12/3/15

The Road to War

by Sharon Sebastian

Road to War

John Kerry is wrong. The Secretary of State displayed a dire lack of knowledge when he stated that the world is “not in a war of civilizations.” The enemy can only smirk at the naiveté or seeming ignorance of yet another American leader that blurs the reality of an ancient war in modern times. Kerry was right when he stated that Islamic radicals are recruiting “thugs” into their ranks. The criminal element has no cause. Their purpose is not religious. They are recruited as a front line of terror to be unleashed by hardcore jihadists.

We are at war. It is critical that Americans understand this ancient war in order to comprehend the long-term strife and bloodshed that is ahead. Some leaders, led by the American President, deny its root causes. Disturbingly, we are at war when Americans increasingly use words like liar, traitor, or incompetent to describe the Commander-in-Chief. Opinion grows that the sitting President is doing more harm to the country than any terrorist could as Americans suspiciously eye his actions.

The American people already hold the Obama administration accountable for the coming harm. Most question why our government would allow terrorists to penetrate our cities secreted among the refugees that are fleeing the bloodletting in their own countries. False identity documents are common. Male and female suicide bombers are equal threats. Whether a moderate Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, Rastafarian or Mormon, as a nation, we all look the same to the jihadists. Whatever your skin color, all American blood runs red.

Historical hindsight is not needed to reveal that our government gave cues to the enemy that America was being weakened. To America’s profound loss most Americans missed the cues, but the enemy did not. Based on both our government’s wrong footed action or inaction, the enemy was strengthened with the resolve to do America harm. History will not dispute that recent actions and inactions by the White House enabled a ancient war of civilizations to emerge from a comparatively suppressed state into a new World War.

The enemy takes notes and the sabers of war are sharpened as:

  • America’s President refuses to name the enemy as a radical arm of Islamists hell-bent on committing violence against the American people based on Islamic teachings that they hold sacrosanct in the Koran.
  • America’s President announced support of the Arab Spring which has manifested violent actions that today devastate the Middle East and are erupting in Europe.
  • America’s President drew a Red Line in the Syrian sand and then abandoned its intent.
  • America’s President withdrew American troops from Iraq leaving Iraq unprotected and vulnerable to take-over with portions functioning today as an enemy base of operations.
  • Patriotic Americans and their Ambassador fell at Benghazi with no life-saving, rescue efforts from the American government.
  • Convoys of trucks carrying enemy combatants openly crossed the desert out of Syria into Iraq as the White House watched the build-up of a combatant army with the known intent to not only establish a Caliphate, but to establish a State from which to wage war against America and its Middle-Eastern and European allies.
  • America’s President released five hardened enemy captives from Guantanamo Bay with promises to free others and to bring those remaining into America’s prison system.
  • The U.S. government signaled that America’s borders were open as human smuggling routes without protections in place that would both identify and keep the terrorist enemy out of America’s soft-target population.
  • U.S. Military forces are thinned, long-time ally Israel is treated with disdain and the list goes on…

The actions of President Obama have become so blatantly obvious that even the liberal press can no longer feign befuddlement.

Unsettling are the unacceptable actions by our government as it appears to choose sides on a basic human level. Evidence of that is an immigration quota that favors Muslim refugees over Christian refugees. The U.S. State Department released data showing that under 3% of Christian refugees are allowed into the country verses 96% of Syrian Muslims who are allowed in. Statistically that is discrimination. Ideologically that is discrimination. Blatant discrimination lies at the feet of this American President in this ancient war that has targeted Christians and Jews from its inception.

It is important to note, with irony, that in regard to the porous vetting of Syrian refugees, the stark difference between their entry versus many entering our country’s porous southern border is that they do not have to pay the coyotes. Most critically, among those in both groups who are escaping poverty or oppression are terrorists. True identities are smoke in the air for those infiltrating with the intent of doing harm.

What is this War of Civilizations that the administration is downplaying through the words of its Secretary of State? What is this centuries old war that erupts on the world’s stage when conditions are right for it to do so? Though it initially targets the world’s oldest faiths, Judaism and Christianity, none of the other world religions need apply for exemption from the coming violence.

The War of Civilizations is based on the enemy’s desire to hasten the return of the 12th Mahdi. While such a statement is foreign to most in the West, it is the basis for this current World War.

President Barack Obama understands this war’s connection to Islam having studied the Koran in Indonesia. That curriculum identifies The Twelfth Imam or 12th Mahdi as the Islamic savior — its Islamic messiah. Islam requires that in order for the 12th Imam to reveal himself, the world must be in a global war. Iran’s former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad openly revealed a divine mission to “hasten the return” of the 12th Mahdi” as Iran sought nuclear weapons.

Destroying Israel, then America, facilitates the 12th Mahdi’s return. Iran’s former leader was clear that the world must first erupt into chaos as a signal for the Mahdi to appear. Both ISIS and the Iranian theocracy seek the return of Islam’s messiah. The two factions of   Islam, the Sunni and Shia doctrinal divides of the Islamic faith, differ on who the 12th Mahdi is and remain engaged in an ancient war with each other.

Islam came into existence some 600 years after the groundswell of Christianity. The Christian Messiah is the Savior Jesus Christ. Islam reveres Jesus as a lesser prophet and not God, which puts Islam at inextricable odds with Christianity. The belief is that the “Mahdi” or “Twelfth Imam” will appear publicly during a time of great disaster, with Jesus at his side, to bring peace to a war-torn world. It is said that the 12th Mahdi will take Jesus to Mecca to replace the Bible with the Koran so that Christians worldwide will convert to Islam. A “Muslim anti-Christ” is also to surface in the world and falsely convince Jews that he is the Jewish people’s “Jesus” or “Messiah” that they have long awaited.

An “Islamic Jesus,” it is said, will kill all Jews and behead anyone worldwide who does not accept Islam as the only true religion. The Islamic Mahdi will set-up his kingdom in Jerusalem, establish a worldwide Caliphate, along with Sharia Law, and rule the world. Non-believers must convert, be fined, or put to death. Homosexuals will be killed and women will become property and be oppressed. Such belief is a driving force of today’s war on non-Islamic nations; an ancient war based on fundamental Islam that has entrenched the globe in a war on terror. Moderate Muslims declare that only extremists hold such beliefs.

Only the foolish would categorize this war as a war of political ideologies between the West and the Muslim world. A radical jihadist movement forced turmoil in the Middle East to set up the Caliphate and enslave global societies via a rampage of death and destruction. The youth in Paris at the concerts and coffeehouses now understand the savagery that is involved. Will America’s youth understand what is coming to our shores, that American blood runs as red as Parisian blood? Will the world community have the same conviction when it proclaimed “never again” after witnessing the horrors of the holocaust?

President Obama’s denigrations and actions against Christians and Jews signals to the enemy that they have commonality with America’s President. If the American President does not recognize that as a threat, the American people do.

Obama’s years of studying Islam should have taught him that he cannot unmoor this enemy from what they believe is the sole reason that they exist on the planet. To retreat in any degree from a war not of our choosing or to repeatedly mock a growing warrior response among others intent on protecting our nation is not leadership. It is acquiescence. Islamic radicals seek world chaos. Such intent nullifies comments by members of Congress who state that “they do not want to get sucked into this war.” Both misunderstandings of this new World War reveal either a profound ignorance or a dangerous, home-grown ideology. Americans did not seek this war, Americans do not want this war, but as many in Congress are proving, America will defend its homeland in spite of a recalcitrant White House and a reticent Commander-in-Chief.

Sharon Sebastian, author of the book, “AGING: WARNING Navigating Life’s Medical, Mental & Financial Minefields” (here), is a columnist, commentator, and contributor in print and on nationwide broadcasts on topics ranging from healthcare, culture, religion, and politics to domestic and global policy. Sebastian’s political and cultural analyses are published nationally and internationally. Website:  www.AgingWarning.com

03/22/15

Obama and Kerry Seek to Finalize an Iranian Nuclear Deal as Nuclear Conflict Draws Near

By: Terresa Monroe-Hamilton

Barack Obama

Courtesy of Matt Bracken

As a nuclear pact with Iran draws near, signed in blood by John Kerry and Barack Obama, Iran’s Supreme leader Ali Khamenei calls for “Death to America” on Saturday. Could it get any more suicidally insane? Obama is urging Iran to seize an ‘historic opportunity‘ for a nuclear deal. One that has death to the Great and Little Satans written all over it. You betcha it’ll be historic… he’s ordering an apocalypse. It doesn’t get much more historic than that.

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei delivers a speech in Tehran (photo credit: AP/Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader/File)

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei delivers a speech in Tehran (photo credit: AP/Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader/File)

Khamenei whipped up Iranian throngs of Twelvers in Tehran declaring that Iran would not give in to Western demands. Predictably, the crowd started shouting, “Death to America” and the ayatollah proclaimed: “Of course yes, death to America, because America is the original source of this pressure. They insist on putting pressure on our dear people’s economy,” he said, referring to economic sanctions aimed at halting Iran’s nuclear program. “What is their goal? Their goal is to put the people against the system,” he said. “The politics of America is to create insecurity,” he added, referring both to US pressure on Iran and elsewhere in the region. His comments were in contrast with those of Iranian President Hassan Rohani, who said “achieving a deal is possible” by the March 31 target date for a preliminary accord. True double speak from the Iranians. My money is on Khamenei being more forthright in their feelings for the American infidels.

John Kerry proved once again that he was as dense as a box of rocks as he moronically chirped that we have an opportunity to get this right. What? An opportunity to wipe Israel and America off the map once and for all? Is that the opportunity you foresee? It certainly isn’t what you are mouthing… that it will prove to the world once and for all that Iran has no interest in nuclear weapons. Because nothing could be further from the glaring truth and Obama and Kerry know it. I don’t know how the world can think that Iran will get nuclear capabilities and not nuclear weapons that they will relish using. It’s either the most serious case of denial in history or they just can’t face evil. Either way, it is death on a cracker for the West.

Right now, the US and Iran are drafting elements of a deal that commits the Iranians to a 40 percent cut in the number of machines they use to enrich. The Obama administration is seeking a deal that stretches the time Tehran would need to make a nuclear weapon from the present two to three months to at least a year. What difference in the end does that make? None – you still get a nuclear Iran. A genocidal, theocratic regime that believes in Armageddon and in fact, wants to usher it in. They also have no problem lying to infidels, so how can you take their word on anything? Much less whether they will light up the West or not. Fools and much worse are negotiating this farce. Obama is throwing threats around that aren’t meant for Iran – he’s positing whether to launch a military attack on Iran or allow it to reach nuclear weapons capacity if the talks fail. That’s a threat to America. Support an American signed deal with Iran, or we go to war with Iran or let them become a nuclear power without standing in their way at all. He thinks his threat holds water… it doesn’t. War is inevitable with Iran either way. The clock is ticking and Israel will have to act soon. Iran will not voluntarily stop, so someone will have to put them down. It won’t be Obama.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, right, attends a graduation ceremony of army cadets, accompanied by Revolutionary Guard commander Mohammad Ali Jafari, left, Chief of the General Staff of Iran's Armed Forces, Hasan Firouzabadi, second left in Tehran, Iran, Saturday, Oct. 5 2013. (AP Photo/Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader)

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, right, attends a graduation ceremony of army cadets, accompanied by Revolutionary Guard commander Mohammad Ali Jafari, left, Chief of the General Staff of Iran’s Armed Forces, Hasan Firouzabadi, second left in Tehran, Iran, Saturday, Oct. 5 2013. (AP Photo/Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader)

Iran has planned America’s demise for many, many years. American officials have confirmed that Iranian military brass have endorsed a nuclear electromagnetic pulse explosion that would attack the country’s power system. They made this discovery while translating a secret Iranian military handbook, raising new concerns about Tehran’s recent nuclear talks with the administration. That won’t deter Obama one bit though.

From the Washington Examiner:

The issue of a nuclear EMP attack was raised in the final hours of this week’s elections in Israel when U.S. authority Peter Vincent Pry penned a column for Arutz Sheva warning of Iran’s threat to free nations.

“Iranian military documents describe such a scenario — including a recently translated Iranian military textbook that endorses nuclear EMP attack against the United States,” he wrote.

A knowledgable source said that the textbook discusses an EMP attack on America in 20 different places.

Arizona Republican Rep. Trent Franks, who is leading an effort to protect the U.S. electric grid from an EMP attack, has recently made similar claims based on the document translated by military authorities.

It’s not just Iran… North Korea, China and Russia are stepping up nuclear threats as well. A very likely scenario for an EMP attack is by a ship or ships who could launch missiles off our Eastern Coast or via a satellite. If they were to actually target 20 cities and pull it off, our power grid would go down and millions would die in the aftermath. People don’t have to believe that – it is just a stone cold fact.

From Pry:

Iran armed with nuclear missiles poses an unprecedented threat to global civilization.

One nuclear warhead detonated at high-altitude over the United States would blackout the national electric grid and other life sustaining critical infrastructures for months or years by means of an electromagnetic pulse (EMP). A nationwide blackout lasting one year, according to the Congressional EMP Commission, could cause chaos and starvation that leaves 90 percent of Americans dead.

Iranian military documents describe such a scenario–including a recently translated Iranian military textbook that endorses nuclear EMP attack against the United States.

Thus, Iran with a small number of nuclear missiles can by EMP attack threaten the existence of modernity and be the death knell for Western principles of international law, humanism and freedom. For the first time in history, a failed state like Iran could destroy the most successful societies on Earth and convert an evolving benign world order into world chaos.

Russia's KH-101 long-range cruise missile / National Air and Space Intelligence Center

Russia’s KH-101 long-range cruise missile / National Air and Space Intelligence Center

Let’s turn to Russia next. Russia is developing a long-range cruise missile that poses a new threat to the United States, the commander of the US Northern Command warned this week. But don’t worry… a Red Dawn scenario is just absurd. Right.

From Bill Gertz:

“Russia is progressing toward its goal of deploying long-range, conventionally-armed cruise missiles with ever increasing stand-off launch distances on its heavy bombers, submarines, and surface combatants, augmenting the Kremlin’s toolkit of flexible deterrent options short of the nuclear threshold,” Adm. William Gortney, Northcom chief who heads the U.S.-Canadian North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) said Thursday.

“Should these trends continue, over time NORAD will face increased risk in our ability to defend North America against Russian cruise missile threats,” he said in prepared testimony to the House Armed Services subcommittee on strategic forces.

A defense official said the missile that concerns the Northcom commander is the Russian KH-101 cruise missile which Russia has developed as a weapon to attack critical infrastructure in the United States, such as the electrical grid.

The comments highlight what defense officials and military analysts say is the growing threat of long-range cruise missiles.

Cruise missiles pose unique threats because they can defeat defenses by flying at low altitudes, avoiding radars, and hiding behind terrain. Some newer cruise missiles have radar-evading stealth features making them even less visible to radar or infrared detectors.

The low-flying missiles also can overwhelm defenses by attacking with multiple missiles coming from different directions and defeating air defenses at their weakest points. They also can fly circuitous routes to reach targets, avoiding radar and air defenses.

Testimony by Gortney and other senior officials at the hearing raised concerns that growing missile capabilities could overwhelm U.S. defenses.

Vice Adm. James Syring, director of the Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency, testified that North Korea’s missile development, in particular, is a major concern. Syring said because of funding cuts he may have to advise Gortney that “the [missile defense] system is over-matched.”

Subcommittee Chairman Rep. Mike Rogers (R., Ala.) said he is very concerned about funding shortfalls for missile defense.

“The United States of America is on its way to losing its military edge, not just in terms of the ability to project power, but to even defend the homeland,” Rogers said. “This situation is intolerable.”

Gortney, in his testimony, said: “We remain concerned with the development of conventional cruise missiles that could provide near peer adversaries with options to strike the United States without the perceived risk of retaliation of a nuclear exchange.”

The threat was highlighted in early September, when two Russian Tu-95 strategic bombes conducted practice cruise missile bombing strikes on the United States from launch areas off the coast of eastern Canada, U.S. defense officials said.

American brass are getting very nervous and concerned over these developments. And they should be. Adm. Cecil D. Haney said in testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee Thursday, “The concept of mating advanced weapon systems with commonplace items—such as surface-to-surface cruise missiles disguised as shipping containers—blurs the line between military and civilian environments and complicates our deterrence calculus.” What is being discussed is the Russian KH-101 missile. It is a 5,000-kilometer [3,106-mile] range conventional cruise missile. The KH-102 is nuclear. The KH-101 is configured for launch on Russian strategic bombers. There have been Russian press reports that a sea-based variant is deployed on Russia’s Severodvinsk-class nuclear attack submarines.

Russia’s Club K cruise missile / National Air and Space Intelligence Center

Russia’s Club K cruise missile / National Air and Space Intelligence Center

According to NASIC, Russia’s Club-K cruise missile is sold in a “container launcher” that looks like a standard shipping container. The Club-K can launch cruise missiles from cargo ships, trains, or commercial trucks. China also has a new long-range cruise missile called the DH-10 and Iran’s land-attack cruise missile is the 1,242-mile-range Meshkat. Feeling warm and fuzzy yet? Still think war isn’t in the near future?

Finally, let’s have a look at the Hermit Kingdom – North Korea. China has massively upped their financial backing of the NoKos. North Korea has nuclear missiles and is prepared to use them at any time, an envoy for the country said in a recent interview. Now, they’ve been saying this forever, but there are new developments. Right now, they are saying if we attack them, they will strike back. But who really trusts the whack job that is Kim Jung Un? Of course, the US keeps playing this threat down. I wonder how many people believe that anymore?

September 9, 2013: Tractors pull artillery through Kim Il Sung Square during a military parade to mark the 65th anniversary of North Korea's founding in Pyongyang. (AP)

September 9, 2013: Tractors pull artillery through Kim Il Sung Square during a military parade to mark the 65th anniversary of North Korea’s founding in Pyongyang. (AP)

From War is Boring:

North Korea is attempting to put nuclear weapons to sea, according to a longtime regime watcher.

Joseph Bermudez — an expert on North Korean weapons — believes the evidence is commercial satellite imagery showing a submarine with possibly two vertical launch tubes. The regime also appears to have constructed a test stand for launching sea-based ballistic missiles.

The two revelations may not be directly related.

For one, the vessel might not end up carrying nuclear-capable missiles. But Bermudez’s evidence is highly suggestive. And if the North is planning to put nukes aboard submarines, this would make Kim Jong Un’s atomic arsenal more survivable in case of attack.

North KoreaIn October 2014, Bermudez observed an unidentified submarine at North Korea’s South Sinpo Shipyard. The shipyard conducts research and development for naval weapons and warship construction.

According to Bermudez, the submarine appeared to weigh around 900 to 1,500 tons in displacement. The analyst tentatively nicknamed the still-under-construction vessel the Sinpo, and noted a resemblance to former Yugoslavian submarines.

Intriguingly, satellite imagery from July 2014 revealed an empty space near the conning tower. Pyongyang could install one or two vertically-launched missiles in this space. The shipyard also has a nearby test stand for the development of long-range ballistic missiles.

The stand is “the right size and design to be used for the research, development, and testing of the process of ejecting a missile out of a launch tube as well as evaluating its compatibility with submarines and surface combatants,” Bermudez wrote.

That’s probably not a coincidence.

North Korea would most likely use nuclear weapons as a deterrent at present. But what if… what if China, North Korea, Russia and Iran decided the US was vulnerable? Which currently, we are. That ought to keep you up at night, especially with Barack Obama at the military helm. So, while Obama and Kerry work to finalize a nuclear deal with the murderous Mullahs of Iran, a nuclear conflict is on our doorstep and drawing closer every day. This time without a mutually assured destruction clause. That doesn’t work when your enemy is not afraid to die and would welcome the Mahdi ushering in the End of Days.