<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<rss version="2.0"
	xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/"
	xmlns:wfw="http://wellformedweb.org/CommentAPI/"
	xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/"
	xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"
	xmlns:sy="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/syndication/"
	xmlns:slash="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/slash/"
	>

<channel>
	<title>FrontPage Magazine &#187; Defense</title>
	<atom:link href="http://www.frontpagemag.com/tag/defense/feed/" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" />
	<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com</link>
	<description></description>
	<lastBuildDate>Wed, 31 Dec 2014 07:56:08 +0000</lastBuildDate>
	<language>en-US</language>
		<sy:updatePeriod>hourly</sy:updatePeriod>
		<sy:updateFrequency>1</sy:updateFrequency>
	
	<item>
		<title>Obama&#8217;s Assault on the Military</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/frontpagemag-com/obamas-assault-on-the-military/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=obamas-assault-on-the-military</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/frontpagemag-com/obamas-assault-on-the-military/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 28 Nov 2014 05:15:06 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Frontpagemag.com]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Defense]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[foreign policy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ISIS]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Restoration Weekend]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[security]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=246147</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[A distinguished panel diagnoses the frightening state of American defenses at Restoration Weekend. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><strong style="color: #232323;">Below are the video and transcript to the panel discussion “Obama&#8217;s Assault on the Military,” which took place at the David Horowitz Freedom Center’s 20th Anniversary Restoration Weekend. The event was held Nov. 13th-16th at the Breakers Resort in Palm Beach, Florida. </strong></p>
<p><iframe src="//player.vimeo.com/video/112671257" width="500" height="281" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe></p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p><strong>James Carafano:</strong> What I want to hear from your guy&#8217;s perspective is on all the issues we could be looking at in defense and foreign policy and everything now, what are you hearing and what do you think is important for folks to know.  So maybe, Jerry, can start with you.</p>
<p><strong>Jerry Boykin: </strong>Yeah, one of the things that I was very concerned about going into this year&#8217;s election was the fact that there was not enough being said about national security.  There was not enough attention paid, and by the way, for those of you veterans who are Marines, I want you to know that I don&#8217;t use big words so you&#8217;ll be okay.  All right and if you do have a problem with something that I say, just get with one of the Army veterans and he&#8217;ll translate it for you so.  I know I&#8217;m in trouble.  I was very concerned about a lack of focus on the national security, and obviously we&#8217;re here to talk about the military and I think that one of the things that people are not paying enough attention to is the destruction of our military.  I mean that&#8217;s kind of the title of our &#8212; our military is being devastated at the same time that all of our enemies, all of our potential adversaries are ramping up.  Nobody&#8217;s coming down but America, so what am I concerned about Jim?  I&#8217;m concerned about the fact that our military will not be capable of meeting the threats of the future and America is not focused on it and thank God for ISIS because if it wasn&#8217;t for ISIS there would have been no focus and no attention.  I&#8217;ll say this as a final thing.  Our military&#8217;s been at war for 13 years.  Our military is broken.  They&#8217;re tired.  Suicide is at an all-time high.  PTSD is rampant and families are falling apart at the seams, but we&#8217;re going to send 4,000 people to fight Ebola.  Now, let me just say I don&#8217;t know what glue our President has been sniffing, but if you really want to protect America, close that southern border and stop the terrorists from coming across.</p>
<p><strong>David Fridovich: </strong>Yeah, always a tough act to follow.  He is the senior guy here, by the way.  Name of the panel with the discussion is Obama&#8217;s assault of the U.S. Military.  That has an underlying assumption that he has a strategy against our military, and I would tell you that, that&#8217;s probably a falsehood as well because obviously he has a difficult time with strategy and articulating a strategy.  The difference between the ways, means and the ends, so what I think we&#8217;re suffering through is through a series of increments of benign neglect, where we&#8217;re not getting the attention but still being used.  I agree whole-heartedly with General Boykin, with Jerry that you can send people to Western Africa, but you certainly are going to add more advisors, but tie their hands and this has not been a discussion topic.  I think this is probably be something very good to take forward, and I think McKinnon said it today that it would be dead on arrival.  Congressman McKinnon said today that any more advisors going into Iraq without the proper rules of engagement to fully engage and beyond their advice is going to be dead on arrival into Congress and the same thing with any AUMF, and in terms of applied use of military force.  That also, unless it&#8217;s got the right rules of engagement, these kind of discussions are just on the periphery.</p>
<p>The real discussion is we&#8217;ve been used and used and used well beyond the capacity.  We have not recapitalized our force, our equipment manning, and it is now evident, and a systemic break across the force of the suicide rate as Jerry said, and also, I think you&#8217;ve got a combination of substance abuse, PTSD and the other injuries that we don&#8217;t really know what&#8217;s happened.  I think we talked about it last year a combination of traumatic brain injury being heavily researched, but very little done about so far.  That also fits into the PTSD portion, and then the substance abuse just has caused I think almost one veteran a day and I don&#8217;t know I forgot the numbers.  I just heard it, just a phenomenal amount of suicides, not just in the active military force, but also in the veteran force as well.  And these are system failures of wanting to use the force, but not wanting to renew the force and this is a conversation.  This is both Army officers, all army officers, the force that we love, being used and used and spent.  We&#8217;ll never say no to a mission, but we want to have the right things to do to them and that&#8217;s a conversation that needs to take place whole-heartedly.  Good place to start it is this year, but it&#8217;s got to be carried back to the people who can help make the decision.</p>
<p>We have opportunity now with the change in the Congress and the Senate, and I hope that we use that wisely.  It&#8217;s our moment.</p>
<p><strong>James Carafano:</strong> Yeah, we should get back to that point because I think it&#8217;s really key as to where we go from here.  Because I&#8217;d like to take that same question from a different direction, which is part of the reason why the force is stressed out is because of all the things we&#8217;re sending them to do.</p>
<p><strong>David Fridovich: </strong>Right.</p>
<p><strong>James Carafano:</strong> So this President&#8217;s remarkable.  I mean he&#8217;s an incredible strategist.  He&#8217;s managed to make every part of the world less safe for us, which is &#8212; how do you do that?</p>
<p><strong>David Fridovich: </strong>Yeah, good way of looking at it.</p>
<p><strong>James Carafano:</strong> But actually, one of the things that we&#8217;ve been doing at the Heritage Foundation is if you actually look at, there&#8217;s two curves.  As the world&#8217;s getting increasingly less safe, but if you actually look at all the documents that the Pentagon has produced consistently since 2010, it all tells you that the world&#8217;s getting safer and it&#8217;s all because of Obama and therefore we can spend less, have a smaller military and everything else and we haven&#8217;t had a real honest strategic assessment &#8211;</p>
<p><strong>David Fridovich: </strong>That&#8217;s fair.</p>
<p><strong>James Carafano:</strong> &#8211; since the President came in office. It&#8217;s extraordinary.  So one of the things that we&#8217;ve been doing is developing something called the Index of Military Strength, which is every year beginning this year, we&#8217;re going to issue a report that says this is where we stand today, and part of that is not only looking at the state that your military is in.  I want to get to that, but part of it&#8217;s also looking at the things you have to deal with in the world.  Where are the trouble spots you have to go in the state of where your adversaries are?  So one of the decisions that we made, when we were doing this, and what would be great, is we said well look, lots of bad things can happen lots of places in the world, but there are three parts of the world that are just absolutely vital, you just cannot get wrong and that is Europe and the Middle East and Asia.  And so we really focused on those three, and of course there&#8217;s no good news coming from any of them, but I&#8217;d be interested from your perspective is if you were talking to a new congressman or senator or somebody that was interested in running for President, and they asked you the question what&#8217;s the most dangerous part of the world, what really keeps you up at night, what do you really worry about?  What you&#8217;d answer.</p>
<p><strong>David Fridovich: </strong>I&#8217;m still and probably will be for a long time, I&#8217;m extremely concerned about Iran and will continue to be concerned about a nuclearized Iran because what that is going to do to the rest of the Mid East in terms of a potential nuclear arms race.  That&#8217;s what keeps me up at night that we continue to, you know, they buy time with negotiations and that time gives them more time to do whatever they want to do sub-surface, no pun intended.  That continues and the mixed message you get from Washington is, hey, this is great.  We have, the State Department&#8217;s wonderful about it, and I think besides the existential threat to Israel, you have got a grander threat to the rest of the Mid East.  You&#8217;re going to have the Saudis, you&#8217;re going to have Kuwaitis.  The rest of them are going to say, if that&#8217;s what&#8217;s going to happen over there, we&#8217;re going to need to deter as well.  We can&#8217;t rely on anybody else we&#8217;ve seen.  And that&#8217;s also part of the witness of the Obama administration establishing red lines that you do not commit to, commit force or anything to, and have those red lines just become pink.</p>
<p><strong>James Carafano:</strong> So November 24 is the deadline for a nuke deal.</p>
<p><strong>David Fridovich: </strong>It is.</p>
<p><strong>James Carafano:</strong> What do you think&#8217;s going to happen?</p>
<p><strong>David Fridovich: </strong>They&#8217;re going to push it off to the right again.</p>
<p><strong>James Carafano:</strong> Yeah.</p>
<p><strong>David Fridovich: </strong>I think they will.  They&#8217;ll find some way.</p>
<p><strong>James Carafano:</strong> Play rope-a-dope.</p>
<p><strong>David Fridovich: </strong>Yeah.</p>
<p><strong>James Carafano: </strong>Continue to get sanctions.</p>
<p><strong>David Fridovich: </strong>Correct.  Because they&#8217;re happy with that, they can live through the sanctions.  They just want to extend the time.</p>
<p><strong>James Carafano: </strong>Well, yeah, true, Jerry, because we talked about this because one of the reasons why Iran has to be our friend is they&#8217;re going to help us out with ISIS.  And I know that&#8217;s an issue that you&#8217;ve got some concern about.</p>
<p><strong>Jerry Boykin: </strong>Yeah, I do.</p>
<p><strong>James Carafano: </strong>I just ask the questions, folks.</p>
<p><strong>Jerry Boykin: </strong>Listen, this whole strategy of shifting our focus to the Pacific Rim, look, China&#8217;s a problem.  China&#8217;s a huge threat economically more than anything else probably, but we&#8217;re never going to get out of the Middle East.  We&#8217;re never going to get out of the Middle East first and foremost because we are dependent upon Middle East oil.  If we would drill here drill now, build a pipeline, become energy independent, we could get away from that.  And that&#8217;s a huge problem for us, but there&#8217;s another reason that we&#8217;re never going to get out of the Middle East, and that&#8217;s this little speck of land there called Israel.  We made a commitment to Israel in 1948 that we&#8217;d be there if they needed us.  Okay, this President, and I have &#8211;</p>
<p><strong>James Carafano: </strong>Yeah.</p>
<p><strong>Jerry Boykin: </strong>&#8211; and I want you to understand my children are Jewish.  Their mother is a Jew, so I am very passionate about Israel, but the idea that this President has not been anti-Semitic is absolute nonsense, and when I discuss this with my Jewish friends, they act like I&#8217;m an idiot.  We are going to be in the Middle East forever because we have made a commitment to Israel that we must fulfill and Israel is now, every time we ignore the threats of things like ISIS and the Iranian nuclear program and the serious threats coming out of Syria and other parts of the Middle East, every time we ignore that we do that by risking the future of Israel.  So I think that we are going to stay tied to the Middle East.  We have to stop Iran.  We cannot avoid this and this administration thus far has done absolutely nothing to stop Iran.  In fact, I think Jim would tell you the same thing.  They&#8217;re actually cooperating with Iran and Iran&#8217;s going to have a nuclear warhead and when they do, the first target is Israel.  The second target is Saudi Arabia and what&#8217;s America going to do about it?</p>
<p><strong>James Carafano: </strong>Yeah.</p>
<p><strong>Jerry Boykin: </strong>And the answer is thus far absolutely nothing.</p>
<p><strong>James Carafano: </strong>And I mean you can have this thing that they&#8217;re not disengaged from the Middle East, but, for example, you can think what you want about Benghazi and why those four men died and why it went down the way it did and what kind of response should have been in place, but the reality is today the footprint that the U.S. military has to respond in that part of the world is smaller.</p>
<p style="color: #323333;"><b>David Fridovich: </b>Oh great &#8211;</p>
<p style="color: #323333;"><b>James Carafano: </b>Smaller than it was on the day those four guys died.</p>
<p><b style="color: #323333;">David Fridovich: </b>Yeah, greatly reduced.  Right, yeah.</p>
<p><b style="color: #323333;">James Carafano: </b>So let&#8217;s go, let&#8217;s do that.  Let&#8217;s look at this from the other perspective of because the challenges in the Middle East are only on top of the problems we have with the rest of Russia and a rising China and a proliferating transnational terror threat.  Let&#8217;s look at the capabilities we bring to the table.  Let me ask you what part of the force you worry about the most, and for me this is a really personal issue.  There&#8217;s this thing called the hollow force, which is when you have a military and it maybe it looks fine on paper until they actually have to do anything and then people die.  So by my account, I&#8217;ve already been through this three times and I count my dad&#8217;s service.  My dad fought in the Korean War, and what we did in Korea was horrific, sending men into battle with sneakers and machine guns that didn&#8217;t work and ammunition that was rusted shut.  We survived that experience.  We had this horrific hollow force in the 1970s coming out of Vietnam, Jimmy Carter&#8217;s military.  I used to call it the Okay Army.  They were already old guys by then, but that was the one I was commissioned in.  Everything was okay.</p>
<p style="color: #323333;"><b>Jerry Boykin: </b>What?  You talking about us?</p>
<p style="color: #323333;"><b>James Carafano: </b>No, no it really was an Okay Army.  I didn&#8217;t have the troops I needed to train with but that was okay because we didn&#8217;t have any money to train with, and that was okay because we didn&#8217;t have any equipment to train on so everything was fine as long as we didn&#8217;t actually have to fight anybody.  Ronald Reagan did this and we all lived through that military, some miraculous effort to rebuild the U.S. military, arguably the finest military that&#8217;s ever been put in the field, and then under President Bill Clinton, the military was going hollow again.  I remember being with the Army Chief of Staff when the senior guys came in to talk about a deployment in Kosovo and they said we have to send 15,000 guys to Kosovo.  That&#8217;s going to break the back of the Army, that was a 15,000-man deployment and we&#8217;re heading off the cliff when 911 happened, but now if you look what&#8217;s happened the last 6 years.  The threat of the hollow forces is I think a greater than error and the difference between 2012 and 2016.</p>
<p>In 2012, we could have had a different President, could have made different decisions.  He could have fixed some alliances.  He could have made some investments, we&#8217;d have been fine.  In 2016, I think it&#8217;s going to be broken and just being real.  So I&#8217;d be interested from your perspectives, what part of the force do you worry about the most and why?</p>
<p style="color: #323333;"><b>Jerry Boykin: </b>There is no constitutional right to serve in the United States Military, it&#8217;s a privilege, but nobody has a constitutional right to serve, which is why we need to stop all this nonsense we call social experiments inside of our military.  We&#8217;ve got to stop it.  There&#8217;s no such thing as fairness in a war.  We got to stop it.  We&#8217;re destroying the readiness of our military.</p>
<p style="color: #323333;"><b>James Carafano: </b>Thanks.  So let me turn to the far left of the panel.</p>
<p><b style="color: #323333;">Jerry Boykin: </b>Oh my gosh.</p>
<p style="color: #323333;"><b>David Fridovich: </b>That&#8217;s painful you know that don&#8217;t you?</p>
<p><b style="color: #323333;">James Carafano: </b>Well, from their perspective he&#8217;s on the far left.</p>
<p><b style="color: #323333;">David Fridovich: </b>I know that I got that part too.  Of the more parochial, I&#8217;m much more concerned about the Army and primarily because while you do defend sea lanes communication and all that converse and all that, the Navy seems to be doing all right.  My parochialism has to do with the land force and the unnecessary requirement to actually occupy and interface with people on the surface of the earth, land, and also because special operations forces draw their force primarily from the Army.  If it goes from 570,000 to 420 or less, we won&#8217;t be able to maintain the two forces, the operational force, the divisions that Jerry talked about and the institutional force that creates and trains and grows young soldiers into older soldiers and capable leaders.  Which is also something that I found over the course of 37 years that&#8217;s unique to our military that we really do look after our middle management and understand that&#8217;s how things actually get done in the force that those lieutenant colonels and majors and colonels really run the force with that great NCO background that executes the orders.  That&#8217;s unique to us.  Foreign armies strive to that, to get there, but they don&#8217;t have that.  That&#8217;s being broken right now.  I also see a U.S. military in the hole that&#8217;s just kind of handcuffed because of sequestration; we used to be able to say we&#8217;re going to fight two wars.  We&#8217;re going to do a win or a hold and win.  No one can sight &#8212; and then from there you could figure out how many divisions and how many fleets and how many Air Forces you needed to do all that.  We don&#8217;t have a strategy we can wrap our brains around.</p>
<p>I believe the service keys are really handcuffed at this moment.  They couldn&#8217;t tell you, and I think the Army&#8217;s been beaten up a lot lately about telling their story what they&#8217;re supposed to look like in the future primarily because we don&#8217;t have a national military strategy.  We don&#8217;t have a national strategy.  We keep coming back to those words that what is it you want us to do.  If it&#8217;s these &#8220;eaches,&#8221; we&#8217;ll put together forces, but at a certain point you&#8217;re going to reach into that bucket and they&#8217;ll be nothing there, or if it&#8217;s there it&#8217;s not trained and ready.  That goes to your point, Jim, about the hollow force.  So it&#8217;s the point about what is it in the long term you envision this force doing, whether that long term be &#8212; I&#8217;d be happy with 6 months from now.  I&#8217;d be really happy with 3 or 5 years from now, we could build a force not just use a force.  And like I said earlier, we have to recapitalize the force itself.</p>
<p>The other part that I think that we&#8217;re missing is as the youth of the America looks, and I think this is your point about the privilege to serve, what is it that draws them to the military?  I think that&#8217;s a key part.  If they see the way the veterans are treated, they&#8217;re not that much more willing to come, so that&#8217;s the other part, the end state of how we do on the end in taking care of our veterans, whether they served 3 or 4 years or whether they served 30-odd years, but that&#8217;s the whole human dynamic to this, but it comes back to what&#8217;s the direction.  And we get our direction, we get the money from Congress, we get the direction from the President, and that&#8217;s again, that&#8217;s what&#8217;s lacking.</p>
<p style="color: #323333;"><b>James Carafano: </b>Yeah.  So I&#8217;m going to put one more on the table, which is the state of our nuclear and missile defense forces.  And Chuck Hagel came out and said he&#8217;s very worried about the state of our nuclear forces.  Chuck Hagel is a brick.</p>
<p style="color: #323333;"><b>Jerry Boykin: </b>Yeah, that&#8217;s true.</p>
<p><b style="color: #323333;">James Carafano: </b>If Chuck Hagel is woken up and worried about something, then you ought to be very, very afraid.  So we have about 10 minutes.  I want to put one more question out there because for me it&#8217;s really important and then I want to get in as many of your questions as we possibly can, so be ready.  So this is a really quick &#8212; so here&#8217;s my prediction: 2016, everybody running for President is going to be running against Obama&#8217;s defense and foreign policy.  Even if Joe Biden&#8217;s the candidate for the Democrats, he&#8217;s going to be.</p>
<p>Because everybody look at this, you look at what&#8217;s going on around the world today.  Nobody can say this is working.  Nobody can say our military&#8217;s better off, so they&#8217;re all going to find their way to see their thing, which I think&#8217;ll be a change for conservative Republican candidates differentiating their brand from a sense, from what the Democrats are going to say.  Because they&#8217;re all going to say, we&#8217;re going to do better than Obama too so just real quickly from both you guys.  What would you advise people to say about how they&#8217;re going to rebuild the American military and our presence to the world?</p>
<p style="color: #323333;"><b>Jerry Boykin: </b>Well, first of all, we&#8217;ve got to stop these budget cuts, they&#8217;re devastating our military.  Secondly, we&#8217;ve got do what we should have done when we went into this and that is start with an understanding and appreciation of who the enemy is in the future and then what the risks are and determine what we&#8217;re risking, we&#8217;re willing to take. So after you&#8217;ve done that we can come up with a reasonable, logical budget to include cuts in the defense budget.</p>
<p style="color: #323333;"><b>David Fridovich: </b>Right.</p>
<p><b style="color: #323333;">Jerry Boykin: </b>But we didn&#8217;t start with that.</p>
<p><b style="color: #323333;">David Fridovich: </b>That&#8217;s not that difficult.  I mean, that&#8217;s, what you describe is exactly the way it&#8217;s supposed to happen.  What are the threats or the long-term threats?  What are the forces that you need to go ahead and manage those threats in, defeat them without apology, defeat them?  Unconditional surrender is a very good term and then to take that and say this is the best case and let&#8217;s say what the requirements are to get the force that we&#8217;re going to need to do this and it&#8217;s a total joint force as well.</p>
<p><b style="color: #323333;">Jerry Boykin: </b>Let me say this and I&#8217;ll stop.  I could save the Pentagon a $1 billion this afternoon.  At 3:30, I can walk down the hall of the Pentagon and anybody&#8217;s that not in their office, I can fire them and they&#8217;ll never know they&#8217;re gone and we&#8217;ll save $1 billion this afternoon.</p>
<p style="color: #323333;"><b>James Carafano: </b>Can I get some hands? Some hands, yeah. Questions?  Yeah, question over here.</p>
<p><strong>Audience Member: </strong>But my concern is for the VA, for the veterans and how they are taken care of at the Veteran&#8217;s Administration and the care that is given to them, and also I&#8217;m concerned about the fact that I understand that Obama put out some type of literature to the veterans and end of life choices so that they would not take advantage of medications and medical equipment to shorten their life.  Because the administration realized that, they could save a lot of money if veterans did not enjoy a long life.  I&#8217;m concerned about that and my question is will Israel do &#8212; I have a shirt that one of my kids came back from Israel that says, &#8220;Don&#8217;t worry America, Israel&#8217;s behind you.&#8221;  Do we anticipate Israel doing the dirty work for the rest of the world with this wonderful relationship that Obama has built with Netanyahu and so forth?  And then and probably will come to pass that Israel has to do this.  What do you think?</p>
<p style="color: #323333;"><b>James Carafano: </b>So let me ask Jerry if you want to just briefly &#8211;</p>
<p style="color: #323333;"><b>Jerry Boykin: </b>Here&#8217;s what will happen, I think Israel is going to have to strike because America won&#8217;t and when that happens Iran will try to shut down the Straits of Hormuz.  The Saudis will go behind closed doors, open a bottle of wine, drink it and high five each other and then go to the U.N. and condemn Israel.</p>
<p style="color: #323333;"><b>James Carafano: </b>Yeah.</p>
<p><b style="color: #323333;">Jerry Boykin: </b>But they&#8217;ve got to do it, they&#8217;re reaching a point where there&#8217;s no, there&#8217;s no option.</p>
<p><b style="color: #323333;">James Carafano: </b>But they&#8217;ll be a &#8212; there&#8217;s another question over there and let me ask while we&#8217;re doing it.  Dave, you want to talk give me a brief assessment what you think of the new VA leadership?</p>
<p style="color: #323333;"><b>David Fridovich: </b>Not much.  I mean, I saw the 60 Minute thing and I think this President picks people who are going to get along with him, and not give share bad news.  It&#8217;s just, the service chiefs are like that.  I think the VA chief is like that.  I think General Shinseki, a man I still admire.  He used the military model where he trusted people.  He didn&#8217;t know everybody.  It&#8217;s not the same model, he got caught very short and I think a lot of veterans paid the price because of that.  It&#8217;s a difficult place to fix.  It&#8217;s going to take a long, long time.  The effort that you make is a phenomenal effort and all those other organizations, to include, now as a member of a Jewish organization, I appreciate what you do for us as well, all the other organizations but it&#8217;s a matter of, we&#8217;re going to have to have a concerted effort.  Again, it goes back to what is it you want it do.</p>
<p>And I will tell you, General Shinseki shared this with me, he said, this is well in his first term there, he said that he&#8217;s got the best job in the world.  He loves it because he&#8217;s taking care of the military.  What he didn&#8217;t realize was, he had been the Chief Staff of the Army, he could take care of that 570,000-person force.  Now he&#8217;s got the entire Department of Defense from World War II veterans all the way to the War on Terror veterans.  Population is immense with about a $440 billion budget not enough and here&#8217;s a man with great skills.  It&#8217;s going to take a concerted effort, so one guy for a couple months is not enough.  But it&#8217;s going to take groups like this asking those tough questions of their legislators and of the President to make sure they stay on task.  I&#8217;m not going to say you owe me, but I saw you, all the veterans and I know you all, this is a family crowd when it comes to that.  That&#8217;s the thing that stands between us and being a completely different country.</p>
<p style="color: #323333;"><b>James Carafano: </b>Right.  $22 million  and second largest federal budget.</p>
<p><strong>Audience Member: </strong>Yeah, I was wondering what is your opinion on the traditional lack of leadership to fight for the military by the highest levels of management in the military.  The shut up and do your duty mantra, it&#8217;s repeated over and over by the highest levels, that the generals are so worried about doing their duty, which means keeping my job that they don&#8217;t fight for the fighting force.  There has been no mention of anything about the VA crisis that&#8217;s been going on for 30-plus years from the generals themselves.  Is there any way that they can have their male parts put back on them so that they can fight for their troops?</p>
<p><b>James Carafano: </b>Well, let me ask Jerry if he still has his male parts?</p>
<p style="color: #323333;"><b>Jerry Boykin: </b>Yeah.</p>
<p><b>James Carafano: </b>It&#8217;s what it says here, I mean.  How are you?</p>
<p><b style="color: #323333;">Jerry Boykin: </b>I wrote an op-ed yesterday.  I don&#8217;t know if you&#8217;ve seen it, if you haven&#8217;t go to Breitbart and that was the whole focus on my op-ed and what I said was it is time for some generals and admirals to walk in and lay their stars on the table and tell the President I will no longer preside over the demise of this military.  It is time.</p>
<p><strong>Audience Member: </strong>But that is the last thing they want to do.  They need to be inside the machine to fight.  They don&#8217;t need to pinching out and walk away.  Maybe one, but they all just need instead of speaking up and risking their reputation on what they know is right.</p>
<p><b style="color: #323333;">Jerry Boykin: </b>Presumably you&#8217;d rather have a Leon Panetta that stays there, supports bad policies, and then gets out and writes a tell-all book.  No, the courageous thing to do is to standup and say I will not support this.</p>
<p><strong>Audience Member: </strong>Fighters fight and they need to fight from the inside in the &#8211;</p>
<p><b style="color: #323333;">Jerry Boykin: </b>Yeah, that&#8217;s a copout.  That&#8217;s an absolute copout.  That&#8217;s a copout.</p>
<p><strong>Audience Member: </strong>Gentlemen, thank you.  Jim, thank you.  It&#8217;s good to see you.  The last time I saw Jim was at a congressional hearing, where we testified together, but one quick point and then two quick questions.</p>
<p style="color: #323333;"><b>James Carafano: </b>But I was innocent though.</p>
<p><strong>Audience Member: </strong>That&#8217;s what they all claim.  You mentioned about the southwest border, as a former INS agent, we&#8217;re leaking everywhere.  We&#8217;ll talk about that tomorrow, but the southwest needs to be secured, but the whole system is permitting terrorists to enter and imbed themselves right now.  The two quick questions, No. 1, there&#8217;s been seemingly a purge of officials within the Army, which I find very disconcerting, so I&#8217;d love your comments on that.  Item No. 2, apparently, China has done a great job of stealing our technology with their new aircraft and so forth.  How do we address that issue?  So first, what do you read into the purge and second, how do we deal with this problem with the Chinese stealing our technology?  Thank you and thank you for your service gentlemen.</p>
<p style="color: #323333;"><b>James Carafano: </b>Pick one and I&#8217;ll give him the other one.</p>
<p style="color: #323333;"><b>David Fridovich: </b>Give him the other one, he&#8217;s pretty good.</p>
<p><b style="color: #323333;">James Carafano: </b>Which one you want?</p>
<p><b style="color: #323333;">David Fridovich: </b>He&#8217;s pretty good.  Stealing technology goes both ways, it does, but what we know from the open source is that we can find it is state sanction.  It&#8217;s state run, and they just give a very good blank face and shrug their shoulders and go, okay.  Yeah, we got it.  I don&#8217;t think that new fighter that you&#8217;re talking about is the one that they, they showed it off, but I don&#8217;t think that&#8217;s really the one that they really have is their highest level and I think you&#8217;re probably aware of that as well, but the technology, we&#8217;ve got to do a better job inside our own military defense industrial complex to secure it, and I think that&#8217;s a real issue.</p>
<p><strong>Audience Member: </strong>Do you think having the students at our school with the Chinese students &#8211;</p>
<p><b style="color: #323333;">David Fridovich: </b>Absolutely.</p>
<p><strong>Audience Member: </strong>They&#8217;re within the top ten number of students in our schools and I worry about the fact that we&#8217;re training our enemy.</p>
<p><b style="color: #323333;">David Fridovich: </b>Yes, it&#8217;s a great question and I&#8217;m in agreement with you.  It&#8217;s by design when you have that large of a population.  You have that large of a population you can almost mandate I want all of 100 million of you take this test.  The top 10 percent, 10 million, the top 1 percent of that become those engineers, get visas, go to America, go to Stanford, Cal Poly etc., etc. on the West Coast, MIT, Harvard, the whole area on the East Coast and inculcate and take back and then also get jobs in those places after a while.  So yeah, I would say it&#8217;s by design and because they&#8217;re generational, they can take their time and do it.  They&#8217;re very patient unlike us.  So yeah, I&#8217;m in agreement with you.  I&#8217;d love to talk more about just that, but part of the weaknesses and inherent weakness in our own system.</p>
<p style="color: #323333;"><b>James Carafano: </b>Yeah, I&#8217;m going ask Jerry to address the &#8212;  I didn&#8217;t want to jump on the cyber thing real quick because this is one area where Congress says, oh, we can actually get together and legislate on this.  And so there is a potential for legislation in the next Congress and the answer is these are serious threats so be careful what you ask for.  The Internet is the greatest engine of liberty and freedom and economic development that mankind&#8217;s ever created.  We don&#8217;t want to turn it over to the government to control it.</p>
<p style="color: #323333;"><b>Jerry Boykin: </b>Right.</p>
<p style="color: #323333;"><b>James Carafano: </b>We don&#8217;t need an Obamacare version of cybersecurity.  We don&#8217;t need a Dodd-Frank version of cybersecurity, so whatever legislation they pass it should do no harm.  I mean, the President&#8217;s already has policies that tax the Internet, bad idea to have net neutrality, which is nothing about being neutral.  It&#8217;s about empowering some people and disadvantaging everybody else, and about turning the Internet over to the United Nations and countries like China and Russia to run.  These are all incredibly bad ideas something we should be very, very concerned about.  Michael, we need to do a cyber-panel next time.  Okay purges.</p>
<p><b style="color: #323333;">Jerry Boykin: </b>The purging, I don&#8217;t think it&#8217;s what you think it is.  It&#8217;s not what you see, it&#8217;s what you don&#8217;t see.  A lot of these generals and admirals needed to go because they&#8217;d been involved in some pretty bad behavior so they needed to be fired.  Now, that said, there&#8217;s been a state of people getting into trouble.  So you have to ask yourself how did they get into these senior positions?  And I think it&#8217;s what you don&#8217;t see.  What you don&#8217;t see are those really good young brigadiers and major generals and rear admirals that are passed over because they are considered to be not supportive of the President&#8217;s agenda and people who will support it are put into those positions and then their real character comes out.  So that&#8217;s what I see as being the bigger concern about the purge.</p>
<p style="color: #323333;"><b>James Carafano: </b>Yeah, I want to say how often on David Horowitz&#8217;s panel do you hear about purging and male parts, really? So we have, okay.</p>
<p><strong>Audience Member: </strong>Question here, what if anything should we do about ISIS?  Do we care if ISIS wins or Iran wins or Syria wins?  Anybody who wins is bad anyway, why should we waste our treasure fighting ISIS?</p>
<p style="color: #323333;"><b>James Carafano: </b>So there&#8217;s an ancient Chinese saying the enemy of my enemy can also be my enemy and they all need to die, but Jerry?</p>
<p style="color: #323333;"><b>Jerry Boykin: </b>Well, first of all it&#8217;s important to understand that ISIS, once they&#8217;ve accomplished what they&#8217;re trying to accomplish in Iraq and Syria, where do you think they&#8217;re going to go next?  Some would speculate they&#8217;re going to go into the Persian Gulf, but I speculate their next big target for credibility globally is Israel.</p>
<p style="color: #323333;"><b>David Fridovich: </b>Is Israel.</p>
<p><b style="color: #323333;">Jerry Boykin: </b>So I go back to what I&#8217;ve said, we&#8217;ve got to support Israel.  Now, if our blood and treasure, trust me, it means a great deal to me.  That said, we either fight ISIS there or we fight them on the streets of America.  It&#8217;s just that plain and simple and when, thank you, but when the members of Congress standup and say as Chaffetz did and who was the other one?  Was it Jordan or something?  Forget who it was.  ISIS is in America.</p>
<p style="color: #323333;"><b>David Fridovich: </b>Yeah.</p>
<p><b style="color: #323333;">Jerry Boykin: </b>We&#8217;ve caught a dozen of them coming across the border.  Ask Robert Spencer. They&#8217;re in America.  ISIS is in America and more are coming because they&#8217;re coming into the South America and Central America and they&#8217;re making their way up across our border.  They&#8217;re coming across our border.  Their Korans, prayer rugs and terrorist training manuals in the &#8212; on the American side of the border.  We fight them there or we fight them here.</p>
<p style="color: #323333;"><b>David Fridovich: </b>Yes, and Dr. Bob, they said that they were coming.  They said, I mean they gave us a message.  It just said, hey, look we&#8217;re coming and we&#8217;re running that play, get ready, and again, like I cited before, generationally, they&#8217;ll wait a long time, but they&#8217;ll get here.  Make it an away game, kill them there, and be prepared to kill them here.</p>
<p><strong>Ken Timmerman: </strong>Generals, Ken Timmerman, I wanted to ask you a question about Benghazi.  I spoke to people at Africa Command when I was doing my book Dark Horses: The Truth about What Happened in Benghazi.  You know that General Carter Ham has said two things to Congress.  The first is that they looked at the possibility of doing an overflight over the annex and they said that it wouldn&#8217;t make any difference so let&#8217;s not do it, and the second thing he said, when he was asked by Jason Chaffetz precisely, why didn&#8217;t you do everything you possibly could have done to bring forces to bear at the Benghazi?  His answer was we were never asked.  I wondered what your opinion is of General Ham.</p>
<p><b>Jerry Boykin: </b>Go ahead, David.</p>
<p style="color: #323333;"><b>David Fridovich: </b>Well, because I do have my male parts, in that situation I&#8217;ll be honest with you, I don&#8217;t know.  I know him very well.  We were brigadiers.  We were in the same cohort together, and I would up until that point I&#8217;d say, a good man.  Obviously, you&#8217;re getting a mixed message.  So am I.  I don&#8217;t know what happened.  I know that the part of the force that we come from would have made every attempt to get there no matter who was on the ground doing what.  We don&#8217;t care the odds, the rest of it, we&#8217;ll get there, we&#8217;ll get them out.  He&#8217;s lived that.  We&#8217;ve all had those get on the helicopter and go moments and you don&#8217;t second-guess.  You have Americans in trouble.  I&#8217;m getting chills now.  You have Americans in trouble, you go, and you take everything possible to get them out.  So I don&#8217;t know what happened and I don&#8217;t know why the mixed message, but that is clearly a mixed message, so if we&#8217;re both leaving confused that&#8217;s the answer.  Sorry.</p>
<p style="color: #323333;"><b>Jerry Boykin: </b>There was, for those of you who don&#8217;t know, Mr. Timmerman has written a pretty dog gone good book on this, haven&#8217;t you?</p>
<p style="color: #323333;"><b>James Carafano: </b>So we have copies out, there&#8217;s copies in the &#8211;</p>
<p><b style="color: #323333;">Jerry Boykin: </b>And it&#8217;s a good book and thanks for your question.  I think the military&#8217;s going to get pinged on this thing.  I think the military&#8217;s comfortable.  I think the military could have gone and could have made a difference and they didn&#8217;t, and this idea that we weren&#8217;t asked is a hyphenated word for that and in mixed company I won&#8217;t use it, but I&#8217;ll just say nonsense. Okay? The military could have gone and the idea that we left those four men there when they, when said look William Tecumseh Sherman said to Ulysses S. Grant in a letter on the 8th of March 1864, when he came out of Tennessee, he said I knew wherever I was that you thought of me and that you would come if I got in a tight spot.  That&#8217;s in American English that&#8217;s, an American value, violated at Benghazi.</p>
<p style="color: #323333;"><b>James Carafano: </b>Yeah, so we&#8217;re going to keep going until Mike gives me the high signs.</p>
<p><strong>Audience Member: </strong>Two quick things, how can we address the restrictive rules of engagement for our troops and sort of, what I see as a cultural shift in our military?  It&#8217;s anecdotal but I think that even West Point is much more liberal in its mindset now.  Can you talk about those things please?</p>
<p><b>David Fridovich: </b>The rules of engagement, commanders do have the right to push back on the rules of engagement that they need.  So they go into an environment and you&#8217;re asking me to do X.  I mean, I lived this in the Southern Philippines.  They said hey, here are the state and we go okay and we would go back and we would get very creative with the rules engagement so much so that when yeah, Paul Wolfowitz showed up to visit us to visit us in the Southern Philippines we briefed him.  We were very honest.  We&#8217;re transparent, we said here&#8217;s the situation and he said okay.  I&#8217;d wish you wouldn&#8217;t get as creative as you are to get the work done, but what do you need from me to get that done and we told him what we needed and we got re-written rules of engagement when Rumsfeld was on leave, which was the Secretary Defense.  And he signed, I mean that&#8217;s what happens and he signed the order and shot it out.  We were good.  It might have been just an afternoon off, but it was enough.</p>
<p>Commanders have the responsibility in the field and operationally to go back and say you&#8217;re putting these guys in harms&#8217; way here&#8217;s, what I need and keep pushing.  And saying, because it&#8217;s not yes, the President&#8217;s going to say hey, I&#8217;m assuming the risk.  He&#8217;s not assuming the risk.  It&#8217;s that force on the ground, it&#8217;s that force in the sea, on the air that&#8217;s assuming the risk and they need to know.</p>
<p>So when we jump out of an airplane, you have two parachutes, a main that&#8217;s supposed to work and a reserve.  You don&#8217;t ask permission to pull your reserve.  If the main&#8217;s not working, you know what you&#8217;re supposed to do to save your life.  Why would we ever put people in a situation where they don&#8217;t have that choice, and that&#8217;s what I believe in and I believe commanders.  This is where it gets to the other gentleman&#8217;s comment, commanders to safeguard the thing that they love, the force, have got to go back and say wait a minute.  Here&#8217;s the situation.  We&#8217;ve assessed the ground situation.  It&#8217;s real.  Here&#8217;s what we need to be able to safeguard our force.  Nothing you, nothing a commander or even the commander in chief can ever say well, limit the soldiers&#8217;, sailors&#8217;, airmen, Marines&#8217; inherent right of self-defense, and that&#8217;s the start point of everything.</p>
<p style="color: #323333;"><b>James Carafano: </b>I really want to add though that you can talk about culture all you want, this generation of soldiers like every generation of Americans is the greatest generation.  They&#8217;re an unbelievable group of young men and women.</p>
<p style="color: #323333;"><b>David Fridovich: </b>Yeah.</p>
<p><b style="color: #323333;">James Carafano: </b>I remember a couple years ago coming to a Horowitz event and they had Tibor Rubin here, who is an incredible Medal of Honor winner from the Korean War, and you ask how can anybody have that kind of courage and the truth is all of them have that courage.  And this generation of kids, they are the best that you could ask for and God bless them the ones that fight for us, they really are.</p>
<p><strong>Audience Member: </strong>Yes and thank you.  I would just like to submit that everything that&#8217;s been discussed here is just the symptoms, and that one only need read Obama&#8217;s own books and then read Dinesh D&#8217;Souza&#8217;s analysis of those books to conclude that this is not an accident.  This guy I wish he were incompetent.  He is not incompetent.  He&#8217;s the most competent President we&#8217;ve ever had.  They just think that you want to go to Los Angles but he&#8217;s headed for Moscow.  This guy is malevolent and somebody like the Heritage Foundation or someone should start telling the truth.  This is not an accident.  You say foreign policy looks ad hoc, no.</p>
<p>If your goal is worldwide chaos, this guy gets an A plus.  If your goal is to destroy America, if your guy &#8212; I spent my whole life in the financial services business.  We were dominant, with Dodd Frank, but he&#8217;s killed it.  He&#8217;s destroyed financial services.  He&#8217;s tried to destroy the energy industry, but it&#8217;s too hard to control.  See the reason too big to fail was to make them all bigger, because you can control five big guys.  These oil and gas people, you can&#8217;t control, that&#8217;s what his problem has been.  But when are we going to face the fact that this is all intentional.  This is not an accident.</p>
<p style="color: #323333;"><b>James Carafano: </b>Yeah.  I don&#8217;t think the panel disagrees, so one last question.</p>
<p><strong>Audience Member: </strong>I wanted to ask now that we have &#8211; look I was on the board at Visitors of West Point 30 years ago and I used to lecture at the National War College.  What&#8217;s happening in the Army particularly in the military, but the Army most particularly, is really frightening.  What I have not seen and I&#8217;m going to ask you this question, I&#8217;ve not seen from the House Armed Services Committee, that the Republicans have controlled, and I&#8217;m wondering now that the Senate Arms Services Committee will be chaired by John McCain, the man who said that Samantha Power and Ms. Rice were perfect for their jobs.</p>
<p>What do you feel, will the Senate Republicans, will anybody stand up and take on and investigate what is in fact you&#8217;re describing the hollowing out, the purging of the military, the turning it into &#8212; all bureaucracies have leadership that is &#8212; people would rather get ahead than care about their country or anything else, and we&#8217;ve seen that now presently at the top of the military.  When will we, well, do you have any confidence in that?  Do you have any belief that we will see that coming out of this newly Republican-controlled Congress?</p>
<p style="color: #323333;"><b>James Carafano: </b>Jerry on that.</p>
<p style="color: #323333;"><b>Jerry Boykin: </b>I think that what you will see is you will see a sincere effort to stop the sequestration cuts as a first order of business and think that they are recognizing now that those cuts are way too deep and that they&#8217;re going to hollow out our military.  Now, will they succeed?  I don&#8217;t know.  Will Obama sign legislation?  I don&#8217;t know, but I think that you&#8217;ll see an effort to do that.</p>
<p><strong>Audience Member: </strong>That&#8217;s, my question is, all right, I agree on the sequestering, that&#8217;s one thing, I&#8217;m asking a different question. Will they go into what is a preplanned and clearly being executed effort to hollow out the moral leadership in the military particularly the Army?  Besides the sequestering, I want to know when you expect the Republicans, if ever, to standup on this issue and do you have any confidence in John McCain, as Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee will do that?</p>
<p><b style="color: #323333;">Jerry Boykin: </b>No.</p>
<p style="color: #323333;"><b>James Carafano: </b>Well, let&#8217;s just poll the panel. No.</p>
<p style="color: #323333;"><b>David Fridovich: </b>No.</p>
<p><b style="color: #323333;">James Carafano: </b>Okay so you&#8217;re 3 for 3. But actually, you bring up the really the most important point.  We always say what is our President doing?  What is our Congress doing?  And what really matters is what are we doing, all right?  So the most famous battle in American history is maybe Gettysburg, and at Gettysburg, the Union stood because one guy at the far left of the flank, who was just a guy.  He wasn&#8217;t a general, he wasn&#8217;t a President, he wasn&#8217;t a congressman.  He might have even been drafted.  He was just a guy and he was standing there, and they said if the Confederates get around you we will fall and if we fall, the army will fall and if the army falls the nation will fall and that person stood their ground.</p>
<p style="color: #323333;"><b>David Fridovich: </b>Yeah.</p>
<p><b style="color: #323333;">James Carafano: </b>So when you ask whose going to save this country?  Who&#8217;s going to make sure that the men and women that defend us have what they need then look around yourselves at the table because we are them. Thank you.  Thank you everybody.</p>
<p><b>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: </b><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"><b>Click here</b></a><b>. </b></p>
<p><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://horowitzfreedomcenter.us1.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=caa6f67f1482e6214d83be62d&amp;id=c761755bdf" target="_blank"><b>Subscribe</b></a><strong style="line-height: 1.5em;"> to Frontpage&#8217;s TV show, <i>The Glazov Gang</i>, and </strong><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="https://www.facebook.com/glazovgang" target="_blank"><b>LIKE</b></a><strong style="line-height: 1.5em;"> it on </strong><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="https://www.facebook.com/glazovgang" target="_blank"><b>Facebook.</b></a></p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/frontpagemag-com/obamas-assault-on-the-military/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>7</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Hagel Takes the Fall</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/robert-spencer/hagel-takes-the-fall/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=hagel-takes-the-fall</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/robert-spencer/hagel-takes-the-fall/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 25 Nov 2014 05:55:20 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Robert Spencer]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Defense]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[fire]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[hagel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ISIS]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Pentagon]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[resignation]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=245968</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Obama makes the Defense Secretary the scapegoat for his foreign policy failures.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/gty_chuck_hagel_obama_wy_141124_4x3_992.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-245969" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/gty_chuck_hagel_obama_wy_141124_4x3_992-450x337.jpg" alt="gty_chuck_hagel_obama_wy_141124_4x3_992" width="339" height="254" /></a>Chuck Hagel is out at the Department of Defense, and one administration official <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/25/us/hagel-said-to-be-stepping-down-as-defense-chief-under-pressure.html?hp&amp;action=click&amp;pgtype=Homepage&amp;module=first-column-region&amp;region=top-news&amp;WT.nav=top-news&amp;_r=0"><span style="color: #0433ff;">explained</span></a> that it was because “the next couple of years will demand a different kind of focus” – apparently one that doesn’t shed such a bright light upon the smoking ruin that is Barack Obama’s foreign policy.</p>
<p>Hagel may have sealed his fate last week, when Charlie Rose asked him in an interview about the decline of the U.S. military. “I am worried about it,” Hagel responded with unexpected candor, “I am concerned about it, Chairman Dempsey is, the chiefs are, every leader of this institution” – as <a href="http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2014/11/24/hagel-unchained-departing-defense-secretary-fire-parting-shots-in-interview-last-week/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">Bryan Preston of PJ Media has noted</span></a>, he perhaps pointedly left Obama and Joe Biden off this list of concerned officials.</p>
<p>Yet who is the single individual most responsible for the decline of the military? Hagel must have known the answer to that question when he added: “The main responsibility of any leader is to prepare your institution for the future. If you don’t do that, you’ve failed. I don’t care how good you are, how smart you are, any part of your job. If you don’t prepare your institution, you’ve failed.”</p>
<p>Did Obama take that as a reference to his steep defense cuts at a time when the world is on fire? Or did he object to <a href="http://www.newrepublic.com/article/120388/chuck-hagel-retires-despite-gop-attacks-he-became-israels-friend"><span style="color: #0433ff;">Hagel’s surprisingly cordial relations with Israeli officials</span></a>?</p>
<p>We may never know what the true story is. It may be that Obama chose Hagel, the sole Republican on his national security team, to be the one to take the blame for his spectacular misjudgment of the Islamic State, which he <a href="http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2014/sep/07/barack-obama/what-obama-said-about-islamic-state-jv-team/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">famously dismissed</span></a> in January 2014 as a “JV team.”</p>
<p>Did Chuck Hagel whisper that notorious analogy in Obama’s ear?</p>
<p>Or maybe Hagel is walking the plank for Obama’s insistence upon referring to jihad terrorists in Syria as “vetted moderates.” “We have a Free Syrian Army and a moderate opposition that we have steadily been working with that we have vetted,” <a href="http://www.jihadwatch.org/2014/09/obamas-vetted-moderate-free-syrian-army-collaborating-with-islamic-state"><span style="color: #0433ff;">said Obama</span></a> in September 2014. What was he working with them for? To get them to fight the Islamic State. Yet long before that, in July 2013, Free Syrian Army fighters <a href="http://www.orthodoxytoday.org/blog/2013/08/christians-massacred-by-free-syrian-army-terrorists-rebels/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">entered the Christian village of Oum Sharshouh</span></a> and began burning down houses and terrorizing the population, forcing 250 Christian families to flee the area.</p>
<p>This was not an isolated incident. <a href="http://www.worthynews.com/12470-free-syrian-army-massacre-christian-village"><span style="color: #0433ff;">Worthy News reported</span></a> that just two days later, Free Syrian Army rebels “targeted the residents of al-Duwayr/Douar, a Christian village close to the city of Homs and near Syria’s border with Lebanon….Around 350 armed militants forcefully entered the homes of Christian families who were all rounded-up in the main square of the village and then summarily executed.&#8221;</p>
<p>Then in September 2013, a day after Secretary of State John Kerry praised the Free Syrian Army as “a real moderate opposition,” the <a href="http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2013/09/07/Syrians-Rebels-Kerry-Called-Moderate-Post-Videos-Of-Their-Attack-On-Christian-Town"><span style="color: #0433ff;">FSA took to the Internet</span></a> to post videos of its attack on the ancient Syrian Christian city of Maaloula, one of the few places where Aramaic, the language of Jesus, is still spoken.</p>
<p>And <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/nov/23/us-air-strikes-syra-driving-anti-assad-groups-support-isis"><span style="color: #0433ff;">now the U.S. airstrikes against the Islamic State are reportedly being used by FSA fighters as a pretext</span></a> to join the Islamic State. If this is true, they were never going to fight the Islamic State, and were never “vetted moderates.” Obama’s whole Syria strategy is based on fantasy.</p>
<p>Is that Hagel’s fault?</p>
<p>It is November 2014. It is extraordinarily difficult, if not impossible, for Obama at this late date to blame George W. Bush for his foreign policy disasters. Another scapegoat had to be found. Hagel, with his unexpectedly warm relations with Israel (in sharp contrast to the chill between Israeli officials and Barack Obama and John Kerry) and concern over the gutting of the military as the jihad rages more violently than ever and the JV team controls a land expanse larger than Great Britain, was the logical stand-in. He is even a Republican!</p>
<p>And so he will be gone from the Department of Defense, as soon as Obama peers at his gaggle of sycophants and chooses one of them for a big promotion. Likely gone with Hagel will be any remaining obstacle to an increasing chill with Israel, and any murmur of dissent from Obama’s mad plan of demolishing the military while simultaneously expecting it to hold back the Islamic State, Ebola, and a host of other threats.</p>
<p>Times are tough when Chuck Hagel looks like a voice of reasoned pro-American foreign policy. And times are indeed very tough, and about to get a great deal tougher.</p>
<p><b>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: </b><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"><b>Click here</b></a><b>. </b></p>
<p><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://horowitzfreedomcenter.us1.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=caa6f67f1482e6214d83be62d&amp;id=c761755bdf" target="_blank"><b>Subscribe</b></a><strong style="line-height: 1.5em;"> to Frontpage&#8217;s TV show, <i>The Glazov Gang</i>, and </strong><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="https://www.facebook.com/glazovgang" target="_blank"><b>LIKE</b></a><strong style="line-height: 1.5em;"> it on </strong><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="https://www.facebook.com/glazovgang" target="_blank"><b>Facebook.</b></a></p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/robert-spencer/hagel-takes-the-fall/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>24</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>To Keep the Flame of Liberty Burning</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/geert-wilders/to-keep-the-flame-of-liberty-burning/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=to-keep-the-flame-of-liberty-burning</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/geert-wilders/to-keep-the-flame-of-liberty-burning/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 04 Nov 2014 05:47:00 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Geert Wilders]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[battle]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Defense]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Geert Wilders']]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Islam]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Jihad]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=244391</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Now is the time when everyone in the West must do his duty.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Picture-6.gif"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-244395" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Picture-6.gif" alt="Picture-6" width="313" height="207" /></a><em>Below is Geert Wilders&#8217; speech to the Danish Free Press Society in Copenhagen<wbr /> on Nov. 2, 2014.</em></p>
<p>Dear friends,</p>
<p>I am happy to be in Copenhagen again.</p>
<p>It is always a pleasure to return to this wonderful city – the home of my good friend and fellow freedom fighter, the Danish hero Lars Hedegaard.</p>
<p>It is always a privilege to be in the capital of the brave Danish people.</p>
<p>And it is always an honor to be a guest of your great organization.</p>
<p>The Danish Free Press Society is a beacon of light. For Denmark, for Scandinavia, for the whole of Europe, and for the entire West. Your staunch defense of civil liberties, such as freedom of speech, serves as an inspiration for many, including myself and my party.</p>
<p>On a moment like this, when the free world is in mortal danger, an organization such as the Danish Free Press Society is needed more than ever.</p>
<p>Exactly ten years ago, today, my fellow countryman Van Gogh fell as a martyr of free speech.</p>
<p>I remember that morning very well. The press came to my office to ask for a reaction, but hardly anyone could believe that what had happened was really true. We all realized that the Netherlands would never be the same again. Unfortunately few lessons have been learned since that horrible day in 2004.</p>
<p>Islam claims that Muhammad was a prophet. But Muhammad was not a  prophet; Theo van Gogh was a prophet.</p>
<p>Van Gogh saw what was coming. He spoke out forcefully against the danger of Islamization.</p>
<p>He had also just made a short movie, together with my then colleague Ayaan Hirsi Ali, about the plight of women in Islamic society. The movie was called “Submission.”</p>
<p>That is why he was murdered. His assassination should have been an alarm bell.</p>
<p>Van Gogh warned us in a strong language, as clear as the colors that his great-granduncle Vincent used when painting his landscapes.</p>
<p>He was a brave man. When he realized the danger of Islam, he did not run like a coward.</p>
<p>He would have hated to see how our freedom of speech has been restricted in the ten years since his death.</p>
<p>Ladies and gentlemen, dear friends, the more Islam we get, the less free our societies become. Not only because of the islamization but also because of the weak appeasers who call themselves politicians.</p>
<p>We are no longer allowed to crack jokes or draw cartoons if Islam feels insulted by it.</p>
<p>If you do so, your life is in danger, as Kurt Westergaard and Lars Vilks can testify. You might even get arrested, as happened a few years ago with the Dutch cartoonist Gregorius Nekschot.</p>
<p>Sure, the charges against Nekschot were later dropped. But if you value your life and if you prefer to avoid trouble, it is better not to do anything that might remotely insult Islam.</p>
<p>We are no longer allowed to tell statistical truths, as Lars Hedegaard experienced, when he referred to rape figures in Islamic families.</p>
<p>A murderer came to Lars’s door and the state authorities persecuted him for so-called hate speech. Sure, the Supreme Court eventually acquitted Lars. But if you value your life and if you prefer to avoid trouble, it is better to keep quiet.</p>
<p>We are no longer allowed to refer to scientific and historical research, as my friend, the brave Austrian human rights activist Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff, experienced.</p>
<p>In a seminar on the historical figure of Muhammad, she mentioned that he had a crush on little girls and had sex with a 9-year old. That is the truth.</p>
<p>But Elisabeth was convicted, and her conviction was even upheld by the Appeals court. Once again, it is better to remain silent if you want to avoid trouble.</p>
<p>But Theo van Gogh did not remain silent. And neither did Kurt and Lars and Elisabeth and Robert and the Danish Free Press Society, and my party, the Party for Freedom in the Netherlands, and so many other freedom fighters in the West.</p>
<p>We speak out. We will never be silent. Because we love our country. Because we love our freedom. Because we refuse to live in slavery.</p>
<p>Because we believe that without liberty, life is not worth living.</p>
<p>Liberty and human dignity, that is what we stand for.</p>
<p>We are the torchbearers for freedom. We are the torchbearers for democracy.</p>
<p>We are the torchbearers for a civilization that is far superior than any other civilization on earth.</p>
<p>Last Summer, my home town, The Hague, witnessed scenes which brought back memories of the darkest period in our history, the Nazi era.</p>
<p>Sympathizers of the Islamic State paraded in our streets. They carried swastikas, they carried the black flags of ISIS. They shouted “Death to the Jews.”</p>
<p>Instead of rounding up these hatemongers, the authorities did nothing.</p>
<p>When <em>we</em> warn against Islam, the authorities call it hate speech and bring us to court. But when the grim forces of hatred march down our streets, the police look on and do not interfere. It is a disgrace. It is a scandal. It is intolerable.</p>
<p>Islam is waging a war against the free West.</p>
<p>Indeed, we are at war. Only fools can deny it. Islam has declared war on us.</p>
<p>America and its allies are currently bombing the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq.</p>
<p>Excellent.</p>
<p>My party supports this offensive. I am glad that Dutch and Danish F16s participate in it and that our two nations stand shoulder to shoulder in this endeavor. We should liquidate Abu Bakr Al-Bagdadi and the other criminals who are leading the Islamic State.</p>
<p>But we have to do more than that.</p>
<p>Far more important than fighting Islamic State abroad, is the fight to preserve our own security in our own countries, in the Netherlands, in Denmark, in all the other European and Western countries. It is our homes that we must defend.</p>
<p>It is just to bomb the Islamic State in the Middle East. But our first priority must be to protect our own nations, our own freedoms, our own people, our own children, here, at home.</p>
<p>Recently, the Dutch authorities prevented some forty jihadis to leave our country, when they attempted to go to Syria to fight in the ranks of ISIS. Their passports were seized and they were sent home instead of jailed. These criminals now walk our streets and make them unsafe.</p>
<p>You may have heard that the jihadis who recently murdered  soldiers in Canada were also people whom the authorities had previously prevented to leave for Syria and who were not arrested but allowed to go free on the street.</p>
<p>Blocking the exodus of those who want to wage Jihad elsewhere and not detain them is sheer stupidity.</p>
<p>Keeping them here as free people means that they will hit us here.</p>
<p>We must hasten their exit instead of preventing it. But we must never allow them to return. Therefore, we must reinstate national border controls.</p>
<p>Nothing is more important than first protect our own countries from the Jihadis.</p>
<p>Let us restore our liberties, such as freedom of speech.</p>
<p>Let us defend our culture. Let us protect our people.</p>
<p>Let us make our nations free and safe again.</p>
<p>Let us be brave.</p>
<p>That is what we must do; that is our duty.</p>
<p>Let me ask you: Do our authorities actually do this?</p>
<p>Unfortunately not.</p>
<p>They fail to do their duty.</p>
<p>They fail to act accordingly.</p>
<p>They even lie to us.</p>
<p>Everyday, we hear Western leaders repeat the sickening mantra that Islam is a religion of peace.</p>
<p>Whenever an atrocity is committed in the name of Islam, whenever someone is beheaded in Syria or Iraq, Barack Obama, David Cameron, my own Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte and many of their colleagues rush to the television cameras to tell the world that it has nothing whatsoever to do with Islam. How stupid can you be.</p>
<p>Fortunately, the eyes of ever more people are opening to this reality.</p>
<p>In my country, a poll last June, showed that 65% of the Dutch are convinced that the Islamic culture does not belong to the Netherlands.</p>
<p>In France, 74% find Islam incompatible with French society.</p>
<p>In Britain, fewer than one in four think that following Islam is compatible with a British way of life. In Germany, over two thirds of the population think negatively about Islam.</p>
<p>Even in the Czech Republic, a country with hardly any Islamic population, almost two-thirds consider Islam a threat to society and 90% are afraid of it. And in Denmark 92% of your citizens believe Muslim immigrants should adopt Danish customs.</p>
<p>With every new terrorist crime, with every new attack, with every new beheading, it becomes clear to ever more people what the true nature of Islam is.</p>
<p>With every Islamic assault on our values, more and more people realize that Islam wants to conquer the world, that it is prepared to kill or enslave anyone who refuses to submit. And that it is ready to commit the biggest atrocities to achieve this goal.</p>
<p>My friends, we are gathered here today, because we are neither prepared to collaborate with evil, nor to appease it.</p>
<p>We say No to Islamic censorship. And No to the politicians who fail us.</p>
<p>During the past ten years, I have been living under constant police protection.</p>
<p>As you know, I am not the only one who has to live through this ordeal. Several people in this room are in the same situation. Our friends Lars and Kurt even came to stand eye to eye with fanatics who tried to slaughter them.</p>
<p>Of course – I repeat it wherever I go – of course, there are many moderate Muslims. I believe in moderate people, but I do not believe in a moderate Islam. There is only one Islam – the Islam of the Koran, the Hadith and the life of Muhammad, who was a terrorist and a warlord.</p>
<p>But even though there are many moderate Muslims, it is wrong to think that the moderates are a majority. They are not. A poll in the Netherlands gave shocking results. It is hard to believe, but almost three quarters of the Muslims in my country say that Dutch Muslims who go and fight in Syria are heroes. Can you believe it? Heroes!</p>
<p>And over two thirds of the Islamic population in the Netherlands consider the religious rules of Islam to be more important than our own democratic laws.</p>
<p>Equally terrifying was an article yesterday in the Dutch press stating that Mohammed Bouyeri, the murderer of Theo van Gogh, is still considered a hero today by hundreds of Dutch Muslims.</p>
<p>A few years ago, I called on Muslims to liberate themselves from the yoke of Islam, to choose for freedom. I wholeheartedly support Muslims who love freedom. So, I told them “Free yourselves. Leave Islam.” I still stand by this appeal. But this does not blind me to the present reality.</p>
<p>You may have heard that I will probably be brought to court again soon.</p>
<p>Three years ago, I was taken to court on hate crime charges. The court case lasted almost two years. Fortunately, I was acquitted.</p>
<p>But now, the Dutch judiciary is going after me again because I asked Dutch voters whether they want more or fewer Moroccans in the Netherlands.</p>
<p>Moroccans are the largest Islamic population group in the Netherlands. In The Netherlands the Moroccan problem is the problem of Islam.</p>
<p>I referred to Moroccans, not because I have anything against Moroccans but because they are overrepresented in the Dutch crime and welfare statistics. They also account for three quarters of all Dutch Muslims who leave for Syria to wage jihad. No-one in the Netherlands wants more Moroccans.</p>
<p>As I said, our leaders still refuse to defend our freedoms because they are either cowards or appeasers. This is why the task of defending freedom has now fallen on us. On you, on me, on ordinary citizens.</p>
<p>To this end, I have established the International Freedom Alliance IFA.</p>
<p>We want IFA to be the shield of all those who refuse to submit to Islamic tyranny.</p>
<p>The mission of IFA is to stop the Islamization of non-Islamic countries and to fight for the preservation of our freedom and democracy.</p>
<p>We want to stand firm. We want to preserve our civilization for our children and grandchildren. Because there is nothing more precious than liberty and freedom. But it has a price. And the price can be high. Sometimes a man must give all he can.</p>
<p>Our political leaders may fail us. But we, my friends, we will not fail.</p>
<p>There is a path we shall never choose, and that is the path of submission.</p>
<p>This is why we say: Yes to freedom! No to tyranny!</p>
<p>IFA aims to be a network of resistance fighters in all the countries threatened by Islam.</p>
<p>Friends,  I have good news from the Netherlands.</p>
<p>Today, the popularity of my party, the Party for Freedom, is at a high. An opinion poll published this morning shows that we have by far become the largest party in the Netherlands, with almost 20 per cent of the vote. 1 out of 5 Dutchmen would vote PVV today.</p>
<p>The policies that we stand for are also getting more popular than ever.</p>
<p>We want to stop all immigration from Islamic countries.</p>
<p>We want to stimulate voluntary re-emigration to Islamic countries.</p>
<p>We want to expel all criminals with dual citizenship and deprive them of their Dutch nationality.</p>
<p>We want to de-islamize our nation.</p>
<p>Dear Friends, there is a lot of work to do. We, the defenders of freedom and security, have an historic duty.</p>
<p>Our generation has been entrusted with a huge task: To oppose Islam and keep the flame of liberty burning.</p>
<p>I say it without exaggeration: the future of human civilization depends on us. Now is a time when everyone in the West must do his duty. We are writing history here.</p>
<p>So, let us do our duty.</p>
<p>Let us stand with a happy heart and a strong spirit.</p>
<p>Let us go forth with courage and save freedom!</p>
<p>Thank you.</p>
<p>*</p>
<p><em>Don&#8217;t miss <strong>Geert Wilders</strong> discuss <strong>The West&#8217;s Battle for Freedom</strong> on <strong>The Glazov Gang</strong>:</em></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><iframe src="//www.youtube.com/embed/69-nah7rIOc" width="460" height="315" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe></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>
<p><a href="http://horowitzfreedomcenter.us1.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=caa6f67f1482e6214d83be62d&amp;id=c761755bdf"><strong>Subscribe</strong></a><strong> to Frontpage&#8217;s TV show, <em>The Glazov Gang</em>, and </strong><a href="https://www.facebook.com/glazovgang"><strong>LIKE</strong></a><strong> it on </strong><a href="https://www.facebook.com/glazovgang"><strong>Facebook.</strong></a></p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/geert-wilders/to-keep-the-flame-of-liberty-burning/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>13</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Ze’ev Jabotinsky to Benjamin Netanyahu On Hamas</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/ronn-torossian/zeev-jabotinsky-to-benjamin-netanyahu-on-hamas/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=zeev-jabotinsky-to-benjamin-netanyahu-on-hamas</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/ronn-torossian/zeev-jabotinsky-to-benjamin-netanyahu-on-hamas/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 09 Sep 2014 04:00:30 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Ronn Torossian]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Defense]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Hamas]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Israel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Military]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Netanyahu]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[War]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Ze’ev Jabotinsky]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=240556</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Words of wisdom on the crucial task of protecting the Jewish State. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Zeev_Jabotinsky.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-240557" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Zeev_Jabotinsky.jpg" alt="Zeev_Jabotinsky" width="286" height="278" /></a>On Friday, the former Prime Minister of Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, threatened that Hamas would resume the rocket attacks against Israel on September 25<sup>th</sup>.  Haniyeh noted that Hamas will not demilitarize, nor will they “cooperate with any regional or international decision which would see its arsenal &#8216;against the resistance&#8217; harmed.” As he said, &#8220;Weapons are the holy light of the sanctity of the struggle and the land issue, and if they want to demilitarize its weapons, we will only agree if the occupier is also demilitarized and its leaves our land.&#8221; Hamas is clear on their mission to destroy the State of Israel.</p>
<p>Israel, on the other hand, values human life, and takes war very seriously.  The government of Israel made the difficult decision to accept a ceasefire.  Undoubtedly, President Obama pressured Israel, and Kerry and Obama succeeded in stopping Israel from destroying Hamas. Some sort of a fragile “truce” holds and undoubtedly the Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, may once again face the difficult decision very soon to strike forcefully.  Netanyahu undoubtedly values human life – and wants peace.</p>
<p>Netanyahu’s late father, Benzion, was known to have had a tremendous influence on his son &#8212; and Benzion was the longtime secretary to <a href="http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/ronn-torossian/zeev-jabotinsky-and-the-belgium-terror-attack/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">Ze’ev Jabotinsky</span></a>, the founder of revisionist Zionism.  Jabotinsky was a proud, strong nationalist whose ideology has influenced the leaders of many nationalist Israelis.</p>
<p>Amongst Jabotinsky’s wise words as he sought to create a fighting Jewish people was the quote, &#8220;We shall create, with sweat and blood, a race of men, strong, brave and cruel.”  As Hamas threatens Israel today, what would Jabotinsky think – and what would he urge Prime Minister Netanyahu to do?</p>
<p>At the Third World Conference of Betar, Menachem Begin (at the time the head of Betar Poland), and Jabotinsky had an exchange of words which are interestingly relevant to the very dilemma which Netanyahu faces today as he faces an enemy on his borders – and what to do.</p>
<p>Begin noted:</p>
<blockquote><p>With what means will we succeed in achieving our aims? We were taught to use moral pressure on the Western powers, and that Britain will honor her commitments to our nation. But in reality, the British only need take the Arab demands into account. The Arabs receive 95% and do not agree. They fight with their blood. And we who receive only 5%, how are we fighting? It is obvious that the disproportion of strength and honor between Israel and the Arabs must force Britain to first of all consider the Arab demands over ours. Zionism is an eternal idea but its realization will be delayed by decades if we continue on this path. We must fight – to die or conquer the mountain! The Israeli national movement began with Practical Zionism. Then there was Political Zionism. And now we must create a new Zionism – Military Zionism. Our examples will be Camillo di Cavour and Giuseppe Garibaldi. Cavour would have never achieved victory for Italy without Garibaldi.</p></blockquote>
<p>Jabotinsky retorted:</p>
<blockquote><p>Permit me to say a few strong words. As your teacher it is my duty. There are many types of noises in this world. There is the whistle and the noise of heavy machines. But I cannot bear the squeak of an un-oiled door because that noise serves no purpose. You are implying that there is no conscience left in the world and there is no room for such useless chattering in Betar. It is pure despair. With a broom we must sweep away these futile ideas.</p></blockquote>
<p>One wonders: Is there any conscious in the world, when a terrorist organization is supported by countless nations?  No one in Israel wants war – but an enemy devoted to destroying the Jewish people must be countered. It is a reality which faces the State of Israel every single day.</p>
<p>Similarly, Netanyahu must recall the words of Jabotinsky in the legendary essay “Ethics of the Iron Wall”:</p>
<blockquote><p>Human society is based on reciprocity. If you remove reciprocity, justice becomes a lie. A person walking somewhere on a street has the right to live only because and only to the extent that he acknowledges my right to live. But, if he wishes to kill me, to my mind he forfeits his right to exist – and this also applies to nations. Otherwise, the world would become a racing area for vicious predators, where not only the weakest would be devoured, but the best.</p></blockquote>
<p>There is no easy way.</p>
<p><span style="color: #0433ff;"><a href="http://www.algemeiner.com/2014/08/18/zeev-jabotinsky-would-take-on-iran-and-hamas/">Ze’ev Jabotinsky</a></span> wrote in 1929: “The Jewish people – all of us, 100 percent want peace.” Yet, he realized the importance of strength.</p>
<p>Prime Minister Netanyahu has no easy decisions – yet knows that he must protect the only Jewish State in the world.</p>
<p><b>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: </b><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"><b>Click here</b></a><b>. </b></p>
<p><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://horowitzfreedomcenter.us1.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=caa6f67f1482e6214d83be62d&amp;id=c761755bdf" target="_blank"><b>Subscribe</b></a><strong style="line-height: 1.5em;"> to Frontpage&#8217;s TV show, <i>The Glazov Gang</i>, and </strong><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="https://www.facebook.com/glazovgang" target="_blank"><b>LIKE</b></a><strong style="line-height: 1.5em;"> it on </strong><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="https://www.facebook.com/glazovgang" target="_blank"><b>Facebook.</b></a></p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/ronn-torossian/zeev-jabotinsky-to-benjamin-netanyahu-on-hamas/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>116</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>America: Unprepared for War</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/arnold-ahlert/america-unprepared-for-war/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=america-unprepared-for-war</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/arnold-ahlert/america-unprepared-for-war/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 07 Aug 2014 04:49:36 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Arnold Ahlert]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Cuts]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Defense]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Military]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Spending]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=237965</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Obama's determination to downsize the military -- and its catastrophic consequences.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p style="color: #232323;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/4401592829_ddb5cd5dd5.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-237966" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/4401592829_ddb5cd5dd5-450x326.jpg" alt="4401592829_ddb5cd5dd5" width="283" height="205" /></a>A bipartisan <a href="http://www.usip.org/sites/default/files/Ensuring-a-Strong-U.S.-Defense-for-the-Future-NDP-Review-of-the-QDR_0.pdf"><span style="color: #1255cc;">critique</span></a> of the Obama administration’s 2014 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) by the National Defense Panel is a devastating takedown of the administration’s determination to reduce America’s military to <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/military-spending-cuts/pentagon-set-slash-military-pre-world-war-ii-levels-n37086"><span style="color: #1255cc;">pre-WWII</span></a> levels. “Since World War II, no matter which party has controlled the White House or Congress, America’s global military capability and commitment has been the strategic foundation undergirding our global leadership,” the report states. &#8220;Given that reality, the defense budget cuts mandated by the Budget Control Act (BCA) of 2011, coupled with the additional cuts and constraints on defense management under the law’s sequestration provision, constitute a serious strategic misstep on the part of the United States.”</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">The report emphasizes the myriad number of threats of which most Americans are well aware, including “a troubling pattern of assertiveness and regional intimidation on China’s part, the recent aggression of Russia in Ukraine, nuclear proliferation on the part of North Korea and Iran, a serious insurgency in Iraq that both reflects and fuels the broader sectarian conflicts in the region, the civil war in Syria, and civil strife in the larger Middle East and throughout Africa.&#8221;</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Other threats include the &#8220;rapidly expanding availability of lethal technologies to both state and non-state actors; demographic shifts including increasing urbanization; diffusion of power among many nations, particularly rising economic and military powers in Asia; and heated competition to secure access to scarce natural resources.”</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">It further noted that the shrinkage of U.S. forces, resulting from the severe budget cuts imposed on our fighting forces constitutes a “serious strategic misstep on the part of the United States,” and that force levels in the president’s QDR are “inadequate given the future strategic and operational environment.”</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">The panel was also critical of the president’s reduction of the nation’s global mission has long enabled the military to fight two wars simultaneously, to one where we are capable of defeating one enemy while keeping another one in check. “We find the logic of the two-war construct to be as powerful as ever and note that the force sizing construct in the 2014 QDR strives to stay within the two-war tradition while using different language. But given the worsening threat environment, we believe a more expansive force sizing construct — one that is different from the two-war construct but no less strong — is appropriate,” the report stated. It called on Obama to expand his current mission statement—one driven far more by budget concerns than global threats.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Rep. Howard P. “Buck” McKeon (R-CA) <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/jul/31/obama-military-strategy-too-weak-future-security-p/?page=all"><span style="color: #1255cc;">addressed</span></a> the misplaced priorities. “It is the same conclusion many Americans have already reached,” he said. “There is a cost when America does not lead, and there are consequences when America disengages. What the president fails to understand — which the report points out — is that a strong military underwrites all other tools our nation has for global influence.”</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">The report, which concludes that the “Navy and Air Force should be larger,” reveals that we are moving in the opposite direction. It explains that the Navy is “on a budgetary path to 260 ships or less,” giving them far fewer ships than 323 to 346 previously recommended. The report further notes that an even larger fleet could be necessary “if the risk of conflict in the Western Pacific if increases.”</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">An even grimmer picture of the Air Force emerges, with the report explaining that it is currently fielding the “smallest and oldest force in its history,” despite the need to project a “global surveillance and strike force able to rapidly deploy to theaters of operation to deter, defeat or punish multiple aggressors simultaneously.”</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">The panel understands the fiscal challenges facing the government, but states that attempting to solve those problems on the backs of the military is not only &#8220;too risky,” but “won’t work.” “America must get her fiscal house in order while simultaneously funding robust military spending,” the panel concludes. In a shot across the administration’s bow, the panel explains that health care spending in the military and overall is “stunning wasteful,” consuming “more than a third of the federal budget.”</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">It’s actually worse than that, if one includes benefits and entitlements, driven primarily by &#8220;non-means tested government programs,” defined by the U.S. Census Bureau as those that provide benefits to Americans regardless of their income levels. In 2013, the federal government <a href="http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/ali-meyer/americans-got-2-trillion-benefits-federal-government-2013"><span style="color: #1255cc;">paid out</span></a> more than $2 trillion in such programs, which consumed 58.1 percent of the $3.4 trillion in total federal outlays. In the first eleven months of FY2013 the federal government <a href="http://cnsnews.com/news/article/terence-p-jeffrey/2472542000000-record-taxation-through-august-deficit-still-755b"><span style="color: #1255cc;">received</span></a> a record-setting $2.4 trillion in revenue, yet still ran a deficit of $755 billion. This year revenues are expected to top $3 trillion, but the deficit is still projected to be $648 billion.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Clearly something has to give. Unfortunately as far as the Obama administration is concerned, the welfare state, rather than the military that makes it possible, takes precedence.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">In fact, the administration has recently put the pedal further to the metal. At the beginning of the month, the Army <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/08/02/army-to-force-out-550-majors-some-to-get-news-while-in-afghanistan/"><span style="color: #1255cc;">announced</span></a> it will downsize the number of majors by 550, including some still serving in combat operations in Afghanistan. This move follows another recent effort to slash 1,200 captains from the force as well. &#8220;The ones that are deployed are certainly the hardest,&#8221; Gen. John Campbell, the vice chief of the Army told reporters. &#8220;What we try to do there is, working through the chain of command, minimize the impact to that unit and then maximize the time to provide to that officer to come back and do the proper transition, to take care of himself or herself, and the family.”</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">The cuts are being made among majors who joined the service between 1999 and 2003, and while some will have enough time on the job to retire, many won’t. The effort is all part of the aforementioned move by the Obama administration to reduce the size of the military from its current level of 514,000 soldiers to 490,000 by October 2015, and 450,000 by 2019. Automatic budget cuts currently in place could ultimately reduce the number of soldiers to 420,000— a number leaders contend would leave the nation incapable of fighting even <i>one</i> sustained military conflict.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">None of this was lost on the panel. Writing for National Review, House and Senate Armed Services Committee member, Rep. Jim Talent (R-MO), who was part of the panel, <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/384267/stunning-rebuke-our-current-defense-policies-jim-talent"><span style="color: #1255cc;">explains</span></a> that while there were the &#8220;usual arguments over specific wording and programmatic recommendations&#8230;the broad conclusions were easy to reach. In fact, they were obvious to anyone with eyes to see the rapid deterioration of our armed forces and the worsening global threats that became manifestly more dangerous even during the months the panel was deliberating.”</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">He then gets to the heart of the matter. Citing our &#8220;rudderless and sometimes unreal foreign policy, particularly in the Middle East,” he further explains that the problem &#8220;isn’t just an Administration that <i>acts</i> as if America is weak. The problem is also that America <i>is </i>weak, and becoming weaker, relative to the threats posed by its adversaries – which is the only measurement of military power that really matters.” This leads Talent to a stark conclusion. &#8220;The world will get a lot messier until that changes,” he warns. It is a warning the Obama administration ignores at its peril—and that of the entire nation.</p>
<p><b>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: </b><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"><b>Click here</b></a><b>. </b></p>
<p><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://horowitzfreedomcenter.us1.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=caa6f67f1482e6214d83be62d&amp;id=c761755bdf" target="_blank"><b>Subscribe</b></a><strong style="line-height: 1.5em;"> to Frontpage&#8217;s TV show, <i>The Glazov Gang</i>, and </strong><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="https://www.facebook.com/glazovgang" target="_blank"><b>LIKE</b></a><strong style="line-height: 1.5em;"> it on </strong><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="https://www.facebook.com/glazovgang" target="_blank"><b>Facebook.</b></a></p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/arnold-ahlert/america-unprepared-for-war/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>38</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Ze’ev Jabotinsky on Truce &amp; the Battle for Israel</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/ronn-torossian/zeev-jabotinsky-on-truce-the-battle-for-israel/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=zeev-jabotinsky-on-truce-the-battle-for-israel</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/ronn-torossian/zeev-jabotinsky-on-truce-the-battle-for-israel/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 07 Aug 2014 04:10:53 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Ronn Torossian]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Defense]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Hamas]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Israel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Jabotinsky]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Terrorism]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=237952</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Prophetic insights from an Israeli founding father. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/sold.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-237992" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/sold-358x350.jpg" alt="sold" width="273" height="267" /></a>While a fragile &#8220;truce&#8221; holds and Israel prays for quiet, undoubtedly the Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, is strategizing his next move. As he thinks, without a question he considers Jewish history. His father, Benzion Netanyahu, was known to have a tremendous influence on his son – and Benzion was Ze’ev Jabotinsky’s secretary.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/ronn-torossian/zeev-jabotinsky-and-the-belgium-terror-attack/">Ze’ev Jabotinsky</a> is considered the forefather of the movement Netanyahu leads today – and made countless statements which are relevant today. As is said, history repeats itself:</p>
<blockquote><p><em>Everything connected with war is “evil” and “good” does not exist at all. When you fire at the enemy do not lie to yourself and do not imagine that you are shooting at the “guilty”… if at that time we would have begun to calculate what was preferable – the result would have been simple: if you want to be “good” allow yourself to be killed and forego all that you made it your aim to defend: home, country, freedom, hope. The Romans used to say: “always choose the lesser of two evils. When you are faced with a situation where the exertion of force prevails, only one question may be presented: “which is worse?”</em> [Jabotinsky in Story of The Jewish Legion.]</p></blockquote>
<p>No one in Israel wants war – but an enemy devoted to destroying the Jewish people must be countered. It is a reality which faces the State of Israel every single day.</p>
<blockquote><p><em>Human society is based on reciprocity. If you remove reciprocity, justice becomes a lie. A person walking somewhere on a street has the right to live only because and only to the extent that he acknowledges my right to live. But, if he wishes to kill me, to my mind he forfeits his right to exist – and this also applies to nations. Otherwise, the world would become a racing area for vicious predators, where not only the weakest would be devoured, but the best. </em>[Jabotinsky in Ethics of the Iron Wall.]</p></blockquote>
<p>Sometimes, force is the only way.</p>
<blockquote><p><em>Justice means that everyone receives that which he deserves, especially those that have nothing will receive at least something: for example, a nation which has become stateless should be given a country of its own. We Jews too are candidates for this form of justice as equally as others. For as long as we do not obtain that which we deserve, the world is in fact perpetrating an injustice. Anything that hinders the attainment of our just demands is in principle an injustice… If ours is a righteous demand than anything that threatens its implementation loses the right to cloak itself with lofty phraseology…. Its true name is nothing other than – criminal. </em>[Jabotinsky in a speech, July 8, 1927.]</p></blockquote>
<p>Only when it involves Israel does the whole world call for a “cease-fire.”As Jabotinsky said in 1940, “Life is not always logical.”</p>
<p>Amidst criticism that Israel faces world pressure, and should sacrifice to comply with “world leaders,” <a href="http://www.truthrevolt.org/israel-revolt/torossian-zeev-jabotinsky-had-it-right-justice-must-be-done">Ze’ev Jabotinsky</a> wrote a clear answer in The Story of The Jewish Legion:</p>
<blockquote><p><em>“Everybody is wrong and you alone are right?” No doubt this question springs by itself to the reader’s lips and mind. It is customary to answer this with apologetic phrases to the effect that I fully respect public opinion that I bow to it, that I was glad to make concessions….All this is unnecessary, and all this is untrue. You cannot believe in anything in the world, if you admit even once that perhaps your opponents are right, and not you. This is not the way to do things. There is but one truth in the world, and it is all yours. If you are not sure of it, stay at home; but if you are sure, don’t look back, and it will be your way.</em></p></blockquote>
<p>Remember the work of <a href="http://www.algemeiner.com/2012/04/01/ze%E2%80%99ev-jabotinskys-answer-to-hypocrisy/">Ze’ev Jabotinsky</a> &#8211; Israel must stand strong against her enemies.</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>
<p><a href="http://horowitzfreedomcenter.us1.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=caa6f67f1482e6214d83be62d&amp;id=c761755bdf"><strong>Subscribe</strong></a><strong> to Frontpage&#8217;s TV show, <em>The Glazov Gang</em>, and </strong><a href="https://www.facebook.com/glazovgang"><strong>LIKE</strong></a><strong> it on </strong><a href="https://www.facebook.com/glazovgang"><strong>Facebook.</strong></a></p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/ronn-torossian/zeev-jabotinsky-on-truce-the-battle-for-israel/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>4</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Israel’s Morally Impossible Self-Defense</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/richard-l-cravatts/israels-morally-impossible-self-defense/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=israels-morally-impossible-self-defense</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/richard-l-cravatts/israels-morally-impossible-self-defense/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 24 Jul 2014 04:49:17 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Richard L. Cravatts]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[condemnation]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Defense]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Hamas]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Israel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Left]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=236821</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The only nation that is required to enter a suicide pact with its enemies.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/gh2.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-236822" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/gh2-450x253.jpg" alt="Israeli soldiers stand in front of Western Wall in Jerusalem's Old City" width="327" height="184" /></a>Seeming to give credence to Orwell’s observation that “Everyone believes in the atrocities of the enemy and disbelieves in those of his own side, without ever bothering to examine the evidence,” the world’s attention has turned once again to the clash between Hamas and Israel, as the Jewish state launches its ground incursion into Gaza in what is being called Operation Protective Edge. And predictably, as the body count rises on the Palestinian side, the moral arbiters of acceptable political behavior have begun condemning the Jewish state for its perceived abuses in executing its national self-defense.</p>
<p>Forgetting that Israel’s current campaign was necessitated by ceaseless rocket and mortar assaults on its southern towns from Hamas-controlled Gaza, international leaders and diplomats have initiated their moral hectoring of Israel as it attempts to shield its citizens from harm. Britain’s deputy Prime Minister, Nicolas Clegg, was <a href="http://www.barenakedislam.com/2014/07/18/uk-deputy-prime-minister-says-israeli-strikes-on-gaza-are-deliberately-disproportionate/">adamant</a> that Israel cease its self-defense. “I really would now call on the Israeli government to stop,” he said. “They have proved their point,” and had done so, in his opinion, through a deliberately “disproportionate form of collective punishment.”</p>
<p>UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, who presides over a morally bankrupt group comprised largely of despotic, authoritarian regimes, <a href="http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3179848/posts">was quick to decide</a> that “Too many” Palestinian civilians have been killed, and that he “feels a sense of responsibility for the Palestinians who, especially in the Gaza Strip, have long been denied the sense of freedom and dignity that they deserve,” presumably overlooking those same human rights being denied to Israelis who have lived under a rain of rockets since 2005.</p>
<p>But the most insidious refrain, one uttered only when Israel’s enemies are killed (certainly not when Jews are murdered), is that Israel’s military response is too aggressive, that the force and effect of the excursion into Gaza are beyond what is permitted under human rights law and the rules of war. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, for instance, <a href="http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/middle-east/2014/07/09/Israel-hits-160-Gaza-Strip-targets-overnight.html">brushed aside any talk of justifiable self-defense</a>, asserting that “. . . Israel is not defending itself, it is defending settlements, its main project.” Moreover, the deaths so far of some 200 Palestinians in the latest incursion is, according to Mr. Abbas, tantamount to “. . . genocide—the killing of entire families is genocide by Israel against our Palestinian people,” indicating both an ignorance of what that term actually signifies and a blindness to actual genocides occurring presently at the hand of his co-religionists elsewhere in the world.</p>
<p>The UN’s Humanitarian Coordinator for the Occupied Palestinian Territories, James Rawley, <a href="http://reliefweb.int/report/occupied-palestinian-territory/remarks-humanitarian-coordinator-occupied-palestinian">had thoughts</a> only for the Palestinian victims of the conflict, sanctimoniously announcing that the Israeli response must be “proportionate” to the threats posed by Hamas attacks, and that “Our thoughts must first be with those many [Palestinian] civilians who have already lost their lives, and the even greater number of who have suffered physical or psychological injuries.”</p>
<p>The remonstrations of its many and far-flung critics aside, Israel is not the international outlaw here, but a victim now involved in a defensive countermeasure to terrorism against its citizenry. In fact, in a 2008 <a href="http://www.jcpa.org/text/puzzle1.pdf">report</a>, Justus Reid Weiner and Dr. Avi Bell, two legal scholars at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, noted that Hamas’s shelling of civilian targets within Israel’s borders—the direct cause of the current conflict—clearly violates international law and requires a military response from Israel, even though world observers have been oddly silent on the Palestinian incitement that is the cause of the present clashes.</p>
<p>“The Palestinian attacks,” they wrote, “violate one of the most basic rules of international humanitarian law, the rule of distinction, which requires combatants to aim all their attacks at legitimate targets – enemy combatants or objects that contribute to enemy military actions. Violations of the rule of distinction – attacks deliberately aimed at civilians or protected objects as such – are war crimes,” exactly what Hamas has been committing with its relentless rocket assaults. Hamas militants not only commit a war crime each time they lob a rocket or mortar into Israel from Gaza by virtue of the fact that the targets of those attacks are specifically and purposely civilian, not military, assets—a violation of the “distinction” rule—but also, in not wearing military uniforms and often posing as civilians, Hamas terrorists are also committing another crime, that of perfidy.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.icrc.org/ihl/4e473c7bc8854f2ec12563f60039c738/8a9e7e14c63c7f30c12563cd0051dc5c?OpenDocument">Article 48 of Additional Protocol I of the Geneva Conventions of 1949</a> is very clear about this prohibited behavior of combatants, stating that “[i]n order to ensure respect for and protection of the civilian population and civilian objects, the Parties to the conflict shall at all times distinguish between the civilian population and combatants and between civilian objects and military objectives and accordingly shall direct their operations only against military objectives.” Since the rockets Hamas aims at southern Israeli towns are launched randomly into civilian enclaves, and lack the technical sophistication to reliably be aimed at military targets even if that was Hamas’s actual intention, each of the 12,000 or so rockets that have come into Israel from Gaza since 2005 (including over 1000 this month alone) represents both an <em>causis belli</em> and a war crime.</p>
<p>“It is a central principle of just war theory,” <a href="http://strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pubs/parameters/articles/09spring/walzer.pdf">observed</a> Dr. Michael Walzer, Professor Emeritus at the Institute for Advanced Study, “that the self-defense of a people or a country cannot be made morally impossible.” Israel faces that precise dilemma every time it is forced to suppress Palestinian aggression and protect its populace from unending rocket assaults, particularly since its actions are widely and almost immediately denounced as excessive, disproportionate, and in violation of international law. Perceived as having unjustly dispossessed the Palestinians and accused of still occupying both the West Bank but also Gaza (and holding the latter under siege), and collectively punishing the Palestinian Arabs living there, Israel has been stripped of its moral standing in the community of nations and so its attempts at self-defense are at best tolerated.</p>
<p>Rather than serving as a deterrent against attacks of terrorists, Israel’s military strength and capabilities are instead looked at as an unfair advantage in the asymmetrical war in which it finds itself. Few leaders in the West and none in the Arab world ever condemn Hamas for its chronic, unlawful terroristic behavior toward Israel, but the moment Israel undertakes military action it receives strict warnings for restraint, censure for its success in neutralizing Hamas strongholds, and eventual condemnation for the inevitable deaths of civilians—the collateral damage that is the tragic byproduct of conflicts fought in neighborhoods rather than battlefields.</p>
<p>Israel, which is promiscuously condemned for committing “crimes against humanity” and human rights violations, not only waited years before responding to Palestinian terrorism, but then, in one of the most populous areas on earth, scrupulously followed the rule of distinction by precisely targeting Hamas terrorists and infrastructure, with minimal, though still unfortunate, collateral damage to the Gaza civilian population – a feat made all the more difficult by Hamas’s insidious tactic of embedding rocket launchers and armament stores within homes, apartment buildings, schools, and mosques in residential neighborhoods.</p>
<p>Combat in the crowded streets and alleys of Gaza obviously makes warfare more difficult for Israel, especially in its attempt to minimize civilian casualties while maximizing the suppression of enemy fire and attempting to neutralize Hamas’s ability to continue to pose a threat in the future. Since, as mentioned, Hamas militants do not wear identifying uniforms, and embed themselves within civilian environments, Israel’s effort to maintain “distinction”— that is, scrupulously determining who is a legitimate military target and who is a civilian— is normally challenging and dangerous. And, knowing that the world community is apt to be harsh about any civilian deaths that result from Israel’s offensive—even though it Hamas who has created the circumstances by which those civilians will and have perished—Israel has resorted to extraordinary measures to avoid the death of non-combatants, including “knocking” on roofs to warm of imminent bombardment, distributing flyers, and using other warning techniques, all of which compromise Israel’s strategic advantage while helping to minimize civilian deaths. Even so, when the inevitable Palestinian civilian deaths occur (which seem to be a welcomed part of Hamas’s cognitive war against Israel), Israel is accused of violating the rule of “proportionality,” the other aspect of warfare which international law requires that prohibits a military response that causes more civilian deaths than would be considered necessary in achieving a set military objective.</p>
<p>In fact, collateral damage – the accidental killing of civilians during military conflicts – is itself allowed by international law, provided the actions that caused the civilian deaths are not, according to Weiner and Bell, excessive in relation to the military need. But the fact that deaths occur in civilian populations – even what might be perceived as excessive deaths – are not in and of themselves indicative of violations of international law, and, says Weiner and Bell, “if a state, like Israel, is facing aggression, then proportionality addresses whether force was specifically used by Israel to bring an end to the armed attack against it.”</p>
<p>The practice of Hamas of using human shields, as well as storing munitions and weaponry in civilian neighborhoods and non-military buildings, also absolves Israel from some of the proportionality requirements, since the use of human shields and the perfidy of Hamas in the first place puts the fault for civilian deaths on it, rather than Israel. Israel indiscriminately pummeling Gaza with bombardment from the air—with many resulting civilian deaths—would violate the rule of proportionality and could be considered a war crime; Israel responding to rocket fire from an apartment building and, in the process, killing civilians (even a large number of them) who were in the building with Hamas combatants is allowed, as long as Israel’s intent was to achieve a military objective and not just to exact revenge or capriciously murder civilians. Even errors which lead to the death of civilians are acceptable, as long as the military purpose was the motivating factor in the assault, since, as Jonathan F. Keiler<em>,</em> former captain in the Army&#8217;s Judge-Advocate General Corps, <a href="http://www.army.mil/article/25298/The_End_of_Proportionality/">noted</a>,“we do not determine criminality based on outcome, but intent.”</p>
<p>Proportionality also does not require that the number of deaths—either of Hamas militants or Palestinian civilians—be equal to the number of deaths suffered by Israel, or to damage done to Israeli infrastructure or military targets. One moral challenge in asymmetrical war is that observers in the world community intuitively feel that Israel’s disproportionate military strength makes the conflict fundamentally “unfair,” that because it is technologically and logistically able to exact more harm on the Palestinians, Israel should restrain itself to minimize enemy casualties. That may be a compelling emotional response, but it is, of course, not a legal or moral argument with any weight. In fact, it is precisely because of Israel’s military superiority that a rational adversary would have been deterred from attacking in the first place.</p>
<p>The fact that Hamas chose to challenge an adversary with disproportionate military capability indicates that the decision was either irrational or some type of collective death wish; in either instance, the Palestinians, and the world at large, cannot now expect Israel not to use every means possible to protect its citizenry from both immediate and future assaults by genocidal terrorists who wish to murder Jews and destroy the Jewish state. No nation is required to enter a suicide pact with its enemies, and no nation can be expected to wait until enemy rockets successfully reach an apartment building or school, forcing Israel to play, in the <a href="http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB123085925621747981">words</a> of Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz, “Russian roulette with its children.”</p>
<p><strong>Richard L. Cravatts, PhD, President of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East, is the author of <em>Genocidal Liberalism: The University’s Jihad Against Israel &amp; Jews</em>.</strong></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>
<p><a href="http://horowitzfreedomcenter.us1.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=caa6f67f1482e6214d83be62d&amp;id=c761755bdf"><strong>Subscribe</strong></a><strong> to Frontpage&#8217;s TV show, <em>The Glazov Gang</em>, and </strong><a href="https://www.facebook.com/glazovgang"><strong>LIKE</strong></a><strong> it on </strong><a href="https://www.facebook.com/glazovgang"><strong>Facebook.</strong></a></p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/richard-l-cravatts/israels-morally-impossible-self-defense/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>44</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Israel Might Act to Safeguard Jordan</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/joseph-puder/israel-might-act-to-safeguard-jordan/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=israel-might-act-to-safeguard-jordan</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/joseph-puder/israel-might-act-to-safeguard-jordan/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 14 Jul 2014 04:30:00 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Joseph Puder]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Alliance]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Defense]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Gaza]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Hamas]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ISIS]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Israel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[jordan]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=236069</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Jordan’s stability is in Israel’s national interest, and Israel is ready to do whatever it takes to defend it.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Mideast-Jordan-Israel_Horo.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-236233" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Mideast-Jordan-Israel_Horo-450x310.jpg" alt="Mideast-Jordan-Israel_Horo" width="242" height="167" /></a>With the Islamic State (formerly known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant or ISIS) knocking at the doorsteps of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, and the Iraqi army withdrawing its troops from the only border crossing between Iraq and Jordan, Israel is beginning to feel the heat generated by the successful campaigns of the Islamic State (IS) in Syria and Iraq. Jordan has hitherto served as a crucial buffer shielding Israel from a spillover of mayhem created by the Sunni-Muslim extremist terrorist group, whose leader has proclaimed the new caliphate.</p>
<p><em>Al Jazeera </em>reported (June 30, 2014) that ISIS, which controls large areas of Iraq and Syria, has announced the establishment of a “caliphate” straddling the two countries, and urged other groups to pledge their allegiance. In an audio recording released earlier by ISIS, it declared its chief, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, to be “the caliph” and the leader of Muslim believers everywhere.</p>
<p>In the meantime, supporters of ISIS are multiplying in the city of Maan, the capital of the southern region of Jordan. Maan is 104 kilometers (approximately 62 miles) away from Israel’s southern tip of Eilat and about 60 kilometers (36 miles) from the Arava Road (Highway 60) which connects Jerusalem and central Israel with Eilat.  The IS appears to have no active presence in this desert town south of the capital, Amman, but its image is growing, its ideology gaining traction, and its appeal extending beyond those who would take up arms and don suicide vests. The people here, especially the many unemployed young men, have celebrated the Islamic State victories.</p>
<p>Across the Arab world, the drive for democratic change has stalled, at least for now, and in its place we have seen a resurgence of strongmen such as Egypt’s Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, and Islamic militants (IS), both selling the promise of stability and order as counterpoints to the tumult that followed the Arab Spring. In the Sunni-Muslim world moreover, the victories of the ISin Iraq against the Shiite-led Iraqi army, and the imagery of a rejuvenated caliphate is a formidable factor.</p>
<p>The threat to the Hashemite Kingdom is not only external, it is internal as well. The city of Maan is a case and point. Unemployment, police repression, and economic neglect have fueled resentment toward King Abdullah and the monarchy and, conversely, growing support for the Islamist IS. The Jordanian army has been deployed on three fronts. On the Jordanian-Syrian border, the Jordanian army is poised to push back a possible incursion of President Bashar Assad’s Syrian army. The Assad regime seeks to stop Jordanian support for Syrian rebels in southern Syria. The other front is the Jordanian-Iraqi border, where the Jordanian army is deployed to prevent the incursion of IS forces.</p>
<p>The third concentration of Jordanian forces is in the capital of Amman itself, where the Jordanian troops ring the city to protect the monarchy and the king. The fear in Amman as well as in Washington and Jerusalem is that support for the IS may spread to other cities across Jordan, and may eventually result in an internal armed uprising, which will necessitate either US or Israeli intervention to save King Abdullah’s pro-Western rule, and the peace between Jordan and Israel.</p>
<p>Precedents for the US and Israel coming to Jordan’s aid already exists. In September 1970, during King Hussein’s rule, the monarchy was in danger of collapsing under pressure from the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) which had built a virtual state within a state. The PLO hijacked several international flights and brought the passengers and planes to Dawson airfield in Jordan. On September 17, 1970, Hussein’s forces successfully suppressed the Palestinians, but it led to a Syrian invasion into northwestern Jordan on September 19, which threatened to reach Amman.  Hussein begged for a western bombing campaign against the invading Syrians. The US was, at the time, involved in the Vietnam War and had meager and insufficient forces in the Mediterranean region. The US then turned to Israel for a quick response, and Israel rushed large numbers of forces to the Golan and Beit Shaan Valley. The Israeli move deterred the Syrians from moving forward and they withdrew their forces from Jordan. The Syrians, recalling their defeat by Israel three years earlier, did not want to risk a confrontation with the IDF.</p>
<p><em>Al-Manar</em>, Hezbollah’s mouthpiece, reported on June 28, 2014 that “The <a href="http://www.almanar.com.lb/english/adetails.php?fromval=1&amp;cid=31&amp;frid=31&amp;eid=158750">Zionist entity</a>has said that it would be willing to take military action in neighboring Jordan to protect it from attacks by the so-called &#8216;Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant terrorist group, dubbed as ISIS, which has been sweeping across northern parts of Iraq and Syria in a violent bid to create its unilaterally-declared own state<strong>.”</strong> According to the <em>Daily Beast</em>(<em>DB</em>) website (6/27/2014), “Obama administration officials told Senators in a classified briefing this week that the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) also has its eyes on <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/06/27/israel-could-get-dragged-into-isis-s-war-obama-admin-warns.html">Jordan</a>; in fact, its jihadists are already Tweeting out photos and messages claiming a key southern town (Maan) in Jordan already belongs to them.” The <em>DB</em> added, “The concern was that Jordan could not repel a full assault from ISIS on its own at this point, said one senator, who spoke on condition of anonymity. Another Senate staff member said the US officials who briefed the members responded to the question of what Jordan’s leaders would do if they faced a military onslaught from ISIS by saying: They will ask Israel and the United States for as much help as they can get.”</p>
<p>The US, Jordan and Israel already share military intelligence, and the US has also placed batteries of Patriot missiles as well as squadrons of F-16s in Jordan. Additionally, the US has a contingency force of US troops ready under the command of Brig. General Dennis McKean, also known as Centcom &#8211; Forward Jordan. Gen. McKean has been in direct contact with Israel’s Chief-of-Staff, Lt. General Benny Gantz and Israel’s Air Force commander, Gen. Amir Eshel.</p>
<p>Concerned with the gains made by ISIS/IS, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday (June 29, 2014) that Israel would maintain security in the Jordan Valley regardless of peace talks with the Palestinians. Netanyahu also announced that Israel plans to build a security barrier along the Jordanian border that would stretch from Eilat to the Golan Heights.  Following a meeting with German Foreign Minister Walter Steinmeier (6/30/2014), Israel’s Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman declared that “Jordan’s stability is in Israel’s national interest, and Israel is ready to do whatever it takes to <a href="http://www.i24news.tv/en/news/israel/diplomacy-defense/35889-140630-israel-to-build-security-fence-along-jordan-border">defend it</a>.”</p>
<p>Israel’s current military bout with Hamas in Gaza, notwithstanding, the Jewish state is determined to preserve the integrity of King Abdullah’s Jordanian monarchy. Jordan is the one Arab state that is moderate, pro-Western, and has solidly maintained the peace treaty with Israel.</p>
<p>It is clear that having a friendly state on its long and sensitive eastern border is critical for Israel, especially in view of the mounting threats from a resurgent ISIS/IS. Israel will therefore act when necessary to safeguard Jordan.</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>
<p><a href="http://horowitzfreedomcenter.us1.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=caa6f67f1482e6214d83be62d&amp;id=c761755bdf"><strong>Subscribe</strong></a><strong> to Frontpage&#8217;s TV show, <em>The Glazov Gang</em>, and </strong><a href="https://www.facebook.com/glazovgang"><strong>LIKE</strong></a><strong> it on </strong><a href="https://www.facebook.com/glazovgang"><strong>Facebook.</strong></a></p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/joseph-puder/israel-might-act-to-safeguard-jordan/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>31</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Obama’s Convoluted Priorities</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/ari-lieberman/obamas-convoluted-priorities/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=obamas-convoluted-priorities</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/ari-lieberman/obamas-convoluted-priorities/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 03 Mar 2014 05:23:51 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Ari Lieberman]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[China]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Defense]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iran]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Kerry]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Middle East]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[palestinians]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Russia]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Ukraine]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=220078</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[In an unraveling world, why is bullying Israel the president's main priority? ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/obama-foreign-policy-policy-second-term-john-bolton-480x307.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-220095" alt="obama-foreign-policy-policy-second-term-john-bolton-480x307" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/obama-foreign-policy-policy-second-term-john-bolton-480x307.jpg" width="290" height="243" /></a>As President Obama greets world crisis after crisis with confused vacillation and impotence, a </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.gallup.com/poll/167534/fewer-americans-think-obama-respected-world-stage.aspx">recent Gallup poll</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> unsurprisingly suggests that Americans no longer believe that their president commands respect from foreign leaders. And why should they? The President’s foreign policy has proved to be an exercise in defeatist isolationism, where tyrants are appeased and allies are thrown to the wolves.</span></p>
<p>In Ukraine, a nation where democracy advocates risk losing to the forces of extremism and where <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/gunmens-seizure-of-parliament-building-stokes-tensions-in-ukraines-crimea/2014/02/27/2539871c-9f83-11e3-9ba6-800d1192d08b_story.html?hpid=z1">Russia stands poised</a> to intervene militarily, our president remains mute while our defense chief expresses “concern.”  The same scenario is currently unfolding in <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/21/world/americas/protests-swell-in-venezuela-as-places-to-rally-disappear.html?_r=1">Venezuela</a> where students and the middle class, fed up with rampant crime, autocratic rule and a tanking economy, have banded together against the Cuban- and Iranian-backed thuggish ruler of that country, Nicolás Maduro.  Aside from expelling some Venezuelan diplomats, the administration has done nothing to bolster pro-democracy protestors.</p>
<p>In the East &amp; South China Seas, China, seeking to expand its maritime borders and engage in yet more land grabs, has embarked on a series of aggressive military deployments designed to intimidate our Pacific allies. One analyst noted that China might be gearing up for a <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/world/2014/02/19/china-preps-military-for-short-sharp-war-with-japan-says-us-navy/">quick sharp war</a>, aimed at seizing Senkakus or southern Ryukyu islands. Yet the United States, the premiere Pacific naval power, has done virtually nothing to provide reassurance to our allies.</p>
<p>And of course there is the administration’s botched and near amateurish policies in the Mideast that have only served to embolden enemies, prolong conflict and alienate allies. In Syria, Obama drew his red line, warning Assad of the consequences of chemical weapons usage. That warning turned out to be nothing short of a fiasco, embarrassing the president and turning Russia’s Putin into the savior. Moreover, the president’s inaction severely weakened pro-Western elements in Syria and partly served as the catalyst that caused much of the rebel movement to fall under the influence of Islamic extremists.</p>
<p>In Egypt, the administration backed the fascist Muslim Brotherhood over a more Western-oriented movement that had the backing of much of the country. So angered were the Egyptians over the U.S. betrayal that they recently turned to Russia for arms, signing a <a href="http://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Report-Russia-and-Egypt-complete-2-billion-arms-deal-funded-by-Gulf-states-340847">two-billion dollar</a>, Saudi-financed deal.</p>
<p>Iran represents the administration’s quintessential foreign policy failure. A strict sanctions regimen was not only <a href="http://www.timesofisrael.com/sanctions-have-cost-iran-130-billion-in-two-years/">taking its toll</a> on the Iranian economy, it was impeding Iran’s ability to carry out proxy wars in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Lebanon. But the administration, desperate for a foreign policy success after prolonged failures, inked a lopsided deal that gave the Islamic Republic virtually everything it wanted in exchange for nothing more than vague Iranian assurances.</p>
<p>The byproduct of this disastrous deal produced a badly needed instant cash infusion into the anemic Iranian economy. Iran then promptly transferred those funds to buttress its serial killer ally and war criminal, Bushar Hafez al-Assad as well as Hezbollah’s arch terror chieftain, Hassan Nasrallah.</p>
<p>While the administration’s isolationist tendencies compel it to remain disengaged, even when our vital interests are at stake, the president and his secretary of state, John Kerry, remain strangely obsessed with Israel, besotted by the idea of dismembering that tiny nation. Indeed, in 2013 Kerry visited Israel 11 times and on each occasion, demanded concessions of America’s closest ally in the region (and one of its closest in the world) while making veiled threats if the “peace process” failed. And it now comes to light that the president intends to take a <a href="http://www.timesofisrael.com/obama-to-meet-abbas-march-17-in-washington/">greater personal role</a> in an attempt to broker a deal, one in which Israel is forced to relinquish its ancestral heartland to genocidal Palestinian dictators who maintain that the <a href="http://nationalinterest.org/commentary/exposing-abbas-5335">Holocaust is a myth</a> and regard the peace process as a <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&amp;v=Q86jQX6GJKA">tactical part of an overall objective</a> to obliterate Israel.</p>
<p>In November 2009, Obama pressured Israel into <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/id/34151442/ns/world_news-mideast_n_africa/t/israel-approves--month-settlement-freeze/">freezing construction</a> in Judea &amp; Samaria for a period of 10 months with the aim of coaxing the histrionic Abbas back to the negotiating table. That effort failed, largely due to Abbas’ rejectionist shenanigans.</p>
<p>In March 2013, Obama boxed Israel into a corner and <a href="http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/caroline-glick/the-meaning-and-consequences-of-israels-apology-to-turkey/">pressured Netanyahu</a> to apologize to Turkey’s autocratic, semi-delusional, Islamist leader, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, for the deaths of 9 Turkish IHH terrorists killed by Israeli commandos while trying to break a lawful maritime blockade. Nearly a year later, despite Israel’s apology and generously absurd offer of compensation to the families of those killed, conditions that Erdogan himself demanded in exchange for normalized relations, normalization appears as far off as ever with Erdogan issuing yet more <a href="http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/177372">new demands</a>.</p>
<p>Twice Israel has succumbed to Obama’s pressure and twice paid the steep price for failing to say “no,” but the stakes this time around are much higher. Israel is now expected to cede the strategic Jordan Valley and the Samarian mountain ranges to sworn enemies while exposing its industrial and populated centers to Palestinian rocket and mortar fire.</p>
<p>The world is plagued with other more pressing matters.  From Eastern Europe to South America, Iran to the South China Sea, complete conflagration is a hair’s breadth away. Mr. President, if you want yet another Nobel Prize there are more pressing matters at hand, so please look elsewhere and leave the only thriving democracy in the Middle East alone.</p>
<p><b>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: </b><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"><b>Click here</b></a><b>. </b></p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/ari-lieberman/obamas-convoluted-priorities/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>16</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Obama&#8217;s Military Purge</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/arnold-ahlert/obamas-military-purge/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=obamas-military-purge</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/arnold-ahlert/obamas-military-purge/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 28 Oct 2013 04:52:36 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Arnold Ahlert]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Defense]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[fire]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[general]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Military]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[purge]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=208736</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The number of commanders fired under the president's watch reaches alarming levels.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/israeli_tv_obama_to_announce_possible_military_action_against_iran_during_trip_to_israel.si_.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-208809" alt="israeli_tv_obama_to_announce_possible_military_action_against_iran_during_trip_to_israel.si" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/israeli_tv_obama_to_announce_possible_military_action_against_iran_during_trip_to_israel.si_-426x350.jpg" width="256" height="210" /></a>Is the Obama administration in the midst of a military purge? This year alone, nine senior commanding generals have been <a href="http://www.wnd.com/2013/10/report-obama-purging-military-commanders/?cat_orig=us">fired</a> by the administration, and retired generals and current commanders who have spoken to TheBlaze believe that political ideology is the primary impetus behind the effort. “I think they’re using the opportunity of the shrinkage of the military to get rid of people that don’t agree with them or not toe the party line,&#8221; a senior retired general told website. &#8220;Remember, as Rahm Emanuel said, never waste a crisis.” The general spoke on the condition of anonymity because he still provides the government with services and believes this administration would retaliate against him.</p>
<p>The terminations have a distinctly political odor surrounding them in at least three cases. In all three of these cases, Benghazi is at root. U.S. Army Gen. Carter Ham was heading the United States African Command when our consulate came under attack on September 11, 2012. Ham <a href="http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2012/10/top-africom-leader-general-carter-ham-was-never-ordered-to-save-us-men-in-benghazi-video/">told</a> Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) he was never given a &#8220;stand down&#8221; order preventing him from securing the consulate. Yet the <i>Washington Times,</i> <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/blog/robbins-report/2012/oct/28/general-losing-his-job-over-benghazi/">citing</a> sources in the military, said he <i>was</i> given the order and immediately relieved of command when he decided to defy it. The <i>Times</i> further noted that Ham &#8220;retired&#8221; less that two years after receiving the command when all other commanders of similar stature have stayed on far longer. Sources told TheBlaze Ham was highly critical of the Obama administration&#8217;s decision not to send reinforcements to Benghazi.</p>
<p>Rear Adm. Charles Gaouette,<b> </b>Commander of Carrier Strike Group Three for the Navy, was <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/27/us/rear-admiral-charles-m-gaouette-is-disciplined-by-navy.html?_r=0">relieved of duty</a> for allegedly using profanity and making &#8220;racially insensitive comments.&#8221; Though he was cleared of criminal violations under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, administrative penalties have effectively ended his career. In testimony regarding Benghazi, Gaouette, who was in charge of Air Craft Carriers in the Mediterranean Sea on the night of the attack, told Congress there may not have been time to get flight crews to Libya. But under cross examination, he admitted he could have sent planes to that location.</p>
<p>Major General Baker, a two-star general who served as commander of the Joint Task Force-Horn at Camp Lamar in Djibouti, Africa, was <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/04/general-fired-over-alcohol-sex-charges-officials_n_3018066.html">fired</a> for alcohol and sexual misconduct charges. The U.S. reportedly runs counter-terror operations out of Djibouti, and once again, military officials told TheBlaze Baker was involved in some aspect of Benghazi.</p>
<p>The other six were terminated for a variety of alleged offenses. Army Brigadier Gen. Bryan Roberts, commander of Fort Jackson beginning in 2011, was fired for adultery. Marine Corps Maj. Gen. Gregg A. Sturdevant, director of Strategic Planning and Policy for the U.S. Pacific Command and commander of the aviation wing at Camp Bastion, Afghanistan, was terminated over a successful attack on that facility by the Taliban, resulting in two American deaths and the destruction of eight American planes. Sturdevant <a href="http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/afghanistan-attack-british-forces-screwed-2340921">claims</a> British forces were responsible for security at the base prior to the attack.</p>
<p>Marine Corps Maj. Gen. Charles M.M. Gurganus was terminated for questioning the &#8220;winning hearts and minds&#8221; policies that led to &#8220;green on blue&#8221; murders of American officers by &#8220;trusted&#8221; Afghan recruits. Other Afghan recruits led a platoon into an enemy ambush. Army Lt. Gen. David Holmes Huntoon Jr was “censored” for “an investigation” into an “improper relationship,” according to the Department of Defense. A blog written by a 26-year-old cadet medically discharged from West Point <a href="http://charlesclymer.blogspot.com/2013/06/the-congresswoman-vs-general_20.html">claims</a> the three-star general was under investigation because a West Point Superintendent &#8220;improperly used&#8221; his office, and because of an insufficient investigation of a lewd email chain perpetrated by the men&#8217;s rugby team. Nothing was officially released by the DoD regarding any of the charges.</p>
<p>The last commanders, three-star Vice Admiral Tim Giardina, and Major General Michael Carey, were fired <a href="http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-10-11/world/42926727_1_air-force-personal-misconduct-nuclear-arsenal">within 48 hours</a> of each other. Giardina was the deputy commander of the U.S. Strategic Command, an entity that oversees all nuclear-armed missiles, bombers and submarines. He was commander of the Submarine Group Trident, Submarine Groups 9 and 10, which comprise all 18 of our nuclear-armed submarines. He was fired for the alleged use of counterfeit gambling chips at an Iowa casino. Carey, commander of the 20th Air Force, a role that put him in charge of 9,600 people and 450 Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles at three operational wings, was fired &#8220;due to a loss of trust and confidence in his leadership and judgment,” said Air Force spokesman Brig. Gen. Les Kodlick. The decision to fire Carey was made by Lt. Gen. James Kowalski, the head of the Air Force Global Strike Command. Obama fired Giardina.</p>
<p>The firing of military leaders goes much further than top generals, however. On its <a href="https://www.facebook.com/pages/Breitbart/95475020353">Facebook page</a>, Breitbart.com compiled a <a href="http://freepatriot.org/2013/10/23/full-list-197-officers-removed-obamas-military-purge/">list</a> of more than 197 military commanders, mostly at the rank of Colonel or above, who have been purged by the Obama administration since 2009.</p>
<p>According to <a href="http://military.com/">military.com</a>, allegations of sexual misconduct <a href="http://www.military.com/daily-news/2013/01/21/sex-is-major-reason-military-commanders-are-fired.html">account</a> for the firing of 30 percent of military commanders over the past eight years. That figure that increases to 40 percent when &#8220;ethical lapses&#8221; such as sexual assault and harassment, pornography, drugs and drinking are lumped together. But there are other dubious reasons why these commanders have been terminated, ranging from unspecified dereliction of duty, to improper saluting.</p>
<p>One of the largest purges occurred on the last day of November in 2011, when the administration <a href="http://dailycaller.com/2011/11/25/military-advocates-decry-illegal-early-terminations-of-157-air-force-majors/">terminated</a> 157 Air Force Majors, a move the Chapman University of Military Law and its associated AMVETS Legal Clinic characterized as illegal. They noted that the Department of Defense specifies that absent extenuating circumstances, service members within six years of retirement would ordinarily be retained, and allowed to retire on time and collect benefits.</p>
<p>The Air force cited budget shortfalls as their primary reason for the terminations. Yet as institute director Maj. Kyndra Rotunda explained, based on the <a href="http://www.dtic.mil/whs/directives/corres/pdf/132008p.pdf">Defense Department’s Instruction 1320.08</a>, &#8220;derogatory information&#8221; is the only reason officers can be terminated. “The defense department’s own regulation does not authorize what the defense department is doing,” Rotunda contended at the time. &#8220;The Airmen relied on the law when they entered service and now the Secretary wants to change that law, without authority.”</p>
<p>Earlier that same month, two-star Major Gen. Peter Fuller was <a href="http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1111/67653.html">relieved</a> of his command in Afghanistan, after he told <i>Politico </i>that Afghan President Hamid Karzai and other government officials in that country were &#8220;isolated from reality.&#8221; Ironically, Fuller was fired by Gen. John Allen, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, who was himself the <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2012/nov/13/news/la-pn-john-allen-petraeus-jill-kelley-20121113">subject</a> of an FBI investigation a year later, for his role in the sex scandal that led to the resignation of CIA Director and retired general David Petraeus. Despite the FBI informing the Pentagon it had uncovered thousands of pages of emails between Allen and Florida socialite Jill Kelley, President Obama subsequently <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/obama-backs-gen-john-allen-probe-connected-petraeus/story?id=17704438">expressed</a> &#8220;faith&#8221; in Allen&#8217;s ability to continue doing his job. It is impossible to determine whether Allen&#8217;s ideology played a role in maintaining that faith.</p>
<p>2012 also saw several terminations of officers based on questionable rationale. In May, Commander Derick Armstrong, commanding officer of the guided missile destroyer USS The Sullivans, was relieved of duty by Vice Adm. Frank Pandolfe &#8220;as a result of an unprofessional command climate that was contrary to good order and discipline,&#8221; <a href="http://www.stripes.com/news/uss-the-sullivans-armstrong-is-10th-commanding-officer-fired-this-year-1.176692">according</a> to a Navy news release. A week earlier, the Navy relieved Cmdr. Dennis Klein of command of the submarine USS Columbia, citing a loss of confidence in his ability to serve effectively.</p>
<p>Stars and Strips <a href="http://www.stripes.com/news/navy/navy-commanders-relieved-of-duty-in-2012-1.168999">listed</a> several other Navy commanders relieved of duty in 2012. While some on the list were terminated for seemingly legitimate reasons, a curious lack of specificity applied to others. They include Capt. James CoBell, commanding officer of Oceana Naval Air Station&#8217;s Fleet Readiness Center Mid-Atlantic, who was let go for &#8220;leadership issues&#8221;; Cmdr. Franklin Fernandez, commanding officer of Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 24, for a &#8220;loss of confidence&#8221; in his ability to command due to allegedly &#8220;driving under the influence&#8221;; Capt. Marcia Lyons, commander of Naval Health Clinic New England, for problems with her &#8220;command climate&#8221;; and Capt. Sean McDonell, commander of Seabee reserve unit Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 14 in Jacksonville, FL, for mismanagement and unspecified “major program deficiencies.” Several others were fired for &#8220;inappropriate personal behavior&#8221; or &#8220;personal misconduct.&#8221;</p>
<p>Theories for these purges run the gamut. One <a href="http://www.dailypaul.com/302620/list-of-us-military-generals-and-admirals-fired-by-obama">posits</a> that anyone associated with Benghazi had to go. Another states that many of these firings are an effort to clean up <a href="http://benswann.com/president-obama-fires-high-ranking-nuclear-chiefs/">&#8220;operational failures,&#8221;</a> most notably a 2007 incident in which six nuclear-tipped missiles <a href="http://baltimorechronicle.com/2007/112107Lindorff.shtml">went missing</a> for 36 hours. Retired U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Paul Vallely, who has been an outspoken critic of the Obama administration, believes it is part of the president&#8217;s strategy to reduce America&#8217;s standing in the world. “[Obama is] intentionally weakening and gutting our military, Pentagon and reducing us as a superpower, and anyone in the ranks who disagrees or speaks out is being purged,” he contended.</p>
<p>Vallely&#8217;s assessment was echoed by a source at the Pentagon who wished to remain anonymous because the source was not authorized to speak on the subject. He or she contended that &#8220;young officers, down through the ranks have been told not to talk about Obama or the politics of the White House. They are purging everyone and if you want to keep your job&#8211;just keep your mouth shut.&#8221;</p>
<p>This theory finds validation when one considers the Obama administration&#8217;s larger assault on the military. The military is the last organized bastion of conservative values, due in large part to the nature of the military itself. Yet in recent years, the push to embrace progressive values, such as openly gay servicemen, women in combat and diversity worship have been pursued with vigor. Even the aforementioned effort to &#8220;win the hearts and minds&#8221; of Islamists in Iraq and Afghanistan, as opposed to pursuing victory, marks a sea change from traditional military values.</p>
<p>Not only is the Obama administration apparently on a mission to undermine the integrity of the military in this way, but it has also revealed itself to be entirely intolerant of dissent of any kind. Whether it is reporters or domestic opposition groups such as the Tea Party, Obama has made clear he will aggressively pursue anyone who defies his agenda. Now it seems that chilling message his been sent to the military as well.</p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank">Click here</a>.</strong></p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/arnold-ahlert/obamas-military-purge/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>295</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Zimmerman&#8217;s Fate and Looming Race Riots</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/arnold-ahlert/a-zimmerman-verdict-and-looming-race-riots/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=a-zimmerman-verdict-and-looming-race-riots</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/arnold-ahlert/a-zimmerman-verdict-and-looming-race-riots/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 03 Jul 2013 04:50:17 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Arnold Ahlert]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Defense]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[George Zimmerman]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Race]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Trayvon Martin]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[trial]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[verdict]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=195380</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[With the prosecution's case unraveling, authorities nervously eye violence and carnage on the horizon.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><strong><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/PS.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-195382" alt="PS" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/PS-450x309.jpg" width="270" height="185" /></a>To order David Horowitz &amp; John Perazzo&#8217;s pamphlet, &#8220;Black Skin Privilege,&#8221; <a href="https://secure.donationreport.com/productlist.html?key=KD25VC00LEHE">click here</a>. </strong></p>
<p>The murder case against George Zimmerman is rapidly unraveling, due in large part to the compelling testimony of key witnesses. Ordinarily, there is nothing unusual about compelling testimony changing the course of a trial, but in this case it is witnesses presented by the <i>prosecution</i> that are bolstering the case for the <i>defendant. </i>Thus, with each passing day it is becoming more apparent that the real reason for bringing this case to trial was to assuage the media-driven concerns of the racial grievance industry, led by chief arsonists Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson. Shamefully aiding and abetting them is the racially polarized Justice Department led by Attorney General Eric Holder.</p>
<p>We begin with the witnesses. Billed as the state&#8217;s &#8220;star witness,&#8221; 19-year-old Rachel Jeantel, the last person to talk to Trayvon Martin before his death, proved to be a major embarrassment. If there is a racial element to this case, other than the prosecution&#8217;s unsubstantiated <a href="http://pjmedia.com/andrewmccarthy/2013/06/30/zimmerman-prosecution-predictably-collapsing/">accusation </a>that Zimmerman &#8220;profiled&#8221; Martin, Jeantel introduced it during her testimony. She <a href="http://pjmedia.com/andrewmccarthy/2013/06/30/zimmerman-prosecution-predictably-collapsing/">revealed </a>that Trayvon Martin had referred to Zimmerman as a &#8220;creepy-ass cracker,&#8221; even as she subsequently denied it was a racial term. Another compelling part of her testimony was in regard to a letter she had supposedly written to Martin&#8217;s mother describing the chain of events that led to Trayvon&#8217;s death. During questioning by defense attorney Don West, Jeantel was forced to admit that, despite signing it, she was incapable of reading the cursive script in which it was written.</p>
<p>West further <a href="http://pjmedia.com/andrewmccarthy/2013/06/30/zimmerman-prosecution-predictably-collapsing/">grilled </a>Jeantel about her inconsistent statements to police, and the discrepancies in her testimony. Jeantel blamed them on questions posed by law enforcement officials, and the lengths of the interviews. As to the omission of details, she claimed she was trying to spare the Martin family from enduring additional grief. In the end, Jeantel admitted she didn&#8217;t know who threw the first punch, and that she <a href="http://pjmedia.com/andrewmccarthy/2013/06/30/zimmerman-prosecution-predictably-collapsing/">lied</a> under oath. The former admission makes it virtually impossible for the prosecution to prove that Zimmerman didn&#8217;t fire in self-defense. The latter admission challenges Jeantel’s entire credibility.</p>
<p>Yet it was testimony from John Good, who witnessed the fight between Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman, that provided the most damaging, and perhaps fatal blow to the state&#8217;s case. Good <a href="http://pjmedia.com/andrewmccarthy/2013/06/30/zimmerman-prosecution-predictably-collapsing/">testified </a>that he saw Trayvon Martin on top of George Zimmerman, raining punches down on him Mixed Martial Arts style. Good further testified that the scream he heard must have come from Zimmerman, because he was on the bottom, and Martin was facing away from Good.</p>
<p>On Monday, detective Doris Singleton, who questioned Zimmerman the night of the shooting, became the latest prosecution witness to undermine the state&#8217;s case. She <a href="http://pjmedia.com/andrewmccarthy/2013/06/30/zimmerman-prosecution-predictably-collapsing/">testified </a>that Zimmerman asked her about the crucifix she wore on her neck, and buried his head in his hands after learning that Martin had died. During the exchange Singleton testified that Zimmerman said it was &#8220;always wrong to kill.&#8221; &#8220;I said to him, &#8216;If what you&#8217;re telling me is true then I don&#8217;t think that&#8217;s what God meant, you couldn&#8217;t save your own life,&#8217;&#8221; she said. Singleton further testified that Zimmerman was shocked when he learned that Martin was dead.</p>
<p>Audiotape of Singleton&#8217;s interview with Zimmerman was played in court. He explained he had joined the neighborhood watch after his home had been broken into. As to the fatal encounter with Martin, Zimmerman said Martin &#8220;jumped out&#8221; at him from the bushes and said, &#8220;What the f&#8212; is your problem, homey?&#8221; Zimmerman claimed he didn&#8217;t have a problem, and said Martin responded by saying, &#8220;Now you have a problem,&#8221; and punched him in the nose. When Zimmerman fell, Martin allegedly got on top of him, throwing punches. “He put his hands on my nose and said, &#8216;You&#8217;re going to die tonight,&#8217;&#8221; said Zimmerman on the tape. Zimmerman then stated that Martin saw his (Zimmerman&#8217;s) gun and started to reach for it, which is when Zimmerman  drew it and shot the teenager.</p>
<p>Hirotaka Nakasone, an FBI audio voice analyst, further discredited the state&#8217;s case, saying he was unable to determine which of the two men was captured screaming on audio.</p>
<p>The state&#8217;s best witness was former lead investigator for the Sanford Police, Christopher Serino, who testified that Zimmerman&#8217;s injuries were &#8220;lacking&#8221; in terms of his story. He was further concerned that Zimmerman didn&#8217;t identify himself to Martin. Yet under cross-examination by defense attorney Mark O&#8217;Mara regarding Serino&#8217;s suggestion to Zimmerman that there might be a videotape of the incident, Serino admitted Zimmerman was buoyed by the possibility. &#8220;I believe his words were, &#8216;thank god. I was hoping somebody would have videotaped it&#8217;,&#8221; said Serino. O&#8217;Mara then asked Serino what that response indicated to him. &#8220;Either he was telling the truth or he was a complete pathological liar,&#8221; the detective responded. The defense then asked Serino if pathological liar was removed from the equation, did he believe Zimmerman was being truthful. &#8220;Yes,&#8221; he testified.</p>
<p>Additional witnesses presented by the prosecution have, to date, <a href="http://pjmedia.com/andrewmccarthy/2013/06/30/zimmerman-prosecution-predictably-collapsing/">corroborated </a>Zimmerman&#8217;s version of the events in question, save one: Selma Mora testified last Thursday that Zimmerman was on top of Martin in the moments before a gunshot ended the fight, telling the court that a man wearing &#8220;patterns between black and red&#8221; was on top, meaning Zimmerman. &#8220;One of them was on the ground, and the other one was on top in position like a rider,&#8221; the Spanish-speaking Mora testified through a translator. Yet unlike Good, Mora did not <a href="http://pjmedia.com/andrewmccarthy/2013/06/30/zimmerman-prosecution-predictably-collapsing/">see </a>the fight prior to the gunshot.</p>
<p>Again, these are witnesses for the prosecution, whose job is to prove that Zimmerman is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Yet it is more complicated than that. Because the state filed second degree murder charges against Zimmerman (as opposed to manslaughter, where they might have argued he acted without just cause), <a href="http://pjmedia.com/andrewmccarthy/2013/06/30/zimmerman-prosecution-predictably-collapsing/">Florida law </a>requires them to prove Zimmerman &#8220;acted according to a &#8216;depraved mind&#8217; without regard for human life.&#8221;</p>
<p>So why did the state pursue that charge? Because Trayvon Martin became a cause célèbre for race-hatred promoters like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, who <a href="http://pjmedia.com/andrewmccarthy/2013/06/30/zimmerman-prosecution-predictably-collapsing/">called </a>for marches and boycotts against the city of Sanford. Their efforts were aided and abetted by corrupt media, which bent over backwards to insert race into the equation. Those efforts included the <i>New York Times </i><a href="http://pjmedia.com/andrewmccarthy/2013/06/30/zimmerman-prosecution-predictably-collapsing/">referring </a>to Zimmerman as a &#8220;white Hispanic,&#8221; NBC <a href="http://pjmedia.com/andrewmccarthy/2013/06/30/zimmerman-prosecution-predictably-collapsing/">purposefully </a>editing an audiotape of his 911 call to make Zimmerman appear racist, CNN <a href="http://pjmedia.com/andrewmccarthy/2013/06/30/zimmerman-prosecution-predictably-collapsing/">claiming </a>Zimmerman used the word &#8220;coon&#8221; when he actually said &#8220;cold,&#8221; and innumerable news outlets publishing a <a href="http://pjmedia.com/andrewmccarthy/2013/06/30/zimmerman-prosecution-predictably-collapsing/">picture </a>of Martin at age 13, despite the fact that he was 17 and over six feet tall at the time of the incident.</p>
<p>If a <a href="http://pjmedia.com/andrewmccarthy/2013/06/30/zimmerman-prosecution-predictably-collapsing/">report </a>by &#8220;sundance&#8221; at <a href="http://conservativetreehouse.com/">conservativetreehouse.com</a> is accurate, the media&#8217;s effort to paint Zimmerman as racist was part of a well-coordinated publicity campaign undertaken by Martin family attorneys Benjamin Crump and Natalie Jackson, in conjunction with publicist Ryan Julison, who was instrumental in <a href="http://pjmedia.com/andrewmccarthy/2013/06/30/zimmerman-prosecution-predictably-collapsing/">providing </a>publicity for the Pigford Farmer&#8217;s lawsuit and settlement. &#8220;Within the prior networking connections to this lawsuit, and within the media consulting/advocacy, is where the outline of the Congressional Black Caucus and substantive race-dependent civil rights leaders such as Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, and the NAACP’s Ben Jealous are connected to Ryan Julison through Benjamin Crump and Natalie Jackson and the Pigford II Lawyer, Greg Francis,&#8221; he writes, further noting that their efforts were all about creating a &#8220;systematic campaign of optical control.&#8221;</p>
<p>Andrew McCarthy reveals the consequences of such a campaign with respect to the DOJ, citing the initiation of a &#8220;federal civil rights prosecution that induced state officials in Florida to reconsider the initial decision not to charge Zimmerman.&#8221; &#8220;It’s easy for a corrupt process to <i>produce</i> criminal charges,” writes McCarthy.</p>
<blockquote><p>&#8220;It is quite something else to <i>prove</i> them. To try to fill the gaping intent hole in its case, the Zimmerman prosecution has transferred the hobgoblin of racism from the headlines into the courtroom. Indeed, it did not even wait for the trial to do that; the prosecutor injected racism directly into the charging documents.&#8221;</p></blockquote>
<p>The Florida prosecutor did that by inserting the term &#8220;profiling&#8221; into the document which, McCarthy notes, was an effort &#8220;to imply, in the absence of any evidence, that Zimmerman is a bigot who assumed Martin was up to no good just because he was black.&#8221;</p>
<p>Yet it is PJMedia&#8217;s J. Christian Adams, a former attorney at the Justice Department, who <a href="http://pjmedia.com/andrewmccarthy/2013/06/30/zimmerman-prosecution-predictably-collapsing/">reveals </a>a disturbing reality regarding why the DOJ forced Florida&#8217;s hand. &#8220;Right now, hanging on the door of a federal employee’s office in the Department of Justice (DOJ) Voting Section is a sign expressing racial solidarity with Trayvon Martin,&#8221; Adams writes. He further notes that even as the DOJ abetted the mob demanding racial justice in Florida, it did absolutely nothing about New Black Panther leader Mikhail Muhammad, who <a href="http://pjmedia.com/andrewmccarthy/2013/06/30/zimmerman-prosecution-predictably-collapsing/">put </a>a $10,000 bounty on Zimmerman&#8217;s head and called for the mobilization of 10,000 black men to capture him.</p>
<p>In terms of making the case a national sensation, all of these efforts have been enormously successful, even as they remain mind-numbingly irresponsible &#8212; as well as substantially dangerous. If numerous comments posted on Twitter are any indication, the failure to convict Zimmerman of murder will <a href="http://pjmedia.com/andrewmccarthy/2013/06/30/zimmerman-prosecution-predictably-collapsing/">precipitate </a>large-scale rioting around the nation. In that regard, former Chicago police officer Paul Huebl <a href="http://pjmedia.com/andrewmccarthy/2013/06/30/zimmerman-prosecution-predictably-collapsing/">adds fuel </a>to an already burning fire. &#8220;With today’s social media I fully expect organized race rioting to begin in every major city to dwarf the Rodney King and the Martin Luther King riots of past decades,” he writes.</p>
<blockquote><p>&#8220;If you live in a large city be prepared to evacuate or put up a fight to win. You will need firearms, fire suppression equipment along with lots of food and water. Police resources will be slow and outgunned everywhere.&#8221;</p></blockquote>
<p><i>Philadelphia Tribune </i>columnist Charles D. Ellison takes it one step further, insisting that the &#8220;pervasive cynicism currently surrounding the trial could be validated by an acquittal&#8211;and there is the risk of a flashpoint as intense as the aftermath of that fateful Los Angeles police brutality verdict in 1992.&#8221;</p>
<p>The message here is clear: either Zimmerman is found guilty, irrespective of the evidence, or the country will burn.</p>
<p>Barring a bombshell turn of events, the state will have a difficult, if not impossible, task proving that Zimmerman acted according to a depraved mind without regard for human life. The six female jurors and four alternates hearing the case have been <a href="http://pjmedia.com/andrewmccarthy/2013/06/30/zimmerman-prosecution-predictably-collapsing/">sequestered </a>and will remain so for the duration of the trial. Thus, it remains impossible to know if they are aware of the extra-judicial firestorm this case is engendering, and whether that firestorm will have any effect on their verdict.</p>
<p>Obviously, there is one man who could go a long way toward defusing this entire scenario should he choose to do so. President Barack Obama could rise above the fray and explain to every American that our system of justice means nothing if the threat of violence can corrupt the verdict of a murder trial. The President could make it clear that violent outbursts of any kind are absolutely unacceptable and attempt to defuse an already tense environment. He won&#8217;t, however, because race riots are good for the Democratic Party. They fire up the base. It&#8217;s what the whole show was for.</p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank">Click here</a>.</strong></p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/arnold-ahlert/a-zimmerman-verdict-and-looming-race-riots/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>235</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Louie Gohmert: America Must Stop Paying Its Enemies</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/frontpagemag-com/louie-gohmert-government-must-stop-paying-our-enemies/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=louie-gohmert-government-must-stop-paying-our-enemies</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/frontpagemag-com/louie-gohmert-government-must-stop-paying-our-enemies/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 25 Mar 2013 04:37:13 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Frontpagemag.com]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Budget]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[debt]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Defense]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[egypt]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[house]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[louie gohmert]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Spending]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[West Coast Retreat]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=182936</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Can America afford to send Egypt's Islamist president F-16s? ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><em>Editor’s note: Below is the video of Rep. Louie Gohmert&#8217;s keynote speech at the David Horowitz Freedom Center’s 2013 West Coast Retreat. The event was held February 22nd-24th at the Terranea Resort in Palos Verdes, California. A transcript of the lecture follows.</em></p>
<p><iframe src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/62121701" frameborder="0" width="500" height="281"></iframe></p>
<p><a href="http://vimeo.com/62121701">Congressman Louie Gohmert</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/user15333690">DHFC</a> on <a href="http://vimeo.com">Vimeo</a>.</p>
<p><strong>Louie Gohmert:</strong> I feel like God puts things in our lives to help prepare us for the future.  And I didn&#8217;t expect to ever be a judge.  But my late mother was brilliant.  She told me all through the &#8217;80s &#8212; this was after I&#8217;d done the four years out of the army from a scholarship at Texas A&amp;M &#8212; but she&#8217;d say, you know, God meant for you to be a public servant, and you&#8217;d be a great judge.  I went &#8212; mother, I don&#8217;t want to be a judge.  I make more money than judges.  I couldn&#8217;t sit and listen to most of these guys around here.  They&#8217;re not very good.</p>
<p>(Laughter)</p>
<p>You know, some are great.  But oh, my.</p>
<p>So anyway, it was after she died in &#8217;91 that I started thinking about being a judge.  Because my mother was so smart.  But a few months after she died, I get a call from the judge of a court &#8212; I had a breach of contract lawsuit coming up in about two weeks.  And the judge says &#8212; and for those of you who don&#8217;t know, it&#8217;s not appropriate to call a lawyer for one side of a lawsuit without the other being on the phone or being present.  He says &#8212; that&#8217;s a mighty fine-looking woman you had in my court the other day.  You think she&#8217;d go out with me?  And for those of you who don&#8217;t know, that&#8217;s not appropriate.</p>
<p>(Laughter)</p>
<p>You&#8217;re really not supposed to, as a judge, date people that are coming before you for trial.</p>
<p>(Laughter)</p>
<p>But anyway, I told him I couldn&#8217;t help him.  And then I thought &#8212; well, maybe &#8212; we obviously need a new judge.  We elect our judges.  I tried for six months to find somebody that would run against him, and nobody would.  Because people said &#8212; look, he&#8217;s the first Republican ever elected in our county, and we just kind of feel like we owe it to him to let him have whatever job he wants.  Well, nobody&#8217;s owed a public servant&#8217;s job.</p>
<p>And so anyway, I couldn&#8217;t find anybody.  I ended up &#8212; my wife and I had a piece about it, we ran it.  And it was, as I&#8217;d mentioned in one of the questions &#8212; we felt like that was our lot in life.  And so, ran for judge; judge 10 years.  And then felt like I needed to legislate, and I wasn&#8217;t going to do it from the bench.  So I left and became a congressman so I could legislate.  And then I get with some guys who are fantastic, and then some who are afraid that somebody might not like us if we really do what we promised that we would do, so that gets a little problematic.</p>
<p>But the first hearing I ever had, I&#8217;d promised &#8212; I had jurisdiction over major civil lawsuits and felonies, including death penalty cases.  And I&#8217;d promised that I was going to move this 1,000-case backlog &#8212; the longest anybody had been out on bond awaiting trial was 20 years.  I thought that was a little excessive.  And so I said &#8212; we&#8217;re going to move these cases.  So to do that, you have to set them for trial.</p>
<p>And so I had these huge hearings where the lawyer and the client had to show up.  I would call the case name, they would come up before me.  And I would say &#8212; are you the defendant?  Court reporter&#8217;s taking it all down.  And when they would acknowledge yes, I would tell them their trial date and time.  And then, if they didn&#8217;t show up, I&#8217;d revoke their bond.  And people are more quickly ready for trial if they&#8217;re in jail.  So, you know, we got the backlog moved.  I cut the backlog by over 80 percent, even though every year there were more cases filed.  So I went through thousands of cases.</p>
<p>But that first hearing, I called one case, and the guy comes up with his lawyer.  And I said &#8212; are you the defendant, so-and-so?  And before he could answer, his lawyer said &#8212; judge, my client is deaf, and we&#8217;re going to need an interpreter at the trial.  I said that&#8217;s fine, we&#8217;ll have an interpreter at the trial.  But I just need to know right now that he understands when his trial is set for.  So I looked him in the eye, and I said &#8212; can you read my lips?  And he looked me in the eye and went &#8211;</p>
<p>(Laughter)</p>
<p>And see, I didn&#8217;t recognize at the time, but that was preparation for Congress down the road.</p>
<p>(Laughter)</p>
<p>You know, when people will look you in the eye and just lie to you.  You know?  And sometimes they even smile and lie to you.</p>
<p>(Laughter)</p>
<p>So that was preparation.</p>
<p>And in another lesson I learned, one of the judge friends I was talking to told me about a case in their court &#8212; right before a felony trial, the lawyer for the defendant jumps up, said &#8212; your honor, may I approach the bench?  Yes, what now?  And he comes up, the prosecutor comes up.  He says &#8212; I need to make a motion to withdraw as counsel.  He said &#8212; we got the jury panel sitting there, you can&#8217;t withdraw now.  He said &#8212; but I got to, judge.  He said &#8212; my client just told me, if I lose, he&#8217;s going to kill me.</p>
<p>(Laughter)</p>
<p>And he said &#8212; I can&#8217;t &#8212; you know, I got a wife, I can&#8217;t work under that kind of pressure.  And so the judge went &#8212; oh, good grief.  So he calls the defendant up, doesn&#8217;t read him his rights or anything.  He said &#8212; look, your attorney here just told me that you said if he loses the case, you were going to kill him.  Did you say that?  And he said &#8212; yes, I did, he ought to win.  You know, I ought to be found not guilty, this is crazy.  And he said &#8212; but you understand, if I grant his motion to withdraw, and we got the jury panel here, we&#8217;re ready to go, I&#8217;ll have to delay the trial, I&#8217;ll have to appoint another attorney.  If I did all that, are you going to tell him the same thing?  And he said &#8212; well, yes I am.  No matter who the lawyer is, they ought to win.</p>
<p>(Laughter)</p>
<p>So the judge took a deep breath and said &#8212; well, if we&#8217;re going to lose a lawyer, might as well be you, Mr. Walker.  So your motion&#8217;s denied.</p>
<p>(Laughter)</p>
<p>So you find out, sometimes sacrifices have to be made.  You know?</p>
<p>(Laughter)</p>
<p>And that brings me to the topic I was asked to talk about &#8212; the military and the sequester of the military.  Sometimes sacrifices have to be made.</p>
<p>But I want to remind you, all of you here &#8212; you love the Constitution, you appreciate it for what it is &#8212; the greatest founding document in the history of mankind.  And I heard somebody ask Justice Scalia once, in a little group we had &#8212; do we have the most free nation in the history of the world because of our Bill of Rights?  And he said &#8212; no!  I love the guy &#8212; well, no, of course not.  He said &#8212; the Soviet Union had a better Bill of Rights than we do.  And then I remembered, I did a college paper on that.  They did have a better Bill of Rights.  They just didn&#8217;t honor any of it, you know.  He said &#8212; no, what made us the greatest country, more freedoms than any other country in the world, is the Founders did not trust government.  That&#8217;s why.  And so they were very picky about the powers they gave government.</p>
<p>And if you look at the Preamble &#8212; we the people, in order to &#8212; and one of the specified purposes is to provide for the common defense.  You know that.  And it wasn&#8217;t enough that they used something in such general terms like that, at the beginning of the Preamble &#8212; in Article 1, Section 8, when it talks about that Congress shall have the power to provide for the common defense.  And then it goes on and sets out a whole bunch of stuff &#8212; to declare war, and one y&#8217;all talk about all the time &#8212; the granting of letters of mark and reprisal, right?  Y&#8217;all talk about that all the time &#8211;</p>
<p>(Laughter)</p>
<p>&#8211; mark and reprisal.  Actually, a couple of us were talking about that yesterday.  And I made a mistake.  I said &#8212; Andy McCarthy and a few others &#8212; I said there were letters of reprisal granted in World War II.  And John, you said &#8212; I was thinking it was the War of 1812.  And actually, it wasn&#8217;t letters of reprisal that were granted in World War II; I went back and looked it up last night.  It was the letters of mark that were done in World War II.  The Congress granted letters of mark to Goodyear Blimp, so that they could carry guns and shoot at submarines on behalf of the government.  But anyway, not used a whole lot.</p>
<p>(Laughter)</p>
<p>But Congress makes rules concerning captures on land and water, to raise and support armies, to provide and maintain a navy, to make regulation of the land and naval forces, to provide for calling forth the militia to execute laws of the union, suppress insurrection, repel invasions, provide for organizing, arming and disciplining of the militia; and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States.</p>
<p>Course, one of the specified duties is the power to establish tribunals, which is why when President Bush established a military tribunal, that was wrong.  He didn&#8217;t have the power to do that; that&#8217;s a congressional power under Article 1, Section 8.  And so the Supreme Court actually did the right thing &#8212; they threw it out.  And then Congress came back and set up the Military Commission Act of 2006, where it was legitimate that people who were captured could be tried in a military commission.  And that was legitimate constitutionally.</p>
<p>Now, just to do a little check &#8212; because I had to go back and check to find out for certain what the answer was &#8212; anybody here make a guess &#8212; 1962, before all of the LBJ programs, before the Great Society &#8212; what percent of our federal budget was for defense?  Anybody got a guess?  Forty for defense?  Pardon?</p>
<p><strong>Unidentified Audience Member:</strong> 5.6?</p>
<p><strong>Louie Gohmert:</strong> 5.6?  Actually, depending on whose numbers you trust &#8212; CBO, OMB &#8212; it was between 48 to 52 percent of the federal budget was for defense.  &#8217;62.  That was before Vietnam even really got started.  We had advisors over there.  Basically half.</p>
<p>And now, right now, even before the sequester, anybody want to hazard a guess what percent of our budget is for defense?  Ten?  That&#8217;s not a bad guess, but it&#8217;s actually &#8212; depending, again, whose numbers you believe &#8212; 19 to 23 percent.  So basically, in &#8217;62, it was half.  And now it&#8217;s one fifth.  And the Great Society is the thing that&#8217;s intervening.  When we declared a war on poverty, and then got our rear ends kicked by poverty.  They didn&#8217;t even have guns, and we lost that war, you know?</p>
<p>(Laughter)</p>
<p>When you declare war on somebody or some thing, and 50 years later you keep getting buried every year by your enemy, it&#8217;s time to give that one up, isn&#8217;t it?  You know?  Because we&#8217;ve lost.  We were doing better before we declared the war.  But I think if we don&#8217;t get this turned around &#8212; and I&#8217;m not going to call the guy&#8217;s name, because I think he&#8217;s so wrong on so many things, but some guy called the World War II generation the greatest generation.  And they may&#8217;ve been, but I think the Founders were the greatest generation myself.</p>
<p>(Applause)</p>
<p>And there were great sacrifices in World War II.  But how many people would&#8217;ve had the nerve to do what the government of Virginia did, when he [said] to the artillery &#8212; why are you not firing at the headquarters of all the British officers?  And they said &#8212; sir, that&#8217;s your home.  He said &#8212; it&#8217;s where the enemy officers are; you&#8217;ve got to take it out.  They took out his home.  I mean, people would understand nowadays if &#8212; well, course, he would want to preserve his home.  Not back then &#8212; the idea was to win.  And they made those sacrifices, and they didn&#8217;t think about it.</p>
<p>So is there anybody in the history of our country, any generation, that can compete for worst generation in American history if they were so self-absorbed, so narcissistic, that they couldn&#8217;t stop spending money on their generation, even though it was for things that didn&#8217;t work and made them worse off than they were before, but they still couldn&#8217;t stop spending?</p>
<p>Can you imagine a parent going to a bank and saying &#8212; I need a loan?  For what?  I can&#8217;t stop spending money on myself, you know.</p>
<p>(Laughter)</p>
<p>Well, I mean, we&#8217;re in the business of making loans.  What&#8217;s your collateral?  Well, I don&#8217;t really have collateral, but I brought my little children with me.  And I&#8217;m willing to sign anything you want to pledge that someday they or their children, or their children, will pay back what you loan to me.</p>
<p>(Laughter)</p>
<p>I mean, would you consider perhaps that person was part of a really bad generation, you know?</p>
<p>(Laughter)</p>
<p>And we&#8217;ve done it across the board.  And people who got elected for all the right reasons, and especially with the conservative wave of two years ago &#8212; the biggest conservative-wave election in our history &#8212; and they ran for the right reasons, and they got elected by people who voted for them for the right reasons.  And then, somewhere along the way, they got convinced that the only way we can really win is if we&#8217;re a team.  And we can only have one quarterback in the team, and there&#8217;s no &#8220;I&#8221; in &#8220;team.&#8221;  Somebody pointed out there is an &#8220;I&#8221; in &#8220;win,&#8221; though.</p>
<p>(Laughter)</p>
<p>And I love football, my favorite sport.  But I am sick of the football metaphors.  And as I&#8217;ve said in conference &#8212; look, I love being part of the right team.  I understand we can only have one quarterback.  But when he calls a play to run to the wrong end zone, I&#8217;m not blocking for him.  You know?</p>
<p>(Laughter)</p>
<p>(Applause)</p>
<p>So, a little background on the sequestration, how it came about.  Some of you remember, because you&#8217;ve mentioned to me about Cut, Cap and Balance.  We&#8217;ve had speakers brought it up.  Ron brought it up.  And that was when I first met Ron.  We had a little meeting of people that were pushing for Cut, Cap and Balance; although at that first meeting &#8212; I don&#8217;t know if you remember, Ron, but I was saying &#8212; look, this is the right thing to do.  But we need to clean it up some.  There&#8217;s not enough enforcement in here.  If we pass this thing, there&#8217;s not enough teeth for enforcement.  And it wasn&#8217;t Ron, but one of the other senators said &#8212; Louie, for heaven&#8217;s sake, this is the best we got, you got to get onboard.  And it became clear we were not going to put more teeth to make sure it was as enforceable as it should&#8217;ve been.  But it was the best thing we had.</p>
<p>And we passed it in the House.  And that was a big deal to get our Speaker to bring it to the floor.  Because it was a conservative thing to do.  And that afternoon, he was negotiating for something else.  And next day, the headlines were not that the day before we passed this fantastic concept of Cut, Cap and Balance; it was what the real negotiations were that were going on the day before.  They didn&#8217;t even talk about Cut, Cap and Balance.</p>
<p>If we want to do the right thing, we can&#8217;t just pass it in the House; we have to be willing to stand behind it, instead of saying &#8212; okay, now, that&#8217;s behind us.  Or, as our leadership did after the debt ceiling bill passed, we were actually told &#8212; well, guys, the great news is, now that we&#8217;ve got that thing passed, and the debt ceiling is off the table, now the Senate&#8217;s got all they want, so we can work on all the things we really want to work on.</p>
<p>You&#8217;re not going to pass them if you don&#8217;t have leverage to get the Senate to bring them up and vote for them.  But the good news is, now we can just work on what we want to pass.  Well, shouldn&#8217;t it be about getting it passed into law?  Is it really just about getting it through the House?  We passed a lot of great stuff, including two fixes to the sequester.</p>
<p>But when we found out what was in the sequester &#8212; and I am anal enough, I do try to read this stuff.  I read Cut, Cap and Balance before we voted on it.  I read the first 1,000-page Obamacare bill.  And that was the one voted out of committee.  And then, what came to the floor was a 2,000-page bill.  And then, the one that became Obamacare was a 2,500-page bill.  And I read all of those.  And they were a disaster.  But they were really not about healthcare; they were about the GRE &#8212; the government running everything &#8212; that&#8217;s what they were.</p>
<p>But anyway, when I found out what&#8217;s in the sequester bill &#8212; this isn&#8217;t armchair quarterbacking; this is in the fight when it&#8217;s starting &#8212; I got up &#8212; and this is one of the reasons that the only chairmanship I have is as the co-chair of the Thursday morning prayer breakfast.</p>
<p>(Laughter)</p>
<p>Because that&#8217;s the only one the Speaker doesn&#8217;t get a voice in.  But anyway, I said &#8212; and I&#8217;m at the member mic, and Speaker&#8217;s at the front mic, and I said &#8212; in high school &#8212; I grew up in a small town in East Texas &#8212; I said &#8212; in high school, I had a friend whose father had a gambling problem.  And one night, he had almost the best hand you can have in poker at all, and he was out of chips, out of money, so he put his home on the table.  And somebody there had the one hand better, and he lost his home.  And Mr. Speaker, I&#8217;ve known since high school &#8212; I don&#8217;t care how good you think your hand is, you never put your national security or your home on the table for negotiation.  It&#8217;s non-negotiable.</p>
<p>And I was told, just calm down, Louie.  You know, the sequesters will never happen.  And I said &#8212; of course they&#8217;re going to happen.  He said &#8212; no, no, the Super Committee will reach an agreement.</p>
<p>(Laughter)</p>
<p>And we have assurance in the sequester that it&#8217;ll reach an agreement.  Because if it doesn&#8217;t, there may be a few hundred billion dollars cut out of Medicare.  And I said &#8212; have we forgotten?  Obamacare, without a single Republican vote, cut $700 billion out of Medicare.</p>
<p>So the only way next year, in 2012, the Democrats can run a commercial condemning Republicans for caring about our rich friends, and not caring about the seniors, is if they prevent the Super Committee from reaching an agreement.  Then they can say &#8212; we cared more about our rich friends not being taxed than we did about the seniors getting healthcare, and they can run that commercial all next year.  If the Super Committee reaches agreement, they have no plausible basis to run that commercial.  So of course it&#8217;s not going to reach an agreement.  He said &#8212; it will, and you don&#8217;t have to worry about it.</p>
<p>And I think one of the reasons that the Speaker said &#8212; after I nominated Newt Gingrich for Speaker &#8212; the first words out of his mouth were &#8212; well, I love you too, Louie.  And it was heartfelt, I could tell.  But anyway &#8211;</p>
<p>(Laughter)</p>
<p>Because in January, when we&#8217;re talking about the sequester, and the Speaker said &#8212; well, I&#8217;m going to do what I can to stop it &#8212; I got up to the microphone and reminded him what he had said in July of 2011.  I know that&#8217;s part of why he loves me so.</p>
<p>But anyway, the sequester now &#8212; after two years after the greatest conservative-wave election in American history &#8212; is now the only game in town for making any cuts.  I don&#8217;t think we got a choice.  As we&#8217;ve been told repeatedly, maybe the greatest national threat is our overspending.  We got to make some cuts.</p>
<p>But as far as the cuts to the military, let me just give you some facts.  Over the next 10 years, the 285-ship navy could decline to 230.  These are estimates made by different sources.  That&#8217;s the smallest level since 1915.  And of course, you know that&#8217;s around the time we started building our navy, and Roosevelt &#8212; Teddy &#8212; not FDR, but the other Roosevelt &#8212; sent the navy around the world, and we became and international player.</p>
<p>And by the way, it was the Democrats, as they have now admitted, that actually forced the sequester on us.  And you may&#8217;ve heard a replay, but in November of 2011 the President of the United States said &#8212; I&#8217;m quoting &#8212; already, some in Congress are trying to undo these automatic spending cuts.  My message to them is simple &#8212; no.  I will veto any effort to get rid of those automatic spending cuts to domestic and defense spending.  Was his idea.  Was his staff&#8217;s idea.  And then he comes out and condemns us repeatedly for these horrible sequesters we came up with?</p>
<p>Now, I know some of y&#8217;all have said &#8212; you guys have just got to call him for the lies.  In the Senate and in the House, the rules are the same.  And y&#8217;all got to understand, if we get up on the floor of the House, or Jeff or Ron get up, as they would like to, and say, you know, this is a lie that the President has told, then you&#8217;re the one that gets in trouble.  Because you have violated the rules of decorum of the House and Senate.  You can&#8217;t do that.</p>
<p>Now, one article awhile back said some people are getting dangerously close, like Louie Gohmert, who said &#8212; now, we know under the House rules that the Speaker cannot lie.  But whoever&#8217;s putting those words in his teleprompter sure is.</p>
<p>(Laughter)</p>
<p>So anyway &#8211;</p>
<p>(Applause)</p>
<p>But the Air Force says that they will likely lose 200 or more airplanes.  The current average &#8212; so you understand &#8212; current average of our planes in the Air Force is 22 years old.  And the average for tankers is 47 years old.  The House Armed Services Committee says sequestration cuts would likely include terminating the Joint Strike Fighter &#8212; best plane we&#8217;ve come up in decades.  It could cause the scratching of the new strategic bomber, delaying new submarines, shrinking aircraft carrier fleet, and terminating our coastal combat ship program.  It is serious stuff.</p>
<p>And one of the things I think you&#8217;ll see is being talked about is that we will likely have a bill that will &#8212; and I don&#8217;t know what the Senate will do &#8212; gosh, I wish Jeff and Ron were in charge down there, wouldn&#8217;t that be awesome?  But somebody else is, who is from a place where they like to gamble.</p>
<p>(Laughter)</p>
<p>Oh yeah, so it&#8217;s a gamble, let&#8217;s cut our military down to nothing, you know, whatever.</p>
<p>But the release statement from House Armed Services Committee is &#8212; precisely at the moment when advanced military technology is spreading around the world, sequestration would force America to make severe cutbacks eroding our technological advantage.  So we&#8217;re talking about a bill that would give the military some flexibility, so that they don&#8217;t have to leave somebody stranded somewhere.</p>
<p>Course, the military would never leave somebody stranded, say, if we had somebody hypothetically in Benghazi.  If they were left to their own devices, they would probably, if they&#8217;re left to their own devices, get a plane there in quicker than 20 hours &#8212; hypothetically.  But anyway, that may be a bill that you&#8217;ll see go through.  It could end up, hopefully, passing both houses; at least give the military some flexibility.</p>
<p>Now, I&#8217;ve heard a lot of people say &#8212; but if it&#8217;s across-the-board cuts, it&#8217;s kind of dangerous to single out the military for exceptions where they don&#8217;t have to have the same cuts.  Folks, it&#8217;s not across-the-board 11 percent cut, as it is for most every department.  The military &#8212; it&#8217;s going to cut &#8212; well, let&#8217;s say, around $85 billion will be cut the first year.  That&#8217;s the first year of sequester.  Half of that is of the military.  It&#8217;s not across-the-board 11 percent.  It whacks the military harder than anybody.  So it is a very serious cut.  But again, we&#8217;ve got to make cuts.  And hopefully, we can allow them some flexibility to fix that after the cuts occur.</p>
<p>So the other thing that breaks my heart, and is so opposite common sense &#8212; and some of y&#8217;all have pointed out &#8212; but remember, in Washington, common sense isn&#8217;t common, and I get that &#8212; but we keep rewarding our enemies under this administration.</p>
<p>You know, I was real little, in elementary school, and we had a couple of bullies.  One of them was about two heads taller than me.  He had failed two or three grades.  And I learned, you can&#8217;t pay a bully to respect you.  You actually have to take your football helmet and whack him in the back of the head when he doesn&#8217;t see it coming, before he&#8217;ll leave you alone for the rest of your life.  And actually, people noticed in high school &#8212; he blocks better for you than anybody else playing quarterback.  I don&#8217;t know, we&#8217;re good friends.</p>
<p>(Laughter)</p>
<p>But you respect each other.  But you don&#8217;t do it by paying your enemies.  And I have more and more members of Congress say &#8212; Louie, I&#8217;m quoting you, I don&#8217;t usually give you credit, but my line has been, for eight years &#8212; you don&#8217;t have to pay people to hate you; they&#8217;ll do it for free.  You know?</p>
<p>(Laughter)</p>
<p>And we keep paying countries.  For heaven&#8217;s sake, even sending them F-16s and tanks.  And mark my words, those tanks and F-16s will someday kill Israelis and Americans.  It&#8217;s not a smart idea.  Even though there are people who are good friends, who say &#8212; look, it&#8217;s not like you think, Morsi is going to get thrown out, and we still have good connections with the military.  I said &#8212; yeah, right, but he threw out the people that were against him and put in people that could control [them].  They&#8217;re not our friend.  Oh yeah, they&#8217;re our friend.  So when Morsi goes out, we&#8217;ll have this friendly force in Egypt.  Are you kidding me?  You don&#8217;t take a chance like that.</p>
<p>And again, I don&#8217;t find that those who betray Israel will be blessed.  It&#8217;s not going to happen.  And I was asked by Dr. Bob, you know, what&#8217;s the most frustrating thing &#8212; it&#8217;s people who you&#8217;re close to who end up not doing the right thing or breaking promises.  Because you expect the Left to be who they are.  And I know, from some of the comments, there are a number of Jewish people here &#8212; I&#8217;m sick and tired of people who are Jewish feeling they&#8217;ve got to beat themselves up for some reason and beat up Israel.  That&#8217;s got to stop.  Israel is the greatest friend we&#8217;ve got.</p>
<p>(Applause)</p>
<p>So it&#8217;s time to get over that.  And there is an old concept &#8212; you encourage your friends, and you go after your enemies.  Khadafi didn&#8217;t just abandon his nuclear program.  Because all of a sudden, there was newfound respect.  We invaded Iraq.  And he threw up his hands and said &#8212; what do you want to know?  You can come in, you can &#8212; you know, he was scared.  That&#8217;s how you get respect.  Another way of hitting them in the head with a football helmet when they&#8217;re not looking, you know?  You have to make sure they understand.</p>
<p>Mike [Lorren] and I have talked about this.  And he said the reason Iran is not stopping &#8212; it&#8217;s not because Israel is not a credible threat to attack them.  Everybody believes Israel is quite capable of going ahead and attacking them, but that&#8217;s not deterring them.  The reason they&#8217;re continuing is because the United States is not a credible threat to attack them.  If they honestly believed that we would attack them, they would stop today.  Immediately.  But they don&#8217;t think we will.  And I&#8217;m hearing behind the scenes that this administration has put so much pressure on the Israeli government that they &#8212; well, let&#8217;s say that they may&#8217;ve decided they can&#8217;t do anything because of the threats from this administration.</p>
<p>Now, the people that helped get Obama elected, who think Israel is a good idea, need to wake up and tell him they&#8217;re our friends, let&#8217;s preserve them.  And then it would happen.  Because that&#8217;s the only kind of thing he responds to.  But he throws our friends under the bus and rewards our enemies.  And I&#8217;ve taken all kinds of grief by saying &#8212; with what he has done in Egypt, in Libya &#8212; he has jumpstarted the new Ottoman Empire.  And I&#8217;ve been called all kinds of names.  But look at the map.  Look at what&#8217;s happening, and surrounding Israel.  And there will be a price to pay for being such an enemy, in reality, to Israel.</p>
<p>I don&#8217;t know if anybody here noticed, but back in May of 2010, I read that the United States government, for the first time since Israel came back into existence, had sided with all of Israel&#8217;s enemies and demanded that they disclose any and all nuclear weapons.  You may not have noticed, if you noticed that, that it was within two days, the flotilla leaves Turkey to go challenge the Gaza Strip blockade.  It&#8217;s not an accident.  You study history, you know that a nation&#8217;s enemies, upon seeing that nation&#8217;s greatest ally moving away from them, are provoked into moving against them.  It&#8217;s just the way it works.</p>
<p>North Korea thought that South Korea &#8212; some people say it was not the cause, but it was certainly timely &#8212; when you had an administration official say South Korea is basically outside our sphere of influence, North Korea moved south.  I mean, it&#8217;s provocative.  And when we show distance between us and Israel, it provokes Israel&#8217;s enemies, who are our enemies.  So why not be a friend &#8212; even if you don&#8217;t like Israel, why not be a friend to the enemy of our enemies that want to destroy us?</p>
<p>You may not be aware, the Northern Alliance, now called war criminals by this administration, fought and defeated the Taliban completely within four months.  You remember that?  By October, we&#8217;d found out where the training occurred, where the terrorist camps were in Afghanistan.  The Taliban was involved.  We didn&#8217;t send 100,000 troops over there; we sent less than 500, around 300 embedded Special Operations, military, and some intelligence.  It&#8217;s one of their greatest victories.  Within four months, the Taliban was totally routed.</p>
<p>And then, a major mistake &#8212; and I didn&#8217;t know this until I met with the Northern Alliance officials overseas a few times, once in Afghanistan, a couple of times other places, where they felt safer.  But we told them they had to turn in all the weapons we gave them to defeat the Taliban.  Said you gave back everything?  Well, not everything.  But we also had given them aerial support.  And they defeated the Taliban without a single American being killed.  You know, there were some hurt.  Riding in a wooden saddle for 10 days caused blood blisters on some of our guys&#8217; rear ends, but nobody was killed.  And these guys, now called war criminals, that we&#8217;ve abandoned, that are going to be targeted for killing the minute we pull out &#8212; they did our bidding, and they defeated our enemy.</p>
<p>Now, I&#8217;ll do this very quickly.  But we don&#8217;t have to have any more people killed in Afghanistan to win.  And I know a lot of people hadn&#8217;t thought about it.  But meeting with the Northern Alliance, there&#8217;s a number of things very clear that we could do, and we could be out sooner than the President says.  We should&#8217;ve been out years ago.  Occupiers don&#8217;t do real well in that part of the world.  Somebody that knew history said &#8212; well, Alexander the Great &#8212; he conquered that area.  He died on the way out.  I don&#8217;t count that as a big win.</p>
<p>(Laughter)</p>
<p>But anyway, it&#8217;s a tough place to try to occupy.  And we became occupiers after we won.  And we forced this centralized government on them, when they&#8217;ve never been centralized.  And you can&#8217;t have a centralized government there unless it&#8217;s really corrupt.</p>
<p>And I didn&#8217;t know, until I really got involved &#8212; under the constitution we gave them, each region or state does not get to elect their governor.  The president, President Karzai, appoints them.  You think there are any kickbacks involved?  They don&#8217;t get to elect their mayors.  We gave them this constitution and said Sharia law is the law of the land.  The last Christian church meeting publicly has had to abandon it.  The last publicly professing Jew has had to leave.  After we gave them this government.  They don&#8217;t get to &#8212; they appoint the police chiefs &#8212; think any corruption there?  Karzai says there&#8217;s none, so I&#8217;m sure he&#8217;s right.</p>
<p>But anyway, the Northern Alliance guys say &#8212; look, if you will just help us amend our constitution, allow us to elect our governors, allow us to elect our mayors, select our own police chiefs, it&#8217;ll help end the corruption, and it will strengthen our regions.  And if you make our government more like yours, where &#8212; they don&#8217;t realize how little power the states have &#8212; but where the states have most of the power, then we can stop the Taliban.  The way it is, they can knock off the top people in the centralized government, and they&#8217;ve taken over.  But if you give the power back to the states, we can keep them from taking over.  But you got to let us elect our people in our own areas.  Why wouldn&#8217;t Americans be for that?  Why did we give them a government full of corruption?  Well, we did.</p>
<p>And I said &#8212; well, what makes you think that we could have that kind of power, to get an amendment through that would be that sweeping a change?  And Massoud, whose brother was called the Lion of [Pashtun], the great hero from the Russian fights, the one person that they believed could&#8217;ve united all of Afghanistan with America&#8217;s help &#8212; they killed him the day before 9/11.  The Taliban knew what they were doing.  We didn&#8217;t know what was going on.  They knew.  We figured out [they will unite] behind Massoud.</p>
<p>Well anyway, his brother, a smart guy &#8212; but he said &#8212; our Afghan budget in American dollars is around $12.5 billion.  He said &#8212; do you know how much of that we pay ourselves with Afghan money that we collect as a government?  No.  $1.5 billion of the $12.5 billion comes from us.  The other $11 billion comes from other countries, and that means mainly you.  You think you&#8217;ve got some leverage to help us get an amendment through our constitution?  Well gee, maybe we do.</p>
<p>Anyway, I met with Dana Rohrabacher and some Baloch officials.  They&#8217;re the largest part of Pakistan.  They have most of the natural resources in Pakistan; that&#8217;s where they get their natural resources.  And they&#8217;re tired of being terrorized.  The Pakistani government thinks the way to keep them suppressed is go through, terrorize their town, kill, rape, destroy crops, tear them up, keep them subjugated to the radical Islamic government, basically.</p>
<p>And I had a thought.  And next time we met with the Northern Alliance officials, I said &#8212; what would you think if some of us in the US government started pushing for an independent Balochistan?  And half of them didn&#8217;t speak English.  But after the interpreter interpreted, even General Dostum &#8212; all their eyes got big, and Dostum said &#8212; that would change everything.  The arrogance of Pakistan would go away overnight.  You would see them coming to you.</p>
<p>Dostum said &#8212; I was meeting with some &#8212; he&#8217;s a legend over there because of his legendary fighting.  But he said the Pakistani leaders were saying recently &#8212; we&#8217;re sick of the United States.  Now they&#8217;re offering the Taliban to buy them offices in Dubai, to let their criminals out of prison.  They ought to be buying us stuff.  We&#8217;re the ones supplying the Taliban.  They ought to be offering us bribes, not the Taliban; they&#8217;re just our puppets.  And he said &#8212; you start talking about an independent Balochistan, that attitude will change overnight.</p>
<p>So I did an op-ed.  And Dana said &#8212; you and I agree on a position.  I had one line in there that mentioned Balochistan.  I said maybe it&#8217;s time to start talking about an independent Balochistan, since the supplies are coming through the Baloch area to the Taliban, to weaken the Taliban and to take them down.</p>
<p>A week later, I get an English translation of an op-ed in Pakistan&#8217;s largest newspaper.  And they referred to this congressman from Texas named Louie Gohmert, who is now is now advocating for an independent Balochistan &#8212; that obviously being from Texas, he knows all our natural resources come from the Baloch area.  And I&#8217;m sure, being from Texas, they want &#8212; you know, Texas just wants their natural resources.  And surely, a congressman wouldn&#8217;t bring something up like that unless it was all the talk behind the scenes in Washington.</p>
<p>But anyway, they said &#8212; regardless of the motivation, maybe it is time to change the strategy of our military away from terrorizing the Baloch people, try to work out a peace with the Baloch people, and stop supplying the Taliban, and worry more about Pakistan than the Taliban in Afghanistan.  There are ways to win without killing more Americans.</p>
<p>This last thought &#8212; one of the fathers of one of the Seal Team Six members that got a target on their backs after Vice President Biden outed the seal team &#8212; they went to the briefing by the military for family members of Seal Team Six members that were killed on the Chinook, that were ambushed.  And I&#8217;ve read the C130 transcripts of the cockpit that was watching all this, was told they couldn&#8217;t fire at these people because there might be civilians in the area.  They watched them dissemble their equipment and fade back.  And they asked for permission to take them out and was denied &#8212; there might be civilians in the background.</p>
<p>And the family members didn&#8217;t even know this, but one of the fathers said &#8212; since you knew this was such a hotspot, and nobody had been able to land there recently, why didn&#8217;t you just send in a drone?  And the admiral said &#8212; because we&#8217;re trying to win the hearts and minds of their people.</p>
<p>Folks, that&#8217;s not the purpose of the military.  We give the military money, it ought to be to kick rears, break things, and come home.  And we could do that in Afghanistan without getting another American killed if we just empower the enemy of our enemies.  We should not be the worst generation in American history, but that&#8217;s where we&#8217;re headed.</p>
<p>So I thank God for you caring enough do all you do to contribute, to learn, to read, to talk to people.  Because there&#8217;s still hope.  I&#8217;m still running for Congress because I know there&#8217;s still hope.  And you&#8217;re part of that hope.  And I really believe, if we&#8217;ll keep pushing and do the right thing strategically, we don&#8217;t have to be the worst generation in history.  We can be one of the better generations.  Because on the brink of complete failure of the system that the Founders created, we brought it back and put it on the right path.</p>
<p>Thanks for letting me be here with you.</p>
<p>(Applause)</p>
<p><strong>Unidentified Audience Member:</strong> My question is about the sequestration process &#8212; what&#8217;s in store &#8212; with an eye on baseline budgeting, what the cuts really are going to be in the short term, and whether it&#8217;s a manufactured crisis that&#8217;s being peddled by Obama and, if so, is there an upside for us?</p>
<p><strong>Louie Gohmert:</strong> Well, going back to front &#8212; I don&#8217;t think it&#8217;s a manufactured crisis.  I mean, there&#8217;ve been plenty of those.  The Fiscal Cliff was a manufactured crisis.  We keep manufacturing these.  But it&#8217;s not &#8212; it is a manufactured crisis as far as financially for the country.  I mean, manufactured in the sense that this has been coming for a long time, it really is a problem, we can fix this &#8212; it&#8217;s not a crisis, but we got to start now.</p>
<p>But yeah, the baseline budgeting &#8212; and by the way, I filed a bill, in all four Congresses I&#8217;ve been in, to eliminate the automatic increase in every budget and go to a zero-baseline budget.  I heard Rush Limbaugh talk about it in the &#8217;90s, when I was a judge, never dreaming that I would be in a position to do something.</p>
<p>But anyway, I actually got a promise from Speaker Boehner that he would being the bill up.  I said &#8212; I don&#8217;t care whose name is on it.  If you will promise &#8212; and he promised.  He said &#8212; but all I&#8217;ll promise is if Paul Ryan brings it out of committee.  Well, I got a promise from Paul he&#8217;d bring it out of committee.  He&#8217;s been on my bill every time, and he supported it.  Back in &#8217;05 and &#8217;06, when we were in the majority, the Chairman of the Budget did not want to support it.</p>
<p>So it passed the House last year, year ago.  And I&#8217;ve got to give credit, you know, Speaker Boehner kept his word.  He brought it to the floor after Paul committee-passed it.  They had Rob Woodall, a great &#8212; well, he was freshman last year &#8212; on the Budget Committee, put his name up front on it.  And he and I are working to do that again.</p>
<p>It mainly is cutting the rate of growth.  But the trouble is, it&#8217;s more than that for the military.  It really is going to hurt the military.  The $42 billion in cuts &#8212; that is a real problem.</p>
<p><strong>Unidentified Audience Member:</strong> (Inaudible question &#8212; microphone inaccessible)</p>
<p><strong>Louie Gohmert:</strong> Yeah.  All of that is manufactured.  Yeah, he&#8217;s asking about the long delays at the airport and all that.  Now, understand, you could very well have those.  I know when I was at the Army in Fort Benning, when President Carter was President, we had severe cuts.  And I thought some of the big perks for some of the flag officers would go away.  None of those went away.  It was all the things the public could see that got cut first.  So I think you can anticipate that.</p>
<p>And those could very well be real delays.  They could be, you know, very real problems with planes.  Because it&#8217;s likely the President will give orders so that it will at least appear he wasn&#8217;t lying about this.  But you can expect a show of problems, but I think they&#8217;ll be self-inflicted.  I don&#8217;t think they&#8217;re necessary.  It&#8217;s just a matter of priority.  But you can expect that, and you need to be ready to answer.</p>
<p>There were all kinds of fat in their budget at TSA and other places.  They just made the cuts where they would hurt people the worst to try to make the point.  And then you can point out to your Democratic friends &#8212; which is why you need to become a Republican &#8212; any party that would go about hurting the public just to make a point is not somebody you ought to be supporting in the next election.  So anyway, you&#8217;re going to feel it, but not because you have to.</p>
<p>Now, let me make this point &#8212; all of the government agencies are supposed to get an 11 percent cut.  One of the things I&#8217;ve been mad at my leadership about is not the fact that they forced us to cut our own House budgets by 11 and a half percent over last two years.  We were able to do it.  We have one less employee in my office than we used to have.  So we got nine where we had 10 in the Washington office.  So we all adjusted in the House.</p>
<p>The Senate &#8212; you know, Harry Reid was not about to cut the Senate&#8217;s budgets over the last two years.  But the thing is, that gives us the moral authority to tell every agency, every department, we did it to ourselves.  And by the way, I think that&#8217;s good politically.  People in America don&#8217;t know we cut our own budgets.  Use that for the moral authority to say to every department and agency &#8212; we did it to ourselves, now we&#8217;re doing it to you.  And you can do this.</p>
<p>Well, instead, this sequester &#8212; on top of the 11 and a half percent we cut our own budgets in the House &#8212; cuts another 11 percent.  We will have cut nearly 23 percent in three years from our own budgets.  And as my Chief of Staff has said, you know, we&#8217;re in a war here to save America, and we keep cutting our own supply line while the other side is not cutting their supply line.  But those will be real cuts in the House for our own staff.</p>
<p><strong>Unidentified Audience Member:</strong> Louie, I was really incensed when I heard that the government gave F-16 planes to Egypt and to their man, Morsi.  So I told a Democratic friend of mine &#8212; aren&#8217;t you incensed about that?  His answer was &#8212; do you want China to supply those planes?  How do you respond?</p>
<p><strong>Louie Gohmert:</strong> Actually, there is such unrest there.  If China is foolish enough to get embroiled in that, it will cost them tremendously.  That act would cost them, it would hurt them.  They might think it&#8217;s an opportunity.  But it kind of reminds me what my former preacher used to say about sin.  He says &#8212; it will keep you longer than you meant to stay and cost you more than you meant to pay.  And I think that&#8217;s what would happen if China gets involved.</p>
<p>But when I was in Israel, talking to one of the ministers, about a year ago, he said &#8212; oh, you just missed the Chinese emissaries.  They come very regularly, and especially when they think that the US has done something to snub us.  And they come by, and they say the same thing every time &#8212; are you ready to acknowledge that the US is really not your friend?  Are you ready to acknowledge that they will throw you away just like they have their other allies?  Because we know one of these days you&#8217;re going to come to that realization.  And when you do, just give us a call.  We&#8217;re ready to be your friend, and we&#8217;ll be a better friend than the United States has ever been.  They do that routinely.  They move in Africa, they move in South America.  They move where we anger people.  And it would not be &#8212; it&#8217;d be the same thing in Egypt.</p>
<p>But good grief, what a mistake for them to get &#8212; see, they&#8217;re still concerned about the Uighurs and the radical Islamists in China.  It would be very dangerous, they&#8217;d have to understand, to help give that a jumpstart again.</p>
<p><strong>John Lott:</strong> Yes, thanks very much for your great speech this morning.  My name is John Lott.</p>
<p>I was just wondering &#8212; when you&#8217;re talking about this $40 billion &#8211;</p>
<p><strong>Louie Gohmert:</strong> The John Lott?</p>
<p><strong>John Lott: </strong> Right, [I guess so].</p>
<p>(Applause)</p>
<p><strong>Louie Gohmert:</strong> You and I have talked.  I appreciate so much everything you do.</p>
<p><strong>John Lott:</strong> Oh, well, likewise.  Anyway, thank you.</p>
<p>In the military right now, we&#8217;re spending like $10 billion a year on green energy type things.</p>
<p><strong>Louie Gohmert:</strong> Yeah.  You&#8217;re right.</p>
<p><strong>John Lott: </strong> There&#8217;s other things.  So why?  Is maybe part of the response just to point out the things that the President would be cutting are important, and yet he has these pet projects that are wasteful &#8211;</p>
<p><strong>Louie Gohmert:</strong> That&#8217;s a great idea.  That&#8217;s a great idea.  And you&#8217;re right, we&#8217;re spending about $10 billion on green energy for the military.  That&#8217;s insane.  But even without checking, I can guarantee you that will not be something that gets cut by this administration.  So even if we pass the bill, as I hope we do, to give the military more flexibility, I&#8217;m sure that will be one of the things that won&#8217;t get cut.  So that&#8217;s something &#8212; I&#8217;m already thinking I got to get that on a poster and use it on the House floor.  So thank you for reminding &#8212; great, great comment.</p>
<p><strong>Unidentified Audience Member:</strong> Thank you for all you&#8217;re doing.  This is kind of a devil&#8217;s advocate question &#8211;</p>
<p><strong>Louie Gohmert:</strong> [Lead to what?]</p>
<p><strong>Unidentified Audience Member:</strong> &#8212; put the brakes on spending.</p>
<p><strong>Louie Gohmert:</strong> Yeah.  It is outrageous.  The people that got elected in the bigger conservative-wave election two years ago ran on that very issue.  Most of us ran on that issue.  In fact, the Speaker of the House made us take the pledge.  I willingly took it.  And it said &#8212; and another reason I&#8217;m loved &#8212; I pulled the pledge out and read it to our leadership more than once, where it says &#8212; basically, if you&#8217;ll put us back in the majority, we will return spending to pre-bailout, pre-stimulus levels, which is fiscal year 2008.  And we will cut $100 billion in the first year.  We could&#8217;ve done that.  We could&#8217;ve kept our promise on that.</p>
<p>And you remember what happened &#8212; as soon as we won the majority, by January, our leadership was saying &#8212; now, remember we pledged $100 billion for a year, and the fiscal year starts October 1st.  So we&#8217;re not talking about a full year.  So we&#8217;re really talking about a two thirds of a year, so we&#8217;re really talking about, you know, maybe $66 billion in cuts, not $100 billion, because it&#8217;s only two thirds of a year.</p>
<p>And then we got to march, to the CR.  And we were told this is not really the place for a fight.  The debt ceiling in July &#8212; that will be the place we&#8217;ll take our stand and we&#8217;ll fight.  So we just kind of need to go along with this.  And then we got the final deal at 10 p.m. on Friday night, when things were going to shut down.  And it was, we were told, cut maybe $28 billion, $29 billion.  It&#8217;s not everything we had hoped, but at least it&#8217;s cuts.  And now we&#8217;re told that actually it didn&#8217;t cut $29 billion; it may&#8217;ve spent $5 billion more.</p>
<p>So we&#8217;ve gone two years without cutting.  We could cut.  And the Founders anticipated that we would be a line of defense, that we don&#8217;t have to worry about the Supreme Court, whether they say something is constitutional or not.  Because we&#8217;ve got Congress, and we have the power of the purse.  And all we&#8217;ve got to do is just shut off the money to something that&#8217;s unconstitutional.  They anticipated we&#8217;d do that.  And we haven&#8217;t.  And there is no way one dime can be spent unless the House agrees to it.</p>
<p>And I know that you&#8217;ve heard repeatedly &#8212; look, we&#8217;re only one half of one third.  Look, we&#8217;re the most important half of the legislative branch from which all money comes.  If we don&#8217;t agree to it, it doesn&#8217;t happen, they don&#8217;t get the money.</p>
<p>So if we just have the courage of our convictions, we could cut off spending to anything.  But as I told you earlier, we were told that &#8212; gee, now that we&#8217;ve got the debt ceiling bill behind us, and we&#8217;ve given him enough debt ceiling increase to get through the election, now we can go about passing the things we want to pass, that the Senate will never take up, which is what happened.  So it&#8217;s just a matter of having the courage of our convictions.  And we could do it.</p>
<p>Actually, I was inspired by Jim DeMint&#8217;s action.  And after hearing a number of House members saying &#8212; look, I&#8217;m under attack, and the only way I&#8217;m going to get help from the party is if I go along on this issue or that issue.  So I&#8217;m with you, but I&#8217;m not going to be back if I don’t tow the line on this so I can get help.</p>
<p>So I started a PAC, and actually trying to build a group &#8212; we need at least 20, and hopefully we&#8217;ll get 25 to 30 &#8212; of people who will be uncompromising.  We can force our party into doing the right thing.  Because if you have [enough, more] than the majority, then you have to be willing &#8212; and I think people in Washington know that I am &#8212; to bring down something important to your party if they don&#8217;t do the right thing on an entire issue.</p>
<p>And also, some of us have been meeting by camera with some senators, conservative Republican senators.  We&#8217;re starting to meet every couple of weeks.  And Rand has kind of pushed that.  But we&#8217;re trying to do just what you suggested &#8212; develop a strategy of consistency and then force our parties to stay consistent.</p>
<p>But you got to have strong leadership to do that.  And if you don&#8217;t have strong leadership, you&#8217;ve got to have enough of a stick over the heads &#8212; I mean, they were ready to kick Michele Bachmann off of Intelligence, and the Speaker had threatened that.  And we were able to delay that action long enough that enough people responded that it scared the Speaker&#8217;s office that they better not kick her off or there&#8217;d be a lot of people coming after the Speaker.</p>
<p>That makes a difference, when people make their voices heard.  It really does.  American people still have that kind of impact, and that&#8217;s what it&#8217;s going to take if we&#8217;re going to get anything done.</p>
<p><strong>Unidentified Speaker:</strong> Steve&#8217;s going to get the last question.</p>
<p><strong>Louie Gohmert:</strong> Okay, Steve.</p>
<p><strong>Steve:</strong> We would all like your strategy to win, your PAC to raise sufficient funds, to be able to hold the line.  But what is the realistic expectation for how this budget crisis winds its way out into the summer?  What do you really expect?</p>
<p><strong>Louie Gohmert:</strong> I think you&#8217;ll see the sequestration &#8212; I think our leaders are concerned enough that if they cave here at the last minute, they may end up out of leadership.  But I&#8217;ve heard that repeatedly for the last few years, and it hasn&#8217;t happened.  But I think you&#8217;ll see the sequester play out through the summer, as you bring up.  And there&#8217;s going to be a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth.  And what we have got to do &#8212; and I&#8217;m hoping our leadership will be good about it, because actually this week, they&#8217;ve sent out a lot of good messages &#8212; this was the President&#8217;s idea.  And I think we need to hang it around their necks.</p>
<p>And like in California, the bad news is the Democrats control everything.  The good news is you ought to be reminding the public of that every day.  You don&#8217;t like something that&#8217;s going on?  You can&#8217;t blame the Republicans, because your people are controlling everything.  And once you realize the damage that they&#8217;ve been doing, then you come over and support us.  You&#8217;re a minority?  You&#8217;re tired of the way you&#8217;ve been taken for granted, and you&#8217;ve been lured into ruts you can&#8217;t get out of by government benefits, and it&#8217;s not enough to help you?  And you really want to do something with your life?  Support Republicans, and [we'll get this done].</p>
<p>This is the opportunity we have to keep pointing out the truth and drowning out all of those mainstream, lamestream media moguls that don&#8217;t do their jobs.  And so I think it&#8217;s a chance for us to do well.</p>
<p>I thought that we &#8212; I didn&#8217;t think &#8212; we had 21 people who had signed in writing, their own handwriting &#8212; I will not vote for John Boehner for Speaker, and sign their names.  We thought if we got it in writing, they&#8217;ll be afraid to back out.  Because they&#8217;ll know we can wave that around in the future.  But we had 13 that did not vote for the Speaker.  It fell apart, but at least a couple of our guys got chairmanships, you know, and some good things.  So it&#8217;s okay to break your word if you can get something good out of it.  But &#8212; that&#8217;s sarcasm, y&#8217;all.</p>
<p>(Laughter)</p>
<p>In Washington, people don&#8217;t recognize sarcasm, so they blast me for thinking I really mean something I say sarcastically.  If we stand firm in the House and do what we promise, it gives them more credibility with the public, to let them take back over the majority in the Senate, and the country will benefit.</p>
<p>So I&#8217;m hoping that we can be the example that we should be.  And I thank you for all the help to do that.</p>
<p>(Applause)</p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank">Click here</a>.</strong></p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/frontpagemag-com/louie-gohmert-government-must-stop-paying-our-enemies/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>8</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Guns and Pensions</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/thomas-sowell/guns-and-pensions/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=guns-and-pensions</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/thomas-sowell/guns-and-pensions/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 21 Feb 2013 04:20:45 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Thomas Sowell]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Defense]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Military]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[pensions]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[politicians]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Social Security]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Spending]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=178452</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[How short-sighted spending decisions handicap our future. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2013/thomas-sowell/guns-and-pensions/government-money-wasters-1/" rel="attachment wp-att-178507"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-178507" title="government-money-wasters-1" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/government-money-wasters-1.jpg" alt="" width="297" height="267" /></a>A nation&#8217;s choice between spending on military defense and spending on civilian goods has often been posed as &#8220;guns versus butter.&#8221; But understanding the choices of many nations&#8217; political leaders might be helped by examining the contrast between their runaway spending on pensions while skimping on military defense.</p>
<p>Huge pensions for retired government workers can be found from small municipalities to national governments on both sides of the Atlantic. There is a reason. For elected officials, pensions are virtually the ideal thing to spend moneyon, politically speaking. Many kinds of spending of the taxpayers&#8217; money win votes from the recipients. But raising taxes to pay for this spending loses votes from the taxpayers. Pensions offer a way out of this dilemma for politicians.</p>
<p>Creating pensions that offer generous retirement benefits wins votes in the present by promising spending in the future. Promises cost nothing in the short run — and elections are held in the short run, long before the pensions are due.</p>
<p>By contrast, private insurance companies that sell annuities are forced by law to set aside enough assets to cover the cost of the annuities they have promised to pay. But nobody can force the government to do that — and most governments do not.</p>
<p>This means that it is only a matter of time before pensions are due to be paid and there is not enough money set aside to pay for them. This applies to Social Security and other government pensions here, as well as to all sorts of pensions in other countries overseas.</p>
<p>Eventually, the truth will come out that there is just not enough money in the till to pay what retirees were promised. But eventually can be a long time.</p>
<p>A politician can win quite a few elections between now and eventually — and be living in comfortable retirement by the time it is somebody else&#8217;s problem to cope with the impossibility of paying retirees the pensions they were promised.</p>
<p>Inflating the currency and paying pensions in dollars that won&#8217;t buy as much is just one of the ways for the government to seem to be keeping its promises, while in fact welshing on the deal.</p>
<p>The politics of military spending are just the opposite of the politics of pensions.</p>
<p>In the short run, politicians can always cut military spending without any immediate harm being visible, however catastrophic the consequences may turn out to be down the road.</p>
<p>Despite the huge increase in government spending on domestic programs during Franklin D. Roosevelt&#8217;s administration in the 1930s, FDR cut back on military spending. On the eve of the Second World War, the United States had the 16th largest army in the world, right behind Portugal.</p>
<p>Even this small military force was so inadequately supplied with equipment that its training was skimped. American soldiers went on maneuvers using trucks with &#8220;tank&#8221; painted on their sides, since there were not enough real tanks to go around.</p>
<p>American warplanes were not updated to match the latest warplanes of Nazi Germany or imperial Japan. After World War II broke out, American soldiers stationed in the Philippines were fighting for their lives using rifles left over from the Spanish-American war, decades earlier. The hand grenades they threw at the Japanese invaders were so old that they often failed to explode. At the battle of Midway, of 82 Americans who flew into combat in obsolete torpedo planes, only 12 returned alive. In Europe, our best tanks were never as good as the Germans&#8217; best tanks, which destroyed several times as many American tanks as the Germans lost in tank battles.</p>
<p>Fortunately, the quality of American warplanes eventually caught up with and surpassed the best that the Germans and Japanese had. But a lot of American pilots lost their lives needlessly in outdated planes before that happened.</p>
<p>These were among the many prices paid for skimping on military spending in the years leading up to World War II. But, politically, the path of least resistance is to cut military spending in the short run and let the long run take care of itself.</p>
<p>In a nuclear age, we may not have time to recover from our short-sighted policies, as we did in World War II.</p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank">Click here</a>.</strong></p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/thomas-sowell/guns-and-pensions/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>3</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>In Defense of Rove</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/arnold-ahlert/in-defense-of-rove/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=in-defense-of-rove</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/arnold-ahlert/in-defense-of-rove/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 08 Feb 2013 04:58:30 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Arnold Ahlert]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Conservative Victory Project]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[crossroads]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Defense]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Elections]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[rove]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=176907</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The wisdom of avoiding the needless surrender of power.  ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2013/arnold-ahlert/in-defense-of-rove/rove-2/" rel="attachment wp-att-176914"><img class="size-full wp-image-176914 alignleft" title="rove" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/rove.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="300" /></a>Intense criticism is mounting <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/OTUS/gop-civil-war-karl-rove-group-conservative-victory/story?id=18424932">against Karl Rove</a> over his launch of the “Conservative Victory Project,” a new American Crossroads initiative that seeks to vet GOP Senate candidates while squeezing out unelectable political prospects. Conservative critics of Rove see his new venture as an “incumbent protection program” and an assault on the Tea Party. But the accusations miss their mark. It is difficult to deny the disasters that cost conservatives precious political power in the last two elections – disasters that could have been easily prevented if there had been a system set up for the careful scrutiny of candidates. Surely, the conservative movement would better be served by a more effective filtering out of unelectable candidates through a project like Rove has designed.</p>
<p>“There is a broad concern about having blown a significant number of races because the wrong candidates were selected,” says Steven J. Law, the president of <a href="http://www.americancrossroads.org/about/">American Crossroads</a>, the conservative organization responsible for the creation of the Project. “We don’t view ourselves as being in the incumbent protection business, but we want to pick the most conservative candidate who can win.”</p>
<p>Jonathan Collegio, communications director of American Crossroads, further <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/power-players-abc-news/american-crossroads-ashley-judd-join-nfl-expect-knocks-120517665.html">illuminates </a>the rationale behind the project:</p>
<blockquote><p>&#8220;Somewhere between four to seven U.S. Senate seats were lost over the last two election cycles, not because of the messages that the Republican party had, but because of the messengers, the lack of candidate discipline, as well as a lack of ability to raise sufficient money to compete.&#8221;</p></blockquote>
<p>Some of those messengers were indeed very much off the charts politically. Missouri Senate candidate Todd Akin’s ludicrous comment about &#8220;legitimate rape&#8221; more than likely cost Republicans a Senate seat <a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Elections/Senate/2012/1107/Claire-McCaskill-most-endangered-Democrat-wins-Missouri-Senate-race-video">retained </a>by the extremely vulnerable incumbent Claire McCaskill. McCaskill was widely predicted to lose before Akin’s blunder. Richard E. Mourdock, who <a href="http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2012-11-07/news/chi-mourdock-loses-indiana-senate-race-20121107_1_richard-mourdock-lugar-republicans-indiana-senate">ousted </a>Indiana Republican incumbent Richard E. Lugar in the primary, was defeated by Rep. Joe Donnelly for a seat long-held by the GOP. His widely publicized statement that &#8220;even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that is something that God intended to happen&#8221; was a decisive factor.</p>
<p>The 2010 election saw similar defeats of other dubious candidates, such as the highly grating <a href="http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/reid-wins-nevada_514609.html">loss </a>by Sharron Angle to a very vulnerable Harry Reid in Nevada, and Ken Buck, who <a href="http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/laura-chapin/2010/11/05/ken-bucks-abortion-stance-cost-him-the-senate-seat">lost </a>a close race to Michael Bennet in Colorado, very likely due to his position that abortion should be prohibited even in cases of rape or incest. In the cases of Bennet, Akin and Mourdock, these candidates do not even represent the popular Republican Party view of allowing abortion exceptions for rape, incest and the life of the mother. All it takes is one question from one reporter on their extreme position, and the race is as good as lost. How many more times will conservatives permit this scene to play itself out?</p>
<p>Perhaps the most glaring example of the type of election forfeiture Rove and Crossroads seek to avoid with their new project comes to us from Christine O&#8217;Donnell, who ousted Rep. Michael Castle in the primary, only to be defeated by Christopher Coons in the 2010 election in <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/christine-odonnell-loses-delaware-senate-race-christopher-coons/story?id=12036730">Delaware</a>. O&#8217;Donnell represented the epitome of an undesirable candidate. She had held no elective office or had any experience in government <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/09/14/hours-polls-close-gloves-come-delaware/">prior </a>to running for the Senate, and a veritable <a href="http://www.newrepublic.com/article/politics/77887/the-collected-aphorisms-christine-odonnell">collection </a>of off-the-wall comments, as well as a <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Business/checkered-financial-past-dogs-tea-partys-christine-odonnell/story?id=11646637">series </a>of business problems, ranging from unpaid debts and taxes, to IRS liens and misused campaign funds, made her an easily beatable candidate. Coons <a href="http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/democrat-chris-coons-easily-wins-delaware-senate-race-57-vote-trounces-christine-o-donnell-article-1.451817">trounced </a>O&#8217;Donnell in the election, winning by a margin of 17 points. By contrast, an exit poll taken following the vote <a href="http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2010/11/02/exit-polls-the-surprise-in-delaware/">showed </a>Coons would have beaten Castle by a single point. Considering that poll was taken after Coons’ victory, it is quite possible Castle could have overcome such a slender margin during a sustained campaign. Instead, a man with a serious prior flirtation with <a href="http://spectator.org/blog/2010/09/22/chris-coons-i-studied-under-a">Marxism</a> was sent to the Senate.</p>
<p>In an <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/hannity/2013/02/06/karl-rove-defends-new-group-sending-shockwaves-through-gop">interview </a>with Fox News&#8217; Sean Hannity, Rove attempted to defuse criticism coming from conservative circles. The foremost accusation is that Rove is attempting to form an incumbent protection movement aimed at protecting establishment GOP candidates from &#8220;upstart&#8221; Tea Party candidates and their &#8220;over-the-top&#8221; conservatism. &#8220;This is not to protect incumbent Republicans,&#8221; explained Rove. He continued:</p>
<blockquote><p>“It is to get in races where it is important to have a winning candidate. It is to try and find the most conservative candidate who can win the so-called Buckley rule. Our job is not to protect incumbents, it is to win races by stopping the practice of giving away some of the seats like we did in Missouri and Indiana this past year, and that may mean telling the incumbent Republican that if he is going be in the race, he shouldn&#8217;t expect any funds from Crossroads in the general election.”</p></blockquote>
<p>The claim that Rove is “at war” with conservative grassroots is similarly hyperbolic and is disproved by the tens of millions of dollars that Crossroads has given to Tea Party candidates, even against the organization’s better judgment. &#8220;Crossroads is second to none in our support of Tea Party candidates,&#8221; Rove affirmed:</p>
<blockquote><p>“In 2010 and &#8217;12, we spent over $30 million for Senate candidates who were Tea Party candidates. We spent almost $20 million for House candidates who were Tea Party candidates &#8230; We spent $2.9 million for Marco Rubio, more than any other group. We spent $2.7 million for Ron Paul. We spent $5.1 million for Sharron Angle in Nevada. We spent $8 million in Colorado for Ken Buck. We spent $1.4 million in Pennsylvania for Pat Toomey, the former president of Club for Growth. We spent more money on his behalf than the group that he used to head. And then in 2012 we spent $5.9 million in Indiana for Murdock and $3.3 million in Missouri. We ran ads up until the point where Akin made his stupid comment.”</p></blockquote>
<p>As Rove notes, the Tea Party has certainly brought the GOP some good candidates, such as Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, which Crossroads has supported. But it has also supported terrible candidates, which the entire conservative movement, including the so-called “establishment,” has no choice but to waste millions of dollars on in vain. Like the Republican Party itself, the Tea Party movement is not immune to attracting unseemly characters and supporting those who do damage to the conservative cause. The influential Tea Party-aligned group FreedomWorks, for instance, suffered an embarrassing leadership fallout over a book royalty dispute. Veteran Republican politico and former chairman Dick Armey resigned from the organization after he and other staffers alleged group president Matt Kibbe was <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2012/12/dick-armey-freedomworks-president-clashed-over-book-deal-84599.html">exploiting</a> FreedomWorks to enrich himself through a book produced with organizational resources. As one internal source told the <a href="http://dailycaller.com/2012/12/05/why-dick-armey-resigned-from-his-tea-party-organization/">Daily Caller</a>, “There is a feeling by a lot of folks that FreedomWorks is shifting over to become a promotion vehicle for Matt Kibbe more than an organization that focuses on public policy and elections and being a service center to the grassroots.”</p>
<p>The Conservative Victory Project will maintain its own identity, operating as a super-PAC, independent of both American Crossroads and the National Republican Senatorial Committee. This autonomy, along with the intention of disclosing the names of donors, is considered critical. The inevitable showdowns between competing Republicans is likely to make some donors squeamish about supporting intra-party battles that could eventually benefit Democrats, much like the Republican presidential primaries gave the Obama campaign plenty of ammunition to use against eventual nominee Mitt Romney.</p>
<p>One candidate for the 2014 races reportedly being targeted by Rove&#8217;s group is Rep. Steve King (R-IA), who is considering a run for the Senate seat in Iowa currently held by retiring Democrat Tom Harkin. Efforts will be made to see that he doesn&#8217;t get the nomination, due to his outspoken and incendiary <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2012/12/20/iowa-could-be-key-2014-test-for-senate-gop-campaign-arm/">comments </a>that would likely alienate a majority of the electorate: King contended that terrorists would be “dancing in the streets” if President Obama won the 2008 election, unnecessarily denigrated illegal immigrants as “dogs,” and called former Senator Joseph McCarthy (R-WI) “a great American hero.” Other Senate races where provocative would-be candidates are seen as potential general election liabilities include Louisiana, Alaska and Georgia.</p>
<p>A more rigorous vetting process for such loose-cannon candidates will likely improve electoral outcomes for the conservative movement. In 2010, for example, prompted by nationwide dissatisfaction with two years of complete Democratic control, the Senate, just like the House, was ripe for the taking by Republicans. In the end, Democrats <a href="http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0774721.html">maintained </a>a 51-47 margin (with 2 independents). Thus, the three very winnable Senate seats lost by Angle, Buck and O&#8217;Donnell cost the GOP control of that chamber. After that, the Democratically-controlled Senate, led by Harry Reid, enabled Barack Obama to keep his profligate and irresponsible spending under wraps by refusing to pass a budget for more than three years. Had Republicans controlled both houses of Congress, they would have very likely forced the president to veto responsible budgets which, in turn, might have led to a different result in the 2012 presidential election. Moreover, as mad as conservative groups may be, Jonathan Collegio reminds them that losing control of the Senate &#8220;made it impossible to stop Obama’s fiscal cliff tax hikes last month.&#8221;</p>
<p>In 2014, Senate races will see Democrats defending 21 seats, compared to only 14 for Republicans, giving them a similar advantage to the 23-10 one they held in the 2012 election. Democrats gained two seats, courtesy of Mourdock and Aken, but 2014 is fraught with far more peril for their party. Barack Obama isn&#8217;t on the ballot, meaning voters can only express dissatisfaction with his policies by taking it out on other Democrats. Off-year elections also tend to attract voters who are paying closer attention than the so-called &#8220;low information voters.&#8221; Thus, the excesses of dubious candidates with hard-line positions that thrill primary voters, while they alienate the general electorate, are likely to be magnified.</p>
<p>Conservatives of all strips were burned by the outcome of the 2012 election and are understandably searching for the cause of their electoral misfortune. But they must look honestly at the factors that produced crucial losses for the cause and ultimately allowed the radical agenda of the Obama administration to continue damaging the country. The Conservative Victory Project is a legitimate attempt to prevent unforced errors in the candidate vetting process and needlessly giving up political power to the opposition. The conservative movement is not advanced by fomenting its own division and fighting with each other instead of fighting the enemy.</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>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/arnold-ahlert/in-defense-of-rove/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>173</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>The Argument for Guns</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/david-solway/the-argument-for-guns/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-argument-for-guns</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/david-solway/the-argument-for-guns/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 27 Dec 2012 04:44:03 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[David Solway]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[assault rifle]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Defense]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Guns]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Military]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Second Amendment]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[violence]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=171132</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[And for fighter planes, destroyers, and state of the art military technology. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2012/david-solway/the-argument-for-guns/woman-shooting/" rel="attachment wp-att-171207"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-171207" title="woman-shooting" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/woman-shooting-450x299.jpg" alt="" width="270" height="179" /></a>Following the latest shooting atrocity in the U.S., the Second Amendment has once again come under fire. Advocates of gun control claim that the easy availability of guns leads to a demonstrable increase in violence and to the kinds of murderous outbreaks we have seen in public schools, as in Columbine and Newtown. Defenders of the right to own and carry firearms argue on the contrary that an individual who is armed is not only better able to resist mortal attack but is also in a position to defend others from wanton massacre.</p>
<p>The debate has now become particularly heated. Witness the <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/19/piers-morgan-gun-control-larry-pratt_n_2330948.html?utm_hp_ref=media">exchange</a> between Piers Morgan of CNN and Larry Pratt, director of Gun Owners of America. Morgan contended that America is an inherently violent country with the worst rate of gun crime in the civilized world while Pratt countered that the right to bear arms actually makes people safer. Breaching professional etiquette, Morgan vilified Pratt as “an incredibly stupid man,” to which Pratt calmly responded “It seems to me you are morally obtuse.” Morgan’s statistics are provably wrong, and his comportment was ballistic, hurling verbal loogies at his guest; Pratt pointed out, correctly, that lethal turmoil in Europe and Australia eclipses that in the U.S., and unlike his intemperate host, he spoke with poise and composure. Another case in point: University of Rhode Island professor Erik Loomis <a href="http://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2012/12/18/professor-i-want-nra-vice-presidents-head-on-a-stick-n1469395">denounced</a> the NRA for having “murdered some more children,” considers it “a terrorist organization,” and wants its Vice President Wayne Lapierre’s “head on a stick.”</p>
<p>Loomis, like Morgan, New York mayor Michael Bloomberg, and others of their ilk, refuses to face <a href="the%20fact">the fact</a> that crime rates are much lower in areas where citizens enjoy the right to bear arms. According to the <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1196941/The-violent-country-Europe-Britain-worse-South-Africa-U-S.html#ixzz2FhEqnXQu"><em>Daily Mail</em></a>, the “gun-free” U.K., Morgan’s home country, has one of the worst rates for violence of any Western nation, 2,034 crimes for every 100,000 residents compared to 466 in the U.S. No matter. The NRA’s chief executive Wayne LaPierre has met with almost universal mockery and horror in the media—<a href="http://www.google.ca/#hl=en&amp;gs_rn=1&amp;gs_ri=serp&amp;ds=n&amp;pq=national%20post%20wayne%20lapierre&amp;cp=24&amp;gs_id=14&amp;xhr=t&amp;q=national+post+editorial+wayne+lapierre&amp;pf=p&amp;tbo=d&amp;tbm=nws&amp;sclient=psy-ab&amp;oq=national+post+editorial+wayne+lapierre&amp;gs_l=&amp;pbx=1&amp;bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.&amp;fp=28cf67">“Wacko Wayne,” “gun-crazed maniac”</a>—for <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/dec/23/nra-wayne-lapierre-schools-gun-control">recommending</a> that armed guards be stationed in the schools. But the guards are already there, at least in some of the schools. The<em> Washington Post</em> <a href="reports">reports</a> that there are currently &#8220;in excess of 10,000 gun-carrying police assigned to schools,” citing figures from the National Association of School Resource Officers. Private schools routinely retain the services of armed personnel; indeed,  <a href="http://minutemennews.com/2012/12/school-obamas-daughters-attend-has-11-armed-guards-2/">Sidwell Friends School</a> attended by Obama’s daughters currently employs 11 security guards and is looking to hire more. As AWR Hawkins at <em>Breitbart</em> <a href="His%20children%20sit%20under%20the%20protection%20guns%20afford,%20while%20the%20children%20of%20regular%20Americans%20are%20sacrificed.">deplores</a>, “His children sit under the protection guns afford, while the children of regular Americans are sacrificed.” Virginia state legislator Bob Marshall <a href="http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2012/12/24/legislator-who-wants-to-offer-gun-training-to-teachers-faces-off-with-opinionated-anchor/">comments</a>, “The political elite in this city has their children in schools with armed guards…We just need to have the same protection that they have for themselves applying to the rest of America.”</p>
<p>It is not just conservatives who recognize the utility of armed protection for students. We recall that in 2000 president Clinton <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2000/apr/16/news/mn-20323">pledged</a> $120 million in federal grants to place more police officers in schools. And on December 23, 2012, Democratic senator Barbara Boxer <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/336244/sen-boxer-proposes-deploying-national-guard-schools-eliana-johnson">introduced an act</a> that would enable the deployment of the National Guard at schools across the country. Where is the liberal/progressive condemnation of these sensible proposals? What we are seeing on the part of those liberals who are driving the gun-control paddy wagon is an unsavory mix of walleyed ignorance, selective moral outrage and calculated hysteria.</p>
<p>True, much of the animus against guns is directed at the proliferation of assault rifles and high capacity ammunition clips. This seems to make good sense until we realize that the situation is not quite that simple. Charles Krauthammer, for example, takes a far more reasonable and mature approach to the issue than most national commentators do. In an article titled “<a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/author/200446/latest">The Roots of Mass Murder</a>,” Krauthammer writes that he has “no problem in principle with gun control. Congress enacted (and I supported) an assault-weapons ban in 1994. The problem was: It didn’t work…Even the guns that are banned can be made legal with simple, minor modifications.” On the problem of efficacy, Bruce Thornton <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2012/bruce-thornton/contempt-of-bitter-clingers-fuels-gun-control/">notes</a> that “murders increased after the 1968 Gun Control act, and later declined after the 1994 assault weapons ban expired.”</p>
<p>With respect to assault rifles, there is yet another issue to consider. Article 1, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution <a href="provides%20for">provides for</a> states to form militias, and for citizens to <em>organize and train themselves</em> in those instances when the state is found remiss. This ordinance is highly controversial, and its purpose today would surely be different from its original <em>raison d’être</em>. Nonetheless, a citizen militia might conceivably be mobilized to quell anarchic unrest or even as a last-resort resistance against a Federal behemoth drastically exceeding its mandate. A citizen militia armed only with 22-caliber rifles and 9-millimeter handguns would not last long in a guerrilla campaign against overwhelming force. This scenario is admittedly rather farfetched. But as long as Article 1, Section 8 remains on the books, assault rifles must also remain available.</p>
<p>The furor over gun control must be studied in still another light, that is, from the perspective of an ostensibly pacifist Administration that has been anti-gun and anti-American from the beginning of its tenure. It seems credible to assume that the disgraceful Fast and Furious operation was intended by the Obama administration not so much to track the activities of the Mexican cartels as to create the conditions for an attack on the Second Amendment. What better way to influence the public to gut the provisions of the Second Amendment than to craft a situation in which spillover gun violence acquires ever more media prominence? This reading of the ongoing scandal, which the DOJ and the president are doing everything in their power to suppress, begins to make sense when placed in the context of Obama’s disastrous foreign policy, his downplaying of American exceptionalism, and his reduction of American military might through budgetary sequestration.</p>
<p>It is not only that the president wishes to take guns out of the hands of American citizens, aka “bitter clingers”; he is also intent on taking warships out of the water, warplanes out of the skies, bombs out of the arsenals, and advanced weapons technology out of the experimental labs. Guns are only a subset of canons. Obama’s agenda, then, seems to be double-edged. On the one hand, he is rendering American citizens vulnerable within their own borders—criminals, after all, will not surrender their guns, and weapons can always be obtained illegally by those who wish to abuse them. On the other hand, Obama seems determined to render the U.S. permeable to its enemies: he has lost the Middle East, empowered the Muslim Brotherhood both at home and abroad, allowed American personnel to be slaughtered in Benghazi, installed <a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35409150/ns/world_news-south_and_central_asia/t/troops-strict-war-rules-slow-afghan-offensive/">strict rules of engagement</a> in Afghanistan that result in greater American casualties, given China crippling influence over the American financial system, reset relations with Russia on Russian terms, ceded undue authority to a UN run amok, and seen to it that the U.S. as a corporate citizen of the world community is increasingly at the mercy of an international mafia of corrupt aggressors.</p>
<p>To focus exclusively on the liberal and media offensive against the gun lobby is to miss the more comprehensive issue. One needs to perform an act of extrapolation. The target is America itself, in both its civil and global dimensions. It is neither love of country nor moral solicitude that governs the “progressive” mindset. On the contrary, it is the distrust of the ordinary citizen to manage his own affairs coupled with a rancorous contempt for a presumably imperial America that animates our academic, intellectual, media and much of our political elite. The local campaign against guns and assault rifles is merely part of a much larger operation, put in practice by an ultra-liberal constituency and a Left administration, to weaken the U.S. both domestically and internationally. It starts with removing the common pistol; it ends with cutting back on the F-22 Raptor.</p>
<p>This is why law-abiding citizens must preserve the right to defend themselves not only in their homes and schools, but also in the diplomatic corridors of power and the arenas of international conflict. For they are now at risk in both domains.</p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank">Click here</a>.</strong></p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/david-solway/the-argument-for-guns/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>85</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>A Ground Op Against Hamas?</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/davidhornik/a-ground-op-in-gaza/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=a-ground-op-in-gaza</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/davidhornik/a-ground-op-in-gaza/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 19 Nov 2012 04:50:02 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[P. David Hornik]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[attack]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Defense]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Gaza]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Ground]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Hamas]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Israel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[missile]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Netanyahu]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Palestinian]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=165657</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Israel weighs its options. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2012/davidhornik/a-ground-op-in-gaza/2012-11-16t093529z_480358070_gm1e8bg1cpl01_rtrmadp_3_palestinians-israel-ceasefire-attacks/" rel="attachment wp-att-165662"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-165662" title="2012-11-16T093529Z_480358070_GM1E8BG1CPL01_RTRMADP_3_PALESTINIANS-ISRAEL-CEASEFIRE-ATTACKS" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/2012-11-16T093529Z_480358070_GM1E8BG1CPL01_RTRMADP_3_PALESTINIANS-ISRAEL-CEASEFIRE-ATTACKS-450x339.jpg" alt="" width="315" height="237" /></a>By Sunday night, Day 5 of Operation Pillar of Defense, the question of the hour in Israel was still: ground operation or no?</p>
<p>It’s clear by now that Israel’s top decision-making triumvirate of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Ehud Barak, and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman is genuinely not thrilled about the idea and still hopes to avoid it. At the same time, ground forces keep streaming to the Gaza border and a large-scale reserve call-up continues.</p>
<p>A ground invasion of Gaza is, of course, full of risks. It entails losing Israeli soldiers—in a society radically sensitive to such losses. It also entails collateral deaths of Palestinian civilians—in a world that seems uniquely intensely concerned about that issue, while minimally concerned about vastly greater numbers of civilian deaths in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Syrian_civil_war">Syria</a> or <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Sri_Lankan_Civil_War">Sri Lanka</a>.</p>
<p>Linked to that preoccupation with Palestinian civilian casualties is the West’s fragile support and short timeline for Israeli military operations, as Israelis well recall from the 2006 Second Lebanon War and the 2008-09 Cast Lead operation in Gaza.</p>
<p>In lieu of a ground operation, Israel has been trying—with an onslaught of aerial and naval strikes on terror targets—to get Hamas to accede to a ceasefire.</p>
<p>In an ongoing awesome display of pinpoint precision and intelligence coordination, the strikes continued on Sunday and targeted weapons stockpiles, government buildings, and top Hamas chiefs including, <a href="http://www.jpost.com/Defense/Article.aspx?id=292424">reportedly</a>, the head of its rocket program.</p>
<p>The problem was that, despite the drubbing, Hamas remained unintimidated and undeterred and kept up its no-less-relentless bombardment of Israeli civilian targets. Hamas fired over 100 rockets in the course of the day. One of them <a href="http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4307758,00.html">hit near a car</a> in the southern town of Ofakim, wounding five people.</p>
<p>For the most part, though, the Hamas projectiles either missed their targets or—more commonly—were shot down by the already-legendary <a href="http://www.rafael.co.il/Marketing/186-1530-en/Marketing.aspx">Iron Dome</a> air defense system. That included a few more rockets launched all the way—but ultimately harmlessly—to Tel Aviv. As an Israeli columnist <a href="http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=2892">noted</a>: “Paradoxically, [the] long-range rocket attacks [on Tel Aviv and Jerusalem] showed the limits of Hamas’s potency.”</p>
<p>Yet Israel was still left with the problem that its clear upper hand in the hostilities had not convinced Hamas to desist, so that the momentum toward a ground invasion continued.</p>
<p>Along with the military campaign, by Sunday night Israel was still hoping to resolve the situation through diplomacy. The central figure in these efforts—more than President Obama—is Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi.</p>
<p>Morsi, of course, as a member of Hamas’s parent-organization the Muslim Brotherhood, is no less ideologically hostile to Israel than Hamas itself. Morsi, however, faces both an Egyptian economy on the brink of disaster and his own terror problem of Salafi and other forces in Sinai.</p>
<p>As a former Israeli ambassador to Egypt <a href="http://www.jpost.com/Features/FrontLines/Article.aspx?id=292104">described</a> it: “Morsi needs a peaceful border with Israel and continuing security cooperation in order to tackle terror in Sinai as well as the economy.” Hence the hope that he could get Hamas to stand down. As of Sunday night, there were mixed reports on the success or failure of Egyptian-mediated truce talks in Cairo.</p>
<p>As for Obama, he remained publicly supportive of Israel’s campaign so far, <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/11/obamawe-are-fully-supportive-of-israels-right-to-defend-itself/">telling</a> reporters in Bangkok that</p>
<blockquote><p>there is no country on earth that would tolerate missiles raining down on its citizens from outside its borders…. Israel has every right to expect that it does not have missiles fired into its territory. If that can be accomplished without a ramping up of military activity in Gaza, that’s preferable. That’s not just preferable for the people in Gaza, it’s also preferable for the Israelis because if Israeli troops are in Gaza they are much more at risk of incurring fatalities or being wounded.</p>
<p>…if we’re serious about wanting to resolve this situation and create a genuine peace process, it starts with no more missiles being fired into Israel’s territory and that then gives us the space to try and deal with these long-standing conflicts that exist.</p>
<p>We’re going to have to see what kind of progress we can make in the next 24, 36, 48 hours, but what I’ve said to [Egyptian] President Morsi and [Turkish] Prime Minister Erdogan is that those who champion the cause of the Palestinians should recognize that if we see a further escalation of the situation in Gaza then the likelihood of us getting back on any kind of peace track that leads to a two-state solution is going to be pushed off way into the future.</p></blockquote>
<p>These words could be taken as a “<a href="http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/162211">yellow light</a>” for a ground invasion, though how long Obama’s—let alone European leaders’—support would last is of course open to question.</p>
<p>Even if a ceasefire is achieved, Israel’s leaders have no illusions about it continuing for very long or solving the problem of terror from Gaza. They may, however, prefer to save what political capital Israel has for dealing with the much more serious security problem of Iran.</p>
<p>The other alternative, for now, is to go into Gaza and deal more decisively with Hamas.</p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank">Click here</a>.</strong></p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/davidhornik/a-ground-op-in-gaza/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>30</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Report from the Rocket Zone</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/davidhornik/report-from-the-rocket-zone/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=report-from-the-rocket-zone</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/davidhornik/report-from-the-rocket-zone/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 16 Nov 2012 04:50:00 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[P. David Hornik]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Defense]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Hamas]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Israel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[strikes back]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[War]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=165384</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Israel, under constant fire, finally strikes back.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2012/davidhornik/report-from-the-rocket-zone/fire/" rel="attachment wp-att-165452"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-165452" title="fire" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/fire-450x298.jpg" alt="" width="270" height="179" /></a>By Thursday night Israel was well into its second war against the Gaza terror statelet since Israel’s ill-considered “disengagement” from Gaza in 2005, a move widely hailed at the time as ushering in a new era of peace.</p>
<p>The year leading up to the first Gaza war, 2008, saw over a thousand rocket attacks on Israel from Gaza. In 2009 and 2010, the years after that war, the attacks declined steeply; then they began to rise again and this year, 2012, had reached about 800 before Israel, on Wednesday, finally started to fight back again.</p>
<p>Israel launched the campaign on Wednesday afternoon with two major, successful hits: a lethal <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6U2ZQ0EhN4">aerial strike</a> on Ahmad Jabari, head of Hamas’s military wing and the most senior Hamas figure in the Strip, known especially to Israelis for masterminding the kidnapping of <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2011/davidhornik/gilad-comes-home/">Gilad Shalit</a>; and a series of strikes against Hamas’s Iranian-made long-range Fajr missiles, considered strategic because of their ability to hit the Tel Aviv area in central Israel.</p>
<p>Since then southern Israel has been enveloped in rocket firings from Gaza. On Thursday morning three people were killed in the town of Kiryat Malachi, 18 miles from Gaza, when a rocket <a href="http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4305658,00.html">made a direct hit</a> on a building there. In my city, Beersheva, 25 miles from Gaza, the attacks have been so frequent that this article is literally being written in intervals between air-raid sirens. So far the city’s <a href="http://www.rafael.co.il/Marketing/186-1530-en/Marketing.aspx">Iron Dome battery</a> has intercepted most of the rockets and no serious injuries have been reported.</p>
<p>Israel was further stunned on Thursday night when, for the first time ever, rockets from Gaza <a href="http://www.jpost.com/Defense/Article.aspx?id=291954">hit</a> the greater Tel Aviv area, indicating that the air force had not managed to destroy all the Fajrs and signaling a strategic escalation on Hamas’s part. Israel, for its part, had hit over 200 targets in Gaza including terror hubs and arms caches.</p>
<p>On Thursday morning the Israeli air force <a href="http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4305738,00.html">dropped leaflets</a> on Gaza warning civilians to stay out of the line of fire. That meant the war’s moral asymmetry was absolute, with one side doing its utmost to avoid civilian casualties and the other, Hamas and other Gaza terror groups like Islamic Jihad, launching hundreds of projectiles meant to kill, injure, and terrorize as many civilians as possible.</p>
<p>That did not, however, prevent Mohammed Kamel Amr—foreign minister of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood regime, in power since July—from <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/egypt-asks-us-stop-israels-gaza-offensive-095404617.html">asking</a> U.S. secretary of state Hillary Clinton for “immediate U.S. intervention to stop the Israeli aggression.” And the spokesman for Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood president, Mohamed Morsi, had still stronger words, <a href="http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=6422">saying</a> Morsi had been “follow[ing] the Israeli brutal assault.”</p>
<p>As opposed to words, Egypt’s actions so far have been relatively mild. On Wednesday, immediately after the hostilities began, Egypt’s ambassador to Israel was recalled. On Thursday it was <a href="http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4306318,00.html">announced</a> that Egypt’s prime minister Hesham Kandil—far less significant than Morsi—would be paying Gaza a solidarity visit on Friday.</p>
<p>In other words, despite the Muslim Brotherhood regime’s radical hostility to Israel, it is probably in no shape at this point to make more than symbolic gestures in Hamas’s defense, with Egypt not far from economic collapse and desperately dependent on U.S. aid. In other regards, too, the regional situation gives Israel a window for action, with both Syria and its Lebanon-based ally, Hizballah, enmeshed in trying to put down the Syrian rebellion.</p>
<p>After a day of aerial and tank fire at the Strip, it was reported by Thursday evening that Israel was calling up 30,000 reserve soldiers, making a ground invasion of the Strip likely. Israel’s goals probably do not include toppling Hamas, since Israel does not want to either reoccupy Gaza or install the Palestinian Authority there, but certainly do include regaining its deterrence by hitting Hamas hard, and restoring normal life to the people of southern Israel.</p>
<p>Although reactions from <a href="http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=6426">Washington</a> and <a href="http://www.jpost.com/Headlines/Article.aspx?id=292014">London</a> have so far been supportive, it is hard to be optimistic that the West will keep backing Israel when Palestinian casualties start flashing across TV screens. It will be a shame, since one cannot imagine a more just war than one between, on the one hand, a country simply seeking to live in peace, and on the other, savage terror organizations trying to destroy it.</p>
<p>It’s to be hoped that, however much flak is flying Israel’s way, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak will stay the course.</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>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/davidhornik/report-from-the-rocket-zone/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>92</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>The Left&#8217;s Drone Demonization Campaign</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/lloyd-billingsley/the-lefts-drone-demonization-campaign/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-lefts-drone-demonization-campaign</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/lloyd-billingsley/the-lefts-drone-demonization-campaign/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 06 Nov 2012 04:40:33 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Lloyd Billingsley]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[CAIR]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Defense]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[drone]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Islam]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[missile]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Peace]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Protest]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[religious left]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Sharon Delgado]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=163852</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[“Faith-based” protest provides lessons for the next president.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2012/lloyd-billingsley/the-lefts-drone-demonization-campaign/reaper-front_s/" rel="attachment wp-att-163896"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-163896" title="Reaper-front_s" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Reaper-front_s.gif" alt="" width="315" height="227" /></a>This year President Obama has stepped up drone strikes, which took out, among others, Sakhar al-Taifi, a key al-Qaeda commander in Afghanistan. Such strikes disturb a coalition of Muslim groups, sixties reenactors and the religious left now launching stateside protests.</p>
<p>On October 30 some <a href="http://october2011.org/blogs/kevin-zeese/protests-against-drones-are-increasing-nationwide">50 anti-drone protesters, many from churches and religious organizations</a>, showed up at Beale Air Force Base, near Marysville, California, home to the 9th Reconnaissance Wing. Beale deploys unarmed drones to gather intelligence but that cuts no slack with protesters such as Sharon Delgado founding director of <a href="http://www.earth-justice.org/aboutus.html">Earth Justice Ministries</a> and a United Methodist minister.</p>
<p>“I just want to shut down the business as usual at the base,” the Rev. Delgado told reporters. “The longer the better.”</p>
<p>The Rev. Delgado is signer of <a href="http://droneswatch.org/2012/07/29/a-call-from-the-faith-based-community-to-stop-drone-killings/">“A Call from the Faith-Based Community to Stop Drone Killings,”</a> which states: “As representatives of faith-based communities, we are deeply concerned about the proliferation of lethal unmanned aerial vehicles, commonly known as drones. The United States is leading the way in this new form of warfare where pilots in US bases kill people, by remote control, thousands of miles away.”</p>
<p>Signees of the anti-drone statement include Rabbi Michael Lerner, <em>Tikkun</em> editor and chair of the Network of Spiritual Progressives; Rabbi Aryeh Cohen, Professor of Rabbinic Literature, American Jewish University; Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb, Co-Founder Shomer Shalom Network for Jewish Nonviolence; Jim Winkler, General Secretary, United Methodist General Board of Church and Society; Reverend John M. Fife, former moderator, Presbyterian Church USA; Bishop Thomas J. Gumbleton, Archdiocese of Detroit; Marie Dennis, Co-President, Pax Christi International; and Father Louis Vitale, a Franciscan priest present at the Beale protest.</p>
<p>The anti-drone signatories also include Samina Faheem, Executive Director, American Muslim Voice; Naqi Haider, Executive Director of Muslims for Peace; and Imam Abdul Malik Mujahid of the Muslim Peace Coalition USA. The list also includes three members of CAIR, the Council on American-Islamic Relations: Hussam Ayloush and Zahra Billoo, CAIR directors for Los Angeles and San Francisco, and Cyrus McGoldrick, CAIR Civil Rights Manager in New York.</p>
<p>“We urge our government to put an end to this secretive, remote-controlled killing and instead promote foreign policies that are consistent with the values of a democratic and humane society,” says the statement, which calls on the United Nations to regulate “lethal drones.”</p>
<p>Signer Sharon Delgado, meanwhile, is no stranger to activism at Air Force bases. In May of 2001 she participated in a protest at Vandenberg Air Force Base in Santa Barbara County. The issue at the time was missile defense, what the left derided as “Star Wars.”</p>
<p>“The Missile Defense system is expensive and idolatrous,” <a href="http://www.earth-justice.org/vandenbergtrial.html">Delgado wrote</a>. “The government’s plans to spend $120 billion on this system robs the poor and working people of money that could be used to better human lives. It is a golden calf, an idol, something to worship that human beings have created. It is a way of placing our security in high-tech weapons systems rather than in the gracious love of God.”</p>
<p>After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Delgado wrote <a href="http://www.earth-justice.org/peacemaking.html">“Peacemaking in the Wake of Terror,”</a> which laments the loss of life but fails to condemn the attacks, which she did not connect to Al Qaeda or Islamism. “We must also open our eyes to our part in the pain of the world; we must look at our collective shadow,” she wrote. “Why is racism so close to the surface, erupting now into hate? How does the US contribute to the climate of hate in the larger world, and how can this be changed?”</p>
<p>The “faith-based” drone demonizers failed to shut down Beale AFB but did confirm a reality of the left. From their viewpoint only the United States and its allies need to change. And only the U.S. military is worthy of protest, whether facing Stalinist totalitarianism or Islamic terrorism. Consider also the collaboration issue.</p>
<p>During the Cold War, Soviet front groups backed the “peace” movement that demonized U.S. missile defense and the NATO alliance. In similar style, CAIR is a front for the Muslim Brotherhood, and uncritical of Islamic supremacism. And CAIR is part of the national anti-drone movement now trying to shut down U.S. Air Force bases.</p>
<p>The U.S. missile defense so stridently opposed by the left played a major role in ending the Cold War. The drones, for their part, are proving effective against terrorists. The next U.S. president and his advisers can find lessons here. Take notice of what the religious left-Muslim axis is protesting. Ignore the protests, however theatrical. Escalate the drone strikes as necessary.</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>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/lloyd-billingsley/the-lefts-drone-demonization-campaign/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>16</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Denouncing Jihad Is &#8216;Hate Speech&#8217;?</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/mark-d-tooley/denouncing-jihad-is-hate-speech/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=denouncing-jihad-is-hate-speech</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/mark-d-tooley/denouncing-jihad-is-hate-speech/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 28 Sep 2012 04:25:37 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Mark D. Tooley]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[bus ads]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Defense]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Israel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[New York]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Pamela Geller]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Savage]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=146050</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The Christian Left is more concerned with language used to describe killers than their war of annihilation. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/image001-1.gif"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-146068" title="image001-(1)" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/image001-1.gif" alt="" width="375" height="242" /></a>Responding to controversial New York subway ads denouncing “jihad,” the United Methodist Women’s organization is placing counter ads against “hate speech.”</p>
<p>The ad from the American Freedom Defense Initiative declares:  &#8220;In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man. Support Israel. Defeat Jihad.&#8221;  Its organizer, Pamela Geller, insists the ad targets violent extreme Islamists, not Muslims. The critics insist it’s an attack on Islam.</p>
<p>Among those critics is the New York-based United Methodist Women, whose counter ad responds:  &#8220;Hate speech is not civilized. Support peace in word and deed.&#8221;  The head of the church women’s group joined a press conference on the New York City Hall steps on September 24 to denounce the anti-jihad ads.</p>
<p>&#8220;We needed to be present with a counter voice, we need to stand for the work of peace, and to say that free speech should not be used recklessly or in an inflammatory or divisive way,&#8221; declared Harriett Olson, president of the once formidable United Methodist Women.  Once the largest women’s group in America, with well over 1 million members, the UMW is now closer to half a million and falling.  Long sustained by the bake sales and holiday bazaars of local church women who were unaware of the New York staff’s radical politics, the mostly grey haired group has minimal appeal to younger women and is imploding much faster than the U.S. membership of its denomination.  Like other declining liberal church groups, the UMW increasingly depends on the bequests of deceased supporters as its living members dwindle.</p>
<p>It’s unclear from the United Methodist Women whether any criticism of jihad, or holy war, is acceptable.  UMW officials over the decades have loudly denounced U.S. wars.  Almost immediately after 9-11, its officials denounced U.S. military action against the Taliban regime in Afghanistan.  Does it oppose jihad by radical Islamists?  If so, it never says.  Instead, it seemingly accepts the premise that all critique of jihad and violent Islamists defames all Muslims, which seems unfair to non-jihadist Muslims.</p>
<p>The anti-anti-jihad ad press conference was convened by the New York Interfaith Center to denounce the “anti-Muslim hate advertisements” as “harmfully provocative and inherently divisive.” The Interfaith Center’s chief, the Rev. Chloe Breyer, explained:   “While legal, the ignorance, prejudice, and disrespect the ads display betray the American ideal of E Pluribus Unum ‘Out of Many, One’ and dishonor the efforts of New Yorkers who, after 9/11, overcame their religious differences and worked together to rebuild our great city.”  A religious activist from Auburn Seminary involved with the press conference concurred:  “These ads fuel anti-Muslim sentiment that aims to divide us, but we will always come together, louder and stronger, for respect and dignity.” A “progressive traditionalist” Muslim activist at the press conference complained: “When I ride the subway and see messages smeared that demean me, I am scared.&#8221;</p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/mark-d-tooley/denouncing-jihad-is-hate-speech/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>33</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>What to Do Now About Iran</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/lrbjc/what-to-do-now-about-iran/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=what-to-do-now-about-iran</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/lrbjc/what-to-do-now-about-iran/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 21 Aug 2012 04:15:43 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Prof. Louis René Beres and Gen. John T. Chain]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Defense]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iran]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Israel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[missiles]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Nuclear Weapons]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[strike]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=140900</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Israel's remaining options. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/420671-irannuclear-1344663375-510-640x480.gif"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-140906" title="420671-irannuclear-1344663375-510-640x480" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/420671-irannuclear-1344663375-510-640x480.gif" alt="" width="375" height="257" /></a>&#8220;Do you know what it means to find yourselves face to face with a madman?&#8221; asks playwright Luigi Pirandello&#8217;s <em>Henry IV.</em> &#8220;Madmen, luck folk, construct without logic, or rather with a logic that flies like a feather.&#8221;</p>
<p>What is true for individuals can also be true for entire countries. In the always bewildering theatre of modern world politics, a drama so unpredictable that it often bristles with absurdity, calculated decisions based on ordinary logic can quickly crumble before madness. Even more ominously, any country&#8217;s particular misfortunes could reach the outer limits of tolerability if enemy madness and nuclear weapons should somehow come together.</p>
<p>Enter (stage left and stage right) Israel and Iran. For the moment, there is no discernible evidence to suggest that the leadership in Tehran is mad or &#8220;crazy.&#8221; At the same time, irrationality is not the same as madness, and these Iranian leaders might nonetheless fulfill the usual criteria of a non-rational state. In such circumstances, Iran&#8217;s decision-makers could choose to value certain preferences more highly than national survival, but their hierarchy or rank-order of preferences could still be both determinable and consistent.</p>
<p>Even if there should be no Israeli or American preemption at the eleventh hour, Israeli security would not inevitably be lost. True, an irrational Iran might not be responsive to ordinary threats of retaliatory destruction, as would a fully rational enemy state, but it could still remain susceptible to certain other pertinent threats. For Israel, therefore, this means a primary and prompt obligation to (1) identify such alternative threats, and (2) fashion them into an appropriate new policy framework of viable deterrence.</p>
<p>In principle, by choosing to forgo <em>anticipatory self-defense </em>against Iran, the legal equivalent of a permissible first-strike, Israel would have to live with protracted uncertainty. Here, after all, &#8220;coexistence&#8221; with Iran could mean living under a literally unending threat of Iranian nuclear attack. With precisely this devastating prospect in mind, Israel has already been expanding and upgrading its complex network of interrelated active defenses.</p>
<p>Improved Israeli interceptors contain new <a href="http://www.jpost.com/LandedPages/PrintArticle.aspx?id=280094">software</a> to deal effectively with Iran&#8217;s <em>Shahab </em>and <em>Sajil </em>missiles. There are related <a href="http://www.jpost.com/LandedPages/PrintArticle.aspx?id=280026">technologies</a> to handle Iran&#8217;s <em>Conqueror </em>rocket.</p>
<p>The foundation of Israel&#8217;s active defense plan for Iran remains the <em>Arrow</em> anti-ballistic missile program. <em>Iron Dome,</em> a reinforcing system, is intended primarily for intercepting shorter-range rocket attacks. <em>David&#8217;s Sling</em>, in still earlier stages of development, is designed for use against medium-range rockets and cruise missiles.</p>
<p>Judging from the most recent tests, everything appears technically sound and <a href="http://www.jpost.com/LandedPages/PrintArticle.aspx?id=257305">promising</a>.</p>
<p>A nagging problem could still lie in accepting too many optimistic assumptions about active defense. No<strong><em> </em></strong>system of ballistic missile defense (BMD) can ever be presumed reliable enough to preclude a fully complementary strategy of deterrence. Always, with BMD, there may be unacceptable levels of &#8220;leakage,&#8221; obviously an especially <a href="http://www.jpost.com/LandedPages/PrintArticle.aspx?id=79345">risky</a> outcome if the incoming warheads should be biological or nuclear.</p>
<p>Now, Israel must move, visibly and verifiably, to strengthen its ambiguous nuclear deterrent<em>.</em> To be dissuaded from launching an attack, any rational adversary, and possibly an irrational one, would first need to calculate that Israel&#8217;s second-strike forces were sufficiently invulnerable to any considered first-strike aggressions. Facing Israel&#8217;s <em>Arrow</em>, this adversary would likely require steadily increasing numbers of missiles, in order to achieve an assuredly destructive first-strike capability. Over time, however, this adversary could efficiently undermine the core deterrence benefits of Israel&#8217;s active defenses, simply by adding regular increments of offensive missiles.</p>
<p>Israel must continue to develop, test, and implement an interception capability that will match the cumulative enemy threat. It must also take innovative steps to enhance the credibility of its still-ambiguous nuclear deterrent. If Iranian nuclearization should proceed unimpeded, for example, Israel will have to prepare, very promptly, to remove its bomb from the “basement.&#8221; Undoubtedly, in these unstable circumstances, a continuing posture of deliberate nuclear ambiguity could no longer be judged &#8220;<a href="http://www.herzliyaconference.org/_Uploads/2905LouisReneBeres.pdf">cost-effective</a>.&#8221;</p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/lrbjc/what-to-do-now-about-iran/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>51</slash:comments>
		</item>
	</channel>
</rss>

<!-- Performance optimized by W3 Total Cache. Learn more: http://www.w3-edge.com/wordpress-plugins/

Object Caching 1500/1655 objects using disk
Content Delivery Network via cdn.frontpagemag.com

 Served from: www.frontpagemag.com @ 2014-12-31 04:07:16 by W3 Total Cache -->