12/19/16

The CIA’s Dirty Tricks Against American Democracy

By: Cliff Kincaid | Accuracy in Media

There is an easy way to determine who is a faithful Democratic Party hack in the media and who on the left maintains at least some independence from the party line. Long-time Democrat Bill Moyers thinks it’s an open-and-shut case that Russia’s Vladimir Putin intervened in the election to help Trump and that our democracy is in peril. The Intercept thinks the evidence is weak, and that the CIA may have some other reason for “squaring off directly against Trump.” What could that possibly be?

Could it be that CIA Director John Brennan fears that Trump as president could order an investigation into what the CIA has been up to under President Obama? What could that be? Could the CIA have been interfering in foreign elections, and if so, could such efforts have provoked Russian retaliation?

The folks at the Intercept are on the far-left, but have decided to maintain some semblance of objectivity when it comes to sensational claims of foreign interference in the 2016 campaign. However, the idea they propose—that the controversy can be solved by President Obama declassifying evidence—is not practical. Obama won’t do it, because the intelligence agencies always claim that disclosure will reveal sources and methods. If they do release “evidence,” it will be vague and mostly worthless, just like the stories in The Washington Post and New York Times, where these allegations initially surfaced. These stories are impossible to confirm or deny.

The CIA will want to hide its hand, not because the evidence may implicate Russia in election interference, but because the evidence we do have demonstrates that the CIA is currently interfering in the results of the 2016 U.S. presidential election. That’s the story that cannot be told, and the one which threatens our democracy. The Times and Post are vehicles for this insidious effort.

We do know that CIA Director Brennan is a far-left extremist—just like Obama himself—who once voted for a Communist Party candidate, and whose sympathies for radical Islam are well-known. Questions persist about whether Brennan, an alumnus of Catholic Fordham University, converted to Islam and why he took his oath of office on a copy of the U.S. Constitution and not the Bible.

But rest assured. Snopes, one of those liberal entities that is now part of the Facebook operation to detect “fake news,” says Brennan’s conversion to Islam remains an “unsubstantiated rumor.” Snopes does, however, report that it is true that Brennan “was sworn in to his office not on a Bible but on a copy of the Constitution.” A photo exists of the occurrence.

The real “fake news” surrounds the claims that Putin intervened to help Trump. At a post-election crying session, Hillary Clinton said that Putin hated her because he associated her with protests against his rule in Russia, and he wanted to get even. Putin did accuse her of stoking the protests. But where is the evidence that the alleged hacking was payback? What’s more, is there evidence that the protests in Russia were inspired or funded by the U.S.? Perhaps that issue ought to be resolved.

Since we know that the Obama administration interfered in foreign elections in Canada and Israel, is it that incredible to believe that the Clinton State Department had a hand in the anti-Putin protests? We noted in a column that Obama had tried, but failed, to take out Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but did succeed in taking down Canada’s Conservative Party Prime Minister Stephen Harper, a big supporter of Israel. Where was the media outcry over that?

An additional question is whether or not Obama used the CIA to interfere in foreign elections such as those in Russia, Canada or Israel.

It may be the case that the Democrats and their media allies have opened up an entire Pandora’s Box when it comes to interference in elections. Shouldn’t we “drain the swamp” here before we focus on what others have done to us?

The issue of U.S. interference in foreign elections is a matter that should be investigated by Congress if it goes forward with a probe into alleged Russian hacking into the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

If the inquiry regarding Russia determines that Putin wanted to destroy Hillary’s campaign and elect Trump, that doesn’t make Trump a dupe of the Russians. It may have just been a personal Putin vendetta against Hillary.

The real issue is what policies these two candidates would have pursued. We already know that Obama and Hillary staged a Russian reset that was a spectacular failure, and that Putin used this new development in relations between the U.S. and Russia to launch military aggression in Ukraine and Syria. So the former KGB chief running Russia knew he could get the better of Hillary if she became president.

Writing at Forbes, Paul Roderick Gregory looks at the evidence of how Trump poses a far greater threat to Putin, not in threatening military action against the Russian regime, but in seeking American energy independence. He says, “If Putin’s core objective is indeed to protect his petrostate, he would not root for Trump. The US fracking revolution has transformed the world energy market from $100 to $50 oil, has broken Russia’s dominance of the European natural gas market, and has plunged the economy into a prolonged ‘period of stagnation,’ as the Soviets used to call it. Under Trump, Putin can expect a second energy revolution, which will threaten Putin’s hold on power, which looks strong but is weaker than we think.” This is why there have been reports that the Russians are secretly subsidizing anti-fracking groups in the West.

Gregory says that if you look at the energy picture from Putin’s perspective, he would have preferred the Obama/Clinton policies that “blocked pipelines, imposed strict regulations on unconventional oil and gas, froze leases on federal lands, and used other anti-carbon actions” that had the ultimate effect of propping up the value of the oil resources of his shaky regime.

If the Democrats really wanted to take down Putin’s regime, they would abandon their anti-fossil fuel policies, give up on a “climate change” agreement that benefits our adversaries, and support the President-elect’s policies of growth and resource exploration and exploitation. Instead, they want to blather on about Putin’s hatred for Hillary, using anonymous CIA sources in the media to make a case for a narrow probe.

Let the investigations begin. Let them be far-reaching and broad. Let’s determine what Obama and Hillary’s State Department did not only to Russia, but to Israel and Canada as well. And let’s find out if the CIA was part of this destabilization effort.

If pursued by a Republican Congress with the guts to probe what really went on and get to the bottom of what the CIA has been up to, we may be looking at a scandal that could shake the foundations of the political party that has occupied the Oval Office for the past eight years. This might be the only way to teach the CIA a lesson about not interfering with the results of an American election.

Cliff Kincaid

Cliff Kincaid is the Director of the AIM Center for Investigative Journalism and can be contacted at [email protected]. View the complete archives from Cliff Kincaid.

10/23/15

The Obama Machine Takes Over Canada

By: Cliff Kincaid
Accuracy in Media

In typically biased fashion, Time magazine has greeted the defeat of Canada’s conservatives with the headline, “Why Justin Trudeau’s Election Is Good News for the Fight Against Climate Change.” But the story has a valid point which bears on the question of why Obama campaign operatives were deployed to subvert the conservative government of Stephen Harper. Obama expects new Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to help promote a climate change treaty to overthrow global capitalism that is expected to come out of a United Nations conference in Paris in December.

Canada has become a satellite of Obama, writes Judi McLeod of Canada Free Press.

But another inevitable outcome of the liberal victory may be more Islamic terrorism in North America. The new Canadian prime minister has extended open arms to Muslims in Canada and more immigration from the Middle East while declaring the need to withdraw from the fight against Islamic terrorism.

A pro-abortion Catholic, Trudeau wants to legalize marijuana and establish more injection sites for heroin users around the country.

If you hadn’t heard about Obama’s campaign to destroy Canada’s conservative government, you missed our story from last week, “Obama Plans Takedown of Another U.S. Ally.”

The destruction of Harper wasn’t as bloody as the Obama/Hillary Clinton effort to overthrow Moammar Gadhafi in Libya, which resulted in the Benghazi murders of four Americans. Nevertheless, the overthrow of the Harper government had the fingerprints of Obama all over it.

Judi McLeod of Canada Free Press, one of my key sources in last week’s article, summed it up in a story with the headline, “Obama Campaign Team Hands Canada Over to the Lib-Left.” She notes, “When word first leaked out that key Obama campaign workers had joined the Trudeau election campaign, the mainstream media continued to look the other way.”

But there’s no reason for conservatives in the U.S. media or Congress to look the other way.

Commenting on misleading polls that underestimated the liberal tide, McLeod said, “What happened was similar to the 2012 Barack Obama victory over Republican Mitt Romney, with a poll-portrayed nail-biter election that turned into an 11th hour landslide for Obama.”

This is a warning for conservatives in the U.S. who think the pendulum is swinging back to them in 2016. Four years ago many of the top commentators at Fox News and Salem Radio thought Romney was a sure winner. Their faulty predictions have not blunted their drive to be “experts” again this time around. Many of them have already missed the significance of the Donald Trump phenomenon and its staying power.

On the left, the progressive machine is on a roll, from Britain, where the Labor Party elected a Marxist as its head, to the United States, where Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) is enticing what many considered smart young people with promises of free taxpayer-financed college educations.

Canada is the latest evidence that conservatives who think history is on their side are in for a rude awakening.

Writing at the conservative Canadian website TheRebel.media, Hamish Marshallnotes that the get-out-the-vote effort by the Liberal Party and the labor unions supporting Trudeau was impressive. Marshall wrote, “What defeated the Conservatives more than the loss of votes, or the collapse of the NDP [New Democratic Party, the third major party in the race] to the Liberals was the huge number of new voters. Turnout will be in the range of 69%, with 3 million more votes cast than in 2011. The vast majority of those new voters supported the Liberals.”

The situation is bleak in Canada, probably worse than many conservatives would care to admit. The battles over abortion-on-demand and homosexual rights are basically over in Canada, while they continue in the U.S. On social issues, Harper was credited by Canadian conservatives with slowing down the movement for euthanasia. He fought a national day care scheme with tax credits for parents. But that’s been about it.

Giving up on the Conservative Party, some Canadians created the Christian Heritage Party (CHP) to compete and wage a real political battle for traditional values. It is a minor political party that didn’t do very well in the October 19 elections.

The reason, according to Peter Vogel of the Christian Heritage Party, is that Canada has already been fundamentally transformed. “We had a ‘conservative’ government that was not socially conservative because Canada is not socially conservative, and now we have a truly liberal government because our society is liberal,” he said. It is a sad fact. Like much of Europe, Canada has abandoned its Judeo-Christian roots.

Vogel is right: the Harper conservatives were afraid to be bold. They operated as if cultural transformation was a fact of life they could not really change. The Conservative Party had a platform that was vague and based on staying the course, mostly economically.

In tough language, Vogel went on to say, “We elected a government that will make matters worse for the unborn, and other vulnerable citizens, if that is possible. They will open our borders to erase Canada’s Christian heritage. (How many churches did Mr. Trudeau visit compared to the number of mosques he visited?) It is a government that is committed to impoverishing Canadians by increasing taxes (such as the ‘Carbon Tax’ and continuing to run a deficit). It is a government that will not fight terrorism in the regions from which it comes, but will allow terrorists to come to Canada. Then we will have to fight them as they radicalize our youth, blow-up our buildings, and kill our citizens.”

The comment about Trudeau visiting more mosques than churches is significant. This political fact has dramatic implications.

The CHP says that over 50 terrorist organizations are currently active in Canada and that the Canadian refugee and immigration system “is inadequate to secure the nation from the threats posed by terrorism.”

Of course, the United States is also threatened by this problem, which is bound to get worse under Trudeau. Perhaps Scott Walker’s reported off-hand comment about possibly erecting a wall between the U.S. and Canada now makes sense. (Walker did not specifically advocate a wall along our northern border but acknowledged that law enforcement authorities had discussed a possible terrorist threat from Canada).

A viral video posted on but not produced by TheRebel.media was a stark warning about Trudeau’s involvement in Muslim causes. Indeed, it showed a picture of Trudeau reciting the Muslim convert’s “shahada” prayer during a visit to a mosque.

Ezra Levant of TheRebel.media wrote at the Toronto Sun that Trudeau wore a full Arab-style Muslim dress called a jalabiya to the mosque in B.C. called the Surrey Jamia Masjid. Levant explained, “But it’s not Trudeau’s dress that was the most unusual. It’s what he did. He went to the mosque to participate in a religious ritual, called the Maghrib salah. It’s a daily prayer service with a particular meaning. Part of the prayer is called the shahada, which in Arabic means to testify. As in, to testify to the Truth that Allah is the one true God, and Mohammed is his one true Prophet. To say the shahada, in the presence of two or more Muslim males, is the sole requirement in Islamic law to convert to Islam.”

He added, “I don’t believe Trudeau is Muslim. I don’t believe he is anything other than what his handlers and costume designers put in his hands before each public event. And in Trudeau’s case, his senior policy adviser just happens to be Omar Alghabra, the Saudi-born former president of the Canadian Arab Federation.”

Trudeau opposes the fight against the Islamic State. The Washington Post and other media are now reporting that Trudeau “would make good on a campaign promise to withdraw Canada’s jets from the U.S.-led bombing campaign against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.” This would seem to be a break with Obama’s policy, except for the fact that Obama’s heart was never in the fight to begin with. Hence, Russia’s Vladimir Putin has stepped in to the void deliberately created by the U.S. President.

U.S. Congressional leaders in the U.S. seem preoccupied with whom to elect as the new Speaker of the House, as well as Benghazi. Those are important matters. But it might make some sense, in terms of oversight of the Obama administration, to launch an inquiry into American political interference in the Canadian elections.

What does possible House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) think about that? Some conservatives want to know.

10/16/15

Obama Plans Takedown of Another U.S. Ally

By: Cliff Kincaid
Accuracy in Media

President Obama failed to take out Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu but now he’s going after Canada’s Conservative Party Prime Minister Stephen Harper, a big supporter of Israel and opponent of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

It’s a story the U.S. media won’t cover. But Judi McLeod of the Canada Free Press has been documenting how Obama is planning the “fundamental transformation” of Canada by taking down Harper’s government and bringing to power a progressive majority assembled from Canada’s Liberal Party and New Democratic Party (NDP), an affiliate of the Socialist International.

In a dispatch earlier this year, McLeod provided the facts about the interference of Obama campaign operatives in the Canadian elections scheduled for October 19. “In Canada, Obama’s campaign team is guiding the election campaigns of both the Liberals and the NDP,” she wrote. She urged the Harper government to investigate.

She explained why Obama is targeting Canada: “To the U.S., Canada is the country next door, to Obama it’s home of the architects of the maligned Keystone XL Pipeline and home to the world’s Number One elected defender of Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.”

Indeed, for the last seven years Harper has not only been supporting Israel but functioning as the leader of the Free World, in the face of Obama’s deal-making with America’s enemies and adversaries. In 2014, at the summit of G20 nations, Harper famously told Russian President Putin that he needs “to get out of Ukraine.” Putin replied with a lie, saying the Russians weren’t in Ukraine.

Harper has declared, “Israel is the front line of free democratic nations, and any who turn their back on Israel or turn a blind eye to the nature of Israel’s enemies do so in the long run at their own peril.”

In a recent speech to the Jewish Community Council of Montreal, he said, “Those who hate democracy and freedom, tolerance and openness, having been plotting attacks against Western nations, beginning with Israel, for decades, seeking to destroy our rare and precious way of life. We were told for years to just ignore the erosion of freedoms and the growing aggression of Putin’s Russia. Look where that has taken the world.”

Canada used to have a conservative cable channel, Sun News Network. But it went out of business earlier this year when the channel failed to get enough distribution to pay for expenses. Cable companies in Canada were carrying foreign channels such as Al Jazeera and Putin’s Russia Today, but wouldn’t carry Sun News. Brian Lilley, a former host on the network, said that the cable companies “didn’t like the message.” He explained, “They didn’t like that we were brash, we were very conservative. We were pro-business, pro-family, pro-oil, pro-Israel. We were pro-America…They decided to shut us down.”

Lilley and his former colleagues have formed TheRebel.media as a replacement, with special news coverage of national and international news. The group’sYouTube channel, with 1,500 videos, is the place to go for conservative coverage of the Canadian elections and other news. Their videos have already attracted millions of views. A report by Ezra Levant on the election describes reporters at Canada’s state broadcaster, the Canadian Broadcasting Company (CBC), as “liberals with press credentials.” Lilley has been leading a campaign to have the government, which provides about $1 billion to the CBC, sell the broadcasting entity to the private sector. Visitors can also get access to podcasts, columns and blogs, and contribute financially to maintain and expand this important site for news and information.

While the Liberal Party of Justin Trudeau campaigns for legal dope and injection centers for drug addicts, and the New Democratic Party proposes Bernie Sanders-style socialism for Canada, the Conservative Party of Canada has been on the side of individual freedom, traditional values and free enterprise. Harper has taken on the jihadists who want to destroy Western civilization and has spoken eloquently about the stakes for the Free World, such as in a 2014 speech to the Tribute to Liberty Dinner in Toronto. The topic on this occasion was the need to establish a Memorial to Victims of Communism in Canada.

“During the 20th century, communism’s poisonous ideology and ruthless practice slowly bled into countries all around the world, on almost every continent,”Harper said. “The result was nothing short of catastrophic. More than one hundred million souls were lost, an almost incomprehensible number. We must never forget that these are not numbers, they are not statistics. They were mothers and fathers, sons and daughters, friends and neighbors. Their futures, their potential, their hopes and dreams, were stolen from them. Our hearts break for those who suffered and we mourn for those who were crushed.”

After affirming Canada’s solidarity with Ukraine, in the face of Russian aggression, Harper described another current threat, international Islamic terrorism, and said, “…whatever it calls itself—Nazism, Marxist-Leninism, today, terrorism—they all have one thing in common: the destruction, the end of human liberty. My fear is this: as we move further into the 21st century, Canadians, especially new generations, will forget or will not be taught the lessons hard learned and the victories hard earned over the last 100 years. That they will fall even further in love with ease and convenience. And that they will not understand that their rights and their advantages, their peace and their security, were won by people willing to live and die for what is good and right.”

Harper, in power since 2006, has truly been the leader of the Free World over the last seven years. He is a reminder of what an American president should be standing for in the world. No wonder Obama wants to finish him off.

10/10/15

Will Canadian Conservatives Win on Oct. 19?

By: Cliff Kincaid
America’s Survival

With Barack Obama as U.S. president, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper has emerged as the leader of the Free World. Brian Lilley of The Rebel.Media discusses how Obama’s campaign staffers are helping Harper’s political enemies in the Liberal Party and the New Democratic Party. Lilley says Harper has focused on the economy “and moving incrementally in a conservative manner.” He countered a socialist proposal for a national day care system with tax credits for parents. He is tough on illegal immigration but open to legal immigration. Gay marriage and abortion-on-demand are realities in Canada, but Harper has stopped euthanasia, Lilley says. The former commentator for the Sun News Network also discusses why the channel is now defunct and how people can support TheRebel.media as a conservative alternative in Canada and around the world.

09/16/15

Is Trump the Next Reagan?

By: Cliff Kincaid
Accuracy in Media

The Party for Socialism and Liberation, one of many communist groups in the U.S., argues that “the long period of reaction that began in the late 1970s and greatly accelerated under Margaret Thatcher in Britain and Ronald Reagan in the United States is drawing to a close.” Leaving aside the Marxist rhetoric about “reaction,” one has to say there may be some validity to what the communists are saying. After all, Bernie Sanders seems to be leading the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, Marxist Jeremy Corbyn has become head of the Labor Party in Britain, and the socialist New Democratic Party is poised to win national elections in Canada on October 19.

On the Republican side in the U.S., the leading candidate, Donald Trump, seems to have no ideology at all. While he has made illegal immigration into an issue, his statements on other issues demonstrate no coherent outlook on the nature or size of government. On foreign policy, his claim that he could negotiate with Russia’s Vladimir Putin seems to be a reflection of his “Art of the Deal” approach to business matters. But Putin means business, and the Russians can’t be trusted. It’s shocking that Trump thinks he can somehow negotiate a good deal with Putin, whose military position has been enhanced under the presidency of Barack Obama.

In order to understand the Sanders phenomenon, I covered the senator’s Monday night appearance in Manassas, Virginia, where he spoke to a mostly young white audience. The media exaggerated the number of people who turned out, with several reporters putting the size of the crowd at 10,000. But about 2,000 people did, in fact, show up, feeling the “Bern” as Sanders took it to the “billionaire class” and demanded freebies for the “kids,” as he called the students with college debt. He knows that free college has an appeal, like the general socialist notion that government can provide goods and services at little or no cost. It’s a fable that students who should be getting a good education are falling for in increasing numbers. They account for much of the Sanders movement.

Sanders made only one mention of Russia in his Manassas speech, saying that he hoped that the U.S. would join with Russia and other countries to tackle so-called climate change. He didn’t have one word of criticism for Putin over the invasion of Ukraine and threats against other nations, including the U.S.

Russia is a good place to start when analyzing both Sanders and Trump. It is a test of what they know and would do about foreign policy. Sanders, who honeymooned in the old USSR and worked with Communist Party fronts like the U.S. Peace Council, doesn’t want to talk about it. Let’s hope Trump gets pressed on this issue during Wednesday night’s debate on CNN.

On Tuesday, we received more ominous news about Russian military advances. Reuters reported that General Frank Gorenc, commander of U.S. Air Forces in Europe, cited “alarming” moves by the Russian military since the invasion of Georgia in 2008 and its takeover of Crimea. He made the comments at the annual Air Force Association conference.

Air Force Times headlined his remarks, “USAFE commander: Russia catching up with Air Force.” This paper quoted Gorenc as saying, “The advantage that we had from the air, I can honestly say, is shrinking, not only with respect to the aircraft that they’re producing, but the more alarming thing is their ability to create anti-access area denied areas is a challenge that we’re all going to face up to and that we’re all going to have to train to.”

So how would Donald Trump negotiate with Putin over this? It seems the only response the Russians would understand would be for the U.S. to modernize its own military, in order to maintain an advantage.

It’s clear that Sanders and Britain’s Jeremy Corbyn would get along very well. Indeed, Sanders said he was delighted that Corbyn won the election as head of the British Labor Party. Corbyn is considered so far left that it is not unfair to call him a stooge of Putin and Russia.

The Sanders success and the Corbyn victory are two reasons why a communist outfit like the Party for Socialism and Liberation is so optimistic about the future, from the “progressive” perspective.

The Marxist group proclaims, using its familiar jargon, that “A new period of resistance to monopoly capitalism/imperialism is opening up, potentially leading to a revival of not only the trade unions but the revolutionary workers’ movement throughout the world. That this initial revival of anti-capitalism and socialism is being frequently, although not exclusively, expressed through the vehicle of electoral politics is to be expected in the first stage.”

It does indeed look like the socialists and their fellow-travelers are on the move. When you add to their forces a Marxist pope whose anti-capitalist rhetoric has been matched by dealings which enabled President Obama to recognize the communist government of Cuba, one has to acknowledge that the Thatcher and Reagan years are behind us and that their enemies have managed to come out on top.

Against this trend, here in America, we have the spectacle of a businessman leading the Republican race for the presidential nomination who has flip-flopped on every significant public policy issue, including his political party identification. Indeed, The Smoking Gun website cites documents indicating that Trump switched political party affiliations many different times. While Reagan left the Democratic Party and became a Republican, he did this for solid ideological reasons.

Reagan talked issues, while Trump talks about himself, especially his hair. Reagan had a good head of hair and an anti-communist brain to go along with it.

08/13/15

I’m running for Parliament!

Hat Tip: Iowa Hawk

I'm emigrating Canada immediately just so I can vote for this badass MoFo https://t.co/SSepzopKUe

— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) August 13, 2015

07/18/15

The Three Prime Evils

07/17/15

In Secret: Obama Returned Iranian Prisoners, but Ignored Ours

By: Denise Simon
FoundersCode.com

There are 4 Americans in prison in Iran for which there have been countless calls and efforts for their release. Major Garrett of CBS asked Barack Obama during a press conference if he was content with leaving those Americans behind to which Obama responded by shaming Garrett for even asking the question.

It should also be noted that the Palestinian Authority demanded that thousands of terrorists in prison in Israel be released for a scheduled round of peace talks between Israel and the PA. Barack Obama forced Israel to comply for face financial extortion. Israel complied where later many of those terrorists were re-arrested in Qatar. The betrayal continues. The secrets were effective.

So the secret deals began and continued.

‘US freed top Iranian scientist as part of secret talks ahead of Geneva deal’

Mojtaba Atarodi, arrested in California for attempting to acquire equipment for Iran’s military-nuclear programs, was released in April as part of back channel talks, Times of Israel told. The contacts, mediated in Oman for years by close colleague of the Sultan, have seen a series of US-Iran prisoner releases, and there may be more to come

Times of Israel:

The secret back channel of negotiations between Iran and the United States, which led to this month’s interim deal in Geneva on Iran’s rogue nuclear program, has also seen a series of prisoner releases by both sides, which have played a central role in bridging the distance between the two nations, the Times of Israel has been told.

In the most dramatic of those releases, the US in April released a top Iranian scientist, Mojtaba Atarodi, who had been arrested in 2011 for attempting to acquire equipment that could be used for Iran’s military-nuclear programs.

American and Iranian officials have been meeting secretly in Oman on and off for years, according to a respected Israeli intelligence analyst, Ronen Solomon. And in the past three years as a consequence of those talks, Iran released three American prisoners, all via Oman, and the US responded in kind. Then, most critically, in April, when the back channel was reactivated in advance of the Geneva P5+1 meetings, the US released a fourth Iranian prisoner, high-ranking Iranian scientist Atarodi, who was arrested in California on charges that remain sealed but relate to his attempt to acquire what are known as dual-use technologies, or equipment that could be used for Iran’s military-nuclear programs. Iran has not reciprocated for that latest release.

Solomon, an independent intelligence analyst (who in 2009 revealed the crucial role played by German Federal Intelligence Service officer Gerhard Conrad in the negotiations that led to the 2011 Gilad Shalit Israel-Hamas prisoner deal), has been following the US-Iran meetings in Oman for years. Detailing what he termed the “unwritten prisoner exchange deals” agreed over the years in Oman by the US and Iran, Solomon told The Times of Israel that “It’s clear what the Iranians got” with the release of top scientist Atarodi in April. “What’s unclear is what the US got.”

The history of these deals, though, he said, would suggest that in the coming months Iran will release at least one of three US citizens who are currently believed to be in Iranian custody. One of these three is former FBI agent Robert Levinson.

Solomon told The Times of Israel that the interlocutor in the Oman talks is a man named Salem Ben Nasser al Ismaily, who is the executive president of the Omani Center for Investment Promotion and Export Development and a close confidant of the Omani leader Sultan Qaboos bin Said.

Educated in the US and the UK and fluent in English, Ismaily has authored two books. “Messengers of Monotheism: A Common Heritage of Christians, Jews and Muslims” and “A Cup of Coffee: A Westerner’s Guide to Business in the Gulf States.”

The latter tells the fictional tale of John Wilkinson, a successful American businessman who fails in all of his business endeavors in the Gulf until he meets Sultan, who explains to him, according to the book’s promotional literature, how to forgo his hard-charging Western style and “surrender to very different values rooted in ancient tribal customs and traditions.” Those mores have been central to the murky prisoner swaps surrounding the nuclear negotiations, Solomon said.

Solomon said he identified Ismaily’s role back in September 2010, when Sarah Shourd, an American who apparently inadvertently crossed into Iran while hiking near the Iraqi border, was released, for what were called humanitarian reasons. She was delivered into Ismaily’s hands in Oman and from there was flown to the US — the first release in the series of deals brokered in Oman. One year later, in September 2011, her fiancé and fellow hiker, Shane Bauer, was set free along with their friend, Josh Fattal. The two men were also received at Muscat’s Seeb military airport by Ismaily before being flown back to the US.

The US began reciprocating in August 2012, Solomon said. It freed Shahrzad Mir Gholikhan, an Iranian convicted on three counts of weapons trafficking. Next Nosratollah Tajik, a former Iranian ambassador to Jordan — who, like Gholikhan, had been initially apprehended abroad trying to buy night-vision goggles from US agents — was freed after the US opted not to follow up an extradition request it had submitted to the British. Then, in January 2013, Amir Hossein Seirafi was released, also via Oman, having been arrested in Frankfurt and convicted in the US of trying to buy specialized vacuum pumps that could be used in the Iranian nuclear program.

Finally, in April, came the release of Mojtaba Atarodi.

The facts of his case are still shrouded. On December 7, 2011, Atarodi, a faculty member at the prestigious Sharif University of Technology (SUT) in Tehran — a US-educated electrical engineer with a heart condition, a green card and a brother living in the US — arrived at LAX and was arrested by US federal officials.

He appeared twice in US federal court in San Francisco and was incarcerated at a federal facility in Dublin, California and then kept under house arrest. The US government cloaked the contents of his indictment and released no statement upon his release. His lawyer, Matthew David Kohn, told The Times of Israel he would like to discuss the case further but that first he had to “make some inquiries” to see what he was allowed to reveal.

In January, shortly after Atarodi’s arrest, his colleagues wrote a letter to the journal Nature, protesting his detention. “We believe holding a distinguished 55-year-old professor in custody is a historical mistake and not commensurate with the image that America strives to extend throughout the world as a bastion of free scientific exchange among schools and academic institutions,” they said.

Solomon, who compiled a profile of Atarodi, believes that the scientist, prior to his arrest, played an important role in Iran’s missile and nuclear programs. Atarodi, he said, has co-authored more than 30 technical articles, mostly related to micro-electric engineering and, in 2011, won the Khwarizmi award for the design of a microchip receiver for digital photos. “That same technology,” he said, “can be used for missile guidance and the analysis of nuclear tests.”

Solomon further noted that the then-Iranian defense minister and former commander of the revolutionary guards, Ahmad Vahidi, attended the prize ceremony and that Professor Massoud Ali-Mahmoudi, an Iranian physics professor who was assassinated in 2010, was an earlier recipient of the prize.

“There is no doubt in my mind that Atarodi came to the US at the behest of the logistics wing of the IRGC [the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps],” Solomon said.

On April 26 Atarodi was flown from the US to Seeb military airbase in Oman, where he met with Ismaily, and onward to Iran. “The release of someone who holds that sort of information and has advanced strategic projects in Iran is a prize,” Solomon said. The US, said Solomon, must have already received something in return or will do so in the future.

Thus far, US-Iran prisoner swaps have been conducted in a manner utterly distinct from the old Cold War rituals, in which, as was the case with Prisoner of Zion Natan Sharansky, spies or prisoners from either side of the Iron Curtain walked across Berlin’s old Glienicke Bridge toward their respective home countries. Instead, with Iran claiming it knows nothing about the whereabouts of former FBI agent Levinson, for instance, and the US eager to show that it will not barter with hostage-takers, the deals have taken the form of a delayed quid pro quo.

There are currently three US nationals — Levinson, Saeed Abedini, and Amir Hekmati — still believed to be held in Iran.

US President Barak Obama raised the issue of the imprisoned Americans in his historic September phone call to Iranian President Hassan Rouhani. Obama’s Deputy National Security Advisor, Tony Blinken, told CNN that aside from the nuclear program it was the only other issue that was brought up in the call.

The interim deal in Geneva did not include any reference to prisoner dealings. Richard Haas, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, told CNN, “you’ve got to decide how much you’re going to try to accomplish, and just tackling all the dimensions of the nuclear agreement is ambition enough.” A spokeswoman for the National Security Council added that the “talks focused exclusively on nuclear issues.”

The omission prompted the chief counsel of the American Center for Law and Justice, Jay Sekulow, who is representing Pastor Saeed Abedini’s wife Naghmeh, to charge Obama and US Secretary of State John Kerry with turning their backs on an American citizen. On the center’s website, he called the decision “outrageous and a betrayal” and said it sends the message that “Americans are expendable.”

Abedini, who was born in Iran and later converted to Christianity, was arrested earlier this year in Iran for what would seem was strictly Christian charity work and sentenced to eight years in prison. He was recently transferred from Evin Prison, a notorious jail for political prisoners in Tehran, Sukelow wrote in a letter to Kerry, “to the even more notorious and brutal Rajai Shahr Prison in Karaj.”

Amir Hekmati, a 31-year-old former Marine from Flint, Michigan, who allegedly obtained permission to visit his grandmother in Iran in 2011, was charged with espionage and sentenced to death in 2012. In September, Hekmati managed to smuggle a letter out of prison. Published in the Guardian, it contended that his filmed admission of guilt had been coerced and that his arrest “is part of a propaganda and hostage-taking effort by Iranian intelligence to secure the release of Iranians abroad being held on security-related charges.”

Levinson, a 65-year-old veteran of the FBI, was last seen on March 9, 2007, on Kish Island, Iran. According to Solomon, Levinson was stationed in Dubai at the time as part of a US task force comprised of former officers operating in the United Arab Emirates, training officials there to combat weapons trafficking, and was tempted to come to Kish for a meeting.

The last person he is known to have had contact with, and with whom he shared a room the night before his abduction, according to a Reuters article from 2007, is Dawud Salahuddin, an American convert to Islam, who is wanted in the US for murder. According to a New Yorker profile of the Long Island-born Salahuddin, he showed up at the home of Ali Akbar Tabatabai’s Bethseda, Maryland door in July 1980, dressed as a mailman, and shot Tabatabai, a Shah supporter, three times in the abdomen, killing him. From there he fled to Canada and on to Switzerland and Iran.

Salahuddin has indicated that Levinson had come to Kish to meet with him.

In September, Rouhani denied any knowledge of Levinson’s whereabouts. In an interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour, he said that, “We don’t know where he is, who he is. He is an American who has disappeared. We have no news of him.”

This is highly doubtful. In 2010 and 2011 Levinson’s family received a video and photographs respectively of him in captivity. In January of this year the AP reported that “despite years of denials,” many US security officials now believe that “Iran’s intelligence service was almost certainly behind the 54-second video and five photographs of Levinson that were emailed anonymously to his family.” The photos and the videos traced back to different addresses in Afghanistan and Pakistan, suggesting, perhaps, that Levinson, the longest-held hostage in US history, was imprisoned in Balochistan, a desert region spanning the borders of Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan.

On Tuesday, Levinson’s son Dan wrote a column in the Washington Post calling Rouhani and Foreign Minister Javad Zarif “well-respected men committed to the goodwill of all human beings, regardless of their nationality.”

Several hours later, White House Spokesman Jay Carney published a statement saying that the US government welcomes the assistance “of our international partners” in attempting to bring Levinson home and, he added, “we respectfully ask the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran to assist us in securing Mr. Levinson’s health, welfare, and safe return.”

As was the case with the Geneva negotiations, and as is likely happening with the upcoming round of talks regarding Syria, there is good reason to believe, and in this case to hope, that the movements played out under the spotlights of the international stage have been choreographed well in advance, perhaps in the sea-side city of Muscat, under the careful tutelage of Salem Ben Nasser al Ismaily.

07/4/15

Vapid Musings At Vox And Why The American Revolution Was NOT A Mistake

By: Terresa Monroe-Hamilton

Over the years I have seen many idiotic pieces of what pass for journalistic regurgitation and moronic self-indulgence… the piece over at Vox entitled: 3 reasons the American Revolution was a mistake, by Dylan Matthews, is in a class all by its lonesome. It begs for a brutal fisking and on this Independence Day in 2015, far from the revolutionary battlefield (but perhaps getting closer by the day and hour), I will oblige this vapid moonbat in honor of our Independence. Hard won for us all, benefiting even the likes of this troll.

Now, granted… this wannabe hipster is no brain trust. In fact, he looks stoned and addled:

Dylan Matthews of Vox

Dylan Matthews has been writing since the age of 14 in 2004. He went to Harvard as well. Then he went on to write for the Washington Post. He also writes for Salon and The New Republic. In other words, he’s a radical Leftist and a Marxist. Duh. Dylan Matthews was an identified member of JournoList – an email group of approximately 400 “Progressive” and socialist journalists, academics and “new media” activists. The group was shut down in 2010 after being exposed from within. Yep, no bias there. Right.

Our young Marxist starts off his diatribe with a picture of George Washington, where he wittily captions it: George Washington crosses the Delaware, makes the world a worse place in the process. Only if you detest freedom and living in the greatest nation to ever grace the planet, which of course he does.

After besmirching our first and greatest president and someone that Matthews will NEVER be, a man of courage and character, he goes on to opine that on this July 4th, he is flying to the UK. The symbolism of it all is not lost on this raving moonbat. Matthews then proclaims that “American independence in 1776 was a monumental mistake” (never mind the years from 1776 to 1783 when Independence was actually attained) and that we should be grieving that we left the Brits instead of staying indentured to the British Empire. Does this guy even read history? Evidently not, because he knows nothing of the American Revolution or the Independence our forebears fought, bled and died for, all so we could be free. Free to practice our religion as we see fit… free to speak out without fear of persecution… free from crushing taxes and free to craft our own laws and conduct business as a free nation would. The pseudo-intellectuality of this cretin is nauseating.

His first premise is that abolition would have come faster without Independence:

Abolition in most of the British Empire occurred in 1834, following the passage of the Slavery Abolition Act. That left out India, but slavery was banned there too in 1843. In England itself, slavery was illegal at least going back to 1772. That’s decades earlier than the United States.

This alone is enough to make the case against the revolution. Decades less slavery is a massive humanitarian gain that almost certainly dominates whatever gains came to the colonists from independence.

There’s a gaping fallacy in the above and unless Matthews is just stone stupid (which could well be the case), it is dishonest. In 1772, the US colonies were still under British rule. He claims that slavery was illegal for the Brits dating back to that year, but it didn’t end slavery here in the US. That was under the control of the British. And the infamous British slave trade was not ended until 1807. It’s also a fact that in the West Indies, where slaves were freed in 1834, they were forced to continue working for their former masters for four to six years without compensation after they were set ‘free.’ Chattel slavery was replaced by serfdom. When they were freed, they did not own the houses they lived in, their livestock or their farms. They had to start paying rent. They were still forced to work for the very masters who set them free and follow their orders or starve. So, claiming that slavery was eradicated by the Brits long before the US did is somewhat specious. Saying that slavery ended at that time was akin to saying what ‘is’ is. Very little changed in the beginning.

Contrary to his gender-studies/racism-fusion rant, the revolution did not give more power to the “white male minority” as its primary motive. He purports that from the very beginning the whole country was about repression. We were fleeing repression. The people who settled this country, for the most part, came here to escape religious and political persecution in England and Europe. His argument has no foundation and is entirely speculative, written as though to answer an academic “how does the American Revolution make you feel?” question. Do you honestly believe that women, Indians and blacks would have been any better off under British rule in the colonies? Not a chance. The British didn’t care about women’s rights or the plight of the Indians or the civil rights of African Americans. They were for power for the King, the nobility and whatever benefited the monarchy. Their “rights” were granted at the whim of the monarch, not from God nor even seen as natural human rights. The British nobility reveled in servants and to this day they still do… they’re just paid a wage now and appear to be free. His arguments on emancipation are even more ridiculous.

As for Matthews claiming that the majority of African Americans fought for the Crown, once again, history is a bitch. Prior to the revolution, many free African Americans supported the anti-British cause, most famously Crispus Attucks, believed to be the first person killed at the Boston Massacre. At the time of the American Revolution, some blacks had already been enlisted as Minutemen. Both free and enslaved Africans had served in local militias, especially in the North, defending their villages against attacks by Native Americans. In March of 1775, the Continental Congress assigned units of the Massachusetts militia as Minutemen. They were under orders to become activated if the British troops in Boston took the offensive.

In April of 1775, at Lexington and Concord, blacks responded to the call and fought with Patriot forces. The Battle of Bunker Hill also had African-American soldiers fighting along with white Patriots. Many African Americans, both enslaved and free, wanted to join with the Patriots. They believed that they would either achieve freedom or expand their civil rights. In addition to the role of soldier, blacks also served as guides, messengers and spies.

American states had to meet quotas of troops for the new Continental Army and New England regiments recruited black slaves by promising freedom to those who served in the Continental Army. During the course of the war, about one fifth of the northern army was black. At the Siege of Yorktown in 1781, Baron Closen, a German officer in the French Royal Deux-Ponts Regiment, estimated the American army to be about one quarter black.

You cannot secure freedom for a minority of any kind if there is no freedom to be had for anyone. The patriots of the American Revolution knew this and fought to the death for it.

However, in the spirit of identifying actual causes of oppression, since that seems to be his “hot button” issue, let’s remember that, indeed, there was a faction in this country that labored long and hard to preserve the subservience of the blacks long after their official emancipation. That faction was the Democrat party and its adjuncts, such as the KKK. The Democrats hated that the Republican party — expressly founded to secure the rights and equality of blacks — was beginning to gain traction, to the point that they mounted a massive subterfuge to blame the plight of blacks on the very people who had worked to free them, culminating in the infamous words of Lyndon B. Johnson: “I’ll have those niggers voting Democratic for the next 200 years.” So, Dylan, if you wonder why the Black Man is still struggling in America, check your Dem privilege, you simpering fop.

The Revolutionary War was fought over the right to bear arms and against taxes and tariffs, plus a long list of grievances. Please see below – the Declaration of Independence gives lie to his ill-informed assertions:

…But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.–Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

Next, Matthews claims that independence was bad for Native Americans:

Starting with the Proclamation of 1763, the British colonial government placed firm limits on westward settlement in the United States. It wasn’t motivated by an altruistic desire to keep American Indians from being subjugated or anything; it just wanted to avoid border conflicts.

But all the same, the policy enraged American settlers, who were appalled that the British would seem to side with Indians over white men. “The British government remained willing to conceive of Native Americans as subjects of the crown, similar to colonists,” Ethan Schmidt writes in Native Americans in the American Revolution. “American colonists … refused to see Indians as fellow subjects. Instead, they viewed them as obstacles in the way of their dreams of land ownership and trading wealth.” This view is reflected in the Declaration of Independence, which attacks King George III for backing “merciless Indian Savages.”

Nice skewed version of history you’ve got there son. I know you’ll be shocked, but he gets it wrong yet again. The Proclamation of 1763 does not mean what he is claiming it does. The Royal Proclamation of 1763 was issued October 7th, 1763, by King George III, following Great Britain’s acquisition of French territory in North America after the end of the French and Indian War/Seven Years’ War, which forbade all settlement past a line drawn along the Appalachian Mountains. The Royal Proclamation continues to be of legal importance to First Nations in Canada and is significant for the variation of indigenous status in the United States. It eventually ensured that British culture and laws were applied in Upper Canada after 1791, which was done to attract British settlers to the province. Last time I looked, we were not Canada. This was the Brits’ way of trying to manage North America and had nothing to do with Native Americans. The colonists objected to being slaughtered by the Indians, I’m sure. Racism did exist, but it would have been no less under British rule, I assure you. Border conflicts and battles would still have been the norm until the Brits had had enough and quelled them.

And lastly, Matthews claims America would have a better system of government if we’d stuck with Britain.

I’ve heard this argument many times… that any government is better than our Constitutional Republic – especially the parliamentary system. That’s an ill conceived joke. I’m sure whatever history that Matthews was taught was biased and left huge holes in reality and how things truly unfolded here in the States. Matthews is a big government guy – an outspoken Progressive. The people don’t know what is best for them and never have according to him – you know, as in a dictatorship. They would be far better off, in his warped view, if our elite betters simply decided everything for us. This is how we have gotten to where we are today, via Obama. In fact, Matthews during his brief adult life, at the tender age of 25, has never known anything else than an Obama Administration. He’s in for quite a culture shock when a true conservative, such as Ted Cruz, is elected.

RedState points out that Ben Domenech, in The Transom, points out the best critique of this nonsense comes from Mark Twain, who did not graduate from Harvard and would rip Matthews to shreds:

“For in a republic, who is “the Country”? Is it the Government which is for the moment in the saddle? Why, the Government is merely a servant — merely a temporary servant; it cannot be its prerogative to determine what is right and what is wrong, and decide who is a patriot and who isn’t. Its function is to obey orders, not originate them. Who, then, is “the country?” Is it the newspaper? Is it the pulpit? Is it the school-superintendent? Why, these are mere parts of the country, not the whole of it; they have not command, they have only their little share in the command. They are but one in the thousand; it is in the thousand that command is lodged; they must determine what is right and what is wrong; they must decide who is a patriot and who isn’t.”

“In a monarchy, the king and his family are the country; in a republic it is the common voice of the people. Each of you, for himself, by himself and on his own responsibility, must speak. And it is a solemn and weighty responsibility, and not lightly to be flung aside at the bullying of pulpit, press, government, or the empty catch-phrases of politicians. Each must for himself alone decide what is right and what is wrong, and which course is patriotic and which isn’t. You cannot shirk this and be a man. To decide it against your convictions is to be an unqualified and inexcusable traitor, both to yourself and to your country, let men label you as they may. If you alone of all the nation shall decide one way, and that way be the right way according to your convictions of the right, you have done your duty by yourself and by your country — hold up your head! You have nothing to be ashamed of.”

When drafting the Constitution, the founders ensured that the executive, judicial and legislative branches had co-equal power, with checks and balances to ensure that neither branch produced a dictatorship. I’m sure that is much to Matthews’ dismay. I wonder in Matthews’ lack of study, if he ever considered the history of 20th-century parliamentary systems, especially one in particular — the Weimar Republic. Matthews supports a parliamentary system in opposition to our Republic, claiming it is a bulwark against a dictatorship. Seriously? And this is because he likes unchecked big government power. You can’t make this stuff up:

In the US, activists wanting to put a price on carbon emissions spent years trying to put together a coalition to make it happen, mobilizing sympathetic businesses and philanthropists and attempting to make bipartisan coalition — and they still failed to pass cap and trade, after millions of dollars and man hours. In the UK, the Conservative government decided it wanted a carbon tax. So there was a carbon tax. Just like that. Passing big, necessary legislation — in this case, legislation that’s literally necessary to save the planet — is a whole lot easier with parliaments than presidential systems.

Yeah, screw that whole ‘freedom’ thing. Big government gets it done faster and eliminates the riffraff factor. This guy is the very definition of a useful idiot.

Krystal Heath had this to say about the greatness of America over at Louder with Crowder – 15 reasons why the American Revolution was the best thing that ever happened to the world:

1. It established a haven for religious freedom. Oppressed men, women, and children from all around the globe flocked to our shores to worship the god they pleased in the manner they desired to… and no one was going to stop them, kill them, or force them to convert.

2. It created a democratic republic. For the first time in modern history, the average citizen had a voice in his own government. And it’s worked out pretty well for us.

3. It recognized that mankind is endowed with certain unalienable rights by their Creator. Government doesn’t give us our rights, our very existence does. Yes, America, we were the ones who put that in writing and created a standard for human rights unparalleled by any other governmental system.

4. It ended tyranny. No more would a people be governed by a single man, woman, or family. Three separate yet equal branches of government were established to ensure justice and domestic tranquility.

5. It brought with it a Bill of Rights. America today is the most free nation on earth because we have the right to say what we will, assemble where we will, defend ourselves as we will, and so on – these liberties are often threatened, yet they remain our own.

6. It gave us some of the greatest governing charters in the world. From the Mayflower Compact to the Declaration of Independence, the United States from its inception created a blueprint which other nations have aspired to duplicate.

7. It gave mankind a haven for pursuing happiness. Life in America is good. The US has more self-made millionaires and billionaires proportionally than anywhere else in the world. And by global standards, America’s middle class is really, really rich. Our standard of living is second to none. Period.

8. It created a land of opportunity. Success or failure in America is dependent on an individual’s own work ethic. We rise and fall on our own. If you can dream it, you can do it.

9. It birthed a land of virtue and ideals. Like it or not, the United States was founded on Biblical principles. Those principles embedded in our framework a standard of decency and decorum rarely found elsewhere.

10. It brought unparalleled innovation and technology to the world. Who built the first automobile? Who invented the airplane? Who put a man on the moon? Who created your iPhone? ‘Merica.

11. It gave the world the best in entertainment. Maybe Pride and Prejudice and British soap operas are your thing. But in case you haven’t noticed, all the best shows are Made in the USA.

12. It brought baseball and football to mankind. Our basketball and hockey teams are pretty epic, too.

13. It set the standard for modern, civilized societies. Travel the world. You’ll find America has the best cities, the best stores, and the greatest communities on the globe.

14. It made cultural diversity a reality. “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free…” Unlike any other country on the planet, the USA is a nation of immigrants. People from all backgrounds and faiths live here together, united.

15. It’s about freedom. America is synonymous with liberty. And without the Revolution, that wouldn’t have been possible.

Britain kept their monarchy, how’s that working for them? They have one of the world’s highest violent crime rates. They’re overrun with Islamists and terrorists. Their violent crime has gotten so bad, in spite of their having banned guns decades ago, now they are looking at banning knives. And tell me how their people are anything but indentured servants with the failed economy they have? How does having a ruling family, who is answerable to just about no one, trump a Constitutional Republic? Even if you’ve only watched “The Patriot” with Mel Gibson, you are light years more enlightened than this moron. This liberal writer at Vox is an over-educated, biased asshat, in addition to being stupid and ignorant. If he likes Britain so much, why, by all means, go… please. I’ll take up a collection to buy you a ticket. Just don’t come back.

05/15/15

Vatican Facilitates Russia’s Designs on the Middle East

By: Cliff Kincaid
Accuracy in Media

Pope Francis has formally recognized a Palestinian state, even though it does not exist. While the media have noted that the Vatican’s curious action has created some controversy, there has been little discussion of whether “Palestinians” actually do exist, where the modern-day concept of a “State of Palestine” came from, and which major power benefits from the creation of a nation under the control of the Palestine Liberation Organization in the Middle East.

American-Israeli political commentator and journalist Sha’i ben-Tekoa told Accuracy in Media, “Starting with Chapter 2:1 of the Pope’s own Holy Writ, Christian Scripture refers to Judea 42 times, Samaria 11 times, never to ‘Palestine,’ ‘Palestinians’ or the ‘West Bank.’ The Arabs in Judea and Samaria meet not one of the international legal requirements for statehood.”

He is referring to Matthew 2:1, which refers to Jesus being born in Bethlehem in Judea.

Many commentators, with little or no access to major U.S. media, argue with justification that the Arabs in Judea and Samaria are squatters, with no legal right to even be there.

“Most of the so-called ‘Palestinians’ are in fact interlopers and squatters from Syria—and other places—mostly in the 1920s and 1930s who simply took possession of pieces of land in Israel,” says commentator Rockwell Lazareth. William Mayer, editor and publisher of PipeLineNews.com, says “the so-called Palestinians” are in fact “Arab colonial squatters” who have been used to wage war against Israel.

Commenting further on the Vatican’s recognition of a so-called Palestinian state, Ben-Tekoa tells AIM, “This business of recognizing a phantom state for a phantom nation that screws the Jews is an outrage. It is this generation’s version of Jew-hatred. The Pope should lead, not follow the enemies of Israel.”

Ben-Tekoa’s book, Phantom Nation: Inventing the ‘Palestinians’ as the Obstacle to Peace, argues that “Palestinians” are an “invented” people whose purpose is to serve as the means through which the destruction of Israel and the Jews will ultimately be achieved.

If so, the fingerprints of the old Soviet Union and today’s Russia are all over the plan.

In his scholarly paper, “Soviet Russia, Creator of the PLO and Inventor of the Palestinian People,” Wallace Edward Brand documents how the term “Palestinian People” was concocted by the “Soviet disinformation masters” in 1964 when they created the Palestine Liberation Organization, the PLO.

Soon, the United Nations adopted the cause. Dr. Harris Schoenberg’s 1989 book, A Mandate for Terror: The United Nations and the PLO, describes how the world body came to endorse and embrace the terrorism campaign of the PLO. The UN General Assembly voted in 2012 to recognize Palestine as a non-member state, giving it the same status as the Vatican. The only countries voting against this initiative were Canada, Czech Republic, Israel, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, Panama, and the United States.

Earlier this year, the International Criminal Court (ICC) accepted “Palestine” as a State Party to the Rome Statute, the ICC’s founding treaty. The court’s chief prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, is currently probing alleged Israeli war crimes during last summer’s war in Gaza with the Hamas terrorist group.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, the chairman of the PLO and the Palestinian Authority, who is scheduled to meet with Pope Francis on May 16, is widely considered to be a key Russian asset in the Middle East.

Abbas speaks fluent Russian as a result of his KGB training at the KGB’s Patrice Lumumba University, where he wrote a report claiming that there was no Holocaust, and that the Jews who were murdered during World War II were actually killed by Zionists working with the Nazis. It is now called the People’s Friendship University.

Former KGB officers and intelligence analysts say that the PLO’s long-time chairman, Yasser Arafat, was an also an agent of the Soviet intelligence service.

The links between various Arab and Islamic terrorist groups and the Russians are said to continue. Ion Mihai Pacepa, the highest-ranking defector from the former Soviet bloc, says KGB dissident Alexander Litvinenko, who was living in London, was assassinated by the KGB in 2006 because he spilled the beans on how Soviet intelligence spawned Islamic terrorism and even trained al-Qaeda leader Ayman Al-Zawahiri.

Marius Laurinavius, Senior Policy Analyst in the Policy Analysis and Research Division of the Eastern Europe Studies Center, argues in his paper, “Do traces of KGB, FSB and GRU lead to Islamic State?,” that it is impossible to understand the rise of the Islamic state without paying attention to the links between the Russian secret services and Arab/Muslim terrorists, including in the Russian region of Chechnya.

Nevertheless, it seems that the PLO has been successful in its campaign, as even the United States government, first under President George W. Bush and now under President Barack Obama, has accepted a so-called “two-state solution” of Israel and a Palestinian state.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in 2009 that he was prepared to recognize a “demilitarized” Palestinian state of some kind, subject to security conditions and their recognition of Israel as a Jewish state. However, a document outlining the approach of Netanyahu’s new coalition government did not include any intention of establishing a Palestinian state.

The publication Foreign Policy says Obama has decided to review the “diplomatic protection” it has offered Israel in the United Nations against anti-Israel resolutions as a way to pressure the Jewish state, and that “There is a growing movement at the United Nations Security Council to pass a resolution outlining a roadmap for future peace talks.” Such a “roadmap” would force Israel to accept a Russian-influenced Palestinian state.

The five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council are China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States. Vitaly Churkin, Russia’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, has already announced that Russia will back a resolution calling for a Palestinian state.

With the Vatican endorsing statehood for Palestine, the Russians, working with Obama, may see their chance to put more pressure on Israel.

This will likely work out to the benefit of Russia and its Palestinian agents, not the United States or Israel.

In his 1971 book, Red Star Over Bethlehem: Russia Drives for the Middle East, former diplomatic envoy Ira Hirschman argued that the Soviet Union voted in the U.N. to establish the state of Israel in 1947, only to oust “the last vestiges of British power in the land-bridge area linking Europe, Africa, and Asia,” and that its strategic objective has been to make possible the long-awaited dream of Catherine the Great to establish Russian warm-water ports in the Mediterranean and the Middle East.