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	<title>FrontPage Magazine &#187; betrayal</title>
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		<title>Loyalty and Enmity: Parallels between Islam and the Mafia</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/raymond-ibrahim/loyalty-and-enmity-parallels-between-islam-and-the-mafia/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=loyalty-and-enmity-parallels-between-islam-and-the-mafia</link>
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		<pubDate>Wed, 22 Oct 2014 04:40:53 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Raymond Ibrahim]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[betrayal]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Islam]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[loyalty]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[MAFIA]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[violence]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=243435</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The deadly price of betrayal. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><b><i><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/5339316755_050f27b80b.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-243443" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/5339316755_050f27b80b.jpg" alt="5339316755_050f27b80b" width="333" height="250" /></a>Editor’s note</i></b><i>: The following is Part Two of a three-part series examining the many parallels between Islam and the mafia following Bill Maher’s recent exclamation that Islam is “the only religion that acts like the mafia, that will f***ing kill you if you say the wrong thing, draw the wrong picture, or write the wrong book.”  Click the following for </i><em><span style="color: #0433ff;"><a href="http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/raymond-ibrahim/islam-more-like-the-mafia-than-bill-maher-knows/">Part One</a></span> and <a href="http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/raymond-ibrahim/islam-and-the-mafia-making-an-offer-you-cant-refuse/">Part Three</a>.</em></p>
<p><b>Death to Traitors (AKA “Apostates”)</b></p>
<p>Once a Mafioso takes the oath of loyalty to the mafia—including the Omertà code of silence and secrecy—trying to leave the “family” is instantaneously seen as a betrayal and therefore punishable by death.  Any family member, great or small, is given authority to kill the traitor, the “turncoat.”</p>
<p>Compare this to Islam.  To be born to a Muslim father immediately makes the newborn a Muslim—there are no oaths to be taken, much less an option in the matter.   And, according to Islamic law, if born Muslims at any point in their lives choose to leave Islam, they are deemed “apostates”—traitors—and punished including by death.   Any zealous Muslim, not just the authorities, is justified in killing the apostate (hence why Muslim families that kill apostate children are rarely if ever prosecuted).</p>
<p>In the <a href="http://www.usc.edu/org/cmje/religious-texts/hadith/bukhari/084-sbt.php"><span style="color: #0433ff;">words</span></a> of Muhammad—the messenger (underboss) of Allah (godfather):  “Whoever leaves his Islamic faith, kill him.”</p>
<p>The charge of “traitor” is especially applicable when the Muslim converts to another religion—most frequently Islam’s historic competitor, Christianity—as opposed to simply losing faith in their hearts.  Put differently, the very recent plight of Meriam Ibrahim—a Sudanese Christian wife and mother who, while pregnant, was imprisoned and sentenced to death for “apostasy”—is the <a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/islam/sudan-mothers-case-tip-of-the-iceberg-on-islamic-persecution/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">tip of the iceberg of the plight of apostates under Islam</span></a>.</p>
<p><b>Loyalty and Enmity</b></p>
<p>Loyalty is an absolute prerequisite of the mafia.  Following elaborate rituals of blood oaths, mafia members are expected to maintain absolute loyalty to the family, on pain of death.</p>
<p>Compare this with Islam’s “Loyalty and Enmity” doctrine, which calls on Muslims to be loyal to each other and their appointed emirs, even if they dislike them.</p>
<p>For example, Koran 9:71 declares that “The believing [Muslim] men and believing [Muslim] women are allies of one another” (see also 8:72-75). And according to <a href="https://docs.zoho.com/writer/ropen.do?rid=dw6cy47129bc1931b4316a01ad6ded5a45ff0#bookmark=http://www.usc.edu/schools/college/crcc/engagement/resources/texts/muslim/hadith/muslim/032.smt.html"><span style="color: #0433ff;">Muhammad</span></a>, “A Muslim is the brother of a Muslim. He neither oppresses him nor humiliates him nor looks down upon him…. All things of a Muslim are inviolable for his brother in faith: his blood, his wealth, and his honor”—precisely those three things of a Mafioso that are inviolable for his mafia “brother.”  (This is why Muslims like U.S. Army Major Nidal Hassan, whose “<a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/islam/nidal-hasan-and-fort-hood/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">worst nightmare</span></a>” was to be deployed to fight fellow Muslims, often lash out.)</p>
<p>Aside from loyalty to the family, mafia members are also expected not to befriend or associate with too many “outsiders”—who by nature are not to be trusted, as they are not of the “family”—unless such a “friendship” helps advance the family’s position.</p>
<p>Similarly, the second half of the doctrine of Loyalty and Enmity—the enmity—calls on Muslims to maintain distance from and have hate for all non-Muslim “infidels.”</p>
<p>Thus Koran 5:51 warns Muslims against “taking the Jews and Christians as friends and allies … whoever among you takes them for friends and allies, he is surely one of them.” According to the mainstream Islamic exegesis of al-Tabari, Koran 5:51 means that the Muslim who “allies with them [non-Muslims] and enables them against the believers, that same one is a member of their faith and community,” that is, an outsider and enemy.</p>
<p>Similar scriptures include Koran 4:89, 4:144, 5:54, 6:40, 9:23, and 58:22; the latter simply states that true Muslims do not befriend non-Muslims—“even if they be their fathers, sons, brothers, or kin.” Koran 60:1 declares, “O you who believe! Do not take my enemy and your enemy [non-believers] for friends: would you offer them love while they deny what has come to you of the truth [i.e., while they deny Islam]?”</p>
<p><b>Two-Facedness</b></p>
<p>As mentioned, close relations to non-mafia individuals that prove advantageous to the mafia (for example, collaboration with a “crooked cop”) are permissible—as long as the mafia keeps a safe distance, keeps the outsider at arm’s length.</p>
<p>Compare this to Koran 3:28 which commands “believers not to take infidels for friends and allies instead of believers… unless you but guard yourselves against them, taking precautions.” According to the standard Koran commentary of Tabari, “taking precautions” means:</p>
<blockquote><p>If you [Muslims] are under their [non-Muslims'] authority, fearing for yourselves, behave loyally to them with your tongue while harboring inner animosity for them … [but know that] Allah has forbidden believers from being friendly or on intimate terms with the infidels rather than other believers—except when infidels are above them [in authority]. Should that be the case, let them <i>act friendly</i> towards them while preserving their religion.</p></blockquote>
<p>After interpreting Quran 3:28 as meaning that Muslims may “protect” themselves “through outward show” when under non-Muslim authority, Ibn Kathir, perhaps Islam’s most celebrated exegete, quotes Muhammad saying: “Truly, we smile to the faces of some people, while our hearts curse them.”</p>
<p>And just a few years ago, Sheikh Muhammad Hassan—a leading Salafi cleric in Egypt—<a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/from-the-arab-world/sharias-sinister-smiles/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">asserted on live television</span></a> that, while Muslims should never smile to the faces of non-Muslims, they should smile, however insincerely, if by so doing they help empower Islam, especially in the context of <i>da‘wa</i>.</p>
<p>The idea of hating “outsiders” is so ingrained in Islam that another leading Salafi cleric insists that, although Muslim men may marry Christian and Jewish women, they must hate them in their heart—and show them that they hate them in the hopes that they convert to the “family” of Islam.</p>
<p>(For more on the doctrine of “Loyalty and Enmity,” see al-Qaeda leader Dr. Ayman Zawahiri’s comprehensive treatise by that name in <a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Qaeda-Reader-Essential-Organization/dp/076792262X/ref=rec_dp_0"><span style="color: #0433ff;"><i>The Al Qaeda Reader</i></span></a>, pgs. 63-115)<i>.</i></p>
<p>*</p>
<p><em>Don&#8217;t miss <strong>Raymond Ibrahim</strong> on <strong>The Glazov Gang</strong> discussing</em><span id="eow-title" class="watch-title long-title " dir="ltr" title="The Glazov Gang-Raymond Ibrahim on ISIS's Islamic Inspirations."><em><strong> ISIS&#8217;s Islamic Inspirations</strong>:</em> </span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><iframe src="//www.youtube.com/embed/bFkGgNsqQ_4" width="460" height="315" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe></p>
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		<title>The Blood on Obama’s Hands</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/david-horowitz/the-blood-on-obamas-hands/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-blood-on-obamas-hands</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/david-horowitz/the-blood-on-obamas-hands/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 21 Oct 2014 04:58:29 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[David Horowitz]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[betrayal]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Islam]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Jihad]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Middle East]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obama]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=243402</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[A radical president spawns an unmitigated disaster in the Middle East.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/obama.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-243407" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/obama-450x304.jpg" alt="obama" width="284" height="192" /></a><strong>Reprinted from <a href="www.redstate.com">RedState.com</a>.</strong></p>
<p>When conservatives consider the casualties of Obama’s national security policies, their attention is drawn quite naturally to Benghazi. In this shameful episode, the Obama Administration sacrificed an ambassador and three American heroes to protect a deceptive presidential campaign message in which Obama claimed that the war against al-Qaeda was over and won (“Osama bin Laden is dead, and al-Qaeda is on the run”). The facts are these: Ambassador Chris Stevens and three American heroes were sent into an al-Qaeda stomping ground that the British and other diplomatic consulates had already evacuated; they were denied the security they had requested; they were then left to die during a seven hour fire fight when their compound was attacked, and finally betrayed in death, when Obama and his representatives lied to the world about what had taken place and when he failed to bring their killers to justice as he had mendaciously promised he would.</p>
<p>Benghazi can be seen as the collateral damage caused by presidential lies – and worse – presidential denial that there is in fact a war that Islamists have declared on America. Instead Obama insists – in the official language he authorized and that is still in place – that America’s responses to acts of Islamic terror should be described as “overseas contingency operations.” If Islamic murders and beheadings take place in the homeland, Obama calls them “workplace violence.” Benghazi is also the most shameful presidential abandonment of Americans in the field in our history – a disgrace compounded when Obama justified his trade of five Taliban Generals for one American deserter by saying Americans don’t leave their countrymen on the battlefield, which is precisely what he did in Benghazi. All of which justifies the conservative focus on this terrible event.</p>
<p>But the casualties of Obama’s reign in Benghazi are dwarfed by the hundreds of thousands of deaths his policies have led to in Syria and Iraq, and the millions of Iraqis, Syrians and Libyans that those same policies have caused to flee their homes and become homeless in Turkey, Tunisia and other places of refuge. Obama’s legacy is defined by his ideological aversion to American power, his rule as the most anti-military president in our history, and his deeds as an “anti-war” activist, opposed to the “war on terror” because he believes that America’s (and Israel’s) policies are the cause of terrorism and the hatred that Islamic fanatics direct against our country.</p>
<p>Because of his ideological opposition to American power, Obama deliberately and openly surrendered America’s gains in Iraq, which had been won through the sacrifice of thousands of American lives and tens of thousands of American casualties. By deliberately handing over America’s massive military base in Iraq – a country that borders Syria, Afghanistan and Iran – Obama turned that country over to the terrorists and Iran, as his generals and intelligence chief and secretary of defense warned it would. Obama disregarded the warnings from his national security advisers – as no other American president would have – because he regarded America rather than the terrorists as the threat. In abandoning Iraq and deliberately losing the peace, he betrayed every American and every Iraqi who gave their lives to keep Iraq out of the hands of the terrorists and the Islamic Republic of Iran.</p>
<p>Obama’s stubborn refusal to use America’s military might – ground forces backed by air power – when Assad crossed the “red line” Obama had drawn in Syria created a second power vacuum that the terrorists filled, thus leading to the emergence of ISIS or ISIL – the Islamic State in Syria and the Levant. Defenders of Obama will claim that the American public would not have supported a military intervention in Syria even if Obama had ordered one. But why is that? It is because for eleven years, beginning with their assault on “Bush’s war” in Iraq, the Democrats have sabotaged the war on terror, claiming that America’s use of power for anything but “humanitarian” purposes is illegitimate, dangerous and the root cause of the terrorist problem.</p>
<p>Because it was “humanitarian” Obama felt justified in conducting an unauthorized, illegal intervention in Libya to overthrow an anti-al Qaeda dictator, saying it was to prevent an invisible threat to civilians there. The result? Al-Qaeda is now a dominant force in Libya, and 1.8 million Libyans – a third of the population – have fled to Tunisia. Another brutal Obama legacy. Yet, how firm is Obama’s commitment to humanitarian interventions? In Iraq he stood by while more than half a million Christians were either slaughtered or driven into exile by ISIS murderers on their mission to cleanse the earth of infidels. This was the oldest Christian community in the world, going back to the time of Christ, and Obama let it be systematically destroyed before bad press and pressure from his own party caused him to intervene to save Yazvidis and a Christian remnant trapped on a mountain top.</p>
<p>The Obama presidency has been an unmitigated disaster for Iraqis, Syrians, and Libyans. Now that ISIS is in control of territory the size of a state, has access to hundreds of millions of petrol dollars and advanced U.S. ordnance, not to mention chemical weapons that Saddam left behind, it is an impending disaster for the American homeland as well.</p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: </strong><a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank"><strong>Click here</strong></a><strong>.   </strong></p>
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		<title>9/11 and Forgiveness</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/joeherring/911-and-forgiveness/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=911-and-forgiveness</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 11 Sep 2014 04:51:55 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Joe Herring]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[9/11]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[betrayal]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[Global Faith Institute]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=240755</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I'm sorry, but on this 13th anniversary I'm not looking for closure.  ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/fr.jpeg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-240759" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/fr-450x314.jpeg" alt="fr" width="320" height="223" /></a>On a certain day in the very recent past, before the sun had melted the morning into afternoon, I had been told three times that forgiveness was the order of the day for this upcoming 13<sup>th </sup>anniversary of 9/11.  Once was by the carnival barker/news anchor on the television.  I heard it for the second time by a teenager in a television commercial, urging his fellow citizens to commit &#8220;acts of service&#8221; as a means of remembrance.  Lastly, a sign on the marquis outside a church I drove past read, &#8220;Remember, but Forgive.&#8221;</p>
<p>It has always been a difficult concept for a hothead like me to grasp, this forgiveness thing. I know Jesus would, but I&#8217;m no Jesus.  To me, forgiveness is something bestowed on those who erred unintentionally, or through a lapse in judgment, not for those who acted out of a malicious intent to harm or kill.  I can&#8217;t fathom forgiving the rapist of a child or the savage murderer of the innocent and helpless.  It is a good thing that I am not all-powerful, because I would make for a terribly vengeful god.</p>
<p>It was a beautiful day on which I wrote this. The sky was crystalline blue; the air was clear, with a whisper of the coolness of approaching fall.  In fact, it was a near-carbon copy of the weather from thirteen years earlier.  I remember watching the warplanes buzzing over my city like angry hornets on that day, to and fro, with armaments hanging menacingly from their wings.  Only later would I discover that they were performing an over-watch operation, guarding the airspace above the military base south of town, where President George W. Bush had just landed in Air Force One.</p>
<p>I come from a military family and am a veteran myself.  I understand the nature of conflict, and the reasons to avoid it, if possible.  I also realize that conflict is often unavoidable, and at times even preferable to maintaining the status quo.</p>
<p>After the brutal assault we suffered on 9/11/01, we could have maintained our usual pattern of treating terrorism as a police matter and launched an international investigation.  Or we could have followed the fetid and worn advice of the appeasers (who tell us everything is our fault) and simply offered money or a new aid program to assuage the perpetrators of this attack.  Instead, we chose war, and properly so.</p>
<p>Now that the 13<sup>th</sup> anniversary is here, I don&#8217;t feel the catharsis the media tells me I should have experienced by now.  I must be a barbaric freak – some war-loving monkey with a cylindrical brain that recycles the same hatred over and over again, tumbling it like compost until it steams.  I&#8217;m supposed to forgive, and even, according to some commentators from the left, forget that 9/11 happened.  To &#8220;get over ourselves,&#8221; as the &#8220;enlightened&#8221; opine.</p>
<p>It finally occurred to me, though, why I couldn&#8217;t get right with this whole &#8220;forgiveness&#8221; theme.  It struck me why I bristled at the suggestion by President Obama that we declare 9/11 a &#8220;day of service,&#8221; casting about for volunteer opportunities as a way of honoring our dead.  The unrest in my heart was not courtesy of 9/11 itself; it was the tainting of the victory America deserved and earned <em>after</em> 9/11 that spawned my ill ease.</p>
<p>In times past, our remembrances have been predicated on victory, whole and entire.  Such victories are the necessary resolutions of violent conflict.  No one celebrates a stalemate, much less a loss.  WWII was solid.  We won.  Polio was solid.  We beat that, too.  In the Civil War, we lamented the terrible price our countrymen paid, but we celebrated the ultimate supremacy of our Union, and built ever higher on that hard-won foundation.</p>
<p>The War on Terror, like Vietnam, has emerged muddled and unclear, seemingly by design. It is precisely this feeling that the left seeks to engender in us: a sense of haplessness – to have us view our defense as a burden of care that we can&#8217;t wait to lay down.</p>
<p>I don&#8217;t want to lay down that burden.  I&#8217;m not looking for closure.  I want to fight.  I want to ratchet up the retribution until the very ground our enemy stands upon screams its submission, and the air itself cracks with the blast of our righteous vengeance.  Our blood-earned victory has been stolen &#8212; and I want it back.</p>
<p>I want those who preach the politics of defeat and appeasement to find themselves shunned at every turn by those of us who still believe that America fights when America is right – and that to accept anything short of victory is to dishonor the sacrifice of the dead and wounded.</p>
<p>War is an ugly and repulsive thing, but it is not as ugly and repulsive as the coward who would lick the hand of his master and thank him for beating him less today than the day before.  America has changed the world in unprecedented ways.  We have shown the common souls of this earth that they are possessed of an inherent worth, granted by a force mightier than any government, and not subject to the whims and designs of men.</p>
<p>Despite our successes, or perhaps because of them, the brutish of the world are fighting back.  Never forget: the default position of humanity has always been brutal oppression and savage war.  America and the ideals of its founding have done more to change that than anything else, save Christianity.</p>
<p>The left wishes us to accept less than winning.  We aren&#8217;t any better than all the other nations of the earth, they tell us.  Well, I think that those on the left are right: <em>they</em> aren&#8217;t any better than all the other nations, but the rest of us are, and we intend to raise a standard to which the righteous and patriotic may aspire.  I say fight on, against all enemies, foreign <em>and</em> domestic.</p>
<p>The &#8220;parade marshal&#8221; of the American left, Barack Obama, marches proudly toward an alternative vision of our nation, leading those who fail to recognize that our strength is built upon action, not apology – goodness in the deed, not merely the intention.</p>
<p>We have earned our victory.  We deserve it as a nation and as a people, and I intend to mark the anniversary of 9/11 with martial pride and a hearty thump of the chest.  Let 9/11 be a day of service for those inclined to servitude.  For me, it will always be a reminder that our safety is only as sure as our strength.  To God the glory; to the rest of us, <em>Semper Fidelis!</em></p>
<p><strong>Joe Herring writes from Omaha, Nebraska and welcomes visitors to his website at <a href="http://www.readmorejoe.com/">www.readmorejoe.com</a>. He is the communications director for the <a href="http://globalfaithinstitute.org/">Global Faith Institute</a>. </strong></p>
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		<title>The Nation of Islam and the Murder of Phillip Cardillo</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/ernie-naspretto/the-nation-of-islam-and-the-murder-of-phillip-cardillo/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-nation-of-islam-and-the-murder-of-phillip-cardillo</link>
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		<pubDate>Wed, 13 Aug 2014 04:36:55 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Ernie Naspretto]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[betrayal]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Cardillo]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[murder]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[nation of islam]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=238422</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The abhorrent execution of an NYPD police officer -- and the Left's shameless cover-up. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/ds.gif"><img class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-238426" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/ds-259x350.gif" alt="ds" width="259" height="350" /></a>The NYPD has had more than its share of tragedies coupled with travesties throughout its history, everything from the legendary Lieutenant Joseph Petrosino being shot to death in an ambush in Sicily in 1909 because the police commissioner blew his cover by telling the press of his mission to identify members of the mafia, to the infamous Black Liberation Army murders of radio car partners in the early &#8217;70’s, to the assassination of rookie cop Ed Byrne in 1988 as he sat in a radio car guarding the home of a witness in a major drug case in Jamaica, Queens. But the single most abhorrent police officer murder in this city’s history is that of Phillip Cardillo in Harlem’s 28<sup>th</sup> precinct on April 14th, 1972.</p>
<p>While this murder has been basically thrown into the collective history of cops dying in the line of duty, with no specific “asterisk” relating to the internal department turmoil and incredible wimpy political posturing of the then-mayor and his police commissioner, Officer Cardillo’s death has left an indelible wound on every cop from that time. Even officers who weren’t yet born at the time of Phillip Cardillo’s killing express outrage when they learn the circumstances of his murder.</p>
<p>Cardillo and his partner, Vito Navarro, were the first to respond to what turned out to be a phony 10-13, an officer in need of urgent help, that came from within the Nation of Islam Harlem Mosque located on West 116th Street. Upon entering the facility, the responding officers were met with approximately 15 to 20 men who assaulted them, stripped Cardillo of his gun and shot him at point blank range.</p>
<p>A street riot involving cops, mosque members and people on the street broke out shortly after the shooting. “I happened to be on the FDR drive when I heard the news on the radio, 1010 WINS. I got off at 125th Street and headed toward 116th,” said retired Detective Al Sheppard, who was off duty and wanted to respond to the scene but never made it. “People were rioting. They surrounded my Volkswagen and started to shake it. I had to get out of there, otherwise I was going to start shooting.”</p>
<p>Phillip Cardillo, 31, died six days later, leaving a young wife and three small children.</p>
<p>The immediate investigation was hampered by Mayor John Lindsay, who was more concerned about appeasing the public and protecting his image, as he was preparing for an unrealistic run for president, and Police Commissioner Patrick V. Murphy, who saw himself as a new-breed intellectual, progressive police executive (but in reality, couldn’t catch a burglar in a phone booth). Then-rookie Congressman Charles Rangel was also present at the scene and warned that riots would ensue if cops did not immediately leave the area.</p>
<p>Also in this mix was Benjamin Ward, who would eventually be appointed by Mayor Ed Koch to be the city’s first black police commissioner. Ward was the Deputy Commissioner of Community Affairs at the time and, prompted by Rangel, was quite instrumental in releasing 16 suspects who were being held by detectives for questioning. The release of the suspects caused a substantial setback in the investigation, necessitating a great deal of investigative back-tracking and catching up, resulting in invaluable evidence being lost and two failed prosecutions.</p>
<p>“Years later (retired Chief of Detectives) Al Seedman and I were having a few drinks and he opened up,” recalled Detective Al Sheppard. “He blamed Lindsay, Murphy and Ward for everything. He was forced to give the order to let these guys go,” Sheppard said.</p>
<p>On the receiving end of Seedman’s forced order was Detective Sonny Grosso, the real life “French Connection” cop and eventual TV/movie producer of classic cop shows like Kojak and Baretta. “This brings me back to a very bad time,” Grosso said.</p>
<blockquote><p>It was my last major case. We had 16 suspects being held in the basement of the mosque. The shooter was definitely among them. Seedman orders me to release them and give them cards with the address of the 28th precinct because Ward said he’d arrange for all of them to show up. Surprise! Not one showed up. I gave Seedman a look and he said, &#8220;Don’t shoot the messenger. We do what we’re told in this department.&#8221;</p></blockquote>
<p>Grosso, who went on to co-write the book <em>Murder at the Harlem Mosque</em> detailing the Cardillo story, vividly recounts the scene that day and laments, “They (the mayor and police hierarchy) allowed the mosque members to destroy the crime scene. They actually had their members mopping up Phil’s blood.” Grosso eventually had his movie contacts reconstruct the mosque hallway in a studio to assist the first cops on the scene in remembering who was where and who did what.</p>
<p>“I have never seen such a display of prejudice and bigotry in my life,” Grosso said.</p>
<blockquote><p>If this incident happened anywhere else, St. Patrick’s Cathedral or any other religious institution, there would’ve been no problem in fully investigating this murder and convicting the shooter. They would’ve said, ‘Come on in. What do you need?’ But Lindsay wanted to be able to say as a presidential candidate that New York had no race riots like other cities.</p></blockquote>
<p>Mayor Lindsay and Commissioner Murphy skipped Cardillo’s funeral. Benjamin Ward actually apologized to the leaders of the mosque. And an unrepentant Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan would later state that the officers &#8220;charged into our temple like criminals and were treated like criminals.&#8221; The then-commanding officer of the 28<sup>th</sup> precinct, Inspector John Haugh, by all accounts a rising star in the NYPD, abruptly resigned in disgust.</p>
<p>In 1992, young cops assigned to the 28th precinct, virtually none of whom were on the job when Cardillo was murdered, held a poignant 20<sup>th</sup> anniversary commemoration that was hampered by events that eerily resembled the turmoil and politics of 1972.</p>
<p>“I was naïve. I thought all the big brass would eagerly attend,” said Luigi Moneta, who was a young cop at the time and would eventually retire as a lieutenant. “The mayor (David Dinkins), and the commissioner (Lee Brown) didn’t come. The borough commander didn’t even come.”</p>
<p>That commemoration by the next generation of NYPD cops helped trigger an annual motorcycle ride sponsored by the Blue Knights every April around the anniversary of Cardillo’s murder. The ride has attracted approximately 400 cops on motorcycles who begin on Long Island, lay a wreath at Cardillo’s gravesite, and continue through Harlem right past the mosque, ending at the 28th precinct.</p>
<p>The Cardillo case recently galvanized cops once again. The NYPD will open a new state of the art police academy in Whitestone, Queens, within the year. Its library will be named after Benjamin Ward, despite his less-than-stellar legacy in the department. Police unions and many fraternal organizations have expressed outrage because there is no street, pole, sign, hallway or anything named after Phil Cardillo, yet an individual who was instrumental in allowing his killer to go free will be honored.</p>
<p>Defending a $40 million settlement to the men convicted in the infamous 1989 Central Park jogger case, Mayor Bill de Blasio said, &#8220;An injustice was done and we have a moral obligation to respond to that injustice.&#8221; Well, under that same theory, the street in front of the new police academy should be named “Police Officer Phillip Cardillo Way.” That simple corrective action will probably cost less than $100 for the street signs.</p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: </strong><a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank"><strong>Click here</strong></a><strong>.   </strong></p>
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		<title>John Kerry and Saudi Women Driving</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/jamie-glazov/john-kerry-and-saudi-women-driving/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=john-kerry-and-saudi-women-driving</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/jamie-glazov/john-kerry-and-saudi-women-driving/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 08 Nov 2013 04:05:13 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Jamie Glazov]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[betrayal]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[John Kerry]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[Saudi]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[women driving]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=209773</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The Left’s betrayal of the millions of persecuted Muslim women suffering under Islamic gender apartheid continues.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/kerr.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-209776" alt="John Kerry and Prince Saud al-Faisal" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/kerr.jpg" width="322" height="193" /></a><strong>To order Jamie Glazov&#8217;s <em>United in Hate: The Left&#8217;s Romance With Tyranny and Terror</em>, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/United-Hate-Romance-Tyranny-Terror/dp/1935071602">Click Here</a>.</strong></p>
<p>For the Left, all cultures are equal, but some cultures are more equal than others.</p>
<p>For instance, in the world of the Left, the West never has a right to say what is right or wrong &#8212; when dealing with an adversary culture and regime, that is.</p>
<p>If it&#8217;s Israel, you can start shooting right away.</p>
<p>For example, when it comes to Israelis getting out of line and engaging in monstrous behavior like building houses and apartments on their own territory, they must be denounced <em>immediately</em> for that &#8212; and pressured relentlessly to desist from such unconscionable activity.</p>
<p>When Israelis have the audacity to imprison Palestinian terrorists who have <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2013/davidhornik/kerrys-shocking-demand-to-israel-free-terrorists/">massacred Israeli innocent civilians</a>, something has to be done <em>fast</em>. And that’s why, on April 24, 2013, Secretary of State John Kerry and the Obama administration <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2013/davidhornik/kerrys-shocking-demand-to-israel-free-terrorists/">demanded</a> that Israel release a number of Palestinian terrorists from its prisons &#8212; to make the Palestinian Authority happy of course. (P.S.: The P.A. was not pressured to stop its mosques, schools and media outlets from teaching that Israel has no right to exist or that Jews are descended from apes and pigs.)</p>
<p>If Kerry were asked what he thinks of apartheid-era South Africa, which Defense Secretary <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2013/matthew-vadum/hagel-israel-an-apartheid-state/">Chuck Hagel has compared Israel to</a>, one just dares to presume that he would say it was a bad thing that blacks were considered second-class citizens &#8212; which of course it was. He would, in other words, apply a universal standard of human rights on South Africa and declare that a society that marginalizes and disempowers a certain group of people based on skin color is an inferior society and must civilize itself. And that would be a legitimate position.</p>
<p>But for a leftist, this attitude only applies, naturally, when one is dealing with cultures and regimes that are allied to the United States. If one is dealing with an adversary culture or religion, then that culture and religion automatically get a pass for <em>all</em> of their  monstrosities.</p>
<p>And so, therefore, don&#8217;t hold your breath waiting to hear from John Kerry or Chuck Hagel – or from Obama and John Brennan &#8212; about their moral indignation about <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2013/stephenbrown/africas-sorrow-obamas-shame/">the Islamic-Arab slave trade of Black Africans</a> going on to till this day in nations <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/black-slavery-and-islamic-racism/">like Mauritania and Sudan</a>. If you are a leftist, all of that doesn&#8217;t count or matter.</p>
<p>Thus, we arrive at quite an intriguing comment that Secretary of State John Kerry made on Monday in reference to Saudi gender apartheid, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/05/world/middleeast/kerry-meets-saudi-king-to-smooth-relations.html?ref=todayspaper&amp;_r=1&amp;&amp;pagewanted=print">after meeting with Saudi King Abdullah</a> to try to improve U.S.-Saudi relations:</p>
<p>When a reporter asked Kerry about whether Saudi women should be allowed to drive, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/05/world/middleeast/kerry-meets-saudi-king-to-smooth-relations.html?_r=0">Kerry responded</a> that the debate was one “best left to Saudi Arabia.”</p>
<p>In other words, there is no universal standard of human rights when it comes to women’s rights, especially if we are dealing with Islam. So if a law arrived that said that Obama&#8217;s wife and two daughters were not allowed to drive, and that law was founded on Islamic theology, who are we to put up any resistance or make moralistic judgment calls, right?</p>
<p>Yes, in the Left&#8217;s world, if women are being denied the right to an abortion in America, that is an outrage and must be condemned <em>immediately</em>. But if the genitals of young Muslim girls are being cut off with broken glass by the Islamic practice of female genital mutilation <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2012/jamie-glazov/female-genital-mutilation-an-islamic-crime/">sanctioned by Islamic theology</a>, and if Saudi girls are pushed back <a href="http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/20190#.Unm5iOI4nTE">to their deaths</a> into blazing buildings by Saudi Arabia&#8217;s religious police because they are not Islamically covered, then that’s just other cultures practicing their own ways of life.</p>
<p>Who are we to judge?</p>
<p>In Saudi society, therefore, when women are treated like they are less than animals – a misogynist practice <a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/ViolentOpp.pdf">inspired and sanctioned by Islamic theology</a> – the Obama administration, due to its leftist idolatry, logically remains indifferent. Consequently,  <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/27/world/middleeast/a-mostly-quiet-effort-to-put-saudi-women-in-drivers-seats.html">when dozens of courageous Saudi women protest</a> for their right to drive by getting into their cars and driving &#8212; and risk vicious persecution for doing so – it is, according to John Kerry and the Left, none of our business, and not for us to take sides.</p>
<p>Interestingly enough, as <a href="http://www.truthrevolt.org/">TruthRevolt</a> Editor-in-Chief <a href="http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2013/11/05/Kerry-Saudi-women-driving">Ben Shapiro reminds us:</a> In 2011, Hillary Clinton condemned Israeli religious male soldiers leaving concerts at which women sang and the existence of gender-segregated buses in Israel &#8212; even though such buses exist only in ultra-religious communities. Shapiro <a href="http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2013/11/05/Kerry-Saudi-women-driving">crystallizes</a> the leftist hypocrisy at play here:</p>
<blockquote><p>“Lecturing a democracy like Israel is liberalism. Lecturing a sexist monarchy like Saudi Arabia is imperialism, according to the Obama administration.”</p></blockquote>
<p>Shillman Fellow Daniel Greenfield, meanwhile, <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/secretary-of-state-john-kerry-refuses-to-say-whether-women-should-be-allowed-to-drive/">succinctly capsulizes</a> the tragic and shameless place that America now finds itself in with the Left in charge:</p>
<blockquote><p>&#8220;The nation that once stood up to Communism now boasts of a Secretary of State who can’t say whether women should be allowed to drive.&#8221;</p></blockquote>
<p>Thus, we have it in a nutshell folks: All cultures are equal, but some cultures are more equal than others.</p>
<p>Get it straight: When Muslim girls are <a href="http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2009/03/honor-killing-islams-gruesome-gallery.html">murdered in honor killings and disfigured in acid attacks</a>, don’t be racist and judgmental about another way of life.</p>
<p>But when it comes to the Republican War on Women in America, and a woman finds herself purchasing a condom out-of-pocket, without the government&#8217;s funding, that’s when you get furious, indignant and judgmental &#8212; and scream about women’s rights!</p>
<p>The Left&#8217;s utopia is almost here, my friends. Be patient. Just give it a little bit more time.</p>
<p>*</p>
<p><em>Don&#8217;t miss <strong>Josh Brewster</strong>&#8216;s video interview with <strong>Jamie Glazov</strong> about why the Left abandons victims of Islamic terror and gender apartheid in the two-part series below: </em></p>
<p><strong>Part 1:</strong></p>
<p><iframe src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/SNJg6w6CB0o" height="300" width="400" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p><strong>Part 2:</strong></p>
<p><iframe src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/6sBPH589Feo" height="300" width="400" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p><strong>To sign up for Frontpage&#8217;s TV show, <em>The </em></strong><em><b>Glazov Gang,</b></em><strong> </strong><a href="http://horowitzfreedomcenter.us1.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=caa6f67f1482e6214d83be62d&amp;id=c761755bdf"><b>Click here</b></a><strong>.</strong></p>
<p><b>To watch <i>Glazov Gang</i> episodes, </b><a href="http://jamieglazov.com/"><b>Click here</b></a><b>.</b></p>
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		<title>McCarthy On Steroids</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/ronald-radosh/mccarthy-on-steroids/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=mccarthy-on-steroids</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/ronald-radosh/mccarthy-on-steroids/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 07 Aug 2013 04:56:32 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Ronald Radosh]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[diana west]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[mccarthy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ron radosh]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=199666</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[How Diana West's new book, American Betrayal, spins a vast conspiracy theory without the evidence to back it up. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/betrayal.jpg"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-199686" alt="betrayal" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/betrayal.jpg" width="260" height="393" /></a><strong></strong></p>
<p><em>Editors&#8217; note: Frontpage offered Diana West equal space to reply to Professor Radosh&#8217;s points below. She refused.</em></p>
<p><b>Diana West, <i>American Betrayal: The Secret Assault on Our Nation’s Character</i>, New York: St. Martin’s Press, 403 pages; $26.99.</b></p>
<p>Many Americans at both ends of the political spectrum view history in conspiratorial terms. The late Senator Joseph McCarthy set the bar very high when he claimed to have uncovered “a conspiracy on a scale so immense as to dwarf any previous such venture in the history of man. A conspiracy of infamy so black that, when it is finally exposed, its principals shall be forever deserving of the maledictions of all honest men.” In that famous <a href="http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1951mccarthy-marshall.html" target="_blank">speech</a> to the Senate on June 14, 1951<b>,</b> McCarthy condemned former Chief of Staff of the Army and Secretary of State and Secretary of Defense as a traitor who made “common cause with Stalin on the strategy of the war in Europe,” who “took the strategic direction of the war out of Roosevelt&#8217;s hands and &#8211; who fought the British desire, shared by [General] Mark Clark, to advance from Italy into the eastern plains of Europe ahead of the Russians.”</p>
<p>Diana West, who expands the scope of this conspiracy in <i>American Betrayal</i>, is McCarthy’s heiress.  She argues that during the New Deal the United States was an occupied power, its government controlled by Kremlin agents who had infiltrated the Roosevelt administration and subverted it. Like McCarthy, whom <a href="http://www.dianawest.net/Home/tabid/36/EntryId/2389/Dispatch-International-Joe-McCarthy-Was-Right-All-Along.aspx" target="_blank">West believes</a> got everything correct, she believes a conspiracy was at work that effectively enabled the Soviets to be the sole victors in World War II and shape American policies in the postwar world.</p>
<p>Writing sixty years later, she claims that the evidence that has come to light in the interim not only vindicates McCarthy’s claims but goes well beyond anything he imagined. Throughout <i>American Betrayal</i>, West uses the terms “occupied” and “controlled” to describe the influence the Soviet Union exerted over U.S. policy through its agents and spies. She believes she has exposed “the Communist-agent-occupation of the U.S. government” during the Roosevelt and Truman eras, and that her discoveries add up to a Soviet-controlled American government that conspired to strengthen Russia throughout World War II at the expense of American interests, marginalize anti-Communist Germans, and deliver the crucial material for the Atomic Bomb to Stalin and his henchmen. It also conspired<b> </b>to cover up the betrayal. In West’s summation: “The Roosevelt administration [was] penetrated, fooled, subverted, in effect hijacked by Soviet agents… and engaged in a “‘sell-out’ to Stalin” that “conspirators of silence on the Left…would bury for as long as possible, desperately throwing mud over it and anyone who wanted the sun to shine in.” According to West, it was only because Washington was “Communist-occupied” that the United States aligned itself with the Soviet Union against Nazi Germany.</p>
<p>But Ms. West writes without an understanding of historical context and lacks awareness of much of the scholarly literature on the subjects she writes about. Moreover, she disregards the findings of the sources she does rely on when they contradict her yellow journalism conspiracy theories. Consequently she arrives at judgment after judgment that is not only bizarre on its face, but also unwarranted by the evidence and refuted by the very authorities she draws on. As a historian I normally would not have agreed to review a book such as this one.  But I changed my mind after seeing the reckless endorsements of its unhinged theories by a number of conservative individuals and organizations. These included the Heritage Foundation which has hosted her for book promotions at a lunchtime speech and a dinner; <a href="http://Breitbart.com" target="_blank">Breitbart.com</a> which is serializing <i>America Betrayed</i>; PJ Media which has already run three favorable features on West; Amity Shlaes, who writes unnervingly that West’s book, “masterfully reminds us what history is for: to suggest action for the present”; and by conservative political scientist and media commentator Monica Crowley, who called West’s book “A monumental achievement.”</p>
<p>West has evidently seduced conservatives who are justifiably appalled by the left’s rewriting of history, its denials that Communists ever posed a threat, and its claim that Communist infiltration was a destructive myth created by witch-hunters intent on suppressing dissent. For these readers, West’s credibility derives from her aggressive counter vision. For those who have not read the important works of Harvey Klehr and John Earl Haynes, Christopher Andrew, Alexander Vassiliev, Allen Weinstein and others, what she has written may seem a revelation, as she herself claims. But for anyone familiar with the historical literature, the core of what she has written is well known and what is new is either overheated, or simply false and distorted—the sort of truculent recklessness that gives anti-communism a bad name.</p>
<p>One of the most unsettling aspects of West’s use of previous authorities who provide the only reliable information in her book is the way she attacks the very writers who pioneered in exposing Soviet espionage and infiltration, while also disregarding their conclusions when they don’t agree with hers. In a typical instance, she writes: “[Christopher] Andrew and [former archivist for the USSR’s foreign intelligence branch Vasili] Mitrokhin seem fairly hip to the problem, but then soft-soap its cause.”  Even more preposterously she writes of those of us who drew attention to the guilt of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg that we view it as a matter of personal conscience and not “an issue of national security.” This is absurd and anyone who has read <i>The Rosenberg File</i> or the many articles I have written since about the case would know it. She attacks Allen Weinstein and Alexander Vassiliev, among the greatest scholars of Soviet espionage, for their failure to connect “treachery with its impact,” by which she means that they failed to come to her wild-eyed conclusion that Soviet espionage was not only a clear and present danger but succeeded in making America a puppet of its Kremlin masters. As a result, she writes, “The recent confirmations of guilt often show up as mere technicalities…The reckoning eludes us.”</p>
<p>Finally, throughout her book she attacks the rigorous scholarship of John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr, whose groundbreaking books on the Venona decrypts are unrivalled in exposing the true scale of Soviet espionage in the United States, and Soviet control of the American Communist Party. Haynes and Klehr have also co-authored a classic study about the efforts of liberal and left historians to cover up the infiltration and its extent in a book titled <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Denial-Historians-Communism-Espionage/dp/159403088X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1374337788&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=in+denial+historians+communism+and+espionage" target="_blank">In Denial: Historians, Communism and Espionage</a>. Ignoring this record, West claims that Hayes and Klehr minimize the evidence they were the first to expose. What is really bothering her is that they do not buy her preposterous conclusion that “American statecraft was an instrument of Soviet strategy.”</p>
<p>Ignoring or denigrating these brave and accomplished scholars, West proceeds to construct a conspiracy thesis resting on five claims she believes establish a vast plot by Soviet agents and their American pawns to shape the outcome of the Second World War and in the process benefit the Communists at the expense of the West. In this review, I will focus on each of these claims in turn and show that they are groundless, and worse.</p>
<p align="center"><b>Agent 19</b></p>
<p>A key assertion for West is that FDR’s closest advisor, Harry Hopkins, was actually the Soviet agent known in the Venona decrypts as “Agent 19,” sometimes “Source 19&#8243;. The decrypts were Kremlin messages to their American agents that were deciphered after the war. The identification of Hopkins as Agent 19 is the linchpin of West’s conspiracy case. She places Hopkins at the center of major military and foreign policy decisions, and interprets his objective in each instance as advancing Stalin’s goals for Communist world domination.</p>
<p>That Hopkins was the most pro-Soviet of Roosevelt’s close advisers and believed that Stalin could be a working partner in wartime as well as during the peace that would follow has been discussed so often as to be conventional wisdom. But it is one thing to point this out and analyze its implications, and quite another to claim that Hopkins was an actual Soviet agent, a claim that is also not original with West, although it is, in fact, not true.  (When I sent her a collegial email questioning this assertion, and requesting that we get together to talk about it,<b> </b>she became huffy. “Dialoguing is one thing,” she emailed back; “issuing directives is another.”)</p>
<p>In her book, West cites a 1998 article by the late Eduard Mark, an Air Force historian, who claimed that Hopkins was the agent in question. His conclusion was based on a Venona decrypt by “Source 19” that described a top secret conversation between Churchill and FDR in late May of 1943 about plans for the invasion of Normandy, then more than a year away. According to Mark this proved that the code name belonged to Hopkins.  As West notes, “By process of painstaking elimination, Mark determines that it is ‘probable virtually to the point of certainty’ that ‘Source 19’ is Harry Hopkins.” She says this was also the view of the late Eric Breindel and the late Herbert Romerstein, as well as Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin.</p>
<p>She even chastises John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr, co-authors with the KGB defector Alexander Vassiliev of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Spies-Rise-Fall-KGB-America/dp/0300164386/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1374337594&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=spies+the+rise+and+fall+of+the+kgb+in+america" target="_blank"><i>Spies: The Rise and Fall of the KGB in America</i></a>, for being “agnostic” about the claim, “which has the unfortunate effect of eliminating the story, even the suggestion of the story, from their influential works.”  In fact, Haynes and Klehr are not only not “agnostic,” they flat out deny that Agent 19 was Hopkins because Agent 19 was actually a State Department official and well-known Soviet agent Laurence Duggan. Duggan worked on the State Department’s Latin America desk, and while he did pass on secret information to the Soviets, his role within the administration was minor compared to Hopkins’ who worked in the White House. Klehr and Haynes base their identification of Duggan on the numerous entries in the <a href="http://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/collection/86/Vassiliev-Notebooks" target="_blank">Vassiliev papers</a>, which have been readily available online since May 2009. These papers show numerous entries in the KGB papers Vassiliev copied and brought with him to London, that identify Source 19 or Agent 19 as Duggan.</p>
<p>West acknowledges that Vassiliev found “little about Hopkins in the finite number of KGB files he was allowed to view and copy,” but concludes – without evidence &#8212; that it is in those Vassiliev did not have access to that Hopkins was identified. She then scolds Haynes and Klehr for not giving the controversy over Agent 19 the “merit [of] a footnote.” Perhaps they didn’t because there no longer is any controversy. At a <a href="http://www.washingtondecoded.com/files/a.vassilievntbks_conf.agenda1-2.pdf" target="_blank">conference</a> on Soviet espionage held a week before his untimely death, West’s source, Eduard Mark, publicly stated that he now acknowledged that Harry Hopkins was not Agent 19, and that the conclusion he had reached in his 1998 article was false.</p>
<p align="center"><b>Lend-Lease Aid to the Soviet Union</b></p>
<p>West also insists that Lend-Lease aid was a crucial “rogue operation” orchestrated by Hopkins and the NKVD for the purpose of getting not only war supplies to the Russians, but “the materials that go into making an atomic bomb…<i>up to and including uranium.</i>” (Her emphasis.)  A significant part of her book is devoted to “proving” that Lend-Lease helped make the USSR “the true victor of World War II.” She refers to Lend-lease as “the plunder of atomic secrets … spirited out of the country on a U.S.-government sponsored flight.” The reference is to a shipment of uranium to Russia in 1943, allegedly orchestrated by Harry Hopkins as Agent 19. To her, this proves that the Lend-Lease Act “was a slam-dunk victorious Soviet influence operation.” Or, as she refers to Lend-Lease at the end of her book: “All that American booty pirated by Harry Hopkins for Mother Russia.”</p>
<p>These claims, which lie at the heart of her conspiracy theory, are demonstrably wrong, and show that she even fails to understand the nature of the unrefined uranium the Soviets actually received under Lend-Lease, which was not strategic in terms of making an atomic weapon. General Leslie Groves, who was in charge of The Manhattan Project, signed off on the shipment, as has been well known for more than 60 years, because he feared that if he rejected the requests it would tip-off Moscow that uranium was a highly sensitive commodity, something he was certain they did not yet know.</p>
<p>Even if they had known, the Soviets would have faced an insurmountable problem in using the shipped ore for bomb making. The problem they would have faced was in separating bomb-grade U-235 (which makes up only 0.7 percent of natural uranium) from U-238 (99.3%), a difficult technical engineering challenge. Until the Soviets could figure out how to separate the isotopes, which they eventually did through the post war espionage at Los Alamos we are all familiar with, the uranium ore they received would be useless for making a weapon. While separating uranium ore was a daunting technological issue, mining uranium ore and refining it into metal was easy, and the Soviets, like other nations, did so for industrial purposes vital to the prosecution of the war, such as producing steel alloys for arms.<b> </b>Even after the Soviets learned how to separate the isotopes, the amounts of unseparated uranium needed were huge, because so little of natural uranium is U-235. The shipment sent under Lend-Lease was a tiny fraction of what was needed to extract enough U-235 to build a bomb, even if the Soviets had the know-how, which at the time the shipments were made they did not. In fact, as we now know, the first Soviet A-Bomb, detonated in 1949, and copied from our “Fat Man” weapon, was a <i>plutonium</i> based bomb.</p>
<p>All of this information and more can be found in David Holloway’s definitive study, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Stalin-Bomb-Soviet-Atomic-1939-1956/dp/0300066643/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1374420591&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=David+Holloway" target="_blank"><i>Stalin and the Bomb: The Soviet Union and Atomic Energy, 1939-1956</i></a>, which West seems not to be aware of. “In April (1943),” Holloway writes, “General Groves gave the Soviet Purchasing Commission an export license for 10 kilograms of uranium metal….  A later request by the Soviet commission for eight long tons each of uranium chloride and uranium nitrate was turned down.”</p>
<p>As Holloway notes, the Soviet files offer no evidence that Igor Kurchatov, who led the effort to build the first Soviet A-bomb from information provided by the espionage at Los Alamos, ever used any of the material that came in the Lend-Lease flight. He cites evidence from Soviet archives that show that as late as 1945, their labs desperately needed uranium. Holloway writes: “Certainly Kurchatov’s need for uranium remained urgent. V.V. Goncharov, a chemical engineer who joined Laboratory No. 2 in 1943, has written that in 1943 the laboratory had only 90 kilograms of uranium oxide and 208 kilograms of metallic powder, and that these had been brought from Germany.”</p>
<p>In a letter of Sept. 29, 1944 Kurchatov complained to NKVD chief Lavrenti Beria about “the uranium problem.” The “state of affairs,” he wrote, “remains completely unsatisfactory.” Moreover, the “question of separation [of the isotopes] is particularly bad.” He believed, as Holloway writes, that “the Soviet leadership was not treating the uranium problem as a matter of high priority.” Had the Hopkins flight provided the material that Diana West says gave them the material for the bomb, all this concern would have been unnecessary.</p>
<p>Technical questions aside, in concocting her conspiracy theory of Lend-Lease as a Soviet plot to help Russia win the war and build an atomic bomb, West refuses to consider a range of political realities that had nothing to do with Kremlin agents.  Lend-Lease aid to Russia was premised on the assumption that it was better to have Russia as an ally in the war against Nazi Germany than fight the war alone. The entire point of Lend-Lease was to give military support to the Russian and British war efforts. The purpose of Lend-Lease (profoundly self-interested for the U.S.) was to prevent a Russian defeat so the Soviets would continue to assume the brunt of the war against the Nazis, wearing them down and saving American lives in the process.  Moreover, Lend-Lease aid was far more important in helping the British war effort than the Russian one.</p>
<p>In advancing her theory of Lend-Lease (while ignoring this Everest), West relies heavily on Richard Rhodes’ <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Dark-Sun-Making-Hydrogen-Bomb/dp/0684824140/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1374523921&amp;sr=1-2&amp;keywords=richard+rhodes+the+making+of+the+atomic+bomb" target="_blank">Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb</a>. But revealingly she makes no reference to this passage from his text: “Until the Anglo-American invasion of Normandy on June 6, 1944, the Soviet Union fought Germany essentially alone on the European continent … <i>Had the USSR lost that fight, hundreds of German divisions bulwarked with Soviet resources would have been freed to turn west and challenge Britain and the United States</i><b> </b>[emphasis added].&#8221;</p>
<p style="text-align: left;" align="center">Rhodes then goes on to quote Averill Harriman, a stalwart anti-Communist who negotiated the Lend-Lease deal with the Russians. It is a passage that West also ignores: “To put it bluntly,” Harriman said in a speech to the American people, “whatever it costs to keep this war away from our shores, that will be a small price to pay …. The United States agreed to furnish Lend-Lease and the Soviets did not doubt that they had earned it &#8212; at Leningrad, at Stalingrad, at the monstrous enclosures in the western USSR where the Germans…confined Soviet prisoners of war completely exposed without water or food. At least 4.5 million Soviet civilians and combatants had been killed by 1943; at least 25 million…died before the eventual Allied victory. From the Soviet point of view, Lend-Lease was the least America could do when the Russian people were dying; anything the Soviets could grab&#8230;must still have seemed less than a fair exchange.”</p>
<p align="center"><b>Did Truman Know About the Venona Decrypts?</b></p>
<p>This third West claim pertains to the opening years of the Cold War. But if Harry Truman, who became president in 1945, knew about the Venona decrypts (first de-classified in 1995), yet failed to pay attention to the evidence they provided of Soviet infiltration, it would bolster West’s claim that Truman was so anxious to avoid offending Stalin that even when confronted with hard evidence of Soviet treachery, he chose to do nothing about it.</p>
<p>To make her case, West relies on the book by Jerrold and Leona Schecter<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Sacred-Secrets-Intelligence-Operations-American/dp/1574883275/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1374595597&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=Jerrold+and+Leona+Schechter" target="_blank"><i>, Sacred Secrets: How Soviet Intelligence Operations Changed America</i></a>. The Schecters first claim that on June 4, 1945, Truman had a fifteen-minute meeting with Gen. Carter W. Clarke and Col. Ernest Gibson of Army Intelligence, who informed the President that army code-breakers had been attempting to read Soviet cables from Moscow to Washington since 1943. Truman was worried, according to West, that making the decrypted cables public or dealing with what they revealed would “damage FDR’s place in history.” West further comments that Truman saw the revelations only as “a partisan political problem” that Republican hawks would use to bash Democrats, adding, “the sensational body of information <i>which belonged to a betrayed nation</i>, remained on political ice at all costs.”</p>
<p>The problem with this fanciful indictment is that in June 1945, the code-breakers had not fully decrypted <i>any</i> of the intercepted messages. Consequently, General Clarke and Colonel Gibson would not have had much to report about the <i>contents</i> of the cables the code-breakers were working on.  Truman could not have had such an alarmed reaction to information they were unable to give him at the time.</p>
<p>West then shifts the time frame five years forward, relying on an interview with Oliver Kirby, an American cryptanalyst who worked on the Venona project. Kirby gave the interview to the Schecters in the late 1990s. Kirby told them that both Alger Hiss and Harry Dexter White were “positively identified” in decrypts in 1950, and that he brought this information to General Omar Bradley. According to Kirby, Bradley reported that Truman “was most upset and agitated by this,” saying that if the operation became known “it could take us down.” West then writes: “In other words, President Truman took in and grasped revelations that according to Soviet secret cables, the most senior-level, trusted, and powerful government officials had been working on behalf of the Soviet Union, and then he, as president, <i>did nothing about it.</i>” He pretended the whole thing was a “fairy story.” No evidence, she writes, has “emerged to contradict Kirby” whose “assessment of Truman’s visceral aversion to Venona’s revelations comes from notes he made at the time…” She concludes that Truman made “consistent efforts to quash any and all information pertaining to the Communist infiltration of the U.S. government….”</p>
<p>Once again, West shows that she does not know how to evaluate the reliability of a source or assess the evidence produced. The Schecter interviews with Kirby occurred nearly a half century after the events alleged to have taken place. Even worse, Kirby’s account is third-hand. He claimed that General Clarke told him this at some unspecified time, and acknowledges that he himself was not present at any meeting between Truman and Bradley.  Nor is there any documentation to show that such a meeting ever took place.</p>
<p>Reading about this supposed meeting in the Schecter’s book, Harvey Klehr checked the White House logs. They showed that in June of 1945 Clarke did meet with Truman, but they say nothing at all about what was discussed. I also contacted Jerrold Schecter, the authority West depends on.  He emailed me:  “The Kirby notes you refer to were simply that Truman knew of the project to decode Venona but the details of the code breaking came much later. She has taken this out of context it appears to me.”</p>
<p>Most importantly, Kirby’s version contradicts the NSA’s own account of the Venona project chronology. The Schecters say, and West accepts their claim, that Truman was told in June 1945 that the U.S. was “reading secret Soviet messages.” The NSA official history says that at that time, they had made progress in decoding the cables, but did not have any significant readable text. Cryptanalysts had deciphered a few messages, but the underlying Soviet code had not yet been broken. Consequently, the cryptanalysts had at that time only a few cover names and isolated words, no clue as to what the subject of any of the cables were. That came only after 1946, when Meredith Gardner began his work on Venona, and made the necessary progress in breaking the codes. A year before this breakthrough Clarke had nothing of substance to tell Truman, which means that Kirby’s claim about Truman’s alleged reaction is without foundation. Indeed, the Schecters themselves write that “Clarke did not show any messages to the president; he could only report that the efforts were under way and initial results were promising after two years of work.” As in her use of source material elsewhere, West ignores these crucial facts.</p>
<p>There is, in addition, a 1949 FBI memo indicating that Omar Bradley had decided <i>not</i> to inform Truman about the Venona program, which was at the time top-secret. The FBI had by then told Truman about information contained in the messages, but not that it was information that came from decoded Soviet cables. Truman’s well known distrust of FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover, as Klehr and Haynes have written, “denied the president any assurance that the information was reliable and may have misled him about the seriousness of the problem [of Soviet espionage].”</p>
<p>Kirby told the Schecters that Clarke had long conversations with Bradley and Secretary of Defense James Forrestal about Venona. But contrary to West’s claim, Kirby acknowledged to the Schecters that<i> he had no notes of this meeting</i>. There is nothing in either Bradley’s or Forrestal’s own papers that would corroborate Kirby’s story.</p>
<p>In short, a third key element in West’s vast conspiracy theory is so much hot air.</p>
<p align="center"><b>Should the United States have joined Germany to Fight the Soviet Union?</b></p>
<p>Bizarre as it might sound, this is the fourth pillar of West’s argument. In her effort to paint the Roosevelt administration as a puppet of Soviet intelligence, she argues that towards the end of the war, the American government turned down the opportunity to arm German soldiers willing to form a new army to go to war against the USSR. American leaders were so pro-Soviet, in other words, that they missed one final opportunity to halt the Red Army’s advance into Eastern Europe, thereby delivering these countries to Stalin’s tender mercies and precipitating the Cold War. As she writes, “There existed many German anti-Nazis, even many high-ranking ones…who wanted to end World War II early; that’s the basic concept…we ignored them…Our best interests, once again, were subverted for Soviet ends.”</p>
<p>Her case rests on a story told by FDR’s old friend and former Governor of Pennsylvania, George H. Earle. She spends pages relating how Earle contacted German intelligence chief Admiral Wilhelm Canaris in 1943, and tried to persuade him to accept U.S. “peace feelers.” Although this is another well-known episode, West organizes the material to make the reader believe that it was ignored when first made public years ago, and that her own book is finally revealing its momentous significance.</p>
<p>In presenting her case, she has facile answers to the obvious difficulties that confront her scenario. She writes, for example, that the US could have supported the opposition to Hitler and backed a coup against him, thus producing “the defection of the German army and negotiate its surrender to the Allies.” She suggests Canaris and others had the ability to overthrow Hitler, close the death camps, and thwart Soviet conquests in Europe and Asia.</p>
<p>It is apparent that West is unfamiliar with much of the research that has been done on World War II, or the fact that her counterfactual speculations are not regarded as realistic possibilities by any reputable historian of the era. She does not seem to know the context of the decisions that FDR, Churchill and the generals in the field made, or appreciate the factors they had to take into account. Or more likely she prefers to ignore them because her theories could not survive the encounter.</p>
<p>In one paragraph she writes that the “German underground movement was resolutely and operationally anti-Communist just as much as it was anti-Nazi. In Communist occupied Washington &#8212; and London, too &#8212; this particular wing of the Anti-Hitler resistance was viewed as the enemy just as much as Hitler was.” She adds: “common cause with the Communist regime superseded all, <i>even German surrender</i>.” In explaining Washington’s failure to take advantage of the conditions for anti-Soviet collaboration with Germany, she writes later in her book, “a point of secret penetration and subversion had been passed beyond which appeasement was a fundamental principle.”</p>
<p>West has read historian Laurence Rees’ <a href="http://www.amazon.com/World-War-Behind-Closed-Doors/dp/B005M50F26/ref=sr_1_5?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1375137692&amp;sr=1-5&amp;keywords=Laurence+Rees" target="_blank"><i>World War II Behind Closed Doors: Stalin, the Nazis, and the West</i></a>, British Book Award Book of the Year for History in 2009 and also the basis for a BBC <a href="http://www.shoppbs.org/product/index.jsp?productId=3574822" target="_blank">television documentary</a> which was aired on all American PBS stations. West cites Rees in her text, and clearly much of her account comes from his own findings and work. But she has ignored all the evidence Rees assembles in his book, and all the arguments he makes that refute her conclusions.</p>
<p>When I myself read about George H. Earle’s advice to FDR in West’s book, it sounded very familiar, until I realized I had read the same account, with the same quotes and detail in Rees’ book.  Rees gives a nuanced account of how Western leaders dealt with Stalin and the Nazis that shows that they went out of their way to placate the Soviet tyrant, if necessary by hiding the facts of the massacres conducted near Katyn Forest, a suppression that has been known for decades.  But Rees does not share West’s conspiratorial mindset, or her claim that the suppression, which Churchill demanded, was the result of machinations by Soviet agents. In fact Rees reaches conclusions quite the opposite of West’s, something readers of West’s book would be unaware of.</p>
<p>Rees asks an important question that West might have paid attention to: Could Western leaders have “prevented the Soviet dominance of Eastern Europe by acting differently during their partnership with Stalin?” One possible way would have been the Earle-West proposal.  But this is Rees&#8217; judgment of such a course:</p>
<blockquote><p>It would have been a disastrous course of action. Perhaps the Red Army would have been forced back, but at a terrible cost in Allied lives. Even more importantly, the Europe that would have then existed after the war would have been a good deal less stable than the one we were actually left with. That is because, even after Stalingrad, the German army was still a fearsome fighting machine. If the Western allies had fought alongside the Germans and then reached some kind of uneasy peace with the Soviets &#8212; who would, of course, have felt betrayed by the West, probably fueling a future conflict &#8212; who would then have disarmed the German army? Germany would have been unoccupied by the Western Allies and still immensely powerful. So, thankfully, Roosevelt filed Earle’s plan in the bin.</p></blockquote>
<p>This is the consensus of every historian of the war. The decision not to consider an entente with Hitler’s army against Stalin was a clear-headed affirmation of U.S. interests, not a <i>betrayal</i>, as West virtually screams.</p>
<p>Consider the political difficulties of reversing the course of wartime history at this late juncture. For four years, the Soviet Union had been portrayed as an ally to western publics, praised for its sacrifices and efforts in behalf of “freedom,” while the Germans had secured a place in the public mind as evil incarnate. Could Western leaders turn this equation inside-out while the war was still hot? These are the kinds of questions that never occur to West because she is entirely focused on explaining the decisions of the Allies in terms of the Soviet “occupation” of Western governments: “World War II could have been ended years earlier had Communists working for Moscow not dominated Washington, quashing every anti-Nazi, anti-Communist attempt beginning in late 1942, throughout 1943 and 1944, to make common cause with Anglo-American representatives. Their main condition, Allied support on keeping Russian troops out of central and eastern Europe, was an instant deal breaker&#8212;the anti-Red line- neither the Communist-occupied British government nor the Communist-occupied American government would dare to cross.”</p>
<p>To West, Roosevelt and Churchill were seeking to liberate Europe <i>for the Soviets</i>, because of the Communist occupation of their governments. This construct is a conspiracy theory that has run off the rails and is utterly oblivious to the realities on the ground.</p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><b>The Issue of the Second Front</b></p>
<p>The final piece of West’s conspiracy puzzle is the decision to open a Second Front on the continent of Europe, which Stalin had been demanding from the moment Hitler broke his pact with the Kremlin and invaded the Soviet motherland. Let us assume for a moment that a cross-Channel invasion had been mounted in 1943 (before the Axis armies had been decimated in North Africa, Sicily and Italy) instead of at Normandy in 1944. In that case, as Rees argues, the Allies might indeed have reached Eastern Europe earlier in the fighting and Soviet influence would have been lessened. West, as we have seen, attributes the failure to Soviet agents who prevented Roosevelt and Churchill from following this course, allowing Stalin to take control. But Rees also writes (in a passage West also ignores) that “the cost in human terms for the Western Allies would have been enormous.”</p>
<p>The U.S. lost roughly 420,000 soldiers during the war and Britain lost 450,000, while the Soviet Union&#8217;s military death toll was an estimated 8 <i>million</i>. Forget the fact that the Allied armies, learning by doing, were not ready for an invasion of Europe a year before D Day. West doesn’t even consider the question of whether Churchill and Roosevelt would have been willing to sacrifice so much as one million more dead British and American soldiers to keep Eastern Europe out of Soviet hands at the war’s end, let alone whether the American and British publics would have stood for such a sacrifice and policy.</p>
<p>Another point that West fails to consider is the continuing fear shared by both FDR and Churchill that at any point in the fighting, the situation she envisions might be reversed and Stalin might seek a separate peace with Nazi Germany, and move towards a rapprochement as he did during the Nazi-Soviet Pact. In March 1942, when the Allies were facing major military setbacks, Churchill wired FDR that the “gravity of the war” forced him to conclude that Britain and the U.S. could not deny Stalin the frontiers he wanted in Eastern Europe, even though it might contradict the goals of the Atlantic Charter. It was not Soviet agents who led Churchill to this judgment, but the military reality on the ground.</p>
<p>Instead of weighing these fears, West turns to another anecdote telling how George Elsey found confidential files in the Map Room that showed FDR naively thinking he could trust Stalin, and instructed Hopkins to tell Soviet Foreign Minister Molotov that FDR was in favor of a Second Front in 1942. She believes that this was a smoking gun proving that FDR was “making common cause with the NKVD.” But here’s what Hopkins actually told Molotov: “I can tell you that President Roosevelt is a very strong supporter of a Second Front in 1942, but the American generals don’t see the real necessity of the Second Front. Because of this I recommend you paint a harrowing picture of the situation in the Soviet Union so that American Generals realize the seriousness of the situation.”</p>
<p>An obvious explanation of this (one by the way that Rees provides) is that FDR wanted to give Molotov the impression that he supported the Soviet request for a Second Front, but was frustrated by his recalcitrant generals. Thus while giving the Soviets the impression that he was their friend, and cementing the alliance that saved so many American lives, he kept his options open. Molotov came out of the meeting expecting a Second Front that same year, which as FDR already knew he would not get. The reality, which West closes her eyes to, is that FDR denied Stalin’s wishes without giving him cause to seek another accommodation with Hitler.</p>
<p>Contrary to West’s shallow and erroneous interpretation of this event, when the Second Front did not materialize on Stalin’s timetable (as Laurence Rees notes), Stalin came “to believe that Roosevelt had added outright duplicity to the mix,” and that “he had been betrayed.”</p>
<p>In his book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Cold-War-New-History/dp/0143038273/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1375285975&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=John+L.+Gaddis" target="_blank"><i>The Cold War: A New History</i></a>, John Lewis Gaddis, the pre-eminent historian of this conflict, agrees that Stalin’s goal was to dominate the continent of Europe in the same way Hitler had before the war. But in 1947, Stalin said, “had Churchill delayed opening the second front in northern France by a year, the Red Army would have come to France…We toyed with the idea of reaching Paris.” If FDR and Churchill were really Stalin’s errand boys, as West suggests, why would they not have delayed the Normandy invasion and allowed the Soviets to reach Western Europe?</p>
<p>Gaddis also agrees with Rees and other major WW II scholars that “the greatest Anglo-American fear had been that the Soviet Union might again cut a deal with Nazi Germany…which would leave large portions of Europe” under totalitarian rule, “hence the importance Roosevelt and Churchill attached to keeping the Soviet Union in the war.”</p>
<blockquote><p>This meant providing all possible assistance in food, clothing, and armaments, even if flying them in by desperate means and at a great cost: running convoys to Murmansk and Archangel while avoiding German submarines was no easy thing to do. It also meant not contesting Stalin’s demands for the restoration of lost territories, despite the awkward fact that some of these…had fallen under Soviet control only as a result of his pact with Hitler.  Finally, forestalling a separate peace on the European continent as soon as was military feasible, although in London and Washington that was understood to require postponement until success seemed likely at an acceptable cost.</p></blockquote>
<p>I quote Gaddis at length to indicate that the decisions reached by FDR and Churchill were not the results of being run by NKVD conspirators who had infiltrated Western governments, but because they needed to win the war against Hitler, which they realized would be impossible to accomplish without Soviet military strength.</p>
<p>Even the most minimally informed reader will recognize the most obvious chink in West’s conspiracy theories: the failure to explain how the anti-Bolshevik Churchill, whose hatred for the Soviet regime went back to 1917 when he sought to crush it in its cradle, became a Soviet dupe.</p>
<p>At Yalta Churchill did agree to the division of Europe with a Soviet sphere of influence in the East in exchange for a promise by Stalin to accept British hegemony in Greece.</p>
<p>True, the way the agreement was sold to western publics was outrageous. Stalin was presented as a leader who wanted democratic regimes in his own sphere. But the Yalta agreements were concluded in order to win the war while minimizing casualties, and, in any case, merely registered what had already occurred on the ground. It was most certainly not the conspiracy that West conjures. Western leaders hoped, foolishly perhaps, that Stalin might keep his word to allow free elections in the Baltic States and Poland. But as Stalin told Molotov when signing the Yalta accords, “Do not worry. We can implement it in our own way later. The heart of the matter is the correlation of forces.” That correlation of forces is something West simply wishes away.</p>
<p>In agreeing to these arrangements Churchill was hardly a patsy let alone an unwitting tool of Kremlin agents. As the historian of Yalta, S. M. Plokhy, writes in <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Yalta-Price-S-M-Plokhy/dp/B0040RMENK/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1375294757&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=S.M.+Plokhy" target="_blank"><i>Yalta: The Price of Peace</i></a>, at the same time Churchill was defending the agreement to the British parliament, and facing his critics, “he was haunted by memories of Munich as he considered and reconsidered what had happened.” Churchill realized, however, that there were limits to what he could do to rein in the Soviet dictator. “Great Britain and the British Commonwealth,” Churchill said, &#8220;are very much weaker militarily than Soviet Russia, and have no means, short of another general war, of enforcing their point of view.” The reality, as Stalin said, was that “whoever occupies a territory also imposes on it his own social system.”</p>
<p>One of the first rude awakenings about Yalta was Stalin’s treatment of American POW’s in Soviet territory. West writes about “how they were being preyed upon by Russian thugs and prevented from coming home &#8212; but it wasn’t ‘appropriate’ for their commander-in-chief to send another crummy cable about this unconscionable outrage to the Soviet dictator, whose army…[was] still being fully fitted out by the magnanimous American taxpayer via Lend-Lease.”</p>
<p>Actually, as Plokhy shows, the Soviets treated American POW’s fairly well. Nevertheless, contrary to West, FDR “lost his temper with Stalin and sided completely with his representatives in Moscow, who by now were sick and tired of Soviet ways of doing things.” He sent stern messages to Stalin inspired by Averell Harriman, no pro-Soviet stooge, who was angered by the dictator’s behavior. FDR said to Anna Rosenberg Hoffman, his unofficial advisor on labor matters, “Averell is right: we can’t do business with Stalin. He has broken every one of his promises he made at Yalta.”  He said this on March 24; a few weeks before his death.  I looked in vain for that statement in West’s book.  What <i>is</i> in West’s book is a condemnation of FDR for not doing more, for not scheduling retaliatory measures, and for not taking the advice of those who advocated turning against the Soviets although the war was not yet over. FDR was, to the very end, she writes, “America’s Dupe Number One.” No wonder the statement to Anna Hoffman does not appear in her book.</p>
<p>West also does not show any awareness that Harry Truman instituted a stern opposition to Stalin’s Eastern European policies culminating in the Truman Doctrine which drew a line in the sand opposing further Soviet expansion, and led to a Cold War that ended with the collapse of the Communist system. West doesn’t confront this little development because it would be inexplicable if America was a Soviet occupied state run by Stalin’s agents.</p>
<p>Conspiratorial theories of history are easy to create once you are prepared to ignore the realities on the ground, or regard those who do take them into account as part of the conspiracy too. This is the path that Diana West has taken in her misconceived and misleading book. Why did the U.S. and Britain not prevent the totalitarian USSR from taking over Eastern Europe after it had defeated the totalitarian Nazis?  It had nothing to do with the Rubik’s Cube of diplomatic and military considerations, a calculus that had to take into account the willingness of the American and British publics to continue to sacrifice and their soldiers to die.  No, it was a conspiracy so immense, as West’s hero Joe McCarthy might have said, that it allowed Western policy to be dictated by a shadow army of Soviet agents. It is unfortunate that a number of conservatives who should know better have fallen for West’s fictions.  It is even more depressing that her book perpetuates the dangerous one dimensional thinking of the Wisconsin Senator and his allies in the John Birch Society which have allowed anti anti-communism to have a field day in our intellectual culture.</p>
<p><b>Ronald Radosh is an Adjunct Fellow at The Hudson Institute and a columnist for PJ Media. He is author or co-author of over 15 books, and writes frequently for <i>The Wall Street Journal, The Weekly Standard, and Commentary.</i></b></p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank">Click here</a>.  </strong></p>
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		<title>Are Obama&#8217;s Leaks Provoking an Israel-Syria War?</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/joseph-puder/are-obamas-leaks-provoking-israel-syria-war/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=are-obamas-leaks-provoking-israel-syria-war</link>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 23 Jul 2013 04:02:22 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Joseph Puder]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[betrayal]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Israel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[leaks]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Syria]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=197609</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[With friends like the U.S. president.....]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/A7BBB91F-D778-4EB3-8CBB-C04C0EF24535_mw1024_n_s.jpg"><img class=" wp-image-197819 alignleft" alt="A7BBB91F-D778-4EB3-8CBB-C04C0EF24535_mw1024_n_s" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/A7BBB91F-D778-4EB3-8CBB-C04C0EF24535_mw1024_n_s-450x300.jpg" width="315" height="210" /></a>The commonly known adage “with friends like these, who needs enemies?” may very well apply to the Obama administration.  Recent leaks stemming from the US government about Israeli operations in Syria may have put Israeli security in jeopardy and endangered its civilian population.  At the AIPAC conference on March 4, 2012, President Barack Obama declared “There should not be a shred of doubt by now; when the chips are down, I have <a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Foreign-Policy/2012/0304/Obama-to-AIPAC-I-have-Israel-s-back" target="_blank">Israel’s back</a>.” The context of his statement was Iran, and he promised that he would not hesitate to attack Iran with military force in order to prevent it from acquiring a nuclear weapon. And, ironically, while he cautioned that there was “too much <i>loose</i> talk of war,” it has been Obama’s officials who have continually leaked information on secret Israeli operations in both Iran and Syria.</p>
<p>Fox News reported on March 29, 2012, that former U.S. ambassador to the U.N., John Bolton stated, “The Obama administration <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/03/29/bolton-accuses-administration-leaking-story-on-israeli-planning-along-iran/" target="_blank">leaked</a> a story about covert Israeli activity in order to foil potential plans by the country [Israel] to attack Iran’s nuclear program.” Bolton referenced comments made by former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta in February, in which Panetta asserted that the Israelis could strike Iran as early as April, 2012. According to Bolton, this would be &#8220;entirely consistent&#8221; with the administration&#8217;s desire to avoid such an impending outcome.  Bolton concluded that “It is unprecedented to reveal this kind of information about one of our own allies.”</p>
<p><i>The Times of Israel</i> headlined on June 4, 2013: “US <a href="http://www.timesofisrael.com/us-leaks-israeli-arrow-3-missile-secrets/" target="_blank">Spills</a> Israeli Missile Defense Secrets.” The article pointed out that the “US government website reveals numerous highly sensitive details of a launch site to be built for the Arrow 3 system, crucial to Israel’s protection against nuclear threats.”</p>
<p>The UK’s <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2350654/Stuxnet-US-general-investigation-leaking-details-covert-cyber-attack-Irans-nuclear-program.html" target="_blank"><i>Daily Mail</i></a><i>,</i> on June 28, 2013 quoted an Associated Press story about retired Marine General James Cartwright, who had been told he is a target of a probe into leaked classified information about the Stuxnet cyber-attack. According to the US media report, Cartwright played a crucial role in the covert operation (coordinated with Israel) in which a computer virus called &#8220;Stuxnet&#8221; temporarily disabled Iranian centrifuges. The <i>Daily Mail </i>pointed out that Republicans charged senior Obama administration officials with leaking the details of the operation to bolster President Obama’s national security credentials during the 2012 presidential campaign.</p>
<p>US government sources leaked information to CNN on Saturday, July 13, 2013, noting that Israel was behind the July 5, 2013 strike in <a href="http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4404336,00.html" target="_blank">Latakia</a>, Syria, which targeted the consignment of 50 Russian-made Yakhont P-800 anti-ship missiles.  These US officials “restrained” themselves for a full week before fingering Israel. A spokesman for the Free Syrian Army (FSA) Supreme Military Council, who was interviewed by Reuters, said that it was not the FSA’s doing and added that the attack was either by air raid or long-range missiles fired from boats in the Mediterranean.  While the FSA spokesman did not implicate Israel, US government officials did.  Earlier, on May 5, 2013, US government officials declared that Israel was behind the operation on the outskirts of Damascus just hours after the attack on Hezbollah-bound Iranian Fateh-110 missiles.</p>
<p>Israel maintained deniability in both of the above cases, which suited the Assad regime, as it did not want to engage militarily with Israel at this time.  The Assad regime would have been content with blaming the attack on the Syrian rebels.  Revelation of this information by US administration officials put enormous pressure on Bashar Assad, especially from his generals, who demanded an immediate response.  Assad, bowing to pressure from his generals and subordinates, issued a stern warning to Israel, and vowed that Syria would no longer practice restraint following attacks on its sovereignty. Moreover, a top Syrian official told CNN that the “attack on the military facility was a <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2013/05/05/world/meast/syria-violence" target="_blank">declaration of war</a> by Israel.”</p>
<p>In both Israel and the U.S., many are asking whether the Obama administration is trying to start a war between Israel and Syria.  Intentional leaks by the administration officials could certainly provoke one.  It should be understood by Obama’s Middle East advisors that publicly humiliating an Arab leader like Syrian President Bashar Assad would leave him with no choice but to retaliate.  By exposing Israel as the attacker on his military assets, Assad would be compelled to act, even though he is engaged in a civil war and can ill afford to fight Israel directly.</p>
<p>American Brig. Gen. David Grange asserted on Fox News that the Assad regime remains potent with capabilities to inflict significant damage on Israel’s home front.  He concluded however, that Assad will not risk an open confrontation.  Syria’s ballistic missiles (some with chemical warheads) pose a lethal threat to Israeli civilians.  In addition, there is always the possibility that Hezbollah would use these weapons.</p>
<p>Although 7,000 of Hezbollah’s fighters are in Syria, fighting against the rebels to preserve an ally, they demonstrated their capabilities in the 2006 war with Israel, and are now better equipped to cause major harm to Israel.  At the same time, an Israeli counter-attack would be devastating for Hezbollah and its controlling position in Lebanon.</p>
<p>The above considerations are for rational-thinking leaders.  In the Arab Middle East, where honor, pride and prestige are paramount, irrational actions, more often than not, overcome rational calculations.  The Obama administration must be held responsible for ratcheting up tensions, which could result in a Syrian-Israeli conflict because of its deliberate leaks.  At the moment, Bashar Assad has a dilemma.  With the US administration revealing that Israel attacked him, what is he supposed to do &#8212; practice restraint and expose weakness? Or retaliate and become embroiled in a war on two fronts?  Israel can ill afford to ignore the second choice, however irrational.</p>
<p>The Obama administration did apologize for the May 2013 leak, blaming it on low-ranking officials.  The second leak, which was not apologized for, may have been initiated following Israel’s announcement of their successful test-firing of a propulsion system for a long-range ballistic missile that can reach Iran.  Israel’s hidden message to Iran was clear.  With cuts in the defense budget, Israel is still capable of launching a successful attack on Iran by itself. Obama administration officials, irritated by Israel’s “independence,” decided to refocus matters on Syria because of its reticence in engaging Iran militarily.  In the meantime, Iran has reached a level of capability required to assemble a nuclear bomb.</p>
<p>Faced with criticism over its inaction in Syria, yet reluctant to increase U.S. involvement, the Obama administration may have chosen to reveal that an American ally, Israel, was doing something to uphold Obama’s redline in Syria, even at the cost of potentially endangering Israeli lives.  It is entirely possible that the Obama administration is deliberately seeking to ignite an Israeli-Syrian war as a way out of its own dilemma. They want Assad out but are unwilling to do the dirty work.  In such a war, Israel would destroy the Syrian air force and provide the rebels with a victory, an outcome Obama would like.</p>
<p>The leaks damage American interests as much as Israel’s by eroding the trust that has long existed between Jerusalem and Washington. Obama has demanded that Israel not surprise him with unilateral action against Iran. Israel has complied, and as a consequence, has been betrayed by the administration’s leaks.  Israel can ill afford a war with Syria in order to resolve Obama’s political problems.  It will have to reconsider sharing certain information with the Obama administration. The actions taken by the Obama administration endanger Israel, and it might well confirm the aphorism “with friends like Obama, who needs enemies.”</p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank">Click here</a>.  </strong></p>
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		<title>U.S. Sovereignty Under Siege &#8212; on The Chandler Gang</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/frontpagemag-com/u-s-sovereignty-under-siege-on-the-chandler-gang/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=u-s-sovereignty-under-siege-on-the-chandler-gang</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 14 Jun 2013 04:06:04 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Frontpagemag.com]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[The Glazov Gang]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Benghazi]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[betrayal]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[IRS]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Michael Chandler]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obama]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=192697</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Larry Greenfield, Dwight Schultz and Lloyd Romeo shed light on the forces undermining American freedom and autonomy. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/us_flag_eagle1.jpg"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-193120" alt="us_flag_eagle" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/us_flag_eagle1.jpg" width="330" height="228" /></a>On this week&#8217;s <em>Glazov Gang</em>, <strong>Michael Chandler</strong> filled in as host for Jamie and produced a stellar episode with guests <strong>Larry Greenfield</strong>, a Senior Fellow at the <a href="http://www.americanfreedomalliance.org/">American Freedom Alliance</a>, Hollywood actor <strong>Dwight Schultz</strong> (<a href="http://www.dwightschultzfansite.nl/">dwightschultzfansite.nl</a>) and <strong>Lloyd Romeo</strong>, an Electronics Engineer and Patriot.</p>
<p>The Glazov Gangsters gathered to discuss <em>U.S. Sovereignty Under Siege</em>.  The episode also featured the themes: <em>The Obama Doctrine, <em>Why Wasn’t There a Military Response To Benghazi</em>? </em>and much, much more.</p>
<p>To watch both parts of this riveting episode, see below:</p>
<p><strong>Part I:</strong></p>
<p><iframe src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/XYxqU3ku0xg" height="325" width="425" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p><strong>Part II:</strong></p>
<p><iframe src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/FHWE4R22Ye8" height="325" width="425" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p><b>You can make sure that </b><a href="https://secure.donationreport.com/donate.html?key=ASY2NUM6OSJ9" target="_blank"><b><i>Jamie Glazov Productions</i></b></a><b> continues to take you where no other media programs dare to go. Help us by </b><a href="https://secure.donationreport.com/donate.html?key=ASY2NUM6OSJ9" target="_blank"><b>clicking here</b></a><b> and making a tax deductible contribution today. To see the archives of <i>The Glazov Gang</i>, </b><a href="http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=UUqCK5RFjwgmx2z4sOjqd-kQ&amp;feature=plcp"><b>click here.</b></a><b></b></p>
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		<title>Betrayal in Benghazi</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/colonel-phil-handley/betrayal-in-benghazi/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=betrayal-in-benghazi</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 30 May 2013 04:17:33 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Colonel Phil Handley]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[Benghazi]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[betrayal]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Hillary]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=191373</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The gross violation of the U.S. Military's sacred combat code.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Benghazi-attack.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-191393" alt="Benghazi-attack" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Benghazi-attack-450x252.jpg" width="315" height="176" /></a>The combat code of the US Military is that we don’t abandon our dead or wounded on the battlefield. In US Air Force lingo, fighter pilots don’t run off and leave their wingmen. If one of our own is shot down, still alive and not yet in enemy captivity, we will either come to get him or die trying.  Among America’s fighting forces, the calm, sure knowledge that such an irrevocable bond exists is priceless. Along with individual faith and personal grit, it is a sacred trust that has often sustained hope in the face of terribly long odds.</p>
<p>The disgraceful abandonment of our Ambassador and those brave ex-SEALs who fought to their deaths to save others in that compound is nothing short of dereliction-of-duty.  Additionally, the patently absurd cover-up scenario that was fabricated in the aftermath was an outright lie in attempt to shield the President and the Secretary of State from responsibility.</p>
<p>It has been over eight months since the attack on our compound in Benghazi. The White House strategy, with the aid of a “lap dog press” has been to run out the clock before the truth is forthcoming.  The recent testimonies of the three “whistle blowers” have reopened the subject and hopefully will lead to exposure and disgrace of those responsible for this embarrassing debacle.</p>
<p>It would appear that the most recent firewall which the Administration is counting on is the contention that there were simply no military assets that could be brought to bear in time to make a difference… mainly due to the unavailability of tanker support for fighter aircraft.  This is simply BS, regardless how many supposed “experts” the Administration trot out to make such an assertion. The bottom line is that even if the closest asset capable of response was half-way around the world, you don’t just sit on your penguin *** and do nothing. The fact is that the closest asset was not half-way around the world, but as near as Aviano Air Base, Italy where two squadrons of F-16Cs are based.</p>
<p>Consider the following scenario (all times Benghazi local):</p>
<p>When Hicks in Tripoli receives a call at 9:40 PM from Ambassador Stevens informing him “Greg, we are under attack!” (his last words), he immediately notifies all agencies and prepares for the immediate initiation of an existing “Emergency Response Plan.”  At AFRICON, General Carter Ham attempts to mount a rescue effort, but is told to “stand down.”  By 10:30 PM an unarmed drone is overhead the compound and streaming live feed to various Command and Control Agencies… and everyone watching that feed knew damn well what was going on. At 11:30 PM Woods, Doherty and five others leave Tripoli, arriving in Benghazi at 1:30 AM on Wednesday morning, where they hold off the attacking mob from the roof of the compound until they are killed by a mortar direct hit at 4:00 AM.</p>
<p>So nothing could have been done, eh?  Nonsense.  If one assumes that tanker support really was not available… what about this:</p>
<p>·     When at 10:00 PM AFRICON alerts the 31st TFW Command Post in Aviano Air Base, Italy of the attack, the Wing Commander orders preparation for the launch of two F-16s and advises the Command Post at NAS Sigonella to prepare for hot pit refueling and quick turn of the jets.</p>
<p>·     By 11:30 PM, two F-16Cs with drop tanks and each armed with five hundred 20 MM rounds are airborne. Flying at 0.92 mach they will cover the 522 nautical miles directly to NAS Sigonella in 1.08 hours.</p>
<p>·     While in-route, the flight lead is informed of the tactical situation, rules of engagement, and radio frequencies to use.</p>
<p>·     The jets depart Sigonella at 1:10 AM with full fuel load and cover the 377 nautical miles directly to Benghazi in 0.8 hours, arriving at 1:50 AM… which would be 20 minutes after the arrival of Woods, Doherty and their team.</p>
<p>·     Providing that  the two F-16s initial pass over the mob, in full afterburner at 200 feet and 550 knots did not stop the attack in its tracks, only a few well placed strafing runs on targets of opportunity would assuredly do the trick.</p>
<p>·     Were the F-16s fuel state insufficient to recover at Sigonelli after jettisoning their external drop tanks, they could easily do so at Tripoli International Airport, only one-half hour away.</p>
<p>·     As for those hand-wringing naysayers who would worry about IFR clearances, border crossing authority, collateral damage, landing rights, political correctness and dozens of other reasons not to act… screw them.  It is high time that our “leadership” get their priorities straight and put America’s interests first.</p>
<p>The end result would be that Woods and Doherty would be alive.</p>
<p>Dozens in the attacking rabble would be rendezvousing with “72 virgins”… and a clear message would have been sent to the next worthless POS terrorist contemplating an attack on Americans that it is not really a good idea to “tug on Superman’s cape.”</p>
<p>Of course all this would depend upon a Commander In Chief who was more concerned with saving the lives of those he put in harm’s way than getting his crew rest for a campaign fund raising event in Las Vegas the next day.  As well as a Secretary of State that actually understood “What difference did it make?”, or a Secretary of Defense whose immediate response was not to the effect that “One of the military tenants is that you don’t commit assets until you fully understand the tactical situation.” Was he not watching a live feed from the unarmed drone… and he didn’t understand the tactical situation?  YGBSM!</p>
<p>Ultimately it comes down to the question of who gave that order to “stand down?” Whoever that coward turns out to be should be exposed, removed from office, and face criminal charges for dereliction of duty.  The combat forces of the United States of America deserve leadership that really does “have their back” when the chips are down.</p>
<p><b>Colonel Phil “Hands” Handley, USAF (Ret.) is credited with the highest speed air-to-air gun kill in the history of aerial combat. He flew operationally for all but 11 months of a 26-year career, in aircraft such as the F-86 Sabre, F-15 Eagle, and the C-130A Hercules. Additionally, he flew 275 combat missions during two tours in Southeast Asia in the F-4D and F-4E. His awards include 21 Air Medals, 3 Distinguished Flying Crosses, and the Silver Star.</b></p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank">Click here</a>.  </strong></p>
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		<title>Obama’s Ominous Stance on Israel’s Territorial Security</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/davidhornik/obama%e2%80%99s-ominous-stance-on-israel%e2%80%99s-territorial-security/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=obama%25e2%2580%2599s-ominous-stance-on-israel%25e2%2580%2599s-territorial-security</link>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 25 Sep 2012 04:49:57 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[P. David Hornik]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[1967 borders]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[betrayal]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Israel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Netanyahu]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[security]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[U.S.]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=145446</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Foreshadowing a second term.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/obama-netanyahu.jpg"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-145449" title="obama-netanyahu" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/obama-netanyahu.jpg" alt="" width="288" height="190" /></a>In this election year President Obama has been quiet about the Palestinian issue. Rough treatment of Israel has continued, but mainly on the Iranian front—with a drumbeat of hollow promises as Iran keeps making nuclear progress, a series of security leaks harmful to Israel, disparaging remarks about Israel’s military capabilities from top administration officials, and now Obama’s refusal to meet Netanyahu in New York while being more than willing to meet with Egypt’s Morsi.</p>
<p>It should not be forgotten, though, that not long ago Obama was engaging in harsh confrontations with Israel over the Palestinian issue. Particularly, on May 19, 2011, he let loose a bombshell.</p>
<p>Blindsiding Netanyahu just as he was on his way to Washington, Obama called for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, but <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/05/19/remarks-president-middle-east-and-north-africa">decreed</a> in advance what their outcome would be: “two states…based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps…with permanent Palestinian borders with Israel, Jordan, and Egypt….” Obama further specified that the Palestinian state would be “contiguous.”</p>
<p>With these statements he broke with previous U.S. policy on the issue, which had left the matter of borders up to the parties themselves. And he caused shockwaves in Israel and the pro-Israeli community by outlining a security nightmare for the Jewish state.</p>
<p>That was particularly clear from Obama’s stipulation of a Palestinian border with Jordan—which meant no Israeli presence in the Jordan Valley even though all previous Israeli security doctrine had posited such a presence as indispensable to Israel’s defensibility from infiltrations and attack from the east.</p>
<p>As for “contiguity,” it was code for a demand Yasser Arafat had raised in negotiations for a land link of some kind between the two parts of the Palestinian state, the West Bank and Gaza—thereby bifurcating what would be left of Israel, an intolerable situation suffered by no country on the globe, let alone a tiny, non-Arab, non-Muslim one in the heart of the Middle East.</p>
<p>Israel, having already withdrawn from Gaza, now suffers regular rocket fire from that direction; a look at a <a href="http://www.defensibleborders.org/images/map4.jpg">map</a> shows its even more radical vulnerability from West Bank terrain. Even primitive Qassam rockets would suffice to hit parts of Israel’s coastal plain, Ben-Gurion National Airport, and Jerusalem. Katyusha rockets would suffice to reach Tel Aviv, Netanya, and Nazareth. Withdrawal from the Jordan Valley would create a vastly longer, more meandering border—incomparably harder to police and ideal for terrorist infiltrations.</p>
<p>It is true that Obama, in his May 19, 2011 speech, said the Palestinian state would be “nonmilitarized.” It is not hard to imagine, given the infeasibility of enforcing such a provision along with the anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic hatred already being <a href="http://palwatch.org/">systematically inculcated</a> in both the West Bank and Gaza, how long such a commitment would hold up. It is hardly encouraging that, despite detailed security provisions in Israel’s 1979 peace treaty with Egypt, the Sinai Peninsula is now a hothouse of anti-Israeli terror.</p>
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		<title>Obama&#8217;s Knife in Israel&#8217;s Back</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/david-meir-levi/obama-betrays-israel-why-are-we-surprised/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=obama-betrays-israel-why-are-we-surprised</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 05 Apr 2012 04:11:20 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[David Meir-Levi]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Anti-Semitism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[betrayal]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Israel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Left]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obama]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=127620</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Should we be surprised?]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/barack.jpg"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-127655" title="barack" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/barack.jpg" alt="" width="320" height="240" /></a></p>
<p>In his March 28<sup>th</sup> article, <a href="http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/03/28/israel_s_secret_staging_ground?page=full">“Israel’s Secret Staging Ground,” in <em>Foreign Policy</em></a>, Mark Perry revealed previously secret information about Israel’s dealings with Azerbaijan;  and many are now of the opinion that his article was in reality <a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Foreign-Policy/2012/0329/Attacking-Iran-Did-US-just-torpedo-Israeli-deal-for-a-base-in-Azerbaijan">Obama’s knife in Israel’s back</a>.  According to Perry, four unnamed senior diplomats and military intelligence officers leaked information indicating that Israel has purchased air force bases in Azerbaijan for use in preparation for an attack on Iran.</p>
<p>The likelihood that it is mere coincidence that four senior diplomatic and military intelligence sources separately leaked the same information at the same time is very small.  So <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/03/29/bolton-accuses-administration-leaking-story-on-israeli-planning-along-iran/">John Bolton holds Obama responsible</a>.  <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/294856/bolton-blames-obama-leaking-israeli-azerbaijan-relationship-patrick-brennan">Bolton suggests</a> that because Obama’s private efforts to prevent an Israeli attack on Iran have failed, he decided to ratchet up the pressure on Israel by revealing sensitive, secret information that, once available to Iran, will make an Israeli offensive less likely to succeed, and thus be a deterrent to such an offensive.<a title="" href="#_edn1">[1]</a>  This is surely not the sort of thing that a head of state does to an ally; but it might be the sort of thing that an unconscionably Machiavellian President running for re-election might do if he perceives that an Israeli strike on Iran might be a political liability for him.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://en.trend.az/news/politics/2008059.html">Azerbaijani Defense Ministry denies</a> any collusion with Israel, and, indeed, <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/blog/2012/mar/29/israel-azerbaijan-unlikely-allies">Azerbaijan is a rather unlikely ally</a> for the Jewish state; but <a href="http://wikileaks.org/cable/2009/01/09BAKU20.html">Wikileaks gives a solid basis</a> for such collusion, the motivation for which may be Azerbaijan’s perception of Iran as an existential enemy.</p>
<p>Some <a href="http://www.timesofisrael.com/perry-tales-in-foreign-policy/">Israeli analysts deride the very idea</a> that Israel could be in league with Azerbaijan for a variety of strategic and tactical, military, logistical and political reasons, <a href="http://www.timesofisrael.com/analysts-shrug-off-claims-that-israel-plans-to-fly-via-azerbaijan-to-strike-iran/">including the fact that an Iranian revenge attack</a> on Azerbaijan’s oil production facilities could easily destroy the country’s entire economy.</p>
<p>But these commentators all miss the point.  It does not matter whether or not the information is correct.  Those who leaked it presumably thought that it was.  It does not matter that the <a href="http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0%2c7340%2cL-4210439%2c00.htm">President says that he did not</a> knife Israel in the back and has &#8220;no interest&#8221; in leaks of this kind, or that “…<a href="http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0%2c7340%2cL-4210439%2c00.htm">the US is crawling with thousands of intelligence</a> and former intelligence officials.”  The buck stops at Obama’s desk.  He is the Commander-in-Chief of those thousands.  Yet his response is dismissive, nonchalant, and insouciant:  hardly the appropriate attitude when an ally’s secret defensive plans have been compromised, with potentially existential consequences.</p>
<p>In the context of a broader perspective this incident takes on rather dire dimensions, as it is the latest in a long line of anti-Israel statements and actions originating with Obama or with those working close to him.</p>
<p>This past February Secretary of Defense Leon <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/03/us-nuclear-iran-usa-israel-idUSTRE81202Z20120203">Panetta told Iran that he thinks Israel will strike as early as April</a>.  So Israel’s ally tells Israel’s enemy when Israel will strike.  Surely, for Iran, this is “news you can use.”  Was this just a gaff, or was it an intentional leak meant to undermine Israel’s military options?  Panetta answers to Obama, but Obama seems to be insouciant, saying nothing.</p>
<p>Another problem regarding Obama’s silence is the recent flap about <a href="http://www.onejerusalem.org/2012/03/video-state-department-spokesw.php">a State Department official’s refusal to acknowledge that Jerusalem is the official capital of Israel</a>.  This official is not to blame.  She was merely conforming to the directives of her employer, the U.S. Department of State, which, despite Congress’ <a href="http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/104/s1322">Jerusalem embassy act of 1995</a>, and the <a href="http://www.onejerusalem.org/2012/03/supreme-court-sets-back-obama.php">recent Supreme Court decision recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital</a>, continues to ignore U.S. law.   The State Department answers to the President, and the President is silent, insouciant, on this issue.</p>
<p>But he did have something to say about the <a href="http://www.therightscoop.com/the-white-house-removed-references-to-jerusalem-israel-from-its-website/">status of Jerusalem on the White House website</a>. Not too long ago <a href="http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/white-house-cleanses-israel-website_588127.html">Obama himself ordered the removal</a> of all references to “Jerusalem, Israel” from the White House website, <a href="http://israel-commentary.org/?p=1284">replacing them with “Jerusalem.”</a>  What could be Obama’s motive for divesting Israel of its capital, and Jerusalem of its Jewish state?  Connecting some recent dots will offer an answer to that question.</p>
<p>To a mostly Jewish AIPAC audience on June 4, 2008, front-running Presidential candidate Obama announced that “Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel and it must remain undivided.”     But only a few days later, after being assailed by Arab-American and Palestinian spokespersons, he told a mostly Arab audience that “…it’s going to be up to the parties to negotiate.” <a title="" href="#_edn2">[2]</a>  To which audience did he lie?</p>
<p>But as the world had already learned a few months earlier, he was willing to divide not only Jerusalem, but all of Israel. In January, 2008, Obama said he supported the division of Israel into two parts by a Palestinian state.<a title="" href="#_edn3">[3]</a> This stunning comment came as Obama, struggling to articulate his stance on key Mideast issues, asserted that &#8220;The Palestinians have a legitimate concern that a state have a contiguous coherent mass that would allow the state to function effectively.&#8221; Was Obama not aware that a land corridor between Gaza and the West Bank would effectively cut Israel in half, making it incoherent and non-contiguous, divided into northern and southern portions? Was this merely the gaff of an inexperienced, flustered and geographically challenged presidential candidate trying to accommodate Arab-American voters, or was Obama stating a priority that presaged a series of later presidential anti-Israel words and deeds?</p>
<p>Looking back a bit further into Obama’s not-too-distant past, one may be able to find the likely answer to these questions.</p>
<p>During his presidential campaign (2007-08) he revealed to the press the names of those to whom he would look for guidance on Middle East issues,  his “brain trust” as it were:<a href="http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/133515"> Zbigniew Brzezinski</a>, <a href="http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/01/barack_obama_and_israel.html">Anthony Lake</a>, <a href="http://www.commentarymagazine.com/topic/susan-rice/">Susan Rice</a>, <a href="http://www.debbieschlussel.com/3356/exclusive-obamas-nation-of-islam-staffers-edward-said-inflexible-jews-causing-mid-east-conflict-an-obama-insider-reveals-the-real-barack/">Bettylu Saltzman</a>, <a href="http://www.zoa.org/sitedocuments/pressrelease_view.asp?pressreleaseID=1510">Robert Malley</a>,<a title="" href="#_edn4">[4]</a>  and <a href="http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=472_1304247925">Samantha Power</a>, among others  &#8211;  a dream team for the anti-Israel crowd at home and abroad.  Given his choice of advisors, it was not difficult to predict that he would be no friend of Israel.</p>
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		<title>Obama Administration Bans the Truth About Islam and Jihad</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/robert-spencer/obama-adminstration-bans-the-truth-about-islam-and-jihad/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=obama-adminstration-bans-the-truth-about-islam-and-jihad</link>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 24 Oct 2011 04:16:09 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Robert Spencer]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[betrayal]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Islam]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Political Correctness]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Washington]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=109847</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Fantasy-based analysis is now required at the highest levels in Washington.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/obama34.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-109849" title="obama34" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/obama34.jpg" alt="" width="400" height="372" /></a></p>
<p>It has been a long time coming, but the Obama Administration has now officially banned the truth. Deputy U.S. Attorney General James Cole <a href="http://www.justice.gov/iso/opa/dag/speeches/2011/dag-speech-111019.html">declared Wednesday</a> at a conference in Washington that he had “recently directed all components of the Department of Justice to re-evaluate their training efforts in a range of areas, from community outreach to national security.” This “reevaluation” will remove all references to Islam in connection with any examination of Islamic jihad terror activity. The Obama Administration has now placed off-limits any investigation of the beliefs, motives and goals of jihad terrorists.</p>
<p>Dwight C. Holton, former U.S. Attorney for the District of Oregon, <a href="http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/10/doj_official_holder_firmly_committed_to_eliminating_anti-muslim_training.php">emphasized</a> that training materials for the FBI would be purged of everything politically incorrect: “I want to be perfectly clear about this: training materials that portray Islam as a religion of violence or with a tendency towards violence are wrong, they are offensive, and they are contrary to everything that this president, this attorney general and Department of Justice stands for. They will not be tolerated.”</p>
<p>Holton said that he had spoken with Attorney General Eric Holder about FBI training materials <a href="http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/10/doj_official_holder_firmly_committed_to_eliminating_anti-muslim_training.php">that Holton claimed</a> were “egregiously false,” and that Holder “is firmly committed to making sure that this is over….we’re going to fix it.” Holton said that this “fix” was particularly urgent because the rejected training materials “pose a significant threat to national security, because they play into the false narrative propagated by terrorists that the United States is at war with Islam.”</p>
<p>Cole suggested that these training materials had done damage domestically as well: “One of the many, tragic legacies of 9/11 has been an increase in prejudice, discrimination and hatred directed against persons of the Muslim and Sikh faiths and those who are, or who are mistakenly perceived to be, of Arab or South Asian descent. Some have wrongly sought to blame the horror of 9/11 on Arab-American, Muslim American, Sikh-American and South Asian American communities. It has led to attacks against places of worship and other hate crimes, to job discrimination, and to the tragic harassment of children in our schools.”</p>
<p>After sketching out this horror tale, Cole declared: “We must never allow our sorrow and anger at the senseless attack of 9/11 to blind us to the great gift of our diversity.” And this, he said, must involve a rejection of the stereotyping of Muslims: “All of us must reject any suggestion that every Muslim is a terrorist or that every terrorist is a Muslim.  As we have seen time and again – from the Oklahoma City bombing to the recent attacks in Oslo, Norway – no religion or ethnicity has a monopoly on terror.” It was George Bush, he said, who after 9/11 “made clear to the nation that these terrorist acts were committed by individuals who distort the peaceful religion of Islam,” and now all government analysis of jihad terror would reflect that perspective.</p>
<p>Of course, the controversial training materials did not really claim that all Muslims are terrorists or that all terrorists are Muslims, and it is noteworthy that Cole had to resort to dismissive caricatures to make his point. For in taking this course, the Obama Administration is bowing to pressure from the Hamas-linked Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) and other Islamic advocacy groups. In a <a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-almarayati-fbi-20111019,0,4282951.story">Los Angeles Times op-ed</a> that appeared on the same day as the conference in Washington, Salam al-Marayati of the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) roundly criticized existing training materials about jihad terror and demanded that the FBI and the Justice Department “issue a clear and unequivocal apology to the Muslim American community; establish a thorough and transparent vetting process in selecting its trainers and materials; invite experts who have no animosity toward any religion to conduct training about any religious community to law enforcement.”</p>
<p>Al-Marayati complained that training materials reflected “bigoted and inflammatory views on Muslims, including claims that ‘devout’ Muslims are more prone toward violence, that Islam aims to ‘transform a country’s culture into 7th century Arabian ways,’ that Islamic charitable giving is a ‘funding mechanism for combat’ and that the prophet Muhammad was a ‘violent cult leader.’”</p>
<p>In this al-Marayati was simply repeating talking points from an “expose” of FBI training materials by hard-Left journalist Spencer Ackerman in <a href="http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/09/fbi-muslims-radical/all/1">Wired</a>, who has been conducting a campaign for some time to get the bureau to purge its terrorism training seminars of any hint of the truth about the global jihad and Islamic supremacism. Yet like virtually all Leftist and Islamic supremacist critics of anti-jihad and anti-terror material, Ackerman and al-Marayati take for granted that such assertions are false, without bothering to explain how or why. Apparently they believe that their falsity is so self-evident as to require no demonstration; unfortunately, however, there is considerable evidence that they are true, and that in banning such materials, the Obama Administration has essentially banned the truth.</p>
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