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	<title>FrontPage Magazine &#187; leadership</title>
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		<title>A Chance to Move On</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/caroline-glick/a-chance-to-move-on/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=a-chance-to-move-on</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 04 Apr 2014 04:30:34 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Caroline Glick]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[conviction]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Corruption]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ehud olmert]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Israel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[leadership]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Left]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=222743</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[A crisis in leadership on the Israeli Left presents a rare opportunity for progress. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Israeli+Prime+Minister+Weekly+Cabinet+Meeting+SOGLfBb73J6l.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-222758" alt="Israeli+Prime+Minister+Weekly+Cabinet+Meeting+SOGLfBb73J6l" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Israeli+Prime+Minister+Weekly+Cabinet+Meeting+SOGLfBb73J6l-450x300.jpg" width="270" height="180" /></a>On Monday, former prime minister Ehud Olmert’s career ended.</p>
<p>Earlier this month, former IDF chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. (ret.) Gabi Ashkenazi’s career ended.</p>
<p>And on Tuesday, the phony peace process ended.</p>
<p>In the lead-up to last year’s elections, the media and key political figures were yearning for Olmert’s return to politics.</p>
<p>In July 2008, Olmert was forced to cede leadership of the Kadima party, and so opt out of running for reelection, when then-attorney-general Menahem Mazuz announced he was indicting the premier on corruption charges.</p>
<p>Olmert left office in March 2009 when his government was replaced by Binyamin Netanyahu’s coalition government.</p>
<p>The public abandoned its support for Olmert in the summer of 2006 as a result of his incompetent leadership of the Second Lebanon War. By the end of the summer, Olmert’s approval rating stood at 3 percent. But with the able assistance of the media, and of Yisrael Beytenu chairman Avigdor Liberman who saved Olmert’s government by joining it, Olmert was able to weather the storm and keep going despite the public’s lack of faith in his leadership and ardent desire to force him from office.</p>
<p>The media’s romance with Olmert began formally in late 2003, when he followed then-premier Ariel Sharon from the center-right to the far Left. Indeed, as Sharon abandoned his pledges to voters and adopted the platform of the defeated Labor Party of unilaterally withdrawing from Gaza, Olmert outflanked him from the Left.</p>
<p>Always a political pugilist, Olmert was eager to attack everyone who opposed Sharon’s withdrawal plan. He had no qualms about using rank demonization to attack his former political allies in the Likud.</p>
<p>It was Olmert’s newfound devotion to the platform of the far Left that won him the support of media heavies like Yediot Aharonot’s Nahum Barnea, Ma’ariv’s Ben Caspit and Channel 2’s Amnon Abramovich. They were more than happy to attack as delusional independent investigative reporter Yoav Yitzhak who broke nearly every corruption story regarding Olmert, beginning in 2005.</p>
<p>After four years of desultory, at best, probes between 2009 and 2012, Olmert was indicted in four separate cases on corruption charges. After he was acquitted of most of the charges in his first two trials, his media allies began a campaign to return him to politics. Only Olmert, they said, had a chance to defeat Netanyahu. None of the other leftist party heads had a shot.</p>
<p>But alas, Olmert was otherwise engaged, in his criminal defense. And now that he is a convicted felon, Olmert will never be able to return to politics.</p>
<p>Even his media friends have to cut their losses and find a new leader.</p>
<p>Several years ago, they were certain that they had their man. Lt.-Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi was promoted to the helm of the IDF following his predecessor Dan Halutz’s forced resignation due to his incompetent leadership of the army in the Second Lebanon War.</p>
<p>Ashkenazi was everything the media and the Left love in a leader. He was a general. He was handsome. And he was going to save the IDF from its demoralization. He was going to introduce new training regimens and operational procedures to ensure that the next time the IDF went to war, its victory would be inarguable.</p>
<p>Oh, and he was a leftist. Which meant that even if he failed, no one would ever find out.</p>
<p>And indeed, Ashkenazi’s leadership of the IDF during Operation Cast Lead in Gaza in December 2008 and January 2009 was a failure. As one senior commander put it shortly after the operation ended, “Gabi Ashkenazi marched the army into Gaza, and marched it out again, leaving Hamas in charge and Gilad Schalit behind.”</p>
<p>Officers who wished to take a more constructive approach to fighting, like OC Southern Command Maj.-Gen. Yoav Galant and Gaza Division commander Brig.-Gen. Moshe Tamir, were immediately placed on Ashkenazi’s enemies list.</p>
<p>Allegations of wrongdoing against Ashkenazi first surfaced three-and-a-half years ago. In August 2010, Abramovich exposed a document on Channel 2 which purported to show that Galant was waging a negative campaign against Ashkenazi and then-Maj.-Gen. Benny Gantz to replace Ashkenazi as chief of the General Staff.</p>
<p>Within a week the document was shown to be a forgery. It was concocted by an associate of Ashkenazi’s named Boaz Harpaz. It was leaked to Channel 2 by a senior Defense Ministry official, Gabi Shimoni, a close friend of Ashkenazi.</p>
<p>Rather than pursue the story, which stank to high heaven, the media ignored it. Attorney- General Yehuda Weinstein refused to order the police to investigate it. And to the extent that the police had information that indicated illegal behavior by Ashkenazi’s associates beyond the leak and the forgery specifically, they were ordered not to pursue them.</p>
<p>The only reason that the story of the forged document didn’t disappear is because state comptroller Micha Lindenstrauss investigated it, and Channel 1’s Ayala Hasson pursued it. And due to their efforts, the police were shamed into investigating.</p>
<p>Now it is apparent that the story of the forged document was part of a much larger abuse of power by Ashkenazi and his loyal foot soldiers.</p>
<p>Earlier this month, Ashkenazi’s closest aides Col. (res.) Erez Winer and former IDF spokesman Brig.-Gen. (res.) Avi Benayahu were arrested in connection to rising allegations of mass abuse of power. Since then, a parade of Ashkenazi’s close associates including current Deputy Chief of General Staff Maj.-Gen. Gadi Eisenkott and deputy director-general of the Defense Ministry Betzalel Tribor have been called in for questioning.</p>
<p>The widening probe paints a revolting picture of a mass abuse of power by Ashkenazi, facilitated by senior IDF officers and officials at the Defense Ministry and then covered up by senior officials at the Justice Ministry and the police, with the active collusion of the media.</p>
<p>Ashkenazi, it appears, was positioning himself to become the next prime minister. To this end, he allegedly decided to end the careers of IDF officers who criticized his leadership. And far more egregiously, he actively undermined then-defense minister Ehud Barak, and subverted Barak’s authority and that of the elected government in a bid to force Netanyahu and Barak to toe his timid line on Iran’s nuclear weapons program.</p>
<p>Although the police probe is only at its early stages, and it is far too early to know who if anyone will be indicted for what, as a result of the investigation Ashkenazi’s political aspirations have been destroyed. More important, the permanent bureaucracy, which enabled Ashkenazi to run roughshod over democratic norms in his quest to position himself as the prime minister in waiting, has been weakened.</p>
<p>Ashkenazi’s foot soldiers are all in trouble. And their troubles will likely deter other officers and senior officials from abusing their power in similar ways in the future.</p>
<p>Each new revelation of wrongdoing in the ongoing probe also discredits Ashkenazi’s protectors in the permanent law enforcement bureaucracy.</p>
<p>Olmert’s fall and Ashkenazi’s fall coincide with the implosion of the so-called peace process. For the past generation, allegiance to the phony peace process with the PLO has been the glue that has held the Left together. No matter how opposed to concessions the public became, the leftist establishment maintained its faith and total commitment to continued appeasement of the PLO. In large part they did so because allegiance to the peace process earned them the support and legitimization of the US.</p>
<p>In the absence of any capacity to win the public’s support for continued concessions to the PLO, the Left has used its close ties to the US as a shield from criticism and as valuable leverage against the government. Only the Left, it was said, could protect Israel’s alliance with the US.</p>
<p>Back in January, Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon let the truth be known about the nature of Secretary of State John Kerry’s peace process.</p>
<p>In private remarks reported by Yediot, Ya’alon said, “There are no actual negotiations with the Palestinians. The Americans are holding negotiations with us and in parallel with the Palestinians.</p>
<p>So far, we are the only side to have given anything – the release of murderers – and the Palestinians have given nothing.”</p>
<p>This week, Kerry proved that Ya’alon’s statement was a gross understatement. The US is not acting as a go-between between the sides. It is acting as the PLO’s proxy.</p>
<p>By offering Israel to trade imprisoned Israeli agent Jonathan Pollard for Palestinian terrorist murderers, Kerry transformed the US from the leader in the war against terrorism, into the champion of terrorists. Moreover, he indicated that he views Pollard as a hostage that the US is free to use to extort concessions to terrorists from Israel.</p>
<p>As a result of Kerry’s scandalous behavior, the US media, which for 20 years have enthusiastically supported every US effort to force Israel to make concessions to the PLO, lost their stomach for the show. Everyone from The New York Times to The Washington Post to The Wall Street Journal and network news attacked Kerry for his actions.</p>
<p>To a degree, the US media’s castigation of Kerry was unfair. He only followed the two-state model to its logical conclusion. Since the Palestinians refuse to abandon their goal of destroying Israel, they will never agree to a peace deal with Israel that will require them to live at peace with the Jewish state. As a result, they will never make any concessions to Israel.</p>
<p>The only way to keep this fraudulent negotiating process going is for the US to both coerce Israel into making more and more one-sided concessions to the PLO, such as freeing terrorist murderers form prison, and providing Israel with US payoffs to make the government continue to abide by a fiction. In other words, Kerry had no option other than to offer up Pollard as a hostage to be swapped in exchange for freedom to Palestinian terrorists.</p>
<p>Transforming the US into the proxy of a terrorist organization was just the beginning of Kerry’s failure.</p>
<p>His desperate behavior showed PLO chief Mahmoud Abbas that there are no depths Kerry will not plumb to prolong the fictional peace process.</p>
<p>And so on Tuesday, in an open act of contempt for Kerry, Abbas applied for membership in international bodies, in breach of the foundational requirement of the peace process: that a Palestinian state only be formed as a consequence of a peace agreement with Israel to prevent such a state from gaining independence while in a state of war with Israel.</p>
<p>Until now, it was US pressure on Israel for concessions to the Palestinians that kept the Israeli Left going. Now, without any leadership, with its power base in the permanent bureaucracy weakened, and the US role as mediator wholly discredited not only among the Israeli public, but in the US media, the Left has nothing to latch on to.</p>
<p>If the government uses the opportunity to abandon the two-state paradigm, it stands its best chance in 20 years of succeeding.</p>
<p><b>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: </b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank"><b>Click here</b></a><b>. </b></p>
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		<title>The Dire Problem of Republican Leadership</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/john-ellis/the-dire-problem-of-republican-leadership/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-dire-problem-of-republican-leadership</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/john-ellis/the-dire-problem-of-republican-leadership/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 16 Oct 2013 04:00:30 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[John Ellis]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[2012]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Boehner]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[leadership]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Republicans]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Tea Party]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=207597</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Diagnosing a catastrophic illness. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/boehner.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-207601" alt="boehner" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/boehner-450x299.jpg" width="315" height="209" /></a>The bitter GOP defeat of 2012, when their opposition had never seemed more vulnerable, sparked a prolonged inquest on possible causes: media bias mutating into outright cheerleading, a flawed candidate, unpopular social issues, unfavorable demographics. Rather less was heard about the quality of Republican leadership.</p>
<p>Let&#8217;s start with national chair Reince Priebus. All four campaign debates were moderated by partisan Democrats. One of them, Candy Crowley, knocked Romney off his balance with an ambush that stalled momentum he had developed in the first debate. Priebus stood passively by as the debates were rigged against his party&#8217;s candidates.</p>
<p>On election day, the GOP ground game was abysmal. Insufficiently tested systems broke down and GOP voter turnout was well below what it should have been. Negligence by Priebus again. Romney&#8217;s campaign chair is blamed for a poor campaign, especially for complacency towards the end, but Preibus stood by and let it happen. Yet Priebus didn&#8217;t resign after the election, nor was he asked to leave. As if sleepwalking, the GOP reelected him in an uncontested vote, without discussion of the damage he had done.</p>
<p>At the moment the most important Republican leadership role is that of the Speaker. Democrats have the Presidency, the Senate, the national press, and the educational system. The office of Speaker is the GOP counterweight to all of this, which makes it a precious asset that needs to be used to greatest possible effect. What does that imply? First, as the most visible Republican, the Speaker must explain and promote the GOP&#8217;s values and policies to the electorate.  Second, because he leads the only Republican group that has the power to initiate legislative actions, he must be the party&#8217;s chief strategist. Third, he must organize and deploy the party&#8217;s talent.</p>
<p>These purposes suggest certain personal qualities. To make the party&#8217;s case to the public, the Speaker needs to be articulate and engaging: he must have the knack of projecting Republican ideas in crisp, concise language, and a personality that can keep people listening. To be the party&#8217;s chief strategist he needs resourcefulness, foresight, and energy. To be its organizer he needs to be well-informed about the abilities and outlook of his people, and to understand what they will and won&#8217;t accept.</p>
<p>Does that sound like John Boehner? Even if Boehner were good in most areas but weak in one, that would not be enough; the office is so important for Republicans right now that its effectiveness must not be limited. But the truth is that Boehner is at best mediocre in every single respect. He is a dull speaker, unable to focus issues quickly in compelling language. He is absent from the airwaves for weeks at a time, and seems not to understand that his position must be used to create public support for Republican ideas and initiatives.</p>
<p>As to strategic foresight, who can forget the embarrassment of Boehner assuring the Tea Party that had driven the GOP to its 2010 victory: &#8220;we get it, we get it.&#8221; That was an admission that the party rank and file had led him, not the other way round. Essentially the same thing happened again when following the 2012 election Boehner tried for the personal coup of a grand bargain with President Obama. He was soon having to reassure his party that he knew he had made a mistake: more &#8220;we get it.&#8221; This episode also showed that Boehner had failed to understand the strengths of his position. He and his House Republicans control the beginning of any process involving funds, while Obama controls the end. If Boehner doesn&#8217;t initiate, nothing happens. When Boehner bypasses his caucus to negotiate directly with Obama he gives away that advantage.</p>
<p>As to Boehner&#8217;s understanding the mind and enjoying the trust of his Republicans, things could scarcely be worse. When he talks to the President, Republicans get nervous. They don&#8217;t trust him to negotiate for them because they don&#8217;t think he understands what they can accept. On Syria, he was once again out of touch with his members, and on Obamacare defunding he was led by his flock instead of the other way round. How much of the recent aggressiveness shown by some Republicans was due to sheer frustration at Boehner&#8217;s passivity? The result is that Republican legislators are suddenly in a confrontation that their leader neither planned nor foresaw, hence never prepared either them or the public for.</p>
<p>Why do Republicans so often choose leaders who are inarticulate, strategically clueless, and prone to unforced errors &#8212; and then stick with them long after that has become obvious? Denny Hastert, Bob Dole, Gerald Ford, John McCain &#8212; the list could go on. Mitch McConnell may be somewhat above this general level, but after his 2010 drubbing at the polls President Obama singled out McConnell to make a deal with him, obviously seeing him as the GOP&#8217;s weakest link. He was trying to evade the newly installed House GOP majority, and McConnell foolishly obliged him while the rest of the party stood by and let it happen.</p>
<p>It is hard to escape the conclusion that decisions about leadership seem to bring out an almost robotic Republican reliance on seniority and/or incumbency. It&#8217;s his turn next; or, someone already has that job. When Democrats got John Kennedy elected to the Presidency at age 43, or Bill Clinton at 46, or Barack Obama at 47, it was not their turn.</p>
<p>Contrary to what doom-sayers in the party said after the 2012 election, Republicans are now in a favorable position. The distressing results of liberalism are visible everywhere in city bankruptcies, astonishingly persistent unemployment, an incoherent and increasingly<br />
unpopular Obamacare, and the misbehavior of government bureaucracies. Democratic constituencies like blacks and the young are facing astonishing levels of unemployment and must surely be vulnerable to a well-stated argument that liberal policies are destroying their lives. The Speaker could use his prominence to focus public attention on that issue, or to create a climate of public opinion conducive to defunding Obamacare, or to raise public awareness of the need for forthright answers on Bengazi or the<br />
IRS &#8212; but he doesn&#8217;t.</p>
<p>This point has nothing to do with any conflict between conservatives and &#8220;establishment&#8221; Republicans. Differences of emphasis are inevitable in any party, but when they fester uncontrollably, and when on issue after issue individuals feel the need to strike out on their own (Cruz on Obamacare, McCain on Syria, etc), these are the symptoms of a leadership vacuum.</p>
<p>Republicans have a splendid hand to play &#8212; if only they would stop choosing and staying with leaders who have no idea how to play it. They won in 2010 only because ordinary people (aka the Tea Party) took the reins away from party leaders. When will the party stop squandering its advantages by acquiescing to feckless, drifting, inarticulate leadership? We only have to think about the consequences of another botched Presidential election to understand that one of the biggest threats to the future well-being of the<br />
Republic is the wretched quality of Republican leadership.</p>
<p><em>John M Ellis is a Professor Emeritus and former Dean of the Graduate Division at the University of California, Santa Cruz.</em></p>
<p><b>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: </b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank"><b>Click here</b></a><b>.   </b></p>
<p><em> </em></p>
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		<title>Obama&#8217;s &#8216;Wait and See&#8217; Foreign Policy</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/majid-rafizadeh/obamas-wait-and-see-foreign-policy/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=obamas-wait-and-see-foreign-policy</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/majid-rafizadeh/obamas-wait-and-see-foreign-policy/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 03 Jun 2013 04:19:23 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Majid Rafizadeh]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[embolden]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Hezbollah]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Islam]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[leadership]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Radical]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Syria]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[weakness]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=191815</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[And how it is emboldening Salafists and Hezbollah. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/ShowImage.ashx_1.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-191863" alt="ShowImage.ashx" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/ShowImage.ashx_1.jpg" width="261" height="178" /></a>One of the early policy gaffes that the Obama administration made, and which will ultimately have severe negative repercussions on the United States, was not commanding a strong leadership when protests erupted during Iran’s debated 2009 elections. It was during this time that the U.S. leaders had the potential to significantly alter the balance of power against the ruling clerics and Ayatollahs. A second, and similar, geopolitical, national and strategic mistake that the Obama administration is currently conducting is allowing Russia and the Islamic Republic of Iran to take the leadership position in regards to Syria. What the Obama administration is adopting is the policy of “Wait and See”; a strategy that supports taking the back seat rather than the steering wheel. In comparison to other mistakes and miscalculations implemented by the Obama administration, these particular uninformed policies and strategic lapses regarding the over two-year-long Syrian conflict may bring about a more significant level of threat to the United States’ national, global, geopolitical and strategic interests.</p>
<p>First of all, the absence of robust leadership from Obama’s administration has sent a formidable message to Hezbollah and Hamas: that these two groups can militarily operate regionally and globally as they desire without being held accountable or politically reprimanded. After witnessing the Obama administration take a back seat in the ongoing conflict between the rebels and the brutal police-state of Assad, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah came out publicly announcing that he will support Assad’s regime and the Alawite sect until they score a victory. Nasrallah emphasized that his thousands of professionally trained soldiers are committed to fighting against what he projects in his propaganda to be radical Sunni Islamist rebels in Syria, at whatever the cost. In a televised speech on Saturday evening, Nasrallah stated, &#8220;We will continue to the end of the road. We accept this responsibility and will accept all sacrifices and expected consequences of this position….We will be the ones who bring victory.&#8221;</p>
<p>Hezbollah has long been covertly operating in Syria. Through military support, intelligence advisement, and furnishing of necessary equipment, the group has been able to assist Assad’s brutal crack down on civilians. Yet, if the leader of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, and Iran&#8217;s ruling clerics would have instead perceived the Obama administration as being serious about removing Assad from power and taking leadership, Hezbollah would have never been emboldened and empowered to the extent that it is now to publicly undermine the United States’ national and regional interests, global prestige, as well as its leadership role in the region and in the international arena.</p>
<p>The recent announcements by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, which declared a shift in the U.S. position from asking Assad to step aside to now adopting primarily the Russian position, has been especially detrimental to U.S. national interests. The Russian position is a superficial negotiation between the regime of Assad – a brutal regime which has lost its legitimacy and credibility in the eyes of the Syrians, regional and international circles, and oppositional and rebel groups. Following the Russian leadership, the Obama administration will be holding a so-called “peace plan conference” with a regime notorious for committing crimes against humanity.</p>
<p>In addition, the absence of credible leadership in the Obama administration has also emboldened Russian leaders to send the most advanced anti-aircraft weapons to the Assad regime, which poses a severe threat to Israel’s national, geopolitical and strategic interests. After the Obama administration agreed to hold the “peace plan talks,” which are primarily being orchestrated by Russia, Russian deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov announced that he defended Russia’s planned sale of S-300 missile systems to the Assad regime, despite strong opposition from Britain, France and Israel. Ryabkov pointed out that this action is intended to “stop” and “restrain” the “hotheads” who are hoping to remove Assad from power and to conduct an international intervention in the Syrian conflict.</p>
<p>Moreover, it is worth noting that the growing presence and influence of the Salafists, Islamists groups, Al-Qaeda members, and Al-Qaeda-affiliated terrorist groups have become more evident not only in various cities in Syria (including Damascus, Allepo, Homa and Hama) but also Lebanon (in cities such as Tripoli) and Iraq, where they are also strongly operating. These groups have become empowered to the extent that they are now calling for mobilization in the Islamist state of Syria and Iraq, having found the appropriate and ripe environment to regroup in numbers larger and stronger then when the terrorist act of 9/11 was conducted from Afghanistan.</p>
<p>While the Obama administration has been adopting the effortless strategy of “Wait and See” in the Syrian conflict  – choosing the back seat instead of the steering wheel, avoiding taking serious geostrategic and geopolitical actions, and permitting Russia and the Islamic Republic of Iran to govern regionally and internationally – severe long-term and short-term negative repercussions for the national, regional, global, geopolitical and politico-economic interests of the United States are brewing.</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>Rumsfeld’s Rules</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/mark-tapson/rumsfelds-rules/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=rumsfelds-rules</link>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 20 May 2013 04:55:20 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Mark Tapson]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[human nature]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[Rumsfeld’s Rules]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=190013</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The former Secretary of Defense’s leadership lessons.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/donrum.jpg"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-190016" alt="donrum" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/donrum.jpg" width="300" height="400" /></a><strong>The Wednesday Morning Club Welcomes Donald Rumsfeld &#8212; In a Conversation With David Horowitz &#8212; on Tuesday, May 21, 2013 at the Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills. All welcome! For more info and to register, <a href="http://rumsfeld2013.eventbrite.com/#">click here</a>.</strong></p>
<p>When President Gerald Ford learned that his Chief of Staff Donald Rumsfeld had compiled a file of instructive observations and quotations about effective leadership and management, he asked to read them. An impressed Ford promptly designated them “Rumsfeld’s Rules” and distributed them to the senior members of the White House staff. Since then they have been read by presidents, government officials, business leaders, diplomats, members of Congress, and others. Rumsfeld was finally asked to collect them between covers and elaborate on them, and the result is the just-published <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Rumsfelds-Rules-Leadership-Business-Politics/dp/0062272853/"><i>Rumsfeld’s Rules: Leadership Lessons in Business, Politics, War, and Life</i></a>.</p>
<p>Donald Rumsfeld boasts a ridiculously distinguished résumé from the arenas of business, government, and the military: naval aviator, Congressman, top aide to four American presidents, ambassador, the CEO of both a worldwide pharmaceutical company and a leading company in broadcasting technologies, and of course, as he is most well-known, the 13<sup>th</sup> and 21<sup>st</sup> U.S. Secretary of Defense (the only man in American history to serve twice in that post). He is also the author of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Known-Memoir-Donald-Rumsfeld/dp/B0085RZOAQ/"><i>Known and Unknown: A Memoir</i></a>, a weighty tome but one of the most important political memoirs since the 9/11 attacks forever altered our geopolitical landscape. He now chairs the Rumsfeld Foundation, which supports leadership and public service at home, and funds global finance projects, fellowships, and charitable causes that benefit our armed forces and their families (all proceeds of <i>Known and Unknown</i>, for example, go to the Foundation’s military charities).</p>
<p>In the course of that multifaceted career, Rumsfeld collected his “Rules,” advice and maxims based on his own experiences and the wisdom of others. While he cautions that “rules cannot be a substitute for judgment,” he emphasizes in his new book that these</p>
<blockquote><p>are insights into human nature, timeless truths that have survived the changes in our culture… Most have broad applicability and can be useful whether you aspire to be a leader in government, church, business, sports, or the military. They convey distilled wisdom that can… serve as guideposts in decision-making.</p></blockquote>
<p>As Rumsfeld himself notes, the Rules are not all his, nor are they all rules. Some are life lessons or pearls of wisdom from others, who are quoted in the book – everyone from Thomas Jefferson, Confucius, Frederick the Great, Gen. Curtis LeMay (“I am unable to distinguish between the unfortunate and the incompetent, and I can’t afford either”), Margaret Thatcher, Von Clausewitz, Churchill, and the ubiquitous strategist of war, Sun Tzu (“He who defends everywhere, defends nowhere”), to Sammy Davis Jr. and Lewis Carroll (“If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there”). “Truth be told,” Rumsfeld admits, “I don’t know if I’ve had a truly original thought in my life. I enjoy being around people smarter than I am, who know more than I do, and who have done things I haven’t done.”</p>
<p>Grouped thematically in chapters, the Rules address managerial basics – or what <i>should </i>be basics, but are too often in frustratingly short supply in the real world: “Starting at the Bottom,” “Running a Meeting,” “Thinking Strategically,” “Battling Bureaucracy,” “Planning for Uncertainty,” and so forth. “Be willing to learn from those at the top,” goes one rule. “If you’re working from your inbox, you’re working on other people’s priorities,” goes another. “Don’t overcontrol like a novice pilot. Stay loose enough from the flow that you can observe and calibrate.” “When negotiating, never feel that you are the one that must fill every silence.” “If you don’t know what your top three priorities are, you don’t have priorities.”</p>
<p>In a plainspoken style that suits his direct, no-nonsense character, Rumsfeld fleshes out the Rules with personal anecdotes and examples drawn from his vast personal experience. While his leadership advice is undeniably useful, and in many instances particularly so for someone just starting out in a management position or still striving for one, these illustrations are very often the most compelling parts of the book. He tells why, for example, Dick Cheney considers his first interview with Rumsfeld – back in 1968 when Cheney was seeking an internship on Capitol Hill – “the worst interview” of his life. He discusses the differences in personalities and leadership styles of the presidents for whom he worked. He even draws upon his sports experience as a young wrestler for leadership lessons.</p>
<p>Along the way, Rumsfeld sprinkles in a surprising amount of welcome dry humor. “In politics,” he writes, for example, “every day is filled with numerous opportunities for serious error. Enjoy it.” At another point he asserts that “the act of calling a meeting about a problem can in some cases be confused with actually doing something.”</p>
<p>The last handful of chapters are perhaps the most interesting, dealing as they do with the vastness and extraordinary integrity of military culture (“Lessons from the World’s Most Successful Leadership Organization”), the unique difficulties of managing the people within the White House (“Inside the Oval Office”), a passionate defense of capitalism and of America as a force for good in the world (“The Case for Capitalism”), and perseverance through mistakes and criticism, on both the personal and national levels (“The Optimism of Will”).</p>
<p>In closing, Rumsfeld again stresses that “leadership is not about following ironclad rules; it’s about one’s instincts. Leadership is not composed of a collection of maxims; it comes from one’s own independent judgment.” It requires “the courage to venture out into the world and make mistakes and, yes, even fail.” Nonetheless, <i>Rumsfeld’s</i> <i>Rules</i> is a very readable, insightful guide with practical advice to becoming a wiser and more effective leader. It is also an insightful window onto the leader behind the book.  <i> </i></p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank">Click here</a>.  </strong></p>
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		<title>Union Gangsters: Richard Trumka</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/matthew-vadum/union-gangsters-richard-trumka/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=union-gangsters-richard-trumka</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/matthew-vadum/union-gangsters-richard-trumka/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 30 Sep 2011 04:54:59 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Matthew Vadum]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[boss]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[craig becker]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[enforcement]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[eugene debs]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[leadership]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[massive social change]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[turning a blind eye]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[The thug’s thug.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/trumka-caucus-blog480.gif"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-107094" title="trumka-caucus-blog480" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/trumka-caucus-blog480.gif" alt="" width="375" height="250" /></a></p>
<p><em>[Editor&#8217;s note: The following is the second installment of FrontPage&#8217;s new series, &#8220;Union Gangsters.&#8221; In this profile, award-winning investigative reporter Matthew Vadum unmasks Big Labor kingpin Richard Trumka, whose dirty agitation tactics have earned him the moniker &#8220;thug-in-chief.&#8221; To read about union consigliere Craig Becker, click <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2011/09/23/union-gangsters-craig-becker/">here</a>.]</em></p>
<p>Richard Trumka is a thug&#8217;s thug, and a crafty one at that.</p>
<p>The AFL-CIO boss believes the end justifies the means. Breaking the law is acceptable if it advances the cause. Unions should “forget about the law; this is about more than that,” he said at the “Future of Unions” roundtable in Detroit on April 7.</p>
<p>Like many union leaders, occasionally the slippery Trumka pretends to like capitalism. He supports vigorous enforcement of intellectual property rights, not because he actually believes in them, but because his members work in industries that depend on their enforcement. Turning a blind eye to the manufacture of counterfeit machine parts could put union members out of work.</p>
<p>But unlike most high-profile leftists, Trumka doesn’t even make an effort to conceal his radicalism. “Being called a socialist is a step up for me,” he told Bloomberg News in June. In 1994, Trumka proudly accepted the Eugene Debs Award named after the five-time presidential candidate and labor organizer who founded the Socialist Party of America.</p>
<p>As an AFL-CIO executive, Trumka helped to create “Union Summer,” a program for training young people as organizers and political activists. Participants were made to recite a pledge called “Working Class Commitment” that included the Marxist idea “that we [union workers] produce the world’s wealth &#8230; [and] will end all oppression.”</p>
<p>Trumka, a mine worker-cum-lawyer, admits he got involved in “the labor movement not because I wanted to negotiate wages,” but “because I saw it as a vehicle to do massive social change to include lots of people.” As he&#8217;s climbed the ranks of AFL-CIO leadership, Trumka has moved away from his modest roots. His 2011 compensation package at AFL-CIO totaled $293,750, according to LM-2 disclosure forms on file with the U.S. Department of Labor. Trumka apparently lives in a four-bathroom house <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/homesales/detail.html?txtKey=1203326&amp;txtSearchType=PropertyDetail&amp;selGeneralUse=RESIDENTIAL">assessed</a> at $747,650 in Rockville, MD, a suburb of Washington, D.C.</p>
<p>He helped to turn the AFL-CIO away from boosting wages and improving working conditions. Now, the labor federation focuses on recruiting government workers who benefit from higher tax rates and bigger government, a growing constituency within the Democratic Party. The federation also blackmails employers by generating adverse publicity, harassing investors, and linking arms with the media and radical activists.</p>
<p>While at the helm of the AFL-CIO, Trumka helped repeal a longtime rule that banned Communists and fellow-travelers from leadership positions in the organization and its unions. The move to open the previously patriotic union to subversives delighted the Communist Party USA. “The radical shift in both leadership and policy is a very positive, even historic change,” CPUSA National Chairman Gus Hall said in 1996.</p>
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		<title>Shari&#8217;a and Violence in American Mosques</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/jamie-glazov/sharia-and-violence-in-american-mosques/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=sharia-and-violence-in-american-mosques</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/jamie-glazov/sharia-and-violence-in-american-mosques/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 10 Jun 2011 04:20:32 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Jamie Glazov]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[critical scholarship]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[frank gaffney]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[Jihad]]></category>
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		<description><![CDATA[A ground-breaking investigation of 100 mosques across the U.S. produces disturbing results. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/yerushcover.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-95568" title="yerushcover" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/yerushcover.jpg" alt="" width="400" height="213" /></a></p>
<p>Frontpage Interview’s guest today is David Yerushalmi, General Counsel to the Center for Security Policy, a Washington, D.C.-based national security think tank founded and headed by former Reagan administration official Frank Gaffney. He is considered an expert on Islamic law and its intersection with Islamic terrorism and national security. In this capacity, he has published widely on the subject, including the principle critical scholarship on sharia-compliant finance published in the Utah Law Review (2008, Issue 3). He has also designed and co-authored (with Mordechai Kedar) a ground-breaking peer reviewed <a href="http://www.meforum.org/2931/american-mosques">empirical investigation</a> on sharia-adherence and the promotion of violent, jihadist literature in U.S. mosques published in the <em><a href="http://www.meforum.org/">Middle East Quarterly</a></em> (Summer 2011).</p>
<p><strong>FP:</strong> David Yerushalmi, welcome to Frontpage Interview.</p>
<p>I would like to talk to you today about your Mapping Sharia project. Now that it is published as a fully <a href="http://www.meforum.org/2931/american-mosques">peer-reviewed study</a> in the <em><a href="http://www.meforum.org/meq/issues">Middle East Quarterly</a></em>, what can you tell us about the findings?</p>
<p><strong>Yerushalmi: </strong>Thank you, Jamie.</p>
<p>We began this study in 2007, with a careful and rigorous methodological design.  The purpose was to measure sharia-adherence (or Islamic legal orthodoxy) among worshippers and their imams at U.S. mosques (i.e., the independent variable) and to measure that against both the presence of violent and jihadist literature and, more, the actual promotion of that literature by the imam (i.e., the dependent variables).  We took four years to conduct the study because we need a large enough random sampling of mosques across the U.S. to be able to say with some certainty that we can speak about U.S. mosques generally and because we understood that we would need to confirm our data during a subsequent survey so that we could be certain of the integrity of our results and so we were not merely taking a one-time “snap shot” of these mosques.</p>
<p>After surveying 100 mosques randomly chosen across the U.S., and after “auditing” our data, our results were troubling, to say the least.</p>
<p>First, of the 100 mosques surveyed, 51% had texts on site rated as severely advocating violence; 30% had texts rated as moderately advocating violence; and 19% had no violent texts at all.  Mosques that presented as <em>Sharia</em> adherent were more likely to feature violence-positive texts on site than were their non-<em>Sharia</em>-adherent counterparts.  In 84.5% of the mosques, the imam recommended studying violence-positive texts.  The leadership at <em>Sharia</em>-adherent mosques was more likely to recommend that a worshipper study violence-positive texts than leadership at non-<em>Sharia</em>-adherent mosques.  Fifty-eight percent of the mosques invited guest imams known to promote violent <em>jihad</em>.  The leadership of mosques that featured violence-positive literature was more likely to invite guest imams who were known to promote violent <em>jihad </em>than was the leadership of mosques that did not feature violence-positive literature on mosque premises.</p>
<p><strong>FP:</strong> Were the results of the study a surprise?</p>
<p><strong>Yerushalmi: </strong>Not for us in this field. For example, Shaikh Hisham Kabbani, a well-respected Sufi leader in the U.S., has reported to the Department of State that his personal research (albeit not based upon a rigorous empirical design) evidences that hard-core Salafists from the Wahhab sect of Saudi Arabia have taken control and spread “extremism” in 80% of U.S. mosques. (See <a href="http://www.meforum.org/61/muhammad-hisham-kabbani-the-muslim-experience-in" target="_blank">here</a> and <a href="http://islamicsupremecouncil.org/media-center/domestic-extremism/63-islamic-extremism-a-viable-threat-to-us-national-security.html" target="_blank">here</a>.)</p>
<p>In addition to this anecdotal evidence, the very credible Freedom House under the direction of Nina Shea conducted a serious survey of major mosques in U.S. urban environments and found Wahhabi-Saudi jihad literature literally permeating these mosques.  Again, while the study was of select mosques and not a random survey, it suggested a major infiltration that supported Kabbani’s reports.</p>
<p>Our findings that 81% of U.S. mosques contain this literature, while troubling, would not be considered surprising. What is surprising, was the degree to which the presence of this literature was correlated with the imams actually promoting this jihad hate literature.  In other words, one might expect a mosque to have some of this material but as reference literature, not as something the imams would actively promote.  What our study found was that mosques with this literature were not merely repositories but incubators for the messaging of this material.</p>
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		<title>Al-Qaeda&#8217;s Rising Leaders</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/ryan-mauro/al-qaedas-rising-leaders/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=al-qaedas-rising-leaders</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 12 May 2011 04:45:10 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Ryan Mauro]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[ayman al zawahiri]]></category>
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		<description><![CDATA[What new strategy will they bring? ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/al-zawahiri1.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-93018" title="al-zawahiri1" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/al-zawahiri1.jpg" alt="" width="375" height="288" /></a></p>
<p>Al-Qaeda has confirmed the death of Osama Bin Laden but has not yet officially named a successor, indicating that the senior leadership is having difficulty communicating and possibly a reluctance to embrace Ayman al-Zawahiri as their new chief. New figures will fill the leadership gap left by Bin Laden’s absence and the inevitable arrests and deaths that will follow, but it is unclear if they can unite behind a common figurehead and strategy.</p>
<p>Ayman al-Zawahiri, as the second-in-command of Al-Qaeda, is likely to become Bin Laden’s official replacement. Al-Qaeda in Iraq has already pledged allegiance to him, but he has had conflicts with other members of Al-Qaeda and lacks the allure and charisma of Osama Bin Laden. As one senior U.S. intelligence official <a href="http://nation.com.pk/pakistan-news-newspaper-daily-english-online/International/08-May-2011/Zawahiri-is-not-popular-within-Qaeda-US-official?utm_source=feedburner&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_campaign=Feed%3A+pakistan-news-newspaper-daily-english-online%2FBreaking+%28The+Nation+%3A+Breaking+News%29">explained,</a> “It is of course an anathema for Al-Qaeda to hold free and fair elections, but if such elections were held, al-Zawahiri would most likely have a fight on his hands.”</p>
<p>Should al-Zawahiri effectively take the reins the group, he will continue its current general strategy. He is, however, conscious of the blowback Al-Qaeda has gotten because of its attacks on Muslims. In a 2005 <a href="http://www.dni.gov/press_releases/letter_in_english.pdf">letter</a> to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, then-head of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, he criticized his tactics, specifically beheadings, attacks on Iraqi Shiites and the bombing of mosques. He said these methods were jeopardizing public support, without which the “movement would be crushed in the shadows.” He asked Zarqawi to stop using such tactics, rather than justifying them, because “this matter won’t be acceptable to the Muslim populace however much you have tried to explain it.” This rift indicates that al-Zawahiri would try to reduce tension with the Shiites and other Muslims and focus on Western targets instead of Muslim civilians.</p>
<p>Abu Yahya al-Al-Libi, a likely second-in-command for al-Zawahiri, has become Al-Qaeda’s most visible spokesperson. He is very charismatic, relatively young and is known both as a religious scholar and terrorist commander. It would be wise of al-Zawahiri to make al-Libi the head of the group but it is doubtful that he could swallow his pride enough to do so.</p>
<p>In July 2005, al-Libi escaped Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, catching the attention of his fellow extremists. He is the younger brother of the leader of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, which is very significant given its criticism of Al-Qaeda’s strategy. In 2009, the group <a href="http://www.al-shorfa.com/cocoon/meii/xhtml/en_GB/features/meii/features/main/2009/12/15/feature-01">released</a> a “corrective studies” that said Al-Qaeda must focus on fighting colonizers instead of other Muslims and should stop using violence to bring about Sharia law.</p>
<p>“Islam is a pragmatic religion, which acknowledges that war is a part of human life, but it doesn’t call for the use of violence for the sake of change and reforms,” the group said. It is unclear how much this thinking has influenced al-Libi, though he joined other Al-Qaeda members in criticizing Zarqawi’s viciousness.</p>
<p>Anwar al-Awlaki, the spiritual leader of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula based in Yemen, rivals Al-Libi in influence and may overshadow him if his group keeps up the current pace of plots and inspiration of homegrown extremism. It is also possible that al-Awlaki will overshadow Al-Zawahiri if he is unable to effectively manage operations, communicate with senior leadership or use al-Libi to make up for his own weaknesses.</p>
<p>Anwar al-Awlaki, the spiritual leader of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula based in Yemen, will overshadow him unless al-Zawahiri is able to pull off a major operation. Al-Awlaki has charisma, a huge Internet presence and served as the imam of the Dar al-Hijrah mosque in Falls Church, Virginia, giving him religious credibility.</p>
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		<title>NATO Fumbles in Libya</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/ryan-mauro/nato-fumbles-in-libya/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=nato-fumbles-in-libya</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 29 Apr 2011 04:35:06 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Ryan Mauro]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[air strikes]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Alliance]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[combat role]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[french foreign minister]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[leadership]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[nato countries]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[sudden decline]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=91412</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The alliance’s ineffectiveness and confusion on full display.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Libyan-Rebels-Say-Nato-Airstrike-Thwarted-Tank-Attack.gif"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-91413" title="Libyan-Rebels-Say-Nato-Airstrike-Thwarted-Tank-Attack" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Libyan-Rebels-Say-Nato-Airstrike-Thwarted-Tank-Attack.gif" alt="" width="375" height="288" /></a></p>
<p>On March 31, the Obama Administration gave command over military operations in Libya to NATO over French objections. The U.S. combat role officially ended but, like in Iraq, this declaration is nearly meaningless as American pilots continue to risk their lives. The U.S. is now engaged in military operations that are hamstrung by unreliable alliance members for the sake of preserving a stalemate.</p>
<p>The Obama Administration delayed action in Libya until it received the approval of the Arab League, the United Nations and NATO. It was eager to make sure the war was fought under an international banner, even though the U.S. would bear the brunt of the burden. The French government staunchly opposed giving command over to NATO, leading to fierce <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/22/us-libya-nato-idUSTRE72L3N420110322">arguments</a> between officials. France felt that it, along with the U.S. and U.K., should have political leadership over the war with NATO playing a supporting role. The French caved under American and British pressure.</p>
<p>It didn’t take long for fractures in NATO to appear after the handover. The French Foreign Minister and the British Foreign Secretary openly <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/france-wants-nato-to-fight-harder-against-gaddafis-forces/2011/04/12/AFN8pxOD_story.html">criticized</a> other alliance members for not committing to the effort. Half of NATO’s members officially participated in the war, as did some other non-NATO countries, but only six were willing to actually carry out bombing raids with the other four being Norway, Canada, Denmark and Belgium. Many of the countries placed heavy restrictions on their military’s participation, forbidding bombing raids and attack missions and refusing to destroy certain types of targets like trucks. The end of the U.S. combat role decreased the amount of American aircraft available, such as the A-10 Warthog close-support aircraft.</p>
<p>The Libyan rebels quickly noticed a change and complained about the sudden decline in air strikes. “NATO has become our problem,” Abdul Fatah Younis, the rebels’ top military commander, <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/05/us-libya-idUSTRE7270JP20110405">proclaimed.</a> He threatened to complain to the U.N. Security Council and said that he would recommend that the National Transitional Council suspend its partnership with NATO if the problems persisted.</p>
<p>“One official calls another and then the official to the head of NATO and from the head of NATO to the field commander. It takes eight hours,” Younis <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1373966/Libya-Rebel-leader-Abdel-Fattah-Younes-attacks-NATOs-slow-air-strike-response-time.html">complained.</a> He specifically pointed out the unwillingness of NATO to protect civilians in Misurata, which has been under siege from Qaddafi’s forces. “This crime will be hanging from the necks of the international community until the end of days,” he <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2011/apr/05/world/la-fg-libya-fighting-20110406">said.</a> The local opposition government in Misurata is now <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/misurata-body-says-it-has-asked-for-foreign-troops/2011/04/19/AFH6sJ6D_story.html">asking</a> for U.N. or NATO ground forces to save them.</p>
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		<title>Defense Department Shakeup</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/alan-w-dowd/defense-department-shakeup/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=defense-department-shakeup</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/alan-w-dowd/defense-department-shakeup/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 28 Apr 2011 04:45:30 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Alan W. Dowd]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[CIA]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[contingency operations]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Gen. David Petraeus]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[leadership]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[left wing politics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Leon Panetta]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[pentagon chief]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[Terrorism]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=91526</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Despite his rhetoric, Obama picks people who understand the country is at war.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/g-cvr-110427-panetta-petraeus-420a.grid-6x24.gif"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-91593" title="g-cvr-110427-panetta-petraeus-420a.grid-6x2" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/g-cvr-110427-panetta-petraeus-420a.grid-6x24.gif" alt="" width="375" height="256" /></a></p>
<p>With Robert Gates set to leave his post as Pentagon chief this summer, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/28/us/28team.html?_r=1&amp;hp">reports</a> are circulating that President Barack Obama will soon appoint CIA Director Leon Panetta to take over as secretary of defense and Gen. David Petraeus to slide into the top spot at the CIA. Given the alternatives that Obama could have chosen—and probably would rather choose—Panetta and Petraeus are solid picks. Not only do they have proven track records and backing in Congress; they also underscore that despite all the rhetoric, Obama continues to fill key security and defense posts with people who understand the country is at war.</p>
<p>A little history is in order. It pays to recall that as a candidate and in the early months of his presidency, Obama rejected the Bush administration’s characterization of America being a nation at war. For example, the Obama administration made a concerted effort to <a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28959574">expunge</a> the “war on terrorism” phraseology from official pronouncements, ordering the executive branch to use the banal, bland and bureaucratic “overseas contingency <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/24/AR2009032402818.html">operations</a>” instead. In quick succession, Obama ordered the closure of the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, sped up the pullout of troops from Iraq, put a time limit on the U.S. mission in Afghanistan and made entreaties to the thugs who run Iran. In the midst of this 180-degree turn, Obama’s secretary of homeland security even went so far as to use the Orwellian phrase “man-caused disasters” rather than call terrorism by its name.</p>
<p>But Panetta refused to succumb to political correctness or the left-wing politics. “There’s no question this is a war,” he bluntly said of the struggle against Islamist terrorism.</p>
<p>“Unless they’re convinced the United States is going to win and that they are going to be defeated,” he said of proposals to cut a deal with the Taliban, “I think it is very difficult to proceed with a reconciliation that is going to be meaningful.”</p>
<p>While others talked about talking to Iran, Panetta told it like it was, reporting that Iran has “enough low-enriched uranium right now for two weapons.”</p>
<p>And he was an early and vocal advocate of the so-called drone war in Pakistan, calling it “the only game in town in terms of confronting or trying to disrupt the al-Qaeda leadership.”</p>
<p>That brings us to the man who has fought al Qaeda on two fronts. Petraeus, it pays to recall, came into America’s field of vision at a time when nothing was going right in Iraq—and virtually no one thought the Iraq project could be salvaged. But that’s exactly what Petraeus did. After rewriting the military’s counterinsurgency manual, he put it to the test in Baghdad and Fallujah and Ramadi, altered the course of a war, saved Iraq from itself, and rescued America from defeat. As<em> The London Telegraph </em>put it in 2008, when it named Petraeus Person of the Year, he gave “another last chance to a country that had long since ceased to expect one.”</p>
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		<title>Libya: Another UN Disaster in the Making</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/stephenbrown/libya-another-un-disaster-in-the-making/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=libya-another-un-disaster-in-the-making</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 21 Apr 2011 04:03:11 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Stephen Brown]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[Barack Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[battlefield]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[Ground]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[muammar gaddafi]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[nato allies]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[security council resolution]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[urgent plea]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=90887</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[NATO finds itself in a mind-boggling catch-22. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/110304_libya_rebels.gif"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-90888" title="110304_libya_rebels" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/110304_libya_rebels.gif" alt="" width="375" height="290" /></a></p>
<p>Facing defeat and a possible massacre at the hands of a vengeful Muammar Gaddafi, Libyan rebel forces in the besieged city of Misrata have for the first time <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703789104576272281537022142.html?mod=WSJ_hp_MIDDLENexttoWhatsNewsForth">called for</a> NATO or UN ground forces to intervene in the two-month old conflict. Up until now, the anti-Gaddafi insurgents have said it was important they alone depose the Libyan leader without the help of foreign troops. But the pounding the rebels are taking in Misrata from the Gaddafi forces’ heavy shelling, rockets and possibly cluster bombs, which NATO admits it is <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110419/ap_on_bi_ge/ml_libya">unable to stop</a>, is causing the city’s battlefield and humanitarian situation to deteriorate daily.</p>
<p>“We are calling for foreign forces to protect our citizens immediately,” said a member of Misrata’s leadership committee on Tuesday. “We want the UN or NATO on the ground. This is not a Western occupation or colonialism. This is needed to protect our people.”</p>
<p>The Misrata leadership committee’s urgent plea, however, flies in the face of UN Security Council Resolution 1973, which only allows NATO to set up a no-fly zone over Libya for saving civilian lives. It forbids intervention by foreign ground forces. President Barack Obama has stated on more than one occasion American soldiers will not land in Libya.</p>
<p>But the fact is, ground troops are now necessary if the civilian lives the UN said it wants to save are to be rescued. And if a reluctant NATO does acquiesce to the rebels’ urgent plea for help and send in “boots on the ground,” the Libyan ordeal shows the folly of attempting to wage war through UN mandates. Their rigid positions simply do not match a battlefield’s requirements and can lead to disaster, as may yet occur in Misrata.</p>
<p>Even before the Libyan rebels’ request, the United States and her NATO allies appeared to be preparing to circumvent Resolution 1973 and readying themselves for a ground force deployment. NATO labelled Misrata its “number one priority,” while Barack Obama, David Cameron and Nicolas Sarkozy, in a <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/apr/16/libya-muammar-gaddafi/print">joint release</a> last week, called Gaddafi’s assault on Misrata a “medieval siege…to strangle its population into submission.” The three leaders said it would be “an unconscionable betrayal” to leave Gaddafi in power to wreak “a fearful vengeance” on Misrata’s “brave citizens.” Such “an unconscionable betrayal,” as these three leaders well know, can now only be avoided by NATO arms.</p>
<p>Britain is taking the first steps towards sending in ground forces. While NATO and other countries already have Special Forces operatives in Libya, the British government was the first to announce it was sending a contingent of <a href="http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/3535492/Brits-take-ground-fight-to-Gaddafi.html">“experienced” officers</a> to Benghazi as a military liaison team. The British were reported to have put a brigade of <a href="http://www.thisissomerset.co.uk/news/Marines-placed-standby/article-3356176-detail/article.html">Royal Marines</a> on standby a month ago for possible intervention in Libya, and these officers probably constitute an advance team. Naturally, the British government contends the officers&#8217; presence in Libya is in accordance with UN Resolution 1973.</p>
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		<title>The Silent Extermination of Iraq’s ‘Christian Dogs’</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/raymond-ibrahim/the-silent-extermination-of-iraq%e2%80%99s-%e2%80%98christian-dogs%e2%80%99/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-silent-extermination-of-iraq%25e2%2580%2599s-%25e2%2580%2598christian-dogs%25e2%2580%2599</link>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 19 Apr 2011 21:56:49 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Raymond Ibrahim]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Muslim Persecution of Christians]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[christian solidarity international]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[human rights organization]]></category>
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		<description><![CDATA[Last week an Iraqi Muslim scholar issued a fatwa that, among other barbarities, asserts that "it is permissible to spill the blood of Iraqi Christians." Inciting as the fatwa is, it is also redundant.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Last week an Iraqi Muslim scholar issued a <a href="http://www.memri.org/report/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/5200.htm">fatwa</a> that, among other barbarities, asserts that &#8220;it is permissible to spill the blood of Iraqi Christians.&#8221; Inciting as the fatwa is, it is also redundant. While last October&#8217;s Baghdad church attack which killed some sixty Christians is widely known—actually receiving some <a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/8655/is-the-media-fair-and-balanced-on-christian">MSM coverage</a>—the fact is, Christian life in Iraq has been a living hell ever since U.S. forces ousted the late Saddam Hussein in 2003.</p>
<p>Among other atrocities, <a href="http://www.aina.org/news/20061012004656.htm">beheading and crucifying Christians</a> are not irregular occurrences; messages saying &#8220;<a href="http://www.adnkronos.com/AKI/English/Religion/?id=3.1.1271835942">you Christian dogs, leave or die</a>,&#8221; are typical. Islamists see the church as an &#8220;<a href="http://www.newswithviews.com/NWV-News/news224.htm">obscene nest of pagans</a>&#8221; and threaten to &#8220;<a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/11/01/world/main7011759.shtml">exterminate Iraqi Christians</a>.&#8221; <a href="http://www.csi-int.org/desk_eibner.php">John Eibner</a>, CEO of <a href="http://www.csi-int.org/">Christian Solidarity International</a>, summarized the situation well in a recent <a href="http://www.csi-int.org/pdfs/obama_eibner_iraq_01_11_10.pdf">letter</a> to President Obama:</p>
<blockquote><p><img class="alignright size-full wp-image-90841" title="cover" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/cover.jpg" alt="" width="280" height="195" />The threat of extermination is not empty. Since the collapse of Saddam Hussein&#8217;s regime, more than half the country&#8217;s Christian population has been forced by targeted violence to seek refuge abroad or to live away from their homes as internally displaced people. According to the Hammurabi Human Rights Organization, over 700 Christians, including bishops and priests, have been killed and 61 churches have been bombed. Seven years after the commencement of Operation Iraqi Freedom, Catholic Archbishop Louis Sako of Kirkuk reports: &#8220;He who is not a Muslim in Iraq is a second-class citizen. Often it is necessary to convert or emigrate, otherwise one risks being killed.&#8221; This anti-Christian violence is sustained by a widespread culture of Muslim supremacism that extends far beyond those who pull the triggers and detonate the bombs.</p></blockquote>
<p>The grand irony, of course, is that Christian persecution has increased exponentially under U.S. occupation. As one top <a href="http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/0704487.htm">Vatican official</a> put it, Christians, &#8220;paradoxically, were more protected under the dictatorship&#8221; of Saddam Hussein.</p>
<p>What does one make of this—that under Saddam, who was notorious for human rights abuses, Christians were better off than they are under a democratic government sponsored by humanitarian, some would say &#8220;Christian,&#8221; America?</p>
<p>Like a Baghdad caliph, Saddam appears to have made use of the better educated Christians, who posed no risk to his rule, such as his close confidant <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2003/apr/25/iraq.brianwhitaker">Tariq Aziz</a>. Moreover, by keeping a tight lid on the Islamists of his nation—who hated him as a secular apostate no less than the Christians—the latter benefited indirectly.</p>
<p>Conversely, by empowering &#8220;the people,&#8221; the U.S. has unwittingly undone Iraq&#8217;s Christian minority. Naively projecting Western values on Muslims, U.S. leadership continues to think that &#8220;people-power&#8221; will naturally culminate into a liberal, egalitarian society—despite all the <a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/8790/is-an-egyptian-democracy-a-good-thing">evidence otherwise</a>. The fact is, in the Arab/Muslim world, &#8220;majority rule&#8221; traditionally means domination by the largest tribe or sect; increasingly, it means Islamist domination.</p>
<p>Either which way, the minorities—notably the indigenous Christians—are the first to suffer once the genie of &#8220;people-power&#8221; is uncorked. Indeed, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/31/world/middleeast/31iraq.html">evidence</a> <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/weekend/week-s-end/christmas-requiem-for-iraq-s-christian-community-1.332680">indicates</a> that the U.S. backed &#8220;democratic&#8221; government of Iraq <a href="http://www.asianews.it/index.php?l=en&amp;art=9206">enables and incites</a> the persecution of its Christians. (All of this raises the pivotal question: do heavy-handed tyrants—Saddam, Mubarak, Qaddafi, et al—create brutal societies, or do naturally brutal societies create the need for heavy-handed tyrants to keep order.)</p>
<p>Another indicator that empowering Muslim masses equates Christian suffering is the fact that, though Iraqi Christians amount to a mere five percent of the population, they make up nearly <a href="http://www.christiansofiraq.com/mostvulnerable.html">40 percent of the refugees</a> fleeing Iraq. It is the same <a href="http://www.christiannewstoday.com/Christian_News_Report_5024.html">in Egypt</a>: &#8220;A growing number of Egypt&#8217;s 8-10 million Coptic Christians are looking for a way to get out as Islamists increasingly take advantage of the nationalist revolution that toppled long-standing dictator Hosni Mubarak in February.&#8221;</p>
<p><img class="alignright size-full wp-image-90842" title="second" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/second.jpg" alt="" width="283" height="196" />Of course, whereas Egypt&#8217;s revolution was homegrown, the persecution of Iraq&#8217;s Christians is a direct byproduct of U.S. intervention. More ironic has been Obama&#8217;s approach. Justifying his decision to intervene in Libya in <a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/9382/ideals-trump-interests-in-obama-libya-policy">humanitarian terms</a>, the president recently <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/263265/full-text-ndu-libya-speech-nro-staff">said</a> that, while &#8220;it is true that America cannot use our military wherever repression occurs… that cannot be an argument for never acting on behalf of what&#8217;s right.&#8221;</p>
<p>True, indeed. Yet, even as Obama &#8220;acts on behalf of what&#8217;s right,&#8221; by providing military protection to the <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/libya-rebel-strongholds-now-al-qaeda-wellspring/story?id=13266784">al-Qaeda connected Libyan opposition</a>, Iraq&#8217;s indigenous Christians continue to be exterminated—right under the U.S. military&#8217;s nose in Iraq. You see, in its ongoing bid to win the much coveted but forever elusive &#8220;<a href="http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1902334,00.html">Muslim-hearts-and-minds</a>™&#8221;—which Obama has even tasked <a href="http://washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/obama-s-new-mission-nasa-reach-out-muslim-world">NASA</a> with—U.S. leadership ignores the inhumane treatment of Islam&#8217;s &#8220;Christian dogs,&#8221; the mere mention of which tends to <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110120/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_egypt_al_azhar_vatican_1">upset Muslims</a>.</p>
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		<title>Obama&#8217;s Victim: The &#8220;Peace Process&#8221;</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/alan-m-dershowitz/obamas-victim-the-peace-process/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=obamas-victim-the-peace-process</link>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 05 Apr 2010 04:07:35 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Alan M. Dershowitz]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=56977</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[And the winners are . . .]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/obamar.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-56984" title="obamar" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/obamar.jpg" alt="" width="375" height="239" /></a></p>
<p>The apparently escalating conflict between the US and Israel did not have to occur. It must be resolved now, before it does irreparable harm to prospects for peace.</p>
<p>The conflict was largely contrived by people with agendas.  The initial impetus for the brouhaha was an ill-timed announcement that permits had been issued for building 1,600 additional residences in a part of Jerusalem that had been captured by Israel in the 1967 war.  The Netanyahu government had been praised by President Obama for agreeing to a freeze on building permits on the West Bank, despite the fact that the freeze did not extend to any part of Jerusalem.  Thus the announcement of new building permits did not violate any agreement by Israel.  Nonetheless, the timing of the announcement embarrassed Vice President Joe Biden who was in Israel at the time.  The timing was neither an accident nor was it purposely done by Prime Minister Netanyahu to embarrass Biden.  Many believe that the announcement was purposely timed by opponents of the peace process in order to embarrass Netanyahu.  Whatever the motivation, the announcement deserved a rebuke from Vice President Biden.  It also warranted an apology and explanation from the Israeli government, which immediately came from Netanyahu.  That should have ended the contretemps.</p>
<p>But some in the Obama Administration apparently decided that they too had an agenda beyond responding to the ill-timed announcement, and they decided to take advantage of Israel&#8217;s gaffe.  They began to pile on and on and on.  Instead of it being a one day story, the controversy continues to escalate and harden positions on all sides to this day and perhaps beyond.  The real victim is the peace process and the winners are those&#8211;like Iran, Hamas and extremist Israelis&#8211;who oppose the two-state solution.</p>
<p>The building permits themselves were for residences not in East Jerusalem, but rather in North Jerusalem, and not in an Arab section, but rather in an entirely Jewish neighborhood.  This neighborhood, Ramat Shlomo, is part of the area that everybody acknowledges should and will remain part of Israel even if an agreement for a two state solution and the division of Jerusalem is eventually reached.  In that respect, it is much like the ancient Jewish quarter of Jerusalem, which was illegally captured from the Jewish residents by the Jordanian army in the 1948 war.  The Jordanians then desecrated Jewish holy places during its illegal occupation, and the Israelis legally recaptured it during the defensive war of 1967.  No one in their right mind believes that Israel has any obligation to give up the Jewish quarter of Jerusalem, including the Western Wall, the holiest Jewish site in the world, despite the fact that it was recaptured during the 1967 war.</p>
<p>Because the Palestinians understand and acknowledge that these entirely Jewish areas of Jerusalem will remain part of the Jewish state even after an agreement, the ill-timed announcement of building permits during the Biden visit generated a relatively mild and routine complaint, rather than a bellicose response, from the Palestinian Authority leadership.  The bellicose response came from the American leadership, which refused to let the issue go.  Once this piling on occurred, the Palestinian leadership had no choice but to join the chorus of condemnation, lest they be perceived as being less Palestinian than the Obama Administration.</p>
<p>Now positions have hardened on both sides, due largely to the public and persistent nature of the American condemnation.  This rebuke culminated in the very public dissing of Prime Minister Netanyahu by President Obama during their recent White House meeting.  Obama treated Netanyahu far worse than he treated Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who is corrupt to the core and who had invited Iranian dictator Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to deliver an anti-American tirade inside Afghanistan&#8217;s presidential palace.  According to a high ranking Afghan source, Karzai &#8220;invited Ahmadinejad to spite the Americans.&#8221;  Nonetheless, President Obama flew to Afghanistan and had a very public dinner with Karzai, according him the red carpet treatment, thus granting him legitimacy following his fraudulent re-election.</p>
<p>Prime Minister Netanyahu, on the other hand, has been treated with disrespect in what many Israelis see as an effort to delegitimize him in the eyes of Israeli voters who know how important the US-Israeli relationship is in the Jewish state.</p>
<p>The shabby treatment accorded Israel&#8217;s duly elected leader has also stimulated an ugly campaign by some of Israel&#8217;s enemies to delegitimize the US-Israeli strategic relationship, and indeed the Jewish nation itself, in the eyes of American voters.  The newest, and most dangerous, argument being offered by those who seek to damage the US-Israel alliance is that Israeli actions, such as issuing building permits in Jerusalem, endanger the lives of American troops fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.</p>
<p>This phony argument&#8211;originally attributed to Vice President Biden and General David Petraeus but categorically denied by both of them&#8211;has now taken on a life of its own in the media.  A CNN headline on the Rick Sanchez Show blared &#8220;Israel a danger to US Troops.&#8221;  Other headlines conveyed a similar message:  &#8220;US Tells Israel: &#8216;You&#8217;re undermining America, endangering troops.&#8217;&#8221;  Variations on this dangerous and false argument have been picked up by commentators such as Joe Klein in Time Magazine, Roger Cohen in The New York Times, DeWayne Wickham in USA Today and not surprisingly, Patrick Buchanan and Professors Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer.</p>
<p>It is a dangerous and false argument.  It is dangerous because its goal is to reduce support for Israel among mainstream Americans who understandably worry about our troops fighting abroad.  This is ironic since the major pillar of Israel&#8217;s policy with regard to US troops is that Israel never wants to endanger our troops.  That&#8217;s why it has never asked US soldiers to fight for Israel, as other allies have asked our soldiers to fight for them.  By seeking to scapegoat Israel for the death of American troops at the hands of Islamic terrorists, this argument blames those who love America for deaths caused by those who hate America.</p>
<p>Most of all, it is an entirely false argument.  There is absolutely no correlation between Israeli actions and the safety of American troops&#8211;none.</p>
<p>No one has ever shown any relationship between what Israel does and the rate of American casualties, because there is no such relationship&#8211;none</p>
<p>Consider two significant time periods.  The first is the end of 2000 and the beginning of 2001, when Israel offered the Palestinians virtually everything they could have wanted:  a state on 100% of the Gaza and 97% of the West Bank, a capital in a divided Jerusalem and a $35 billion reparation package for refugees.  Virtually the entire Arab world urged Arafat to accept this generous offer, but he declined it.  During the very months that Israel was doing everything possible to promote peace with the Palestinians, Al Queda was planning its devastating attack on the World Trade Center.  No correlation between Israeli actions and American casualties.</p>
<p>Then consider the end of 2008 and the beginning of 2009 when Israel was engaged in Operation Cast Lead, which caused significant Palestinian casualties.  During that difficult period, there was no increase in American casualties.  Again, no correlation.</p>
<p>Those offering up this phony empirical argument have an obligation to present evidence in support of this fallacious correlation, or else to stop making this bigoted argument.</p>
<p>The reason there is no correlation is because extremist Muslims who kill American troops are not outraged at what Israel <span style="text-decoration: underline;">does,</span> but rather at what Israel <span style="text-decoration: underline;">is</span>&#8211;a secular Jewish, democratic state.  As long as Israel exists, there will be Islamic extremists who regard that fact as a provocation.  The same is true of the United States:  as long we continue to exist as a secular democracy with equal rights for women, Christians and Jews, the Osama Bin Laden&#8217;s of the world will seek our destruction.  Certainly as long as American troops remain in any part of the Arab world&#8211;whether it be Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Iraq or Afghanistan&#8211;Muslim fanatics will try to kill our soldiers.  Blame for the murder of American troops should be placed on those who kill them, rather than on those who stand for the same values of democracy and equality as America does.</p>
<p>In considering the relationship between the United states and Israel, several points must be kept in mind.  First and foremost, the US and Israel are on the same side in the continuing struggle against Islamic extremists who endanger the lives of American troops and American civilians.  Second, Israel is one of America&#8217;s most important strategic allies, providing us with essential intelligence, research and developments and other important assets.  Third, there is nothing that Israel or the United States can do that will turn these extremist enemies into friends.  It is what we are, rather than what we do, that enrages those who wish to turn the entire world into an Islamic caliphate and subject us all to Islamic Sharia law.  Fourth, any weakening of the alliance between the United States and Israel will make it far less likely that Israelis&#8211;who get to vote on these matters&#8211;will take significant risks for peace.  Fifth, the Obama Administration&#8217;s public attacks on Israel will harden Palestinian demand and make it less likely that they will accept a compromise peace.  Sixth, if Israel&#8217;s enemies were to lay down their arms and stop terrorist and rocket attacks against Israel, there would be peace.  Seventh, if Israel were to lay down its arms, there would be genocide.  And eighth, when the Palestinian leadership and population want their own state <span style="text-decoration: underline;">more</span> than they want there not to be a Jewish state, there will be a two-state solution.</p>
<p>It is in the best interest of the United States, of the peace process and of Israel for disagreements between allies to be resolved quietly and constructively, so that progress can be made toward achieving a two-state solution that assures Israel&#8217;s security and Palestinian statehood.</p>
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		<title>High Noon in Marjah</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/ryan-mauro/high-noon-in-marjah/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=high-noon-in-marjah</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/ryan-mauro/high-noon-in-marjah/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 01 Mar 2010 05:18:51 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Ryan Mauro]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=52464</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The battle will be won in Pakistan.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/us.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-52467" title="us" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/us.jpg" alt="" width="450" height="241" /></a></p>
<p>The aggressive new strategy in Afghanistan embraced by the Obama Administration, modeled on the successful “surge” in Iraq, is costly, with a <a href="http://cnsnews.com/news/article/61811">third</a> of all American casualties in the conflict occurring since the first reinforcements were sent in May 2009. The latest offensive in Marjah in Helmand  Province is going slower than anticipated due to fierce resistance, and it is only a warm-up for a much larger battle in the coming months in Kandahar, the Taliban’s stronghold. And Pakistan remains the key to victory.</p>
<p>As tough as the fighting is in Marjah, the more difficult phase will be capitalizing on the military success by establishing local governance and civil institutions that have credibility with the Afghan people. The national flag now <a href="http://www.boston.com/news/world/asia/articles/2010/02/26/afghans_take_control_of_taliban_stronghold/">waves</a> above the city and a new <a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Asia-South-Central/2010/0222/Marjah-offensive-New-Afghan-governor-takes-office-as-battle-rages">governor</a> has taken power, and the fact that for every two foreign soldiers in the offensive there were three Afghan soldiers is very helpful. Roughly a quarter of the city still remains to be taken, but the last bastions of the Taliban forces are said to be running out of ammunition.</p>
<p>The international and Afghan forces now <a href="http://www1.voanews.com/english/news/asia/General-NATO-Controls-Marjahs-Main-Roads-and-Markets-84783537.html">control</a> the main roads and markets, but a significant amount of mines and roadside bombs planted by the Taliban still need to be located and dismantled. Afghan police forces, soldiers, and government workers from elsewhere in the country are being brought into Marjah, and over 2,000 people have <a href="http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/world/stories/DN-afghan_26int.ART.State.Edition2.4b81d3a.html">taken</a> jobs with the new administration.</p>
<p>The effort in Afghanistan is much more difficult because of the national government’s lack of credibility. The population, including many of those who voted for Karazai, is disenchanted because of the widespread fraud in the last election. Karzai’s latest <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/24/opinion/24wed2.html">decision</a> to take control of the Electoral Complaints Commission so that he appoints all five members is a further blow to his credibility and that of the government. Unfortunately, transgressions such as these mean that the links between a national government and the people that are required for a functioning democracy probably cannot be re-established until Karzai leaves office. Luckily, the Taliban’s own failures will provide a sharp contrast to what the local administrations can offer, leaving open an opportunity for such links to be developed on the ground level that can prevent the Taliban from returning.</p>
<p>The Pakistani crackdown on the Taliban actually holds more long-term significance than the offensive in Marjah. The <a href="../2010/02/17/breaking-the-taliban/">capture</a> of Mullah Baradar, the second-in-command of the Taliban, is extremely significant as he had close control over every area of management. Subsequent analysis focused heavily on what caused the Pakistanis to finally arrest such figures operating on their soil, but new information helps to provide a clearer picture of what happened.</p>
<p>Mullah Baradar was not the target of the raid, and just happened to be among those arrested in what one American official <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/19/world/asia/19intel.html?ref=world">described</a> as a “lucky accident.” The Pakistani ISI intelligence service refused to allow the CIA to directly question him until two weeks after he was caught. Contrary to proving Pakistan’s credibility as an ally, the arrest of Baradar and their conduct in handling his interrogation actually indicts them, leaving no room for them to claim that the Taliban’s leadership isn’t in their country. It is certain that Baradar knows where Mullah Omar is located, and it is likely he has information on Bin Laden’s location as well, if reports that he was staying in Quetta last fall are accurate. The ISI’s delay and possible coaching of Baradar so their complicity can remain hidden may have led to losing some crucial opportunities.</p>
<p>The embarrassment of Baradar being captured in Karachi is a major factor in the arrest of several other figures in Pakistan, but it is still very possible that this tougher stance will be short-lived. Large amounts of Pakistani territory, particularly in Baluchistan, still need to be cleansed before the Taliban can be defeated, but this will require a lengthy, bloody battle that could quickly lose public support and exhaust the military’s resources.</p>
<p>Pakistan’s long-term commitment to the fight against the Taliban and other terrorist groups is in doubt, but their short-term cooperation is dealing the movement a mighty blow. Seven of the 15 members of the Quetta Shura Council that acts as their central headquarters have been captured by the Pakistanis. As <em>The Long War Journal</em> <a href="http://www.longwarjournal.org/threat-matrix/archives/2010/02/pakistan_detains_4_additional.php">points out</a>, this does not necessarily mean that half of the Taliban’s leadership has been eliminated, as there are four regional shuras and 10 committees that the Quetta Shura oversees. The four <a href="http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2010/02/the_talibans_top_lea.php">shuras</a> are located in Quetta in Baluchistan  Province; Peshawar in Northwest Frontier  Province; Miramshah in North  Waziristan; and the Gerdi Jangal refugee camp in Baluchistan  Province. These captures are important, but the leadership has not been decapitated.</p>
<p>The drone strikes in Pakistan are also making the enemy pay a heavy toll. A son of Jalaluddin Haqqani, a top Taliban commander, was recently killed in one. The Obama Administration is now <a href="http://www.newsrealblog.com/2010/02/10/obama-the-hawk/">launching</a> three strikes a week on Pakistani soil on average, a three-fold increase from the days of the Bush Administration.</p>
<p>One more development on the Pakistani side deserves more attention. The Pakistani government wants to <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=9935027">revise</a> its law that charges those guilty of insulting Islam with blasphemy, carrying a penalty of death. This is a rebuke to extremists that argue that non-Muslims (which includes those they view as apostates) need to be violently targeted. President Zardari isn’t going to repeal the law, which would be truly bold, but it is positive that the government is trying to counter the viewpoint that such oppression is acceptable under that circumstance.</p>
<p>These successes provide much room for optimism, but that doesn’t mean the second phase of the surge in Afghanistan targeting Kandahar won’t be significantly bloodier. The Taliban’s strength has <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/feb/22/nato-neglect-lets-taliban-build-35-more-strength/print/">increased</a> by 35 percent in the past two years, and now is estimated at about 27,000 fighters. The blood of Afghan and international soldiers and civilians is going to take the headlines, and their sacrifice can indeed prevent the Taliban from seizing parts of the country and bring stability to that country so that the West can be much safer. These sacrifices must be matched by sacrifices on the Pakistani side and the U.S. must make clear that if our soldiers are going to die in this war, we will accept nothing less than full cooperation from the Pakistanis.</p>
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		<title>Iran and the Threat of the Revolutionary Guard</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/paul-e-vallely-and-fred-gedrich/iran-and-the-threat-of-the-revolutionary-guard/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=iran-and-the-threat-of-the-revolutionary-guard</link>
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		<pubDate>Wed, 24 Feb 2010 05:05:34 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Paul E. Vallely and Fred Gedrich]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=51715</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[And what the Obama administration has to do to get the Mullahs’ attention.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/rev.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-51722" title="rev" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/rev.jpg" alt="" width="450" height="294" /></a></p>
<p>Team Obama, clearly exasperated that Iran’s terrorist state hasn’t reciprocated to its public and private engagement overtures, took a new tact during U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s recent Mideast tour.  The secretary declared that the Islamic Republic’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is supplanting the country’s clerical and political leadership and moving the nation toward a “military dictatorship.”  And the administration is now seeking yet another U.N. Security Council resolution as a remedy.</p>
<p>Newsflash to Team Obama:  Iran’s theocratic rulers, president, and their IRGC protectors share the same nuclear weapons and terrorism goals and are the driving force behind the regime’s 31-year one-sided “Death to America” war. They have collectively and successfully thwarted all previous economic sanctions imposed by the United States and the United Nations.</p>
<p>There are plenty of reasons why the Iranian regime (dating back to the time of the Reagan administration) and the IRGC (during the George W. Bush administration) have been labeled as terrorists by the United   States. With the consent of the Iranian regime, IRGC members participated in seizing the American embassy in 1979 and holding 52 hostages for 444 days – in violation of international law and millennia of diplomatic protocols.  Its Quds Force used Hezbollah proxies to target and bomb the U.S. embassy and the Marine Barracks in Lebanon, bomb U.S. residences in Saudi Arabia, and kidnap and murder American captives (such as William Buckley and USMC  Lt. Col. William Higgins). The Quds Force now manufactures and supplies lethal roadside bombs (IEDs) to Shi’ite militias in Iraq and the Taliban in Pakistan and Afghanistan that kill and maim American troops.</p>
<p>If that isn’t bad enough, the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog (IAEA) recently said the regime, with the IRGC leading the way, may be on the verge of producing a nuclear warhead to go along with their long-range missiles, which many believe will further threaten regional and global peace and security. Others believe Iran already possesses a nuclear capability and is in the process of achieving the capability of matching warheads to missiles. Surprisingly, many Americans know little about the IRGC, which wields considerable security, political and economic clout in Iran.  Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini created the IRGC in 1979 primarily to safeguard the ideal of his Shi’ite Islamic Revolution, protect his regime from domestic and foreign enemies, and export his brutal brand of Islamic fundamentalism to neighboring states.</p>
<p>The IRGC operates independently from Iran’s regular military, reporting directly to Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.  It currently has about 200,000 members assigned to special army, air force, navy and intelligence units – in all 30 Iranian provinces.   At the behest of the Supreme Leader during the past year, the IRGC cracked down on innocent Iranians protesting the questionable reelection of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the Islamic Republic’s 31st anniversary celebration. The IRGC exports the revolution through their notorious Quds (Jerusalem) Force.  This force has about 20,000 highly trained personnel specializing in international terrorism, armed conflict and support of proxies in Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, the West Bank and Gaza.</p>
<p>Former and current IRGC members occupy 14 of 21 cabinet positions, about 90 of 290 parliament seats, and a host of local mayorships and council seats.  Past and present IRGC members include President Ahmadinejad, ambassador to Iraq Hassan Kazemi-Qomi and parliament speaker Ali Larijani. The IRGC is also a business conglomerate controlling some 500 companies active in a wide range of industries including nuclear power, banking, insurance, and recreation.</p>
<p>The IRGC and Quds Force headquarters are located in Tehran, the latter in the former U.S. embassy.  The IRGC oversees at least seven nuclear facilities, including those at Isfahan, Natanz, and Qom.  And the IRGC/Quds Force operates at least 20 terrorist training centers including the Imam Ali Training Garrison, Tehran; Bahonar Garrison near Karaj Dam; and the Abouzar Garrison, Ahwaz, Khuzestan Province.   Lethal roadside bombs are produced by Sattari Industries in Tehran’s Lavizan District.</p>
<p>The IRGC and Quds Force are currently led by Maj. Gen. Mohammed Ali Jafari.  He was appointed by Supreme Leader Khamenei in 2007.  His portfolio includes command of Iran’s nuclear weapons and missile programs, relations with countries like Venezuela and terror proxies like Hezbollah and Hamas, and liaison with intelligence organ Ministry of Intelligence and Security.</p>
<p>One cannot fault Secretary Clinton for putting the well-deserved spotlight on the IRGC.  However, her declaration about it becoming an emerging “military dictatorship” misses the mark.  In reality, it doesn’t matter whether Iran is ruled by clerics or a card-carrying IRGC member as president. The IRGC will still continue developing nuclear weapons, engaging in terrorism, oppressing millions of freedom-seeking Iranians, ignoring Team Obama’s rapprochement overtures and economic sanction threats, and dismissing another worthless U.N. Security Council resolution watered down by Iran’s security council veto-wielding friends in Russia and China.</p>
<p>The time has come for Team Obama to shelve its idealistic, naïve and dangerous “open-hand” diplomacy in favor of “bold and aggressive” action against Iran. The administration must support the Iranian Opposition organizations.  The best way to get the Iranian regime’s attention would be to inform them that President Obama will:</p>
<p>(1) Ask Congress to pass a resolution making Iranian “regime change” a strong U.S. policy (similar to what Congress and President Clinton did for Iraq in 1998);</p>
<p>(2) Direct, under executive authority or with congressional permission, precise military strikes on Iranian nuclear development sites as well as regime targets like terrorist training facilities, IRGC and Quds Force headquarters. This will be done if Iran doesn’t cease its nuclear weapons program and supporting radical Islamic/global caliphate activities;</p>
<p>and</p>
<p>(3) Overtly and covertly encourage and support all Iranian opposition and freedom seeking groups to foster regime change.</p>
<p>Let’s “hope” President Obama makes these policy “changes” before it’s too late. Global peace and security depend on it.</p>
<p><strong>Army Maj. Gen. Paul E. Vallely, retired, is chairman of <em>Stand Up America</em>, a member of the Iran Policy Committee and co-author of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Endgame-Blueprint-Victory-War-Terror/dp/0895260662/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&amp;s=books&amp;qid=1266990395&amp;sr=1-3"><em>Endgame</em></a>.  Fred Gedrich is a foreign policy and national security analyst who served in the Departments of State and Defense.</strong></p>
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		<title>Paul Ryan’s Express &#8211; The Weekly Standard</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/jlaksin/paul-ryan%e2%80%99s-express-the-weekly-standard/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=paul-ryan%25e2%2580%2599s-express-the-weekly-standard</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/jlaksin/paul-ryan%e2%80%99s-express-the-weekly-standard/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 09 Feb 2010 20:29:16 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Jacob Laksin]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[40th birthday]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=49555</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Representative Paul Ryan’s 40th birthday coincided with the House GOP retreat in Baltimore on January 29. Ryan’s wife and three children joined him for the event. President Obama was also there, at the invitation of the House Republican leadership, to deliver remarks and answer questions from selected members. And he had a surprise in store [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/paul-ryan%E2%80%99s-express"><img src='http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/PaulRyan_0.jpg' alt='' /></a></p>
<p>Representative Paul Ryan’s 40th birthday coincided with the House GOP retreat in Baltimore on January 29. Ryan’s wife and three children joined him for the event. President Obama was also there, at the invitation of the House Republican leadership, to deliver remarks and answer questions from selected members. And he had a surprise in store for the six-term Wisconsin Republican: a spur-of-the-moment, presidential-level debate over the federal budget.</p>
<p>Hmm, Ryan thought. This is interesting. The two engaged in a back-and-forth over the president’s increase in discretionary spending during fiscal year 2010. Later, Obama said that Ryan, the ranking member of the House Budget and Ways &amp; Means Committees, is “a pretty sincere guy” with “a beautiful family.” Later still, the two went at it once more, this time over the politics of Medicare. “I want to make sure that I’m not being unfair to your proposal,” Obama said.</p>
<p>He was talking about Ryan’s “Roadmap for America’s Future,” an ambitious plan to overhaul the welfare state and pay off the national debt (you can read the 95-page document at www.americanroadmap.org). For Americans under 55, the Roadmap would fundamentally restructure Medicare and Medicaid through means-tested vouchers, while introducing opt-in personal accounts to Social Security. It would replace the corporate income tax with a business consumption tax; repeal the Alternative Minimum, dividend, capital gains, and estate taxes; and reduce the six current tax brackets to two—one at 10 percent, the other at 25 percent. And that’s not all. Other parts of the plan include job training programs, budgetary reforms, and a free-market health care proposal modeled on Ryan’s Patients Choice Act. “This works,” Ryan told me last week. “It solves our fiscal crisis. It turns it around.” The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office agrees with him.</p>
<p>No question, the Roadmap is a big idea. But it isn’t a new one. Ryan initially released the proposal in 2008, when it fell flat. “First they laughed at us, then they ignored us,” says Representative Devin Nunes of California, a Ryan ally.</p>
<p>What’s changed? America has fallen into a vat of red ink. The financial crisis and recession have darkened the country’s long-term fiscal outlook. Unemployment stands at 9.7 percent. The president’s fiscal year 2011 budget forecasts record deficits and debt long into the future. Inflation, punishing interest rates, high taxes, and economic stagnation are not far behind. Hence the Democrats, who can’t defend their own budgets, desperately want to change the subject. They’ve found one they like: what’s wrong with Ryan’s Roadmap.</p>
<p>via <a href="http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/paul-ryan%E2%80%99s-express">Paul Ryan’s Express | The Weekly Standard</a>.</p>
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		<title>St. Louis U&#8217;s Inverted Values</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/david-horowitz/st-louis-us-inverted-values/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=st-louis-us-inverted-values</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/david-horowitz/st-louis-us-inverted-values/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 29 Jan 2010 05:08:55 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[David Horowitz]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=48033</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Islamists are welcome, their critics are not. 
]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-48063" title="slu_pic" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/slu_pic1.jpg" alt="slu_pic" width="500" height="376" /></p>
<p>On Tuesday and Wednesday of last week I was in Washington, where I visited with three U.S. Senators and three Congressmen, including the whips of both houses. I was meeting Eric Cantor for the first time, but all the others had appeared at events I had hosted or provided blurbs for my political books. Jon Kyl, the Minority Whip in the Senate invited me to a lunch to address the Republican Senate leadership lunch on my next trip to Washington. I mention this because while I was waiting for my return flight in Dulles airport I received a call from my office informing me that a speech I had been invited to give at St. Louis University two weeks later would be cancelled because of conditions that had been set by university administrators that could not be met.</p>
<p>In particular, the administrator in charge, Dean Scott Smith, had told the student whose group had invited me that “Horowitz would never be allowed to speak on a platform alone at Saint Louis University. He could be invited only if there was another speaker on the program to oppose his point of view.” Moreover, the dean continued, while my speaking fee had to be paid by the College Republicans who had invited me, my designated opponent would have his fees and expenses paid by the university. The clear message was that the St. Louis University would not allow its own funds to be tainted by such an unwelcome speaker.</p>
<p>This was the second attempt by the students to invite me, and the second time Dean Smith had thrown a roadblock on their invitation. In October, he had said I could not speak unattended because I would “insinuate that all Muslims are fascists,” something I have never done. In fact, there are videos of my speeches all over the web in which I say just the opposite.</p>
<p>It should be said that while administrators apply these restrictions to critics of radical Islam, no such rules are invoked for Holocaust deniers or supporters of communist genocides. Both Norman Finkelstein and Angela Davis have been invited as standalone speakers at St. Louis University, without anti-communists and defenders of Israel on stage to refute them.</p>
<p>I decided to call Smith’s bluff and suggested that I debate Cary Nelson, the well-to-the left president of the American Association of University Professors, on the subject of academic freedom. I called Cary and he agreed. Smith didn’t like this because he was aware that Nelson had responded to his attempt to bar me from speaking by saying that St. Louis University was a “university in name only.” So Smith asked the student host Dan Laub why the subject had changed from Islamo-fascism to academic freedom. Why indeed!</p>
<p>But again I decided to test his mettle and told Dan that the subject we would debate would be Academic Freedom and Islamo-Fascism. Curve ball. Smith came back with a new caveat. There would have to be a third speaker to mind Cary and me and put our discussion in the framework of “Catholic Values.” Some joke. What Catholic Values did the communist Angela Davis or the atheist Norman Finkelstein express when they spoke alone?</p>
<p>Better yet, this weekend Dean Smith and the Catholics at St. Louis University hosted a three day conference put on by the Muslim Student Association, a well-established front for the Muslim Brotherhood. The <a href="http://docs.google.com/View?id=dsks9tx_14hnw4jvf9">conference dealt with</a> religious themes such as why requiring two women to be a witness or letting them inherit only half of what a man does or requiring them to submit to their husbands represents “the perfection of our religion.”</p>
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		<title>Paul D. Ryan: A GOP Road Map for America&#8217;s Future &#8211; WSJ.com</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/jlaksin/paul-d-ryan-a-gop-road-map-for-americas-future-wsj-com/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=paul-d-ryan-a-gop-road-map-for-americas-future-wsj-com</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/jlaksin/paul-d-ryan-a-gop-road-map-for-americas-future-wsj-com/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 27 Jan 2010 06:55:48 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Jacob Laksin]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[A Road]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=47829</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[In tonight&#8217;s State of the Union address, President Obama will declare a new found commitment to &#8220;fiscal responsibility&#8221; to cover the huge spending and debt he and congressional Democrats have run up in his first year in office. But next Monday, when he submits his actual budget, I fear it will rely on gimmickry, commissions, [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>In tonight&#8217;s State of the Union address, President Obama will declare a new found commitment to &#8220;fiscal responsibility&#8221; to cover the huge spending and debt he and congressional Democrats have run up in his first year in office. But next Monday, when he submits his actual budget, I fear it will rely on gimmickry, commissions, luke-warm spending &#8220;freezes,&#8221; and paper-tiger controls to create the illusion of budget discipline. Meanwhile, he and the Democratic congressional leadership will continue pursuing a relentless expansion of government and a new culture of dependency.</p>
<p>America needs an alternative. For that reason, I have reintroduced my plan to tackle our nation&#8217;s most pressing domestic challenges—updated to reflect the dramatic decline in our economic and fiscal condition. The plan, called A Road Map for America&#8217;s Future and first introduced in 2008, is a comprehensive proposal to ensure health and retirement security for all Americans, to lift the debt burdens that are mounting every day because of Washington&#8217;s reckless spending, and to promote jobs and competitiveness in the 21st century global economy.</p>
<p>The difference between the Road Map and the Democrats&#8217; approach could not be more clear. From the enactment of a $1 trillion &#8220;stimulus&#8221; last February to the current pass-at-all costs government takeover of health care, the Democratic leadership has followed a &#8220;progressive&#8221; strategy that will take us closer to a tipping point past which most Americans receive more in government benefits than they pay in taxes—a European-style welfare state where double-digit unemployment becomes a way of life.</p>
<p>via <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703808904575025080017959478.html">Paul D. Ryan: A GOP Road Map for America&#8217;s Future &#8211; WSJ.com</a>.</p>
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		<title>Bin Laden endorses bomb attempt on US plane &#8211; AP</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/jlaksin/bin-laden-endorses-bomb-attempt-on-us-plane-ap/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=bin-laden-endorses-bomb-attempt-on-us-plane-ap</link>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 25 Jan 2010 03:25:48 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Jacob Laksin]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[A U.S. State]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=47493</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[CAIRO – Osama bin Laden endorsed the failed attempt to blow up a U.S. airliner on Christmas Day and threatened new attacks against the United States in an audio message released Sunday that appeared aimed at asserting he maintains some direct command over al-Qaida-inspired offshoots. However, U.S. officials and several researchers who track terrorist groups [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100125/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_al_qaida_airline_attack;_ylt=AmnqGbEY3YZmj9olsnMy9e9v24cA;_ylu=X3oDMTNma2NrMGphBGFzc2V0A2FwLzIwMTAwMTI1L21sX2FsX3FhaWRhX2FpcmxpbmVfYXR0YWNrBGNjb2RlA21vc3Rwb3B1bGFyBGNwb3MDMwRwb3MDMwRzZWMDeW5fdG9wX3N0b3JpZXMEc2xrA2JpbmxhZGVuZW5kbw--"><img src='http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/videolthumb.61541e8cf560e398e43b76371a0c7dcd.jpg' alt='' /></a></p>
<p>CAIRO – Osama bin Laden endorsed the failed attempt to blow up a U.S. airliner on Christmas Day and threatened new attacks against the United States in an audio message released Sunday that appeared aimed at asserting he maintains some direct command over al-Qaida-inspired offshoots.</p>
<p>However, U.S. officials and several researchers who track terrorist groups said there was no indication bin Laden or any of his top lieutenants had anything to do with or even knew in advance of the Christmas plot by a Yemen-based group that is one of several largely independent al-Qaida franchises.</p>
<p>A U.S. State Department spokesman said al-Qaida&#8217;s core leadership offers such groups strategic guidance but depends on them to carry it out.</p>
<p>&#8220;He&#8217;s trying to continue to appear relevant&#8221; by talking up the attempted attack by an affiliate, the spokesman, P.J. Crowley, said.</p>
<p>via <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100125/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_al_qaida_airline_attack;_ylt=AmnqGbEY3YZmj9olsnMy9e9v24cA;_ylu=X3oDMTNma2NrMGphBGFzc2V0A2FwLzIwMTAwMTI1L21sX2FsX3FhaWRhX2FpcmxpbmVfYXR0YWNrBGNjb2RlA21vc3Rwb3B1bGFyBGNwb3MDMwRwb3MDMwRzZWMDeW5fdG9wX3N0b3JpZXMEc2xrA2JpbmxhZGVuZW5kbw--">Bin Laden endorses bomb attempt on US plane &#8211; Yahoo! News</a>.</p>
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		<title>Code Pink’s Support for the Enemy</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/ryan-mauro/code-pink%e2%80%99s-support-of-the-enemy/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=code-pink%25e2%2580%2599s-support-of-the-enemy</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 21 Jan 2010 05:04:25 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Ryan Mauro]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=46595</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[There’s no tyrant the female “peace” group won’t coddle.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-46596" title="ADDITION Rice US Middle East" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/code-pink.jpg" alt="ADDITION Rice US Middle East" width="450" height="323" /></p>
<p>Code Pink members became known during the Bush Administration as confrontational anti-war protestors, but the group is actually worse than that. Code Pink’s leadership has aligned with almost every tyrannical force opposing the U.S., from Chavez to Ahmadinejad to Hamas to Iraq insurgents. Code Pink is acting more like the ambassador for enemies of the free world than an advocate for peace.</p>
<p>Kristinn Taylor and Andrea Shea King over at <a href="http://biggovernment.com/" target="_blank">BigGovernment.com</a> are doing an excellent job chronicling the outrageous activities of Code Pink and its leadership over the years. Most recently, Code Pink has organized a <a href="http://www.gazafreedommarch.org/" target="_blank">“Gaza Freedom March”</a> to call for an end to the blockade of the Gaza Strip, currently controlled by Hamas. The organization boasts that they have provided humanitarian aid to the territory, and has done so under the <a href="http://www.thereminder.com/localnews/greaterspringfield/massachusettswomen/" target="_blank">protection</a> of Hamas. The terrorist group often diverts such aid for its own purposes, and it should be suspected that this is no different. Hamas also builds support by providing social services, so if such aid didn’t directly go to supporting the group’s violent operations, it certainly did go to support its recruiting efforts.</p>
<p>Hamas is a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, a radical Islamic organization whose goal is to wage “a kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying Western civilization from within and ‘sabotaging’ its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.” In other words, it wants to create a worldwide Islamic state. Code Pink has also teamed up with this extremist organization, placing ads on its website <a href="http://www.newsrealblog.com/2010/01/11/code-pink-to-muslims-help-us-cleanse-our-country/" target="_blank">asking</a> them to “join us in cleansing our country.”</p>
<p>Code Pink has been embraced by the Iranian government as well. <a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=1628" target="_blank">Jodie Evans</a>, one of the group’s leaders, <a href="http://forpeace.net/news/2008/09/24/convenes-meeting-peace-activists-and-president-ahmadinejad" target="_blank">met</a> with Ahmadinejad in New York in September 2008, resulting in a trip to the country two months later. The group met with high-level government officials, and <a href="http://codepink4peace.org/blog/2008/09/official-release-leading-codepink-activists-and-other-peace-organizations-meet-with-iranian-president-in-new-york/" target="_blank">offered</a> to help fund a “peace park” and environmentally-friendly businesses in Tehran. Co-founder of Code Pink Medea Benjamin praised the prices of public transportation in Iran and <a href="http://codepinkdc.blogspot.com/2008/11/medeas-blog-day-1-iran-citizen.html" target="_blank">said</a> she was “struck by how much more open Iran is than I had thought.”</p>
<p>To their credit, Code Pink did <a href="http://www.opposingviews.com/articles/opinion-code-pink-supports-peaceful-protests-in-iran" target="_blank">express sympathy</a> for the protestors confronting the regime this summer, but called on the U.S. to lift sanctions and end threatening language and supported President Obama’s initial silence. In other words, Code Pink said they supported the Iranian people, but did not want do anything to support the Iranian people.</p>
<p>In January 2006, Evans and other colleagues including Cindy Sheehan met with Venezuela’s President Chavez. Benjamin had previously <a href="http://www.codepinkalert.org/article.php?id=767" target="_blank">described</a> Chavez as a “doll,” and <a href="http://www.codepinkalert.org/article.php?id=117" target="_blank">said</a> “George Bush—and John Kerry for that matter—could learn a thing or two from Hugo Chavez about winning the hearts and minds of the people.”</p>
<p>Jodie Evans’ reaction to the 9/11 attacks shows a complete ignorance of the ideological element of the terrorists, instead linking the disaster to Middle Eastern anger over U.S. foreign policy. She agreed in an <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O758gyZqxlw" target="_blank">interview</a> that Bin Laden had a valid argument against the U.S., and said, “Why do we have bases in the Middle East? We totally violated the rights of that country,” referring to Saudi Arabia. Apparently, Evans is unaware that those bases were constructed with the permission of the Saudi government and are meant to protect the country from the very people she defends, like Saddam Hussein.</p>
<p>In 2003, Saddam hosted Evans and other Code Pink members in Iraq, aware that their anti-war activism had crossed the line into propaganda efforts on his behalf. As long as a regime redistributes wealth and is socialistic in how it governs, the country is praised by Code Pink, who seems to have little passion for promoting democracy, free markets or the human rights of oppressed citizens overseas. This type of thinking was apparent when she <a href="http://www.troopshomefast.org/article.php?id=1158" target="_blank">praised</a> Saddam Hussein’s social services, saying “there was a good education and health care system, food for everyone. That system didn’t belong to Saddam, it belonged to the Iraqis, it belonged to year of creating what a civilization needed. If your parents didn’t send you to school, they could be put in jail.”</p>
<p>After Saddam’s toppling, Evans supported the insurgents fighting American soldiers, ignoring the fact that many of these were foreign jihadists affiliated with Al-Qaeda-type groups, and were former members of Saddam Hussein’s Republican Guards, Fedayeen militia, and intelligence service. To Code Pink, these forces of oppression and evil were the representatives of the Iraqi people fighting for liberation. They are completely unaware that the insurgents fight not only against American forces, but target Iraqi civilians and want to overthrow Iraq’s elected democratic government.</p>
<p>“We must begin by really standing with the Iraqi people and defending their right to resist. I can remain myself against all forms of violence, and yet I cannot judge what someone has to do when pushed to the wall to protect all they love. The Iraqi people are fighting for their country, to protect their families and to preserve all they love. They are fighting for their lives, and we are fighting for lies,” Evans <a href="http://www.alternet.org/story/22308/?page=entire%22" target="_blank">wrote</a> on June 26, 2005.</p>
<p>When Coalition forces began an offensive into Fallujah when it was the primary safe harbor of the insurgents, Code Pink reacted by <a href="http://www.codepink4peace.org/article.php?id=261" target="_blank">delivering</a> tens of thousands of dollars in humanitarian aid to its residents. This act sounds noble on the surface, but when you consider the group’s sympathy for the insurgents, it is quite possible that this aid was given to the enemy side. Furthermore, Evans and her delegation <a href="http://97.74.65.51/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=30624" target="_blank">met</a> with Iraqi politicians connected to the extremist Iranian-backed militia leader, Moqtada al-Sadr, and other supporters of killing American soldiers.</p>
<p>Evans has even, <a href="http://janefonda.com/armand-hammer-museum" target="_blank">according to her friend, Jane Fonda,</a> met with members of the Taliban in Afghanistan and Benjamin has tried to paint them as being motivated by lack of employment.</p>
<p>“Everybody we talked to said that most of the Taliban are poor rural people, $10-a-day Taliban, who are doing this for economic reasons. If you want to encourage people to stop fighting, encourage them to work,” Benjamin <a href="http://atwar.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/12/code-pink-in-kabul/" target="_blank">said</a>.</p>
<p>According to an account posted on the Free Republic forum, a group of counter-protestors were confronted by Evans on August 30, 2004. During the exchange, Evans reportedly <a href="http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1204883/posts" target="_blank">said</a>, “We have nothing against communism.” This shouldn’t be surprising considering Medea Benjamin’s <a href="http://97.74.65.51/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=21112" target="_blank">ties</a> to the Workers World Party and described her life in Cuba as feeling like she had “died and went to heaven.”</p>
<p>Today, Code Pink is <a href="http://www.womensaynotowar.org/article.php?list=type&amp;type=400" target="_blank">campaigning</a> against President Obama’s decision to send 30,000 more soldiers to Afghanistan and against the use of drones in Pakistan. Politics seems to pull more weight than principle though, as Code Pink is <a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Asia-South-Central/2009/1006/p06s10-wosc.html" target="_blank">against</a> an immediate withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan for the exact same reasons as such a move would be wrong in Iraq. President Obama can pursue a similar type of policy that Code Pink lambasted under the previous administration, but they aren’t calling for <a href="http://www.codepink4peace.org/article.php?id=4722" target="_blank">citizens&#8217; arrests</a> of him and his officials like they are doing for members of the Bush Administration.</p>
<p>Code Pink’s embracing of anti-American actors is part of a calculated strategy. Medea <a href="http://www.thenation.com/doc/20030421/benjamin" target="_blank">wrote</a> in 2003 that members of the movement she belonged to needed to “link up with appropriate local and regional groups” overseas to “channel the bursting anti-American sentiment overseas.” Forces supporting America are left out as part of the equation.</p>
<p>Code Pink is not a group genuinely promoting peace and human rights. The organization links up and supports virtually any anti-American actor, ignoring their oppression of their citizens that can hardly qualify as “peace” and the threat that they pose. In choosing its friends, Code Pink’s leadership has decided that the sole standard is that they must be an enemy of the United States.</p>
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		<title>How the Democrats Lost Massachusetts</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/jlaksin/how-the-democrats-lost-massachusetts/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=how-the-democrats-lost-massachusetts</link>
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		<pubDate>Wed, 20 Jan 2010 07:01:54 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Jacob Laksin]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[Political excess and an unpopular agenda paved the way for Scott’s Brown’s improbable Senate victory. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-46982" title="539w" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/539w.jpg" alt="539w" width="539" height="338" /></p>
<p>On the one-year anniversary of his presidency, Barack Obama and the Democratic leadership in Congress have received a stinging verdict on their collaborative reign. By <a href="http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0110/31674.html">electing</a> Republican Scott Brown over Democratic state Attorney General Martha Coakley to succeed in the late Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat, the voters of a state that Obama carried by 26 points in 2008 have sent a clear message that the legislative excesses of the majority party are too much for even the residents of the reliably liberal Bay State to bear.</p>
<p>Brown’s <a href="http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0110/31674.html">stunning five-point upset victory</a> has already inspired its share of intraparty recrimination, much of it justified. It seems clear, for instance, that Coakley ran an inept and ultimately uninspired campaign, one that <a href="http://news.bostonherald.com/news/us_politics/view/20100120dems_slam_martha_coakleys_political_malpractice/">took victory for granted</a> <a href="http://news.bostonherald.com/news/us_politics/view/20100120dems_slam_martha_coakleys_political_malpractice/"></a>and paid the price for its complacency. One could also argue, as some Democratic insiders have, that the party’s campaign committee failed to foresee the dangers of Brown’s insurgent populist candidacy, intervening to save Coakley’s faltering campaign <a href="http://news.bostonherald.com/news/us_politics/view/20100120dems_slam_martha_coakleys_political_malpractice/">only after it was too late</a>. Whatever the merit of these post-mortems, they also miss the broader lessons of Brown’s seismic triumph.</p>
<p><em>Domestic criminal trials for terrorists are a losing issue for Democrats. </em>Brown scored some of his greatest successes when he assailed Coakley for her stand on national security. Some of Coakley’s wounds were self-inflicted, as when she insisted, against all evidence to the contrary, that there were no terrorists active in Afghanistan. But Brown was also able to tap into the mainstream view, which runs counter to the Obama administration’s policy, that terrorist detainees should not be entitled to criminal protections. In the aftermath of the Christmas terror plot, when aspiring underwear bomber <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2010/01/11/why-the-rich-muslim-boy-became-a-terrorist-by-jamie-glazov/">Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab</a> kept mum after being granted an attorney, there is little public appetite for terrorists with possible knowledge of new plots to be afforded the right to remain silent. Extending these civil liberties to terrorists is not only a national security threat. Brown’s victory suggests that it also a political danger to Democrats.  </p>
<p><em>Even Democratic-leaning states oppose the Democrats’ health care overhaul. </em>In its final poll before the election, the well-regarded Democratic polling firm Public Policy Polling <a href="http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/pdf/PPP_Release_MA_117468963846.pdf">found</a> that the Massachusetts’ electorate was deeply skeptical of the Democrats’ health care plan, with 48 percent of voters opposing the plan. Considering that the state’s 2006 health care law was seen as an early model for the national reform, Brown’s win is the latest indictment of the Democrats’ vision of an expanded government role in health care. Because Coakley was a supporter of health care reform, Brown was able to capitalize on popular skepticism by running as the self-styled “<a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2010/01/19/politics/politicalhotsheet/entry6116071.shtml">41<sup>st</sup> vote</a>” who could stop the health care bill. He will now have the chance to make good on that promise.</p>
<p><em>Independents are disenchanted with the Democratic leadership. </em>While Massachusetts is often seen as a liberal bastion, more than half the electorate is made up of independents. Their support proved critical to Brown’s victory. Even as liberal Boston voted the party line, independent voters from the state’s suburbs <a href="http://news.bostonherald.com/news/politics/view/20100120state_independents_lead_scott_browns_charge/">turned the tide in Brown’s favor</a>. That follows a pattern in other battleground states, including Virginia and New Jersey, where an independent-led insurgency helped down Democratic incumbents. Against this backlash from independents, President Obama’s influence was ineffectual. Despite a last-minute stumping effort on Coakley’s behalf, Obama did little to help her cause. With his approval rating slipping <a href="http://www.pollster.com/blogs/winston_drop_in_polls_threaten.php">below 50 percent</a>, yesterday’s redeemer of Democratic Party fortunes has become today’s bystander in defeat.</p>
<p><em>The anti-Democratic revolt has crossed party lines.</em> Although Democratic spinmeisters and partisans worked overtime to cast Brown as the tool of hateful right-wing interests and tea-party reactionaries – MSNBC loudmouth Keith Olbermann <a href="http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0110/31648.html">scraped bottom</a> with an unhinged and invective-laden rant assailing Brown as an “irresponsible, homophobic, racist, reactionary, ex-nude-model, tea-bagging supporter of violence against women and against politicians with whom he disagrees” – the discomfiting truth for the party is that Brown’s appeal blurred party lines. Some polls had Brown drawing support from <a href="http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/pdf/PPP_Release_MA_117468963846.pdf">nearly 20 percent</a> of registered Democrats. That Democrats can no longer count on the loyalties of party faithful even in staunchly “blue” states is a poignant commentary on both the failures of Congressional Democratic leadership and a reflection of the growing populist backlash against Democrats’ misrule.</p>
<p>If Brown’s victory represents a severe judgment on the failings of the Democrats’ leadership, it’s not clear that they have gotten the message. One might think that Democrats would be chastened by the Massachusetts results. But the only lesson that Democrats seem to have learned from the race is that they need to be even more arrogant in pursuing an unpopular legislative agenda. When, in the final days of the race, it looked like Brown could indeed win, Democrats floated the idea of ramming the health bill through backchannels – whether by bypassing the Senate altogether and sending the House-approved version straight to President Obama or else by resorting to the “nuclear” option that would allow them to pass the bill with a 51-vote majority. Both options are widely considered political suicide, but such is the Democrats’ commitment to the legislation that even the prospect of certain defeat may be a weak deterrent.</p>
<p>Democrats’ missteps are of course only part of the story of the Massachusetts race. The other is Scott Brown. Savvy, charismatic and clued into voters’ concerns, Brown’s campaign was everything that Coakley’s was not. Both the Coakley campaign and President Obama poked fun at Brown’s regular-guy image – particularly the well-worn GMC truck with which he traversed the state. But it’s Brown who will have the last laugh. In one of his final campaign stops, Brown promised to pack up his “truck and drive it straight to Washington.” Thanks to the Democrats’ blunders and to his political skills, he’s on his way.</p>
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