Arab Spring is American Fall

What do you get when you elect a man with less foreign policy experience than my mailman, and he brings in his cabal who have equally no experience or a decidely leftist / marxist leaning to their ideological outlook.

What do you get?

Well - Glick makes it pretty obvious in her column -




America lost most in 'Arab Spring'. Sadly, many voters still don't grasp the extent

By Caroline B. Glick


http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |

A year ago this week, on January 25, 2011, the ground began to crumble under then-Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak's feet. One year later, Mubarak and his sons are in prison, and standing trial. This week, the final vote tally from Egypt's parliamentary elections was published. The Islamist parties have won 72 percent of the seats in the lower house.

The photogenic, Western-looking youth from Tahrir Square the Western media were thrilled to dub the Facebook revolutionaries were disgraced at the polls and exposed as an insignificant social and political force.

As for the military junta, it has made its peace with the Muslim Brotherhood. The generals and the jihadists are negotiating a power-sharing agreement. According to details of the agreement that have made their way to the media, the generals will remain the West's go-to guys for foreign affairs. The Muslim Brotherhood (and its fellow jihadists in the Salafist al-Nour party) will control Egypt's internal affairs.

This is bad news for women and for non-Muslims. Egypt's Coptic Christians have been under continuous attack by Muslim Brotherhood and Salafist supporters since Mubarak was deposed. Their churches, homes and businesses have been burned, looted and destroyed. Their wives and daughters have been raped. The military massacred them when they dared to protest their persecution.

As for women, their main claim to fame since Mubarak's overthrow has been their sexual victimization at the hands of soldiers who stripped female protesters and performed "virginity tests" on them. Out of nearly five hundred seats in parliament, only 10 will be filled by women.

The Western media are centering their attention on what the next Egyptian constitution will look like and whether it will guarantee rights for women and minorities. What they fail to recognize is that the Islamic fundamentalists now in charge of Egypt don't need a constitution to implement their tyranny. All they require is what they already have - a public awareness of their political power and their partnership with the military.

The same literalist approach that has prevented Western observers from reading the writing on the walls in terms of the Islamists' domestic empowerment has blinded them to the impact of Egypt's political transformation on the country's foreign policy posture. US officials forcefully proclaim that they will not abide by an Egyptian move to formally abrogate its peace treaty with Israel. What they fail to recognize is that whether or not the treaty is formally abrogated is irrelevant. The situation on the ground in which the new regime allows Sinai to be used as a launching ground for attacks against Israel, and as a highway for weapons and terror personnel to flow freely into Gaza, are clear signs that the peace with Israel is already dead - treaty or no treaty.

EGYPT'S TRANSFORMATION is not an isolated event. The disgraced former Yemen president Ali Abdullah Saleh arrived in the US this week. Yemen is supposed to elect his successor next month. The deteriorating security situation in that strategically vital land which borders the Arabian and Red Seas has decreased the likelihood that the election will take place as planned.

Yemen is falling apart at the seams. Al-Qaida forces have been advancing in the south. Last spring they took over Zinjibar, the capital of Abyan province. In recent weeks they captured Radda, a city 160 km. south of the capital of Sana.

Radda's capture underscored American fears that the political upheaval in Yemen will provide al- Qaida with a foothold near shipping routes through the Red Sea and so enable the group to spread its influence to neighboring Saudi Arabia.

Al-Qaida forces were also prominent in the NATO-backed Libyan opposition forces that with NATO's help overthrew Muammar Gaddafi in October. Although the situation on the ground is far from clear, it appears that radical Islamic political forces are intimidating their way into power in post-Gaddafi Libya.

Take for instance last weekend's riots in Benghazi. On Saturday protesters laid siege to the National Transitional Council offices in the city while Mustafa Abdul-Jalil, the head of the NTC, hid inside. In an attempt to quell the protesters' anger, Jalil fired six secular members of the NTC. He then appointed a council of religious leaders to investigate corruption charges and identify people with links to the Gaddafi regime.

In Bahrain, the Iranian-supported Shi'ite majority continues to mount political protests against the Sunni monarchy. Security forces killed two young Shi'ite protesters over the past week and a half, and opened fired at Shi'ites who sought to hold a protest march after attending the funeral of one of them.

As supporters of Bahrain's Shi'ites have maintained since the unrest spread to the kingdom last year, Bahrain's Shi'ites are not Iranian proxies. But then, until the US pulled its troops out of Iraq last month, neither were Iraq's Shi'ites. What happened immediately after the US pullout is another story completely.

Extolling Iraq's swift deterioration into an Iranian satrapy, last Wednesday, Brig.-Gen. Qassem Suleimani, the commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps Jerusalem Brigade, bragged, "In reality, in south Lebanon and Iraq, the people are under the effect of the Islamic Republic's way of practice and thinking."

While Suleimani probably exaggerated the situation, there is no doubt that Iran's increased influence in Iraq is being felt around the region. Iraq has come to the aid of Iran's Syrian client Bashar Assad who is now embroiled in a civil war. The rise of Iran in Iraq holds dire implications for the Hashemite regime in Jordan which is currently hanging on by a thread, challenged from within and without by the rising force of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Much has been written since the fall of Mubarak about the impact on Israel of the misnamed Arab Spring. Events like September's mob assault on Israel's embassy in Cairo and the murderous cross-border attack on motorists traveling on the road to Eilat by terrorists operating out of Sinai give force to the assessment that Israel is more imperiled than ever by the revolutionary events engulfing the region.

But the truth is that while on balance Israel's regional posture has taken a hit, particularly from the overthrow of Mubarak and the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafists in Egypt, Israel is not the primary loser in the so-called Arab Spring.

Israel never had many assets in the Arab world to begin with. The Western-aligned autocracies were not Israel's allies. To the extent the likes of Mubarak and others have cooperated with Israel on various issues over the years, their cooperation was due not to any sense of comity with Jewish state. They worked with Israel because they believed it served their interests to do so. And at the same time Mubarak reined in the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas because they threatened him, he waged political war against Israel on every international stage and allowed anti-Semitic poison to be broadcast daily on his regime-controlled television stations.

Since Israel's stake in the Arab power game has always been limited, its losses as a consequence of the fall of anti-Israel secular dictatorships and their replacement by anti-Israel Islamist regimes have been marginal. The US, on the other hand, has seen its interests massively harmed. Indeed, the US is the greatest loser of the pan-Arab revolutions.

TO UNDERSTAND the depth and breadth of America's losses, consider that on January 25, 2011, most Arab states were US allies to a greater or lesser degree. Mubarak was a strategic ally. Saleh was willing to collaborate with the US in combating al- Qaida and other jihadist forces in his country.

Gaddafi was a neutered former enemy who had posed no threat to the US since 2004. Iraq was a protectorate. Jordan and Morocco were stable US clients.

One year later, the elements of the US's alliance structure have either been destroyed or seriously weakened. US allies like Saudi Arabia, which have yet to be seriously threatened by the revolutionary violence, no longer trust the US. As the recently revealed nuclear cooperation between the Saudis and the Chinese makes clear, the Saudis are looking to other global powers to replace the US as their superpower protector.

Perhaps the most amazing aspect to the US's spectacular loss of influence and power in the Arab world is that most of its strategic collapse has been due to its own actions. In Egypt and Libya the US intervened prominently to bring down a US ally and a dictator who constituted no threat to its interests. Indeed, it went to war to bring Gaddafi down.

Moreover, the US acted to bring about their fall at the same time it knew that they would be replaced by forces inimical to American national security interests. In Egypt, it was clear that the Muslim Brotherhood would emerge as the strongest political force in the country. In Libya, it was clear at the outset of the NATO campaign against Gaddafi that al-Qaida was prominently represented in the antiregime coalition. And just as the Islamists won the Egyptian election, shortly after Gaddafi was overthrown, al-Qaida forces raised their flag over Benghazi's courthouse.

US actions from Yemen to Bahrain and beyond have followed a similar pattern.

In sharp contrast to his active interventionism against US-allied regimes, President Barack Obama has prominently refused to intervene in Syria, where the fate of a US foe hangs in the balance.

Obama has sat back as Turkey has fashioned a Syrian opposition dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood, and the Arab League has intervened in a manner that increases the prospect that Syria will descend into chaos in the event that the Assad regime is overthrown.

Obama continues to speak grandly about his vision for the Middle East and his dedication to America's regional allies. And his supporters in the media continue to applaud his great success in foreign policy. But outside of their echo chamber, he and the country he leads are looked upon with increasing contempt and disgust throughout the Arab world.

Obama's behavior since last January 25 has made clear to US friend and foe alike that under Obama, the US is more likely to attack you if you display weakness towards it than if you adopt a confrontational posture against it. As Assad survives to kill another day; as Iran expands its spheres of influence and gallops towards the nuclear bomb; as al- Qaida and its allies rise from the Gulf of Aden to the Suez Canal; and as Mubarak continues to be wheeled into the courtroom on a stretcher, the US's rapid fall from regional power is everywhere in evidence.












obama

Americans are Bigots?

Reagan is, Pelosi isn't.
Reid isn't, all Republicans are.
Democrats aren't, Retardicans can't help but be.

I love it.

What are equally as interesting as the issues raised in the article are the comments - over 670.   I have begun to wonder why anyone writes anything.  Those who agree, will always agree, and those who disagree will ... always disagree.  Remember - everything is set by 1st grade!






MAIN STREET
Wall Street Journal
AUGUST 10, 2010
By WILLIAM MCGURN





Are Americans Bigots?



Attacking the motives of those who disagree with elite opinion has become all too common.


When in 1983 Ronald Reagan characterized the Soviet Union as an "evil empire," the reaction from his betters was swift. Writing in the New York Times, Anthony Lewis called it "primitive"—and wondered (naturally) what the Europeans would think. A headline in Time referred derisively to "The Right Rev. Ronald Reagan." All agreed on one thing: this kind of black-and-white moralizing had no place in American politics.

Now cut to today, where moralizing about the ugly motives of the American people has become common. Whether it's a federal judge declaring there exists no rational opposition to same-sex marriage, a mayor railing against those who would like a mosque moved a few blocks from Ground Zero, a Speaker of the House effectively likening the majority of her countrymen who did not want her health-care bill to Nazis, or a State Department official who brings up the Arizona law on immigration in a human-rights discussion with a Chinese delegation, the chorus is the same: You can't trust ordinary Americans.

In his ruling on California's Proposition 8, federal district court Judge Vaughn Walker gives us the most dressed-up version. Not only does he find the state initiative upholding traditional marriage unconstitutional, his opinion maintains that those who disagree—the majority of California voters—can be motivated only by bigotry.

Among his many findings of "fact" are gems such as these: "Religious beliefs that gay and lesbian relationships are sinful or inferior to heterosexual relationships harm gays and lesbians." "[T]he evidence shows beyond debate that allowing same-sex couples to marry has at least a neutral, if not a positive, effect on the institution of marriage." "The evidence shows conclusively that moral and religious views form the only basis for a belief that same-sex couples are different from opposite-sex couples."

At least when Ronald Reagan invoked the evil empire, he was talking about a totalitarian system. He also took pains to distinguish between the Soviet system, which he thought irredeemable, and the Russian people, whom he believed wanted the same things we do.

Judge Walker, of course, is not alone. In New York City we have a mayor who preens how an Islamic Center built close to Ground Zero is exclusively a test of religious liberty. Surely it is possible to respect religious liberty and nonetheless believe that with a bit of neighborly solicitude, we might reach a workable accommodation by moving the center a few blocks. But Mayor Michael Bloomberg prefers to see the 61% of New York residents who disagree with him as people who ought to be "ashamed of themselves."

Are there these feelings and expressions on the right? And are some Americans bigots or racists? No doubt. Yet it is striking that the language and examples here do not emanate from the activist fringe. They come from those representing some of our leading institutions.

When asked about the legitimacy of grass-roots opposition to the health-care bill, for example, Nancy Pelosi dismissed protestors as people "carrying swastikas." Her counterpart in the Senate called them "evil mongers." How convenient. If turning up to protest a health-care bill makes someone a Nazi or an evil monger, there's no point to having a real debate, is there?

These kinds of remarks, moreover, tend to be amplified by a press corps that seems to share many of the same prejudices. Look at Internet listserv JournoList. In this group, participants felt free to urge various outrages—notably, manufacturing a charge of racism for purely political purposes. They did so, moreover, comfortable that no one would find such suggestions beyond the pale.

Take the Washington Post. When the JournoList emails hit, we learned that the reporter assigned to cover conservatives actively loathed them. Sometimes it spilled out, as when he tweeted that opponents of same-sex marriage are bigots. (He later offered a limited apology.) Does it not say something when the hometown paper of our nation's capital cannot seem to find a reporter who can control his contempt for beliefs held by millions of ordinary Americans?

American history confirms the need for leaders willing to make strong moral criticisms of their opponents and society. Certainly we could not progress without them. Still, the most successful—Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, et al.—have been those who appealed to the decency of their fellow citizens.

As the controversy over the planned Islamic Center near Ground Zero escalates, we have had many secular sermons on the need to recognize that the vast majority of Muslims should not be confused with the terrorists. No argument there. But how much more fruitful our own debates might be if the Judge Walkers, Mayor Bloombergs and Speaker Pelosis could extend that same presumption of decency to the American people.









bigots

Obama and His Healthcare Fiasco

He conjured it up, and now we have to suffer.


And if this is the case for them, why are we any different.




‘NHS doesn't care about cost of medicine’: Drugs firms accused of profiteering by raising prices by ONE THOUSAND per cent


By Jason Lewis
The Daily Mail
18th July 2010


Millionaire who raised the price of widely-used drugs by 1,000% over two years says: ‘I don’t have to justify my profits to anyone’

Drugs companies making everyday medicines for the NHS are facing claims of profiteering after imposing huge price rises for commonly prescribed drugs.

The increases – some as high as 1,000 per cent in just two years – coincided with some of the firms involved earning massive profits.

One company boss said the NHS ‘doesn’t care what it costs’.

Drugs made by Teva, one of the world's largest pharmaceutical firms. It is the main producer of Qvar asthma inhalers, which have gone from costing a couple of pounds to £16

The medicines are not new innovative products developed by pharmaceutical companies after enormous investment in research and development.

Instead, they are unbranded so-called ‘generic’ drugs which have been available for many years and include commonly used antibiotics prescribed to millions of patients.

Last night, The Mail on Sunday investigation prompted the Department of Health to reveal it had launched a review of the price increases and to say that it was examining what action could be taken against manufacturers deemed to be making excess profits.

The revelations will be particularly upsetting for cancer patients and others trying to get access to expensive life-prolonging drugs which have been blocked on the grounds of cost.

Last month, in the latest controversial decision of its kind, the UK’s medicines advisory body, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, recommended against the NHS paying for a new breast cancer drug.

One of the medicines under the spotlight after a huge unexplained price increase is hydrocortisone tablets – a daily lifesaver for thousands of kidney patients.














medical

Idiots on Parade: Obama's National Security Strategy

Obama’s security strategy falls short


By Clive Crook
Financial Times
May 30 2010 19:56



The administration of Barack Obama sees its new National Security Strategy – a statement the White House sends Congress from time to time – as a work of great importance, a radical departure from its predecessor’s thinking. It is neither; nor, for that matter, is it a strategy.

Ordinarily, one might be unconcerned. A document is just a document, after all: actions are what count. The worrying thing is that the US president and his team seem so deluded about what they have produced.

I might be prejudiced. To judge the content of the statement, you have to overlook the way it is expressed, which is not easy. It was run through a management-speak machine. It emerged, repetitious and full of misprints, with added verbiage and reduced intellectual content. Then it was put through a second time.

Imagine 50 pages of this: “To prevent acts of terrorism on American soil, we must enlist all of our intelligence, law enforcement, and homeland security capabilities. We will continue to integrate and leverage state and major urban area fusion centres that have the capability to share classified information.”

Previously, as you know, many people denied that homeland security capabilities should be used for homeland security. So much for that false doctrine. And notice how state and major urban area fusion centres will in future share information. Another bold departure. The previous approach to these strangely impaired fusion centres was different, entirely different. Thankfully, those days are over.

This is the “all appropriate measures” school of policy analysis. One should do everything that is appropriate – in an integrated, leveraged, cost effective and sustainable way – while rejecting anything inappropriate, disorganised, ineffective or bound to fail.

According to this paper, the aims of Mr Obama’s national security policy include every desirable outcome. Curbing climate change is an aspect of national security. By similar reasoning, available resources embrace every aspect of his domestic and foreign policy: not just strong armed forces and a prosperous economy but also “access to quality, affordable healthcare”. National security includes everything and therefore means nothing.

The authors contrast Mr Obama’s enlightenment with the brainlessness of his predecessor. But as his actions have departed little from late-period George W. Bush, this boils down to mood and pedantry. The White House does not like to say “war on terror” or “terrorism”; terrorism is a tactic not an enemy, it explains. One can still say (indeed the administration insists) the US is at war with terrorists, violent extremists, and al-Qaeda and its affiliates. Good to have this cleared up.

Taking care not to mistake tactics for enemies, Mr Obama has increased the US commitment in Afghanistan, much as Mr Bush would have. His strategy fails to clarify the rationale. He retains the right to act unilaterally. He excludes rogue states such as Iran from his (qualified) promise to use nuclear weapons only in retaliation for an attack with weapons of mass destruction. He has scaled up drone strikes on and off the battlefield, a policy of doubtful legality. He renounces torture – as did Mr Bush – but detains terrorist suspects indefinitely without trial. He promises to close Guantánamo but the prison is still there.

Unlike many critics of Mr Obama, I see these policies as defensible. The world does not surrender to good intentions, and the administration is doing its best in difficult circumstances. Also, tone matters. It is right to encourage allies not disdain them; to cajole rivals as well as threaten. In his second term, a chastened Mr Bush came to understand this – which makes it wrong to say security policy under Mr Obama has changed that much.

One could dismiss the paper as a campaign flyer unworthy of analysis. But the administration has hard choices to make, and more than a year’s experience to think about. The strategic analysis the paper claims to provide is necessary. One only hopes the White House does not mistake this so-called strategy for the work it still needs to do.

Above all, strategy must focus on priorities and constraints. The White House says it agrees with this – the US cannot do everything, and it must have partners. But aside from such statements of the obvious, the paper is silent about what is vital in national security, what is desirable and affordable, and what is desirable but not affordable. It correctly says that ends must be aligned with means, but fails to align them. All right goals will be pursued; all available assets will be brought to bear. That is not a strategy.

Over everything hangs the greatest challenge facing the US: coming to terms with diminished power. To judge by the paper, the administration is unwilling even to think about this. Yes, it underlines mutual interest and calls for co-operation – but with American characteristics. The US will continue to lead, it insists. Its interests will not be subordinated. “We are no less powerful, but we need to apply our power in different ways,” said Hillary Clinton, secretary of state, last week.

No less powerful? US military strength is fearsome but the limits to its use bind ever more tightly. Increasingly, the co-operation the US seeks will not be on terms it dictates. Painful subjects for a mighty nation but ones that the next strategy might start to address.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
where for art thou

Transparency: Tell the World How Many Nukes We have ... why not give them the locations also.

Transparency.  Great.  Let the US be transparent to all the enemies we have, let Obama sing the praises of such transparency - except domestically.  When it comes to things that happen here - let us not be so transparent.  We are doing this, says the administration, to show the world how transparent we are.  Dear World - we were more transparent than any of you 10 years ago, 20 years ago - forget needing to be more ... you need to be more transparent.  Yet, Obama like most liberals believes the US is the enemy of peace and we are the secret society (perhaps that is why there has been increased wiretapping, information gathering, and domestic spying in the last 20 months).    Regardless, doing this to encourage China to be transparent is utterly naive and imbecilic and if the individual claims to be a scientist at Atomic Scientists, who argues this case - he is a fool as well as naive and imbecilic.


U.S. reveals size of nuclear arsenal


8:36pm EDT
By Arshad Mohammed and Phil Stewart



WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States disclosed for the first time on Monday the current size of its nuclear arsenal, lifting the veil on once top-secret numbers in an effort to bolster non-proliferation efforts.

The Pentagon said it had a total of 5,113 warheads in its nuclear stockpile at the end of September, down 84 percent from a peak of 31,225 in 1967. The arsenal stood at 22,217 warheads when the Berlin Wall fell in 1989.

The figure includes warheads that are operationally deployed, kept in active reserve and held in inactive storage. But it does not include "several thousand" warheads that are now retired and awaiting dismantlement, the Pentagon said.

"The United States is showing that it is being increasingly transparent," a senior U.S. defense official told reporters at the Pentagon.

"It's part of our commitment ... to set the stage for strength in non-proliferation and for further arms control."

The official declined to offer the Pentagon's estimate for Russia's arsenal and renewed calls for greater transparency by China, saying there was "little visibility" when it came to Beijing's nuclear program.

The United States is also pushing for a new round of sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program.

By releasing the data during the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty review conference, analysts said the United States was trying to show it is cutting its arsenal so as to help persuade other states to tighten the global non-proliferation regime.

"It is hugely important for the United States to be able to say, 'Look we are living up to our obligations under the NPT," said Hans Kristensen, director of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists.

COULD IT BACKFIRE?

The disclosure comes less than a month after President Barack Obama unveiled a new policy restricting the U.S. use of nuclear weapons and signed a landmark arms reduction accord with Russia.

Obama, who won a Nobel Peace Prize in part for his vision of a nuclear free world, has also renounced the development of new atomic weapons.

Historically, the overall size of the arsenal has been kept secret to help prevent potential adversaries from using the information to more precisely neutralize U.S. nuclear forces.

Still, analysts warned the disclosure could also negatively impact perceptions of the United States -- possibly dismaying other nations by demonstrating how many nuclear weapons it retains two decades after the Cold War ended.

"I think the states that are most concerned about nuclear disarmament will be more focused on the number that remain rather than the number (reduced)," said George Perkovich, director of the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

The Pentagon said from fiscal years 1994 through 2009, the United States dismantled 8,748 nuclear warheads.

The Pentagon also declined to disclose the exact number of warheads awaiting dismantlement. It said more analysis needed to be done to make sure it did not impact U.S. national security.

The United States aims to dismantle those warheads by the early part of the next decade, another U.S. official said, also briefing reporters on condition of anonymity.









fools

The End of Times or Just the End of His Political Career?

In one area, Retardicans have supremacy - foreign affairs.  The lies that Bush dismantled our relationships around the world was a farce, and unfortunately people with less common sense than God gave a squirrel, believed it.  Regardless.

On many issues Retardicans are just that, not very bright, and just as foolish as Losercrats.  When it comes to issues of security and peace - Republicans own the gamebook.

By the way - that construction that was going on - hasn't been, isn't.  Israel has not proceeded since they put a hold on it 10 months ago.  Yes, the Defense Minister Ehud Barak did give a go ahead, but nothing has gone ahead.  It is not moving.  Nothing.  Hasn't been and isn't.  Yet this administration is acting like a petulant child - demanding something stop that has never started.  He (Obama) is a menace when it comes to US foreign policy.  He wants 1 billion friends and is willing to give up a few million, because in the end, he knows whats best for us.

Another reason why inexperienced community organizers should not be anywhere near the White House.

We should all pray he doesn't do anything worse than what he has done and pray his next 3 years goes by quickly and peacefully.







Republicans slam Obama's hard line towards Israel






House Republican Whip Eric Cantor says spat with Israel 'jeopardizes America's national security', while another senior party member concerned about administration's 'softer approaches' toward Palestinian Authority, Syria and Iran


Yitzhak Benhorin Published: 03.16.10, 00:29 / Israel News
Ynetnews.com


WASHINGTON – Republican lawmakers came out swinging Monday against President Barack Obama's hard line toward Israel over its controversial plans to expand a settlement in disputed east Jerusalem.

The number two Republican in the House of Representatives deplored the Obama administration's stance on Israel as "irresponsible" a week after Israel gave the green light to build 1,600 new homes for Jewish settlers in the area the Palestinians want as the capital of their future state.

After Netanyahu vows to continue east Jerusalem construction, Qureia says, 'If Israel continues these practices, another uprising will break out'; Egyptian FM calls Israel's actions 'attempt to suffocate the Palestinians'. Dozens of Palestinians riot north of Jerusalem

Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and other top officials said last week's announcement of the new construction was insulting and damaging to efforts to revive long-stalled peace talks.

"To say that I am deeply concerned with the irresponsible comments that the White House, vice president and the secretary of state have made against Israel is an understatement," said House Republican Whip Eric Cantor, the only Jewish Republican in the House of Representatives.

"In an effort to ingratiate our country with the Arab world, this administration has shown a troubling eagerness to undercut our allies and friends."

He said the administration's public spat with the Jewish State "jeopardizes America's national security."

The government of hawkish Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave permission for the new construction in Jerusalem's Ramat Shlomo neighborhood on March 9, just as Biden visited Israel, sparking a major diplomatic crisis.

Israel's ambassador to Washington said bilateral relations have hit a 35-year low.

It also came just two days after the Palestinians had reluctantly agreed to hold indirect, US-brokered negotiations with Israel.

Senator Sam Brownback said in a statement that "it's hard to see how spending a weekend condemning Israel for a zoning decision in its capital city amounts to a positive step towards peace."

The Kansas Republican, a staunch defender of Israel in Congress, said it would be "far more worthwhile" for the administration to focus its efforts instead on shifting the location of the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, a highly controversial proposal.

'Israel indispensable ally'

There are no embassies in Jerusalem, as Israel captured and annexed east Jerusalem in the 1967 Six Day War in a move the international community does not recognize. Israel considers all of the city its capital despite Palestinian claims to east Jerusalem.

Brownback also urged the Obama administration to narrow its focus on the "growing Iranian nuclear threat," referring to the Islamic republic's continued defiance of international calls to halt its controversial uranium enrichment program. Israel considers Iran an existential threat.

House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-OH) issued a statement saying, “The Administration’s decision to escalate its rhetoric following Vice President Biden’s visit to Israel is not merely irresponsible, it is an affront to the values and foundation of our long-term relationship with a close friend and ally."

According to the Republican leader, "The Administration has demonstrated a repeated pattern since it took office: while it makes concessions to countries acting contrary to US national interests, it ignores or snubs the commitments, shared values and sacrifices of many of our country’s best allies.

“If the Administration wants to work toward resolving the conflict in the Middle East, it should focus its efforts on Iran’s behavior, including its pursuit of nuclear weapons, its state-sponsorship of terrorism, its crushing of domestic democratic forces, and the impact its behavior is having, not just on Israel, but also on the calculations of other countries in the region as well as on the credibility of international nonproliferation efforts," Boehner said in the statement.

"House Republicans remain committed to our long-standing bilateral friendship with Israel, as well as to the commitments this country has made,” he added.

Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, demanded that the Obama administration halt its condemnations of "an indispensable ally and friend of the United States."

"US condemnations of Israel and threats regarding our bilateral relationship undermine both our allies and the peace process, while encouraging the enemies of America and Israel alike," she said.

Ros-Lehtinen added that she was "deeply concerned" about the administration's "softer approaches" toward the Palestinian Authority, Syria and Iran.

Iran and Syria are the main foreign backers of the Shiite terror group Hezbollah but both deny that they provide anything other than moral support.

Washington also accuses Syria of turning a blind eye to militants crossing its border into Iraq.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
really stupid people

Obama's Time, In Our Time

If he gives up the delusions, recognizes the reality, and puts aside his utopian view that cannot work either domestically or internationally - he can still salvage what remains of his term.  He has demonstrated, as clearly as anyone could - why community organizers and Senators who were just elected yesterday, should never be allowed near the White House.





The president's reality problem



By RICH LOWRY
8:08 AM, February 12, 2010
The New York Post



It might have been the most revelatory moment of the Obama presidency. In an interview with Time magazine, a chastened President Obama talked of his sputtering Middle East peace initiative.

"This is just really hard," he explained. "This is as intractable a problem as you get."

As an observation, this is as banal as it gets. After all the wars and all the terror attacks against Israel and all the frustrated American diplomatic forays across the last two administrations, no one should be surprised at the intractability of the Israeli-Arab conflict.

But Obama sounded as if it were painful new information that had forced an unwelcome adjustment in his worldview.

This speaks either to an astonishing historical ignorance (did he not know?) or a stupendous self-regard (did he not care because he thought he was so special?), or both.

There is already a debate over what went wrong with the Obama presidency.

Is his team of advisers -- nearly universally considered the best and the brightest until the day before yesterday -- serving him poorly? Has he failed to communicate effectively, even though almost all his speeches have been critically acclaimed? Did he fail to "pivot to jobs" fast enough?

Actually, Obama has a more worrisome problem: a reality gap.

During the campaign, Obama could throw a rhetorical pixie dust over all the difficult choices inherent in governing and the contradictions of his own program, making them fade into a beguiling vision of a sun-lit post-Bush America. This magical realism sustained him until November 2008 -- but couldn't withstand governing.

Consider Obama's most elemental appeal as a candidate: He excited the base of his own party while winning over the center with talk of "post-partisanship." On the stump, he could maintain this balance. In office, he had to choose either partisanship in the form of his powerful Democratic allies on Capitol Hill, or postpartisanship in the form of concessions to Republicans that would anger and disappoint his own side. He chose Nancy Pelosi, and watched independents flee from him.

On fiscal policy, Obama could promise massive new programs at the same time, in one debate, he asserted his approach would mean "a net spending cut." A laughable contradiction, it wasn't fully exposed until Obama had to write a budget. With $1 trillion deficits now stretching off into the horizon, his answer is appointing a commission to study the matter.

Obama is still the same illusionist from the campaign on his signature health-care initiative. The new $1 trillion entitlement will reduce the deficit. It will insure millions more people while bending the cost curve down. The hundreds of billions of dollars in Medicare cuts will be utterly painless. There's no trade-off or sacrifice in sight, and -- not surprisingly -- people don't believe it.

Obama came to office under fundamental misapprehensions that hamper him still. It's not true that all that was keeping the Israelis and Palestinians apart was the lack of US engagement, or that the Iranians were amenable to getting talked out of their nuclear program, or that Guantanamo Bay was a pointless contrivance.

Nor is it true that government is a sustainable source of economic growth, or a more efficient allocator of capital than the market. This is why Obama's stimulus program -- inevitably, a dog's breakfast of politically driven priorities -- is such a shambles that his aides never utter the word "stimulus" anymore. It is on to the next program, a nearly $100 billion "jobs" bill that reflects the touching belief that to work as intended a program only has to be named appropriately.

Obama's advisers want him to pull out of his downdraft by getting back to campaign mode. It's governance as performance art. He's hosting a bipartisan health-care summit on Feb. 25. Surely, he'll sound great and spin gorgeous webs of fancy -- as the reality gap yawns beneath him. comments.lowry@ nationalreview.com





 
 
 
 
 
 
 
obama

Obama: More political naivete

Whether it is Iran or Honduras ... Obama is naive and those who counsel him know less than he does.

His change platform - bringing Israel to the table, halting settlement, all the talk he gave, the speeches in Turkey and Egypt, and ....

Monday, June 29, the Washington Post offered three reasons for the White House's decision to ease up on its "absolutist" position:

"First, it has allowed Palestinian and Arab leaders to withhold the steps they were asked for… Second, the administration's objective… is unobtainable… No Israeli government has ever agreed to an unconditional freeze and no coalition could be assembled… to impose one. Finally, the extraction of a freeze from Netanyahu is, as a practical matter unnecessary… both the Palestinian Authority and Arab governments have gone along with previous US-Israeli deals by which construction was to be limited to inside the periphery of settlements near Israel - since everyone knows those areas will be annexed to Israel in a final settlement…"


Reality sets in. It wasn't Bush's intransigence, it wasn't the US refusal to talk, or the US tied up in Iraq that ...

Naive.












Obama

Afghanistan: The Shit hit the fan or trouble was brewing?

The shit hit the fan.

I have to ask - did the shit literally hit the fan, did someone throw it at the fan and it hit the fan. Or is it an expression, yet, it can also mean - the shit literally touched the fan either in a rapid motion or slowly plopped upon the fan.

If you heard the expression, which would you assume FIRST until you were told that the shit was actually being flung onto the fan.

So why does this second rate reporter/writer, and one of the weakest news sources still around (CBS) take the literal over the intended. Why assume, why take the worst possible, most aggresive interpretation - why antagonize as many people as possible.

Why?

I don't know. Clearly they must have a reason.








July 16, 2009

U.S. Threatens Afghans Over Kidnapped GI

by Tucker Reals
This story was written by CBSNews.com's Tucker Reals in London.

(CBS)

At least two Afghan villages have been blanketed with leaflets warning that if an American soldier kidnapped by the Taliban two weeks ago isn't freed, "you will be targeted."

Villagers near the border of two volatile provinces, Ghazni and Paktika, tell CBS News' Sami Yousafzai that aircraft dropped the leaflets during the past several days.

Military spokeswoman Capt. Elizabeth Mathias confirmed that the leaflets were produced at Bagram Air Base, the primary U.S. installation in Afghanistan, and distributed in the region. She told CBS News correspondent Mandy Clark, however, that they were distributed by hand, not aircraft.

The papers show on one side an image of a soldier with his head bowed so that his face is not visible (above). A message in the local Pashtun language over the image says, "If you do not free the American soldier, then…"

On the other side, an image shows Western troops breaking into a house. The rest of the message is printed across the photo: "…you will be targeted".

According to the military, the translation of the last word in the sentence is "hunted," not targeted, but CBS News' independent translators say the word also means "targeted".

Mathias told Clark that another leaflet was dropped from aircraft in Ghazni and Paktika which notifies locals that a U.S. soldier is missing and requests any information on his whereabouts.

Mathias' colleague, Lt. Com. Christine Sidenstricker, said no threats are made in the leaflet which was air-dropped. The image shows an unidentified U.S. soldier (not the one who was kidnapped) sitting on the ground and talking to Afghan children. On the front it reads: "One of our American guests is missing." On the back: "Return the guest to his home. Call us at…," according to the military's translation. This leaflet is seen below.

Taliban militants and U.S. military officials confirmed the abduction of one soldier to CBS News on July 2, with a Taliban commander telling Yousafzai the American was cornered by militants and abducted along with three Afghan nationals in Paktika province, which borders Pakistan.

The missing soldier has not been identified by the military.

A Taliban source in Paktika claimed on Wednesday that U.S. forces had already launched three attempts to find the missing soldier in different locations near Afghanistan's border with Pakistan, "but all three raids were ineffective and the solder is in a safe and secure protected area controlled by the Taliban."

A militant commander in southern Afghanistan said a decision to keep the American hostage "in good shape of health" had come from the Taliban's military council, or Shura.

The commander, and the other Taliban source in Paktika, indicated that a ransom may be sought for the soldier's safe return, but the commander warned there was also an order to kill the man if there was any kind of operation to rescue him or an escape attempt.

Taliban commander Mawlavi Sangin told the Reuters news agency on Thursday that U.S. forces were harassing Afghans in Paktika and Ghazni provinces over the kidnapping.

"They have put pressure on the people in these two provinces and if that does not stop we will kill him," Sangin told Reuters by telephone.

While American military and intelligence services have dropped leaflets on Afghanistan for years, most of them have clearly targeted militants — frequently carrying photos or caricatures of Taliban leaders.

The new leaflet represents a broader, direct warning to local people in the region where the U.S. soldier was seized. Villagers from near the Paktika-Ghazni border told CBS News the papers were found stuck in trees and littering roofs in the area.

The question is, will its stern message help win the missing soldier's freedom, or just antagonize the local people who could help, or hurt, that effort.










media warp

Nuclear Free World: Naive, Utopian, and Dangerous.

Why We Don't Want a Nuclear-Free World
The former defense secretary on the U.S. deterrent and the terrorist threat.

By MELANIE KIRKPATRICK
Wall Street Journal
Maclean, Va.

'Nuclear weapons are used every day." So says former Defense Secretary James Schlesinger, speaking last month at his office in a wooded enclave of Maclean, Va. It's a serene setting for Doomsday talk, and Mr. Schlesinger's matter-of-fact tone belies the enormity of the concepts he's explaining -- concepts that were seemingly ignored in this week's Moscow summit between Presidents Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev.

We use nuclear weapons every day, Mr. Schlesinger goes on to explain, "to deter our potential foes and provide reassurance to the allies to whom we offer protection."

Mr. Obama likes to talk about his vision of a nuclear-free world, and in Moscow he and Mr. Medvedev signed an agreement setting targets for sweeping reductions in the world's largest nuclear arsenals. Reflecting on the hour I spent with Mr. Schlesinger, I can't help but think: Do we really want to do this?

For nuclear strategists, Mr. Schlesinger is Yoda, the master of their universe. In addition to being a former defense secretary (Nixon and Ford), he is a former energy secretary (Carter) and former director of central intelligence (Nixon). He has been studying the U.S. nuclear posture since the early 1960s, when he was at the RAND Corporation, a California think tank that often does research for the U.S. government. He's the expert whom Defense Secretary Robert Gates called on last year to lead an investigation into the Air Force's mishandling of nuclear weapons after nuclear-armed cruise missiles were mistakenly flown across the country on a B-52 and nuclear fuses were accidently shipped to Taiwan. Most recently, he's vice chairman of a bipartisan congressional commission that in May issued an urgent warning about the need to maintain a strong U.S. deterrent.

But above all, Mr. Schlesinger is a nuclear realist. Are we heading toward a nuclear-free world anytime soon? He shoots back a one-word answer: "No." I keep silent, hoping he will go on. "We will need a strong deterrent," he finally says, "and that is measured at least in decades -- in my judgment, in fact, more or less in perpetuity. The notion that we can abolish nuclear weapons reflects on a combination of American utopianism and American parochialism. . . . It's like the [1929] Kellogg-Briand Pact renouncing war as an instrument of national policy . . . . It's not based upon an understanding of reality."

In other words: Go ahead and wish for a nuclear-free world, but pray that you don't get what you wish for. A world without nukes would be even more dangerous than a world with them, Mr. Schlesinger argues.

"If, by some miracle, we were able to eliminate nuclear weapons," he says, "what we would have is a number of countries sitting around with breakout capabilities or rumors of breakout capabilities -- for intimidation purposes. . . . and finally, probably, a number of small clandestine stockpiles." This would make the U.S. more vulnerable.

Mr. Schlesinger makes the case for a strong U.S. deterrent. Yes, the Cold War has ended and, yes, while "we worry about Russia's nuclear posture to some degree, it is not just as prominent as it once was." The U.S. still needs to deter Russia, which has the largest nuclear capability of any potential adversary, and the Chinese, who have a modest (and growing) capability. The U.S. nuclear deterrent has no influence on North Korea or Iran, he says, or on nonstate actors. "They're not going to be deterred by the possibility of a nuclear response to actions that they might take," he says.

Mr. Schlesinger refers to the unanimous conclusion of the bipartisan Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States, which he co-led with Chairman William Perry. The commission "strongly" recommended that further discussions with the Russians on arms control are "desirable," he says, and that "we should proceed with negotiations on an extension of the START Treaty." That's what Mr. Obama set in motion in Moscow this week. The pact -- whose full name is the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty -- expires in December. But what's the hurry? Mr. Schlesinger warns about rushing to agree on cuts. "The treaty . . . can be extended for five years. And, if need be, I would extend it for five years."

There's another compelling reason for a strong U.S. deterrent: the U.S. nuclear umbrella, which protects more than 30 allies world-wide. "If we were only protecting the North American continent," he says, "we could do so with far fewer weapons than we have at present in the stockpile." But a principal aim of the U.S. nuclear deterrent is "to provide the necessary reassurance to our allies, both in Asia and in Europe." That includes "our new NATO allies such as Poland and the Baltic States," which, he notes dryly, continue to be concerned about their Russian neighbor. "Indeed, they inform us regularly that they understand the Russians far better than do we."

The congressional commission warned of a coming "tipping point" in proliferation, when more nations might decide to go nuclear if they were to lose confidence in the U.S. deterrent, or in Washington's will to use it. If U.S. allies lose confidence in Washington's ability to protect them, they'll kick off a new nuclear arms race.

That's a reason Mr. Schlesinger wants to bring Japan into the nuclear conversation. "One of the recommendations of the commission is that we start to have a dialogue with the Japanese about strategic capabilities in order both to help enlighten them and to provide reassurance that they will be protected by the U.S. nuclear umbrella. In the past, that has not been the case. Japan never was seriously threatened by Soviet capabilities and that the Soviets looked westward largely is a threat against Western Europe. But now that the Chinese forces have been growing into the many hundreds of weapons, we think that it's necessary to talk to the Japanese in the same way that we have talked to the Europeans over the years."

He reminds me of the comment of Japanese political leader Ichiro Ozawa, who said in 2002 that it would be "easy" for Japan to make nuclear warheads and that it had enough plutonium to make several thousand weapons. "When one contemplates a number like that," Mr. Schlesinger says, "one sees that a substantial role in nonproliferation has been the U.S. nuclear umbrella. Without that, some and perhaps a fair number of our allies would feel the necessity of having their own nuclear capabilities."

He worries about "contagion" in the Middle East, whereby countries will decide to go nuclear if Iran does. "We've long talked about Iran as a tipping point," he says, "in that it might induce Turkey, which has long been protected under NATO, Egypt [and] Saudi Arabia to respond in kind . . . There has been talk about extending the nuclear umbrella to the Middle East in the event that the Iranians are successful in developing that capacity."

Mr. Schlesinger expresses concerns, too, about the safety and reliability of U.S. nuclear weapons, all of which are more than 20 years old. "I am worried about the reliability of the weapons . . . as time passes. Not this year, not next year, but as time passes and the stockpile ages." There is a worry, too, about the "intellectual infrastructure," he says, as Americans who know how to make nuclear weapons either retire or die. And he notes that the "physical infrastructure" is now "well over 60 years" old. Some of it "comes out of the Manhattan Project."

The U.S. is the only major nuclear power that is not modernizing its weapons. "The Russians have a shelf life for their weapons of about 10 years so they are continually replacing" them. The British and the French "stay up to date." And the Chinese and the Indians "continue to add to their stockpiles." But in the U.S., Congress won't even so much as fund R&D for the Reliable Replacement Warhead. "The RRW has become a toxic term on Capitol Hill," Mr. Schlesinger says. Give it a new name, he seems to be suggesting, and try again to get Congress to fund it. "We need to be much more vigorous about life-extension programs" for the weapons.

Finally, we chat about Mr. Schlesinger's nearly half-century as a nuclear strategist. Are we living in a world where the use of nuclear weapons is more likely than it was back then? "The likelihood of a nuclear exchange has substantially gone away," he says. That's the good news. "However, the likelihood of a nuclear terrorist attack on the United States" is greater.

During his RAND years, in the 1960s, Mr. Schlesinger recalls that "we were working on mitigating the possible effects [of a nuclear attack] through civil defense, which, may I say parenthetically, we should be working on now with respect, certainly, to the possibility of a terrorist weapon used against the United States. . . . We should have a much more rapid response capability. . . . We're not as well organized as we should be to respond."

Mr. Schlesinger sees another difference between now and when he started in this business: "Public interest in our strategic posture has faded over the decades," he says. "In the Cold War, it was a most prominent subject. Now, much of the public is barely interested in it. And that has been true of the Congress as well," creating what he delicately refers to as "something of a stalemate in expenditures."

He's raising the alarm. Congress, the administration and Americans ignore it at their peril.















nuclear

Fascist America?

Brilliant!


05-27-09 Thomas Sowell

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GoVxT3HCRAI




Glenn Beck







Obama

Upholding values will prevent another attack (and other nonsense)

Upholding values will shield US from terror: Obama


May 22 10:48 AM US/Eastern
Agence France Presse


President Barack Obama Friday warned America risked its security when it compromised its values, seeking support for his bid to sketch a new legal framework for anti-terror policies.

Obama used the backdrop of the US Naval Academy graduation ceremony to argue that founding US ideals must guide the future battle against terrorism, a day after trying to quell raging debate over Guantanamo Bay in a major speech.

"We uphold our fundamental principles and values not just because we choose to, but because we swear to -- not because they feel good, but because they help keep us safe," Obama told 30,000 graduating navy cadets and family members.

"When America strays from our values, it not only undermines the rule of law, it alienates us from our allies, it energizes our adversaries and it endangers our national security and the lives of our troops."

Obama told the graduates they would face a "full spectrum of threats" from 18th century-style piracy to cyber terrorism.

"As long as I am your commander-in-chief, I will only send you into harm's way when it is absolutely necessary," Obama said, in an apparent veiled criticism of the Bush administration war in Iraq, which the president has argued was unnecessary.

Earlier, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba, which Obama has ordered shut by next January, had to be closed because it had become a "taint" on the image of the United States.

"The truth is, it's probably one of the finest prisons in the world today. But it has a taint," Gates told NBC television's "Today" program during a visit to New York.

"The name itself is a condemnation. What the president was saying is, this will be an advertisement for Al-Qaeda as long as it's open," he said.

Among the audience in Annapolis was Senator John McCain, Obama's Republican election opponent last year, and the father of a son, Jack, graduating from the academy.

"I'm very proud of him, he's going to pilot training," McCain, himself an academy graduate, told Fox News on Thursday.

McCain, tortured as a prisoner of war in Vietnam after his jet was shot down, is a major player in the Guantanamo debate, and could emerge as a cross-party ally for Obama, as he strives to shutter the camp.

But McCain was critical of Obama's speech on Thursday, accusing him of making an announcement with great fanfare in January that he would close the camp, without planning properly what to do with the inmates.

"Frankly, the president's speech, where he said he was going to consult with Congress -- that's not a policy," McCain told Fox.

Obama on Thursday vowed no retreat on closing Guantanamo Bay, branding the prison a "mess" and charging that Bush-era anti-terror tactics were rooted in fear and ideology.

He also raised the prospect of holding the most dangerous Al-Qaeda detainees indefinitely in US "super-max" jails, in a speech designed to recapture the initiative in a row over his national security policies.

Obama took on critics on the right who believe "anything goes" in the fight against terrorism, and rebuked allies on the left who he said believed that in all cases transparency should triumph over national security.

Moments later, former vice president Dick Cheney hit back with his own speech at the American Enterprise Institute think tank, vehemently justifying the Bush approach, including harsh CIA interrogations derided by critics as torture and setting up Guantanamo outside the US legal framework.











Obama

Obama: Job Creation or Just Numbers

He will make 5 million jobs, no, make it 4 million, although 6 million is possible, but it could be 3 million, although we will work to produce 5 million at least although maybe only 2 million, and if we are lucky we could reach 1 million, unless we get really lucky and it will be close to 2 million. There is always the possibility it is less than expected - perhaps close to 500,000 may be a more certain figure.

The real issue is - a certain number of jobs are created regardless of any input from a government or stimulus. They are auto-created. We can count about 1-2 million without any input. Any less, someone tampered with the auto-create button. Any more - someone tampered in a positive way. Those are NET gain, not simply replacing.

The Obama numbers are not NET .... they are total (gross) minus any reductions due to loss of jobs.

Ah heck, just pull a number out of the hat and promise to create more.

Obama - Winging it on almost every issue



Team Obama was winging it when it declared the stimulus would "save or create" 2.5 million, then three million, then 3.7 million, and then four million new jobs. These were arbitrary and erratic numbers, and they knew there's no way to count "saved" jobs. Americans, being commonsensical, will focus on Mr. Obama's promise to "create" jobs. It's highly unlikely that more than 180,000 jobs will be created each month by the end of next year. The precise, state-by-state job numbers the administration used to sell the stimulus are likely to come back to haunt them as well.








Obama

Zimbabwe: Jimmy Carter IS as stupid as some people think.

Jimmy Carter says Zimbabwe crisis is 'much worse' than imagined

Carter, part of a delegation including former U.N. chief Kofi Annan that was denied access to Zimbabwe, says Zimbabwean leader Robert Mugabe continues to deny his nation food, other aid.

By Robyn Dixon
November 25, 2008

Reporting from Johannesburg, South Africa -- Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter on Monday said Zimbabwe's humanitarian crisis was far worse than he could have imagined and expressed dismay that Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe and his government refused to acknowledge the problem even existed."The entire basic structure in education, healthcare, feeding people, social services and sanitation has broken down," Carter told a news conference in Johannesburg, South Africa. "These are all indications that the crisis in Zimbabwe is much greater, much worse than we had ever imagined."



[to read the rest of his inane remarks and other commentary by the Los Angeles Times, click on the title link]




******************************

No Jimmy, it is not worse than 'we' ever imagine, just worse than what you could imagine. Many of us, as in 'we' - had a very good idea of what was happening and what could develop. How? Because we listened to the people, and understand that evil exists and it is not Israelis responsible. WE understand that naivite contributed, in large part, to the events in Zimbabwe.






Jimmy Carter is an idiot

Congo: Rwanda all over again?

Listening to the 'debate' a few nights ago, you would think Obama would call for intervention in cases of genocide or ethic cleansing (Iraq is a good example of this). He would never sit by while another Rwanda occurs. McCain said basically the same, but added that the US cannot be everywhere all the time, and fix all the problems. Obama would work with our allies - you know the ones, that Bush alienated.

These same allies, apparently alienated, or not, worked very hard to put together a peace treaty in the Congo. It has collapsed. In twelve years, 3 million people dead. THAT should constitute crimes against humanity, and quite possibly acts of genocide. It is going on as you read this, as the debate was occurring, and Obama never raised it - because it would qualify as a cause to intervene in, based on his criteria - militarily.

Rwanda may be over, but Rwanda is involved in the Congo, and the massacres involve Tutsi and Hutu.

Obama's 'never again', is "never again, when I am elected, but whatever happens until then is Bush's fault and I won't say anything and hope I don't have to deal with it because the Europeans sat down as did the UN and created a peace treaty by negotiating and compromising and talking, and it has fallen apart and hundreds are dying each day and no one is acting to prevent further deaths or punish those responsible, and I really don't like making decisions or taking decisive action so I would rather I spend time uniting the world to take action and maybe in the meantime the problem will get sorted."

Bush should be addressing this issue. The bloody world should be intervening, TODAY. Money can be recovered, stock markets will rise again - a million dead, will not.

(I assume Ms. Power has or will be speaking out about this and will get Obama interested sooner than later.)




Congo blames Rwanda for fresh fighting
Clashes between government forces and Tutsi rebels could force 30,000 people from their homes in eastern Congo.
By Scott Baldauf Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
from the October 11, 2008 edition

GOMA, DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO - Renewed fighting between Congolese rebels and government forces has worsened one of the world's worst humanitarian crises, sending thousands of villagers from their homes, while Congo's government accuses the Rwandan government of intervening on its soil.

Fighters from the rebel faction of Gen. Laurent Nkunda – an ethnic Tutsi thought to be backed by the Tutsi-led government in neighboring Rwanda – took the strategic town of Rumangabo and a military base from the Congolese Army during heated battle this week, but have since withdrawn. Casualty numbers were not known, but internal refugees told the Monitor that the fighting was fierce and that they were urged to leave their homes by government soldiers.

"Soldiers told us to leave because they were going to fight strongly against the Tutsis," says Appoline Nyiranza Bimana, a mother of three children, speaking on the morning of her arrival this week at Kibumba camp 25 miles north of the regional capital of Goma. "There was so much shooting, I couldn't stay at home anymore."

The fresh wave of fighting comes just 10 months after the signing of a peace deal between most of the major armed factions in the troubled eastern region of Congo. Nearly 3 million Congolese have died since 1996, when a rebel army – backed by a number of neighboring foreign countries, including Rwanda – forced the government of President Mobutu Sese Seko out of power. The January peace deal, brokered by the European Union and the United Nations, was seen by many as Congo's best chance for finally sending rebel armies home, but now political experts and peacekeepers say that it is clear the deal itself was never given a chance to work.

"One of the parties did this deliberately to derail the peace process, we're just not sure which one did it," says Lt. Col. Charles McKnight, a senior peacekeeping official within the UN peacekeeping force, MONUC. MONUC is the UN's largest peacekeeping operation in the world. "As of August, I was actually optimistic that this would all work."

[What an inspiring person - his judgment is brilliant. He believed it would work - may i ask based upon what precedent? And now he doesn't know who it was that derailed it. Amazing.]


The problems in Congo – one of the richest countries in the world, in terms of natural resources, but among the poorest in terms of human development – are rooted in a tangled mess of bloody ethnic rivalries, foreign interventions, and the violent sparring for control of lucrative mining resources. Congo's government, elected in the fall of 2006, has proved incapable of controlling its own vast territory and relies heavily on UN troops to keep the peace in the eastern provinces, where much of the mineral resources lie, and also, where much of the ethnic fighting has continued for more than a decade.

Nearly 100,000 Congolese have been displaced in the last three months alone, and given the population in the areas attacked in the past few days, as many as 30,000 additional people could be forced from their homes.

The peace deal, hailed for its inclusiveness of all Congolese armed groups, fell apart after fighting erupted Aug. 28, north of Goma. Nkunda complains that the government was never serious about peace, because it never attempted to shut down the Democratic Liberation Forces of Rwanda (FDLR), a group made up of Hutu rebels blamed for the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. But government peace brokers say it was Nkunda who wasn't serious about peace, and that the violent clashes of the past few weeks show he is trying to provoke a regional conflict.

"It wasn't a realistic deal in the first place," says Gregory Mthembu-Salter, an analyst for the Economist Intelligence Unit in Johannesburg, and expert on Congo. Too many armed factions profit from their control of mineral resources, and worry about facing possible war crimes if they come out of the bush, he says. "They just haven't gotten beyond the zero-sum game."

The Congolese government says the current troubles are the instigation of Rwanda and the government of Paul Kagame. On Wednesday, the Congolese government announced plans to ask the UN Security Council to meet to discuss what they called the invasion of Rwandan soldiers on Congolese soil. Congolese Foreign Minister Antipas Mbusa Nyamwisi told Reuters news agency that he had "hard evidence," including captured Rwandan soldiers, to prove that Rwanda was intervening in Congo.

"The Rwandans are indeed there. They now want to take Goma [capital of North Kivu province]," Nyamwisi told Reuters. Rwandan officials deny the charges.

On the day of the attack on Rumangabo, it was clear that the conflict had escalated. Government tanks lined the road in the front line village of Rugare, pointing their turrets toward the hills where Nkunda's troops make their home. Even a day later, when Nkunda's troops retreated from Rumangabo and the military camp had returned to government control, local villagers continued to pack up their belongings and head for crowded displacement camps.

"We never thought that the camp could be taken, that's why we are forced to leave our village," says Sekibibi Sibomana, a farmer who left during the fighting on Wednesday and has returned to collect food for his family in the displacement camp at Kibumba. "We were sure that the army was very strong, and they could protect us, but they didn't."

Most of the refugees in this area blame the recent fighting on Nkunda, a former Congolese army general who took up arms against the government because of its inability or unwillingness to protect his ethnic Tutsi group against the Hutu-led FDLR.

Gen. Nkunda recently announced his plans to widen his rebellion to liberate the whole of Congo from the control of the government in Kinshasa.

Col. Delphin Kahimbi, commander of the Congolese army effort to retake Rumangabo, pulls out Rwandan Army backpacks and Rwandan Army ID cards as evidence that the recent takeover of his military camp at Rumangabo was a direct intervention by Rwanda.

"This was the Rwandan army with a small group of CNDP [Nkunda's rebel group]," says Col. Kahimbi. "We know that CNDP does not have the capacity. It is the Rwandan Army that has the capacity to come here."

One MONUC official, speaking on condition of anonymity, says he still holds out hope that the January peace agreement can be patched up. He also says that it is unlikely at this stage that the conflict will draw in neighboring countries, even if Congo pushes the UN Security Council to act.
"Kagame has too much to lose [than to enter Congo]," the MONUC official says. "He wants Rwanda to join the Commonwealth. The only way he gets involved here is if there is a massacre of Tutsis. Then he has the humanitarian justification to intervene."






genocide

Intrusive - Public versus Private

When the government intrudes into our personal lives, records exist, laws are followed or not, but in each case, we have recourse. I admit, some people in this country believe the government is a monolithic violator of everything good and progressive. The fallacies with this position are so numerous it would take a book the size of the Oxford Dictionary to unfold all the conditions.

What does not have the same oversight is private enterprise. I am not suggesting I want government to regulate, for that puts us in an awkward position of a government larger than every business in America monitoring every business and every citizen to ensure we are all doing well and helping each other (kumbaya). That is wholly unacceptable in this life and every other life.

However, the issue was private enterprise unregulated. Now, I can always go to another business that does not intrude so extensively. That is true and I understand the motivations without question. I do not appreciate the intrusiveness that comes with the need of private enterprise to ensure profit or truth-telling.

Life Insurance

"X Life Insurance Company, in connection with the underwriting of this insurance contract, may request an investigative consumer report. The report may inquire about your character, general reputation, personal characteristics, and mode of living obtained through personal interviews with the person’s neighbors, friends, associates, acquaintances, or others who may have knowledge concerning those items of information."

An actual statement from a company I use.

The government is restricted in doing investigations and if denied for the job, the files are, by law, destroyed. What do we know for sure about private companies and their records! Do they, must they, could they. Asking my neighbors? What if I am in legal disputes with each of my neighbors and it is because each of them has violated or caused to be violated some enjoyment on my part of my property. What might their comments be, to the investigator? What if I do not speak to nor acknowledge my neighbors and maybe they suspect I am al qaida because of my tendency toward seclusion and privacy. This issue cannot happen with the government (highly unlikely).

If you apply for an FBI job, they do more than send out a questionnaire. They will send 1-2 individuals, usually newbies, to speak to neighbors. In the questions and answers that follow, the agents will determine based on their training, whether or not it is an issue and it would, if deemed to be an issue, be brought up with you, the potential employee. Not so with the life insurance. You would be denied and the records made available as to why you were denied - AFTER the denial. You would not receive the benefit of the doubt and be allowed to explain BEFORE the denial.

Intrusion by choice is still intrusion and whether or not someone says to go elsewhere ... it is increasingly unlikley businesses are not equally as intrusive. The unfortunate part - they will increasingly be more intrusive and we will allow them, all the while we will be vigilant in not allowing the government to listen to suspected al qaida phone calls.