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	<title>FrontPage Magazine &#187; John McCain</title>
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	<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com</link>
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	<item>
		<title>Watching This Interview w/McCain Will Lower Your IQ</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/watching-this-interview-wmccain-will-actually-lower-your-iq/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=watching-this-interview-wmccain-will-actually-lower-your-iq</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/watching-this-interview-wmccain-will-actually-lower-your-iq/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 16 Dec 2014 14:34:38 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The Point]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[John McCain]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=247470</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Why instead of addressing the issues does he begin babbling about Dresden?]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>There is <a href="http://moonbattery.com/?p=53366">so much wrong with this debate</a> that I don&#8217;t know where to start.</p>
<p><iframe src="//www.youtube.com/embed/ZkJf7j3AELY" width="550" height="370" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe></p>
<p>McCain was a military man from a military family, he has spent decades dealing with national security and yet he pretends that he doesn&#8217;t know the difference between fighting an enemy nation and fighting terrorists. Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan and the Soviet Union all violated the laws of wars, especially the treatment of prisoners, but they did take prisoners and followed some of the laws of war. Al Qaeda takes no prisoners and follows no laws.</p>
<p>Its people are not entitled to any treatment based on mutuality whatsoever.</p>
<p>McCain brings up the claim that waterboarding originated in the Spanish Inquisition. That&#8217;s a myth that appears to have been spread by Sidney Blumenthal. The technique long predated it. And it was fairly mild by inquisition standards. Torture during that period was far more horrifying than anyone today wants to deal with.</p>
<p>Ditto for McCain&#8217;s claim that we executed Japanese war criminals for waterboarding Americans. Japan&#8217;s war criminals used prisoners to test chemical weapons and ate Allied prisoners of war. Waterboarding was about the mildest thing they would have done.</p>
<p>Bill O&#8217;Reilly starts promoting his book and McCain starts relitigating Malmedy and Dresden. Whatever point might have existed has already long been lost. Fog of war doesn&#8217;t apply. The whole thing isn&#8217;t even relevant.</p>
<p>A military conflict is not even relevant for that matter. We are not engaged in a military conflict in another state. We&#8217;re fighting non-state terrorists. The closest analogies were Communist agents in the US and Indian raiders. The enemy has one core strategy for the military side of the conflict and that is to kill American civilians. Our purpose is to stop them. That requires enhanced interrogation.</p>
<p>None of this is new. We&#8217;ve been having this debate for a while now. McCain is familiar with the issues. So why instead of addressing them does he begin babbling about Dresden?</p>
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		<item>
		<title>The Politics of Victimhood</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/bruce-thornton/the-politics-of-victimhood/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-politics-of-victimhood</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/bruce-thornton/the-politics-of-victimhood/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 27 Oct 2014 04:09:36 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Bruce Thornton]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[debate]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[emotion]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Gabby Giffords]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[GOP]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Gun Control]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[John McCain]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=243787</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The dishonest tactics of the Left that stifle debate. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p style="color: #000000;"><em><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/943-dsNVL.AuSt_.55.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-243788" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/943-dsNVL.AuSt_.55-450x276.jpg" alt="943-dsNVL.AuSt.55" width="360" height="221" /></a>Originally published by<a href="http://www.hoover.org/research/politics-victimhood"> Defining Ideas</a>. </em></p>
<p style="color: #000000;">Gabby Giffords, the former Democratic Congressman from Arizona who was shot in the head at a campaign rally in 2010, has come under fire recently for exploiting her horrific experience for political gain. Using her celebrity as a famous victim of gun violence, Giffords has created a Super PAC, Americans for Responsible Solutions, focused on gun control legislation. Her group has produced political ads for Democratic candidates that feature other victims of gun violence, and that suggest the candidate’s opponent supports policies that contribute to such violence.</p>
<p style="color: #000000;">Even supporters of Giffords’ own party are uncomfortable with this electoral tactic. At Politico, Alex Isenstadt wrote recently that Giffords “has unleashed some of the nastiest ads of the campaign season, going after GOP candidates in Arizona and New Hampshire with attacks even some longtime supporters say go too far. And Republicans on the receiving end are largely helpless to hit back, knowing a fight with the much-admired survivor is not one they’re likely to win.”</p>
<p style="color: #000000;">Exploiting one’s personal experiences is, of course, nothing new in politics. Ancient Roman candidates were expected to show off their scars earned in fighting for Rome. Marc Antony fired up the Roman people after the assassination of Julius Caesar by brandishing his bloodstained and torn toga. During Reconstruction in the United States,  “waving the bloody shirt” became common among radical Republicans who used the casualties and suffering of the Civil War as a weapon against Southern Democrats.</p>
<p style="color: #000000;">In those cases, however, it was service and sacrifice in war that were used for political advantage. Today, any sort of suffering from any cause, especially on the part of those considered victims of historical oppression, is used to obscure rational discussion and debate with clouds of pathos and emotion.</p>
<p style="color: #000000;">The questionable assumption we often accept about suffering is that enduring terrible experiences automatically make one an expert on the broader issues related to the causes of suffering. That’s why like other public victims of gun violence, Giffords has spoken out as if her experience has made her an authority on gun policy. Thus she has attacked politicians for disagreeing with her on the issue of guns not by making a coherent argument, but by conjuring up her own experiences and sentimentalizing other victims of gun violence. Having created a fog of emotion, she then argues for policies, such as more restrictive background checks for those buying guns, even though there is no evidence that such procedures keep guns out of the hands of those determined to get them. After all, the man who shot Giffords had undergone a thorough background check. Worse yet, such emotionalism sets aside the critical Constitutional issue––the Second Amendment right to “keep and bear arms.”</p>
<p style="color: #000000;">Focusing on any one citizen’s unfortunate experience obscures the fact that public policy affects millions of people with differing views on what aims we collectively pursue and put into law. Moreover, policy must adhere to the constitutional limits on government action and conform to existing law. The complex clash of conflicting beliefs and respect for the law requires clear, coherent thinking of the sort difficult to achieve when issues are clouded with emotion and sentiment. It also requires open deliberation and debate, which are short-circuited by indulgence of the <em>ad misericordiam</em> fallacy, the use of pity, compassion, or sympathy to entice, or browbeat, people into accepting a conclusion not earned by argument. Giffords indulged this fallacy last year when the Senate did not pass gun-control legislation she favored. Speaking of Senators who had voted against the bill, she later wrote, some “looked into my eyes as I talked about being shot in the head at point-blank range.” It may sound harsh, but as <em>National Review</em>’s Kevin Williamson writes, “Being shot in the head by a lunatic does not give one any special grace to pronounce upon public-policy questions.” Nor does it give one the expertise, knowledge, and sober arguments necessary for public political debate on contentious issues.</p>
<p style="color: #000000;">Another example of the deleterious effects of using personal experience to trump sober reasoning was Republican Senator John McCain’s campaign against waterboarding, in which he freely exploited his own harrowing experience of being brutally tortured as a prisoner of war for six years during the Vietnam conflict. The pathos and horror of that experience made it difficult for critics to appeal to the simple fact that waterboarding was not torture under the U.S. law defining torture.</p>
<p style="color: #000000;">Yet calling on his own experience at the hands of the North Vietnamese, McCain clouded this critical discussion with lurid emotional appeals to most people’s lack of knowledge about what defines torture in U.S. law, and to their understandable sympathy for McCain’s six years of suffering. As a result, McCain’s efforts gave bipartisan cover to President Obama, who on entering office issued Executive Order 13491, which forbade waterboarding and other enhanced interrogation techniques that had successfully yielded actionable intelligence from enemies of the United States. As a result, our interrogation tools have been severely limited, which has lessened the value of capturing terrorists for interrogation. McCain’s remarkable fortitude and courage in surviving such an experience are worthy of our admiration, but they did not make him an expert on the legal complexities of interrogation, and the grim imperative to extract from terrorists information that could save lives.</p>
<p style="color: #000000;">Both Giffords and McCain personally suffered horribly so it’s understandable that their experiences would shape their responses to relevant political issues. Yet others use suffering by proxy as a political trump card. In particular, those endorsing identity politics depend on the historical suffering of their group in order to gain political leverage and foreclose deliberation and debate.</p>
<p style="color: #000000;">Proponents of identity politics define individuals by their race, ethnicity, or sex, which in turn are defined by a history of oppression and exclusion. This history casts members of those groups as victims, no matter how far removed they actually are from oppression today. As victims, then, these groups have grievances that they claim the larger society has a moral obligation to address, mainly in the form of various kinds of reparations, such as affirmative action, government transfers, or other government set-asides based on race or sex. In the political arena of deliberation and debate over policy, the emotions aroused by that historical suffering bestow a specious authority on the self-proclaimed victim, who now is beyond criticism or accountability for the coherence or validity of his arguments. Critics are instantly branded as “insensitive” or “uncaring” at best and “racist” or “sexist” at worst.</p>
<p style="color: #000000;">Attorney General Eric Holder has been a prominent example of this mentality. During his tenure, he aggressively has attacked states that have legislated voter identification requirements. In his retirement speech he said that protecting “voting rights” was his “top priority” as Attorney General, and he pursued this priority even after the Supreme Court upheld voter identification laws in their 2013 decision of <em>Shelby vs. Holder</em>. His efforts on this issue were predicated on the past history of Jim Crow era restrictions on black voters, a backbone of the segregation outlawed by the 1964 Civil Rights Act.</p>
<p style="color: #000000;">Holder has consistently referred to that history of discrimination last practiced more than half a century ago. In a 2012 speech before the Council of Black Churches, he subtly linked the Jim Crow voting restrictions to the photo identification laws when he said that these “discriminatory” laws threaten “some of the achievements that defined the civil rights movement”—achievements that “now hang in the balance.” Later on he added, “We have to honor the generations that took extraordinary risks” to gain equal access to the polls, and warned, “this fight must go on.”</p>
<p style="color: #000000;">In July of this year, Holder repeated his commitment to this crusade: “I will not allow people to take away that which people gave their lives to give, and that is the ability for the American people to vote.” These references to the Civil Rights movement suggest that asking for a photo ID before voting is similar to the exclusionary legal restrictions such as literacy tests common in segregated states.</p>
<p style="color: #000000;">Supporters of Holder’s position have taken the same tact. Commenting on Florida’s pending voter ID legislation in 2012, the Advancement Project warned, “We are particularly concerned about the impact of this election year’s voter removal practice on eligible voters of color protected under the Voting Rights Act, given Florida’s documented history of erroneous discriminatory purges in the past.” The suffering of blacks during the Jim Crow period, which included lynching, legal exclusion, and everyday incidents of brutality and humiliation, has become a proxy for what in fact is, under state law, the mild inconvenience of acquiring a photo ID necessary for scores of other public transactions.</p>
<p style="color: #000000;">Like Giffords and McCain, Holder also appeals to personal experience. His sister-in-law was one of the students who in 1963 desegregated the University of Alabama, as Governor George Wallace famously blocked the “schoolhouse door.” Linking his own political efforts to this family history and iconic moment in the Civil Rights movement enhances Holder’s authority and provides cover for his constitutionally dubious and politically partisan efforts against red-state governments. Similarly, like many affluent and powerful blacks, Holder is fond of referencing personal experiences, such as being pulled over by the police for no reason, to gain some credibility as a victim of ongoing racism.</p>
<p style="color: #000000;">By using suffering as a political trump card, people like Holder not only cloud sober debate with sentiment and emotion, but also shut the debate down by accusing critics of being racists attempting to undo the achievements of the Civil Rights movement. In July of this year, Holder leveled this charge against those protesting his arguably radical politicization of the Department of Justice: “There’s a certain level of vehemence, it seems to me, that’s directed at me [and] directed at the president,” Holder told ABC. “You know, people talking about taking their country back. . . . There’s a certain racial component to this for some people. I don’t think this is the thing that is a main driver, but for some there’s a racial animus.”</p>
<p style="color: #000000;">Some of Holder’s supporters are less restrained. Michael Eric Dyson, a professor at Georgetown University, recently claimed that Holder has “weathered the storm of an enormous racial backlash against black people in power at the top,” and has had to endure “vicious and acrimonious, if you will, articulations by people in the Senate” disturbed by “American power in a black man.” Such <em>ad hominem</em>smears short-circuit a public discussion of the issues and policies Holder and others pursue.</p>
<p style="color: #000000;">The trump card of suffering might be politically useful, but using it is a dishonest tactic that inhibits informed deliberation and debate. Relying on emotion and sentiment, no matter how understandable they are as a response to suffering, have since ancient Athens been the agents of bad policies and dangerous political decisions, and tactics for pursuing political advantage at the expense of the public good. They have no place in our already conflicted and divisive public political discourse.</p>
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		<title>McCain/Graham: America Needs to Stop Being Selfish in Syria</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/mccaingraham-america-needs-to-stop-being-selfish-in-syria/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=mccaingraham-america-needs-to-stop-being-selfish-in-syria</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/mccaingraham-america-needs-to-stop-being-selfish-in-syria/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 07 Oct 2014 17:13:23 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The Point]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FSA]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[John McCain]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Sen. Lindsey Graham]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=242601</guid>
		<description><![CDATA["This only hardens their pervasive belief that America cares only for itself."]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/mccain-jihad.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-242605" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/mccain-jihad-450x246.jpg" alt="mccain jihad" width="450" height="246" /></a></p>
<p>ISIS became an international monster because of the Arab Spring which led to the Syrian Civil War. Fighters and weapons pouring into Syria gave it a serious edge. If Obama and McCain had not supported the Arab Spring, ISIS would not be a major threat.</p>
<p>So <a href="http://online.wsj.com/articles/john-mccain-and-lindsey-graham-to-defeat-islamic-state-remove-assad-1412636762?tesla=y&amp;mg=reno64-wsj&amp;url=http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10362228127429084907704580192191250781492.html">the McCain/Graham solution is more of the same</a>.</p>
<blockquote><p>The airstrikes and other actions President Obama is taking against Islamic State deserve bipartisan support. They are beginning to degrade the terrorist group, also known as ISIS, but will not destroy it, for one reason above all: The administration still has no effective policy to remove Bashar Assad from power and end the conflict in Syria.</p></blockquote>
<p>Removing Gaddafi from power, another great Obama/McCain plan, did not end the fighting in Libya. It actually made it much worse. Why does McCain imagine that throwing Syria wide open to a bunch of Jihadist militias will get better results in Syria than in Libya?</p>
<blockquote><p>Mr. Assad all but created Islamic State through his slaughter of nearly 200,000 Syrians, and he has knowingly allowed the group to grow and operate with impunity inside the country when it suits his purposes.</p></blockquote>
<p>ISIS was originally Al Qaeda in Iraq. Assad did help create it by promoting the passage of suicide bombers into Iraq through Syria when the US was there. But that&#8217;s not what McCain means.</p>
<p>Assad certainly didn&#8217;t create the Islamic State now. McCain had more to do with that through his obsession with backing Sunni terrorists.</p>
<blockquote><p>This points to another contradiction: How can we arm and train 5,000 Syrians and expect them to succeed against Islamic State without protecting them (and their families) from Assad’s airstrikes and barrel bombs?</p></blockquote>
<p>That&#8217;s not a contradiction since they won&#8217;t be fighting ISIS. They already fight alongside it. Let&#8217;s not pretend otherwise.</p>
<blockquote><p>Our efforts to build up a viable Free Syrian Army to liberate Syria from the evils of Islamic State and Mr. Assad will surely fail if the Syrian ruler is not dealt with.</p></blockquote>
<p>The FSA is a myth. It&#8217;s not liberating anyone. The <a href="http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/meet-the-syrian-islamist-organization-controlling-senator-mccains-agenda/">people McCain is relying on are terrorist supporters</a>. And if they can&#8217;t win without us fighting for them, then we&#8217;ll have to spend the next decade fighting in Syria.</p>
<blockquote><p>It’s unlikely that the U.S. can maintain public support among Syrians for the fight against Islamic State, or succeed without their support, unless it does more to end Assad’s war against them.</p></blockquote>
<p>The US doesn&#8217;t have their support. And can McCain please stop using Syrians to mean Sunni Muslims. They&#8217;re the only group that wants this. And they&#8217;re the chief beneficiaries from ISIS&#8217;s ethnic cleansing.</p>
<p>Unless we kill Christians and Kurds for them, they won&#8217;t support us.</p>
<blockquote><p>Syrians are already asking why America is bombing Islamic State but not stopping Mr. Assad from bombing them. This only hardens their pervasive belief that America cares only for itself.</p></blockquote>
<p>So? Isn&#8217;t it time we put America first? The various groups in Syria put themselves first. Maybe we should take a lesson from them.</p>
<p>They might even respect us for it.</p>
<p>We&#8217;re bombing ISIS because it&#8217;s a threat to us. We have no reason to support one side in a Sunni-Shiite civil war. Until McCain and Graham stop repeating the FSA lie and admit that this is a religious war between two sets of terrorists that they want us to intervene in, they have nothing to say worth listening to.</p>
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		<title>No, McCain Wasn&#8217;t Posing w/ISIS Members</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/no-mccain-wasnt-posing-wisis-members/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=no-mccain-wasnt-posing-wisis-members</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/no-mccain-wasnt-posing-wisis-members/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 23 Jun 2014 13:41:34 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The Point]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ISIS]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[John McCain]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=234630</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Terrorists yes, ISIS no.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/BqdYZ5BCAAE-HwF1.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-234632" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/BqdYZ5BCAAE-HwF1-450x337.jpg" alt="BqdYZ5BCAAE-HwF[1]" width="450" height="337" /></a></p>
<p>This photo is making the rounds of the blogsphere accompanied by the claim that ISIS members on Twitter are claiming he posed with them. I have yet to see a specific citation of that claim even being made. Not that it matters.</p>
<p>That isn&#8217;t to say that McCain wasn&#8217;t posing with terrorists and terrorist supporters. He was. But they were members of the Free Syrian Army, which had strong links to the Muslim Brotherhood and other Jihadist groups.</p>
<p>McCain is standing next to General Salim Idris, the front man for the FSA, who wasn&#8217;t actually in Syria. The man to the right of him is <a href="http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/meet-the-syrian-islamist-organization-controlling-senator-mccains-agenda/">Mouaz Moustafa</a>, a Palestinian Arab lobbyist for all sorts of groups who supports Hamas.</p>
<p>So terrorists yes, ISIS no.</p>
<p>It&#8217;s not inconceivable that one or two of the men in the photo may have drifted through various organizations and ended up being aligned with ISIS. But they weren&#8217;t ISIS at the time.</p>
<p>Common sense alone tells you that Idris would not have allowed armed ISIS members near him and an American VIP.</p>
<p>Obviously McCain should not have been posing with them or supporting any of them to begin with.</p>
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		<title>McCain to Kerry: &#8220;What You’re Doing is Talking Strongly and Carrying a Twig&#8221;</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/mccain-to-kerry-what-youre-doing-is-talking-strongly-and-carrying-a-twig/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=mccain-to-kerry-what-youre-doing-is-talking-strongly-and-carrying-a-twig</link>
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		<pubDate>Wed, 09 Apr 2014 14:14:58 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The Point]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[John McCain]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Secretary of State John Kerry]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=223007</guid>
		<description><![CDATA["Sure we may fail. And you want to dump it on me?" Kerry replied.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><iframe src="//www.youtube.com/embed/j7kSlkU4wKU" height="332" width="545" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>McCain cheered on Kerry for his current job and the two men generally get along well. But what did McCain really think <a href="http://freebeacon.com/national-security/kerry-i-may-fail/">was going to happen with Kerry at the helm</a>?</p>
<blockquote><p>“Secretary Kerry, I watched with great interest some of your comments. And may I say, I think you’re about to hit the trifecta. Geneva II was a total collapse, as I predicted to you that it would be. The only tangible result is that people who went to Geneva for the Free Syrian National Council, their relatives were kidnapped. The Israeli-Palestinian talks are, even though you may drag them out for a while, are finished. And I predict you, even though we gave the Iranians the right to enrich, which is unbelievable, those talks will collapse too,” McCain said.</p>
<p>“On the major issues, this administration is failing very badly. On the issue of Ukraine, my hero, Teddy Roosevelt, used to say, talk softly but carry a big stick. What you’re doing is talking strongly and carrying a very small stick — in fact, a twig,” McCain continued.</p>
<p>Kerry became irritated by McCain’s assertions and chose to respond defensively.</p>
<p>“I think it’s important to do this. Sure we may fail. And you want to dump it on me? I may fail. I don’t care. It’s worth doing. It’s worth the effort. And the United States has a responsibility to lead, not always to find the pessimism and negativity that’s so easily prevalent in the world today,” Kerry said.</p></blockquote>
<p>McCain comes off as the cranky sharp-tongued figure he should have been during the election, while Kerry just sounds whiny.</p>
<p>Senator McCain has plenty of flaws, though more on domestic policy than foreign policy, with the exception of his troubling Syrian obsession, but Kerry&#8217;s whiny response sounds like it comes straight from his protesting days.</p>
<p>&#8220;Sure we may fail, but at least we&#8217;re optimistic instead of like being so negative, man.&#8221;</p>
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		<title>The Problem Isn&#8217;t Just Compromise, It&#8217;s Not Getting Anything in Return</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/the-problem-isnt-just-compromise-its-not-getting-anything-in-return/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-problem-isnt-just-compromise-its-not-getting-anything-in-return</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/the-problem-isnt-just-compromise-its-not-getting-anything-in-return/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 12 Mar 2014 16:25:29 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The Point]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[John McCain]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[president ronald reagan]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=220878</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[It's another case of giving the Democrats what they want in exchange for giving them more of what they want.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/mccain-reagan-1986.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-220879" alt="mccain-reagan-1986" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/mccain-reagan-1986-450x331.jpg" width="450" height="331" /></a></p>
<p>Every now and then <a href="http://hotair.com/archives/2014/03/11/mccain-on-ted-cruz-have-these-self-proclaimed-reagan-republicans-forgotten-that-reagan-gave-amnesty-to-three-million-illegals/">the activists of compromise say something</a> like this&#8230;</p>
<blockquote><p>“All of these people at the CPAC will claim that they are Reagan Republicans,” McCain said. “Did they forget that Ronald Reagan gave amnesty to three million Americans? Do they forget that he did raise taxes, that he made an agreement with Tip O’Neill on Social Security, that Ronald Reagan said [the] 11th commandment is you don’t speak ill of your fellow Republicans?”</p>
<p>In the theme of invoking these compromises, McCain also said raising taxes should be an on the table as part of entitlement reform.</p>
<p>“Look, you have to put everything on the table,” he said when asked if a package could include taxes. “If you don’t put everything on the table, then the opposite side says, ‘OK, but we’re not going to agree to, say, raising the retirement age.’ “</p></blockquote>
<p>There are two problems with the &#8220;Reagan did X&#8221; argument.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>1. Reagan wasn&#8217;t perfect. Those who identify themselves as Reagan Republicans aren&#8217;t saying that they want to imitate every single thing that Reagan did.</p>
<p>It&#8217;s a philosophical identification. And philosophical identifications aren&#8217;t usually defined by compromises. Compromises are part of politics, but unless the political figure defined his philosophy by compromise, then it&#8217;s not all that relevant.</p>
<p>A philosophical identification is made with a politician&#8217;s overall governing style, as well as his ideas and speeches, rather than every single one of his decisions.</p>
<p>Democrats who identify with FDR don&#8217;t necessarily support racial segregation in the military. Demanding that they endorse segregation in the military or stop identifying FDR will lead to the same response.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>2. Reagan, like every politician, made compromises and mistakes, but he is celebrated because of the overall impact that he made.</p>
<p>Politicians like McCain who protest that Reagan did X, Y or Z, are missing the point. They want to get a pass for amnesty, but they&#8217;re not doing anything meaningful to balance that out.</p>
<p>Most conservatives will understand that in a bipartisan system some compromises are necessary to get what you want, but they see a Republican congress that compromises without getting anything worth mentioning. McCain wants to trade higher taxes for raising social security benefits age. I doubt anyone besides Paul Ryan is really waiting for that one.</p>
<p>And it&#8217;s not a compromise since Democrats covertly support doing the same thing. So it&#8217;s another case of giving the Democrats what they want in exchange for giving them more of what they want.</p>
<p>And it&#8217;s not as if that tax money will be going to Social Security. Instead it will go to A. Random pork B. Global Warming C. Welfare in all its varieties</p>
<p>Reagan Republican talk is about leadership. McCain wants to imagine that he&#8217;s leading, but he doesn&#8217;t seem to grasp that no one is particularly interested in following. And that goes back to the second point. Leaders need credibility. They need to be able to point to what they&#8217;ve done.</p>
<p>McCain is busy championing things like a Syrian War or illegal alien amnesty that have as much appeal to Republicans outside government as a dead fish in a cosmetics store.</p>
<p>Reagan assured Republicans that he was going to the right place. Where is McCain going? Where does he want to take the country?</p>
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		<title>McCain&#8217;s Fave Syria Lobbyist says US Must Support &#8220;Bad Guy&#8221; Islamic Front</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/mccains-fave-syrian-lobbyist-insists-america-must-support-bad-guy-islamic-front/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=mccains-fave-syrian-lobbyist-insists-america-must-support-bad-guy-islamic-front</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/mccains-fave-syrian-lobbyist-insists-america-must-support-bad-guy-islamic-front/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 31 Dec 2013 23:54:59 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The Point]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[John McCain]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mouaz Moustafa]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Syrian Civil War]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=214322</guid>
		<description><![CDATA["The Islamic Front is the only counterbalance to extremists in Syria."]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/120530_mccain_syria7_ap_605_605.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-214324" alt="120530_mccain_syria7_ap_605_605" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/120530_mccain_syria7_ap_605_605-450x243.jpg" width="450" height="243" /></a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/meet-the-syrian-islamist-organization-controlling-senator-mccains-agenda/">When last we met Mouaz Moustafa</a>, a Palestinian Arab Muslim supporter of Hamas who seems to have been involved in nearly every Muslim Brotherhood revolution, he was posing with Senator McCain in Syria and using the soon-to-be-discredited Elizabeth O&#8217;Bagy to front for his Muslim Brotherhood pro-rebel front group.</p>
<p>McCain called <a href="http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/meet-the-syrian-islamist-organization-controlling-senator-mccains-agenda/">Mouaz Moustafa</a> a &#8220;patriot&#8221; and the Hamas supporter claims to be telling the State Department which Syrian groups to send aid to.  That was a problem because surprisingly, <a href="http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/meet-the-syrian-islamist-organization-controlling-senator-mccains-agenda/">Mouaz Moustafa</a> had very low standards for who should be getting aid.</p>
<blockquote><p>&#8220;I think the way they were thinking is, ‘you don’t support us, you don’t give us arms, you don’t give us anything, but then you tell us whose good and whose bad within us?’ So first support, then dictate.”</p></blockquote>
<p>Now <a href="http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/meet-the-syrian-islamist-organization-controlling-senator-mccains-agenda/">Mouaz Moustafa</a> is insisting <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/12/30/obama-s-failed-outreach-to-syria-s-islamic-front.html">that the US support the Islamic Front</a>.</p>
<blockquote><p>Despite America’s lack of ability to influence the Islamic Front, the Obama administration now has no choice but to keep trying, said Mouaz Moustafa, the executive director of the Syrian Emergency Task Force, an American NGO that works directly with several Syrian opposition groups.</p>
<p>“The Islamic Front did not meet with the United States because of certain preconditions the U.S. had insisted on, as well as the fact that the Islamic Front wholly rejects a second Geneva and the premise of the meeting would be to pressure the Islamic Front to attend the conference,” he said.</p>
<p>The United States must pragmatically engage with the Islamic Front while keeping in mind that the Islamic Front was formed without the objective of gaining U.S. or Western support, Moustafa said. The Islamic Front works with al-Qaeda out of convenience, but doesn’t share their ideology.</p>
<p>“Alienating the Islamic Front puts the U.S. at risk of losing any leverage or influence within the armed opposition,” he said. “It’s not about whether they are good guys or bad guys. The Islamic Front is the only counterbalance to extremists in Syria. The U.S. must recognize that.”</p></blockquote>
<p>The US has to support the Islamic Front, which is allied with the Al Nusra Front, because they&#8217;re the only counterbalance to the Al Nusra Front.</p>
<p>Sure they might be the bad guys, but who really cares anyway?</p>
<p>At this rate in a year we&#8217;ll be told that we have to support the Al Nusra Front as a counterbalance to ISIS. There are probably foreign policy experts out there already arguing that we should engage with the &#8220;moderate&#8221; elements in the Syrian Al Qaeda to counterbalance Al Qaeda in Iraq.</p>
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		<title>Will Obama Really Get the Blame for a Syrian War?</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/will-obama-really-get-the-blame-for-a-syrian-war/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=will-obama-really-get-the-blame-for-a-syrian-war</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/will-obama-really-get-the-blame-for-a-syrian-war/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 13 Sep 2013 13:31:18 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The Point]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Barack Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[John McCain]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Syrian Civil War]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=203739</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The more McCain acts like he wants a bigger war, the easier the media will find it to explain that it was all the fault of the Republicans. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/McCainSyria2.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-193432" alt="McCainSyria2" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/McCainSyria2.jpg" width="314" height="246" /></a></p>
<p>That&#8217;s the <a href="http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/right-vote_752782.html?nopager=1">argument that Bill Kristol makes</a> and it&#8217;s credible enough as far as that goes.</p>
<blockquote><p>A Yes vote is in fact the easy vote. It&#8217;s actually close to risk-free. After all, it&#8217;s President Obama who is seeking the authorization to use force and who will order and preside over the use of force. It&#8217;s fundamentally his policy. Lots of Democrats voted in 2002 to authorize the Iraq war. When that war ran into trouble, it was President Bush and Republicans who paid the price. If the Syria effort goes badly, the public will blame President Obama, who dithered for two years, and who seems inclined to a halfhearted execution of any military campaign. If it goes well, Republicans can take credit for pushing him to act decisively, and for casting a tough vote supporting him when he asked for authorization to act. . .</p></blockquote>
<p>Sure that&#8217;s politics as usual. But there are a few things worth remembering&#8230;</p>
<p>When the Democratic Party turned on the war, it also turned on some of its more prominent senators who had supported it. The left seized the opportunity to carry out a purge of the party that twisted it to the left resulting in the Obama Reign of Error.</p>
<p>A Republican version of this might well be a successful resurgence of the Tea Party. All that assumes a prolonged and disastrous Syrian War with American casualties. But I still wouldn&#8217;t push expediency that far even if gains like these were assured.</p>
<p>But I think the suspect assumption is that politics as usual will operate.</p>
<p>Obama has yet to get the blame for anything in a way that sticks. He could invade Iraq a second time and the media would spend every hour of airtime insisting that it was Bush&#8217;s fault.</p>
<p>Senator McCain has made their work easy for them by repeatedly denouncing Obama for not going big enough. All those criticisms make it easy to blame the war on Republicans.</p>
<p>The more McCain acts like he wants a bigger war, the easier the media will find it to explain that it was all the fault of the Republicans. And a surprising chunk of the public will buy it.</p>
<p>Bush couldn&#8217;t have gotten away with blaming Hillary Clinton, but Obama could easily get away with blaming McCain.</p>
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		<title>Meet the Syrian Islamist Organization Controlling Senator McCain&#8217;s Agenda</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/meet-the-syrian-islamist-organization-controlling-senator-mccains-agenda/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=meet-the-syrian-islamist-organization-controlling-senator-mccains-agenda</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/meet-the-syrian-islamist-organization-controlling-senator-mccains-agenda/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 04 Sep 2013 20:08:57 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The Point]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[John McCain]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Syrian Civil War]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=203199</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Mouaz Moustafa is a Palestinian Arab and the Executive Director of the Syrian Emergency Task Force which arranged for McCain's visit. Senator McCain called Moustafa a "patriot".]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/Mouaz-Moustafa.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-203200" alt="Mouaz Moustafa" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/Mouaz-Moustafa-450x193.jpg" width="450" height="193" /></a></p>
<p>A few days ago, the <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/the-wall-street-journals-misleading-report-on-the-moderate-syrian-opposition/">Wall Street Journal ran a high profile article</a> from one Elizabeth O&#8217;Bagy arguing that the majority of the Syrian rebels were actually moderates.</p>
<p>Senator McCain mentioned Elizabeth O&#8217;Bagy&#8217;s op-ed during the Senate hearings, when he wasn&#8217;t playing poker, and tweeted it. That should come as no surprise, considering that <a href="http://www.homelandsecuritynewswire.com/dr20130528-mccain-meets-with-syrian-rebel-leaders-in-syria">O&#8217;Bagy is credited with arranging McCain&#8217;s</a> infamous photo op with the Syrian rebel leadership.</p>
<p>The Wall Street Journal lists O&#8217;Bagy&#8217;s role as the Institute for the Study of War. It leaves out the fact that she is the political director for the Syrian Emergency Task Force making her an activist.</p>
<p>O&#8217;Bagy doesn&#8217;t matter much. She&#8217;s a friendly Western face plastered over a foreign organization. Of more interest is Mouaz Moustafa, the smiling man in the Keffiyah on the far right of McCain in this photo.</p>
<p>Mouaz Moustafa is a Palestinian Arab and the Executive Director of the Syrian Emergency Task Force which arranged for McCain&#8217;s visit.</p>
<p>S<a href="http://dailycaller.com/2013/07/14/meet-the-28-year-old-pushing-the-u-s-toward-greater-intervention-in-syria/">enator McCain calle</a>d Moustafa a &#8220;patriot&#8221;, but it&#8217;s not clear which country he&#8217;s a patriot of, since it&#8217;s not Mouaz Moustafa&#8217;s first time around on the regime change bus tour.</p>
<p>Before the Syrian Emergency Task Force, Moustafa was the Executive Director of the Libyan Council of North America, which like the SETF existed to help push regime change. Before that, he mentions working with &#8220;rebels&#8221; in Egypt. On his Twitter feed, he denounces the overthrow of Morsi making it rather clear which side he was on.</p>
<p>His Twitter account frequently features anti-Israel material, including calls for a Palestinian state with its capital in Jerusalem. On his YouTube account,<a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/soccermouaz"> he &#8220;liked&#8221; a video featuring</a> Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, &#8220;crying while praying&#8221;.</p>
<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/mustafa-hamas.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-203204" alt="mustafa hamas" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/mustafa-hamas-450x126.jpg" width="558" height="156" /></a></p>
<p>He also Favorited an anti-Israel video from a channel titled &#8220;JewsExposed&#8221;</p>
<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/mustafa-jews.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-203206" alt="mustafa jews" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/mustafa-jews-450x119.jpg" width="450" height="119" /></a></p>
<p>Predating his international period, Mouaz Moustafa did stints as a Field Organizer for the Democratic National Committee and a senate staffer. On Instagram, he calls himself a Freelance Revolutionary.</p>
<p>Mouaz Moustafa, patriot of four countries, none of which is the United States, appears to be holding McCain&#8217;s hand on Syria through the Syrian Emergency Task Force. And the Syrian Emergency Task Force appears to be funded by &#8220;prominent&#8221; Syrians in the United States. It&#8217;s not technically a foreign organization. Technically.</p>
<p>One member of the SETF&#8217;s Board of Trustees/Board of Directors, <a href="http://www.carolinajournal.com/articles/display_story.html?id=3816">Dr. Jihad Qaddour</a>, was also a trustee of the Muslim American Society, which<a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/printgroupProfile.asp?grpid=6263"> is a front for the Muslim Brotherhood</a>.</p>
<p>Another, Bassam Estwani, <a href="http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/granule/CREC-2001-02-07/CREC-2001-02-07-pt1-PgH203-6/content-detail.html">appears to have been the Imam</a> of the Dar Al-Hijrah Islamic Center, also known as Al-Qaeda leader Anwar Al-Awlaki&#8217;s former mosque. <a href="http://www.investigativeproject.org/case/417">The mosque was considere</a>d a front for Hamas and other &#8220;Islamic extremists&#8221; by the Treasury Department.</p>
<p>A third, Zaher Sahloul, appears to be the Chairman of the Council of Islamic Organizations of Chicago, <a href="http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/414">an organization with terrorist links</a> which is involved <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2013/ryan-mauro/interfaith-financial-war-on-israel/">in organizing a boycott of Israel</a>.</p>
<p>And that&#8217;s just from a casual glance at a disturbingly incomplete list of names and functions.</p>
<p>Mouaz Moustafa&#8217;s message is that United States must arm the Syrian terrorists without asking questions, and claims that most of the Al-Nusra Front&#8217;s members are not really Al Qaeda or enemies of America.</p>
<blockquote><p>&#8220;Let’s look at the Jabhat al-Nusra. Didn’t exist, then existed. Came up to numbers [of] about 5,000 or 6,000. Then we put them on a terrorist list — increase their profile and people stood with them. I think the way they were thinking is, ‘you don’t support us, you don’t give us arms, you don’t give us anything, but then you tell us whose good and whose bad within us?’ So first support, then dictate.&#8221;</p></blockquote>
<p>That&#8217;s not just empty talk. <a href="http://dailycaller.com/2013/07/14/meet-the-28-year-old-pushing-the-u-s-toward-greater-intervention-in-syria/2/">Mouaz Moustafa claims to have White House access </a>and control over where the weapons go.</p>
<blockquote><p>While advocating for greater intervention in Syria, Moustafa says he has gone to Tampa to meet with Central Command, to Capitol Hill to meet with members of Congress and to the White House “every couple of months” to meet with staff of the National Security Council.</p>
<p>And if you are wondering who is sorting through the Syrian morass to find groups that are suitable for American aid — in other words, not members of al-Qaida — Moustafa says it’s a task his group performs as well.</p>
<p>“What we try to do is make sure is that the aid is going from the State Department is going to the right people,” he said.</p></blockquote>
<p>And these are the politicians he claims are most helpful to his cause</p>
<blockquote><p>Among the legislators who have been most helpful to his cause, he said, are McCain, New York Democratic Rep. Eliot Engel, Democratic Sens. Carl Levin of Michigan and Bob Menendez of New Jersey, as well as Republican Florida Sen. Marco Rubio.</p></blockquote>
<p>It&#8217;s strange that no one has called attention to the fact that a group headed by people with such extreme ties and beliefs is dominating American foreign policy on Syria and controlling the itinerary of senior senators like McCain.</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p>Free Palestine long live independent <a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%23Palestine&amp;src=hash">#Palestine</a> with <a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%23jerusalem&amp;src=hash">#jerusalem</a> as the capitol</p>
<p>— Mouaz Moustafa (@SoccerMouaz) <a href="https://twitter.com/SoccerMouaz/statuses/117273087149477889">September 23, 2011</a></p></blockquote>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
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		<title>John McCain and &#8216;Allahu Akbar&#8217;</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/robert-spencer/john-mccain-what-an-embarrassment/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=john-mccain-what-an-embarrassment</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/robert-spencer/john-mccain-what-an-embarrassment/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 04 Sep 2013 04:44:24 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Robert Spencer]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[allahu akbar]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Assad]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Islam]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Jihad]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[John McCain]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Syria]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=203108</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[How the Senator from Arizona epitomizes the embarrassing ignorance that is deforming American foreign policy.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/john_mccain_syria_visit.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-203110" alt="john_mccain_syria_visit" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/john_mccain_syria_visit.jpg" width="266" height="190" /></a>Tuesday morning, Senator John McCain (R-AZ) got a bit hot under the collar when Brian Kilmeade of Fox News noted that the Syrian rebels whom Barack Obama and McCain want to aid militarily were shouting “Allahu akbar! Allahu akbar!” as rockets hit Syrian government offices. McCain’s response to Kilmeade demonstrated not only his ignorance of Islam, but his abysmal misjudgment of what is happening in Syria. And on the basis of that ignorance, he is aiding Obama’s rush to yet another war.</p>
<p>“I have a problem,” Kilmeade said, “helping those people screaming that after a hit.” That incensed McCain, who shot back: “Would you have a problem with an American or Christians saying ‘thank God? Thank God?’ That’s what they’re saying. Come on! Of course they’re Muslims, but they’re moderates and I guarantee you they are moderates.”</p>
<p>Wrong on all counts. In the first place, it does not mean “thank God,” as McCain seems to have affirmed when he said, “That’s what they’re saying.” Allahu akbar means “Allah is greater” – not, as it is often translated, “God is great.” The significance of this is enormous, as it is essentially a proclamation of superiority and supremacism. Allah is greater – than any of the gods of the infidels, and Islam is superior to all other religions.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.al-islam.org/a-commentary-on-prayer-muhsin-qaraati/7.htm">Al-Islam.org</a> states this obliquely: “<i>Allahu akbar</i> implies that God is superior to all tangible and intangible, temporal and celestial beings.” This may seem to be an innocuous theological statement until one recalls that Islam has always had a political aspect, and Islamic jihadists always shout “Allahu akbar” when attacking infidels. It is a declaration of the superiority of their god and their way of life over those of their victims. 9/11 hijacker <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2001/sep/30/terrorism.september113">Mohamed Atta</a> also stated that it was meant to make the infidels afraid. He wrote instructions to jihadists that were found in his baggage: “Shout, ‘Allahu Akbar,’ because this strikes fear in the hearts of the non-believers.”</p>
<p>In equating this war cry, which <a href="http://www.jihadwatch.org/2013/09/video-egyptian-muslims-screaming-allahu-akbar-attack-church-topple-cross.html">we recently saw</a> Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood members shouting as they destroyed a church and tore off its cross, with “thank God,” McCain was manifesting the moral equivalence that is not only fashionable these days, but required for acceptance into polite society. Only wretched “Islamophobes” don’t accept the mainstream media and government dogma that Christianity is just as likely as Islam to incite its adherents to violence. That there aren’t any Christians anywhere shouting “thank God” as they fire rockets at anyone doesn’t deter McCain from making this equivalence. Religious dogmas, and that’s what the idea that Christianity and Islam are equally violent is, are not subject to the same standards of evidentiary proof as are more mundane realities.</p>
<p>And he guarantees that the Syrian rebels are moderates? This is the John McCain who, according to Lebanon’s <a href="http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Middle-East/2013/May-30/218852-mccain-crosses-paths-with-rebel-kidnapper.ashx#axzz2Ujmw4ghe">Daily Star</a>, “was unwittingly photographed with a known affiliate of the rebel group responsible for the kidnapping of 11 Lebanese Shiite pilgrims one year ago, during a brief and highly publicized visit inside Syria” in May.</p>
<p>McCain spokesman Brian Rogers later tried to do damage control for this disastrous photo-op, <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2013/05/30/mccain-responds-to-syria-photo-accusations/">saying</a>: “A number of the Syrians who greeted Senator McCain upon his arrival in Syria asked to take pictures with him, and as always, the Senator complied. If the individual photographed with Senator McCain is in fact Mohamed Nour [the kidnapper], that is regrettable. But it would be ludicrous to suggest that the Senator in any way condones the kidnapping of Lebanese Shia pilgrims or has any communication with those responsible.”</p>
<p>Fair enough. Accidents will happen. Mistakes will be made. But at the time that the picture was taken, McCain didn’t treat it as if it had been some random and meaningless photo-op with people he didn’t know. Instead, on May 28, he tweeted out the photo and added: “Important visit with brave fighters in <a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%23Syria&amp;src=hash">#<b>Syria</b></a> who are risking their lives for freedom and need our help.” Accordingly, it is ludicrous for McCain to be insisting now that “they’re moderates and I guarantee you they are moderates” when he and/or his staff were so out of touch in May that he may have been photographed with a Sunni jihad terrorist. He has already demonstrated his inability to distinguish Syrian “moderates” from “extremists.” So why should we trust him now?</p>
<p>What’s more, while McCain is guaranteeing that the Syrian rebels are moderates, the <a href="http://mobile.nytimes.com/2013/04/28/world/middleeast/islamist-rebels-gains-in-syria-create-dilemma-for-us.xml;jsessionid=8AF35751CFB10888183E65532767B26A?f=19">New York Times</a> reported months ago that “nowhere in rebel-controlled Syria is there a secular fighting force to speak of.” The situation of the secularists has not improved since then. And the <a href="http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2013/06/al_nusrah_front_clai_14.php?utm_source=feedburner&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_campaign=Feed:+LongWarJournalSiteWide+%28The+Long+War+Journal+%28Site-Wide%29%29">Long War Journal</a> reported on June 29 that the Al Nusrah Front for the People of the Levant, which is “al Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria,” has “cooperated with Free Syrian Army units to establish sharia, or Islamic law, in Aleppo and in eastern Syria.” What is the Free Syrian Army? McCain’s moderates: “the US government is backing the Free Syrian Army despite the group’s known ties to the Al Nusrah Front.”</p>
<p>McCain’s appalling ignorance and Obama’s ongoing enthusiasm for all things Muslim Brotherhood, including the Syrian opposition, are leading the U.S. into disaster. McCain, as a leader of the Republican Party, ought to be articulating a coherent and rational alternative to Obama’s potentially catastrophic adventurism and rush to intervene in Syria despite lacking a clear goal and genuine allies on the ground within the country. Instead, he and John Boehner and the rest of the Republican establishment are falling over themselves to see who can say “Me too” to Barack Obama fast enough.</p>
<p>What America needs most in these dark days of fantasy-based policymaking is a loyal opposition. But that is the one thing we do not have. Not in any effective sense, as our warships wait in the Mediterranean for the signal to start firing on Syria, with enthusiastic bipartisan support.</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>
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		<title>Obama Admits Syria Strikes are about Regime Change</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/obama-admits-syria-strikes-are-about-regime-change/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=obama-admits-syria-strikes-are-about-regime-change</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/obama-admits-syria-strikes-are-about-regime-change/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 04 Sep 2013 00:59:04 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The Point]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Barack Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[John McCain]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Syrian Civil War]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=203078</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Barack Obama portrayed his plans for US military action in Syria as part of a broader strategy to topple Bashar al-Assad]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/0620-Obama-Strategy-Syria_full_600.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-202429" alt="0620-Obama-Strategy-Syria_full_600" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/0620-Obama-Strategy-Syria_full_600-450x332.jpg" width="450" height="332" /></a></p>
<p>In the least shocking news ever, Obama&#8217;s plans to bomb a country whose leader he wants removed from power and whose opposition is backing, is about regime change.</p>
<p>Obama being O, he doesn&#8217;t quite come out and say it, instead he drowns it in vague legalese, but the meaning is there. And <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/03/obama-strategy-assad-republicans-syria">the meaning is regime change</a>.</p>
<blockquote><p>Barack Obama portrayed his plans for US military action in Syria as part of a broader strategy to topple Bashar al-Assad&#8230;</p>
<p>While stressing that Washington&#8217;s primary goal remained &#8220;limited and proportional&#8221; attacks, to degrade Syria&#8217;s chemical weapons capabilities and deter their future use, the president hinted at a broader long-term mission that may ultimately bring about a change of regime.</p>
<p>&#8220;It also fits into a broader strategy that can bring about over time the kind of strengthening of the opposition and the diplomatic, economic and political pressure required – so that ultimately we have a transition that can bring peace and stability, not only to Syria but to the region,&#8221; he told senior members of Congress at a White House meeting on Tuesday.</p>
<p>Obama has long spoken of the US desire to see Assad step down, but this is the first time he has linked that policy objective to his threatened military strikes against Syria.</p></blockquote>
<p>The lefty Guardian is spinning this as Obama catering to the Republicans, and that is mildly true, because McCain and Graham wanted a stronger plan from O, but this was obviously the plan all along.</p>
<p>McCain and Graham just forced Obama to slightly tip his hand.</p>
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		<title>No John, &#8220;Allah Akbar&#8221; Does Not Mean &#8220;Thank God&#8221; and It Matters</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/no-john-allah-akbar-does-not-mean-thank-god-and-it-matters/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=no-john-allah-akbar-does-not-mean-thank-god-and-it-matters</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/no-john-allah-akbar-does-not-mean-thank-god-and-it-matters/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 03 Sep 2013 21:15:33 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The Point]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[allah akbar]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[allahu akbar]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Islam]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[John McCain]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=203031</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[“Would you have a problem with an American person saying ‘Thank God? Thank God?’” McCain said.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/27342.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-203032" alt="27342" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/27342-423x350.jpg" width="423" height="350" /></a></p>
<p>What&#8217;s in a word?</p>
<blockquote><p>Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) blasted Fox News’ Brian Kilmeade on Tuesday for questioning members of a Syrian opposition groups’ use of the phrase “Allahu Akbar” after what Kilmeade said “looks like a fighter jet being shot out of the sky.”</p>
<p>“I have a problem helping those people screaming that after a hit,” Kilmeade said.</p>
<p>McCain criticized Kilmeade for his skepticism of the phrase, which means “God is greater” or “God is the greatest” in Arabic.</p>
<p>“Would you have a problem with an American person saying ‘Thank God? Thank God?’” McCain said. “That’s what they’re saying. Come on! Of course they’re Muslims, but they’re moderates and I guarantee you they are moderates.”</p></blockquote>
<p>They&#8217;re not saying Thank God. They&#8217;re not even saying Thank Allah. If they wanted to praise Allah for surviving, they would say &#8220;Alhamdulillah&#8221;.</p>
<p>The difference is significant. Allah Akbar is a proclamation of Islamic superiority in line with its Koranic mission of making Islam superior over all religions.</p>
<p>Koran 61:9. &#8220;He it is who has sent his Messenger with guidance and the religion of truth to make it victorious over all religions even though the infidels may resist.&#8221;</p>
<p>It&#8217;s not merely a praise of their deity, Allah. It&#8217;s a mission statement.</p>
<p>&#8220;We killed this man. This proves that our god is greater than his.&#8221;</p>
<p>McCain is being willfully ignorant when he conflates Thank God with Allahu Akbar.</p>
<p>The origin of <a href="http://wikiislam.net/wiki/Allahu_Akbar">Allah Akbar</a>, which does not appear in the Koran, comes from the Hadith, during Mohammed&#8217;s genocide of the Jews.</p>
<p>&#8220;So, when the day dawned, the Jews came out with their bags and spades. When they saw the Prophet; they said, &#8220;Muhammad and his army!&#8221; The Prophet said, Allahu&#8211;Akbar! (Allah is Greater) and Khaibar is ruined, for whenever we approach a nation (i.e. enemy to fight) then it will be a miserable morning for those who have been warned.&#8221; Sahih Bukhari 4:52:195</p>
<p>Khaybar, Khaybar Ya Yahud Jash Muhammad Saya’ud, Khaybar, Khaybar, O Jews, Mohammed’s Army Will Return is still used as an anti-Semitic battle cry by Muslims today.</p>
<p>Like it, Allahu Akbar has clear hostile religious overtones. It&#8217;s used to denote the religious supremacism that is the fundamental mission of Islam.</p>
<p>Until Senator McCain gets that, he&#8217;s as clueless as any of the 1920s politicians who pretended that the Bolsheviks were just a bunch of social reformers.</p>
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		<title>Senator McCain Urges Congress to Protect Obama&#8217;s Threat Credibility</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/senator-mccain-urges-congress-to-protect-obamas-threat-credibility/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=senator-mccain-urges-congress-to-protect-obamas-threat-credibility</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/senator-mccain-urges-congress-to-protect-obamas-threat-credibility/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 01 Sep 2013 19:59:38 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The Point]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Barack Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[John McCain]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Syrian Civil War]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=202790</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[“The consequences of the Congress of the United States overriding a decision of the President of the United States of this magnitude are really very, very serious.”]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/obama-mccain.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-202791" alt="John McCain, Barack Obama" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/obama-mccain-307x350.jpg" width="307" height="350" /></a></p>
<p>Senator McCain has had a busy day making a variety of confused statements</p>
<p>1. <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-3460_162-57600902/assad-euphoric-about-obamas-decision-on-syria-strike-mccain-says/">Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is &#8220;euphoric&#8221; </a>about President Obama&#8217;s surprise announcement Saturday that he will seek congressional authorization for a limited strike in the war-torn country, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said Sunday on &#8220;Face the Nation.&#8221;</p>
<p>2. <a href="http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/08/31/20269189-mccain-faults-obama-over-syria-says-us-failure-to-intervene-shameful?lite">Senator John McCain,</a> R-Ariz., criticized President Barack Obama’s plans for limited air strikes on Syria as “cosmetic” Friday, saying the failure of the United States to intervene in the country’s civil war was “shameful.”</p>
<p>3. &#8220;<a href="http://www.mediaite.com/tv/sen-mccain-denounces-symbolic-strike-syria-strategy-must-threaten-assad/">We’re in a bit of a dilemma here</a>, because I think Senator Lindsey Graham and I and others will be wanting a strategy, a plan, rather than just, ‘We’re going to launch some cruise missiles and that’s it.’”</p>
<p>4. “The consequences of the Congress of the United States overriding a decision of the President of the United States of this magnitude are really very, very serious,” he said. “And already we’re sending a bad signal to Iran, to North Korea, to Bashar al-Assad. But if we overrode the president’s decision, and did nothing?”</p>
<p>McCain does have a point on the last one. This whole thing is sending a terrible message, but starting a war that will aid our enemies to avoid looking stupid because Obama shot his mouth off sounds even worse.</p>
<p>Senator McCain wants regime change strikes. He ridicules Obama for going to Congress for approval and then proposes an even more radical version of Obama&#8217;s war plan.</p>
<blockquote><p>&#8220;When Mr. Obama said the use of chemical weapons in Syria would mark a &#8220;red line&#8221; that Assad wouldn&#8217;t be allowed to cross with impunity, McCain said, &#8220;he didn&#8217;t say, &#8216;It&#8217;s a red line &#8211; and by the way I&#8217;m going to have to seek the approval of Congress.&#8217; He said it was a red line, and that the United States of America would act. And that&#8217;s a big difference, and that&#8217;s one of the reasons why this is so problematic.&#8221;</p></blockquote>
<p>But does Senator McCain really believe that the United States should be obligated to break its own laws because its current elected leader says something stupid?</p>
<p>How many people have to die for the sake of a credibility that frankly doesn&#8217;t exist?</p>
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		<title>McCain and Lindsay Graham Went to Egypt and All They Got Was This Op-Ed</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/mccain-and-lindsay-graham-went-to-egypt-and-all-they-got-was-this-op-ed/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=mccain-and-lindsay-graham-went-to-egypt-and-all-they-got-was-this-op-ed</link>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 12 Aug 2013 15:45:22 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The Point]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[al Qaeda]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[egypt]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[John McCain]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[muslim brotherhood]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Senator Lindsey Graham]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=200121</guid>
		<description><![CDATA["Democracy is the only viable path to lasting stability, national reconciliation, sustainable economic growth and the return of investment and tourism in Egypt," the duo write, ignoring the fact that democracy seems to have destroyed all these things.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/130806_mccain_graham_egypt_ap_605.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-200125" alt="John McCain, Lindsey Graham" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/130806_mccain_graham_egypt_ap_605-450x243.jpg" width="450" height="243" /></a></p>
<p>Senator McCain and Senator Graham&#8217;s visit to Egypt went badly&#8230; to put it in the nicest terms possible. How badly? This badly.</p>
<p>The Egyptian cabinet declared them persona non-grata and &#8220;President Mansour and his prime minister, Hazem Biblawi, described two senior American senators, sent as emissaries of<a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/obamamccain-love-for-muslim-brotherhood-destroying-relationship-with-egypt/"> President Barak Obama, as “delusional” and “liars.</a>”</p>
<blockquote><p>&#8220;Following a press conference in which Mr. McCain threatened sanctions, the leader of the Egyptian Popular Current party, Hamdeen Sabahi, who is a co-leader of the ruling National Salvation Front, described Mr. McCain as “a senile old man.”</p></blockquote>
<p>So really, really badly. A visit to North Korea would have gone better. But McCain and Graham, acknowledging none of this, <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/john-mccain-and-lindsey-graham-egypts-path-to-a-better-future/2013/08/09/24310634-007c-11e3-96a8-d3b921c0924a_story.html">decided to pen an op-ed</a> for Jeff Bezos&#8217; Washington Post.</p>
<p>&#8220;But as we said again this week in Cairo, we find it difficult to describe the circumstances of Morsi’s removal from office as anything other than a coup. Unsuccessful leaders in a democracy should leave office by losing elections,&#8221; McCain and Graham write.</p>
<p>They have a point. Unless the unsuccessful leader attempted to seize absolute power and had political opponents tortured and beaten. In that case there&#8217;s plenty of precedent to go Ceausescu on the president.</p>
<p>&#8220;Democracy is the only viable path to lasting stability, national reconciliation, sustainable economic growth and the return of investment and tourism in Egypt,&#8221; the duo write, ignoring the fact that democracy seems to have destroyed all these things.</p>
<p>&#8220;Indeed, it is worth remembering — especially when the American mind has refocused on the real and persistent threat posed by al-Qaeda — that its leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, is a former member of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood who was radicalized during the violent crackdowns and detentions of Brotherhood leaders by previous Egyptian regimes,&#8221; McCain and Graham write.</p>
<p>In fact all Al Qaeda&#8217;s leaders were Muslim Brotherhood members. Was Bin Laden radicalized? Or was this a difference in method, rather than goal?</p>
<p>And if so, then isn&#8217;t calling for a Muslim Brotherhood democracy collaboration with the end goals of Al Qaeda?</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p>Richardson and Schmidt arrive in North Korea today &#8211; Lenin used to call them &#8220;useful idiots&#8221;</p>
<p>— John McCain (@SenJohnMcCain) <a href="https://twitter.com/SenJohnMcCain/statuses/288324942188126208">January 7, 2013</a></p></blockquote>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
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		<title>Egyptians Enraged by U.S. Brotherhood Outreach</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/raymond-ibrahim/msm-blackout-egyptians-enraged-by-u-s-brotherhood-outreach/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=msm-blackout-egyptians-enraged-by-u-s-brotherhood-outreach</link>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 12 Aug 2013 04:30:14 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Raymond Ibrahim]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[egypt]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[egyptian christians]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[John McCain]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[muslim brotherhood]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Senator Lindsey Graham]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=200157</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Sens. McCain and Graham's shameless visit to Cairo -- and what our media failed to report. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><strong><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/2013-08-06T235142Z_1_CBRE9751UAE00_RTROPTP_3_EGYPT-PROTESTS.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-200159" alt="2013-08-06T235142Z_1_CBRE9751UAE00_RTROPTP_3_EGYPT-PROTESTS" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/2013-08-06T235142Z_1_CBRE9751UAE00_RTROPTP_3_EGYPT-PROTESTS.jpg" width="263" height="203" /></a>Originally published by <a href="http://pjmedia.com/blog/msm-blackout-egyptians-enraged-by-u-s-outreach-to-muslim-brotherhood/">PJ Media</a>.</strong></p>
<p>In the eyes of tens of millions of Egyptians, Senators John McCain’s and Lindsey Graham’s recent words and deeds in Egypt — which have the “<a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/08/06/exclusive-john-mccain-on-his-meeting-with-the-muslim-brotherhood-in-cairo.html">blessing</a>” of President Obama — have unequivocally proven that U.S. leadership is aligning with the Muslim Brotherhood.</p>
<p>Egyptian media is awash with stories of the growing anger regarding this policy.</p>
<p>A top advisor to Egypt’s Interim President Adly Mansour formally <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/06/mccain-graham-egypt_n_3716270.html">accused</a> McCain of distorting facts to the benefit of the Brotherhood. He dismissed McCain’s recent remarks as “irrational” and “moronic.” <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4jVnejnxNM">Ahmed al-Zind</a>, head of the Egyptian Judge Club, has called <del cite="mailto:Feymorgoth9" datetime="2013-08-08T16:10"></del>for the arrest and trial of McCain for “trying to destroy Egypt.” The leader of the youth movement <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xhqmx2-ZSGg">Tamarod</a> (meaning “Rebellion,” against the Brotherhood), which played a major role in mobilizing the June 30 revolution, said: “We reject John McCain and call on the international community to let the [Egyptian] people decide their own fate.”</p>
<p>Secular political commentator <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZiswhQwlxHs">Ahmed Musa</a> asserted:</p>
<blockquote><p>These two men have made more shameless demands than the Brotherhood themselves would dare.</p>
<p>…</p>
<p>[McCain] is not a man elected by the American people to speak on their behalf; today, he speaks on behalf of an armed terrorist organization — the Muslim Brotherhood. …  We had expected [better] from these two men who came to speak with the tongue of the Brotherhood’s leadership, as if they had been recruited as two new leaders of the Brotherhood, which killed, destroyed, and burned in al-Muqattam, and now in Rab‘a al-Adawiya [the main Brotherhood militant camp]. The only thing missing is to see them in Rab‘a, surrounded by armed groups, and in their midst Muhammad Badie [supreme leader of the Brotherhood] and [U.S. Ambassador] Anne Patterson. That’s all that’s missing! Here comes Brother McCain today saying that we must “release the [Brotherhood] prisoners”.</p>
<p>…</p>
<p>Are you not aware that these people are accused of murder? Are you not aware that hundreds of Egyptians have been killed at the hands of the Brotherhood, Morsi, Shatter, Qatatni, Badie, Baltagi — have you forgotten? Did you not read the report on what happened? Or did you just blindly accept your ambassador’s words that it was a coup, that 33 million people did not go out?</p></blockquote>
<p>What did McCain do and say in Egypt to earn the ire of millions of Egyptians?</p>
<p>Most offensive to Egyptians — and helpful to the Brotherhood’s cause — is McCain’s insistence on calling the June 30 revolution a “military coup.” In reality, the revolution consisted of perhaps thirty million Egyptians taking to the streets to oust the Brotherhood. McCain is either deliberately misconstruing the event, or believes the story as told by Al Jazeera and Ambassador Anne Patterson. In this narrative, at least an equal amount of Egyptians did support Morsi, and the military simply overthrew him against popular will. Al Jazeera has actually broadcast images of the millions of anti-Morsi protesters and identified them as <i>pro</i>-Morsi protesters, disinformation which was quickly adopted by Western media.</p>
<p>Several Al Jazeera correspondents have resigned due to Al Jazeera acting as the Brotherhood’s international mouthpiece.</p>
<p>Fortunately, some American officials have formally rejected the narrative. A <a href="http://www.copticsolidarity.org/images/pdf/HR329.pdf">new congressional resolution</a> states:</p>
<blockquote><p>Whereas in recent weeks, an estimated 30,000,000 Egyptians in a majority of Egypt’s 27 provinces gathered to protest the widespread failures of former President Mohamed Morsi and the Government of Egypt and its violations of the most basic rights of all Egyptian citizens, including Egyptian women, minorities, and those publicly dissenting from its views and policies; Whereas the participants in the June 30, 2013, popular protests far outnumbered those involved in the protests and demonstrations of January and February 2011 …<del cite="mailto:Feymorgoth9" datetime="2013-08-08T16:14"><br />
</del></p></blockquote>
<p>Even the Obama administration has been sensible enough not to call the June 30 revolution a “military coup.” Nevertheless, McCain rejected <del cite="mailto:Feymorgoth9" datetime="2013-08-08T16:15"></del>John Kerry’s statement that “<a href="http://swampland.time.com/2013/08/02/oops-john-kerry-gaffes-washington-backpedals/">the [Egyptian] military did not take over</a>.”</p>
<p>McCain’s designation raises other questions as well. If he considers the ouster of the Brotherhood government to be a military coup, why didn’t he extend that distinction at the fall of Mubarak’s more moderate government, which was also removed by the military in response to popular protests? If McCain’s argument is that Morsi was democratically elected and Mubarak was not, then why was the U.S. giving Egypt billions in aid for decades? Did not this aid legitimize Mubarak’s government no less than Morsi’s?</p>
<p>Further angering Egyptians is McCain’s insistence that all arrested Brotherhood members and other Islamists be released from prison. As Musa said, McCain’s stance does not address that Brotherhood leadership is awaiting trial on serious charges: inciting terrorism, causing the murder of Egyptians, and grand treason by conspiring with foreign powers against Egypt’s interests.</p>
<p>McCain claims he is simply interested in the human rights of the incarcerated Brotherhood members, a statement that is additionally curious. If human rights are at issue, why has McCain and the U.S. administration been ambivalent regarding the fate of Hosni Mubarak? Morsi faces perhaps more serious charges than Mubarak does, yet McCain calls for his release.</p>
<p>McCain’s call to release Brotherhood leadership <del cite="mailto:Feymorgoth9" datetime="2013-08-08T16:17"></del>validates the widespread belief in Egypt that America is a fellow conspirator with the Brotherhood. Egyptians believe the U.S. fears that Morsi and others, if tried, would reveal the nature of their cozy relationship with the U.S. government. This is believed to mean any number of ugly revelations — treasonous ties and conspiracies, the exchange of billions of dollars, and Sinai issues. Hence, McCain wants them freed. This belief seems all the more reasonable to Egyptians considering that in 2011, McCain <a href="http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/john-mccain-on-the-dangers-of-the-muslim-brotherhood-they-should-be-excluded-from-any-transition-government-a-743819.html">said of the Muslim Brotherhood</a>:</p>
<blockquote><p>I think they are a radical group that first of all supports Sharia law; that in itself is anti-democratic — at least as far as women are concerned. They have been involved with other terrorist organizations and I believe that they should be specifically excluded from any transition government.</p></blockquote>
<p>Recently, McCain personally <a href="http://www.youm7.com/News.asp?NewsID=1193467">visited</a> Khairat al-Shater, the multi-millionaire deputy chief of the Brotherhood who is currently incarcerated on charges of treason and terrorism. Interestingly, Shatter was not even a member of Morsi’s government. Why is McCain visiting a civilian? Shater’s status as a major figure in the largest Islamist organization in the world is leading Egyptians to connect the dots. Even Shater himself, perhaps understanding <a href="http://beta.masrawy.com/News/details/2013/8/5/39630/%D8%AD%D8%B4%D9%85%D8%AA-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B4%D8%A7%D8%B7%D8%B1-%D8%B7%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A8-%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%88%D9%81%D8%AF-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A3%D9%85%D8%B1%D9%8A%D9%83%D9%8A-%D8%A8%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AA%D9%81%D8%A7">the awful visuals</a>, asked to visit “the legitimate president” Morsi as well.</p>
<p>U.S. media has said little aboutthe administration’s ties to al-Shater, <del cite="mailto:Feymorgoth9" datetime="2013-08-08T16:20"></del>however these ties are well-known among Egyptians: ambassador Anne Patterson was frequently seen <a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/from-the-arab-world/egyptian-politician-calls-u-s-ambassador-patterson-member-of-muslim-brotherhood-sleeper-cell/">going to</a> Shater’s residence.</p>
<p>Egyptian media has also <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3bTBPDdb5c">pointed out</a> that McCain repeatedly dodged critical questions by Egyptian journalists at a press conference. When asked about the fact that the Brotherhood in Rab‘a was armed to the teeth, and — with the aid of al-Qaeda — was killing and terrorizing innocent Egyptians, McCain ignored the question. (Similarly, McCain has not answered as to why he is supports the jihadist rebellion in Syria, which has seen the slaughter and displacement of thousands of Christians, <a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/from-the-arab-world/new-fatwa-permits-rape-of-non-sunni-women-in-syria/">beheadings</a>, and “<a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/from-the-arab-world/new-fatwa-permits-rape-of-non-sunni-women-in-syria/">legitimized rapes</a>” by foreign jihadis. <a href="http://www.religiousfreedomcoalition.org/2013/06/03/rand-paul-slams-mccains-support-of-al-qaeda-in-syria/">McCain is in favor of arming</a> them.)</p>
<p>Many Egyptians are also wondering why McCain — as well as the Obama administration — is pushing for elections as soon as possible.  Such a rush contributed to the empowerment of the Brotherhood in the first place: once the long-entrenched Mubarak was removed from power, the only party that was organized and ready to campaign was the Brotherhood. Secular Egyptian parties wanted to postpone the 2012 elections in order to mobilize their campaigns, but the U.S. was adamant that Egypt hold elections immediately. When the military wished to perform a recount, citing irregularities in the elections — including widespread allegations of voter fraud by the Brotherhood — Hillary Clinton chastised them and called for a winner to be declared as soon as possible. This turned out to be Morsi, by a tiny margin — <a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/from-the-arab-world/did-the-muslim-brotherhood-really-win-egypts-presidency/">if that</a>.</p>
<p>McCain’s remarks and actions in Egypt have further confirmed the popular narrative — as memorably displayed by countless anti-Brotherhood and anti-Obama placards raised during the June 30 revolution — that U.S. leadership is aligned with the Brotherhood, and thus ultimately <a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/from-the-arab-world/obama-supports-terrorism-large-banner-in-tahrir-square/">a supporter of terrorism</a>. Americans can no longer afford to ignore this serious accusation with broad implications.</p>
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		<title>Obama/McCain Love for Muslim Brotherhood Destroying Relationship with Egypt</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/obamamccain-love-for-muslim-brotherhood-destroying-relationship-with-egypt/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=obamamccain-love-for-muslim-brotherhood-destroying-relationship-with-egypt</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/obamamccain-love-for-muslim-brotherhood-destroying-relationship-with-egypt/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 08 Aug 2013 21:03:12 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The Point]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[egypt]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[John McCain]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[muslim brotherhood]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=199920</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[President Mansour and his prime minister, Hazem Biblawi, described two senior American senators, sent as emissaries of President Barak Obama, as “delusional” and “liars.”]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/egypt.jpg"><img class="size-medium wp-image-197597" alt="That's not the Tea Party. That's Egypt." src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/egypt-450x253.jpg" width="450" height="253" /></a></p>
<dl class="wp-caption alignnone" id="attachment_197597" style="width: 460px;">
<dd class="wp-caption-dd">That&#8217;s not the Tea Party. That&#8217;s Egypt.</dd>
</dl>
<p>Obama and McCain have only one thing on their mind; the Muslim Brotherhood. These days that makes them about as popular in Egypt as&#8230; the Muslim Brotherhood.</p>
<p>That <a href="http://iowntheworld.com/blog/?p=197379">Arab Spring and Cairo Speech sure </a>worked out great. Still to give McCain some credit, he managed to make himself even more hated in Egypt than Obama in only a few days. And that took some doing.</p>
<blockquote><p>The Egyptian Cabinet took offense to comments Senator John McCain (R &#8211; AZ) made to the Washington Post about his advice to the new government of Egypt about releasing Muslim Brotherhood prisoners. The cabinet tweeted on Tuesday:</p>
<p>McCain remarks from inside the Egy territory to the W.Post insults the Egy sovereignty.we consider him persona non grata.an unwelcome person<br />
— Egyptian Cabinet (@Cabinet_eg) August 6, 2013</p>
<p>The Egyptian government quickly deleted the tweet.</p>
<p>“We advised the existing government to release some of the Muslim Brotherhood prisoners they are holding as a gesture to try to get negotiations started between them,” McCain said in an interview as he left the country Tuesday.</p></blockquote>
<p>Make some gestures? Release some terrorist prisoners? Does McCain think Egypt is Israel? The media is calling this a failed attempt at mediation, but really when the cabinet tweets that you are persona non grata after you try to free the regime that was just overthrown, that seems like an understatement.</p>
<blockquote><p>McCain said the Brotherhood must be included in Egypt&#8217;s transition. &#8220;Our purpose is to try to urge our friends toward a process that can avert a very serious situation that can affect not only the Arab world, but also the United States.&#8221;</p></blockquote>
<p>Would that be a serious situation involving a terrorist group taking over a country with a large army and some nuclear capabilities. Because that&#8217;s the serious situation that already happened and that he seems bent on recreating.</p>
<p>And <a href="http://www.nysun.com/foreign/americas-alliance-with-egypt-is-on-verge/88366/">that alliance with Egypt seems to be </a>coming apart.</p>
<blockquote><p>In a cascade of mutual recriminations over the past three days, President Mansour and his prime minister, Hazem Biblawi, described two senior American senators, sent as emissaries of President Barak Obama, as “delusional” and “liars.”</p></blockquote>
<p>Diplomacy!</p>
<blockquote><p>Following a press conference in which Mr. McCain threatened sanctions, the leader of the Egyptian Popular Current party, Hamdeen Sabahi, who is a co-leader of the ruling National Salvation Front, described Mr. McCain as “a senile old man.”</p>
<p>On the streets, nationalist sentiment was not far behind. The ‘’Rebel Movement’’ is pitching a new drive titled ‘’Say No to US Aid’’, which runs at $ 1.5 billion a year. So grave is the situation that military sources told Reuters on Wednesday that Egypt may call off critical joint military maneuvers code-named Bright Star.</p></blockquote>
<p>So McCain&#8217;s plan, once again, was apparently to make Obama look good. Mission accomplished.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
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		<title>John McCain’s Syria Delusions</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/bruce-thornton/john-mccains-syria-delusions/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=john-mccains-syria-delusions</link>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 18 Jun 2013 04:45:13 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Bruce Thornton]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Assad]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[chemical weapons]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[civil war]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[John McCain]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[red line]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Syria]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=193408</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The crucial questions the senator refuses to ask in his haste to arm jihadists. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/McCainSyria2.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-193432" alt="McCainSyria2" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/McCainSyria2.jpg" width="251" height="197" /></a>Following the president’s announcement that we will provide small arms and ammunition to the rebels fighting Bashar al-Assad in Syria, Senator John McCain has intensified his drumbeat for war and demanded even more extensive U.S. involvement, particularly a no-fly zone. But McCain has not indicated any awareness of the risks and complications of such an escalation.</span></b></p>
<p>McCain’s argument is the typical one made by “responsibility to protect” internationalists like Samantha Power, Obama’s new U.N. ambassador, whom McCain supported despite her record of anti-Israel animus and doubts about America’s worthiness. But we can’t stand by and watch Assad slaughter his people, the interventionists claim. Except we have stood by on numerous occasions, in Congo, Sudan, and Rwanda, to name just a few venues of slaughter. We are standing by right now as Christians in the Middle East are being murdered, assaulted, harassed, and cleansed from lands that have been Christian for two millennia. We are standing by as al-Qaeda in Iraq slaughters its political and sectarian rivals, and we will for sure be standing by in Afghanistan when the Taliban slaughter even more enemies after we depart in 2014.</p>
<p>The lofty notion of “responsibility to protect” is a fraud, for the fact is we can’t protect every victim of global violence and oppression. This means that our national interests and security can be the only reasons for an armed intervention.</p>
<p>Of course, McCain et al. argue that our interests are at risk, and that providing weapons or even a no-fly zone offers little danger to our soldiers. An Assad victory, so the argument goes, will also be a victory for Iran and its proxies like Hezbollah. But Iran’s real achievement will be the possession of nuclear weapons, which will change the geostrategic calculus in the Middle East much more than Assad’s holding on to power. If we’re concerned about Iran, then, we should be focusing on the regime’s nuclear weapons program, which day by day relentlessly progresses to fulfillment. It’s not Iran’s proxies we should worry about, but Iran.</p>
<p>Nor should the apparent ease with which the U.S.––excuse me, NATO––toppled the Gaddafi regime fool us into thinking we can do the same in Syria. The odds of civilian casualties, for example, will be much greater in Syria if we attack Assad’s air defense system. Once the videos of dead children amidst the rubble hit the international media, how long will all those “allies” still be in our corner? And what about Assad’s stockpiles of chemical weapons? What if he responds by unleashing them against his enemies? And will Russia simply stand by while we bomb its ally’s assets that it provided to them? Perhaps Putin will decide to send the promised S-300 missiles after all. There are all sorts of risks and contingencies, and unless we have a plan to deal with them that puts all our assets on the table, including ground troops, we could make the situation even worse.</p>
<p>Equally bad, McCain doesn’t really know to whom he is eager to give sophisticated weapons. Clearly the most effective and dedicated fighters are to some degree Islamist in ideology, ranging from Muslim Brotherhood affiliates to al-Qaeda franchises like the al Nusra front, which has already pledged allegiance to al-Qaeda headman Ayman al-Zawahri. Jihadists from Europe and across the Middle East are streaming to Syria, where they are getting valuable battlefield experience. The so-called “moderate” Syrian Free Army, the force comprising mostly army defectors, has made it clear they will cooperate with the al-Nusra fighters and anybody else committed to destroying Assad’s regime. Do we really think that if they win, they will then turn their guns on their allies?</p>
<p>And what makes McCain think that weapons delivered to “vetted” groups––assuming that there is any way to definitively establish that they are “moderate”–– will be kept out of the hands of jihadist gangs that are sworn enemies of the U.S. and Israel? We’ve already suffered blowback in Benghazi from Gaddafi’s looted arsenals in the four coffins of dead Americans. The Syrian rebels have asked for anti-aircraft weapons, as these are necessary for countering Assad’s air superiority. So we’re going to provide weapons that can bring down commercial airliners to committed jihadists? In 1979 we hadn’t yet been sufficiently awakened to the terrorist threat from jihadists, so providing the mujahidin with the means to drive the Soviets out of Afghanistan made sense. But we know now the nature of the enemy, and so should be a little more prudent.</p>
<p>No one pressing for intervention in Syria has confronted the fact that even if defeating Iran and its proxies is critical to our national interests, arming a congeries of different jihadist groups and imposing no-fly zones are not going to accomplish that aim. It will take a much larger, more intrusive force, including troops on the ground, to defeat Assad, secure his chemical weapons arsenals, and marginalize the jihadists. After our experience in Iraq and the failure of political nerve that has kept us from achieving similar aims, good luck reprising that experiment in Syria.</p>
<p>But even if Assad is driven out just by airpower and arming rebels, what sort of government does McCain think will arise out of these various Islamist factions? As Barry Rubin <a href="http://pjmedia.com/barryrubin/2013/06/14/panic-in-washington-is-iran-and-syriaa-regime-winning-and-what-to-do-about-it/">points out</a>, our choice in Syria “will be one of Sunni anti-Christians, anti-Americans, and anti-Semites rather than Shia anti-Christians, anti-Americans, and anti-Semites.” Whatever it is, it’s not going to be a liberal democracy friendly to us and our interests, if what’s going on in Egypt is any indication. The most likely outcome will be Libya on steroids, with large swaths of the country available for sheltering jihadist camps right next door to Israel and Jordan.</p>
<p>And so live on the delusions of Middle East “democracy” promotion, a consequence of wishful thinking rather than analysis of reality. And so continues the baleful influence of John McCain on our foreign policy. His demonizing of waterboarding helped to eliminate one of the most effective tools for extracting intelligence, with the result that now we have no effective means for gleaning intelligence from captured terrorists. And his naïve faith in the magic powers of “democracy” to change a culture steeped in 14 centuries of religious intolerance, supremacism, and violence promises to repeat in Syria the empowerment of jihadist regimes we’re witnessing in Egypt. We’ll be living with the consequences of those delusions for a long time.</p>
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		<title>McCain Knows Less About the Syrian Civil War than You Do</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/mccain-knows-less-about-the-syrian-civil-war-than-you-do/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=mccain-knows-less-about-the-syrian-civil-war-than-you-do</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/mccain-knows-less-about-the-syrian-civil-war-than-you-do/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 31 May 2013 01:21:49 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The Point]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[John McCain]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Syrian Civil War]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=191524</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The Al Nusra Front had repeatedly fought alongside with and coordinated operations with the Free Syrian Army. Salem Idris, whom he just met with, is on the record as defending the Al Nusra Front.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/al-qaeda-with-flags.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-191525" alt="al-qaeda-with-flags" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/al-qaeda-with-flags-450x299.jpg" width="450" height="299" /></a></p>
<p>Do you know what&#8217;s troubling? A top United States Senator went to Syria, met with Syrian Jihadists and showed that he knows less about the conflict <a href="http://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/McCain-confident-he-can-identify-good-guys-in-Syria-314811">than anyone reading this site</a>.</p>
<p>In an Anderson Cooper interview, Senator McCain claimed, &#8220;We can identify who these people are. We can help the right people.&#8221; And who does he think the right people are?</p>
<blockquote><p>McCain said such radical fighters make up only a small part of the rebels forces. For example, he said, Syria&#8217;s Islamist al-Nusra Front, identified as an alias of al Qaeda in Iraq, accounts for only about 7,000 of the 100,000 fighters battling the government of Assad.</p>
<p>&#8220;Every single day, more and more extremists flow in&#8230; &#8220;They&#8217;re flowing in all the time, these extremists. But they still do not make up a sizeable portion,&#8221; the Arizona senator said.</p>
<p>McCain said he was escorted during his visit on Monday by General Salem Idris, leader of the Supreme Military Council of the Free Syrian Army, and that he had a long meeting with Idris and a group of his battalion commanders.</p></blockquote>
<p>The Al Nusra Front had repeatedly fought alongside with and coordinated operations with the Free Syrian Army. Salem Idris, whom he just met with, is <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/obama-to-rely-on-syrian-leader-who-claims-al-qaeda-arent-terrorists-to-keep-our-weapons-out-of-al-qaedas-hands/">on the record as defending the Al Nusra Front</a>.</p>
<blockquote><p>“All rebels are fighting to topple the regime of Bashar al-Assad, and before we designate anybody or accuse anyone of being a terrorist we should tell what they have done to terrorize others,” the Free Syrian Army military command’s Brigadier General Salim Idris, told al-Jazeera television. “Not everyone wearing a beard is an extremist.”</p>
<p>“They are not terrorists,” he said of the Nusra Front.</p></blockquote>
<p>Recently Idris has changed his tune, but it&#8217;s safe to say that his original position is the real one. The FSA remains closely aligned with Al Qaeda and even the enthusiastic supporters at <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/nyt-nowhere-in-rebel-controlled-syria-is-there-a-secular-fighting-force/">the New York Times have bowed to reality and admitted</a>, &#8220;Nowhere in rebel-controlled Syria is there a secular fighting force to speak of.&#8221;</p>
<p>That&#8217;s not somewhere. That&#8217;s nowhere. And if you&#8217;re reading this right now, you&#8217;re more qualified to be a United States Senator dealing with the question of whether to arm the Syrian militias than John McCain is.</p>
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		<title>Obama Administration Offers Direct Talks with Iran</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/arnold-ahlert/obama-administration-offers-direct-talks-with-iran/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=obama-administration-offers-direct-talks-with-iran</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/arnold-ahlert/obama-administration-offers-direct-talks-with-iran/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 05 Feb 2013 04:58:35 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Arnold Ahlert]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[direct talks]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iran]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Joe Biden]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[John McCain]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Munich]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[U.S.]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=176333</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The calculating Islamic Republic hails the U.S.'s new direction.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2013/arnold-ahlert/obama-administration-offers-direct-talks-with-iran/mahmoud-iranian-ahmadinejad-sotakbar-706-n/" rel="attachment wp-att-176340"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-176340" title="mahmoud-iranian-ahmadinejad-sotakbar-706.n" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/mahmoud-iranian-ahmadinejad-sotakbar-706.n.jpg" alt="" width="296" height="222" /></a>On Saturday, the Obama administration&#8217;s efforts to maintain the fantasy that diplomatic efforts will get Iran to abandon its pursuit of nuclear weapons was again on display for all the world to see, courtesy of Vice President Joe Biden. During a speech at the Munich Security Conference, Biden <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2013/02/02/politics/biden-us-iran/index.html">contended</a> that the United States &#8220;would be prepared to meet bilaterally with the Iranian leadership.&#8221; &#8220;There has to be an agenda that they are prepared to speak to,&#8221; Biden added. &#8220;We are not just prepared to do it for the exercise.&#8221; The Iranians, meanwhile, are <a href="http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2013/02/04/287276/iran-optimistic-on-us-policy-change-fm/">hailing</a> the new approach the Obama administration is taking with Tehran and are no doubt looking forward to the extra time it will afford them to continue on the trajectory of their nuclear weapons program.</p>
<p>One is forced to ponder what outcome Biden could possibly be envisioning that would rise above the level of a futile &#8220;exercise,&#8221; given Tehran&#8217;s continual intransigence and the Obama administration&#8217;s indulgence of the regime&#8217;s games. The latest failure to move the needle occurred as recently as January, when nuclear inspectors from the UN&#8217;s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) were <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/01/18/us-nuclear-iran-iaea-idUSBRE90G14Q20130118">denied</a> access to the Parchin military complex southeast of Tehran. Parchin is where it has long been suspected that the Iranians are <a href="http://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2013/01/19/official-iran-wont-stop-uranium-enrichment">working</a> on a nuclear trigger for a bomb. IAEA deputy inspector Herman Nackaerts expressed his frustration at the time: &#8220;We had two days of intensive discussions. Differences remain so we could not finalize the structured approach to resolve the outstanding issues regarding possible military dimensions of Iran&#8217;s nuclear program,&#8221; he said at the time. The two side are scheduled to meet again on February 12.</p>
<p>So what has changed? Nothing on the part of the Iranians. Yet Biden insisted that Iran still had time to change course and resolve the issue through diplomacy. &#8220;The ball is in the government of Iran&#8217;s court,&#8221; said Biden. &#8220;It is well past time for Iran to adopt a serious good-faith approach to negotiations. Abandon the illicit nuclear program and your support for terrorism and there will be meaningful incentives.&#8221;</p>
<p>Watered-down sanctions and poor oversight are already incentive enough for Iran to stay the course. For instance, Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction John Sopko <a href="http://oilprice.com/Geopolitics/Middle-East/U.S.-Violating-its-Own-Sanctions-on-Iran.html">revealed</a> that an audit of U.S. defense spending in Afghanistan shows that the Pentagon may have spent a &#8220;significant amount&#8221; of money for fuel purchased from Iran, due to a &#8220;lack of oversight&#8221; on the billions of dollars of taxpayer funds used to support the Afghan military. &#8220;The fact that the United States has paid for the acquisition and delivery of imported fuel for the Afghan National Security Forces &#8212; nearly $1.1 billion for the Afghan National Army alone between fiscal years 2007 and 2012 &#8212; raises concerns that U.S. funds could have been used to pay for imports of fuel potentially in violation of U.S. economic sanctions against Iran,&#8221; said Sopko.</p>
<p>No doubt this is due to a certain level of bureaucratic sloppiness that is endemic to the kind of ever-expanding government this administration champions. And while that may be somewhat understandable, this administration&#8217;s ongoing diplomatic approach seems destined to do little more than give Tehran the time it needs to finally cross the nuclear weapon threshold.</p>
<p>Thus it was completely unsurprising that Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi was <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/02/04/us-iran-usa-germany-idUSBRE9130LU20130204">pleased</a> with Biden&#8217;s offer. &#8220;As I have said yesterday, I am optimistic, I feel this new administration is really this time seeking to at least divert from its previous traditional approach vis-a-vis my country,&#8221; Salehi told the German Council on Foreign Relations. Salehi, who also attended the Munich conference, went further. &#8220;I think it is about time both sides really get into engagement because confrontation certainly is not the way,&#8221; he added.</p>
<p>Such a statement is a typical rewriting of history. Negotiations between some combination of the P5+1 countries (United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany) and Iran have been ongoing <a href="http://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/Iran_Nuclear_Proposals">for a decade</a>. In all that time, not a single proposal has gained acceptance from all the parities involved. Such orchestrated futility is the essence of what a diplomatic approach has produced. Yet once again the P5+1 is offering Iran another chance to engage in negotiations on February 24, possibly in Kazakhstan. While Salehi called this &#8220;good news,&#8221; the Iranians have yet to accept. Even if they do, Salehi has offered a hint as to where they are likely to go. &#8220;And another thing: this issue of the nuclear file is becoming boring,&#8221; he said during the same interview.</p>
<p>In London, Hossein Mousavian, one of Iran&#8217;s former nuclear negotiators, also hinted at the likely futility another round of multilateral negotiations would produce, claiming that they are meaningless without &#8220;parallel dialogue&#8221; between the Obama administration and Iran. &#8220;I believe they should start immediately. They should put all issues on the table. They should start with issues of common interest like Afghanistan in order to create a positive momentum,&#8221; he said.</p>
<p>Senator John McCain, who also spoke in Munich, proved once again that willful blindness with regard to Iran is a bipartisan problem. He favors direct talks with Tehran as well, even as he cautioned that optimism may be unwarranted. &#8220;I think we should learn the lessons of history and that is that no matter what the talks are, if you still have the fundamental problem&#8211;and the fundamental problem is Iranians&#8217; commitment to acquisition of a nuclear weapon&#8211;it doesn&#8217;t matter to a significant degree,&#8221; he said. &#8220;We&#8217;ve seen this movie before. And obviously, I think any venue we would support, but to have grounds for optimism I think would be a mistake.&#8221;</p>
<p>After more than ten years of fruitless negotiations, one might be forgiven for wondering when anyone involved in this ongoing fiasco will &#8220;learn the lessons of history.&#8221;</p>
<p>That would be anyone on the Western side of the equation. Iran is learning that the Obama administration is seemingly determined to find some sort of accommodation with the fanatical mullahs , and nothing says this better than the president&#8217;s attempt, and likely success, in getting Chuck Hagel appointed Secretary of Defense. In 2007, Hagel <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/the-ironies-of-hagels-no-vote-on-irans-revolutionary-guards/2013/01/31/bfdf7686-6c04-11e2-ada0-5ca5fa7ebe79_blog.html">voted against</a> designating Iran&#8217;s Revolutionary Guard a terrorist group. In 2008 Hagel, like Biden, also <a href="http://mondoweiss.net/2012/12/hagel-called-for-setting-up-us-interests-section-in-iran-and-resuming-commercial-flights-so-as-to-engage-iran-on-palestinian-issue.html">favored</a> direct negotiations with Iran, despite noting that &#8220;they support terrorists, they support Hezbollah. They’ve got their tentacles wrapped around every problem in the middle East. They’re anti-Israel, anti-United States. Those are realities. Those are facts.&#8221; In his Senate hearing last week, Hagel &#8220;explained&#8221; his reasoning in a jaw dropping moment when he noted that the U.S. had never &#8220;designated a part of a legitimate government [Iran]&#8221; as a terrorist organization. Realizing his mistake he corrected himself. Iran&#8217;s government is &#8220;recognizable,&#8221; he said.</p>
<p>So is Hagel&#8217;s cluelessness. It is all the more amplified by another <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/339446/hagel-flops-iran-containment-andrew-stiles">gaffe</a> during which he said he supported the Obama&#8217;s administration policy of &#8220;containment&#8221; with regard to Iran, even though the administration has repeatedly ruled that out as an option. In fact, Iran would probably like nothing more than to be at the stage of &#8220;containment&#8221; after securing a nuclear weapon.</p>
<p>So what policy should the United States be pursuing with regard to Iran? Writing for PJ Media, Middle East expert Andrew McCarthy <a href="http://pjmedia.com/andrewmccarthy/2012/10/22/thinking-iran-its-the-regime-not-the-nukes/">explains</a> that focusing solely on nukes is &#8220;delusional.&#8221; &#8220;Exportation of their Islamist revolution, hatred of America and, within that sweep, the destruction of Israel have been the operating premises of Khomeinist Iran since 1979,&#8221; he writes. &#8220;The facilitation of terrorism&#8211;a barbaric way to pursue national interests&#8211;has been the regime’s principal means of operation. The mullahs have killed or aided and abetted in the killing of thousands of Americans, and every day they try to kill more. The regime is an incorrigible enemy of the United States. There should be nothing they can do at this point, after over 30 years of this, to convince us otherwise.&#8221;</p>
<p>Apparently the Obama administration remains unconvinced. Though ten years of pursuing diplomacy have produced no tangle results, this administration still believes it is capable of getting an apocalyptic regime to alter its divine objective: hastening the second coming of the Twelfth or Hidden Imam whose re-emergence must be preceded by a period of chaos. And as the U.S. continues down the road of appeasement, expect fanatical Iran to respond accordingly.</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>
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		<title>Peace Corps Vet Chris Matthews Mocks John McCain&#8217;s Vietnam Service</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/peace-corps-vet-chris-matthews-mocks-john-mccains-vietnam-service/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=peace-corps-vet-chris-matthews-mocks-john-mccains-vietnam-service</link>
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		<pubDate>Sun, 03 Feb 2013 03:27:39 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The Point]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Chris Matthews]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[John McCain]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Vietnam War]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=176000</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Both Matthews and McCain were well connected young men. The difference is that McCain served his country, while Matthews was playing tourist in Africa on Uncle Sam's dime.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/peace-corps-vet-chris-matthews-mocks-john-mccains-vietnam-service/swaziland-8/" rel="attachment wp-att-176001"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-176001" title="swaziland-8" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/swaziland-8-350x350.jpg" alt="" width="350" height="350" /></a></p>
<p>From 1968 to 1970, Christopher John Matthews heroically served his nation<a href="http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2010/08/joe_klein_chris_matthews_and_t.html"> as a trade development adviser </a>in the Peace Corps where he developed trade or traded advisers or developed trading advice. Or something. There he gained the name Phakama Dube, which is Swazi for Jump Up Zebra and <a href="http://archive.mensjournal.com/saving-africas-big-game">faced danger a thousand times</a>.</p>
<blockquote><p>I was driving my British-made Ford Escort through the Grand Valley. Sweating and numbed by the heat, I barely noticed a black line across half of the roadway ahead. Suddenly I could see it was alive, heading at a sharp angle toward me. Before I could change course, the snake was at my open window, its full length springing up and in at me!</p>
<p>At that exact moment of sheer terror, I was as sure as I have been of anything in my life that the black mamba was twisting around in the backseat of my Escort, ready to strike. Of course, the mamba wasn’t there at all. In my panic I flinched, jerking the wheel to the left and skidding to a stop.</p></blockquote>
<p>That heroic escapade, which is exactly like being shot down and tortured in Vietnam, eminently qualifies the second whitest and fattest journalist on MSNBC (Ed Schultz still wins this one) <a href="http://newsbusters.org/blogs/scott-whitlock/2013/02/01/disgraceful-chris-matthews-smears-john-mccain-angry-vietnam-vet-havi">to mock McCain as a crazy veteran.</a></p>
<p><iframe title="MRC TV video player" width="540" height="360" src="http://www.mrctv.org/embed/119759" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></p>
<p>Both Matthews and McCain were well connected young men. The difference is that McCain served his country, while Matthews was playing tourist in Africa on Uncle Sam&#8217;s dime.</p>
<blockquote><p>CHRIS MATTHEWS: Why is John McCain so angry? Forty years after the Vietnam POWs came home, the most famous of them is angrier than ever. Why is America, why are we fighting the Vietnam war all over again in the United States Senate? The ticked off vitriol against Chuck Hagel, what is it about is? Is it for show? Is it about something Hagel said in the cloakroom? Is it about the basic unfairness of Vietnam itself that some went and some didn&#8217;t? Is it about Lyndon Johnson&#8217;s inability to either win that war or end it? What is it that burns so deeply in John McCain these days? It seems to excite those who knew nothing of Vietnam, but for hard reasons want to replay it again and again in Iraq and Afghanistan and Libya and Syria and, yes, eventually in Iran. Well, tonight, we dig into the deep well of resentment burning in John McCain&#8217;s patriotic heart.</p>
<p>A resentment not against the North Vietnamese who imprisoned and toured him all those years, not against George W. Bush and his political henchmen who tried to stain McCain&#8217;s reputation back in 2000, but against a guy who fought against fear and rallied against wounds just like he did in the same army of America&#8217;s long nightmare in Vietnam, Chuck Hagel. A nightmare by the way whose flashbacks must haunt still the mind and heart of John Sidney McCain.</p></blockquote>
<p>Eugene McCarthy supporter Chris Matthews appears to be having his own flashback here, and it&#8217;s to Vietnam, not Africa.</p>
<p>This isn&#8217;t really about Vietnam, it&#8217;s about the resentment of a generation of leftists for Vietnam veterans. A resentment that they disguise as concern trolling about angry and unstable veterans.</p>
<p>If McCain were really angry about Vietnam, it would have come out in the Kerry hearing, not the Hagel hearing. The Hagel hearing was ugly because Hagel was an incompetent nominee who had alienated everyone in the Senate. It&#8217;s Chris Matthews who can&#8217;t let Vietnam go, who has to continue defaming Vietnam veterans as a cover for his own cowardice.</p>
<blockquote><p>MATTHEWS: It looks like a flashback. McCain is so angry. Is it really about the surge?</p></blockquote>
<p>Here&#8217;s a question. Why is Chris Matthews so angry? He&#8217;s never been to Vietnam. He&#8217;s been a privileged boy of the DC establishment who had a patronage job, a jaunt in the Peace Corps and then has to do the hard work of getting on the air of a news network with lower standards than a White Castle (a place that Chris Matthews has spent more time in than Vietnam and Africa combined) to scream childish insults at the Republican Enemy of the Day.</p>
<p>Chris Matthews is rich. He&#8217;s privileged. So why is he so angry? It can&#8217;t be Vietnam. It&#8217;s probably not Swaziland. Is it the knowledge that he&#8217;s a worthless human being who has made a fortune telling lies and churning out bile? Is it the self-loathing that comes from the knowledge that his anger is what he&#8217;s being paid for and that his anger is as phony as the rest of him? Is Chris Matthews&#8217; fake anger behind his real anger? </p>
<p>Perhaps we can have a panel discussion on what makes Matthews so mad.</p>
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