11/17/15

Obama Has a Different Strategy… Bowing to Iran

By: Terresa Monroe-Hamilton

Obama1

Obama’s speech yesterday was an utter embarrassment to America. I have never seen a more foppish or weak leader on the geopolitical scene. It was hands down the worst moment of his presidency and that’s saying something.

Obama has no strategy in the Middle East unless you count supporting Iran and not attacking ISIS. He’s quite willing to let Russia, France or anyone else go after them as long as it is not us. This is not how you fight a war. Any real military leader will tell you that.

Walid Phares gets it. He is a National Defense University professor and teaches Global Strategies there. Phares is a longtime commentator on Fox News. He is an analyst on issues in the Middle East and no one is better at it. I have long admired him. Jon Scott, the cohost at Fox News said, “Walid, why can’t we take these people out? We know where they are. We’ve got people willing if we would just arm, the Kurds, we’ve got people willing to take them out.” Phares was exceedingly blunt in his answer and right on the money:

Actually we can and actually we should, but the president has a different strategy. He’s getting a lot of pressure by the Iranians. Otherwise he should have long time ago allied himself, partnered with Arab moderate forces such as Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, UAE, they are fighting terrorism very much and very well in Yemen, in Sinai, in Libya, elsewhere, but the reason that he’s not going to these moderate Arab forces and asking them on the ground to be boots on the ground is because the Iranians are pressuring him because the Syrian Regime is pressuring him. They don’t want those areas, those Sunni areas to be liberated by Sunni moderates because they won’t have access to them. That’s the bottom line of it.

Obama2

It benefits Iran to keep chaos stirred up indefinitely in Syria and the rest of the Middle East. They want to control the region and I believe Obama has promised them just that. Obama never did answer the questions posed to him on ISIS and terrorism yesterday. He danced around them and deflected at every chance he got. He can’t tell the truth because he knows that Americans would have his head. He doesn’t take ISIS out simply because Iran does not want him to. Neither do the Syrians.

Everything Obama has done with the Iranians has been one deep bow. The Iranian nuclear deal is a farce. It gifts everything to the Iranians they want and we get nothing in return. Nothing at all. How is that a deal?

There are indeed a number of Middle Eastern nations fighting ISIS and al Qaeda for their own reasons. Reasons having to do with different factions of Islam, geographical power and money. But even though we share a common enemy with the Saudis, Jordanians, Egyptians and the UAE, you won’t ever see Obama truly go after ISIS. From the beginning, his bombings have been token ones. He bombs empty, deserted facilities. He bombs at night. Virtually everyone gets away. When we take someone down, it is more because we need a photo-op than due to taking out the bad guys. This is make believe war and is all for show.

In reality, Obama is now answering to Iran. In some ways, he has them running the entire show. He has definitely aligned himself with the Mullahs. Iran and Syria are putting tremendous pressure on Obama to keep out of the fray and not put boots on the ground. Obama chose sides long ago.

Wherever there is sectarian violence involving Islam is exactly where you won’t find Obama. He’s not going to get involved, which should show you exactly where his true loyalties lie. We show up in places that will have little to no effect in stopping ISIS. But Obama can point to the action and say he is leading and fighting for America and the world. It’s all a monstrous lie. I contend that in many ways Obama in fact supports ISIS. He definitely condones the Caliphate.

In the end as this all goes south and Iran grabs more and more power, Obama will blame it all on George W. Bush. He’s already starting to, saying that ISIS is a result of Bush moving into Iraq. That’s another lie. ISIS is a direct result of us pulling troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan. They are also a result of the Libyan mess that Obama and Clinton created intentionally. They gave rise to ISIS, not Bush.

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Obama looked incompetent yesterday at the G-20 Summit. But that wasn’t incompetence. That was him covering his ass and not wanting to tell the truth. He knows how all this will end. It is by design. But he doesn’t want to be blamed and have his legacy destroyed for all time, so he has to have a scapegoat. That’s all Bush has ever been for this Marxist. We won in Iraq under Bush. Our forces had it fairly safe and secure. Life was returning to as normal as it could be and elections were returning. Then Obama came in and removed our troops, knowing full well that radical Islam would sweep in and fill the void. Obama is the worst leader our nation has ever known and the ‘change’ he has brought has been nothing but destructive.

Obama hates America. He thinks we’re not worthy of being a world power. He believes our character is defective and we have not earned any of the accolades that America has been given over time. He sees us as international bullies who have inserted themselves across the globe, instead of peace keepers and saviors of those that are victims to Jihadists, dictators and communists. Obama feels we never had the right to intercede on any other country’s behalf, or hell, even our own. He firmly believes that Islam has a right and an obligation to insert itself across the globe and control people for their own good. Allah is his way and his light and the violence that ensues along with death and destruction is simply what must be done.

We have become the French. That is depressing. Not by choice, but by design on the part of Obama and his minions. I never thought I would see the day that the French would look and act stronger than America. But in the wake of the bloody Paris terrorist attacks where at least 132 were slaughtered and over 350 were wounded, Hollande is at least acting sort of like a leader. Now given, he only dropped 20 bombs – he took out one control center, one munitions dump and one training camp in Raqqah. That is not what I would label an intense response. He did it with Intel we supplied him by the way and he used our smart bombs. So, if we have the Intel, then why don’t we do it? Simple. Because Obama is not going to tick off the Iranians. He’s in their pocket all the way.

Shi’a Iran wants the Sunni regions of the Middle East destabilized and they want ISIS to continue to operate and clear the area. As ISIS destabilizes, the Iranians will move in. That will ultimately help Iran take over the entire region in the future. They have $150 billion to play with thanks to Obama. They get to build nukes to their evil heart’s desire per the Iran deal. So, they are going to be THE regional power first. And that is everything in this global game of RISK. Obama has chosen Iran to be the dominant force in the Middle East and they are working hand and glove with the Russians, the Chinese and the North Koreans.

It’s obvious that this is occurring. It explains everything and it is what I have predicted and have been saying for years. The sanctions are gone and can’t be put back the way they were. Iran has been unleashed thanks to Obama. By the time we get a conservative leader in office, the world will be engulfed in a blue apocalyptic fire flamed by Iran.

In the meantime, many, many people will die around the world including in America. Christians will be hunted down and slaughtered. The beheadings, crucifixions, hangings, stonings, etc. will continue and increase while Obama does nothing. He claims that ISIS is contained. Anyone with any sense at all can see that is a lie. Even if you contained them in Syria, which they won’t, they are across the planet now. It’s like containing cockroaches – it’s not going to happen unless you exterminate them with a vengeance.

Obama rejected the idea that a large-scale deployment of American troops in Syria is the answer after the Paris terror attacks. At one point, the president called Friday’s attacks a “setback” but touted the current strategy that is in place to combat ISIS in Syria. “There will be an intensification of the strategy that we put forward. But the strategy that we put forward is the strategy that is going to work. It’s going to take time,” he said. I agree with Bill Hemmer of Fox News who stated that those who were hoping for an “it’s them or us” type of speech, did not hear it. You never will from Barack Hussein Obama.

07/20/15

Forum: What Was Your Reaction To The Chattanooga Attack?

The Watcher’s Council

Chattanooga Shooting Victims

Every week on Monday morning, the Council and our invited guests weigh in at the Watcher’s Forum with short takes on a major issue of the day, the culture, or daily living. This week’s question: What Was Your Reaction To The Chattanooga Attack?

Don Surber: C-in-C should order every officer (commissioned and non-com) to carry a sidearm when on duty stateside. Exemptions for chaplains and working physicians. Maybe a few other MOS. National Guard and reservists would be up to the discretion of commanders as a matter of protocol, while preserving the authority to order so. Any civilian who feels uncomfortable can kindly resign/retire from DoD.

Puma By Design: Courtesy of the dysfunction in the present administration, America’s enemies are at war with us on U.S. soil empowered by our so-called leaders who are in denial, stupid and in the pockets of our enemies while at the same time, refusing to call this evil by its name.

America’s enemies are targeting our service members and their families because it is a known fact that they are not armed.

ARM THEM. They have the right to defend themselves…and us ON American soil.

GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD: Gun free zones get people killed.

In Chattanooga, the dark one liner is “From DUI and weed to J!had in 90 days.” Busted in April, it appears he made a fast conversion to violence.

We often prided ourselves here about our easy going laissez-faire attitude. Not anymore. Was this cat self radicalized? Inspired by the mosque? Both? Doesn’t really matter now as armed vigilance is replacing the Coexist stickers and memes.

We really need all the prayers and good vibes y’all may send.

JoshuaPundit: Unfortunately, the minute I heard about this atrocity, I knew exactly what was coming. The theme by the media, assorted political figures and the Obama Regime, as always, was to repeat the mantra of ‘senseless violence.’ Hillary Clinton said it, as did the president, Defense Secretary Ash Carter, Florida senators Bill Nelson (Democrat) and Marco Rubio (Republican).

And of course, no one can imagine why this happened. Nothing to do with Islam, surely! The Pentagon will investigate this for months to let everybody forget about it, and our president will determine what they’ll say. They can’t call it workplace violence like Fort Hood this time, but maybe they can work the mental health angle. Never mind that every attack involving Muslims resulting in mass casualties or attacks on military facilities like this has been jihadist in nature.

These attacks are not senseless violence. They are directed attacks, whether carried out by so-called lone wolves or otherwise.  The orders are in the Qu’ran, and there’s enough evidence on Mohammed AbdulAzeez’s computer thus far to show the usual pattern – jihadist social media,  and as I’m sure we’ll eventually find out, a jihad preaching mosques with a radical, Islamist imam somewhere in the picture.

Since 9/11. we, or at least the people we’ve chosen to lead us have made the point time and time again that we’re ‘not at war with Islam.’ Maybe, but anyone observing the world as it is would have to be in a coma not realize that a significant part of Islam’s adherents consider themselves at war with us. That, or willfully deceptive.

A normal country faced by these kind of facts would secure its borders, limit visas to countries where jihadists and Islamists tend to thrive, and vet very carefully those visas that were approved. It would place Islamist front groups as well as mosques and madrassahs under close scrutiny and eliminate those preaching jihad, radicalizing young Muslims and/or thought to be a security risk. Most important, government facilities like military recruiting offices or bases that are obvious targets would be hardened and guarded with armed security.

We are doing none of these things. In fact, since Barack Hussein Obama became president, we’re doing exactly the opposite.  There have been numerous attacks, planned and executed against U.S. military facilities on his watch, and yet, the mantra coming out of the White House is always the same..’senseless violence.’

Here’s a thought as uncomfortable for me to write as it may be for you to read. The four Marines and the Navy Petty officer whom were murdered in Chattanooga may be mourned by us, but in a very real sense, we have their blood on our hands for not calling our elected officials to account…especially this president.

The one covenant a leader has with those he or she rules is to protect a country’s sovereignty, its people and its borders.  America does not have that.

If we had any national self respect we would be thronging by thousands in the Capital, and flooding the congressional switch boards demanding this president’s impeachment. We would be  insisting on immediate action to remedy this situation rather than sitting back placidly waiting for  the next attack.

We would be screaming bloody murder.

The Right Planet: My initial reaction was one of outrage, followed by profound sadness for the families and friends of those murdered in cold blood in Chattanooga. You know, it’s not like ISIS and its ilk haven’t expressed their desire and intent to kill members of our military right here at home. Furthermore, there have been some 34 service personnel killed at military facilities within the United States on Obama’s watch—specifically, one soldier killed at a Little Rock recruiting station in 2009, 13 murdered at Fort Hood in the same year, three more killed at Fort Hood in 2014, 12 killed at the Washington Navy Yard two years ago, and now four Marines and one Navy petty officer are dead in Chattanooga. Several state governors, including my own, have ordered their National Guardsmen to start carrying weapons. But, to my knowledge, no such orders have been given at the federal level to allow U.S. troops the ability to defend themselves.

Via the LA Times:

Despite being active-duty servicemen with military weapons training, few of the victims in these attacks had an opportunity to defend themselves, thanks to Department of Defense Directive 5210.56, enacted in 1992 under President George H.W. Bush.

That policy strictly limits the military and civilian personnel who can carry firearms at military facilities to those in law enforcement or security roles. U.S. bases and recruiting centers have been “gun-free zones” ever since.

There have been recent reports of civilians with legal-carry permits standing guard at a few recruitment centers. How messed up are things in this country when civilians must provide security for own troops? Enough, already … ARM OUR TROOPS!

Laura Rambeau Lee, Right Reason: What is my reaction to this terrorist attack? I am at once saddened at the tragic loss of life of four Marines and one sailor, yet angered that this has happened again on America soil.

The shooter’s name was Muhammad Youssuf Abdulazeez, a 24 year old Kuwaiti born naturalized American citizen whom friends described as a “devout Muslim.” It is reported he traveled to Jordan in 2014 and to Kuwait and Jordan in 2010. Friends said he changed after his last trip to the Middle East.

In a media/theater of the absurd, we are being told not to jump to any conclusions about his motivation for these attacks. Isn’t it time we got past wanting to know the shooter’s motivation in these all too familiar scenarios? No one questioned Dylan Roof’s motivation for his slaughter of nine Black church members in Charleston, South Carolina. It was racism – end of story.

Reports are coming out that Adbulazeez suffered from depression. Perhaps a religion that teaches hatred of all non-believers and rewards martyred jihadis with seventy-three virgins might lead to depression… and violence.

I am mad that the rules on military bases and these recruitment centers prohibit our service members from being armed. At the very least, this policy should be changed immediately. They must be able to carry firearms, especially knowing they have been specifically targeted by ISIS for attacks. To have served heroically overseas and then to return home only to be attacked in a store front recruiting center should send chills down everyone’s spines, and maybe wake up some. President Obama says we are not at war with Islam, but we should be past the point of acknowledging radical Islamists are at war with us.

The Glittering Eye: It’s early days in the investigation yet and I don’t want to get ahead of ourselves. I say at this point let the investigation takes its course.

I’m willing to let the Pentagon decide whether soldiers in recruitment centers or on military bases carry sidearms or whether they should be ordered to do so.

As of this writing whether there are ties to Al Qaeda or DAESH, whether the perpetrator of the murders was mentally ill or not, and just what lead him to kill people are all unknown. Policy considerations need to be conditioned on actual circumstances rather than imagined ones. Maybe he was radicalized on the Internet or self-radicalized or had some conversion experience on a visit to family in Jordan. We just don’t know.

Ask Marion: ARM THEM! ARM THEM! ARM THEM! Arm all military personnel on American soil!!

The wolf is no longer at the door, America’s enemies are at war with us on U. S. soil!! America’s enemies are targeting our service members and their families and they know they are not armed. Let them carry a sidearm when on duty stateside.

ARM THEM… They have the right to defend themselves…and us ON home soil. As Judge Jeanine Pirro said in her opening statement this past weekend: They Want To Kill Us, They Determine To kill Us… And They’re Here.

Some of the governors have already stepped up in wake of the Chattanooga attacks. Governor Fallin of Oklahoma, has authorized their adjutant general to arm full-time military personnel. Arkansas, Texas and several other state governors have also already stepped up or in the process. Some other groups like Oathkeepers are also meeting.

For anyone who thinks this is extreme, just look at Switzerland, a neutral and one of the most peaceful countries in the world. Every adult is a trained member of the Swiss militia and they keep their weapons at home on the ready. In 2011 the Swiss law and tradition was tested and put to a vote. Let us remember our own history and minutemen who were armed and ready to defend themselves and freedom at a minutes notice and step back to using common sense!!

Well, there you have it.

Make sure to tune in every Monday for the Watcher’s Forum. And remember, every Wednesday, the Council has its weekly contest with the members nominating two posts each, one written by themselves and one written by someone from outside the group for consideration by the whole Council. The votes are cast by the Council and the results are posted on Friday morning.

It’s a weekly magazine of some of the best stuff written in the blogosphere and you won’t want to miss it.

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07/19/15

Details Emerging on Chattanooga Shooter and Family

By: Denise Simon
FoundersCode.com

According to CNN Arabia:

Amman, Jordan (CNN) – Jordanian official said that the shooter in the American civil Chattanooga Tennessee, which led to the deaths of four US Marines Thursday, [was] not a Jordanian citizen, but [held] a Palestinian passport temporarily and without a national number.

The source explained that “after investigations show that the name of the person who launched the attack in Tennessee in the United States, is Mohammed Yousef Saeed Ali Haj, who was born on September 5 / September” in 1990, according to the source. His father moved to live in the United States in 1982.

He added that Mohammed’s father had changed his name to Abdul Aziz in 1990, so that became his son’s name is Mohammad Yousuf, Abdul Aziz, according to the Jordanian government source, who added that the gunman holds a US passport, and that the son was in Jordan in 2014 on a visit to his uncle.

***

According to a tip that came into WDEF, Muhammad Abdulazeez was spotted at a gun range just weeks before killing four Marines and one Navy Petty Officer.

Abdulazeez was reportedly spotted with three other men who were wearing long beards like Abdulazeez. All four were reportedly practice shooting.

The claim has not been confirmed by law enforcement but several sources told WDEF the men were likely spotted at Prentice Cooper Gun Range.

When News 12 arrived at the gun range, several men who were practicing shooting said a man who claimed to be a former Marine arrived at the range Saturday morning and said he was doing his own investigation to see if Abdulazeez had been shooting at that location.

The men said he asked multiple groups of people who were at the range.

CBS News is also reporting that Abdulazeez told his co-workers that he and a group of guys recently went shooting at a gun range. CBS News got its information from law enforcement sources who interviewed Abdulazeez’s co-workers.

According to a published CBS News report, the men reportedly shot rifles, BB guns and pistols last month.

***

Abdulazeez had purchased three guns after returning from Jordan, including an AK-74, an AR-15, and a Saiga 12. In the home was also a 9mm and a .22 caliber weapons, it is unclear in whose name those weapons were registered.

***

From the Center for Security Policy:

As we reported Friday, the Islamic Society of Greater Chattanooga (ISGC) is tied to the Muslim Brotherhood through the Hamas-linked North American Islamic Trust (NAIT.) Now new evidence has been revealed showing that ISGC actually raised funds for the building of their new mosque in 2009, by referencing jihad and key Muslim Brotherhood figures.

According to a 2009 Iftar fundraising dinner slide show, first apparently noticed by Twitter user @alimhaider, contained an overt reference to key Muslim Brotherhood figure Yusuf al-Qaradawi.

The title of the slide, “In the cause of Allah” is an English translation of Fi Sabil Allah, as in the phrase “Jihad Fisabilallah”, which means violent jihad against unbelievers. Classic Islamic law reference book, the Reliance of the Traveller, notes in its index, “Fisabilallah: See Jihad”. There is no other reasonable interpretation of the phrase in context.

The reference to jihad in the fundraiser related to the Mosque, was done as a means of explaining that a contribution to the building of the mosque qualified under “Zakat” (annual tithe which is obligatory in Islam), under the category of funding Jihad.

ISGCZakat

Reliance of the Traveller notes, “The seventh category is those fighting for Allah, meaning people engaged in Islamic military operations for whom no salary has been allotted in the army roster (O: but who are volunteers for jihad without remuneration)…”

The slide “Cause of Allah” references Yusuf Al Qaradawi, and S.A.A. Maududi, founder of Pakistani Islamist group Jamaat-e-Islami. Both Qaradawi and Maududi are prolific on the subject of Jihad.

Qaradawi has been noted for his avid support for the terrorist group Hamas and their jihad against Israel, including issuing fatwas authorizing suicide bombing, and has supported jihadist movements in Somalia, Sudan, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya and most recently in Egypt. Qaradawi is the leader of the Hamas financing network known as the “Union of the Good”, which utilizes Zakat funds received by its charities in order to support Hamas.

In his work, “Islamic Education and Hassan Al Banna,” Qaradawi discusses how it was the Muslim Brotherhood (Ikhwan) which revitalized the classical concept of Jihad for a modern age:

The aspect of Ikhwani training which makes it eminent and unique is Jehad or crusade i e. : Crusader·like training…The real implication of · Jehad (crusade) had been dismissed from Islamic training and way of life, before its conception among the lkhwans.

And in his “Priorities of the Movement in the Coming phase” Qaradawi says:

…it is a duty to defend every land invaded by infidels, stating that such jihad is imperative for Muslims in this land as an individual obligation and that all Muslims must support them with money, arms and men as required until all their land has been liberated from any aggressor who usurps it. Therefore, the Islamic Movement cannot stand idle and watch while any part of Muslim land is occupied by a foreign aggressor.

The other modern Islamic scholar referenced by the document, Maulana S.A.A. Maududi, was famous for successfully merging classical Islamic concepts of Jihad with a modernist language of revolution. He noted the following in his work “Jihad in Islam”:

It must be evident to you from this discussion that the objective of the Islamic ‘Jihād’ is to eliminate the rule of an un-Islamic system and establish in its stead an Islamic system of state rule. Islam does not intend to confine this revolution to a single state or a few countries; the aim of Islam is to bring about a universal revolution. Although in the initial stages it is incumbent upon members of the party of Islam to carry out a revolution in the State system of the countries to which they belong, but their ultimate objective is no other than to effect a world revolution.

So the Islamic Society of Greater Chattanooga announced in 2009 that it openly aligned its views of Jihad with the views of Qaradawi and Maududi, and told its Muslim congregants that donating to the construction of ISGC was permissible, because it represented funding jihad.

Chattanooga shooter Mohammed Yusuf Abdulazeez and his family were regular attendees as ISGC. Despite claims by the mosque leadership that Abdulazeez was a rare attendee or little known there, a photo from a family Facebook account shows that Abdulazeez held his graduation party at the mosque, and that it was well attended, indicating they were well known regulars.

This fundraising document was publicly available information, three years before U.S. District Attorney William Killian attended the grand opening in 2012 and expressed his friendship with a mosque leadership who built their mosque with a promise that funding them represented an investment in jihad.

Now that investment appears to have matured.

U.S. District Attorney William Killian should recuse himself from this case, because of his association with ISGC, and the investigators must begin to conduct a detailed and through investigation of ISGC itself, and what role its support for violent jihad may have played in the attack in Chattanooga which claimed the lives of five servicemen.

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.

Undated photo of retired-FBI agent Robert Levinson (photo credit: AP/Levinson Family)

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.

Iranian President Hasan Rouhani, right, shakes hands with Omani Sultan Qaboos during an official arrival ceremony, in Tehran, Iran, Aug. 25, 2013. (photo credit: AP/Iranian Presidency Office, Hojjat Sepahvand)

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.

Former Iranian hostages Shane Bauer, left, Sarah Shourd, center, and Josh Fattal (photo credit: AP/Press TV)

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.”

Amir Hekmati, a former U.S. Marine held in Iran over the past two years on accusations of spying for the CIA. (photo credit: Hekmati family/FreeAmir.org)

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.

06/10/15

The Clinton Record on Libya

By: Kenneth Timmerman
Accuracy in Media

Exclusive to Accuracy in Media
The emails show more than you might think

On August 21, 2011, a top aide to Hillary Clinton penned a memo lauding his boss for steering U.S. policy in Libya, aimed at convincing the media of her accomplishments as Secretary of State.

“HRC has been a critical voice on Libya in administration deliberations, at NATO, and in contact group meetings—as well as the public face of the U.S. effort in Libya. She was instrumental in securing the authorization, building the coalition, and tightening the noose around Qadhafi and his regime,” Clinton aide Jake Sullivan wrote.

Sullivan’s memo to Mrs. Clinton’s inner circle is, of course, embarrassing today, which is one reason you are not reading about it on the front pages of The New York Times or The Washington Post.

But that’s not the only reason.

The memo, as well as other critical State Department correspondence, was withheld from multiple committees in Congress that have been investigating the September 11, 2012 attacks in Benghazi that killed U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens, State Department communications officer Sean Smith, and two former Navy Seals then working on contract to the CIA, Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods.

It finally surfaced on May 22, 2015, in response to a subpoena from the Select Committee on Benghazi chaired by South Carolina Republican Congressman Trey Gowdy. That was six months after Gowdy’s initial request to the State Department for all documents relating to Benghazi, and more than two-and-a-half years after a similar request from the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which initiated its investigation into Benghazi just days after the attacks.

In Sullivan’s memo, Mrs. Clinton was the driving force in getting the Russians to drop opposition to a UN-imposed no fly zone on Qadhafi’s Libya. She alone got Turkey, Qatar and Jordan to join the coalition military operations and to provide critical support to the anti-Qadhafi forces.

To convince skeptical allies to embrace her policies, Sullivan noted that Mrs. Clinton had traveled to Paris, London, Berlin, Rome, Abu Dhabi, Addis Ababa and Istanbul. She visited with “House Democrats and Senate Republicans to persuade them not to de-fund the Libya operation.”

Sullivan’s memo provided background for media appearances by Secretary Clinton in the ensuing months, including a famous encounter with a TV news reporter in Afghanistan, just three days after Mrs. Clinton’s October 2011 visit to Libya to proclaim victory against the then-still-missing Libyan dictator.

In video outtakes, Clinton aide Huma Abedin hands the Secretary a Blackberry, with information that Colonel Qadhafi has been killed, apparently just hours after Mrs. Clinton’s brief visit to the country.

“We came, we saw, he died,” Mrs. Clinton joked.

In short, without Mrs. Clinton’s vigorous intervention, Qadhafi would still be in power, Libya would still be a country, and the jihadis who now own the place would be toast. And, of course, Chris Stevens, Smith, Doherty and Woods would still be alive.

After the attacks, Mrs. Clinton quickly forgot her leading role on Libya, sending a clueless Susan Rice to the Sunday talk shows to be the “public face” of the Obama administration’s Libya policy.

In her only public appearances to address what happened in Benghazi, she portrayed herself as a disengaged onlooker, called upon to pick up the pieces when the hired help failed to get things right. “[It] was very disappointing to me that the [Accountability Review Board (ARB)] concluded there were inadequacies and problems in the responsiveness of our team here in Washington to the security requests that were made by our team in Libya. And I was not aware of that going on. It was not brought to my attention,” she told the House Foreign Affairs committee in January 2013.

She reminded House and Senate panels in January 2013 that the State Department’s ARB, which she appointed, had determined that the failures in Benghazi were entirely the responsibility of lower level officials, even though Libya was among the top ten most dangerous postings in the world at the time of the attacks. The Washington Post’s Glenn Kessler busily helped to reinforce that fiction in a “fact-checking” blog aimed to show that there were simply too many cables going in and out of the State Department for a busy Secretary to see all of them.

Interestingly, in the approximately 300 Clinton emails the State Department has released so far, there is no record of Mrs. Clinton’s original request to her staff to draft a memo lauding her achievements in Libya. Did Sullivan simply dream up the idea and forward it up the chain of command to see if it would please his boss? Or was Mrs. Clinton’s request for these talking points one of the 30,000 “personal” emails the former Secretary of State deleted as irrelevant to her official duties?

Mrs. Clinton’s chief of staff Cheryl Mills forwarded Sullivan’s August 2011 memo to a second private Hillary email address. Remember how she insisted that she had just one private email account? The memo included a note that said, “Here’s the memo.” That sounds an awful lot like, “Here’s the memo you requested.”

Hillary sent it on to her personal assistant with the instruction, “Pls print for me.”

This type of exchange gets repeated many times in the Clinton emails released so far, suggesting that Mrs. Clinton was not given to making substantive comments via email, or that she deleted material that is relevant to the House Select Committee on Benghazi and is therefore guilty of obstructing justice. The other possibility is that the State Department Freedom of Information office is inexplicably dragging its feet in clearing Mrs. Clinton’s correspondence, even though the delay casts Mrs. Clinton in an embarrassing light.

Judicial Watch and other watchdog organizations—including this author—had been trying to get Mrs. Clinton’s emails and other U.S. government documents relevant to the Benghazi attacks for the past two-and-a-half years without success until the subpoena from the Select Committee on Benghazi compelled a response.

Now, thanks to a federal court order in Washington, DC, compelling the State Department to produce additional documents it previously had said did not exist or were properly categorized as classified, we can now put Mrs. Clinton’s emails into a broader context.

As the first reports of the attacks on Benghazi were whizzing through the State Department Operations Center, bouncing off the computers of lower level employees, one is impressed by their professionalism.

For example, the British security firm that had the contract to guard the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi sent several ungrammatical missives through a State Department contact to update him on what was happening during the attacks.

Dylan Davies, one of the contractors working for the security firm, was apparently holed up in his hotel room (not at the scene of the Compound leading a daring rescue attempt, as he told CBS’ 60 Minutes), with no information at 11:55 p.m. local time—by which time, Ambassador Stevens and Sean Smith were dead, the CIA contractors led by Ty Woods had driven the attackers away from the burning diplomatic compound, and evacuated back to the CIA Annex.

A half hour later, Davies sent a second report, claiming there had been “no casualties,” and relaying a hearsay report from his “Benghazi facilitator,” who claimed that sources on the street were telling him the attack was either a September 11th anniversary attack, or caused by an Internet movie “disrespecting Mohammed.”

In relaying those reports, the State Department’s Command Center cautioned that they should be “taken with a grain of salt as the Employee may not be aware of the extent of the situation.”

And yet, less than four hours later—with no other independent reporting that had been released—Hillary Clinton issued her statement blaming the attacks on an Internet video.

What happened in the meantime? Who pushed the idea of the Internet video?

The short answer is that:we still don’t know. Either Mrs. Clinton destroyed the emails and other documents showing how she latched onto a report her own specialists had rejected as hearsay, or perhaps the Archangel Gabriel whispered in her ear while she had her head in a closet in her 7th floor office suite.

Several emails released to Judicial Watch show the intense involvement of the Bureau of Public Affairs in scouring the Internet for information on the attacks, but nothing to suggest the Secretary of State was asking the intelligence community what they knew.

At 9:30 p.m,—just 40 minutes before Mrs. Clinton issued her official statement blaming the attacks on a YouTube video—Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Dana Shell Smith sent out a request to her reporting officers to find information “in the aftermath of today’s demonstrations at Embassy Cairo.” For whatever reason, her request failed to mention Benghazi.

Rebecca Brown Thompson, head of a State Department media office called the “Rapid Response Unit” (reminiscent of the Clinton campaign “war room”), responded by sending snippets from Facebook postings gleaned by Arabic language media analysts.

“I see a variety of responses spanning from conspiracy theories (that is what the Americans and Israelis are doing on purpose to hurt Arabs and Muslims, they financed the offensive movie), to those who condemn the attacks as ‘UnIslamic and barbaric,’” one analyst reported.

Two hours after Mrs. Clinton issued the statement blaming the attacks on the “inflammatory material posted on the Internet,” a second Arabic media analyst tasked with justifying that statement found a lone tweet about the film, but also reported that “some Twitter users in Libya and Egypt are spreading reports that the attacks in Libya may not be related to the infamous film but to the killing of Al Qaeda’s second in command, who is Libyan.”

The “infamous” film, which was much less well known in Libya than in Egypt, became the subject of a scurrilous account appearing the very next morning that was penned by Max Blumenthal, son of the infamous Sid “Vicious” Blumenthal who was advising Mrs. Clinton. It was picked up and amplified in a second attack blog posted at 6:56 a.m. the same morning, suggesting that the real blame for the attacks in Cairo and Benghazi fell on Mitt Romney and his “extremist” backers who produced this YouTube video in the first place.

Once information from the professionals rose to the level of Jake Sullivan, Huma Abedin and Cheryl Mills in Clinton’s office, it just seemed to disappear, replaced with a weird concoction of politics, public relations and outright fantasy, such as the YouTube video concoction or the Sid Blumenthal “intelligence” reports. (When Mrs. Clinton sent those around to the professional diplomats, the comments she received in response were rarely complimentary.)

The 300 recently released Clinton emails give the impression that the 7th floor of the State Department was inhabited by a bunch of grad students, pretending to be government officials.

The most tragic example of the apparent ignorance of how the State Department and the federal government actually worked appeared in Mrs. Clinton’s order to not engage the Foreign Emergency Support Team (FEST), an interagency team on 24/7 stand-by alert, that had been created to respond to just such an emergency as the Benghazi attacks.

Counterterrorism Bureau official Mark Thompson, who helped to establish the FEST after the 1998 Africa embassy attacks, testified at length before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee about this on May 8, 2013.

The Judicial Watch emails include a frustrated note he sent to the State Department Operations Center at 9:01 p.m. on the night of the attacks, complaining that Secretary Clinton was trying to get the FBI to send an evidence response team to Libya, when “the State (CT) led Foreign Emergency Support Team (FEST) would include those folks, along with experts from other agencies. We should avoid multiple requests for assistance and rely on the comprehensive FEST approach.”

In his Congressional testimony, Thompson said he had tried to get Mrs. Clinton’s office and the White House to approve activating the FEST as soon as he first learned about the attacks from the State Operations Center, but was told “it was not the right time and it was not the team that needed to go right then.”

The redacted portions of Thompson’s email undoubtedly included a reference to the heavily-armed special operations component of the FEST whose job would be to secure the facility under attack. Had Secretary Clinton not told the FEST to stand down early on, there’s a chance they might have arrived in Benghazi before Woods and Doherty were killed in the 5 a.m. mortar attack the next morning.

At the very least, they would have been able to secure the compounds and gather evidence on the spot, instead of waiting three weeks as the FBI was ultimately forced to do.

Mrs. Clinton’s aversion to any overt U.S. military presence in Libya was well-known at U.S. Africa Command, which had been supplying the ambassador’s security detail up until just weeks before the attacks. “We were not allowed to wear uniforms outside the embassy compound, not even our boots,” the head of Stevens’ U.S. Special Forces security detail told me. “People high up at State resented like Hell us being there and doing what we did.”

And in the end, those same people ordered the Ambassador’s Special Forces security detail to leave Libya—with disastrous consequences.

06/3/15

Unity

Arlene From Israel

Because first things must come first, I begin by marking National Unity Day.

As Michelle Napell of One Family Fund wrote in a message:

“We prayed for them, we cried for them and now we remember them.

“It has been one year since terrorists kidnapped and murdered Israeli teenagers, Gil-ad Shaer z’l, Eyal Ifrach z’l and Naftali Fraenkel z’l. As thousands of Israelis searched for them last summer, Jews from around the world united in an unprecedented way to support the boys’ families as they coped with uncertainty, pain and loss.

“Today, the 16th of Sivan 5775 – June 3rd 2015, Unity Day has been designated to remind us that regardless of our challenges, there will always be far more that unites us than divides us.”

~~~~~~~~~~

A video:

http://www.israelvideonetwork.com/this-is-how-the-jewish-people-respond-to-tragedy/

~~~~~~~~~~

We, the people of Israel, are indeed remarkable in how we respond to tragedy.

My prayer – and let it be the prayer of everyone – is that we come together like this, by the hundreds of thousands, the millions, ultra-Orthodox and secular, Ashkenazi, Sephardi and Mizrachi, young and old, to celebrate peace and blessings upon the nation.

~~~~~~~~~~

A clarification, prompted by questions from a couple of readers:

I did not write yesterday that the US has never sold bunker busters to Israel.  Indeed, it has.  But those bunker busters are smaller ones, such as BLU bunker busters.  The BLU 109 weighs 2,000 pounds and the BLU 113 weighs 5,000 pounds.  Both of these munitions, were, I believe, recently acquired by Israel from the US to augment existing stores, but are a very far cry from the MOP, which weighs 30,000 pounds.

What the US has provided cannot break into the underground reinforced nuclear facilities of Iran, or pierce through the mountain at Fordow.  The MOP, which can, the US will not sell to Israel.

~~~~~~~~~~

The full interview of Obama, which I wrote about yesterday based on highlights, was released last night. When I wrote, I discussed what he said about Iran. But there was a second major theme he touched upon: “the peace process.”  I had hoped to come back to this today even before the full interview was released.  Now what he said about negotiations has been featured in news stories, and a response is even more important.

I find it fascinating, that some sources refer to Obama’s interview as a “charm offensive.”  But I?  I do not find him charming at all.  (Major understatement.) He spoke about being there for Israel, and understanding how Israelis feel, and having concern for Israeli wellbeing, etc.  Facile words. Let’s look a bit closer.  He said (emphasis added):

I think Netanyahu is someone who is predisposed to think of security first; to think perhaps that peace is naïve; to see the worst possibilities as opposed to the best possibilities in Arab partners or Palestinian partners. And so I do think that, right now, those politics and those fears are driving the government’s response.”

He was concerned, he said, about Israel having a “politics that’s motivated only by fear,” which could stand in the way of “peace” with the Palestinians Arabs.

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4664266,00.html

~~~~~~~~~~

What motivates Netanyahu is a prudent and highly realistic assessment of the situation. Regrettable – no, despicable – that Obama chooses to demean this realism.

Every time Israel has withdrawn from territory, radical terrorist groups have moved it.  This is not “fear;” it is historical fact.

Hamas, which overthrew Fatah (the PA) in Gaza eight years ago, is itching to do the same thing in the Arab areas of Judea and Samaria. There is a strong Hamas presence there, and the only thing that prevents them from pushing over Abbas – who is extraordinarily weak and unpopular – is the presence of the IDF.  The IDF does operations daily (actually, nightly) – uncovering weapons caches and exposing places where weapons are manufactured; arresting wanted terrorists and foiling plans for terror attacks.

Were we to pull out of Arab areas of Judea and Samaria, we would have a terrorist entity in our midst.  A fact that is of no concern to Obama, obviously.  Obama, who cares for Israel.

~~~~~~~~~~

There is more: the terror entity at our border in the end might not be Hamas, but jihadist groups that make Hamas operatives look like peaceniks.

Take a look at this map:

Jordan

Credit: lonelyplanet

Jordan is to Israel’s east.  At Jordan’s north and north-east are Syria and Iraq – hotbeds of instability and fierce violence, home to ISIS and other savage jidhadist groups.

The king of Jordan sits uneasily on his throne, for there are radical elements in his nation already. Should he fall, and radicals take control, they would quickly move into Judea and Samaria, if that region, or part of it, was controlled by the PA.  No way PA forces could repel them.  Only the IDF could stand against them.  If radical jihadist were to move into Judea and Samaria, they would bring with them rockets that could easily reach the Ben Gurion Airport near Tel Aviv. And life as we know it in a thriving, vibrant Israel would come to a halt.

~~~~~~~~~~

Obama demonstrates unmitigated gall to suggest that it is an inappropriate and unconstructive “fear” that prevents Netanyahu from risking this scenario by “taking a chance on peace.”

As Obama exposed his intentions towards the Iranian negotiations by taking the military option off the table, so does he here expose his true disregard for Israel.

~~~~~~~~~~

And still there is more, as Obama also said that Israel is losing its “credibility” with its “intransigence” – “so many caveats, so many conditions, that it is not realistic to think that those conditions will be met anytime in the near future.”

When asked about maintaining anti-Israel vetoes at the UN, he hedged:

“Well, here’s the challenge. If in fact there is no prospect of an actual peace process, if nobody believes there is a peace process, then it becomes more difficult to argue with those who are concerned about settlement construction, those who are concerned about the current situation.

“It is more difficult for me to say to them, ‘Be patient, wait, because we have a process here.'”

~~~~~~~~~~

This is a veiled (or not so veiled) threat: go back to the table or I may not support you at the UN.

~~~~~~~~~~

Obama’s entire representation of the situation is distorted.  He puts the onus on Israel, ignoring the many compromises that have been made by Netanyahu over time – compromises not in Israel’s best interest, such as release of prisoners, and freezing of construction in Judea and Samaria. At the same time, he fails to mention the enormous intransigence of Abbas, and that it was Abbas who walked away from negotiations the last time around.

~~~~~~~~~~

You can see the text of the entire interview here:

http://www.vosizneias.com/205071/2015/06/02/jerusalem-obama-netanyahu-stance-on-palestine-endangers-israels-credibility-entire-tv-interview/

~~~~~~~~~~

Having said this about Obama, I now make comments about Netanyahu, as well:

Just the other day, I wrote about this, as I have many times before.  It is not enough, to refuse to negotiate a state with the Palestinian Arabs because of the security risk – as legitimate as this reason is.

Now is the time: Our government must declare the fact of Israeli rights to the land.

The message Obama delivered in his interview was, undoubtedly, the motivating factor for Netanyahu’s recent statement that “two states for two people” is the only possible solution.  It is time to stop appeasing, to stop turning into a pretzel in order to demonstrate how willing Israel is to negotiate.  We cannot win this way.  We simply weaken ourselves.

It is time to start telling Obama and the greater Western world:

  • that Abbas doesn’t know what he’s talking about when he refers to “the 1967 border”
  • that there never was a Palestinian state
  • that we are not occupiers in Judea and Samaria
  • that international law gives this land to the Jews
  • that Judea and Samaria represent the historical Jewish heartland

It is time to go on the offensive. And to start talking about alternatives to “the two state solution.”

~~~~~~~~~~

Abbas repeatedly refers to his intention to seek statehood via the UN.  But what he is doing abrogates the Oslo agreements.  Israel has simply chosen not to call him on this.  The fact that we have no obligations under Oslo any longer also needs to be said loud and clear.

~~~~~~~~~~

I close here with on remarkable statement by Abbas that should be sent to Obama by about 10,000 people.

Abbas was in Amman, to smooth over some tensions.  In the course of statements he made, Abbas, cited directly by Al Quds, said that the relationship between Jordan and Palestine is the relationship of “one people living in two states.”

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/196194#.VW9DEZuJjIV

How about that? Then there is no “Palestinian people” after all, huh?  Abbas ought to know.

04/28/15

Israel Will Attack Iran Soon

By: Alan Caruba
Warning Signs

Nuclear Iran

The Israelis will destroy several Iranian nuclear facilities and my educated guess is that they will do so before the end of this year.

Israel has no margin of error when it comes to nuclear reactors in nations that threaten its existence. While President Obama does everything in his power to enable Iran to create its own nuclear weapons, it is a good idea to recall that in June 1981 the Israelis destroyed a reactor in Iraq. It was the first air strike against such a facility. In September 2007, the Israelis destroyed a Syrian reactor. There was no reprisal in either case.

From Wednesday, April 22 to Friday April 24 the Israelis struck Hizbollah and Syrian military targets in the Walamoun Mountains on the Syrian-Lebanese border. The calculations were that the location, a site for long-range missiles, would be safer from the Israelis. They were wrong.

In September 2014, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed the United Nations General Assembly warning “don’t be fooled by Iran’s manipulative charm offensive. It’s designed for one purpose and for one purpose only. To lift the sanctions and remove the obstacles to Iran’s path to the bomb.”

“Once Iran produces atomic bombs, all the charm and all the smiles will suddenly disappear. They’ll just vanish. It’s then that the ayatollahs will show their true face and unleash their aggressive fanaticism on the entire world.” He offered a comparable message to a joint meeting of Congress in March of this year.

Is anyone listening? Not President Obama. On April 25, writing in The Wall Street Journal, Mortimer Zuckerman, the chairman and editor in chief of the U.S. News and World Report, said “President Obama has been chasing a rainbow in his negotiations with Iran. He has forsaken decades of pledges to the civilized world from presidents of both parties. He has misled the American people in repeatedly affirming that the U.S. would never allow revolutionary Iran to acquire nuclear weapons.”

It’s bad enough when you can’t trust your nation’s enemies, but when you cannot trust your own President you have a very big problem because Iran is not just a threat to America and Israel, but to the entire world.

Obama’s anti-Semitism is obvious to anyone paying the least attention. He particularly loathes Israel. In early April the White House let its unhappiness be known that Netanyahu had, in its words, failed to tone down “hostile and aggressive language” of the Passover religious service. What were those words? “Next year in Jerusalem.”

This is an ancient Jewish prayer that sustained generations of Jews over the course of two millennia, expressing their hope to return to their homeland. To the White House, however, it was “affront to the Palestinians, not to mention a slap in the face to President Obama himself who has worked tirelessly for peace despite Israeli intransigence.” The Jews returned to Israel, declared its independence in 1948, and have had the support of every President since…until Obama.

IsraelThe Israelis know this. Since their independence the Israelis have fought seven recognized wars, two Palestinian intifadas, and a series of armed conflicts in the broader Arab-Israeli conflict. Most recently they put down Hamas in the Gaza once again for its repeated rocketing.

Despite or because of this, the Israelis have sought to demonstrate good will toward their Arab neighbors. There is an untold story of the December 2014 meeting of six Gulf Cooperation Council rulers in the Qatari capital of Doha to discuss steps to respond to challenges that include Iranian aggression and clamping down on the Muslim Brotherhood.

Sources close to event report that Netanyahu has achieved close coordination with the most important Arab leaders that include Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. Other members of the Council include Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman, and the United Arab Emirates.

The Israelis have no choice, nor do I anticipate that Iran will do much, if anything, to respond in the wake of the ashes of those facilities. No other nation will come to their aid.

04/1/15

Obama’s Virtual War on Israel

By: Alan Caruba
Warning Signs

Israel in the Sights

This is hardly the best week to demonstrate his intense hatred of Israel, but since he has devoted 18 months to a fruitless and foolish negotiation with Iran, one can understand why Barack Hussein Obama is in a bad mood. His foreign policy “legacy” is close to being flushed down the Iranian toilet.

On March 31, the Defense of Democracies’ Iran Press Review quoted the Deputy Commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, Brigadier General Masoud Jazayeri, who said, “All should know that we will not allow the inspection of the country’s military and defense industries.” Or, as they say in Farsi, “No deal.”

This week began with Palm Sunday celebrating Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem and proceeds to Good Friday which, at sundown, coincides with the Jewish observance of Passover and Christianity’s “last supper.” It concludes with Easter; holy days that occurred in the holy land that was Israel then and now.

Jesus was a Jew preaching primarily to Jews, whose disciples were Jews, and doing so entirely in Israel, the homeland of Jews for more than a thousand years at that time. The ancestors of Arabs in those days would have been regarded as Assyrians or Egyptians. The people called “Palestinians” did not exist until designated as such by Yassir Arafat in the 1960s.

So why is Obama leading a virtual war on Israel by declassifying information about Israel’s nuclear defenses and a purported effort to get the United Nations to declare “Palestine” a separate state?

At what point will it be understood that the United Nations has no power to create states or to grant formal “recognition” to state aspirants and that the Palestinian Authority and/or Hamas does not meet even the most basic characteristics of a state, lacking for example either a capitol or a currency.

As spelled out in the 1933 Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of States, “Palestine” would have to have a permanent population, a defined territory, a government, and the capacity to enter into relations with other states. By contrast, the current president of the Palestinian Authority is now into his eleventh year of a term that, by their own law, is limited to four.

Not only have the “Palestinians” refused statehood and a two-state relationship since the founding of Israel, but they have participated in large wars and small against Israel, beginning with one in 1948 when Israel declared its statehood. Despite 1949 Armistice Agreements, reprisal operations continued through to the 1960s from Syria, Jordan, and Egypt. The Six-Day war occurred in June 1967 and the Yom Kippur War was fought in 1973.

Focusing on the “Palestinians”, the First Intifada, an uprising against Israel in the West Bank and Gaza occurred from 1987 to 1993. It was followed by a Second Intifada from 2000 to 2005. Responding to escalating rocket fire, there was a three-week Gaza War from December 2008 to January 2009 and in 2014, the Israelis had to respond to weeks of rockets again.

Barack ObamaObama has turned to the United Nations knowing that it took the UN seventy years to even acknowledge the January 28-28 anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz Birkenau, the Nazi death camp in which millions of Jews perished. The UN has studiously avoided the subject of anti-Semitism because that would only call attention to the fact that it has been the global platform for anti-Semitism since its founding in 1945.

A perfect example has been its Human Rights Council that has always included nations famed for their own lack of human rights. When it began its March 2nd session since electing 14 new members last fall, it included Saudi Arabia, Cuba, China and Russia. By the end of March, the Human Rights Council had declared Israel the world’s leading woman’s rights violator and followed up with a general condemnation, adopting four resolutions condemning Israel, four times more than any other of the 192 members of the UN.

This is the same UN that in 2014 elected Iran to its woman’s rights commission, that selected genocidal Sudan and other slave-holding nations to its Committee on Non-Governmental Organizations to oversee human rights activists, and whose UNRWA handed rockets found in Gaza schools back to Hamas. By acclamation, a senior post on the US Special Committee on Decolonization was given to the murderous regime of Syria.

The question of whether Israel is guilty of war crimes was raised in the UN when, after weeks of rocketing from Gaza, it defended itself with an air and land war. It followed the kidnapping and killing of three Israeli teenagers in June 2014. Operation Protective Edge began on July 8 and lasted seven weeks. In the course of it, they discovered over thirty tunnels whose purpose was to provide access to Israel for attacks on its citizens. Apparently self-defense is not a privilege the UN wants to extend to Israel.

In last Saturday’s issue of The New York Times, Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, founder of the World Values Network, took out a full page advertisement comparing the deal to empower Iran to make its own nuclear weapons to the 1933 Munich Agreement by British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain with Adolf Hitler that led to World War II. In the Jerusalem Great Synagogue on the same day, the American-born Chief Rabbi said, “The President of the United States is lashing out at Israel just like Haman lashed out at the Jews.”

No doubt this will be on the minds of Jews, less than 0.2% of the world’s population, when they sit down to celebrate Passover, remembering their enslavement in Egypt and the exodus that led them to freedom. Jesus celebrated Passover and the Kingdom of God. He would pay for it when the Romans put him to death shortly thereafter.

It is futile to think that Obama will cease from his assaults on Israel in the remaining 22 months of his second and final term in office. Those who know the history cited above must join hands to resist this latest enemy of Israel, this disgrace to America who is already widely regarded as the worst, most lawless President ever elected to that office.

© Alan Caruba, 2015

03/29/15

Obama Aligning U.S. Interests With Iran

WOW: Iranian journalist defector says Obama admin arguing on the SIDE of IRAN in nuke negotiations

Obama’s Race To Chaos

Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu: Iran is Moving “to Take Over and Conquer the Entire Middle East”; “Needs to be Stopped”

03/2/15

America—You be the Judge

By: Retired Adm. James A. Lyons
Accuracy in Media

President Obama’s adamant refusal to link the barbaric atrocities committed by the Islamic State and affiliated al-Qaeda militias to Islam is an insult to the intelligence of all thinking Americans.  His insistence that these atrocities are the result of “violent extremism,” not associated with Islam, lessens his already diminished credibility. The Quran and Islamic Law (Shariah) prove him wrong since there are 109 verses in the Quran that can be considered to sanction violence. Furthermore, chapter 2, verse 106 (on abrogation) makes it clear that the later violent verses take precedence over the earlier, less violent ones.

In February, President Obama hosted a White House Summit on countering “violent extremism.”  As it turned out, it was essentially a public relations media event that had nothing substantive to offer in terms of countering the Islamic State’s barbaric acts of terrorism. Instead, it was more of a leftist, progressive agenda sympathetic to “Islamic sensibilities and grievances.” It cited lack of education and job opportunities as part of the root cause that enables IS to attract young Muslims. Mind boggling, particularly when Christians, women, and children are having their heads chopped off and are being buried alive.

If it were to have been a serious summit, you would have expected the Director of the FBI and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to be full participants. However, they were not invited. Instead, the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) and its front organizations were full participants, including the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), both unindicted co-conspirators for funding terrorism from the 2008 Dallas, Texas Holy Land Foundation Trial. Another MB front organization, the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC), was also represented.

The question must be asked: how can the Obama administration continue to embrace the Muslim Brotherhood when its declared creed, verified by the FBI, is to destroy the United States from within by our own “miserable hands,” and replace our Constitution with Islamic “Seventh Century” Shariah Law?

The MB today, with its deep penetration of all our national security and intelligence agencies, has now been institutionalized. With its carte blanche entry into the White House, it has, in effect, become a defacto cabinet member. All Americans should understand that there is no difference between the Islamic State, al-Qaeda, and the Muslim Brotherhood. Their objectives are all the same, it’s only the methods they use to achieve it that may be different. It is a totalitarian ideology bent on world domination (same as Communism), with Islam the dominant religion and Shariah the law.

The policies of the Obama administration in countering the Islamic jihadists of IS are clearly confusing to our allies. To understand President Obama’s strategy, everything this administration does must be viewed through the prism of his stated objective:  to “fundamentally transform America.” This strategy is clear. It is anti-US and anti-Western—but pro-Islam, pro-Iran and pro-Muslim Brotherhood. With his Marxist background, it can be assumed that Obama does not view American power and influence as a force for good in the world. Otherwise, why would he want to fundamentally transform America? Therefore, anything that undercuts US military power and influence is viewed as being “objectively progressive.” President Obama’s refusal to provide legitimate defensive weapons to Ukraine falls under this category. The net result is the emasculation of NATO.

The “leading from behind” strategy announced at the start of the Libyan war, and the unilateral disarmament of our military forces, also fall under this category. A defining moment in the Libyan war was when the Obama administration switched sides in the global war on terror and provided weapons and material support to al-Qaeda and MB-controlled militias. Furthermore, as we now know, the Libyan war was unnecessary since Muammar Gadhafi was prepared to abdicate.

The Middle East today is a disaster area with failed states in Libya, Iraq, Syria, and now Yemen. What’s astonishing is that we are now a de facto partner with the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism, Iran. By so doing, we are enhancing the expansion of Iran’s hegemony throughout the Middle East at the expense of our long term allies—Egypt, Jordan, Israel and Saudi Arabia.

The Obama administration’s precipitous withdrawal from Iraq gave Iran a clear signal that we would not contest their influence over Iraq. It was a foolish, or worse, attempt to obtain a nuclear weapons agreement with the evil Ayatollah Khamenei regime. Today, Iran is already a nuclear threshold state that has sufficient enriched uranium to make 8 to 12 nuclear weapons within a few months. Furthermore, a reliable source has informed me that Iran secretly bought four nuclear weapons from the former Soviet Muslim Republic of Kazakhstan in 1992. They were said to have been transferred to Iran and stored in the Lavizan military site near Tehran.

More recently, it was reported by Jerome Corsi of WorldNetDaily, on 26 February, 2015, that Iran is operating another secret advanced, uranium underground enrichment site northeast of Tehran that was previously unknown to the International Atomic Energy Agency.

With thousands of American lives lost due to Iran’s more than 35 years of aggression against the United States, it is inconceivable that any American administration would agree to enter into such a critical agreement, like the one currently being negotiated with such an evil regime.

When you consider all of the above, as well as the Obama administration’s abuse of power and the many scandals including Benghazi, the IRS, Operation Fast and Furious, Obamacare, and the immigration fiasco, any other administration would be brought up on charges of threatening the security of the United States. America, it’s up to you to influence your representatives to hold President Obama accountable.