Sunday, September 22, 2013

Israel's Yom Kippur War--40 Years after 1973: A Memoir by Eliyho Matz


REFLECTIONS ON THE YOM KIPPUR WAR,
1973,
FORTY YEARS LATER, YOM KIPPUR 2013

                                                               By:  Eliyho Matz

              “Ithaka gave you the beautiful voyage;
                        Without her you would never have started your journey.
                         She has nothing else to give you.”
                                                From “Ithaka” by CP Kavafy


         The Yom Kippur War started on October 6, 1973, and its repercussions continue until today, Yom Kippur 2013.  For me personally, the war started in 1965 when I ran away as fast as I could from my high school in Rishon LeZion.  I fled to a kibbutz in the Upper Galilee called Ayelet HaShachar to recover from a very bad high school experience.  Rishon LeZion was an old Israeli village, today a large city, which did not particularly shine its light on me.  The studies at my high school, the Gymnasia, were complicated for me; my ability to focus was limited, the teachers were obnoxious, and I had very few good friends. In short, as we used to explain it many years ago, the dancer always complained that the floor he danced on was uneven, and therefore he could not dance skillfully.  I can say that I was bored and lazy in my studies, I can say that it was difficult for me, but it was very clear to me just then, and I was only sixteen, that the teachers were incompetent and the principal and his vice-principal were out of touch and ineffective, and so I picked myself up and ran away to the Upper Galilee.  How I arrived at this decision to go to the kibbutz I cannot explain exactly.  It is possible that in my subconscious the Israeli pioneering propaganda and the achievements of the kibbutz movement, and possibly other reasons that I do not know, swept me up and brought me to the office of the kibbutz movement in Tel Aviv, and there one of its      members picked me up and drove me to Ayelet HaShachar. 
         Upon my arrival at Ayelet HaSchachar, I started working.  My immediate supervisor, a lazy kibbutznik, a short and tough individual by the name of Dan Ziv (nicknamed Zift), explained and showed me how to crawl beneath chicken coops filled with manure, and how to remove that manure and load it into a wagon, which took it to a compost pile.  The chicken coops were used to raise chickens for a few months, after which they were sold and taken to slaughter.  The old manure had to be removed before each new crop of new chicks arrived.  I adapted quickly to the work, but a serious manure-remover I was not.  Dan Ziv left me at the coops with another Israeli kid and a toothless Australian tourist/worker, whom the kibbutz promised to provide with a new set of false teeth upon completion of his work.  I learned from him a very unique dialect of toothless Australian English!  We worked together in the coops for about three or four months, but the smell of the manure is still with me today.  While working with the manure and making sure to shower each day after work, I began to get to know the kibbutz members.  I started to hear opinions and all sorts of gossip about the place and its people.  I spent most of my free time reading history and literature books, so in one way or another I began to prepare myself on my own for the high school baccalaureate exam in those subjects.  Later on, I had an opportunity to work in other areas of the kibbutz, including the dining hall, apple orchards and bee hives, and I even became a guard for a short time.  Eli Ziv, Dan’s brother and a graduate of Sayeret Matkal, one of Israel’s most courageous military units, taught me how to drive a jeep and explained to me the basic uses of the submachine gun, the Uzzi.  In the course of my stay, I met many of the kibbutz members.  I tried to make friends with them, but in as close a society as the kibbutz was, doing so was difficult to achieve.  It is true that here and there I made some friends, but I could not really develop a deep relationship with anybody, including with the kibbutz women.  And if there was one woman whom I liked, she did not give a damn about me – her name was Rina.  The upside was that my lack of social progress gave me a greater opportunity to read, study, and ride a bicycle outside the area of the kibbutz.  I had an opportunity to wander in Tel Hazor, which is an ancient archeological site adjacent to the kibbutz.  I had an opportunity to ponder various issues of life, as well as to study history and read literature.  The sad thing about reading these subjects on my own was that I really did not understand much about them.  My integration into the kibbutz was difficult; the kibbutzniks were selfish, and the moment eventually came when I turned eighteen and had to join the Israeli military.  And since I wanted to be a big gibor, or hero, I decided to join the Tzanchanim, the Israeli paratrooper brigade.  Apropos, Dan Ziv must be today seventy-five or eighty; Colonel Dan Ziv was already a decorated hero of the Paratroopers in the battle of Mitle Pass in 1956, and in the 1973 Yom Kippur War he conducted an atrocious battle, as well as an idiotic one, in the Sarafaum on the west side of the Suez Canal.  With Dan Ziv, I did not have that much opportunity to express ideas; he did not say much, and besides he was not particularly well educated.  Whenever I met him, he used to say that we have to be strong – this was a very interesting idea.
         Company B, Platoon D, Regiment 202, February 1967, and here I was in the Paratroopers.  The company commander was Nachik Alon, the son of a famous Israeli historian.  Ever since my youth, I would say my early youth, I wanted to understand and comprehend history, philosophy, and literature.  I thought that by joining the Tzanchanim I would have the opportunity to do so.  Of course, I did not have any historical or philosophical tools to understand those issues.  Suddenly, from a normal human being, I was transformed into a paratrooper.  The process was not easy.  My platoon commander was Eli Strikovski, tough and rough, not well educated, and not too smart.  He tried to transform me, Eliyho, into a courageous soldier, but apparently failed to do so.  He apparently did not see in me what he expected from a “real” soldier.  I participated in the platoon’s military activities, I did what the other soldiers did, but a serious soldier I was not; nor could I be one even if I really wanted.  I could never take “soldiering” as a serious business.  And it did not matter who taught that business.  Strikovski must have sensed this, and one day when I asked him for a special leave for my cousin’s bar mitzvah, he refused, and he also, apropos, mentioned that he could not grant leave to a lousy soldier that he considered me to be.  My attempt to request this special pass from my company commander also failed.  It took me awhile to respond to my platoon commander, but approximately a year later the opportunity presented itself (to be described below).  Later that year Strikovski was severely wounded in an ambush, but he continued his military service.  During the Yom Kippur War, by which time he had changed his name to Sorek, he won a medal for heroism at the Suez Canal, which was the same region where I was located during that time.
         To anyone familiar with modern Israeli history, it is well known that in June 1967, Israel went to war against its neighbors because they all threatened her existence.  This war was named the Six Day War.  The Israeli Paratroopers were in full intensive exercises before the war; I know this because my unit was also involved in this training.  Mentally, it was a very difficult time because we were surrounded by many enemies.  My unit of new paratroopers had just been recruited in February 1967, so we did not have that much time to go through all the paratrooper exercises.  We did a quick and short parachuting exercise.  Our parachute instructor was Amiram Ziet, a cool person and a very social one, at least one light in the darkness.  The war process was coming to a crescendo, and Eliyho got on Strikovski’s nerves, and for one reason or another he inflicted a punishment on a small group of us: “You are not going to war, you are staying on the base, I do not take lousy soldiers to war.”  Immediately I became depressed even though I was not exactly the hero that the “General” (actually “Lieutenant”) Strikovski was.  For in any case, a soldier is tested by his ability to shoot, which I could do as well as anybody else; I also learned how to run, jump and parachute along with the others.  It is true that I had never participated in any battles, but don’t soldiers need to participate in order to be tested?  But Strikovski decided that my small group was not going anywhere, that we were going to stay on the base.  The evening before the war broke out, we were in a gloomy mood, wandering aimlessly and desperately.  Go and tell the wide world that we were left behind at the base because the lieutenant considered us to be lousy soldiers – not a pleasant thought.  But then, in the midst of our gloominess, no sooner had our unit left, a young officer whom we had never met arrived, gathered us politely around him, and explained to us that the reason we had been left on base was because we were needed to participate in a secret mission, for which we had to leave immediately, with all our equipment.  We were quickly driven to some location in the northern Negev (Israel’s southern region).  To our surprise, there were some helicopters waiting on the spot, already engaged in an exercise/mission, in which a special force was prepared to enter swiftly into Egyptian territory to do something that was not clear to us.  Our group was supposed to carry out the simple task of blocking the road that led to the location of the attack.  A very interesting mission, one requiring much courage, and in retrospect one from which probably none of us would have returned.  Suddenly, I was back to being a paratrooper.  We stayed at that place that evening, and in the middle of the night the commander of the mission announced that because of the swift advance of the Israeli forces into the Sinai, there was no more need for our mission.  We immediately were taken away by military trucks to an air force base, and in the early hours of midday we were regrouped with a paratrooper force near the tarmac for a different mission, to jump into battle at Sharm el Sheik at the southern tip of the Sinai Desert.  So our small group became part of a larger force led by Sergeant Shlomo Stein, a moshavnik from Kfar Achim.  We, those lousy soldiers whom Strikovski left at the training camp, were suddenly joining forces to parachute into battle, and as a result, if we were to survive this battle, we would receive “Red Wings” to indicate our successful jump into enemy territory in wartime.  We walked to the air planes, which were a type not familiar to us, a Boeing military plane used during WWII for cargo and parachuting.  We were around 250-people strong.  The group consisted of representatives from different paratrooper groups.  Some were older, and we were the youngest ones.  I don’t remember recognizing anyone outside our small group.  It was a very tense flight, and it took awhile.  We were protected by some air force planes in the air, and finally we arrived at Sharm el Sheik.  As the moment came close to jump from the airplanes, the commander suddenly announced that we were not going to do so.  The reason was not yet clear.  But as soon as we landed on the dusty tarmac of Sharm el Sheik, what had happened did become clear.  A small naval force of Israeli commandos had arrived an hour before we did and found that the entire Egyptian brigade had fled and disappeared.  All that was left were rows and rows of canned beans and tomato sauce!  The naval commando force we met there included among its group a fellow from Kibbutz Ayalet HaShachar named Oded Landsman, and another kibbutznik from Kibbutz Ma’agan by the name of Ami Ayalon.  Ayalon later became the Chief of Israeli Naval Operations as well as the Chief of Israeli Interior Security, and a member of the Israeli Knesset.  He also won a medal for bravery in a military operation in which he was severely wounded.  I had met Ami two years earlier while I was in National Service at his kibbutz.  He suggested to me not to swim or dive here in the Red Sea because the sea was filled with too many sharks.  I accepted his advice.  Since we had nothing to do at the place, we were subsequently sent back to Strikovski and our base in the north.
         During the Six Day War, our military unit 202 fought mostly in the Gaza region.  We suffered casualties, with some dead and a larger number wounded; I do not have the actual numbers.  Immediately after the unit returned to base from Gaza, we were redeployed to Gaza City.  There, some of our unit became entangled in activities and atrocities that until today it is hard to figure out.  Eventually, I did not see the unit anymore.  Fortunately for me, I guess Strikovski had enough of me.  Imagine how it would have looked in the history of the Israeli Paratroopers: a small group of Strikovski’s rejects parachuting into Sharm el Sheik, and Strikovski missing that military action altogether.  Within a few days, a young officer arrived with a pick-up truck, spoke to our company commander Nachik Alon, and, without saying much or even introducing himself, he instructed me to get into the back of the truck.  I was taken to the newly conquered West Bank.  The officer’s name was Amnon Lipkin, later changed to Shachaq, and he was one of the most arrogant and antipathetic people I have ever met.  He was the commander of a small paratrooper unit called “Duchifat,” nominated to the command after the previous commander, Ehud Shani, died in battle north of Jerusalem. Amnon later on in his career became Israeli Chief of Staff.  I had no clear military profession at that time; I had just jumped from airplanes a few times, and in military jargon I was “nobody.”  I joined the communications department of this new unit on the West Bank.  Each one of the soldiers had his own twisted ideas about life and the military, and our sergeant was Yossi Angel from the well known Angel Bakeries in Jerusalem.  Today Yossi Angel, aided by his father’s advice and money, has relocated to New York City where he has opened up a bakery and tried to reinvent the American muffin!  I meet him occasionally for a quick greeting, and to taste his muffins.  Anyway, the unit was in the midst of intensive training.  The original idea for this Duchifat unit was that it would be something between a tank unit and a paratrooper unit, but its end was tragic, and trying to combine these two forces was probably one of the biggest mistakes that he Israeli military made.  In a later battle which our unit participated in, we had too many casualties, and within a year the unit was dispersed.  I was one of the last ones left to take apart the communications equipment.  After that, I was sent to a new paratrooper command that had been especially established to train young paratroopers.  One of the first commanders in this unit was an older paratrooper named “Tarzan.”  He was there for a short time, and after him came Yaakov Chalabi.  Once, at the end of his service, Chalabi took me with him on a trip to Bethlehem.  It was Christmastime.  This trip to Bethlehem changed my entire life, not at the time that I was there, but a few years later (to be clarified below).  In Bethlehem I met a sergeant from the military police by the name of Yaakov Sharabani, later changed to Sharon.  Yaakov was not exactly the healthiest person, and probably needed some connection to be accepted in the military.  One of his best friends was an elderly famous paratrooper by the name of Yecheskiel Baum.  Anyway, this paratrooper unit that was organized to train young paratroopers had a few changes of commanders, and one day a new commander arrived, Colonel Amos Yaron.  Amos lived in those years in Rishon LeZion, a very short distance from my parents’ home.  I do not know how it started, but I began driving his military vehicle back-and-forth between the West Bank and Rishon.  Lo and behold, one day Strikovski arrived in our unit to fulfill a job as an instructor.  I had the opportunity to tell Amos about my past association and experiences with this “gentleman,’ and made sure, with Amos’ agreement, that when I was called upon to drive him to Tel Aviv he would be compelled to sit in the back of the truck, rather than on the front seat near me.  I did not speak to Strikovski, and he did not speak to me.  I served with Amos for about half-a-year, or perhaps a bit more, and I joined him on a few occasions at some very important military exercises in which he was a judge.  One of these involved crossing a canal, which replicated the Suez Canal.  This exercise took place toward the end of 1969; the exercise later became a reality in the 1973 war, which I will return to later.  I met at that time a young officer by the name of Eli Cohen; in 1973 Cohen was the first Israeli paratrooper to cross the Suez Canal.  He later became a member of the Israeli Knesset.  In the final year of my regular military service, I experienced one of the most exciting things that happened to me during my service, or maybe even during my entire life.  A young driver by the name of Shabtai Shevili arrived at our base donning big glasses — I guess he could not see well – and during his first day at the base he turned over in the vehicle that he was driving.  Fortunately he was not hurt, but he was definitely shaken, as was I.  We became friends, and I’ll always owe him a large debt of gratitude, for he introduced me to a relative of his who resided in Jerusalem by the name of Abram Jana Soramello.  One of the most interesting Israelis I ever met, Soramello was a joker, a smoker, a drinker and a storyteller who spoke Hebrew and Arabic. 
         Finally, my regular army service came to an end.  In the last few months of my military service I became the driver for another Israeli “hero,” Asaf Villin, who later changed his name to Chefetz and became a commander in the Paratroopers and then the commander of the Israeli National Police.  His failure in the military was due to the fact that he irritated the renowned Raful.  Asaf was known among Israeli paratroopers to be a very courageous soldier.  He was a kibbutznik from Kfar Menachem.  He met his wife Sarah at our unit; she was our clerk.  One day, Asaf asked me to join him to go to a place in the West Bank.  When we arrived, he pulled some dynamite and other equipment out of the jeep and tried to blow up an empty building.  The problem was, we did not distance ourselves far enough away from the building to avoid the fallout from the blast, but luckily we were not hurt.  I met him later at the Mitla Pass in 1971 when I was working in the Sinai Desert on fortifications, and he was the commander of Unit 890.  I felt that he looked at me disdainfully, perhaps wondering what I was doing there, and I never saw him again.  But at the end of my military service he wrote me a personal letter of recommendation in which he cited me as a responsible and dedicated soldier.  I still have his letter at home, and I look at it occasionally, and wonder.
         During the final year of my army service I began preparing myself, mostly in the evenings, for various exams that would lead me to entrance into a university.  Finally I returned to my parents’ home in Rishon LeZion. I found a few places to work, but I failed in all of them until eventually I found a job with a famous photographer, Nahum Gutman (not the painter).  With Gutman I worked for approximately six months as a photo journalist, publishing pictures in most Israeli newspapers.  One day while working in photography, I met a relative of mine, an engineer who was working on the fortifications at the Suez Canal, and he hired me for a job there.  I walked by foot and traveled by jeep all over the region of the Canal.  I also worked on the road that led from Tasa to the Suez Canal.  During the Yom Kippur War, that road, called “Akavish” (Spider) became the main road the Israelis used to invade Egypt. After half-a-year there, I decided that I wanted to begin serious studies, so I enrolled at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, where I registered for courses in Israeli Literature and the History of Jews.  In October 1972, I arrived for the first time as a student at the Hebrew University and settled in at the G’vat Ram campus.  I arrived with very little money, only some small savings from the various jobs I had done, not knowing exactly how I would survive.  On my first day I took a walk around the campus to look around, and suddenly I saw my old friend Yaakov Sharabani Sharon.   He was at that time an assistant to the security chief at the university, and within a few days he hired me to work for him at the security department of the university!  Now I had a chance to study and a salary to support me.  One day while I was on security duty standing near the Biology building, a short young American woman wearing glasses asked me how to get to the National Library.  A friendship developed between us, and we are now together for forty years! 
I did not have a chance to be at the university for two months before I was called for Reserve duty, which extended from the end of 1972 into the beginning of 1973.  This time I was placed in a different military unit as a driver for the deputy commander of the unit, and unfortunately I could not escape my duty.  In the meantime at the university, I was taking complicated courses with Professor Stern, Professor Shaked, Professor Yosef Dan and others – I was moving forward.  Little by little I began meeting people at the university and really progressing.  What I forgot to talk about and mention earlier was that my military exercise at the beginning of 1973 in reality was a general rehearsal for the Yom Kippur War.  In 1969, I had gone out with Amos Yaron to check a possible crossing of the Suez Canal; in 1973, we did a simulated exercise on a model of the Canal, but this time we employed a specially made bridge on wheels.  Our job was to protect the bridge as it was rolled into the Suez Canal.  The next time I met that bridge was not as an exercise, but in battle in October 1973.  As for myself thinking about all these military exercises we carried out over the years, I never thought seriously that we would come to a point where we would actually need to cross the Suez Canal; it seemed like too much of a fantasy to me – I guess I was wrong. 
Meanwhile, finally back at the university in the early months of 1973, I continued studying and working to complete the semester, and Barbara Fichman, my girlfriend, returned to America.  I planned to travel to America for my first time at the end of August to meet her parents and discuss plans for our marriage.  By then my exams to end my first year at the university would be completed.  Since I was a typical Israeli, I arrived in America without any proper clothing -- no jacket and no tie -- and soon the Fichman family was going to synagogue for Yom Kippur services.  Without the proper clothing, I did not attend services that morning, but fell asleep, only to be awakened by Barbara at noontime and told that there was a terrible war waging in the Middle East, later to be known as the Yom Kippur War.  I called up the Israeli embassy in Washington, DC, and was instructed to go directly to JFK Airport in New York for a flight back to Israel.  I arrived in Israel within twenty-four hours and travelled immediately to the Sinai Desert, where I joined my unit stationed in Tasa around the parameters of the headquarters of General Erik Sharon, the “King of Israel.”  This was a place I knew very well from my work on the fortifications.  In the beginning, there was total chaos there, but little-by-little the Israeli military managed to rearrange and organize its forces.  And since we were very close to the Sharon headquarters, lo and behold I met all the characters I missed so much: Dan Ziv and Amnon Shachaq, commanders of paratrooper units, Strikovski, with a special jeep unit, and Eli Cohen, who was about to become the first Israeli paratrooper to cross the Suez Canal.  I was the driver of the deputy commander of the unit, Dubi Ravid, and occasionally I also drove another officer by the name of Amos Schoken.  (Years later he became the proprietor of the newspaper Ha’aretz.  Amos S. is a very intelligent and courageous person.  I have read his family’s newspaper since my youth, and I always appreciated the intellectual streak it carried.  For the first thirty years of my residence in America, I received the weekly edition of this newspaper mailed to my home.  However, in the last ten years I have discovered that its level of intellectualism has eroded.)  We were sitting in Tasa and waiting for an order to move.  In the meantime around us the Egyptians sent some commando forces into our area, and we caught them.  Egyptian attack airplanes were attacking us, and our unit shot one of them down.  The most disturbing incident while we were waiting to do something was the arrival of some young Israeli soldiers, the remnants of some units that were involved in defending the Suez Canal at the first attack on Yom Kippur. On the 14th or 15th of October, we began our move toward the Suez Canal.  Our unit surrounded the famous bridge-on-wheels.  On the second day of our movement, Egyptian airplanes discovered us and attacked us.  By sheer miracle I was not killed in that attack.  We also heard reports about the chaos that happened at the “Chinese Farm,” where one of the most terrible battles of this war occurred.  About fifty paratroopers were killed there, and I have no idea how many tank people lost their lives there.  While all this was happening, we were moving closer and closer to the Suez Canal.  Eventually, one of the paratrooper forces that entered into the west side of the Canal, led by Dan Ziv, at the Sarafaum, got into real trouble there.  Many many articles and stories have come out to relate the details of that battle.  The main conclusion was that Dan Ziv as a commander performed poorly, and it is not that he was not a courageous person, but that his judgment in battle did not fit the reality of this complicated event.  One of the victims of this battle, a very courageous Israeli soldier, was Asa Cadmoni.  We left the Suez Canal five months later.
When I returned to the University, I lacked the desire to study.  Classes had started in November, and now it was the end of March of the following year.  My roommate was dead, and I lost all interest in studying.  I decided to travel to America, and so I did.  About my adventures in America I will write a different story.  In the meantime, the Yom Kippur War of 1973 still provides mountains of speculation, and there remains a total misunderstanding among Israelis about the causes and conclusions of that war.  It is possible that these conversations about the war will not end, even at the end of days, unless maybe a little bit before that.  I hope we will one day find some way to figure out the key to all the unanswered questions.

Andrew C. McCarthy: US Support for Syrian Terrorists Illegal

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/359106/no-material-support-terrorists-andrew-c-mccarthy


Under the pertinent provision of the act, the prohibitions against military aid to a country are not limited by its government’s history of promoting particular terrorist groups. That is to say, even if it were correct that Hezbollah alone was responsible for the AECA’s application to Syria, this would not narrow transactions prohibited under the statute to those by which the Assad regime could benefit Hezbollah. (As it happens, Hezbollah is far from the only terrorist entity abetted by Syria; the Assad regime’s patron is Iran, the world’s numero uno terrorism promoter; Syria, furthermore, has a history of supporting and providing safe harbor for Hamas — the Muslim Brotherhood’s Palestinian terrorist branch, which happens to be allied with the “rebels” in the Syrian civil war.)In point of fact, AECA prohibitions apply to countries, not regimes that govern countries — i.e., they apply here to Syria, not just Assad. There is good reason for this. If a government with a history of supporting terrorism is on the brink of collapse or overthrow, there is even more risk than usual that any weaponry and other military aid we provide will fall into the hands of terrorists. This is not just abstract logic; we know it from our own very recent experience: Since the regime fell in Qaddafi’s Libya — thanks to Obama’s unauthorized war — weapons distributed to and purloined by jihadists have fueled al-Qaeda’s operations in North Africa and may well have contributed to the Benghazi massacre, in which four American officials were murdered and several others seriously wounded.In any event, once the AECA applies to a country, the provision of military and other aid outlined in the statute is prohibited. The president’s power to waive this prohibition is very limited. It is not good enough for the president to say the aid is in U.S. interests. A waiver is valid only if the aid in question is “essential” to U.S. “national security” interests. The interests of Syrians are irrelevant under the law’s plain terms.It is inconceivable that supplying materiel to Syrians, including equipment that protects people from chemical weapons, could be essential to American national security. Obviously, if American national security were actually at risk, we would be invading Syria with our own forces, not arming the Muslim Brotherhood and al-Qaeda.In fact, in the case of Syria, it is more likely true that withholding protective equipment and arms is essential to American national security. There are, after all, reports — from Turkey, Iraq, and Syria — detailing chemical-weapons manufacturing, procurement, and use by al-Qaeda-affiliated groups that are systematically incorporated into the operations of the Syrian opposition. The Obama administration and Republican leaders are in high dudgeon over Assad’s alleged use of chemical weapons, but they seem to have a frog in their throats when it comes to the “rebels.” 


Saturday, September 21, 2013

Parent arrested at forum after protesting use of common core

Parent arrested at forum after protesting use of common core

When Small started speaking, Dance told him that he believed his question would be answered, but Small continued to talk. After a couple of minutes, a security guard confronted Small, saying, "Let's go. Let's go."

Small, 46, asked him if he was an officer and the security guard, an off-duty Baltimore County police officer, showed him a badge. The officer grabbed Small's arm and pulled him toward the aisle. The audience gasped and some people sitting nearby got out of their seats.
As he was being taken out, Small said, "Don't stand for this. You are sitting here like cattle." Then he said, "Is this America?"
The officer pushed Small and then escorted him into the hall, handcuffed him and had him sit on the curb in front of the school. He was taken to the Towson precinct and detained. Small was charged with second-degree assault of a police officer, which carries a fine of $2,500 and up to 10 years in prison, and disturbing a school operation, which carries a fine of $2,500 and up to six months.

Friday, September 20, 2013

Charles Krauthammer: Lock Up Paranoid Schizophrenics

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/charles-krauthammer-the-real-navy-yard-scandal/2013/09/19/ddfde26a-2162-11e3-a358-1144dee636dd_story.html#

Save the New York Public Library from Criminal Anthony Marx & His Gang!

Dear Library Supporter,

THE COMMITTEE TO SAVE THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY urges you to come to a meeting of the NYPL Trustees!

LET THEM KNOW YOU ARE WATCHING

WHERE: COUNTEE CULLEN LIBRARY - NYPL 
104 West 136th Street near Malcolm X Blvd. (Lenox Ave.) 
135th St. stop on the 2 or 3 train 
135th St. stop on the B or C train

WHEN: Wednesday, September 25 
Meeting at 4pm - open to the public 
Rally at 5pm

Stop the destruction of a great research library 
Stop the sell-off of public libraries 
Let NYPL know libraries should grow - not shrink

Take action to stop the Central Library Plan and save the 42nd Street Library!

Come to the NYPL trustees meeting and let them know you are watching as they plan to spend taxpayer money on their wasteful, destructive plan. Then, come to the rally afterwards in front of the Countee Cullen Library 104 West 136th Street in Central Harlem. The meeting starts at 4pmand rally starts at 5pm, so please be on time! We want to have a strong presence at the meeting. If you can't make it at 4:00, join the rally after work at 5pm and greet the Trustees on their way out.

The Central Library Plan (CLP), at enormous cost to New York City and its taxpayers, would gut the 42nd Street Research Library – one of the world’s great reference libraries and a historic landmark. The CLP would demolish the library’s historic book stacks, install a circulating library in their place, and send 1.5 million books to central New Jersey. The new circulating library would be a reduced-size replacement for the Mid-Manhattan Library (at 40th and 5th Avenue) and SIBL (Science, Industry, and Business Library, at 34th and Madison), which will both be closed and sold off. 

For more information about the Central Library Plan and its potential negative impacts on both the 42nd Street Library and the circulating libraries it would replace, go to www.savenypl.org 

CLP is part of a larger effort by New York City’s public library systems to shrink their capacity and sell off valuable real estate, which started with the controversial sale in 2008 of the beloved Donnell Library to real estate developers. The rally is cosponsored by our friends at Citizens Defending Libraries.

The Committee to Save the New York Public Library 
232 East 11th Street
New York, NY 10003 
info@savenypl.org 
www.savenypl.org 
facebook: Save NYPL 
on twitter @saveNYPL

Ann Coulter - September 18, 2013 - CRAZIER THAN LIBERALS

Ann Coulter - September 18, 2013 - CRAZIER THAN LIBERALS

Thursday, September 19, 2013

My bottom line on Washington Navy Yard Massacre...

Mental health is a national security issue;involuntary institutionalization is a national  security issue;state mental hospitals closed since 1960s need to be re-opened asap on a large scale for long-term residents who are a danger to themselves and society; funding could be provided from the Homeland Security budget (DHS HQ already conveniently relocated to St. Elizabeth's Hospital grounds in DC, a mental hospital...IMHO).

Rand Paul at the Library of Congress 9/18/2013


Monday, September 16, 2013

Washington Post: Chief of Naval Operations Fled Navy Yard

https://news.google.com/news/story?ncl=dvVxw8-tJclpUPM2S7ApxZmJjwpUM&q=navy+yard+shooting&lr=English&hl=en
Adm. Jonathan W. Greenert, the chief of Naval Operations, was evacuated from his residence at the Navy Yard complex shortly after the first report of shots fired, Navy officials said. Greenert, a four-star admiral and member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was safely evacuated to the Pentagon along with his wife, Darleen, said Cmdr. Ryan Perry, a Navy spokesman.
Whatever happened to "a Captain goes down with the ship?"

RubinReports on Appeasement, Then & Now...

RubinReports

Thursday, September 12, 2013

Wikipedia's Definition of "American Exceptionalism"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_exceptionalism
American exceptionalism is the theory that the United States is "qualitatively different" from other nations.[2] In this view, America's exceptionalism stems from its emergence from a revolution, becoming what political scientist Seymour Martin Lipset called "the first new nation"[3] and developing a uniquely American ideology, "Americanism", based on liberty,egalitarianismindividualismrepublicanismpopulism and laissez-faire.[4] This ideology itself is often referred to as "American exceptionalism."[4]
Although the term does not necessarily imply superiority, many neoconservative and American conservative writers have promoted its use in that sense.[4][5] To them, the United States is like the biblical shining "City upon a Hill", and exempt from historical forces that have affected other countries.[6]
The theory of exceptionalism can be traced to Alexis de Tocqueville, the first writer to describe the United States as "exceptional" in 1831 and 1840.[7] The term "American exceptionalism" has been in use since at least the 1920s and saw more common use after Soviet leaderJoseph Stalin chastised members of the Jay Lovestone-led faction of the American Communist Party for their heretical belief that America was independent of the Marxist laws of history "thanks to its natural resources, industrial capacity, and absence of rigid class distinctions". American Communists started using the English term "American exceptionalism" in factional fights. It then moved into general use among intellectuals.[8][9]

Wednesday, September 11, 2013

Asia Times: Sen. Lugar, Nunn-Lugar, Obama, Putin & Syria

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/MID-04-110913.html

M K Bhadrakumar writes in the Asia Times:

Now, as a young senator, Obama regarded himself as a protege ("pupil") of Lugar; he had served in the Nunn-Lugar program (which took him on his only visit to Russia before becoming president). 

In fact, the 20th anniversary of the Nunn-Lugar Program was one of the first public functions that Obama attended on December 3 last year after getting re-elected. He made a remarkable speech on that occasion in Washington where he hailed the track record of the Nunn-Lugar "far beyond the old Soviet Union". Obama said, 
Nunn-Lugar is the foundation for the vision that I laid out, once I was elected president, in travel to Prague - where nations come together to secure nuclear materials, as we're doing with our Nuclear Security Summits, where we build on New START and continue to work to reduce our arsenals; where we strengthen the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and prevent the spread of the world's most deadly weapons; where, over time, we come closer to our ultimate vision - a world without nuclear weapons. 
Suffice to say, Putin factors in that disarmament is a key policy agenda for Obama. Putin cannot be oblivious of the potential of the Russian plan on Syria going far beyond the resolution of the immediate conflict situation at hand in the Eastern Mediterranean. 

It could be Syria today that Russia is working on alongside the Obama administration. But it could as well be on Iran tomorrow. And incrementally, Obama also would need to think about addressing Russia's core concerns - missile defense, for instance. 

A paradigm shift 
Working with the Obama administration as "equal partner" has always been Putin's core Russian foreign-policy objective and any constructive cooperation over Syria can possibly change the entire alchemy of Russian-American relations. 

The pro-western Russian elites who dominate policymaking in Moscow whole-heartedly welcome Putin's working relationship with Obama. For the majority of Russian people, at the same time, Putin's brilliant handling of the Syrian crisis has enhanced the country's image and international standing. 

To be sure, an interesting paradigm shift is taking place as the Russian leadership identifies with American public opinion, with which Obama also instinctively empathizes, as his speech on Tuesday revealed.

Sen. Lugar Proposed US-Russian Syrian Solution on August 8, 2012...

As reported in the New York Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/08/world/europe/senator-richard-lugar-urges-united-states-and-russia-to-rid-syria-of-chemical-weapons.html?_r=1&

Mr. Lugar’s proposal comes at a delicate time, with Russia steadfastly resisting entreaties by the United States and other countries to authorize more forceful intervention in Syria, which has been locked in a conflict that is now a civil war for 17 months.
In an interview on Tuesday, Mr. Lugar said his idea had been initially rebuffed by Russian officials, who noted that Syria had never joined an agreement to eliminate such arms, the Chemical Weapons Convention, which was signed by 188 countries.
“The initial response,” Mr. Lugar said, “was that Syria was not a party to the Chemical Weapons Convention — which is true — and we, that is, the United States and Russia, do not own these weapons, and that’s true. But it’s also true that it’s not really clear in the course of events who is going to own them, if anybody; who will be responsible; whether any party really will be a part of the convention.”
Yet, Mr. Lugar added, most countries see the weapons in Syria “as influencing very adversely the potential for peace and stability in the Middle East.”
Mr. Lugar, the senior Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee, is in Moscow this week to press for an extension of the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction Program, an effort that began in 1991 to safeguard and dismantle nuclear and chemical weapons in the former Soviet Union.
The effort is credited with deactivating 7,500 nuclear warheads and overseeing the end ofnuclear weapons programs in Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Belarus. It is named for Mr. Lugar and former Senator Sam Nunn, Democrat of Georgia, who helped a reluctant Congress provide financing, and it also led to the construction of a facility in Siberia that has been working to destroy two million Soviet chemical weapons containing nerve agents and other poisons.
Mr. Lugar said the suggestion was his own, not the Obama administration’s. “The threats might be to both of our countries from elsewhere,” he said. “That’s what I am suggesting as maybe a new chapter in our cooperative threat reduction — that we think about our abilities really to be helpful to each other, but also the rest of the world.”

Moscow Times: Sen. Richard Lugar Brokered US-Russian-Syrian Deal

Quote:
At a news conference, Lavrov said Russia was working on an "effective and concrete" plan with Damascus to put its weapons under strict international control, though no specific details have yet been worked out. No Russian reaction to the potential security council resolution has been reported.

Dmitry Trenin, director of the Moscow Carnegie Center think tank, said "putting Syria's chemical weapons under international control, if it is achieved, would be the best real result of U.S.-Russian collaboration."

He said the idea had actually been proposed by Richard "Dick" Lugar, a former U.S. senator who was one of the sponsors of the Nunn-Lugar program to dismantle weapons of mass destruction in post-Soviet states.

Alexander Konovalov, president of the Institute for Strategic Assessments, said U.S.-Russia relations could benefit greatly from the plan if it turns out to be successful.
"We have many challenges that can only be resolved together," he said.

Read more: http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/russias-syria-plan-gains-momentum/485873.html#ixzz2eb2tV8ww The Moscow Times 

9/11 Memorial, University System of Maryland, Shady Grove...


Monday, September 09, 2013

Angelo Codevilla: Parting Ways With the American People | Online Library of Law and Liberty

Parting Ways With the American People | Online Library of Law and Liberty In short, by 2013 the Republican Establishment had proved itself so alien to the domestic concerns of that majority of Americans who dislike the direction in which the ruling class is pushing it, that the party was becoming irrelevant. Despite the Bush Administration’s disastrous commitment to Nation-Building however, the memory of Ronald Reagan’s and Dwight Eisenhower’s forceful, levelheaded patriotism still lingered about the party.

But by urging war on Syria more vehemently than Obama, the Republican Establishment may have finished off the Republican Party, as we know it. Surely it has discredited itself.
President Obama and his followers say: “strike!” even while acknowledging that no military or political plans exist by which such strikes would make things better rather than worse. Reflecting the public, few Democratic and Republican lawmakers support the war publicly. Obama, while claiming the right to act without Congressional approval, has asked Congress to take responsibility for whatever war he might choose to make – and for its results. In the likely event that Congress were to say No, Obama is poised to pin responsibility on Republicans lawmakers and on the people they represent for America’s decline among nations and for whatever ill consequences may follow from all he has already done with regard to Syria.
We cannot be shocked that persons of the intellectual caliber of Obama and his officials would propose entering into a war without a notion of how they propose to leave it or of what they propose to get out of it for America. We dare not let ourselves take seriously their assertion that intervention in a struggle among fanatic sectarians can be either neutral about the substance of their hatreds or even favorable to moderation. Nor can we pretend surprise that persons of their moral caliber should use bloodshed abroad as a political weapon at home.
But we have a right and duty to remark and to reprove the manner in which the Republican Establishment is impugning the character of Americans who oppose the war. That manner, Obama-like, eschews argument in favor of insult. To argue is to deal with the opposite position on its own terms. But the Republican Establishment attacks the American people for being “isolationist” – an epithet that no one applies to himself.

US-Russia Deal on Syria?

Lavrov also denied allegations that Russia may have sponsored a deal between the U.S. and Syria during the Group of 20 summit in St. Petersburg last week, where Putin discussed the Syrian crisis with Obama. "There won't be and there can't be any deal behind the back of the Syrian people," Lavrov said. Read more: http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/russia-to-push-syria-to-surrender-chemical-weapons/485773.html#ixzz2eQBud6Yg The Moscow Times

RubinReports: The Obama Administration's Seven Pillars of Idiocy (1-3)

RubinReports...Pillars 1-3;
These are the new (hopefully temporary):White House’s Seven Pillars of Idiocy in the Middle East: 
{NAMED AFTER LAWRENCE OF ARABIA'S VERSION)


First pillar:  Other than aid and official government rhetoric, the United States is now neutral on the Israel-Palestinian conflict and, to put it more accurately, tilting toward the Palestinian side.
This does not mean disaster for Israel--and no Israeli official will say so in public--but it is a strategic reality.
Part of the dynamic motivating this U.S. policy is that:
--The White House believes it can win over “moderate Islamists” in power, as in Egypt, Sudan, Turkey, Tunisia, Bahrain, Iran, and Syria, among other countries. This would form a pro-U.S. bloc against al-Qaida and, secondarily, the Iran-Syria bloc. Only al-Qaida cannot be won over; but the White House believes that even the Taliban, the Tehran rulers, Hizballah, and Hamas might be convinced. (I’m not kidding and can prove it.)
--Rather than mobilize active opposition to Palestinian Authority diplomatic gains in Europe, the UN, the World Court, and international institutions, the Obama Administration is either leading exploiting, or bowing to these gains.
--This of course intensifies Western cultural surrender to anti-Israel positions. Here’s an example: The highly prestigious Foyle’s bookstore in London has closed its Israel section. If you know London, you know what an intellectual earthquake that is.
--The United States will not privately pressure or publicly criticize Palestinian Authority policies or statements, but will not hesitate to do so for Israel.
--The Palestinian Authority is not even held responsible for its total inability to deliver half the Palestinian forces, including Hamas and the Gaza Strip. Imagine a White House not thrilled to use the Egyptian coup regime to press and suppress Hamas! Their strategy would be to make a deal: Palestinian concessions to get a state in exchange for the capture of Gaza! Who has even thought of that?!
Of course the talks will not go anywhere, because the Palestinians know that they have a strong hand and they will overplay it. But, the administration’s willingness to punish Israel to win public relations points and shore up the doomed U.S. alignment with Islamists has to be reckoned with. 
The problem is by no means regarding U.S.-Israel relations alone, but it is with every Middle Eastern ally and with every potentially pro-U.S democratic opposition movement.


Second pillar: The system the White House seeks to impose on the Middle East appears to be revolutionary Islamism! If many objective Iranian, Turkish, Kurdish, Israeli, and Arab observers see this as self-evident, Islamists themselves view Western policy, however, as a sign of their own victory due to Allah’s backing plus Western fear and weakness.

Consider the bizarre situation in regard to EgyptThe last time, Egypt had to join the enemy  Soviet bloc and wage war on a  U.S. ally to be America’s enemy; now it can do so by joining American goals,  opposing terrorism, and working closely with U.S. allies!
Third pillar: conservative traditionalists, moderates, and liberals seem to be viewed by the U .S. government as enemies, because only the Muslim Brotherhood can stop al-Qaida by out-jihading them. 

Sunday, September 08, 2013

Gallup Poll: U.S. Support for Action in Syria Is Low vs. Past Conflicts

U.S. Support for Action in Syria Is Low vs. Past Conflicts
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Americans' support for the United States' taking military action against the Syrian government for its suspected use of chemical weapons is on track to be among the lowest for any intervention Gallup has asked about in the last 20 years. Thirty-six percent of Americans favor the U.S. taking military action in order to reduce Syria's ability to use chemical weapons. The majority -- 51% -- oppose such action, while 13% are unsure.

Conrad Black: Fall of USA Parallels USSR

http://www.nysun.com/foreign/collapse-of-american-power-recalls-dis/88400/

RubinReports on Syria

RubinReports

Tuesday, September 03, 2013

Barry Rubin: Obama's Anti-Israel Foreign Policy

http://pjmedia.com/barryrubin/2013/09/03/obama-and-israel-the-next-three-years/
It is not every day that one can announce a shift in world history, but this day is today. And we are now in a new era in the Middle East and the world. This is not a joke–definitely not a joke–and as you will see, it is not an exaggeration. Let me explain. For the last seven weeks, I have been in the United States, mostly in Washington D.C. I have spoken and listened to many people. As a result, I am in a position to describe to you with a high degree of accuracy what the policy will be for the next 3.5 years, and perhaps for many more. The administration has crossed a line to, in simple terms, backing the “‘bad guys.” This is literally true in Egypt, Syria, Sudan, the Palestinian Authority, Bahrain (with its support for the opposition), Qatar, and Turkey. And in some ways, as we will see, the war on terrorism has been turned into the war for terrorism. Too extreme? On the contrary, this is not a conservative or liberal analysis but merely a true one. Come along over the next few weeks, and let’s take a serious analysis 0f Obama’s Middle East policy in the second term, from 2013 to January 20, 2017. The real diplomatic line is: Bad boy, Bibi (and Israel), why can he/they not be moderate and flexible (unlike releasing 100 terrorist murderers in exchange for nothing), like Palestinian Authority Leader Mahmoud Abbas (and the Palestinians, who [Abbas] in fact is inflexible, constantly; escalates demands; and rejects U.S. strategy on the peace process); or like Turkey’s Prime Minister Erdogan (throwing intellectuals and journalists in prison, betraying U.S. strategy 0n Iran, backing anti-American Islamists, and sending former army officers for long jail terms on phony charges)? During the coming months, and even years, if they are given to me, I will pursue these themes. You may not believe what you read here today or tomorrow, but you will, oh you will see it. But before we begin, let me repeat that this is going to happen. It will not change, and as shocking as it is, this is already happening. It is unavoidable, because with a president who will not learn, a bought-off elite, a sold-out second-term Congress, and a remarkably cowardly or partisan media, nothing will change. The situation will only get worse and more obvious. In this series of articles, I will describe eight very likely things that will almost certainly happen during the rest of Obama’s term, extending far beyond Israel, and how to minimize the harm to the interests of the United States and of its would-be Middle Eastern allied people and governments. Here are the inevitable themes, any one of which would be horrid enough. ISRAEL CANNOT DEPEND ON THE UNITED STATES.

Monday, September 02, 2013

Peter Van Buren's Letter to His College-Age Daughter

From http://wemeantwell.com/#sthash.5BUoVmUP.dpuf:

Mrs. We Meant Well and I sent off the last of the heirs to the We Meant Well fortune to college. She’s a good kid, smarter than me hopefully, and she should do well at school. Though she is more embarrassed than anything about half the stuff on this blog, her heart’s in the right place. It would be very odd if as a teenager she would be any different. Hell, if she was as cynical as me at her age, we’d need to have her see a doctor.

I kept my mouth shut at the college– there are rituals to these things and dad-confessions are not among them– but I wanted to say sorry to her more than simply goodbye. My kids all grew up overseas while I served with the State Department (though they of course did not accompany me to Iraq). Despite the occasional job hassles, it was not a bad life. For most of the time the world was mostly at peace. We started the adventure around the same time that Desert Storm happened. After a week of silly paranoid concern that the Iraqi Army might somehow attack us in Taiwan, life went back to normal and continued that way until September 11, 2001. We were assigned in Japan at that time, and like all of you, watched the terrible events unfold on TV, albeit late at night because of the time zone thing. As the second plane hit the World Trade Center, I got up to make some sandwiches to bring in to work, knowing the phone would ring soon and I’d be called in to the Embassy. I remember as clear as glacier water my wife saying “Why would they call you in? That’s in New York and we’re in Tokyo!” Then the phone did ring and that was that. Forever after I would feel like a shadow looking for the sanctuary of a light.

The world my kids grew up in no longer exists. We destroyed it. In reaction to the terror attack, we set the Middle East on fire (still burning), nearly bankrupted our own economy, turned air travel into a form of bondage play, and did away with our democracy in return for a security state that exists only to keep us perched on the edge of fear. Nothing pressed us into these actions; we did them all on our own, the Patriot Act, Guantanamo, the NSA amok, all that.

That night twelve years ago in Tokyo, when I was called in to the Embassy after midnight? As I approached the gate, I could see a large crowd gathered, not usual for after midnight and certainly not usual in calm-as-dust Tokyo. About a hundred Japanese had spontaneously gathered there, some with flowers bought who-knows-where at that time of night. They clapped for us as we walked in to work. They wanted to touch us as we walked by. It did not last long. Fast forward to March 2003 and a larger crowd gathered to protest the invasion of Iraq, and protest calls blew out the switchboard. Our security people let us out a back gate, saying it wasn’t safe to exit through the front door. In Tokyo. One bomb threat and false positive al Qaeda warning after another followed, hitting a low point when, after weeks of denying it, the State Department admitted that they had shipped diplomatic pouches into our Embassy that might have been infected by the anthrax that was in the U.S. mail system at the time. My office was near the pouch mail room and I had to take Cipro as a precaution and wonder if anything got into my home and my kids’ room off my clothes. Threats and terror alerts became a daily part of our new normal, there and in the U.S.

So I wanted to say I was sorry to my child. Sorry we messed up the world for you. Sorry for, what, how many dead? Sorry countries where Americans used to be at least tolerated with our awkward shorts and sandals ‘n socks are now too dangerous to even visit. Sorry you’ll never see the ruins of Babylon in Iraq, or the Pyramids, unless you join the Army. Sorry you will never know what privacy is. Sorry that you, and your children, will live in an America that exists in a constant state of low-fever war. Sorry you will never know peace. Sorry that we not only did not defeat the terrorists but, by our actions, gave their cause new life and seemingly endless new recruits. Sorry you will never enjoy an airplane trip, sorry you will never trust your government, sorry you will always have that tiny glint of reservation when you hear the anthem, read the Constitution or wonder what happened. And while I am sorry that you’ll blame us, you are right to do so. We did it. Some of us actively participated, some passively let it happen. Some that tried to make changes failed to make them significant enough to hold back even some of the water coming over the levies. Sorry, but if anyone is going to fix this, it is going to have to be you. Do a better job than we did if you want to really find a way to say thanks for the piano lessons and ballet lessons, the puppy, for using the car, for me not being too mad when you violated curfew to spend more time with that boy, for the college tuition.

Funny, but I also just sent my last draft for the new book off to the editor. He’ll make it much better and I know that, but I have given up something that used to be all mine at the same time. It’ll come back different.

We sent my daughter off to college this weekend and while my wife cried about 99% of the time, I held back some tears until the very end. While some kid my daughter had never met before said “C’mon, we’re going out with the guys from the next quad!” I stood there hugging her not in that room but in a million places where she had fallen down or asked for ice cream or needed a diaper changed or the causes of World War I explained. I didn’t hug an 18 year old woman but a six year old, a 13 year old, an infant in diapers, a two year old angry about being wet in the snow.

And despite my need to hold on to her for just that much more she felt closer in that moment to the anonymous roommate demanding she go out the door with her than to me and I knew simultaneously how I hurt and how right she was to need to leave. The space between us was a fraction of an inch but it was a distance I would never cross.

Back home it was quiet. Just my wife and the stupid, now old dog. I walked outside and saw the trees were still an unbelievable green, but just a hint of yellow, almost too little to really see, more of a feeling. There were nine empty beer cans in the recycling bin and I could hear cicadas. I swacked a mosquito. I’m gonna really miss summer.

- See more at: http://wemeantwell.com/#sthash.5BUoVmUP.dpuf

Friday, August 30, 2013

As-Safir Newspaper - Russian President, Saudi Spy Chief Discussed Syria, Egypt

As-Safir Newspaper - Russian President, Saudi Spy Chief Discussed Syria, Egypt
Bandar told Putin, “There are many common values ​​and goals that bring us together, most notably the fight against terrorism and extremism all over the world. Russia, the US, the EU and the Saudis agree on promoting and consolidating international peace and security. The terrorist threat is growing in light of the phenomena spawned by the Arab Spring. We have lost some regimes. And what we got in return were terrorist experiences, as evidenced by the experience of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and the extremist groups in Libya. ... As an example, I can give you a guarantee to protect the Winter Olympics in the city of Sochi on the Black Sea next year. The Chechen groups that threaten the security of the games are controlled by us, and they will not move in the Syrian territory’s direction without coordinating with us. These groups do not scare us. We use them in the face of the Syrian regime but they will have no role or influence in Syria’s political future.”

Putin thanked King Abdullah for his greetings and Bandar for his exposition, but then he said to Bandar, “We know that you have supported the Chechen terrorist groups for a decade. And that support, which you have frankly talked about just now, is completely incompatible with the common objectives of fighting global terrorism that you mentioned. We are interested in developing friendly relations according to clear and strong principles.”

Monday, August 26, 2013

The DiploMad 2.0: Democrats on the Road to Damascus

The DiploMad 2.0: Democrats on the Road to Damascus
Mark my words, if our policy "succeeds," that is to say, it leads to the downfall of Assad, we soon will enter a world of hurt. Assad will be replaced by extremistjihadi psychopaths who will turn on us in a flash. If we don't "succeed," and we just wound the bear, what's left of our reputation is gone, and we will have one bloody-minded, revenge seeking pencil-necked dictator--backed by Iran and Russia--gunning for us and our interests. Some choice, eh?

The DiploMad 2.0: Conservatives and Their Responsibility...

The DiploMad 2.0: Conservatives and Their Responsibility...:

Wednesday, August 21, 2013

RubinReports: US and EU Back Islamist Imperialism

RubinReports

For example, about a year ago Dubai’s police chief addressed a major international Gulf Arab security conference. He said that there were about three dozen security threats to the Gulf Arab countries. But this well-respected security expert said the number-one threat was the United States.

Since that time, this American specter has become vivid. For instance, The New York Times had a recent editorial which stated that the only protection for Egypt’s democracy--meaning Muslim Brotherhood participation in the next Egyptian government--was the United States and Europe. The Egyptian regime, Israel, and Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Arab states were bad for wanting to protect their societies from Islamic ideology, revolution, and anti-Western Sharia states!

Might the  United States and its allies rather be expected to battle Turkey, Iran, Hamas, Hizballah, Tunisia, Bahrain, and Hamas or otherwise might it support Islamists while Saudi Arabia fought Europe’s and America’s response as too soft on Hizballah?

But what if a crazy notion seizes policymakers, blessed with the mush of ignorance about the Middle East, that they can take control of the troublemakers? Perhaps Germany (World War One and Two jihads), or the Soviet control of radical nationalist regimes in the 1950s and 1960, or the French rescue of the Palestinian leadership in the late 1940s, or Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in Iran during the 1970s, or  America in the 1950s (Arab nationalism), or the 2010 Muslim Brotherhood would turn nominal extremists into friends?

Imagine, dunderheads in Washington, London, Paris, and so on thinking they are masterfully preserving stability, making peace, and harnessing Sharia in the cause of boosting democracy!

How smug would be the smiles when those who perpetrated September 11, 2001, were supposedly defeated by those mentored into power a decade later by the West in Benghazi on September 11, 2012, or in the Arab Spring or the Syrian revolution!

Look at it through the eyes of the Arabs, Iranians, Turks, Kurds, and Israelis who think they will try to impose a new order the region.

Consider a famous speech by Winston Churchill at Fulton, Missouri, on March 5, 1946. In contrast to the Communist Manifesto,100 years later, Churchill began, “From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an Iron Curtain is descended across the continent.” It might be strange that these two statements are compared to the current situation in the Middle East. But actually, they make a lot of sense.

The intention of great powers seemed to impose one (European) system on the region. In the first case, it was Communism. In Churchill’s case, it was anti-Communism he advocated, which in parallel would be Anti-Islamism.

But today, what is the system that Arabs, Iranians, Turks, and Israelis think they will try to impose on the region? The answer for those who have been watching in recent years is revolutionary Islamism.

It might seem strange that this is the thinking, but it isn’t. The question is whether there is a system that Western Europeans want to impose. And the answer is that to the Arabs and others in the region--although this does not mean it has to be true--since the 1979 Iranian revolution, they have supported radical Islamism. In fact, it should be understood that after the Arab Spring, Arabs did not generally identify Western interests with support for moderate democracy, but with support for Islamism.

Tuesday, August 20, 2013

Patrick Poole: US Government's "Muslim Outreach" Fronts For Islamist Terrorists

http://www.gloria-center.org/2013/06/the-u-s-governments-disastrous-muslim-outreach-efforts-and-the-impact-on-u-s-middle-east-policy-blind-to-terror1/
Perhaps the most baffling element to the U.S. government’s Muslim outreach since the 1990s is the steadfast refusal by its supporters to acknowledge the mountain of evidence that testifies to its catastrophic failure. What pathology can explain how prosecutors can identify Muslim leaders and organizations as supporters of terrorism in federal court, and at the same time high-ranking government officials embrace these same leaders and groups as moderates and heatedly defend their inclusion as outreach partners? The answer might only lie in the realm of theology and not psychology.

After al-Qa’ida cleric Anwar al-Awlaki was teaching on Islam in the Executive Dining Room of the Pentagon just weeks after three of his disciples had flown a plane into the same building; when the government had to admit that the State Department’s Muslim goodwill ambassador to the Middle East and frequent White House visitor, Abdul Rahman al-Amoudi, had been one of the top al-Qa’ida fundraisers at the same time he was certifying the Pentagon’s Muslim chaplains; and even when attorneys for Sami al-Arian went into federal court demanding discovery documents showing their client’s outreach meetings at the White House, the Department of Justice, FBI headquarters, and the House of Representatives Speakers’ Office; there was not even a moment of pause before the government picked up right where it left off. This continues in the cases of ISNA, MPAC, CAIR, Mohamed Majid, Salam al-Marayati, Louay Safi, Mohamed Elibiary, Yasir Qadhi, Nihad Awad, and many others.

Take, for example, the case of Kifah Mustapha. At the same time that the FBI Chicago field office was telling the Illinois State Police of Mustapha’s extensive history of supporting Hamas, even providing a videotape of him singing exhortations to violence and racial hatred, that same FBI office was processing and approving the imam’s security clearance to participate in the FBI’s Citizen Academy program, complete with tours of the FBI Academy at Quantico and the top-secret National Counterterrorism Center. When asked about the bureau’s contradictory messages on Mustapha by the media, the only response FBI Director Mueller could muster was, “I’m not going to talk about any particular individual.”[205] No longer do these Muslim leaders have to shout down their critics; they now have cabinet-level officials, White House aides, and some members of Congress to do it for them.

The net result of the U.S. government’s Muslim outreach has not just been the empowerment of extremists at the expense of marginalizing authentic moderates. Now the Obama administration has institutionalized these relationships where the very extremists they have empowered and embraced are now dictating inherently dangerous public policy. Demands by their outreach partners now include purges, blacklists, book bans, star chambers, speech codes, mandatory reeducation and official retaliation against federal employees, with the White House standing up a task force authorized to enforce these measures across the federal government.

Without the slightest bit of irony these are all invoked in the name of the First Amendment. To prevent further embarrassment, terror-related investigations are being scuttled by the Department of Justice to protect the senior leadership of their official outreach partners, ignoring entirely what has already been said about them in court filings by DOJ attorneys and even rulings by federal judges. This “compulsory blindness” applied to our intelligence, homeland security, and law enforcement agencies are precisely why investigations into identified terror threats are being stopped in their tracks (Boston, Fort Hood, et al.) at the expense of American lives.

Equally as troubling are the doors that the White House has thrown open to members of terrorist organizations and international war criminals. Meanwhile, the Obama administration has cheered, if not actively encouraged, the “largely secular” Muslim Brotherhood takeover in many countries throughout the Middle East. Leaders of groups identified by the federal government as fronts for the Muslim Brotherhood are given top seating for presidential speeches and are welcomed into the Oval Office to offer their advice prior to presidential trips to the Middle East.

The legacy of the U.S. government’s Muslim outreach programs since the 1990s is a monument of failure by any measure. With more American lives and body parts strewn across American streets once again in Boston, these outreach partners threatening the health and legitimacy of our constitutional republic with their demands. It is clearly past time for Congress to ask whether this long since failed experiment should come to an immediate end.