The National Security Disaster That Is The Obama Administration

According to an article in the WSJ (available around the paywall here), the 2012 raid on the bin Laden compound in Pakistan netted the single greatest collection of intelligence materials since 9/11. At the time -- and since -- the Obama message was that al Qaeda was all but destroyed and that it was time to wind down the war on terror. As Obama said, when two years ago he asked Congress to repeal the Authorization For Use of Military Force (AUMF) passed in the wake of 9/11, this war on terror "must end."

However, the wealth of materials captured in the bin Laden raid told a different story. They told of a vastly expanding threat from al Qaeda, the Taliban and the ISIS, as well as complicity by Iran. Those facts contradicted the Obama administration's narrative, so not only were they kept from the public eye, but in what can only be seen as treasonous insanity, they were walled off from analysis by our intelligence community for at least a year, and have had only limited availability since. Yes, read that last line twice and let it sink in.

After a pitched bureaucratic battle [that lasted about a year], a small team of analysts from the Defense Intelligence Agency and Centcom was given time-limited, read-only access to the documents. The DIA team began producing analyses reflecting what they were seeing in the documents.

At precisely the time Mr. Obama was campaigning on the imminent death of al Qaeda, those with access to the bin Laden documents were seeing, in bin Laden’s own words, that the opposite was true. Says Lt. Gen. Flynn: “By that time, they probably had grown by about—I’d say close to doubling by that time. And we knew that.”

This wasn’t what the Obama White House wanted to hear. So the administration cut off DIA access to the documents and instructed DIA officials to stop producing analyses based on them.

Even this limited glimpse into the broader set of documents revealed the problems with the administration’s claims about al Qaeda. Bin Laden had clear control of al Qaeda and was intimately involved in day-to-day management. More important, given the dramatic growth of the terror threat in the years since, the documents showed that bin Laden had expansion plans. . . .

The WSJ article goes on to argue for making all of the documents from the bin Laden raid publicly available. I'd be satisfied if they'd just make them available to our intel analysts. This incident highlights both how and why Obama's foreign policy has been a complete disaster for our national security. Obama's policies are completely out of touch with reality. Obama values ideology and political power more than he does our national security. And while our nation can recover from the economic disaster that the Obama regime has been, it is far less certain that we can recover from the damage Obama has done to our national security,

In 2008, I wrote a post supporting John McCain's presidential bid on the issue of national security. I argued that McCain could be expected to make national security decisions respecting "Iran, Iraq and terrorism" based on the long term interests of our country while Obama would make such decisions based on ideology and polls. I think history has proven my point with a terrible vengeance, but it is a hollow 'I told you so.' Even I never expected this degree of disaster. As Victor Davis Hanson recently stated, "Obama’s morally confused foreign policy is making the world more dangerous by the day."

To list --

- Obama squandered our victory in Iraq because he, and indeed, the entire left wanted history to consider our war there illegitimate. Iran now increasingly holds sway in Iraq and our true allies in Iraq, the Kurds, are in desperate straits.

- Obama's decision to unilateraly end our military engagement in Afghanistan threatens that country with the same fate as Iraq.

- Obama refused to intercede in Syria at the start of their civil war. While Obama fiddled, pro-Western forces in Syria were overcome by the Sunni radical groups. Syria is now a war for spoils between the Wahabbi radicals of ISIS and the mad mullahs of Iran.

- Obama's war in Libya against Qaddafi, who at least maintained the neutrality of that country, has opened up Libya for exploitation by ISIS and al Qaeda.

- Obama fully supported the Muslim Brotherhood administration of Mohamed Morsi in Egypt as they used authoritarian tactics to reshape that nation into a permanent theocracy. The Obama administration still maintains ties with the Muslim Brotherhood while having a very cool relationship with Egypt's secular leader, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, who, it should be noted, is the only national leader, Islamic or otherwise, to call for a reform of Islam.

- Obama refuses to even acknowledge Islam's role in the Islamic terrorism that is reshaping our world. That refusal to engage in the war of ideas guarantees that Islamic terrorism, perhaps apocalyptic given the ever increasing likelihood of a WMD attack, will never be defeated.

- Obama's entire foreign policy, based on fantasy and, we now know, a simple refusal to acknowlede uncomfortable facts, has allowed for the rise of ISIS, an utterly animalistic group that has now have proclaimed a caliphate in the areas of Syria and Iraq where they hold sway. In addition, the ISIS now hold parts of Libya. The ISIS threatens to destabilize other Sunni countries in the already unstable Middle East.

- Obama, who named as one of his many insane, utopian goals, a world without nuclear weapons, has significantly reduced our nuclear arms capacity That nuclear capacity is what has kept the peace in Europe, the Pax Americana, of the past near seventy years.

- Obama unilaterally changed our national defense posture from being able to fight in two theaters of war simultaneously -- our defense posture since WWII -- to being able to fight in one. This was certainly not based on any threat assessment. It was based on his desire to use more of our nations wealth to fund his domestic programs.

- Obama has made "climate change" one of the top priorities of our nation's defense establishment, diverting significant resources from our nation's defense.

- Under Obama, defense spending has become our nation's lowest priority, and, according to a 2015 Heritage Foundation analysis, our military capabilities are significantly declining. Add to that is Obama's decision to use our military to advance the social policies of radical feminists by allowing women into the combat arms without even the pretense of a study to determine how this would effect, let alone enhance, our war fighting capability.

- Obama, who promised in his 2008 campaign and again in his 2012 campaign that he would stop Iran's nuclear program, has broken a sanctions regime that had finally brought the Iranian theocracy to its knees. Iran is the quintessential bad actor in the world. The mad mullahs of Iran have been at war with U.S. interests, and often times the U.S. itself, since almost the first day Iran's theocracy was proclaimed in 1979. The mad mullahs pose the single greatest threat to our and the world's long term security. Yet Obama appears on the cusp of cutting a deal with Iran to allow them to continue their nuclear enrichment - and thus their march towards a nuclear arsenal.

- Obama, by allowing Iran to continue its nuclear program, is igniting a nuclear arms race in the Middle East as Saudi Arabia and other nations start their own nuclear programs for self defense. The only thing more frightening than Iran with nuclear weapons is Iran and the Wahhabists of Saudi Arabia with nuclear weapons.

- Obama, when presented with a rare strategic opportunity during Iran's Green Revolution to perhaps topple or at least alter the trajectory of Iran's bloody and lawless theocracy, wholly ignored the opportunity until the mad mullahs had almost completely regained control.

- Russia has already invaded the Ukraine, and several NATO nations are concerned, probably not unreasonably, that Russia might invade and that NATO, led by the U.S., will not respond.

- North Korea is continuing to build and refine its nuclear arsenal. And its Dear Leader is beating the war drums, telling Army commanders this week to prepare for a Great War of Reunification against the U.S. and South Korea.

- China is rapidly expanding and modernizing its military capabilities far beyond that needed for regional defense. China is also becoming more bellicose and aggressive in its dealings with its neighbors.

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The world today is a far more dangerous place for America than it was in 2008, when Obama took office. We can't stop Obama's continued degradation of our national security between now and 2017, but let us hope we can slow it, at least in regards to Iran's march to a nuclear arsenal. Otherwise, our nation will not recover from the damage Obama has done and may yet do.

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Samantha Power, Obama & New Adventures In Cluelessness

This . . .

. . . is Samantha Power, an Irish-born former Harvard professor, one of Obama's long time foreign policy advisors and now our nation's ambassador to the UN.

This woman thinks that, well, . . . this:

President Obama's team thought the regime might abandon dictator Bashar Assad over his use of chemical weapons in Syria's civil war.

Samantha Power, the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, hoped that a team of UN investigators — many of whom, presumably, have a longstanding relationship with Iranian leaders -- could write a report that would convince Iran to abandon its ally at the behest of the United States.

"We worked with the UN to create a group of inspectors and then worked for more than six months to get them access to the country on the logic that perhaps the presence of an investigative team in the country might deter future attacks," Power said at the Center for American Progress as she made the case for intervening in Syria.

"Or, if not, at a minimum, we thought perhaps a shared evidentiary base could convince Russia or Iran — itself a victim of Saddam Hussein's monstrous chemical weapons attacks in 1987-1988 — to cast loose a regime that was gassing it's people," she said. . . .

Now, the mad mullahs are the single greatest threat to the West in the world today. The mad mullahs have their hands covered in blood. They are in the midst of developing nuclear weapons - things that dwarf chemical weapons. They are the world's single greatest sponsor of terrorism. They are an authoritarian theocracy that cannot be trusted to act rationally. They have been at war with the U.S. since 1979. Syria is their only Arab ally - and an absolutely critical one, as Syria links Iran to Lebanon and the West Bank.

So how clueless, how out of touch with reality must Samantha Power be, if she can think for even a nanosecond that we can deal with the mad mullahs. If this is the nature of her advice to Obama, we are in deep, deep trouble. This is a degree naivete the world hasn't seen since Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain returned from his 1938 meeting with Hitler to announce that he had secured "peace in our time." This is scary.

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Foreign Policy As Politics - Following The Obama Example

Foreign policy, including the use of force, should always be based on national interests, not politics. Just a reminder, as we consider Obama's call to attack Syria because Assad violated Obama's redline and slaughtered over a thousand innocents, recall if you will how the left tried to legislate defeat of our nation during the Iraq War for purely political gain and irrespective of the consequences. This from James Taranto at WSJ:

In 2007 Obama asserted that American troops should be withdrawn from Iraq even if that would result in genocide:

"Well, look, if that's the criteria by which we are making decisions on the deployment of U.S. forces, then by that argument you would have 300,000 troops in the Congo right now--where millions have been slaughtered as a consequence of ethnic strife--which we haven't done," Mr. Obama told the AP. "We would be deploying unilaterally and occupying the Sudan, which we haven't done. Those of us who care about Darfur don't think it would be a good idea."

These past statements indict the president for hypocrisy, but they do not prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt. In his defense one might claim that his moral sensibility has matured over the past six years. Perhaps, that is, he has grown in office--though he has not grown nearly enough by other measures that one can say he is up to the job.

Unless in the next week or so he discovers a heretofore unrealized capacity to move public opinion on substantive matters of policy, the expedient thing for lawmakers of either party to do will be to vote "no" while smugly minimizing the moral stakes by noting that while Assad is of course "a bad guy," he poses no imminent and direct threat to the United States, the Syrian economy is in shambles, there are lots of other mass-murdering dictators and we can't bomb 'em all, and so forth.

Any opportunistic lawmaker who takes that path will be following the example set by the man who is now president of the United States.

As I said in the post below, I would support attacking Syria if the attack was of sufficient strength to change the trajectory of the Syrian civil war because, that, in the long run, is in our national interest. It is in our national interest primarily because it would hurt Iran, and they are the true enemy in the Middle East that has to be defeated. But I will say, it is a bitter pill to swallow, to now give the traitorous left moral and political cover to use force.

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Obama, Syria, & A Foreign Policy Somewhere Between Wrong, God-Awful Wrong, & Disastrous

My impression is that we are aiming the barrels of our guns at Syria for no other reason than Obama has discovered that talking tough about a red line then doing nothing about it does not play well politically.  This most recent use of chemical weapons by Assad is not the first or even the second time he has used them since Obama announced a red line on chemical weapons - its the sixth time Assad has used them.  Moreover, according to Obama and all the leaks coming from the White House, Obama plans to do nothing that will have any impact on the Syrian civil war.  In other words, there is no discernible objective to this other than for Obama to say that he did something to "punish" Assad for using chemical weapons.  This is as James Tarranto has described it in the WSJ, a Show Of Farce which defies satire.

Should Congress vote in favor of such a strike?  First, let's look at Obama's foreign policy before keying in on Syria.

Obama has no discernible foreign policy in the Middle East.  He reacts to events, inevitably taking a position on the hard issues only when forced, and even then taking a position that proves somewhere between wrong, god awful wrong, and disastrous.  Let's go down the list. [Update: Instapundit takes a look at Obama's foreign policy at the USA Today, from the infamous reset with Russia all the way to the coalition building Obama has done on Syria. Instapundit finds Obama's foreign policy to be "inept" - which is probably an overly kind description of the acts Instapundit memorializes.]

In Iran, he let the Green Revolution go by without doing a thing to assist - even from the bully pulpit.  He was golfing while young women were being shot by government snipers on the streets of Terhan.  For all of Obama's talk of being tough with Iran, the mad mullahs move closer every day to a nuclear arsenal and Obama does nothing to stop them.  Oh, he tried to slow them down with the now well publicized STUXNET, but he has done nothing to change their trajectory.  This is a sleeper at the moment, but every day it goes on, it will eventually cost our nation ever more in gold and blood on the day we have to face it.

In Iraq, Obama merely had to negotiate a Status of Forces Agreement, so that we could leave troops there to stabilize the nation and, indeed, threaten Iran.  He failed at that - and I would not be surprised to find, in the years to come, that it was deliberately so.  The Iraq War is what the traitorous left, led by Obama, was using as a political tool between 2005 and 2008.  They tried as hard as they could to legislate defeat in Iraq and paint that war as a complete failure.  When that failed, Obama did not want to do anything other than leave.  All the blood and gold we spent to try and create something akin to a functioning republic has been wasted, and Iraq now daily devolves ever more back into violence and the sphere of Iran.  It is obscene.

In Afghanistan, Obama authorized a partial "surge," while at the same time announcing a date certain for our withdrawal.  Could there be any more counter productive way to conduct a war?

In Egypt, Obama gave support to pushing out our ally, Honsi Mubarak, when the strongest force in the nation was the Muslim Brotherhood - the progenitors of al Qaeda.  Obama then followed a policy of fully supporting the Brotherhood government even as they road roughshod over democracy in an attempt to form a decidedly non-democratic Islamic theocracy. And now, even after the people of Egypt spearheaded a coup against the Brotherhood, Obama has led calls to re-establish a civilian government immediately and to stop any government use of force against the Brotherhood as they try to conduct their own counterrevolution.

In Libya, the U.S. had next to no national interests.  Qaddafi, once a promoter of terrorism, had renounced it and, indeed, offered to stop his nuclear program years before.  He was no threat to the U.S. and, indeed, while many of his people supported al Qaeda, he was a bulwark against a theocracy in his tribal country.  And yet, Obama saw fit to insinuate himself into a civil war there on wholly humanitarian grounds.  Obama announced a doctrine that required U.S. intervention when a leader threatened to kill his own people.  Obama set out the moral high ground and planted his flag.  He also unleashed the radicals in Libya, and it is an open question whether they will, in the end, take over the country.

The Obama doctrine lasted about six months, until the Syrian civil war began.  And it was truly a civil war, with the grass roots at war with the government.  Obama could have stepped in to help them - and it very much would have been in our interests to do so.  Syria is key Iran, if for nothing else then as a passage way to Lebanon and the West Bank.  But Obama dithered, doing nothing, and Syria became a Mecca for the radical Sunnis who dream of establishing their own theocracy.  And it is unclear at the moment, should Syria fall, that the country would not emerge in the hands of the al Qaeda types.  What a mess.

Still and all, in judging between the threats posed by Iran and al Qaeda, the greater threat is that posed by Iran.  Their losing Syria as an ally would be a serious loss, and war with Iran is a certainty unless something is done to stop their march to a nuclear arsenal.  Thus, I would roll the dice in favor of supporting Syrian rebels now, and try to straighten out the Sunni mess later.

That said, under no circumstances should the U.S. spend an ounce of its gold or a drop of the blood of its sons and daughters merely to allow Obama a way to save face.  Unless he agrees to take actions that in fact will impact the civil war in Syria - that will truly hurt Assad with a goal of driving him from the country - none of our representatives should vote in favor of attacking Syria.

Moreover, even if Obama agrees to decisive action, the right should not let him or the traitorous left off the hook by failing to point out that --

1.  This action is being taken without the support of the UN.  You will recall how the left howled about taking any action without full approval of that body.

2.  This action is being taken without virtually any coalition of the willing.  You will recall how the left howled about the U.S. acting "unilaterally" when Bush had put together an alliance of some forty nations.

3.  That President Bush took no military actions without the full consent of Congress.  Obama, on the other hand, took us into Libya without either Congressional authorization or any threat to our national security.  The only reason he has come to Congress now is because he lacks anything approaching a legitimate mandate to attack Syria.


4.  That we are where we are today because Obama has not had anything approaching a coherent foreign policy.  He has neither attacked enemies who threaten our national interest nor given support to those who would support our national interest.  He did not intervene during the Green Revolution, yet he saw fit to intervene in Libya.  He did not help the Syrians at the start of their civil war, but he did support the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.  Can this joker - or the left as a whole - get anything right?

That is a rhetorical question, but let me answer it anyway - I don't think so.  The left seem to see pursuing our national interest as something that is immoral.  On the other hand, they see intervening in places where our national interest is not at stake as somehow moral.  It is the bizarre brand of self hate that grew from the pen of Karl Marx and has spread like a cancer throughout the West ever since.  God help this nation.

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Jihad & Counter-Terrorism Linkfest

All of the most interesting links on the world of jihadism and efforts to counter it below the fold
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The above cartoon unabashedly stolen from Always On Watch.

Always On Watch is blogging on a major attack by Muslims on a Christian school in Jakarta, Indonesia, injuring hundreds of students. The attack was spearheaded by the local imam and chairman of the Muslim Brotherhood Forum of Kampung Pulo Village, who in the past opposed the opening and continued existence of the Christian institute.

Dr. Zuhdi Jasser ponders the significance of the resignation of Parvez Ahmed from CAIR's Board of Directors. What he observes is a change in tactics rather than any fundamental shift away from the goal of instituting political Islam in America.

Someone is killing the Syrian leadership running Hezbollah. A few months ago, uber terrorist and Hezbollah operations chief Imad Muginayah was assassinated in Damascus. Today its Syrian President Bashar Assad's top aide, adviser, and liaison officer to the Hizbullah, General Mohammed Suleiman. Anti-Mullah is blogging on news reports that he was shot and killed by an unidentified sniper in the Syrian port city of Tartous. This is a positive trend.

Atlas Shrugs covers the testimony of Steve Emerson before Congress on the thoroughly backwards State Dept. attempts to engage the Muslim community in the U.S. by going through organizations set up and funded by radical foreign elements. The meat of Mr. Emerson’s testimony:

"While the outreach to the Muslim community by the State Department "is an honorable and worthwhile pursuit, the State Department has conducted outreach to the wrong groups, sending a terrible message to moderate Muslims who are thoroughly disenfranchised by the funding, hosting and embracing of radical groups that purport to be opposed to terrorism and extremism."

As I have blogged on several occasions before, this is precisely the same mistake Britain is making.

CAIR is celebrating the dismissal of Michael Savage’s lawsuit over CAIR’s use of parts of his radio program to organize a boycott of his show’s sponsors. Given the serious implications of Savage’s lawsuit for the fair use doctrine and freedom of speech, I have to say that, in this one very unusual and discrete instance, CAIR was right. Meanwhile, the American wing of the Muslim Brotherhood, the MAS, is supporting the insane decision by a judge to release Sami al Arian on bond.

There is an utter outrage in Pakistan. Kidnapping and rape of pre-teen Christian girls has been given the green light by Pakistan’s lower courts. Christians Under Attack has the story of two young Christian girls kidnapped by Muslims, "married," forced to convert to Islam. In a lawsuit by the children’s parents to force the return of their children, the lower court ruled that they are now Muslims and the rightful property of their "husbands." There is an update to this story at Gates of Vienna.

The Terror Wonk blogs on the ramifications of the CIA making public allegations, carried in the NYT, that Pakistan’s intelligence agency, ISI, is actively involved in supporting the Taliban. The ISI has been a snakes den for decades.

Robert Spencer at Dhimmi Watch blogs on a Turkish soap opera about an Islamic man and wife who act as equal partners. It apparently has Saudi women enthralled and Saudi clerics up in arms.

The Wahhabi purists in al Qaeda are upset with King Abdullah for attempting to reach out to other faiths. Dinah Lord posts on the latest al Qaeda video calling for beheading the King.

Via Europe News, there is Diana West’s column on how serious the problem of radical Islam is in the UK and the utter failure of the chattering class to face the issue. Indeed, to the contrary, they are doing all they can to silence any attempt to raise or debate the issue. Among the many facts they are ignoring are items like this from an interview with Egyptian Islamic Preacher 'Amr Khaled: "Within 20 Years, Muslims Will Be Majority in Europe" And the Gathering Storm posts on how one small community in Britain that rejected plans for building a Mosque in their town are now having the decision taken away from them by the government.

Winds of Jihad has an eye opening post on how Muslims are turning areas of Germany into no-go zones for police and non-Muslims.

From Eye On The World: "The son of one of the most prominent Hamas MPs coverts to Christianity, calls Islam a religion of death, admires Israel and cautions that Islam will never allow Muslims to achieve a peace agreement with the Jews."

Michael Ledeen blogs at PJM on the interaction between "soft power" and brute force, making the important point that the determining factor of success in a counterinsurgency is who the populace believes is going to win the "brute force" end of things.

At Ironic Surrealism, a chilling video about the goals of jihadism in the words of their spiritual leaders.

Europe News reports that Denmark is 'liberalizing' its laws to allow for the possibility of greater immigration as the result of "cousin marriages" among the Muslim population.

From Islamist Watch, an article by David Rushin on Muslim intimidation and threats of violence against "apostates" in the West who convert from Islam.

At the Lebanese news outlet, Ya Libnan, an editorial on the prospects for the new Cabinet: "To expect Hezbollah to play a positive role in the creation of a Lebanese civil society is to believe in the supernatural and to suspend rationality in favour of miracles."

At LGF, the Turkish AKP party, having just survived a challenge to its constitutionality, has backed down on the issue of "allowing" females to wear headscarves as a sign of their faith in public buildings and universities.

From Marked Manner, Obama has been getting sizable campaign contributions from individuals in Rafah, GA. GA stands for Gaza, not Georgia.

Freedom of speech and radical Islam in all its manifestations are diametrically opposed. Thus it is no surprise when Muslims Against Sharia reports that Kuwait has now declared criticism of Islam on the internet to be a criminal offense.

Debbie at Right Truth has an exceptional update on uranium enrichment and other activities directed towards the imminent creation of a nuclear arsenal by the mad mullahs

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Lebanon Update

Iran’s militia Hezbollah started a civil war in Lebanon in what appears to have been, from its onset, an attempt at a coup. Within two days, Hezbollah had occupied most of Bierut with ease while the Lebanese military, a weak institution heavily influenced by Syria, stood by and did nothing. Hezbollah has tried to take over Sunni and Druze strongholds elsewhere throughout the country, thus completing their coup, but they have been repulsed. Below is a round-up of news on the situation in Lebanon through today.

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The situation in Lebanon is unclear, yet it appears that Hezbollah vastly overplayed its hand. Hezbollah has been unsuccessful in expanding its control outside of the capital. Hezbollah's decision to turn its weapons on the Lebanese will have repercussions long after a shaky peace returns to Lebanon. As Blacksmith’s of Lebanon write:

For Hizballah, the prospect of exiting this most severe of crises with anything resembling a positive [let alone a victory], seems dauntingly distant. As the dust settles, Lebanon’s besieged (literally!) government remains in place, its fortitude continuously reinforced by the common disgust felt across the nation at the fact that the Iranian-backed group turned its weapons on the capital and the mountain.

In its domestic political confrontations, Hizballah’s aggressions have left it completely bankrupt. . . .

Now a week into the assault, occupation, and [partial, if not superficial] delivery of its capital city back to those who should have guarded it in the first place, Lebanon is slowly reawakening to the damage inflicted on it and its institutions by an ordeal who’s end seems nowhere in sight. What remains clear, for now, however, is that Hizballah and its masters have suffered a critical defeat.

Read the entire post. You’ll find much more repeating and amplifying this message in an article at Now Lebanon, discussing a conference of experts convened the other day at the Hudson Institute.

Prof. Walid Phares, a native of Lebanon, gave an overview of the civil war and the hand of Iran in it as he discussed discussed how, in the mountains of north Lebanon, a handful of Druze soldiers were repulsing the Hezbollah attempts to take over their strongholds.

According to arabic news outlet Asharq Alawsat, all major Sunni factions in Lebanon are meeting in Tripoli to unify a military bloc to confront Hezbollah.

Randa Takieddine writes in the Lebanese news outlet Ya Libnan about the Hezbollah takeover of media outlets and sees it as a new phase in the civil war.

Ya Libnan is keeping up live coverage of events as they come in. According to yesterday’s coverage, Hezbollah took the violence to other parts of the country. Yesterday the violence shifted from the Druze strongholds of Mount Lebanon to the Tripoli region in the the north. You can follow today’s coverage here.

This From Bierut to the Beltway yesterday, indicating that the Lebanese cabinet will meet today to roll over on the two decisions that Hezbollah used to justify its insurrection:

Future Movement leader Saad Hariri said that there will be no dialogue under the threat of Hizbullah's weapons, and vowed to never surrender to Iran and Syria. He said all sects are depressed over what happened, including the Shias in the south, who saw Hizbullah invade the very homes that welcomed them during Israeli aggression.

He said the army will be held accountable at a later date, adding that "they" will monitor its commitment to maintaining civil peace through the cabinet. He acknowledged that the military failed to protect citizens, adding it was the citizens themselves who ended up defending its unity.

He said any dialogue should have the security of the country and Hizbullah's weapons as a top item. He also said that Hizbullah's monopoly over "war and peace decisions" will no longer be acceptable. . . .

Read the entire post.

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NYT Trying To Shore Up Obama On National Security

The New York Times’s Larry Rother rewrites history and muddles the arguments in a NYT article aimed at shoring up the fatally weak foreign policy proposals of Barack Obama. Rother rewrites Obama’s position on Iran and wholly mischaracterizing McCain’s criticism of the "Hamas endorsement" of Obama. Bottom line, with the Messiah schtick gone, if Rother's article is the best defense the Obamakins can come up with, Obama's problems are huge and unsolvable.

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Obama’s foreign policy is suicidally naïve. His plans to hold unconditional talks with Iran portend to be every bit as disastrous as was Neville Chamberlain’s decision to hold similar talks with Hitler in the 1930’s. His plan to pull us out of Iraq even as we have all but destroyed al Qaeda and beaten back Iran’s proxies is equally as suicidal. There is a good reason a literal rouge’s gallery of nations and organizations – Hamas, Iran, FARC, Ghadaffi, Castro, Ortega – have given their "endorsement" to Obama.

Obama proposes a weak foreign policy with the first resort to unconditional talks, and rouges' gallery that have voiced support for Obama clearly believe they will be able to prosper under an Obama presidency. Given that each of these "endorsements" come from nations and organizations with goals wholly antithetical to the U.S., democracy, capitalism and the cause of freedom, that should give one great pause. And indeed, it is on precisely that ground that McCain has criticized Obama. This from John McCain a few days ago:

I think it's very clear who Hamas wants to be the next president of the United States. So apparently has Danny Ortega and several others. I think that people should understand that I will be Hamas's worst nightmare. . . . If senator Obama is favored by Hamas I think people can make judgments accordingly.

McCain also is critical of Obama for his promise to meet unconditionally with Iran. Enter today NYT agenda journalist Larry Rother. In his article, Rother writes:

. . . [I]mportant nuances appear to have been lost in the partisan salvos, particularly on Mr. McCain’s side. An examination of Mr. Obama’s numerous public statements on the subjects indicates that he has consistently condemned Hamas as a "terrorist organization," has not sought the group’s support and does not advocate immediate, direct or unconditional negotiations with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president.

As to Hamas, Rother goes on to show where Obama has repeated condemned that organization. Yes, but McCain has never claimed anything to the contrary. What Rother studiously ignores is the "nuance" that Obama is picking up the enemies of America endorsements because those organizations see a chance to expand without American interference under Obama. Rother is being highly disingenuous in his argument. But then he goes into outright falsehood.

The claim that Obama does "not advocate immediate, direct or unconditional negotiations with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president" – and indeed, every other enemy of America – is more than a bit of rewriting of history. With a big hat tip to LGF, here is the transcript and the video. See if you can find the nuance.

Democratic Debate Transcript, CNN/YouTube - Council on Foreign Relations.
QUESTION: In 1982, Anwar Sadat traveled to Israel, a trip that resulted in a peace agreement that has lasted ever since.
In the spirit of that type of bold leadership, would you be willing to meet separately, without precondition, during the first year of your administration, in Washington or anywhere else, with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea, in order to bridge the gap that divides our countries?
OBAMA: I would. And the reason is this, that the notion that somehow not talking to countries is punishment to them — which has been the guiding diplomatic principle of this administration — is ridiculous.

Rother ought to hit Google for a quick fact check before he tries to write a canard such as this. It only makes Obama appear weaker than hs already is. And, in all honesty, I did not think that possible before reading this article.

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An Obamination on Lebanon

Lebanon is on the edge of civil war, if not already there, compliments of an insurrection by Iran’s proxy, Hezbollah. Obama has issued a statement on the situation, calling for "change" to solve this act of war on a soveriegn country. But what sort of change does Obama propose? This from the statement by Obama:

Hezbollah's power grab in Beirut has once more plunged that city into violence and chaos.

Good, dead on point, Baracky, you tell ‘em.

This effort to undermine Lebanon's elected government needs to stop, and all those who have influence with Hezbollah must press them to stand down immediately.

That’s it. More. . . .more . . .

It's time to engage in diplomatic efforts to help build a new Lebanese consensus that focuses on electoral reform, an end to the current corrupt patronage system, . . .

Whoa, Baracky. Do you have a clue what you just said or to whom you just threw your support? You've just delegitimized the current democratically elected government as corrupt and unreprsentative. That line could have come from Nasrallah or the Iranian news agency - and in fact it regularly does.
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Without going into the entire history of Lebanon, (Read Tom Friedman’s From Beirut to Jerusalem for an excellent recent history) Wikipedia has a very good description of the political balance as it exists in Lebanon on paper today:

Lebanon is a parliamentary, democratic republic, which implements a special system known as confessionalism. This system, allegedly meant to insure that sectarian conflict is kept at bay, attempts to fairly represent the demographic distribution of religious sects in the governing body. As such, high-ranking offices in are reserved for members of specific religious groups. The President, for example, has to be a Maronite Catholic Christian, the Speaker of the Parliament a Shi’a Muslim, the Prime Minister a Sunni Muslim and the Deputy Prime Minister an Orthodox Christian.

Read the article. That system, complimented by other agreements, is what the Lebanese worked out as a reasonable power sharing agreement. The one’s who are trying to put a fork in it are Syria, Iran, and Hezbollah. They are the ones calling it corrupt and demanding a veto for Hezbollah over all government legislation. They have refused to honor the democratic system for choosing a new President because they want someone in the post who is pro-Hezbollah and pro-Syria. This all funnels into their biggest immediate concern, shutting down investigation into the assassination of Rafik Harari and countless other anti-Syrian politicians. Indeed, that is at the heart of the recent Hezbollah’s erruption. As Righwing Nuthouse put it:

. . . the Hariri Tribunal that may start as early as next month under the auspices of the United Nations. It is a dead certainty that Hezb’allah’s role in some of the political assassinations that have rocked Lebanon over the past 3 years will be revealed. Nasrallah, and his patron in Syria Bashar Assad, will do everything in their power to prevent the tribunal from sitting. If it means taking the country to the brink of a civil war, so be it.

Read the entire post. Prior to today, the only people demanding electoral reform are Iran, Syria and its proxy, Hezbollah. Now we add Obama to that list.

Obama is incredibly dangerous. He is Jimmy Carter pumped to the breaking point with steroids. He makes Neville Chamberlin look like a warmongerer. As Gateway Pundit said:

Well, Barack Obama already has:

** The Hamas vote
** The Iranian regime's vote
** The Gaza vote
** The FARC vote
** Moammar Ghaddafi's vote
** Fidel Castro's vote
** Nicaraguan Marxist leader Daniel Ortega's vote
** Other assorted America-haters' votes, not to mention his pastor's vote
...Now it looks like Obama's shooting for (no pun intended) the Hezbollah vote!

. . . It's not surprising then that the people of Lebanon would be upset with Obama. It's also not surprising that the terror groups are throwing their support behind him.More hope and change-- For Hezbollah.

Read the entire post.

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Hezbollah Overruns Large Parts of Beirut

Lebanon is appearing ever more to be in the midst of a full scale civil war initiated by Iran's proxy militia, Hezbollah. Hezbollah has now taken control of large parts of Beirut and is attacking businesses and offices of the elected government and its members.

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Lebanese news site Ya Libnan is reporting that violence is continuing to escalate in Beirut as dawn rises on the third day of hostilities. As one observer notes, "the ongoing battles are not random, but an orchestrated plan to unfold what was called "resistance" was really aimed at controlling the power and decision-taking in Lebanon."

This from Reuters:

Hezbollah gunmen took control of large areas of Beirut on Friday in a third day of fighting between the pro-Iranian group and fighters loyal to the U.S.-backed governing coalition.

Security sources said at least 10 people had been killed and 20 wounded. The thud of exploding grenades and crackle of automatic gunfire echoed across the city in the worst internal strife since the 1975-90 civil war.

Gunmen loyal to Hezbollah forced the pro-government Future News television off the air, said a senior official at the Beirut station. Future News is owned by Saad al-Hariri, a Sunni politician and leader of the governing coalition.

The security sources said Hezbollah and fighters from the allied Amal movement -- both Shi'ite groups -- had overrun offices of Hariri's Future group across the predominantly Muslim western half of Beirut.

Gunmen had also taken over the offices of Hariri's Al-Mustaqbal newspaper, witnesses said. Smoke billowed from the building's windows.

. . . In scenes reminiscent of the darkest days of the civil war, young men armed with assault rifles roamed the streets amid smashed cars and smoldering buildings. . . .

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Master Terrorist Imad Mughniyeh Assassinated

The assassination of Imad Mughniyeh is a very big victory in the war on terror. Mughniyeh worked for al Qaeda, Iran, Fatah and was the number 2 man in Hezbollah. Short of bin Laden, Mughniyeh probably has more American blood on his hands than any other terrorist. His career spanned more than a quarter of a century, until he was killed today in a car bombing in Damascus.



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For those who know the history of terrorism, the name of Imad Mughniyeh is immediately recognizable. Born in 1960, he is known to have been behind the 1983 bombings of the U.S. Embassy, and U.S. Marine and French peacekeeping barracks, which killed over 350, as well as the 1992 bombings of the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires and the kidnapping of dozens of foreigners in Lebanon in the 1980s. He has been hunted by the U.S. since he engineered the kidnapping, torture and murder of CIA Lebanese Station Chief William Buckley in 1984. According to ex-CIA agent Robert Baer:

Mugniyah is probably the most intelligent, most capable operative we’ve ever run across, including the KGB or anybody else. He enters by one door, exits by another, changes his cars daily, never makes appointments on a telephone, never is predictable. He only uses people that are related to him that he can trust. He doesn’t just recruit people. He is the master terrorist, the grail that we have been after since 1983

And here is what an Israeli Intelligence had to say about Mughniyeh in 2001, speculating that he had been part of the planning along with al Qaeda for 9-11:

. . . Mughniyeh is probably the world’s most wanted outlaw. Unconfirmed reports in Beirut say he has undergone plastic surgery and is unrecognisable. . .

"We’ve only got scraps of information, not the full picture," admits one intelligence source, "but it was good enough for us to send a warning six weeks ago to our allies that an unprecedented massive terror attack was expected. One of our indications suggested that Imad Mughniyeh met with some of his dormant agents on secret trips to Germany. We believe that the operational brains behind the New-York attack were Mughniyeh and Zawahiri, . . .

. . . "Bin Laden is a schoolboy in comparison with Mughniyeh," says an Israeli who knows Mughniyeh . "The guy is a genius, someone who refined the art of terrorism to its utmost level. We studied him and reached the conclusion that he is a clinical psychopath motivated by uncontrollable psychological reasons, which we have given up trying to understand. The killing of his two brothers by the Americans only inflamed his strong motivation."

. . . Mughniyeh, 48, is a "sick man", says an intelligence officer who was in charge of his file. He is considered by Western intelligence agencies as the most dangerous active terrorist today. He is wanted by several governments and the Americans have put a $2m reward on his head.

. . . It was the assassination of one man in March 1984 that is said to have made Mughniyeh the CIA’s most wanted terrorist. Mughniyeh allegedly kidnapped the head of the CIA station in Beirut, William Buckley. The kidnapping triggered what later became known as ‘Irangate’, when the Americans tried to exchange Buckley (and others) with arms for Iran. However, the attempt ended in a fiasco. By one unconfirmed account, Mughniyeh tortured and killed Buckley with his own hands.

A year later, in a combined CIA/Mossad operation, a powerful car bomb went off at the entrance to the house of Hizbullah’s spiritual leader, Sheikh Muhammad Hussein Fadlallah. Seventy-five people were killed. One of them was his brother. Hunted by the CIA and the Mossad, Mughniyeh hid in Iran.

In February 1992, Israeli helicopter gunships attacked the convoy of the then head of Hizbullah, Sheikh Abas Musawi, in South Lebanon. Musawi, his wife and children were killed and the revenge attack followed a month later. According to press reports, Mughniyeh was called back into action and, in a well-planned and devastating attack, his people blew up the Israeli embassy in Argentina. The building was demolished and 92 were killed. Only last year, after a long investigation, did Argentina issue a warrant for Mughniyeh’s arrest.

The reprisal for the attack in Argentina came in December 1994, when a car bomb went off in a southern Shi’ite suburb of Beirut. Four people were killed. One of them was called Mughniyeh, but to the deep disappointment of those Israelis who planted the bomb it was the wrong one. Mughniyeh’s life was saved, but his other brother Fuad was killed. Mughniyeh waited for his opportunity for revenge.

. . . How to counter this kind of terrorism? "To fight these bastards you don’t need a military attack," said an experienced Israeli commando officer. "You only need to adopt Israel’s assassination policy."

Read the entire article. The assassination today of Mughniyeh, in Damascus by a car bomb is suspected to be the handiwork of Mossad. See here for more. Israel is declining comment.

A report in the Lebanese newspaper Ya Liban comments dryly:

An explosion rocked the Kferssouseh neighborhood in Damascus - near the Iranian school Tuesday evening

One person was killed as a result of the explosion .

No one declared responsibility .

The news about an explosion in Syria came as a big shock to many people in Lebanon. All the explosions for the past 3 years occurred in Lebanon and Syria was blamed for all of them . . .

And there is much more in a series of article in the Jerusalem Post about Mughniye's history of terrorism and his assassination. See here and here.

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Interesting News - 2 January 2008

I took the serious road in calling Huckabee a cynical and hypocritical politician whom I would not consider for any elected office, let alone President. Scott Ott has a much more humorous take on the Huckster.

Hillary Clinton displays her fundamental failure to grasp what is going on in possibly the most important foreign state today – the nuclear armed Islamic Republic of Pakistan.

In 2006, there were an average of 15 attacks per day on police and emergency services and almost 3,000 police officers were injured in clashes. In addition, an average of 112 cars were torched each day. No, its not Iraq. Its the low grade civil war occurring in France amongst the Muslim population.

Sigmund, Carl and Alfred look at the 11 most corrupt politicians of 2007. It reads like a who's who of Presidential candidates. Most of this post is reposted from Judicial Watch. SC&A adds on of the most contemptible of all politicians, Ted Kennedy, to the list.

Bookworm Room has a thoughtful piece on a world wide phenomena of ADS – America Derangement Syndrome.

As France’s President Sarkozy displays a very much needed tough attitude towards Middle East despots by cutting off relations with Syria, our own Pat Kennedy and Alan Specter make a trip to Damascus. Soccer Dad has the sad story. What useful idiots.

Israeli PM Olmert is planning on giving to Palestinians swatches of territory captured during the 1967 war. All of this has a segment of Israel’s population howling – the Israeli Paletinians. "Asked, "Would you prefer to be a citizen of Israel or of a new Palestinian state?" 62 percent want to remain Israeli citizens and 14 percent want to join a future Palestinian state. Asked, "Do you support transferring the Triangle [an Arab-dominated area in northern Israel] to the Palestinian Authority?" 78 percent oppose the idea and 18 percent support it."

One of the things I find most objectionable about Islam is its refusal to tolerate freedom of any other religion. The latest – which at least does not involve threats of death – comes from Algeria where legislators are asking the government to curb evangelical Christians in their country because they are succeeding in converting Muslims.

The Michael Savage v. CAIR lawsuit just took another turn. "The amended lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Northern California, also charges CAIR with using extortion, threats, abuse of the court system, and obtaining money via interstate commerce under false and fraudulent circumstances – calling it a "political vehicle of international terrorism" and even linking the group with support of al-Qaida." If the judge allows this, discover in this case is going to be something to see.

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Interesting News - 1 Jan. 2008

"Never bet against the American soldier. King George III did. He lost. Jefferson Davis did. He lost. Hirohito did. He lost." And this year, it was Don Surber’s "Loser of the Year," Nancy Pelosi’s foolish bet.

As Iraqi celebrates the New Years, Brussels cancels their fireworks over threats of terrorism.

Ralph Peters interviews Gen. Petraeus on Christmas Day about the "Year of Wonders." Notable is Petraues’s explicit statement, contrary to assertions by the highest levels of our State Dept., that Iran is continuing to train and arm Shia proxies in Iraq.

Party like its 1499 B.C. This is some archeology we can all appreciate – uncovering a Bronze age Irish brewery and trying out the old recipes.

Over 150 billion petrodollars have flooded Iran’s coffers during the 30 month Presidency of Ahmedinejad. So why are Iran’s economic hardships increasing?

An interesting article on Iran’s byzantine political structures and circles of influence.

Frontpage Magazine has an interview with Homa Arjomand, the Coordinator of the International Campaign Against Sharia Court in Canada.

Analyzing Sarkozy’s decision to end relations with Syria until Syria stops its meddling in the internal politics of Lebanon’s election of a President.

After a survey across the "length and breadth of the country," it appears that Indian men are not quite measuring up, so to speak.

The Washington Times memorializes the Canadian Islamic Congress human rights complaint against Mark Steyn, charging him with hate speech for quoting Imams. This is nothing more than Wahhabi dissimulation – the hallmark of the Wahhabi Salafi religion that claims any criticism is hate speech. And the Canadian Human Rights Commission is appeasing them. Outrageous.

From Caroline Glick: "If democracy and freedom are the U.S.’s ultimate aims in this war, the only way to achieve them is to first fight and win the war. Bhutto – like her Palestinian, Egyptian and Lebanese counterparts – was a sideshow."

At the NYT, Pinch Sulzberger welcomes the staff back from what he hopes for each was a "wonderfully secular winter solstice," announces the hiring of Bill Kristol as a columnist, and gives the staff helpful pointers on how to understand and interact with a neo-con.

A Pakastani Imam and head of a madrasa tells of his dream to bring Sharia law to Pakistan and then Britain, by force if necessary.

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Interesting News From Around The Web 12/14/07

From the USA Today: Congressional Democrats . . . seem lost in a time warp. . . . [T]oo many seem unable or unwilling to admit that President Bush's surge of 30,000 more troops has succeeded beyond their initial predictions. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., who in the spring declared the war lost, said last week that "the surge hasn't accomplished its goals." Anti-war Democrats remain fixated on tying war funding to a rapid troop withdrawal. Yet pulling the troops out precipitously threatens to squander the progress of recent months . . .

And now that the surge has worked, Cheat Seeking Missles ponders what comes next and looks for answers to Iraq the Model and Christopher Kojm.

Meanwhile, Lebanon continues to suffer from the bloodlust of Iran and Syria. Lebanon remains unable to choose a President against the backdrop of another assassination and in light of the outrageous demands of Iran’s proxies, Hezbollah. The single biggest key to reestablishing peace in the Middle East is the destruction of Iran’s theocracy. It would end the financing of Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Gaza strip, it would end the immediate threat of nuclear proliferation, and it would isolate and neutralize Syria.

Our federal prosecutors are having a real problem with making charges of terrorism stick. Joshuapundit is doing a good job of keeping track of the most recent cases and the problems arising out of jurors who take their political beliefs into the jury room. The latest chapter in that tale is the Sears Tower case involving homegrown terrorists.

I love this story on the CIA waterboarding issue from the other day. The headline is "CIA Destroyed Tapes Despite Court Order." Of course, the problem with that assertion is that neither of the Court Orders described in the article could possibly have applied to the waterboarding tapes, something the author very grudgingly admits later in the story.

There is a long post due on the First Amendment – the words of which do not include "separation of Church and State." In the meantime, Rhymes with Right tells us that we have the House voting unanimously in favor of resolutions supporting both Hinduism and Islam, but nine Democrats voting against a similar resolution in support of Christianity. This arises from the same type of virulent, multicultural ethos discussed in this post that is destroying Britain. From the other end of the spectrum, a Muslim is seeking a ban on crosses as offensive. It leaves one near speechless.

Right Wing Nuthouse likes compares Thompson and Huckabee, or as he puts it, Substance versus Stupid. This is a very good post, and I concur completely for all the reasons he states.

According to Charles Krauthammer, "It's two centuries since the passage of the First Amendment, and our presidential candidates still cannot distinguish establishment from free exercise."

Corruption can destroy a democracy. That said, the corruption of Fatah under Yasser Arafat was legendary. And that corruption played a huge role in the election of Hamas by the Palestinians in the last election. Soccer Dad looks at the issue of corruption in the PA now under Abbas. It has not subsided.

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Secular Author Debates Merits of Islam on al Jazeera

This is a must-read transcript from MEMRI involving a debate between secular Syrian author Nidhal Na'isa and Egyptian cleric. Mr. Na'isa is eloquent in his damning of Islamism and the evils that Islam has visited on the Middle East:

Interviewer: . . . Despite the Western, economic, political, cultural, media, and social invasion of the region, the Arab individual's hatred of the foreign platforms only grows, and his adherence to the Islamic platform increases. You have the results before you: About 90 percent of the voters reject the modernizing, secular, Western platforms - call them what you will. How do you respond to this?"
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Nidhal Na'isa: "As you know, these voters are a bunch of people misled and numbed by the proselytizing, generalized, deceptive, romanticized discourse, which promises them black-eyed virgins and boys in Paradise, and such things. This discourse merely postpones the resolution of their problems - instead of resolving them today, let's resolve them in a billion years. This is escapism into the future. That's one thing. If those voters had managed to get a job and a visa to America, none of them would have voted, and nobody would have watched your show. You would be fired from Al-Jazeera and would be left jobless.

"Secondly, these votes reflect disgust for the totalitarian regimes. Like the hijab and all this Islamization, we are talking about disgust with the totalitarian regimes that have denied these people the good life. They are not voting this way out of love for these platforms... "

Interviewer: "They're not voting this way out of love for the Islamic platforms?"

Nidhal Na'isa: "The platforms are Islamist, not Islamic. We must draw a distinction between Islam and the Islamists. There are Islamists, who use Islam for their political designs, and there is Islam. We respect Islam in the religious, spiritual, and ideological sense. But those peddlers of Islam, who accuse others of heresy, are the ones we must confront. They mislead these wretched people and make fools of them, by the deceptive proselytizing discourse.

. . . "Ever since these Bedouins invaded and colonized these countries, these countries have lived in a cycle of subjugation, oppression, and torture. These countries live under the burden of totalitarianism, backwardness, and ideological and social decay. 'From Tangier to Jakarta' - that is the slogan of the Muslim Brotherhood, and the Islamic Al-Tahrir Party. From Tangier to Jakarta, all you see is poverty, totalitarianism, and decay..."

. . . "This platform has been failing for 1,400 years, and now they say to you: 'We will revive this platform.' Brother, if this platform was politically successful, we would welcome it, and would hope that people live a life of happiness. But this platform has brought nothing but wars and conflicts. People from the same country have become enemies because of these platforms, these lies, this animosity, this sectarianism, and this tribal fanaticism, which was revived by those Bedouins who invaded and colonized these countries.

"Egypt, Iraq, and Syria have been centers of civilization since the dawn of history. They gave rise to civilization. Every day the sun rose, civilization shone on them. But when those Bedouins went in, they destroyed these countries, which have never recovered since. Since those Bedouins entered these countries, they have never recovered. They have become decaying countries, suffering from poverty, misery, and tyranny."

Ibrahim Al-Khoulib: "First of all, who are these Bedouins to whom you refer?'

Nidhal Na'isa: "The Bedouins who invaded these countries."

. . . Ibrahim Al-Khoulib: "Who were they exactly? Do you mean the Bedouins of Najd in modern times?"

Nidhal Na'isa: "In modern times and in ancient times."

Ibrahim Al-Khoulib: "What do you mean?"

Nidhal Na'isa: "In modern times, they have invaded these countries, armed with petrodollars and Wahabism..."

Ibrahim Al-Khoulib: "The Bedouins who conquered these countries, according to you..."

Nidhal Na'isa: "They invaded them by means of the sword..."

Ibrahim Al-Khoulib: . . . Western civilization is not really a civilization, brother."

Nidhal Na'isa: "Western civilization is not really a civilization?" . . . "How did you come here from Egypt in two hours? On camels, it used to take you over six months to make a pilgrimage." . . .

Read the entire transcript.

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