settlement” construction.

The 1967 lines are not actually like the border that exists between say the US and Mexico. (For one thing, Israel guards its border, even though Arabs are willing to do the exploding Jews don’t want to do.)

These boundaries represent where the Arab attack in the 1948 war stopped and where the Arabs intended to renew their attack in 1967. Obama’s endorsement of these lines serves to fix the total number of square miles of territory each side will possess in a final agreement even before negotiations start.

If Israel needs to annex so much as a truck garden on the right side of the ’67 line it has to give up an equal amount of land on the left side of the line on a one–for–one basis.

Size matters when it comes to security and unfortunately the pro–Israel side has made a mistake in metaphors. Supporters in the US often compare Israel’s size to that of New Jersey. Conservatives hear that startling fact and realize Israel has no margin for error. In the event of an attack the Israelis can’t trade space for time to organize a defense.

People like Obama hear that and conclude that since New Jersey is protected by a handful of state troopers, Israel can be, too.

And that’s not the most bizarre of Obama’s fixations.

It’s amazing he believes you can have negotiations at all. Successful agreements require two sides to negotiate in good faith. Yet the Palestinian Authority does not even recognize the existence of Israel and has just formed a coalition government with Hamas, a group who’s charter also refuses to recognize Israel and further calls for the destruction of both Israel and the Jews. There is even a question whether the US can have any dealings with the new coalition, since the State Department lists Hamas as a terrorist organization.

It could be that since Obama says many things he does not mean, he assumes the PA and Hamas do likewise, but cemeteries in Israel prove him wrong.

Back in the 90’s then Secretary of State James Baker – no friend of Israel – gave some advice that could prove useful to Obama. In testimony before Congress he said, “Everybody over there should know that the [White House] telephone number is 1–202–456–1414. When you’re serious about peace call us.”

The President just needs to make sure it’s a conference call.
Michael R. Shannon is a public relations, advertising and political consultant with experience around the globe. He is also a popular speaker and can be reached at michael–shannon@comcast.net.

Michael R. Shannon
MANDATE: Message, Media & Public Relations
http://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelrshannon
http://www2.insidenova.com/topics/types/person/tags/michael-r-shannon/

 

WesternFront America

by J. D. Longstreet
A few weeks ago I wrote:  “For the first time in its history, America is on the wrong side.

Our President, with his loyalty to the world and not to the country that trusted him with the sacred duty to be leader of America and Commander-in-Chief of the mightiest military force in all of history, has gone over to the “Dark Side.” He has turned his back on the one nation, which occupies the most important piece of real estate on the globe. He has made it clear he favors the countries, which consider themselves Israel’s most ardent enemies. Israel now knows they stand alone.”  (You may read the entire article HERE.)

On Thursday, May 19th, 2011, Barack Hussein Obama, the President of the United States of America, sold Israel out.

Before going further – allow me to say, Obama does not speak for all Americans.  In fact, he speaks for fewer and fewer Americans every day.  With his call for Israel to return to its 1967 borders he has alienated millions of Americans, especially the American evangelical Christians.  And, my fervent hope is that he has awakened America’s Jewish community to his anti-Israel policies.

Obama backhanded the Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu today as Netanyahu was preparing to fly to the US to speak before the Congress.  Obama’s speech was a well-planned ambush of Mr. Netanyahu.  It was intended to shake Israel’s Prime Minister and weaken him before his address to the Congress. It was, plain and simple, dirty politics.  But we have come to expect this kind of attack from this American President.  Down and dirty!

With Obama’s public unveiling of his “Throw Israel to the Wolves” policy, he has now publicly declared, for all to see (who will allow themselves to see), that he, Obama, supports Israel’s enemies and their efforts to drive Israel into the sea.  By the way, Americans should never — for one moment — forget that Israel’s enemies are AMERICA’S ENEMIES, TOO!

Obama just lit the fuse to the powder keg that will blow up the world.   If Israel is forced to return to the 1967 borders, a nuclear Armageddon will follow.  Israel will not able to defend itself with conventional weapons and will have no choice but to employ its nuclear arsenal to defeat its enemies.  And it will use them with well thought out effectiveness.

If you think the Middle East is afire today … you ain’t seen nothing yet!

Let me be very clear here:  ISRAEL WILL NOT LOSE.  Its enemies WILL lose and America will suffer, incalculably, as a result of the Obama’s announced policy demanding that Israel return to the pre-1967 war borders.

For those of our reader who rely on scripture as their guide, and on the accuracy of Biblical Prophecy concerning Israel we refer you to these statements concerning Israel’s home FOREVER:

Amos 9:15 — I will plant Israel in their own land, never again to be uprooted from the land I have given them,” says the LORD your God.

Jeremiah 3:18 — In those days the house of Judah will join the house of Israel, and together they will come from a northern land to the land I gave your forefathers as an inheritance.

Jeremiah 23:8  — but they will say, ‘As surely as the LORD lives, who brought the descendants of Israel up out of the land of the north and out of all the countries where he had banished them.’ Then they will live in their own land.”

Jeremiah 33:7 — I will bring Judah and Israel back from captivity and will rebuild them as they were before.

Ezekiel 34:28  — They will no longer be plundered by the nations, nor will wild animals devour them. They will live in safety, and no one will make them afraid.

Ezekiel 37:25 — They will live in the land I gave to my servant Jacob, the land where your fathers lived. They and their children and their children’s children will live there forever, and David my servant will be their prince forever.

Joel 3:20  — Judah will be inhabited forever and Jerusalem through all generations.

What Obama, and Israel’s other enemies, fail to understand (Or understand it and choose to ignore it) is this:  That of all the dry land on this planet earth, there is only one tiny little piece of geography that God, Himself, has designated as belonging to a single people – ISRAEL.  What the evangelical Christian Americans rightly understand is this:  When God brought the people of Israel, His people, home and gave them a “state,” a nation, in May of 1948, God had already made it as plain as possible that Israel would never be moved from that land again — forever.

It seems so clear that anyone coming against Israel to drive them from that land will be subject to supernatural intervention from God — on behalf of Israel. That will insure the utter failure of those coming against Israel and, too, it will insure the utter destruction of Israel’s attackers.

I had not intended to climb into my pulpit in this commentary, but it is important that you, the reader, understand that it is not I making these predictions. And HE has a one hundred percent accuracy rate — plus a record of meting out justice, which is — complete destruction of Israel’s enemies.

On Thursday, Obama crossed the line and, in my opinion, will bring punishment to America such as we have never experienced in our history.

If there was ever any doubt where Obama’s sympathies lie — with Israel, or with Israel’s Muslim enemies, all doubt should have been erased by his revealing speech in which he sold out America’s only friend left in the Middle East and, very nearly, the entire world.

Pray for Israel… and pray that America’s punishment will not cripple her forever.

J. D. Longstreet blogs daily at “INSIGHT on Freedom” at: http://www.csadispatch.blogspot.com/

E-Mail:  longstreet1862@gmail.com

 

WesternFront America

By Alan Caruba

Is Obama a Muslim? Does Obama hate Israel? Will Israel be attacked again? Will Iran nuke Israel? Has Maghreb and Middle Eastern turmoil flummoxed the White House? Why did Obama bow to Saudi Arabia’s king? Questions, questions, questions?

Watching President Barack Hussein Obama try to pick winners and losers in the Middle East would be amusing if it were not so deadly serious. Not a word about Syria’s slaughter of its protestors. A demand that Libya’s Gadhafi step aside and a quick retreat behind NATO’s skirts. Throwing Egypt’s Mubarack under the bus when saying nothing would have sufficed. And then there was the infamous and inauspicious start to his presidency with the “World Apology Tour” that included a stop in Cairo.

A May 11^th Reuters news article published in the Jerusalem Post was titled “Obama may preempt PM’s speech to U.S. Congress.” Benyamin Netanyahu, at the invitation of Speaker John Boehner, will address the Congress on May 24. If President Obama delivers a speech about “political change in the Middle East and North Africa” prior to the PM, it will be impossible to deny that it is a deliberate effort to rebut in advance anything Netanyahu says.

Israel just celebrated the 63^rd anniversary of its founding. Successive American administrations have struggled and failed to secure any peace between it and its sworn enemies. The reason is simple and obvious. Only Egypt and Jordan negotiated peace treaties with Israel and then only after having been decisively defeated in war.

Neither the Palestinian Authority, nor Hamas wants peace, nor does Hezbollah, an Iranian proxy group based in Lebanon. Not all the handshakes, Oslo Accords, and other diplomatic dances will change this.

President Obama’s special envoy, George Mitchell, whose mission it was to fashion a peace between Israel and the Palestinians just rendered his resignation. He could have saved himself the bother by not even taking the job.

The Israelis have given up territory and made countless concessions to the Palestinians without any reciprocity. Now the Palestinians are counting on the United Nations to unilaterally declare them a sovereign state. When not killing Israelis, they kill each other.

The United Nations has a long, ugly record of hostility, passing endless resolutions condemning Israel while maintaining the Palestinians as the world’s oldest “refugee” group to the tune of millions via the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA).

The European Union whose World War II member nations allowed their Jews to be frog-walked to Nazi concentration and death camps has also demonstrated its hostility.

America, to its credit, has always been Israel’s one true friend. During the campaign, Obama even visited the Wailing Wall to demonstrate his solidarity. Once elected, however, and to the astonishment of voters the new Obama administration was reluctant to even say that militant Islam was the enemy or to even use the word “terrorism.” It was renamed “overseas contingency operations”!

Call me a cynic but I believe that the decision to kill Osama bin Laden was not taken until the 2012 elections became a priority. Why? Because three terrorist attacks, including the Fort Hood murders, had previously been swept under the rug by the Obama administration. Moreover, the Obama Justice Department continues to threaten CIA agents with jail for the aggressive interrogation techniques that led to finding bin laden.

The Obama administration’s hostility to Israel and the rush to preempt the Israeli Prime Minister’s speech is a reflection the 180 degree reversal of all previous administration’s relations with Israel. The president’s national security advisor, John Brennan, has referred to Jerusalem as “Al Quds”, the Arabic name for the ancient and modern capital of Israel and the State Department continues to send funds to Hamas.

In a speech delivered in March 2010, Netanyahu said, “The Jewish people were building Jerusalem three thousand years ago and the Jewish people are building Jerusalem today. Jerusalem is not a settlement. It is our capitol.”

The Muslim “tilt” of the Osama administration would be obvious to a blind man. At one point the U.S. Navy was instructed to call the Persian Gulf the “Arabian Gulf.” Who can forget the President’s weak response to a proposal to build a mosque within a short distance from New York’s Ground Zero, the site of 9/11?

New voices out of Egypt are calling for the abrogation of its peace treaty with Israel. Hezbollah has been removing its cache of long-range rockets (courtesy of Iran) from Syria as that regime faces opposition. Hamas, designated a terrorist organization worldwide, has joined hands with the PLO, negating any possibility for peace with Israel.

It is bad enough when various nations openly declare their hostility to Israel, but it is very dangerous when the current regime in Washington demonstrates its hostility in subtle and not-so-subtle ways.

President Harry Truman recognized Israel when it declared its sovereignty on May 14, 1948. At the time he said, “I have faith in Israel and believe it has a glorious future, not just as a sovereign nation, but as the embodiment of the great ideals of our civilization.”

Israel and Americans who support it must wait for the November 2012 elections before the threat the Obama administration represents can be removed.

Israel’s enemies may not be willing to wait, seeing the present regime and time as the best and possibly the last opportunity to make good on their threat to “wipe it from the map.”

© Alan Caruba, 2011

 

WesternFront America