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	<title>FrontPage Magazine &#187; Military</title>
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		<title>Rep. Jim Bridenstine: &#8216;Weakness Is Provocative&#8217;</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/frontpagemag-com/rep-jim-bridenstine-weakness-is-provocative/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=rep-jim-bridenstine-weakness-is-provocative</link>
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		<pubDate>Wed, 17 Dec 2014 05:51:02 +0000</pubDate>
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		<description><![CDATA[GOP congressman unveils the chaos unleashed by America's retreat abroad at Restoration Weekend. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><strong style="color: #232323;">Below are the video and transcript to Congressman Jim Bridenstine&#8217;s keynote speech at the David Horowitz Freedom Center’s 20th Anniversary Restoration Weekend. The event took place Nov. 13th-16th at the Breakers Resort in Palm Beach, Florida. </strong></p>
<p><iframe src="//player.vimeo.com/video/114410255" width="500" height="281" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe></p>
<p><strong>Rep. Jim Bridenstine: </strong>A lot of people might remember, it wasn&#8217;t too long ago, I went down to a military base in my state called Fort Sill.  I went down there to visit with the commanding general, and the reason I went is because the Department of Defense is being gutted right now.  The fires brigades and the air defense artillery folks that work down there, they&#8217;re getting cut drastically, and so I went down there and I wanted to meet with the commanding general, and when I was down there I said, hey, I&#8217;d like to take a visit of the UAC facility that&#8217;s here at Fort Sill, and the commanding general said you can go, but I&#8217;m not going to go with you.  If you would, by show of hands, do you remember this incident by chance, if you&#8217;d raise your hand if you&#8217;re remember.  I went down to Fort Sill to visit the UAC facility and I got rejected.  I got rejected.  Here I am a member of Congress, a representative of the people, a federal representative of the people going to a federal facility and seeing a federal mission, and they told me I couldn&#8217;t come in. They said you could come back in three weeks.  In three weeks you can come back and we&#8217;ll take you on a tour, and I said I&#8217;ve got to talk to somebody in your chain of command because this is not right, and you know what they said, they said, sorry, here&#8217;s the number for the guy in my chain of command and it was the Deputy Director of Communications, who also told me you&#8217;ve got to wait three weeks and we&#8217;ll take you on a tour, to which we immediately said, I told my staff I&#8217;m not one of these guys that runs to the media for every opportunity.  I don&#8217;t do that, but in this particular case, the First Amendment was given to us for a purpose, and it&#8217;s to petition the federal government, and I never realized that as a member of Congress I would be one of the people having to petition the federal government using the First Amendment.</p>
<p>In the next week and a half, we did 72 interviews on television. Seventy-two.  We were tired, but I can tell you this, after a week and a half we get an email from Health and Human Services and they said we&#8217;d like to take you on a tour of the HHS facility at Fort Sill housing the unaccompanied alien children.  It only took 72 interviews and a week and a half, and then they sent another email, and I&#8217;d ask everybody to get quiet because what this next email said is critically important.  I want you to listen to this.</p>
<p>The next email we got from HHS said we&#8217;re going to take you on a tour, but you can&#8217;t ask any questions, you can&#8217;t talk to the personnel that work there, you can&#8217;t talk to the staff, you can&#8217;t talk to the children, you can&#8217;t talk to the medical personnel.  We&#8217;re going to show it to you but you can&#8217;t ask any questions, to which we responded with an email of our own that we&#8217;re going to treat your restrictions the way the president is treating the law of the United States as a suggestion, and we gave them a list of everybody we expected to talk to once we got inside of this facility, and we got in and we started asking questions.  The No. 1 question I asked was how many children here have been abused.  We had a great panel with Dr. Fleming and Louie Gohmert and Jeff Sessions regarding the crisis on the southern border and immigration.  We had this great conversation.  Loved every minute of listening to these great folks talk about this issue, but here is why I have such a big concern.  The reports coming out of Lackland Air Force Base is as many as a third of the young girls had been abused, and when I talk about abuse I&#8217;m talking about sexual, I&#8217;m talking about horrible things that have happened to these young girls, and by the way they&#8217;re 12 years old.</p>
<p>So I wanted to find out in my state at Fort Sill the HHS facility how many of the children there had been abused, and I asked them, how many have been abused?  Well, we don&#8217;t have those numbers.  So I asked somebody else, how many children here have been abused?  Well, we don&#8217;t have those numbers.  I couldn&#8217;t get an answer.  Finally I asked a contractor and the contractor said it&#8217;s well over 25 percent, and then another contractor said, sir, it is well over 25 percent, and friends, here&#8217;s what everybody in this room needs to understand, the question is where is this abuse occurring?  It&#8217;s not happening in these facilities.  The abuse is occurring on the way to the United States, and the reason it&#8217;s occurring is because the children that were coming across our southern border, they already have parents that have been smuggled into the United States illegally, hundreds of thousands of them in 2014, and they made a decision that they want their family to come, including their children, and so they hire a coyote down in Mexico, and the coyote goes down to Central America to bring the children up to the northern border, and here&#8217;s what happens, and people in this room understand this.  The GAO has indicated, has said that we have operational control of over 44 percent of our southern border.  That means 56 percent of our southern border is not under operational control, and if we don&#8217;t control it, friends, somebody else does.  In this particular case, it&#8217;s controlled by drug cartels, transnational criminal organizations and when those children get to the northern border of Mexico, the southern border of the United States, then those transnational criminal organizations say we need more money.  If you&#8217;re going to come into the United States &#8212; and by the way, if you control the southern border of the United States you can make a ton of money, and they are doing it.</p>
<p>And so the children get up there, and the organized crime says they need $10,000.00 and we&#8217;ll let you across the border.  How many of these children do you think have $10,000.00 on them?  They call their parents, their parents don&#8217;t have $10,000.00.  They barely had enough money to pay the coyote, and ultimately the children have to come up with $10,000.00 and the drug cartels will get their money.  So they force the children into slave labor.  The force the children into prostitution.  Some of the children disappear altogether and it goes from smuggling into human trafficking, and some of the children just get killed.</p>
<p>People don&#8217;t realize it, friends, but there are, estimates are 70,000 to 100,000 dead bodies in Northern Mexico as a direct result of our open southern border.  We talk about all the crisis in the Middle East, Syria and Iraq.  Horrible stuff happening there, but on our southern border we&#8217;ve got 100,000 dead bodies just south of our border, and friends, here&#8217;s the deal.  When the organized crime starts making all of this money, which they are making a ton of money right now, they destroy civil society in northern Mexico.  Friends, if you&#8217;re a judge, and I know Louie Gohmert is a judge, you understand this as well as anybody.  If you&#8217;re a judge, a police officer, a politician, a mayor in northern Mexico, in many cases you are either on the payroll of the organized crime or you are dead, which is why there&#8217;s this 70,000 to 100,000 dead bodies, many in mass graves in northern Mexico right now.  The southern border is a national security issue as much as it is anything, and I&#8217;m going to talk for a second about civilized society and how it&#8217;s being lost because we&#8217;re unwilling to actually enforce the law.  The Secure Fence Act, which was passed before I got there, requires 100 percent operational control of the southern border, and yet the president doesn&#8217;t enforce that law.</p>
<p>But here&#8217;s the situation, I used to mention in the bio, I&#8217;m a Navy pilot.  I flew combat in Afghanistan in 2002.  I flew combat in Iraq in 2003. In 2010, I joined a reserve squadron and I started flying counter-narcotics missions in Central and South America.  My squadron alone, VAW77, the world famous Night Wolves, we used to bust $2 billion worth of cocaine every year on the high seas, $2 billion.  My squadron was one of many units in the military that did this kind of operation.  My squadron got eliminated.  That means $2 billion worth of cocaine is coming into our country that didn&#8217;t use to come into our country and $2 billion worth of cash is going to organized crime in northern Mexico and Central America.  What do you think that does to those countries?  And by the way, my squadron was one of many military units that have been cut under the sequester, and it is decimating the Department of Defense, in ways right now that the American public doesn&#8217;t realize, but I&#8217;ll give you an example.</p>
<p>Nicaragua calls the United States and they say we&#8217;re losing our civil society here in Nicaragua, our judges, our politicians, our police officers.  We&#8217;ve got high crime rates.  The organized crime is controlling our country.  We need your help with some counter drug operations, to which the United States says, sorry, can&#8217;t help you.  Who does Nicaragua call next?  The Russians.  The Russians are more than happy to provide the intelligence surveillance reconnaissance assets.  The Russians are more than happy to provide the ships on the ocean, to do the counter-narcotics operations.  The only thing the Russians are asking in return is military basing.  Do they want military basing for those assets to encounter drug operations?  No.  They want military basing for long-range strategic bombers in our hemisphere, and by the way, Nicaragua is not the only country in our hemisphere under negotiations for long-range strategic bombing for Russian bombers right now.  You&#8217;ve got Cuba and Venezuela.  Friends, all of this is a national security issue.</p>
<p>The other day, I looked up Homeland Security.  There&#8217;s leaked information from Homeland Security of how many folks have come across the southern border from Guinea and Sierra Leone and Liberia.  Friends, it&#8217;s almost 500 people that have been caught coming across the southern border in 2014 from those three countries which have the greatest outbreak of Ebola.  Almost 500 people caught.  The GAO says that one out of every five gets caught, which means there&#8217;s thousands in this country from those countries that are just unaccounted for completely.  Friends, the southern border of the United States is a national security issue.  It&#8217;s a national health security issue, and here&#8217;s the important thing I want everybody in this room to take away: The children are victims.  It is not their fault, and we don&#8217;t not like them.  The humanitarian thing to do, the right thing to do, the thing that will save lives and protect them is to enforce the law.</p>
<p>So when you think about foreign policy and national security, friends, it starts right here at home and I just talked about Nicaragua and the Russian military basing that is potentially going to occur there because of our absence, and I want to be really clear about what Russian is up to.  They&#8217;ve invaded Georgia.  They’re occupying South Ossetia and Abkhazia in Georgia.  They&#8217;re moving the borders towards Tbilisi.  They&#8217;ve got 80,000 troops in Armenia.  They&#8217;ve cancelled energy contracts with Azerbaijan.  That&#8217;s all in the south caucuses.  You go over to Eastern Europe, the Baltic States.  Remember the Baltic States enthusiastically joined the European Union and NATO at the collapse of the Soviet Union.  Well, because of that Russia had to cut off their energy in the dead of winter.  People had to suffer.  People had to die.  In Poland in the Czech Republic they were building a missile defense shield.  Why were they building a missile defense shield in Poland?  It had nothing to do with the Russians.  It’s because Iran is building longer range missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads and the Europeans said, we’ve got to have a missile defense shield to which Vladimir Putin said, if you keep building that missile defense shield, he said this through his generals, he said, we&#8217;re going to have nuclear war in Poland and the Czech Republic, and I&#8217;m sure everybody in this room remembers when the President of the United States met with Medvedev after that incident. He said wait until after my next election.  I&#8217;ll have the flexibility to bring down that missile defense shield and guess what happened.  He got elected.  The missile defense shield came down and then the Russians moved very quickly to give Edward Snowden asylum.  Friends, here is the lesson, and every lesson of history teaches this: Weakness is provocative and the more we demonstrate weakness the more we will be taken advantage of and the more provocative the enemies of the United States will be.</p>
<p>Then we get to Ukraine, Yanukovych.  This was Thanksgiving.  It was a year ago.  Yanukovych was trying to enter into an agreement with the European Union.  It was social reform, political reform, economic reform.  He wasn&#8217;t joining the European Union, but it included trade, and if you remember Vladimir Putin himself flew to Kiev on our Thanksgiving Day and he said if you sign that agreement we&#8217;re going to cut your energy off, and remember it was going into winter.  It was Thanksgiving Day and they did this before December 31, 2005.  In Ukraine people suffered, people died, they did it in 2009 as well.  So now Yanukovych makes the decision okay I&#8217;m going to align with Moscow temporarily.  Why?  Because he wants to keep energy for his people through the winter.  His people revolt.  Why?  They want freedom.  They want independence.  As people revolt Kiev gets set on fire and then Russia uses that as an excuse to invade and occupy Crimea and make no mistake, regardless of what the State Department says, Russia is now occupying broader eastern Ukraine.  That is happening right now and let&#8217;s talk about where else Russia is active. They&#8217;re helping the Assad regime in Syria, propping them up.  The Mullahs in Iran.  They&#8217;re going around the sanctions because Russia is enabling it.  19,000 nuclear centrifuges in Iran.  I&#8217;m sorry, there is no peaceful nuclear program that needs 19,000 nuclear centrifuges, and under the President&#8217;s P5+1 Joint Plan of Action they&#8217;re going to continue to allow Iran to enrich uranium with 9,000 plus nuclear centrifuges. They&#8217;re not even mentioning the heavy water reactor for plutonium in Iraq. The facility in Parchin which is responsible for creating the devices that can fly on long-range missiles, and I&#8217;m talking about of course nuclear capabilities. None of these are being talked about in the P5+1 Joint Plan of Action on Iran and I&#8217;m going to anchor here for one second.</p>
<p>There is a reason what the President is doing right now to accommodate Iran is wrong and it is because it is extremely dangerous and destabilizing for the best ally the United States has in the Middle East, Israel.  And I will say this on Israel, the Land of Judea and Samaria is not occupied territory.  It belongs to the Jewish people who have had a relationship with that land for over 4,000 years.  And neither the President of the United States or the United Nations has any authority to give that land away.  Only Israel has the authority to negotiate over the land that belongs to Israel, period, end of story.  So you think about what&#8217;s happening in the world and you see that weakness is indeed provocative.  When you think about what Russia is doing, and by the way here&#8217;s an easy answer on the Russian issue.  People don&#8217;t realize this.  Russia relies on energy for 53 percent of its revenue to the Kremlin.  Fifty-three percent of the revenue to the Kremlin is from the export of energy and 84 percent of that energy is going to Eastern Europe, who by the way send ambassadors to my office in Washington, D.C. asking us to send our energy because they no longer want to be dependent on Moscow.  There is an easy way to solve this crisis.  We could dry up 53 percent of Russia&#8217;s revenue simply by exporting American energy.  And interestingly, it&#8217;s not Moscow that&#8217;s preventing us from exporting American energy.  It&#8217;s Washington, D.C.  Friends there are solutions here and, by the way, here&#8217;s the thing: That&#8217;s not a sanction, that&#8217;s allowing the free market to be free, and I know people in this room believe in free markets.  It doesn&#8217;t require firing a shot. It doesn&#8217;t require a sanction, and, oh, by the way, Russia has recently seen fit to send long-range bombers to the Gulf of Mexico.  I don&#8217;t know if you guys have read these reports, and interestingly they&#8217;re defense minister came back and said, well, that&#8217;s not going to work as long as energy prices are about $80.00 a barrel.  We can&#8217;t afford to do this.  Friends energy prices are going to come back and it&#8217;s up to the United States to actually fill the void that everybody understands is happening in Eastern Europe as it relates to energy.</p>
<p>I want to, I&#8217;m going to close here.  I know Ann told me not to take a long time so I&#8217;m not going to take a long time.  I want to close here. Actually, I&#8217;m going to say one thing.  I have to talk about ISIS.  I have to talk about the Middle East and then I&#8217;m going to close.  I flew combat in Afghanistan in 2002.  I flew combat in Iraq in 2003.  Our Americans, in 2002, or, actually, I don&#8217;t &#8212; it was early in the war &#8212; we damaged a guy named al-Zarqawi.  He was a Lieutenant to Osama Bin Laden.  You guys probably remember al-Zarqawi.  It was compliments of a 500-pound bomb, compliments of the United States Air Force, that damaged al-Zarqawi, and as a Navy pilot that pains me to say that the Air Force dropped that weapon, and I say that with all due respect to Governor Rick Perry who&#8217;s in the front row here who&#8217;s an Air Force pilot himself.  We&#8217;re good, he says we&#8217;re good.  Thank you. sir.  But here&#8217;s the important thing: al-Zarqawi was in Afghanistan, he was part of al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. He was a Lieutenant to Osama Bin Laden, and when we damaged him, his ribs, his leg &#8212; he went to Uday Hussein&#8217;s hospital in Iraq.  That&#8217;s where he went to get his care, and at Uday Hussein&#8217;s hospital he got cured and then he became the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, and ultimately he was killed compliments of two 500-pound bombs of the United States Air Force, but not before he trained his own lieutenant, al-Baghdadi, who now is the leader of ISIS.  Friends, this is an al-Qaeda affiliated force.  All of the authorities necessary to destroy it currently exist, and the President shouldn&#8217;t go on TV and give us a laundry list of everything he won&#8217;t do and, oh, by the way, when he gives us that laundry list he&#8217;s giving it to the enemies of the United States.  What he should do is he should go on TV and tell us what he&#8217;s already done to eliminate this threat, and it could have been eliminated, and if you go back to 2006 when Obama was a senator, he said these words.  He said a precipitous withdraw from Iraq would lead to &#8220;chaos, terrorism, ethnic cleansing, genocide.&#8221;  He said it would engulf broad swaths of the Middle East and endanger the United States of America.  Senator Obama in 2006.  Then he ran for President.</p>
<p>Well that message wasn&#8217;t going to work when you&#8217;re running for President, so then he said it was an unjust war.  That we took our eye off the ball, which was Afghanistan, and he&#8217;s going to be the President that would end this war.  Then he became President, and if you look at what happened next, he had his own Iraq team.  Ambassador Crocker, General Petraeus.  They said keep 20,000 to 24,000 troops in Iraq.  Keep them because we&#8217;ve had all these gains from the surge.  If you remember the Iraqi economy was growing. Things were at peace.  You had an inclusive government, stability and his team said keep 20,000 to 24,000 troops.  You have to have that or else we&#8217;re going to lose the gains of the surge, and the President said, no, I promised something else, give me a different plan, and they come back with a different plan, and they said keep 10,000 troops.  It&#8217;s going to require more risk.  By the way, when they say more risk, for those of us in the military that means more of us are going to suffer.  It will require more risk, but we can sustain the gains of the surge with 10,000 troops.  The President said, no, I promised something else.  Then it was the President himself in a phone call with Malaki who said that any status of forces agreement we come to has to be ratified by the Iraqi Parliament, and, friends, for those of us in the military the status of forces agreement is how we have diplomatic immunity.  It is how when we fight in a foreign country we fall under American law not under foreign law, and that&#8217;s critically important if you want to have a foreign fighter.  And the President, in a phone call with Malaki &#8212; historically all the status of forces agreement is, is an exchange of diplomatic letters.  It&#8217;s our State Department and their diplomats saying we&#8217;re going to exchange diplomatic letters, Americans have diplomatic immunity.  That&#8217;s all it had ever been, but because the President wanted a zero-two presence in Iraq, ultimately he said it has to be ratified by the Iraqi Parliament, knowing full well that the Iraqi Parliament can&#8217;t agree on what day of the week it is, let alone how many American troops need to be in Iraq.  The agreement was scuttled.  Every last troop came home.  And just as Senator Obama predicted in 2006, chaos, terrorism, ethnic cleansing, genocide.  It engulfs broad swaths of the Middle East and it&#8217;s a danger to the United States of America.</p>
<p>Al-Baghdadi has said himself that the next confrontation will be directly against the United States of America.  Friends, al-Qaeda was a terrorist organization.  ISIS is a caliphate.  It has an army.  It is well trained.  It is well financed.  It is well equipped.  They&#8217;re recruiting from throughout the world and they are looking for people that have American passports, and indeed they have recruited hundreds of Americans to join their ranks, many of which the administration has already admitted have come back to the United States.  Friends, this is a very real threat.  It has to be taken seriously, and what I will tell you is this: This idea that we are going to train and equip so-called &#8220;moderate Syrians&#8221; is not gonna work.  Here&#8217;s what they said, we&#8217;re gonna have 5,000 troops in a year; 5,000 moderate Syrian rebels in a year.  By the way, a lot of them have already fled and turned over weapons to ISIS and 5,000 &#8212; I gave a speech, in fact, I talked to Mike at the Red State Convention down in Fort Worth, Texas.  I hear a clap for Fort Worth. And at the time in that speech I was talking about how dangerous ISIS was because they&#8217;ve got 15,000 troops in their army.  Well now the CIA unclassified is saying that it&#8217;s 30,000 troops in a matter of just a couple of months, and again now they&#8217;ve got heavy armor, American tanks, Abrams Tanks, with ISIS flags flying on the top.  This idea that we&#8217;re gonna train and equip so-called moderates, it hasn&#8217;t worked.  If you look at what weapons they have right now, it&#8217;s because we train and equip the Iraqi Army, which fled at the first conflict.  Friends, this is going to require American leadership, and this is a critically important thing that America has to understand.  Without us, it&#8217;s only going to grow, and the longer we wait the worse it gets, and I want to be clear again why this is so dangerous not only to us, but ISIS has its sights set on Israel.  This is a threat to Israel, our greatest ally in the Middle East.</p>
<p>Now, sure.  I would like to, I&#8217;m gonna close now.  At this time I really am.  I see Mike standing over here.  I might take a few more minutes just to upset Ann Coulter.  Okay here&#8217;s a &#8212; I&#8217;m in such trouble.  When I first got elected a friend of mine came to me and he said, he worked really hard, he delivered all kinds of signs throughout the neighborhood.  I challenged an incumbent Republican in a Republican primary which is very difficult and it&#8217;s very hard to find friends when you&#8217;re doing that, but this guy was loyal to me from day one, he worked really hard and we overcame millions of dollars and 11 years of incumbency, and he said I will never ask from you for anything, but I just want one thing I said, and he said, it&#8217;s the only thing that I will ever ask for, he said I want you to get a group, a bipartisan group, Republicans and Democrats alike, and I want you to go down to Arlington National Cemetery and sit there for an hour together and reflect on all the sacrifice that has been given for this nation, and a couple of months ago we made that happen.  Four hundred thousand markers.  Hill after hill, row after row, mile after mile.  Freshman class Republicans and Democrats alike reflecting on the sacrifice and, friends, that is a very small portion of all the sacrifice that has been given for this great country.  One of the markers, there is a gentleman named Martin Treptow who fought in World War I.  Ronald Reagan talked about him in his first inaugural address, and he died on the Western Front delivering messages back and forth between battalions, and when they recovered his body they found on him a journal and in that journal they found these words.  It said &#8212; and he was a barber from Illinois who got drafted.  His words said:  &#8220;America must win this war.  Therefore I will work, I will save, I will sacrifice, I will endure.  I will fight cheerfully and do my utmost as if the issue of the whole struggle depended on me alone.&#8221;</p>
<p>It wasn&#8217;t just a few weeks ago now I went down to a funeral for a friend of mine who died in the Middle East, and this was in Georgia, and my whole squadron &#8212; he got, he was sent, what we call individual augmentation.  He&#8217;s a Navy pilot, but he got sent on the ground to the Middle East, and there he died.  So we were at his funeral.  My whole squadron, VAW77, the Night Wolves, my squadron, which no longer exists to do the counter-drug operations that I&#8217;ve already talked about, but all the Night Wolves gathered and we spent time talking about our friend.  The last time I saw these guys I was just a pilot in the squadron and here I am with my buddies and now I&#8217;m a member of Congress.  Thanks.  And they looked at me and they said, &#8220;Jim, our country is in peril.  We have threats all over the world that will change the landscape for the next generation,&#8221; and it&#8217;s not just foreign, it&#8217;s also domestic.  They said, &#8220;We are willing&#8221; &#8212; they&#8217;re not with 77 anymore, but they&#8217;re all still serving in the reserves somewhere &#8212; &#8220;we are willing, but we&#8217;ve got to have leadership.  We need somebody that will stand up and tell us what needs to be done, &#8217;cause right now we are not feeling it.&#8221;  Friends there is an entire country of people who served this nation in uniform and every single one of them feels the way Martin Treptow felt when he wrote that in his journal and I got to tell you as a member of Congress who&#8217;s serving his first term, I got to tell ya, that is the one thing more than anything else that gives me hope and I really do have a lot of hope.  What is right about America, and I know this has been said before, can fix what is wrong about America and there&#8217;s an entire nation of people that are willing to do the right thing knowing that we need to handoff to the next generation what we ourselves inherited.  Thank you so much for having me.  It&#8217;s an honor to be here.</p>
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		<title>Rushing the National Defense Authorization Act</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/arnold-ahlert/rushing-passage-of-the-national-defense-authorization-act/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=rushing-passage-of-the-national-defense-authorization-act</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 05 Dec 2014 05:10:48 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Arnold Ahlert]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[gender]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Military]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[National Defense Authorization Act]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[quota]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[social engineering]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=246741</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[A lame-duck Congress puts military lives on the line. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p style="color: #232323;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Army-legs.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-246742" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Army-legs-450x300.jpg" alt="Army-legs" width="363" height="242" /></a>A lame duck Congress is on the verge of <a href="http://townhall.com/columnists/hughhewitt/2014/12/03/memo-to-the-senate-gop-class-of-2016-what-are-you-nuts-n1926861/page/full"><span style="color: #1255cc;">sticking it</span></a> to America’s troops. Before they leave for recess they will attempt to pass the FY2015 version of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). It is a compendium of ill-advised ideas seemingly aimed at advancing the Obama administration’s continuing effort to “fundamentally transform” the finest fighting force in the world into something more closely resembling a social-outreach organization. Sadly, Republicans, apparently oblivious to the mandate just handed to them by the electorate, are on board.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Unsurprisingly, the effort to <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/24/us/politics/pentagon-plans-to-shrink-army-to-pre-world-war-ii-level.html?_r=0"><span style="color: #1255cc;">shrink</span></a> the military to its smallest size since WWII will be borne in large part by those who do the fighting and dying. A scheduled pay raise of 1.8 percent will be <a href="http://www.militarytimes.com/story/military/benefits/pay/allowances/2014/12/02/ndaa-deal-pay-raise/19784183/"><span style="color: #1255cc;">reduced</span></a> to one percent, there will be reduced growth in the troops’ Basic Housing Allowance (BHA) for those who cannot be accommodated on military bases, and a $3 copay will be added to the cost of prescription medication. For Americans who think this is no big deal, here is the <a href="http://www.militaryrates.com/military-pay-charts-e1_e5_2014"><span style="color: #1255cc;">2014 Military Pay Chart</span></a> revealing the troops’ relatively meager pay levels, even for those with decades of service to our nation.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Yet it is the ever-reliable Center for Military Readiness (CMR) that <a href="http://cmrlink.org/content/home/37616/problematic_proposals_in_national_defense_authorization_act_for_2015_ndaa"><span style="color: #1255cc;">details</span></a> the far more pernicious agendas advanced in this bill. While troops bear the aforementioned reductions, pork still prevails. Sections in a version of the bill conceived by the Senate Armed Services Committee would establish a feminist-oriented entity to be known as the &#8220;Defense Advisory Committee on Investigation, Prosecution, and Defense of Sexual Assault in the Armed Forces.&#8221; As the CMR explains, this &#8220;would establish yet another power base in the Pentagon for feminists who believe that a person accused of sexual misconduct is automatically guilty, unless he is somehow (against all odds) found innocent because of &#8216;anti-women&#8217; legal procedures that must be ‘fixed.&#8217;&#8221;</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Even as the military is enduring cuts that shrink every branch of our armed forces, a large increase in gender quotas, aimed at increasing the recruitment of women into military service academies by an additional 20 percent, is also part of the agenda. There is nothing wrong with recruiting women, but as indicated by both the Defense Department and the left-leaning RAND corporation, there has been no evidence of insufficient efforts to do so. What this is really all about is the ongoing effort to integrate women into direct ground combat (DGC) units, despite extensive <a href="http://www.cmrlink.org/data/sites/85/CMRDocuments/InterimCMRSpecRpt-100314.pdf"><span style="color: #1255cc;">evidence</span></a> that standards of effectiveness would be compromised in the process. Regardless of biological reality, the Obama administration has embraced “gender diversity metrics,” allowing more qualified personnel to be replaced by those meeting minimum standards laughably referred to as “lower but equal.”</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">An October article in The Hill<a href="http://thehill.com/policy/defense/219685-enlisted-women-to-begin-serving-on-submarines"><span style="color: #1255cc;"> announcing</span></a> the effort to integrate a fixed percentage of women onto ballistic missile submarines, is illustrative of the current thinking. Navy Cmdr. Renee Squier, head of the Office of Women&#8217;s Policy for the Chief of Naval Personnel, explains that &#8220;the goal is to have each unit have 20 percent,” in order to build a &#8220;good ecosystem&#8221; for female submariners. As the CMR <a href="http://www.cmrlink.org/articles/print/35896?author=0&amp;image=0&amp;domain=0"><span style="color: #1255cc;">reveals</span></a> this is being done despite evidence that submarine “ecosystems,” that include &#8220;prolonged exposure to chemical contaminants in the constantly recirculated air” pose unique health risks for female sailors. As told to Front Page by CMR president Elaine Donnelly, her organization filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to determine whether female sailors had been made aware of those potential health risks. In keeping with this administration’s contemptible track record, the CMR was stonewalled.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">The CMR also blows up the notion that women need to be in direct ground combat units to advance their careers. &#8220;For decades, women have been promoted at rates equal to or faster than men,” CMR explains, further citing a Defense Department report submitted to Congress in 2012 that states<i> &#8220;</i>there is no indication of women having less than equitable opportunities to compete and excel under current assignment policy…&#8221;</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Quotas are only part of the equation here. As <a href="http://dailysignal.com/2014/12/02/congresss-sneaky-tactic-grab-u-s-land-government/"><span style="color: #1255cc;">revealed</span></a> by the Daily Signal, the 2015 NDAA may also include a provision adding as much as &#8220;250,000 additional acres of wilderness, four new national parks and seven national park studies (future parks-to-be)” to the federal government’s real estate portfolio. That would be a portfolio of federally-owned property that, <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/may/4/this-land-is-whose-land-ranch-standoff-reveals-ext/?page=all"><span style="color: #1255cc;">according</span></a> to a 2012 Congressional Research Survey, now totals approximately 640 million acres comprising approximately 28 percent of the nation’s entire land mass. As the Signal notes, &#8220;the importance of the NDAA to the defense budgeting process and its traditional status as a &#8216;must-pass&#8217; piece of legislation makes it an inviting target for pet projects and wasteful spending,” one where &#8220;lawmakers are trying to end-run the normal legislative process in a rushed, closed-door approach.”</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Why the rush? Vanity appears to be an integral part of the equation. House Armed Services Committee Chairman Buck McKeon (R-CA) and Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin (D-MI), both of whom are retiring, are reportedly jamming this bill through the lame duck session &#8212; so the bill can be named after them. To further that effort, a mechanism known as <a href="https://www.senate.gov/reference/glossary_term/unanimous_consent.htm"><span style="color: #1255cc;">Unanimous Consent</span></a>, defined as setting aside a specified rule of procedure so as to expedite proceedings—as in everyone agreeing not to add amendments to the bill that would require time-consuming votes—is being employed.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Ms. Donnelly was critical of the lack of transparency that has surrounded passage of the NDAA in previous cycles, in addition to this one. &#8220;A process that is not transparent, like the ObamaCare bill for example, invites big policy mistakes which have serious consequences,” she warned. &#8220;The primary offense is not what’s there but what’s not: appropriate oversight.” With regard to many of the sexual issues that concern the CMR, Donnelly see an ongoing “emphasis on social change,” much of which is being pushed using what she refers to as “perception management,” a term <a href="http://davidbaldacci.com/book/the-whole-truth/"><span style="color: #1255cc;">coined</span></a> by author David Baldacci. “The military is attempting to create a (gender-based) reality that doesn’t exist and getting people to believe it,” she explains.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Nothing illuminates that perception management better than the aforementioned phrase “lower but equal,” and one is left to wonder why Republicans, who will have far more leverage over the process in January, are collaborating with Democrats to rush the passage of the NDAA before then. The American electorate, and the men and women who have volunteered to defend this nation, deserve more thought, more transparency and more pushback against an Obama administration and a Democratic Party all determined to make the American military virtually indistinguishable from politically correct American society. In a world fraught with danger, it is a fatal mistake to do so.</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>A Radical Muslim in the Navy</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/joe-kaufman/a-radical-muslim-in-the-navy-1/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=a-radical-muslim-in-the-navy-1</link>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 02 Dec 2014 05:04:20 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Joe Kaufman]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[CAIR]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Hamas]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Islam]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Military]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Navy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[radicalism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Terrorism]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=246496</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The high military offices that CAIR's reach may extend to -- thanks to one individual. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/282005_198389416888171_294440_n.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-246478" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/282005_198389416888171_294440_n-450x340.jpg" alt="282005_198389416888171_294440_n" width="352" height="266" /></a>Those who serve in the United States military and take an oath to protect our nation are lauded for their service, and rightfully so. Yet, it is highly immoral, if not outright evil and traitorous, for someone who has served in the U.S. military to exploit their military connections whilst taking leadership roles within groups associated with terror. It appears that that is what Muslim convert Wilfredo Amr Ruiz has done and is doing with his work for Islamist groups CAIR and AMANA, and his actions deserve scrutiny, reprimand and repudiation.</p>
<p>Wilfredo Ruiz has served in the U.S. Navy in two capacities, once as a lawyer under the Navy’s Judge Advocate General (JAG), from the years 1993 through 1997, and once as a chaplain under the Navy’s Chaplain Candidate Officer’s Program, which he took on after he had begun religious studies, in 2005, at a seminary in Hartford, Connecticut.</p>
<p>Sometime in 2003, during the time between his two Naval exercises, he made the decision to convert to Islam. He came to the States via Puerto Rico, where he grew up practicing Catholicism.</p>
<p>Not only did he embrace his new religion, but right away he embraced the extremist ideology that is a part of it, leading him to actively pursue a course that is causing death and destruction worldwide. According to corporate filings, in September 2003, Ruiz was the Director of the Puerto Rico office for AMANA.</p>
<p>AMANA is the brainchild of Palestinian activist Sofian Abdelaziz Zakkout. Zakkout is the former Vice President of the now defunct Health Resource Center for Palestine (HRCP), a group associated with Hamas that operated out of Deerfield Beach, Florida.</p>
<p>This past July, as <a href="http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2014/08/13/Palestinian-Leader-in-Miami-Boasts-about-Conquering-American-Jews"><span style="color: #0433ff;">reported in Breitbart</span></a>, Zakkout posted on his Facebook page the following in Arabic: “Praise be to God, each day we conquer the American Jews like our conquests over the Jews of Israel. Your brother, Sofian”</p>
<p>While Zakkout is the main driving force behind AMANA, Ruiz is not a minor player. Ruiz plays a major role in promoting the group’s Islamist agenda.</p>
<p>Not only did he run the AMANA office in Puerto Rico, but he also opened another AMANA office in Hartford, Connecticut. In fact, the web address attached to the Hartford office was the same one used by the national office, al-amana.org.</p>
<p>In the time Ruiz has been involved with AMANA, the group’s website has included various material vilifying Jews, Christians and homosexuals; the website linked to al-Qaeda financing and recruitment sites; and the website prominently featured an anti-Semitic video of David Duke on it, which brought on a condemnation of AMANA by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL).</p>
<p>In one article <a href="http://www.americansagainsthate.org/ICBR_and_AMANA_Articles_About_Jews.htm"><span style="color: #0433ff;">previously found on Ruiz’s AMANA website</span></a>, it is stated, “Every believer [Muslim] should firmly believe that the Jews and Christians are kuffaar [infidels] and enemies of Allaah, His deen, the Prophet Muhammad, and the Believers… The efforts to gain the friendship of the Jews and Christians are useless, as they will never be pleased with the Muslims until the Muslims follow their religion.”</p>
<p>Ruiz additionally is the Executive Director of AMANA’s sister organization, American Muslims for Emergency and Relief (AMER). AMER uses the same Miami physical and mailing addresses as AMANA.</p>
<p>From 2005 till 2007, Ruiz attended the Hartford Seminary, where he worked on his Masters in Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations. The entire time Ruiz was there, the professor of Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations was a fellow Islamist convert named Ingrid Mattson.</p>
<p>When Ruiz started at the seminary, Mattson was the Vice President of the largest Muslim Brotherhood-related group in the United States, the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA). In the following year, 2006, she became President of ISNA.</p>
<p>Mattson founded the Islamic Chaplaincy program at Hartford Seminary. As mentioned, after beginning his education at the seminary, Ruiz worked to become a chaplain for the Navy, specifically a Muslim Chaplain.</p>
<p>According to Ruiz’s bio, he worked as a chaplain at the Immigration Service Processing Centers in Puerto Rico and in Miami. Question: Did Wifredo Amr Ruiz go to seminary and take up chaplaincy specifically to better serve the radical Islamic goals of his bigoted group AMANA.</p>
<p>Today, Ruiz acts as AMANA’s legal advisor. However, he also does legal work for another Islamist organization, CAIR. He is CAIR-Florida’s legal counsel.</p>
<p>CAIR was established as being part of the American Palestine Committee, an umbrella organization acting as a terrorist enterprise run by then-global Hamas leader Mousa Abu Marzook, who was based in the U.S. at the time and who now operates out of Egypt as a spokesman for Hamas. In 2007 and 2008, amidst two federal trials, the U.S. government named CAIR a co-conspirator in the raising of millions of dollars for Hamas.</p>
<p>No doubt, having Ruiz represent both CAIR and AMANA serves to bring the two groups together, helping them to exert more influence. Indeed, in 2012, 2013 and 2014, the groups joined to co-sponsor rallies to speak out about violence in Syria, Egypt and Gaza. The latter event took place in Downtown Miami on July 20, 2014.</p>
<p>The rally was supposed to be in support of Gaza, but it quickly turned into one that was instead pro-Hamas. A smiling Sofian Zakkout is seen on video, as coordinated chants of “Let’s go Hamas” and “We are Hamas” are shouted from the crowd. A reporter was also assaulted by rally goers, targeted for being Jewish (“Zionist”).</p>
<p>CAIR issued a statement saying that it had nothing to do with the rally, but a flyer for the event clearly shows the CAIR-Florida logo next to its AMANA logo counterpart. AMANA’s Zakkout organized the rally, and numerous pictures of the flyer are <a href="http://i1227.photobucket.com/albums/ee431/kaufmanforcongress/AMANA_CAIR_Hamas_Rally_July_2014.jpg"><span style="color: #0433ff;">still found on his Facebook site</span></a>. These flyers are not unlike the flyers that were made up for the other rallies involving CAIR and AMANA, containing CAIR and AMANA logos.</p>
<p>On November 15, Ruiz participated in the CAIR-South Florida annual banquet held at a hotel in Fort Lauderdale. He stood up on stage with the other CAIR-Florida leaders, including CAIR-South Florida Executive Director Nezar Hamze and CAIR-Tampa Executive Director Hassan Shibly, who has stated that he believes Hezbollah is not a terrorist organization.</p>
<p>Earlier in the day – the same day as the banquet – the government of United Arab Emirates (UAE) named CAIR a terrorist organization, along with violent groups such as al-Qaeda, Boco Haraam and ISIS.</p>
<p>Ruiz brought his family, including his wife and two underage kids, with him to the banquet. Given the radical Islamic nature of the groups sponsoring the event, one can argue that this was child abuse.</p>
<p>Outside the banquet was a peaceful protest, which this author attended and delivered a speech at. Ruiz came outside to intimidate and take photos of all the protesters.</p>
<p>Ruiz was <a href="http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-TV/2014/11/20/CAIR-Attorneys-Harass-Protesters"><span style="color: #0433ff;">caught on video having words with the protest organizer</span></a>. He asked the organizer if he had “ever served” [in the military]. He asked the organizer if he knew “who is a patriot,” and then stated emphatically “I’m a Naval officer, brother.”</p>
<p>Question: Can Ruiz operate under the guise of a patriot having served or currently serving in the U.S. military, while at the same time aiding and abetting organizations involved with Islamic terrorism?</p>
<p>In Ruiz’s case, the answer is clear. His involvement with CAIR and AMANA negates any pretense of patriotism, and instead open the door for questions about subversion.</p>
<p><i>Beila Rabinowitz, Director of Militant Islam Monitor, contributed to this report.</i></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>Trapped in Afghanistan Between Obama and the Taliban</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/trapped-in-afghanistan-between-obama-and-the-taliban/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=trapped-in-afghanistan-between-obama-and-the-taliban</link>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 24 Nov 2014 05:05:47 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Afghanistan]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[al Qaeda]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Military]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obama]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[troops]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=245954</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Never before has an administration been so casual about putting American troops in harm’s way to protect a politician’s approval ratings.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/obama-veterans-affairs-carejpeg-01d5e.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-245955" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/obama-veterans-affairs-carejpeg-01d5e-391x350.jpg" alt="Eric Shinseki" width="303" height="271" /></a>Never before has an administration been so casual about putting American troops in harm’s way to protect a politician’s approval ratings.</p>
<p>American forces were supposed to be out of Afghanistan by the end of 2014, but in a covert acknowledgement that Obama’s withdrawal from Iraq was a disaster, that isn’t happening.</p>
<p>Afghanistan has been Obama’s bloodiest war and his most neglected war. It’s a war that hardly appears in major papers anymore, but while in terms of damage done Iraq and Libya may be Obama’s biggest disasters, in terms of American lives lost there’s no question that Afghanistan was his worst war.</p>
<p>Obama never had a strategy for Afghanistan. As best as anyone could determine he made a major commitment to it to provide political cover for his Iraq withdrawal. Once he committed to Afghanistan, he had no idea what to actually do there except get a lot of Americans killed while trying to appease the “moderate” Taliban who turned out not to exist despite Qatar’s best efforts to manufacture them.</p>
<p>Since Al Qaeda was a major threat in Iraq (a threat that eventually became ISIS) and Obama needed to disguise his withdrawal from Iraq by blaming Bush for being too weak on national security (a difficult trick for an anti-war lefty), he falsely claimed that Bush had neglected fighting Al Qaeda in Afghanistan.</p>
<p>There was just one problem, Al Qaeda had largely been broken in Afghanistan and had scattered to other conflicts. There were a handful of Al Qaeda fighters left. There was certainly nothing that required a major troop surge to handle. There was nothing for American soldiers to do there except die.</p>
<p>Bush had gone into Afghanistan with a plan to deny Al Qaeda a safe haven. Obama dusted off that same plan without caring as to whether or not there were even any Al Qaeda in Afghanistan while mixing it together with Bush’s troop surge in Iraq. If nothing else the end result was bound to be Bush’s fault.</p>
<p>Obama went into Afghanistan as a distraction. Unable to make decisions about the war, he forced the commanders to embarrass him by shaking him down for troops. Obama responded by lashing out and replacing commanders the way that losing teams replace coaches. It was an ugly spectacle that wrecked morale and set the tone for a destructive and contentious relationship with the military.</p>
<p>American soldiers were thrown into battle without being allowed to win. They weren’t fighting a war for territory, but for hearts and minds. It was a senseless strategy that threw away the lives of American soldiers in the hopes of winning a local popularity contest against the Taliban.</p>
<p>The rules of engagement focused on preventing Afghan civilian casualties in a war where the other side wore no uniforms. Air support was denied. The odds between ISAF and the Taliban were evened out. And a lot of lives were lost. More American soldiers died in Afghanistan during one term of Obama than had been killed during the entire Bush presidency.</p>
<p>The plan to split the Taliban into moderate and extreme wings by making them unpopular failed miserably. Everything since then has been a holding pattern. The number of casualties has dropped with the actual fighting. American soldiers are still there not to win or even to fight, but to keep Obama from looking bad in case anything goes wrong.</p>
<p>Obama signed on to a troop surge in Afghanistan to cover for his disastrous move in Iraq. Now the troops are staying on to avoid the spectacle of the Taliban overrunning the country ISIS style. Afghanistan has never been an actual priority for Obama. It has always been a way for him to deal with the political consequences of his decisions in Iraq.</p>
<p>Now the war has ground down to its predictable final stage in which the American presence is renamed as advisory even while combat operations continue.</p>
<p>Obama can’t leave Afghanistan because of the political consequences. But he still has no plan for Afghanistan and it’s the generals who are once again pushing him to have a strategic plan that protects American lives and accomplishes something useful instead of a political agenda that protects his own approval rating.</p>
<p><span style="color: #0433ff;"><a href="http://libertyunyielding.com/2014/11/23/nyt-blindly-reports-obamas-reluctance-let-troops-defend-afghanistan/">As J.E. Dyer, a retired Naval Intelligence officer</a></span>, pointed out, “The generals… want to be proactive in defending their troops against terrorist threats.  They don’t want to just wait – hunkered down on bases, or exposed and vulnerable while they’re out supporting the Afghan national forces – for terrorists to find American troops and attack them.”</p>
<p>But Obama has achieved what he sees as the best of both worlds, a troop presence with low casualty levels that provides him with all the political cover he needs, but with none of the negatives of flag-draped caskets. The official word is that the United States is assisting and advising, it’s helping stabilize the government of Afghanistan and those are safe buzzwords that few can possibly object to.</p>
<p>When it came to Afghanistan, Obama always wanted to be seen doing something. His motives were political. His objectives in Afghanistan were not those of national security, but domestic politics.</p>
<p>Obama had an actual objective, regime change, in Libya, but he didn’t even have that much in Afghanistan. Instead he constantly framed the war in terms of fighting a phantom Al Qaeda enemy. And since the enemy didn’t exist he could easily claim to have beaten it while ignoring the rise of ISIS in Iraq that so many Americans had died trying to prevent.</p>
<p>Now Obama is stuck in Afghanistan because he’s too afraid of the political fallout of leaving.</p>
<p>The only lesson that Obama learned from his disastrous withdrawal from Iraq was that it was safer not to withdraw. Instead American soldiers are trapped between Obama’s approval ratings and the Taliban with no mission left to accomplish except to avoid attracting attention to themselves by dying or killing.</p>
<p>There is no longer a plan to deal with the Taliban. The idea that Afghanistan will retain a stable government is implausible. Even the idea that its military can take the weight of a serious assault is also unlikely. But Obama wants all of that to be someone else’s problem. He is passing on Afghanistan as a hot potato to his successor so that someone else will have to take the blame for Afghanistan.</p>
<p>Obama’s actions in Afghanistan tell the story of his ugly disregard for national security and the lives of our soldiers. The surge was sold using a lie about an Al Qaeda threat in Afghanistan that no longer existed. Now the presence of American forces is being passed off as advisory when what that really means is that Americans will be under fire, but unstable to set the terms on which they meet the enemy.</p>
<p>After all this time Americans deserve the truth. If American soldiers are going to be in harm’s way, they should have a mission and the ability to accomplish it.</p>
<p>Those are two things that they never had under Obama.</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 Obama Doctrine: Undermine the Military, Coddle Enemies and Distance Friends</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/ari-lieberman/the-obama-doctrine-undermine-the-military-coddle-enemies-and-distance-friends/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-obama-doctrine-undermine-the-military-coddle-enemies-and-distance-friends</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 09 Oct 2014 04:35:41 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Ari Lieberman]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Andrew Tahmooressi]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Clint Lorance]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Military]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[murder]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=242733</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Two cases of injustice toward soldiers highlight the administration's warped priorities. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<div id="attachment_242737" style="width: 341px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/10200569180172727.jpg"><img class=" wp-image-242737" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/10200569180172727-394x350.jpg" alt="Clint Lorance" width="331" height="294" /></a><p class="wp-caption-text">Clint Lorance</p></div>
<p>On October 1, former Navy Lieutenant Commander and 22-year veteran Montel Williams <a href="http://www.theblaze.com/blog/2014/10/01/watch-montel-williamss-emotional-plea-for-president-obama-to-save-sgt-tahmooressi/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">addressed</span></a> a congressional committee on the subject of Afghan war veteran and US marine, Sgt. Andrew Tahmooressi. Tahmooressi was imprisoned by Mexican authorities in March 2014 after mistakenly veering into Mexican territory while driving along a poorly lit section of the border and was found to be in possession of firearms, illegal under Mexican law, but permitted under US law. In an impassioned plea punctuated by heartfelt emotion, Williams drew the logical conclusion concerning the Obama administration’s handling of the matter – that the government is unconcerned about the fate of its soldiers.</p>
<p>For six months, the administration has allowed a marine, diagnosed with PTSD, to languish in a Mexican jail when one phone call from the Commander-in-Chief could liberate him. Instead, the administration has allowed Tahmooressi’s case to wind its way through the notoriously corrupt and bureaucratic Mexican justice system. While the administration’s handling – or rather mishandling – of the Tahmooressi case can at best be described as neglectful, its handling of the case involving another US soldier is downright Kafkaesque and malevolent.</p>
<p>In July 2012 First Lieutenant and platoon commander Clint Lorance was leading his platoon on a patrol in Kandahar in an area known to be a hotbed of insurgent activity. Lt. Lorance was informed by pilots who reconnoitered the area that motorcycle-mounted Taliban terrorists were active in the vicinity. The Taliban routinely employ motorcycles to track US patrols. Moments later, Lorance spotted Afghans riding motorcycles near his patrol. With the information that he already had at his disposal and with the safety of his platoon being paramount, Lorance immediately made a command decision during the fog of war and ordered one of his snipers to neutralize what he considered to be a threat to the well-being of his men. Two Afghans, later found to be unarmed, were killed.</p>
<p>What happened next could have been taken out of a chapter from Orwell’s 1984. Shortly following the incident, Lorance was stripped of his weapon and assigned a desk job. In January 2013, he was charged with murder in connection with the incident and in August 2013, a military court found him <a href="http://nation.foxnews.com/2013/10/15/allen-west-obamas-military-contempt-outrageous-treatment-clint-lorance"><span style="color: #0433ff;">guilty of murder</span></a> and violating the army’s Rules of Engagement and handed down a 20-year sentence.</p>
<p>Lorance is a hero who volunteered to put his life on the line for the cause of freedom and to serve his nation. His lengthy army service has shown him to be nothing but an <a href="http://www.freeclintlorance.com/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">exemplary soldier</span></a> whose service record is peppered with commendations and citations. But instead of being treated like a hero, he is treated like a criminal by the very government he swore to protect.</p>
<p>Nothing saps the morale of an army more than knowing that its government doesn’t have its back. This case, as well as the Tahmooressi case, demonstrates with utmost clarity that the Obama administration at best, doesn’t give a damn about its soldiers. A more cynical approach would suggest that the administration is actually working to undermine the morale of its troops.</p>
<p>Some might find these truths too hard to swallow. After all, why would the president keep the United States embroiled in the longest war of its history and then work to actively undermine the ability of the United States servicemen and women to perform their mission? A logical question, indeed. But when one takes a closer look at Obama’s foreign policy, where <a href="http://online.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748704416904575121710380216280"><span style="color: #0433ff;">enemies are coddled</span></a> and <a href="http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/ari-lieberman/obama-vs-netanyahu/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">friends are distanced</span></a>, nothing this administration does seems logical.</p>
<p>Consider also the case of Bowe Bergdahl, a <a href="http://dailycaller.com/2014/08/04/bergdahl-roommate-chairman-of-joint-chiefs-told-us-bowe-was-a-deserter/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">confirmed deserter</span></a> and possible collaborator, who placed members of his own unit in jeopardy after they launched a frantic search for him. The Obama administration, without informing Congress, released five hardened Taliban terrorists, who will likely return to terror and place additional US personnel in danger, to gain Bergdahl’s release. Heroes are prosecuted and allowed to languish in foreign prisons while Obama places his priorities on releasing deserters for hardened criminals.</p>
<p>During his impassioned address to the committee, Montel informed the members that his 21-year-old son had asked him if he should join the military, to which he responded, “No, because our government doesn’t respect you enough.” Sadly, Montel’s assessment hits the proverbial nail squarely on its head.</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>Will the West Defend Itself?</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/walter-williams/will-the-west-defend-itself/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=will-the-west-defend-itself</link>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 30 Sep 2014 04:05:58 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Walter Williams]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[defeat]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ISIL]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ISIS]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Islam]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Military]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[will]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=242009</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[ISIS can be defeated -- if we have the will to do it. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/isisi.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-242010" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/isisi-450x337.jpg" alt="isisi" width="290" height="217" /></a>The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), sometimes called ISIS or IS, is a Sunni extremist group that follows al-Qaida&#8217;s anti-West ideology and sees a holy war against the West as a religious duty. With regard to nonbelievers, the Quran commands, &#8220;And kill them wherever you find them, and turn them out from where they have turned you out.&#8221; The Quran contains many other verses that call for Muslim violence against nonbelievers for the sake of Islamic rule.</p>
<p>Contrast the words of the Quran with the statements of limp-wristed Western leaders such as this by President Barack Obama: &#8220;We have reaffirmed that the United States is not and never will be at war with Islam. Islam teaches peace.&#8221; While reacting to ISIL&#8217;s slaughter of British citizen David Haines, Prime Minister David Cameron said, &#8220;Islam is a religion of peace.&#8221; Then there was the U.S. secretary of state&#8217;s explanation: &#8220;The real face of Islam is a peaceful religion based on the dignity of all human beings.&#8221; But John Kerry and other Western politicians calling Islam a religion of peace doesn&#8217;t make it so.</p>
<p>A debate about whether Islam is a religion of peace or not is entirely irrelevant to the threat to the West posed by ISIL, al-Qaida and other Middle Eastern terrorist groups. I would like to gather a news conference with our Army&#8217;s chief of staff, Gen. Raymond T. Odierno; Marines&#8217; commandant, Gen. Joseph Dunford; chief of naval operations, Adm. Jonathan W. Greenert; and Gen. Mark A. Welsh, the U.S. Air Force&#8217;s chief of staff. This would be my question to them: The best intelligence puts ISIL&#8217;s size at 35,000 to 40,000 people. Do you officers think that the combined efforts of our military forces could defeat and lay waste to ISIL? Before they had a chance to answer, I&#8217;d add: Do you think the combined military forces of NATO and the U.S. could defeat and eliminate ISIL. Depending on the answers given, I&#8217;d then ask whether these forces could also eliminate Iran&#8217;s capability of making nuclear weapons.</p>
<p>My question to my fellow Americans is: What do you think their answers would be? No beating around the bush: Does the U.S. have the power to defeat the ISIL/al-Qaida threat and stop Iran&#8217;s nuclear ambitions — yes or no?</p>
<p>If our military tells us that we do have the capacity to defeat the terror threat, then the reason that we don&#8217;t reflects a lack of willingness. It&#8217;s that same lack of willingness that led to the deaths of 60 million people during World War II. In 1936, France alone could have stopped Adolf Hitler, but France and its allies knowingly allowed Hitler to rearm, in violation of treaties. When Europeans finally woke up to Hitler&#8217;s agenda, it was too late. Their nations were conquered. One of the most horrible acts of Nazi Germany was the Holocaust, which cost an estimated 11 million lives. Those innocents lost their lives because of the unwillingness of Europeans to protect themselves against tyranny.</p>
<p>Westerners getting the backbone to defend ourselves from terrorists may have to await a deadly attack on our homeland. You say, &#8220;What do you mean, Williams?&#8221; America&#8217;s liberals have given terrorists an open invitation to penetrate our country through our unprotected southern border. Terrorists can easily come in with dirty bombs to make one of our major cities uninhabitable through radiation. They could just as easily plant chemical or biological weapons in our cities. If they did any of these acts — leading to the deaths of millions of Americans — I wonder whether our liberal Democratic politicians would be able to respond or they would continue to mouth that &#8220;Islam teaches peace&#8221; and &#8220;Islam is a religion of peace.&#8221;</p>
<p>Unfortunately for our nation&#8217;s future and that of the world, we see giving handouts as the most important function of government rather than its most basic function: defending us from barbarians.</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>Andrew Klavan: Europe Is For Real</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/truthrevolt-org/andrew-klavan-europe-is-for-real/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=andrew-klavan-europe-is-for-real</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 26 Sep 2014 04:58:18 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[TruthRevolt.org]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Andrew Klavan]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Europe]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[heath care]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Military]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Socialism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Taxes]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[War]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=241802</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[A Truth Revolt video. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><strong><span style="color: #000000;">In this special episode, our whimsical host, Andrew Klavan, takes a look at the faith-based story of a young man who dies and goes to the promised land, only to find that it&#8217;s a giant lie propped up by the American taxpayer and military. See the video and transcript below. </span></strong></p>
<p><iframe src="//www.youtube.com/embed/nG5qF3V0Sq8" width="560" height="315" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe></p>
<p style="color: #000000;">TRANSCRIPT:</p>
<p style="color: #000000;">I’m Andrew Klavan and this is the Revolting Truth.</p>
<p style="color: #000000;">Today, in a special religious edition of the Revolting Truth, we’d like to take a look at the new faith-based bestseller, “Europe Is For Real.”</p>
<p style="color: #000000;">“Europe is for Real” tells the inspiring story of the adorable 5-year-old Iowa boy Derpy Lipschitz.  One fateful day, in April of 2005, little Derpy complained to his mother of stomach pains and was rushed to the hospital where doctors discovered he had accidentally swallowed a copy of the New York Times while trying to bite the head off his pet canary.</p>
<p style="color: #000000;">Derpy was taken into surgery but the emergency worsened when the doctors tried to remove the Times’ op-ed page from the child’s colon and couldn’t determine which was which.  In the confusion, a column by Paul Krugman traveled through the boy’s bloodstream to his head causing instantaneous brain death.</p>
<p style="color: #000000;">It was then that a miracle happened.</p>
<p style="color: #000000;">As 5-year-old Derpy later told his parents, he felt his soul leave his body.  It traveled down the hall to a broom closet where he saw Mommy praying to Jesus, although she pronounced it Hay-soos.  Then, in a spiral of light, Derpy felt himself lifted up to a wondrous place beyond his wildest imagination.  It was a place where there was never any war, health care was free, and energy was green.  Yes, Derpy was in Europe.</p>
<p style="color: #000000;">Well, the surgery was a success.  The doctors were able to remove the New York Times from Derpy’s brain and colon in a revolutionary procedure called pulling the head out of the ass.  When Derpy woke up in the hospital room, he saw his parents standing over him smiling, and he said, “Daddy, I’ve been to Europe!”</p>
<p style="color: #000000;">And Derpy’s Daddy said to him, “Derpy, Europe is not for real.  Europe is an expensive socialist fantasy which was paid for by American capitalism for 65 years and is now going broke anyway.  They financed their so-called free health care with money they would have had to spend on defense if our military didn’t keep them safe.  Oh, and by the way, the pharmaceutical companies can give them their meds at cheap rates because we pay inflated prices that pick up the slack and fund research and development.</p>
<p style="color: #000000;">As for European energy being green, ten years ago Germany trumpeted a transition to renewable resources that was supposed to create jobs, provide cheap electricity and save the planet.  It failed on every front and all across the European Union, green energy initiatives are being quietly abandoned.</p>
<p style="color: #000000;">It’s true there’s no war in Europe because they’re protected from outside attack by America.  But as Socialism drains the money and the life out of their societies, and their populations quickly dwindle, the European nations are being conquered from within by Islamist monsters who rape and vandalize almost at will.  No one’s allowed to criticize these animals because that would violate a pious leftist nonsense called multiculturalism&#8230;  and since leftism has destroyed every vestige of patriotism on the continent, no one has the conviction or the guts to stand up to this alien evil anyway.</p>
<p style="color: #000000;">So you see, Derpy, Europe is just the myth of a false religion called leftism.  But don’t worry:  Heaven is for real.  Although Mommy can’t go there because of what she did with Haysoos.</p>
<p style="color: #000000;">I’m Andrew Klavan with the Revolting Truth.</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>Iran&#8217;s Quiet Military Build Up</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/majid-rafizadeh/irans-quiet-military-build-up/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=irans-quiet-military-build-up</link>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 09 Sep 2014 04:10:36 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Majid Rafizadeh]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[build up]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iran]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=240431</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Behind the Islamic Republic's softened rhetoric. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Irans-military-drill.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-240432" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Irans-military-drill-450x321.jpg" alt="Irans-military-drill" width="278" height="198" /></a>The Islamic Republic and the Ayatollahs have mastered a new tactic and strategy to achieve their ideological, geopolitical, hegemonic and strategic objectives: speak softly on the international arena, while quietly building up weapons and arm more militia groups.</p>
<p>While Iran’s state media outlets and Iranian officials had previously boasted about their military accomplishments, drone capabilities, nuclear technology, and power periodically, they have recently toned down their language and publicity. But does that mean the ruling Ayatollahs have given up on their nuclear ambitions to build a nuclear bomb and stopped their military operations and interference in other states?</p>
<p>In fact, a recent report reveals that the Islamic Republic continues to pursue the same geopolitical and strategic policies in order to achieve its objectives. According to a <a href="http://freebeacon.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Iranmilitary.pdf"><span style="color: #0433ff;">classified Pentagon assessment</span></a>,</p>
<blockquote><p>Iran has not substantively changed its national security and military strategies over the past year; however, Tehran has adjusted some of its tactics to achieve its enduring objectives. President Hasan Ruhani&#8217;s international message of moderation and pragmatism is intended to support these objectives: to preserve the Supreme Leader&#8217;s rule, counter Western influence, and establish Iran as the dominant regional power. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei remains unchallenged atop Iran&#8217;s power structure as both the political-spiritual guide and the commander in chief of the armed forces.</p></blockquote>
<p>Those who believe that the Islamic Republic is going to change its fundamental ideological, military, strategic, and hegemonic ambitions, are fooling themselves and they are not cognizant of the major pillars upon which this Islamist regime is founded upon. More recently, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds Force (IRGC-QF) has covertly, tremendously increased its political and military influence in several countries in the region including in Iraq and Syria. Iranian leaders have also intensified their ties with Hezbollah and ratcheted up their arms delivery to Hamas. In addition, the Iranian military is <a href="http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/184542"><span style="color: #0433ff;">delivering weapons</span></a> to Judea and Samaria in order to ensure “the annihilation of the Zionist regime.”</p>
<p>According to the classified Pentagon assessment, IRGC-QF has built up its capabilities to carry out a terrorist attack in foreign countries as well:</p>
<blockquote><p>Iran&#8217;s covert activities appear to be continuing unabated in countries such as Syria and Iraq. Despite Iran&#8217;s public denials, for example, other information suggests Iran is increasingly involved, along with Lebanese Hizballah, in the Syria conflict. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force (IRGC-QF) remains a key tool of Iran&#8217;s foreign policy and power projection, in Syria and beyond. IRGC-QF has continued efforts to improve its access within foreign countries and its ability to conduct terrorist attacks.</p></blockquote>
<p>When it comes to Iran’s nuclear defiance, long-range missiles, and technological nuclear capabilities, Iran has not given up on its ambition to build a nuclear bomb,  even after the nuclear interim deal between the Islamic Republic and the P5+1 (China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, the United States, plus Germany) was reached. <a href="http://freebeacon.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Iranmilitary.pdf"><span style="color: #0433ff;">Accordingly</span></a>,</p>
<blockquote><p>Iran continues to develop technological capabilities that could be applicable to nuclear weapons and long-range missiles, which could be adapted to deliver nuclear weapons, should Iran&#8217;s leadership decide to do so. On 24 November, 2013, Iran agreed to a Joint Plan of Action (JPA) with the permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany (P5+ 1) that included enhanced monitoring of lran&#8217; s nuclear facilities and a six-month halt to enrichment activities over 5 percent and further advances on the IR-40 Heavy Water Research Reactor. In public statements, some Iranian officials have minimized the JPA&#8217;s impact on the nuclear program.</p></blockquote>
<p>In addition, while Iranian leaders and the Mullahs previously publicly threatened the world claiming that they would block or cause damage to the Strait of Hormuz, Tehran’s recent toning down of threats does not necessarily mean that the Ayatollah and ruling clerics have changed their strategy and goals.</p>
<p>The Strait of Hormuz is considered to be one of the most crucial strategic spots for global and international trade.  Approximately 20 percent of the world&#8217;s petroleum, and (nearly 35% of the total petroleum traded through sea), passes through the Strait. Any interference or military attacks on the Strait of Hormuz would skyrocket the price of oil and petroleum around the world, affecting the life of every citizen. The approximate price of a gallon of petrol in the gas stations ($4) can double or even climb to $10 a gallon.</p>
<p>Iranian leaders are increasing their abilities in “lethal symmetric and asymmetric weapon systems” as well as “anti-access and area denial (A2AD) capabilities” in order to strengthen control over the Strait of Hormuz. As the Pentagon assessment says,</p>
<blockquote><p>Iran continues to develop its anti-access and area denial (A2AD) capabilities to control the Strait of Hormuz and its approaches. Tehran is quietly fielding increasingly lethal symmetric and asymmetric weapon systems, including more advanced naval mines, small but capable submarines, coastal defense cruise missile batteries, attack craft, and anti-ship ballistic missiles.</p></blockquote>
<p>The Obama administration needs to act more decisively and quickly before it is too late. If the Islamic Republic continues to build up its military and nuclear capabilities quietly, covertly and without pressure from global powers, it will impose tremendous geopolitical, strategic and economic repercussions for the world. At that point, Iran would be like North Korea, but with the additional capabilities to impact the world economy negatively, as well as play a role in arming more terrorist groups in the region. While recent assessments show that the Ayatollahs are using a different tactic – speak softly, but build up larger weapons and nuclear capabilities covertly &#8212; the Obama administration appears to still be hesitant in taking a decisive and robust stance towards the Iranian regime.</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>Ze’ev Jabotinsky to Benjamin Netanyahu On Hamas</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/ronn-torossian/zeev-jabotinsky-to-benjamin-netanyahu-on-hamas/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=zeev-jabotinsky-to-benjamin-netanyahu-on-hamas</link>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 09 Sep 2014 04:00:30 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Ronn Torossian]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Defense]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Hamas]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[Ze’ev Jabotinsky]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=240556</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Words of wisdom on the crucial task of protecting the Jewish State. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Zeev_Jabotinsky.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-240557" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Zeev_Jabotinsky.jpg" alt="Zeev_Jabotinsky" width="286" height="278" /></a>On Friday, the former Prime Minister of Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, threatened that Hamas would resume the rocket attacks against Israel on September 25<sup>th</sup>.  Haniyeh noted that Hamas will not demilitarize, nor will they “cooperate with any regional or international decision which would see its arsenal &#8216;against the resistance&#8217; harmed.” As he said, &#8220;Weapons are the holy light of the sanctity of the struggle and the land issue, and if they want to demilitarize its weapons, we will only agree if the occupier is also demilitarized and its leaves our land.&#8221; Hamas is clear on their mission to destroy the State of Israel.</p>
<p>Israel, on the other hand, values human life, and takes war very seriously.  The government of Israel made the difficult decision to accept a ceasefire.  Undoubtedly, President Obama pressured Israel, and Kerry and Obama succeeded in stopping Israel from destroying Hamas. Some sort of a fragile “truce” holds and undoubtedly the Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, may once again face the difficult decision very soon to strike forcefully.  Netanyahu undoubtedly values human life – and wants peace.</p>
<p>Netanyahu’s late father, Benzion, was known to have had a tremendous influence on his son &#8212; and Benzion was the longtime secretary to <a href="http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/ronn-torossian/zeev-jabotinsky-and-the-belgium-terror-attack/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">Ze’ev Jabotinsky</span></a>, the founder of revisionist Zionism.  Jabotinsky was a proud, strong nationalist whose ideology has influenced the leaders of many nationalist Israelis.</p>
<p>Amongst Jabotinsky’s wise words as he sought to create a fighting Jewish people was the quote, &#8220;We shall create, with sweat and blood, a race of men, strong, brave and cruel.”  As Hamas threatens Israel today, what would Jabotinsky think – and what would he urge Prime Minister Netanyahu to do?</p>
<p>At the Third World Conference of Betar, Menachem Begin (at the time the head of Betar Poland), and Jabotinsky had an exchange of words which are interestingly relevant to the very dilemma which Netanyahu faces today as he faces an enemy on his borders – and what to do.</p>
<p>Begin noted:</p>
<blockquote><p>With what means will we succeed in achieving our aims? We were taught to use moral pressure on the Western powers, and that Britain will honor her commitments to our nation. But in reality, the British only need take the Arab demands into account. The Arabs receive 95% and do not agree. They fight with their blood. And we who receive only 5%, how are we fighting? It is obvious that the disproportion of strength and honor between Israel and the Arabs must force Britain to first of all consider the Arab demands over ours. Zionism is an eternal idea but its realization will be delayed by decades if we continue on this path. We must fight – to die or conquer the mountain! The Israeli national movement began with Practical Zionism. Then there was Political Zionism. And now we must create a new Zionism – Military Zionism. Our examples will be Camillo di Cavour and Giuseppe Garibaldi. Cavour would have never achieved victory for Italy without Garibaldi.</p></blockquote>
<p>Jabotinsky retorted:</p>
<blockquote><p>Permit me to say a few strong words. As your teacher it is my duty. There are many types of noises in this world. There is the whistle and the noise of heavy machines. But I cannot bear the squeak of an un-oiled door because that noise serves no purpose. You are implying that there is no conscience left in the world and there is no room for such useless chattering in Betar. It is pure despair. With a broom we must sweep away these futile ideas.</p></blockquote>
<p>One wonders: Is there any conscious in the world, when a terrorist organization is supported by countless nations?  No one in Israel wants war – but an enemy devoted to destroying the Jewish people must be countered. It is a reality which faces the State of Israel every single day.</p>
<p>Similarly, Netanyahu must recall the words of Jabotinsky in the legendary essay “Ethics of the Iron Wall”:</p>
<blockquote><p>Human society is based on reciprocity. If you remove reciprocity, justice becomes a lie. A person walking somewhere on a street has the right to live only because and only to the extent that he acknowledges my right to live. But, if he wishes to kill me, to my mind he forfeits his right to exist – and this also applies to nations. Otherwise, the world would become a racing area for vicious predators, where not only the weakest would be devoured, but the best.</p></blockquote>
<p>There is no easy way.</p>
<p><span style="color: #0433ff;"><a href="http://www.algemeiner.com/2014/08/18/zeev-jabotinsky-would-take-on-iran-and-hamas/">Ze’ev Jabotinsky</a></span> wrote in 1929: “The Jewish people – all of us, 100 percent want peace.” Yet, he realized the importance of strength.</p>
<p>Prime Minister Netanyahu has no easy decisions – yet knows that he must protect the only Jewish State in the world.</p>
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		<title>America: Unprepared for War</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/arnold-ahlert/america-unprepared-for-war/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=america-unprepared-for-war</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 07 Aug 2014 04:49:36 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Arnold Ahlert]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[Cuts]]></category>
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		<description><![CDATA[Obama's determination to downsize the military -- and its catastrophic consequences.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p style="color: #232323;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/4401592829_ddb5cd5dd5.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-237966" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/4401592829_ddb5cd5dd5-450x326.jpg" alt="4401592829_ddb5cd5dd5" width="283" height="205" /></a>A bipartisan <a href="http://www.usip.org/sites/default/files/Ensuring-a-Strong-U.S.-Defense-for-the-Future-NDP-Review-of-the-QDR_0.pdf"><span style="color: #1255cc;">critique</span></a> of the Obama administration’s 2014 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) by the National Defense Panel is a devastating takedown of the administration’s determination to reduce America’s military to <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/military-spending-cuts/pentagon-set-slash-military-pre-world-war-ii-levels-n37086"><span style="color: #1255cc;">pre-WWII</span></a> levels. “Since World War II, no matter which party has controlled the White House or Congress, America’s global military capability and commitment has been the strategic foundation undergirding our global leadership,” the report states. &#8220;Given that reality, the defense budget cuts mandated by the Budget Control Act (BCA) of 2011, coupled with the additional cuts and constraints on defense management under the law’s sequestration provision, constitute a serious strategic misstep on the part of the United States.”</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">The report emphasizes the myriad number of threats of which most Americans are well aware, including “a troubling pattern of assertiveness and regional intimidation on China’s part, the recent aggression of Russia in Ukraine, nuclear proliferation on the part of North Korea and Iran, a serious insurgency in Iraq that both reflects and fuels the broader sectarian conflicts in the region, the civil war in Syria, and civil strife in the larger Middle East and throughout Africa.&#8221;</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Other threats include the &#8220;rapidly expanding availability of lethal technologies to both state and non-state actors; demographic shifts including increasing urbanization; diffusion of power among many nations, particularly rising economic and military powers in Asia; and heated competition to secure access to scarce natural resources.”</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">It further noted that the shrinkage of U.S. forces, resulting from the severe budget cuts imposed on our fighting forces constitutes a “serious strategic misstep on the part of the United States,” and that force levels in the president’s QDR are “inadequate given the future strategic and operational environment.”</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">The panel was also critical of the president’s reduction of the nation’s global mission has long enabled the military to fight two wars simultaneously, to one where we are capable of defeating one enemy while keeping another one in check. “We find the logic of the two-war construct to be as powerful as ever and note that the force sizing construct in the 2014 QDR strives to stay within the two-war tradition while using different language. But given the worsening threat environment, we believe a more expansive force sizing construct — one that is different from the two-war construct but no less strong — is appropriate,” the report stated. It called on Obama to expand his current mission statement—one driven far more by budget concerns than global threats.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Rep. Howard P. “Buck” McKeon (R-CA) <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/jul/31/obama-military-strategy-too-weak-future-security-p/?page=all"><span style="color: #1255cc;">addressed</span></a> the misplaced priorities. “It is the same conclusion many Americans have already reached,” he said. “There is a cost when America does not lead, and there are consequences when America disengages. What the president fails to understand — which the report points out — is that a strong military underwrites all other tools our nation has for global influence.”</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">The report, which concludes that the “Navy and Air Force should be larger,” reveals that we are moving in the opposite direction. It explains that the Navy is “on a budgetary path to 260 ships or less,” giving them far fewer ships than 323 to 346 previously recommended. The report further notes that an even larger fleet could be necessary “if the risk of conflict in the Western Pacific if increases.”</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">An even grimmer picture of the Air Force emerges, with the report explaining that it is currently fielding the “smallest and oldest force in its history,” despite the need to project a “global surveillance and strike force able to rapidly deploy to theaters of operation to deter, defeat or punish multiple aggressors simultaneously.”</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">The panel understands the fiscal challenges facing the government, but states that attempting to solve those problems on the backs of the military is not only &#8220;too risky,” but “won’t work.” “America must get her fiscal house in order while simultaneously funding robust military spending,” the panel concludes. In a shot across the administration’s bow, the panel explains that health care spending in the military and overall is “stunning wasteful,” consuming “more than a third of the federal budget.”</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">It’s actually worse than that, if one includes benefits and entitlements, driven primarily by &#8220;non-means tested government programs,” defined by the U.S. Census Bureau as those that provide benefits to Americans regardless of their income levels. In 2013, the federal government <a href="http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/ali-meyer/americans-got-2-trillion-benefits-federal-government-2013"><span style="color: #1255cc;">paid out</span></a> more than $2 trillion in such programs, which consumed 58.1 percent of the $3.4 trillion in total federal outlays. In the first eleven months of FY2013 the federal government <a href="http://cnsnews.com/news/article/terence-p-jeffrey/2472542000000-record-taxation-through-august-deficit-still-755b"><span style="color: #1255cc;">received</span></a> a record-setting $2.4 trillion in revenue, yet still ran a deficit of $755 billion. This year revenues are expected to top $3 trillion, but the deficit is still projected to be $648 billion.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Clearly something has to give. Unfortunately as far as the Obama administration is concerned, the welfare state, rather than the military that makes it possible, takes precedence.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">In fact, the administration has recently put the pedal further to the metal. At the beginning of the month, the Army <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/08/02/army-to-force-out-550-majors-some-to-get-news-while-in-afghanistan/"><span style="color: #1255cc;">announced</span></a> it will downsize the number of majors by 550, including some still serving in combat operations in Afghanistan. This move follows another recent effort to slash 1,200 captains from the force as well. &#8220;The ones that are deployed are certainly the hardest,&#8221; Gen. John Campbell, the vice chief of the Army told reporters. &#8220;What we try to do there is, working through the chain of command, minimize the impact to that unit and then maximize the time to provide to that officer to come back and do the proper transition, to take care of himself or herself, and the family.”</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">The cuts are being made among majors who joined the service between 1999 and 2003, and while some will have enough time on the job to retire, many won’t. The effort is all part of the aforementioned move by the Obama administration to reduce the size of the military from its current level of 514,000 soldiers to 490,000 by October 2015, and 450,000 by 2019. Automatic budget cuts currently in place could ultimately reduce the number of soldiers to 420,000— a number leaders contend would leave the nation incapable of fighting even <i>one</i> sustained military conflict.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">None of this was lost on the panel. Writing for National Review, House and Senate Armed Services Committee member, Rep. Jim Talent (R-MO), who was part of the panel, <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/384267/stunning-rebuke-our-current-defense-policies-jim-talent"><span style="color: #1255cc;">explains</span></a> that while there were the &#8220;usual arguments over specific wording and programmatic recommendations&#8230;the broad conclusions were easy to reach. In fact, they were obvious to anyone with eyes to see the rapid deterioration of our armed forces and the worsening global threats that became manifestly more dangerous even during the months the panel was deliberating.”</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">He then gets to the heart of the matter. Citing our &#8220;rudderless and sometimes unreal foreign policy, particularly in the Middle East,” he further explains that the problem &#8220;isn’t just an Administration that <i>acts</i> as if America is weak. The problem is also that America <i>is </i>weak, and becoming weaker, relative to the threats posed by its adversaries – which is the only measurement of military power that really matters.” This leads Talent to a stark conclusion. &#8220;The world will get a lot messier until that changes,” he warns. It is a warning the Obama administration ignores at its peril—and that of the entire nation.</p>
<p><b>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: </b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank"><b>Click here</b></a><b>. </b></p>
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		<title>The Myth of Israeli Collective Punishment</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/the-myth-of-israeli-collective-punishment/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-myth-of-israeli-collective-punishment</link>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 08 Jul 2014 04:55:51 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[collective punishment]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=235792</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Terrorists can’t have rights without responsibilities.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/f-15_6.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-235803" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/f-15_6-450x300.jpg" alt="f-15_6" width="299" height="199" /></a>The most enduring critique of Israel’s struggle against Islamic terrorism is the recurring accusation of “collective punishment.” Every time Israelis are murdered, the Jewish State is accused of punishing Muslims in the West Bank and Gaza for the actions of a few individuals.</p>
<p>Israel is fighting an enemy that insists on having all the advantages of a state and statelessness with none of the disadvantages. The PLO/Hamas unity government is a state when it wants something from the United Nations or the United States, but it’s not a state when it comes to taking responsibility. The Muslims who live in Gaza and the West Bank are considered citizens when it comes to having political rights, but not when it comes to taking responsibility for the consequences of their political decisions.</p>
<p>Their votes are to be taken seriously, but once those votes lead to war they are no longer responsible.</p>
<p>The Palestinian Authority is a state when it comes to its territorial claims, but not a state when it insists on open borders with Israel while claiming that any Israeli border security is a violation of its rights.</p>
<p>Terrorists routinely operate in such legal twilight zones, but the Palestinian Authority is unique in that it has all the structure of a state with none of the responsibilities of statehood. If Israel treats it as a state in response to acts of war, it is accused of collective punishment, even though the Palestinian Authority is the product of a collective political will and attacking it is not a collective punishment, but simply war.</p>
<p>When the Palestinian Authority unity government of Hamas and the PLO wants to go to the UN, it is said to represent the political will of a populace. But when Hamas attacks Israel, suddenly it’s not a collective act, but an individual crime. If Israel targets Hamas leaders, then it’s attacking political representatives. But if Israel blockades an area run by terrorists who claim to be a state, it’s accused of engaging in collective punishment. The terrorists claim political immunity as leaders of a collective and immunity from collective attack as individuals, rather than leaders and citizens of a political entity.</p>
<p>Critics of Israel not only want to have it both ways, they want to have it every single possible way that advantages the terrorists and disadvantages Israel, so that in every possible scenario Israel is wrong.</p>
<p>The paradox deepens when it comes to Israel.</p>
<p>The PLO and Hamas political leadership of the PA aren’t held responsible for their terrorist attacks, but Israel is held responsible for the individual actions of its civilians. Meanwhile the entire BDS movement is one big collective punishment against Israelis of all religions and ethnic backgrounds implemented by activists who claim to be against collective punishment.</p>
<p>But collective punishment has always been acceptable when it comes to Israelis.</p>
<p>When Israeli teens are killed by Hamas terrorists, instead of it being a case of a statelet engaging in random terror as a collective punishment, it’s put down to some populist impulse as a result of the “occupation.” But when Israel strikes Hamas, it’s suddenly collective punishment if any members of the civilian population that support the terrorist group and willingly act as its human shields are killed. And it’s collective punishment if Israel further shuts off access to territory ruled by Hamas.</p>
<p>Collective punishment, like everything else about the conflict, only works one way. Anything that Israel does to the PLO and Hamas can be considered collective punishment. Anything that they do to Israel, including randomly firing rockets at schools and houses, isn’t.</p>
<p>If Israel were indeed the sole authority in Gaza and the West Bank, it would be expected to function as a police force, rather than a military force. But Israel is in a state of armed conflict with the statelet of the Palestinian Authority. This armed conflict has been going on for around two decades.</p>
<p>The Palestinian Authority’s leadership is open about this conflict, even though Abbas, its leader, has learned to be more discreet than his predecessor, Yasser Arafat. The Palestinian Authority promotes terrorism and the political subgroups that run it engage in it.</p>
<p>The international community however pretends that it’s still 1985 instead of 2014. It expects Israel to act as if it had total control over the West Bank and Gaza and its cities weren’t being barraged by rockets. And if it responds to acts of war with war, then it’s guilty of collective punishment.</p>
<p>When half-a-million Israelis have to flee to bomb shelters, that’s not an individual crime. It’s a war.</p>
<p>All the peace process accomplished was to give the PLO and Hamas the power and infrastructure to wage full scale war without the obligation to follow any of the rules of war and without giving their victims the right to fight back by treating them as an enemy state.</p>
<p>Israel has been dealing with this as a military conflict. Its enemies have the support of the civilian population that they hide behind. Despite having the appurtenances of a state, they also have immunity from suffering the consequences of the wars that they start.</p>
<p>The only way that Israel can stop dealing with this as a military conflict is if it restores control over Gaza and the West Bank and evicts all other authorities, including the PLO and Hamas. At that point it will exercise police powers over a civilian population, rather than military powers against an enemy statelet.</p>
<p>Otherwise its military actions against that statelet are not collective punishment, but on the low scale of the norms of warfare, which at their very least involve bombing enemy installations and cutting off the enemy’s freedom of movement.</p>
<p>Israel cannot be expected to treat the Palestinian Authority as a political entity, but not a military entity, when rockets are falling on its cities. Either the PA is both or neither. If it’s both, then it is indisputably at war with Israel. If it’s neither, then Israel ought to restore control over a lawless Gaza and West Bank.</p>
<p>The underlying problem isn’t collective punishment, but collective immaturity.</p>
<p>Western liberals romanticize Third Worlders by assigning to them rights without responsibilities. The Muslims of Gaza and the West Bank are assumed to have the right to elect political representatives, but not the responsibility to be held accountable for what those representatives go on to do in their name.</p>
<p>They have political powers, but not political responsibilities.</p>
<p>That’s not just dishonest, it’s an admission that they believe that the Muslims of Gaza and the West Bank are not ready for statehood.</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>Bowe Bergdahl Is Not One of Us</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/truthrevolt-org/bowe-bergdahl-is-not-one-of-us/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=bowe-bergdahl-is-not-one-of-us</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 19 Jun 2014 04:40:42 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[TruthRevolt.org]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=234387</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[A Truth Revolt video. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/ysQl4aW7tME" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></p>
<p style="color: #000000;">
<p style="color: #000000;">TRANSCRIPT:</p>
<blockquote style="font-style: italic; color: #8f8f8f;"><p>NOT ONE OF US</p>
<p>Hi everybody: I’m Bill Whittle and this is the Firewall.</p>
<p>Benedict Arnold is the most famous traitor in American history. He was a general who wanted the British to win the American Revolution. Charles Cornwallis was also a general who wanted the British to win the American revolution. So why why is Arnold despised while Cornwallis is not?</p>
<p>Well, Benedict Arnold was one of us. And General Cornwallis was not. General Cornwallis maintained his honor by fighting, in uniform, for a cause he believed in. General Arnold lost his honor – not just during his own time but down trough the halls of history – for wearing one color uniform on the outside and a different one on the inside. Traitors damage us in ways enemies cannot. A nation is a family, and traitors destroy their own family from within. It is the lowest form of treachery.</p>
<p>Bowe Bergdahl, an American soldier recently released after five years as prisoner of the Taliban, apparently had some fairly anti-war feelings for a long time. That alone doesn’t mean he’s not one of us: many Americans have anti-war feelings. But: when you put on the uniform of the Armed Forces of the United States of America, you join in a smaller family. A family that depends on you for their very lives. And you swear an oath to protect that family.</p>
<p>When people like Bowe Bergdahl willingly walk out on those brothers and sisters and into the hands of the people trying to kill them; when his absence weakens the security of his family members, and when six of his brothers go out into that world looking for him, and don’t come back – not that day, not ever – then Bowe Bergdahl does not deserve to come home to America because this is not his home. The six people who were killed looking for him deserve to come home – come home as heroes – but they won’t. Not ever. They were killed by Bergdahl’s real family.</p>
<p>We have, at the cost of many thousands of lives, killed or captured many of the Taliban that Bergdalh walked out to join. The very first American soldier killed in the war to avenge the three thousand members of our family killed on September 11th, 2001 was named Mike Spann. He was killed in a prison uprising on November 25th, 2001 while interrogating Taliban prisoners. The leader of that uprising, Mullah Mohammad Fazl, was captured and taken to Guantanamo bay. The man who killed the first soldier to die in Afghanistan was traded back to the Taliban, along with four other highly-skilled terrorists, in exchange for the soldier who caused six more Americans soldiers to be killed, searching for the brother that walked away.</p>
<p>When Barack Obama was up to his eyeballs in scandal regarding the appalling treatment of our soldiers at the Veteran’s administration – in Phoenix alone we let 40 members of our family die from the wounds they took on our behalf – he needed not a solution to the VA scandal, but a quick photo op that would wallpaper over that disgrace and let us know how much he cares about our soldiers.</p>
<p>Here’s the photo op.</p>
<p>So how did we end up swapping a deserter and traitor for five key terrorists? Did no one vet this deal? Does anybody actually work at the White House?</p>
<p>One person who works at the White House is National Security advisor Susan Rice. It’s ultimately her responsibility to look out for the National Security of the United States of America. In other administrations she would merely be an advisor, of course, and the ultimate responsibility would lie with the President. But this President is not responsible for anything.</p>
<p>In 1997, Susan Rice was a member of President Clinton’s National Security Council. The government of Sudan offered to turn over actionable intelligence on the precise location of a key terrorist to US officials. Susan Rice was instrumental in blocking access to that information, not once but repeatedly. That terrorist was not one of those traded for Bowe Bergdalh. That was named Osama Bin Laden. If Susan Rice had not repeatedly turned away that help, Spann, those six soldiers, the thousands of others lost in Afghanistan, and the 3,000 of our family members that died in fire and horror in New York Skyscrapers and the pentagon and on four crashed airliners would be alive today. She is not one of us. That’s why Bergdahl’s story didn’t cause her the revulsion the rest of us feel. She’s on a side – it’s just not our side.</p>
<p>And what about this man?</p>
<p>The man who grew up in Muslim schools in Indonesia. The man whose chosen mentor was a known communist and self-proclaimed pedophile. The man who thanked his pot-smoking gang, but not the grandmother who raised him, in his yearbook picture. The man that roomed with Muslim radicals at Occidental College. The man who was President of the Harvard Law Review but who never wrote a law review. The man whose political career started in the living room of domestic terrorist Bill Ayers – by the way, here’s a picture of the President’s sponsor coincidentally taken on the same day that the towers fell thanks to his future National Security Advisors ideological blinders. The man who orders his Attorney General not to secure our borders from armed invasion from narcotics traffickers and then ordered him to sue the states for trying to secure their borders on their own. The man who offered to surrender our missile defense shield to the Russians in exchange for personal political gain – in precisely the same way that Benedict Arnold offered to sell out the defenses at West Point in exchange for personal political gain. The man who with the wave of a finger illegally and repeatedly re-writes his own health care law in reaction to poll numbers. The man who stood in front of the United Nations and gave away our first amendment rights in exchange for the promise that the future must not belong to those who slander the Prophet of Islam. The man who decided not to attend six consecutive daily intelligence briefings prior to the Benghazi attack, who ignored the pleas for additional security, who ordered the rescue attempt to stand down then watched via surveillance drone as our family members Glen Dougherty and Tyrone Woods fought for two and a half hours in real time, then died on the roof of the Benghazi Consulate and who then went to bed to be fresh for the big Vegas fundraiser the next day.</p>
<p>That guy. What about him? Is he one of us?</p></blockquote>
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		<title>Hezbollah and Israel’s Lawyers-in-Chief</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/caroline-glick/hezbollah-and-israels-lawyers-in-chief/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=hezbollah-and-israels-lawyers-in-chief</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 13 Jun 2014 04:51:11 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Caroline Glick]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=233985</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[How Israeli civilian interests are being subordinated to the interests of their enemies. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><em><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/0205-Lebanon-Bulgaria-Attack-Hezbollah-fighters_full_600.jpg"><img class="alignleft wp-image-233988 " src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/0205-Lebanon-Bulgaria-Attack-Hezbollah-fighters_full_600-450x300.jpg" alt="0205-Lebanon-Bulgaria-Attack-Hezbollah-fighters_full_600" width="270" height="180" /></a>Originally published by the <a href="http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/Column-One-Hezbollah-and-Israels-lawyers-in-chief-358212">Jerusalem Post</a>.</em></p>
<p><span style="color: #000000;">The Middle East is rapidly changing. Indeed, it is convulsing. After generations of stasis, where strong, despotic central governments ruled with an iron fist and everyone knew who he was and who he was not, today everything – borders, regimes, identities – is in flux.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">Take Iraq. Last week, residents of Mosul lived under Iraqi government control. On Tuesday, they lived under al-Qaida control.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">Today national governments throughout the Islamic world are incapable of defeating strategically minded and aggressive jihadist militias like al-Qaida and proxy forces for the likes of Iran.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">The most prominent example of an organization that is strategically flexible and capable of evolving and learning is Hezbollah. Since Iran founded the Shi’ite terrorist organization in 1982, Hezbollah has operated on multiple levels simultaneously.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">Today it is an international terrorist organization with cells throughout the world. It is Iran’s foreign legion. It is a member of the Lebanese government.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">It controls south Lebanon. And it fields its own formidable military force that now serves as the core of Syrian dictator Bashar Assad’s military forces in the Syrian civil war.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">All of these disparate tasks require an enormous capacity for organizational flexibility and learning.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">This brings us to Israel.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">Leaving aside Iran’s nuclear weapons program, Hezbollah is the greatest looming threat Israel faces. In his address this week before the Herzliya Conference, IDF Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Benny Gantz said that Hezbollah has the sixth most powerful military in the world.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">Not only does it have a missile arsenal capable of destroying strategic targets in Israel including air force bases and electrical stations, Hezbollah’s experience in Syria has provided its commanders with the capacity to carry out sophisticated ground operations unlike any Israel has seen.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">Yet according to an article published in the latest issue of the IDF’s journal Ma’arachot by IDF intelligence officer Lt.-Col. N., the IDF’s assessment of Hezbollah’s war-fighting strategy remains frozen in time.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">According to N., Israel’s preparations for a future war with Hezbollah have been focused on improving its responses to Hezbollah’s operations in the Second Lebanon War eight years ago. In that war, Hezbollah was unfettered by military commitments in Syria or elsewhere. It had all the time in the world. And so, its goal was to wait Israel out and maintain the capacity to continue attacking it with missiles and rockets until the last moment of the fighting. That is, Hezbollah’s aim was to win the war by not losing it.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">And as N. explains, Hezbollah accomplished its mission.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">Since then, Israel has focused its efforts and resources on preventing Hezbollah from repeating its achievement by developing the means to destroy hundreds of targets at the same time.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">The problem, N. explains, is that Hezbollah has moved on. Hezbollah is not the same organization it was eight years ago. It has new capabilities and new responsibilities. There is no reason for Israel to assume that Hezbollah will operate by the same playbook today that it used in 2006.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">Based on speeches by Hezbollah commanders in recent years in which they called for a conquest of the Galilee, and given their expanded responsibilities and capabilities in Lebanon and Syria, N. argues that Hezbollah may prefer a short war involving a combination of missile assaults on military targets and a ground invasion of the Galilee.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">N. pointed to a number of vulnerabilities in Israel’s defenses that owe to some degree to our leadership’s focus on winning the last war rather than adapting to our to enemies’ changing capabilities and developing a full spectrum of options for defeating them.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">His article has received wide attention. But it is far from clear that his wake-up call will be heeded.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">Adapting the IDF’s strategic concept to one capable of confronting Hezbollah today requires the IDF’s senior commanders to be flexible and willing to take risks. Yet Israel’s General Staff is conservative, rigid and, most importantly, risk averse.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">N. wrote that most IDF officers and soldiers were deeply disappointed and distressed about Israel’s performance in the 2006 war with Hezbollah, because they recognized that the IDF’s failure to defeat Hezbollah rendered the jihadist force the victor.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">But one faction of Israeli society viewed the war as an out-and-out victory. That faction is the legal fraternity.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">Due to the widespread outrage over the war’s progression, then-prime minister Ehud Olmert was compelled to form the Winograd Commission to study the military and political leadership’s stewardship of the war.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">In testimony before the Winograd Commission, then-attorney-general Menahem Mazuz extolled the war as “the most ‘lawyerly’ in the history of the State of Israel, and perhaps ever.”</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">It wasn’t that IDF commanders put legal considerations ahead of operational and strategic goals. It was worse than that. </span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">According to Mazuz, the generals and the political leaders limited their goals from the outset to what they hoped would conform with perceived legal restrictions. This restraint, he bragged, was “the result of a sort of education and internalization that have taken place over the years.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">“I remember periods when there was a great deal of friction with the senior military level regarding what is allowed and what is prohibited. But today I think there is more or less an understanding of the rules of the game, and I can’t identify any confrontation… or… demands to ‘let the IDF win.’” According to then-IDF military advocate-general Brig.-Gen. Avi Mandelblit and Mazuz, legal advisers were present at all levels of command in all the relevant service arms and in the security cabinet.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">At each level the lawyers were asked to judge the legality of all the proposed targets and planned operations before they were carried out. And as the two explained, in their decisions, these lawyers were informed not by the goal of winning the war but by their interpretation of international law.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">Law professor Ruth Gavison, who was a member of the commission, found their testimony deeply disturbing.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">“I find this analysis harsh,” she chided. “I think that you have ignored the fact that international law is plagued with problems of selective enforcement and that the application and use of international law in the context of international conflicts is very biased and very political…. Therefore, [reliance on international law] seems to me to be a position that is possible to argue on a rhetorical level, but to internalize it as a real position, that looks to me like a strategic danger.”</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">Unfortunately, Gavison’s warning fell on deaf ears. Not only has the power of radicalized lawyers with a distorted view of the laws of war not been rolled back in the intervening years. It has expanded, to the point where today, staff officers in the military refuse to carry out lawful instructions from the government.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">For instance, according to Haaretz, on Sunday Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was scheduled to meet with the heads of the military government’s Civil Administration of Judea and Samaria to consider ways of sanctioning the Palestinian Authority, which is now led by a Fatah- Hamas government in material breach of the agreements the PLO signed with Israel.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">The civil administration was supposed to present recommendations for such sanctions for Netanyahu’s approval. But last Thursday, the civil administration’s staff officers rebelled. At a preparatory meeting, they decided to offer the prime minister no recommendations. According to Haaretz, among other things, they said they couldn’t sanction the Palestinians because it is their duty to help them. They further argued that sanctions “will be difficult to defend from a legal standpoint.”</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">In other words, radicalized staff levels of the IDF openly defy the government when it tries to provide for the common defense by taking action against Israel’s enemies. They then justify their actions by hiding behind amorphous and contrived legal restrictions.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">And this is just the tip of the iceberg. Consider the long-term consequences of the Mavi Marmara incident.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">In May 2010, IDF naval commandos boarded the Turkish ship Mavi Marmara to prevent it from unlawfully breaching Israel’s maritime blockade of Hamas-controlled Gaza.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">Terrorists aboard the ship attacked the soldiers with knives, clubs and other weapons with the intent of killing them. The soldiers defended themselves and killed nine terrorists.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">The blame-Israel-first crowd, otherwise known as the international community, accused Israel of committing war crimes.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">Rather than simply reject the slanderous accusation, led by the legal fraternity, Israel played along.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">As a consequence, Israel formed the Turkel Commission charged with determining whether Israel’s system of investigating charges of war crimes meets the requirement of international law.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">In the event, in February the commission submitted a 1,000-page report to Netanyahu. It concluded that Israel’s system does abide by the requirements of international law.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">Yet, despite this fact, it recommended removing the authority to investigate war crimes allegations from the IDF and transferring it to the attorney- general and the military advocate-general who would no longer be subordinate to the IDF chief of General Staff.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">Moreover, the commission recommended that Israel’s political leadership and General Staff be held criminally culpable “for violations committed by their subordinates, if they do not take all reasonable measures to prevent these violations or do not bring those responsible to justice when they find out about violations after the fact.”</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">The strategic implications of the Turkel Commission’s recommendations are earth shattering.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">They mean that from now on, when defending Israel from its enemies, both government ministers and generals will be at the mercy of a self-appointed, radical, unaccountable legal fraternity whose interpretation of the laws of war has but a glancing relationship with the laws of war.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">As Mazuz explained its interpretation back in 2007, “The laws of war, or international humanitarian law doesn’t concern itself with relations between two states, but with the relationship between civilians and states. That is, it places the two warring states on one side of the divide and the citizens of the two states on the other side, and the goal of international law is to protect the citizens of the two states and to say: You’re big kids. You want to fight, go fight, you have rules… and the rules aim to minimize as much as possible the consequences of the war.”</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">In other words, just as the civil administration officers argued, following international law means caring more about enemy populations than you care about your own. Civilian and military leaders who seek to secure Israel are now being subordinated to lawyers whose primary concern is the enemy.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">This is a recipe for disaster.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">At a time when the threats against us quickly change, grow and change again, we need political and military leaders who are courageous, creative and willing to take calculated risks. But due to our leaders’ unwillingness to challenge our imperial legal guild, we find ourselves at this dangerous juncture with no means of adjusting to strategic shifts.</span></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>What Happened to Marine Deserter Wassef Ali Hassoun?</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/michellemalkin/what-happened-to-marine-deserter-wassef-ali-hassoun/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=what-happened-to-marine-deserter-wassef-ali-hassoun</link>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 09 Jun 2014 04:00:20 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Michelle Malkin]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[deserter]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Hezbollah]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Lebanon]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Marine]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Military]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[trial]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Wassef Ali Hassoun]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=233570</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[A terrorist sympathizer with military training is on the run. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/missing-marine.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-233571" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/missing-marine.jpg" alt="missing-marine" width="263" height="263" /></a>Ten years ago this month, U.S. Marine Wassef Ali Hassoun disappeared from Camp Fallujah in Iraq. After a five-month military investigation, he was charged with desertion and theft, brought back to Virginia&#8217;s Quantico Marine base and then transferred to North Carolina&#8217;s Camp Lejeune for trial.</p>
<p>Yet, a full decade later, Hassoun is as free as a bird.</p>
<p>The accused deserter&#8217;s whereabouts are unknown. No trial ever began. No punishment ensued. And our leaders in Washington don&#8217;t seem to be doing a thing about this.</p>
<p>Hassoun was born in Lebanon and immigrated with his family to Utah in 1999. A few years later, he joined the Marines as an Arabic translator. On June 20, 2004, Hassoun bailed on guard duty at his base in Fallujah. He took his military-issued gun and his Muslim prayer rug. Military records obtained by the Salt Lake Tribune showed that he was &#8220;torn between military loyalty and his Muslim beliefs.&#8221;</p>
<p>According to the internal probe, he undermined intelligence-gathering operations by refusing to translate questions about Islam. He balked at raising his voice to suspected jihadi imams and sheiks. He openly threatened to &#8220;walk out the front gate and leave.&#8221;</p>
<p>The Muslim Marine told his colleagues he supported Hezbollah terrorist attacks on Israel. Members of his unit told investigators he was &#8220;anti-American&#8221; and listened to jihad sermons on propaganda CDs. Hassoun had received spiritual counseling from Navy Lt. Cmdr. Abuhena Saifulislam, a Muslim military chaplain tied to a radical Wahhabist outfit under federal investigation, according to Hoover Institution fellow and journalist Paul Sperry.</p>
<p>A bizarre video by Hassoun&#8217;s Islamist &#8220;kidnappers&#8221; showed him blindfolded with a sword above his head. But his fellow Marines suspected it was all staged and the &#8220;abduction&#8221; a collaborative fake. What did the purported hostage-takers want in return for the shady, disgruntled American serviceman? The release of jihadists in &#8220;U.S.-led occupation prisons.&#8221; Translation: Gitmo detainees. (Americans would never negotiate such a reckless trade, right? Oh, wait.)</p>
<p>In an even weirder twist, Hassoun somehow resurfaced at the U.S. embassy in Lebanon a few weeks after he walked away from his base. His family was rumored to have enlisted the aid of an Islamist group associated with the Muslim Brotherhood.</p>
<p>Hassoun denied desertion charges, came back to the U.S. for trial and then deserted a second time after failing to return to Camp Lejeune after visiting family in Utah. In 2011, Hassoun&#8217;s family sought a $1 million book and movie deal in Hollywood. One of his brothers said the fugitive Marine was with family in Lebanon.</p>
<p>Ten summers after he abandoned his post, double-deserting Hassoun is still on the run and has yet to be held accountable.</p>
<p>It&#8217;s worth reminding Americans about Hassoun&#8217;s story in light of President Obama&#8217;s exploding Bowe Bergdahl scandal. By all appearances, this administration has no intention of taking action on longstanding allegations that Bergdahl, like Hassoun before him, deliberately abandoned his post in 2009. Defiant Obama said he makes &#8220;no apologies&#8221; for the treacherous deal, even as reports of Bergdahl&#8217;s renunciation of U.S. citizenship and conversion to Islam have surfaced in the past 48 hours.</p>
<p>Soldiers on the ground have described how Bergdahl&#8217;s disappearance catalyzed deadly coordinated attacks by the Taliban on numerous U.S. outposts in Afghanistan. The response has been breathtaking. One of Obama&#8217;s minions, former Veterans Affairs bureaucrat and now Housing and Urban Development flack Brandon Friedman defended his boss by suggesting that Bergdahl&#8217;s colleagues were &#8220;psychopaths.&#8221;</p>
<p>Nancy Pelosi&#8217;s daughter, Alexandra, sneered that Bergdahl&#8217;s critics inside the military are &#8220;dysfunctional.&#8221; Harry Reid invoked Hillary Clinton&#8217;s &#8220;What difference does it make?&#8221; retort. The president himself sniffed that swelling anger among the families of the fallen was &#8220;whipped up.&#8221;</p>
<p>Islamist sympathizers inside our military walk away, and the Obama White House turns a blind eye. The Fort Hood jihad attack by Nidal Hasan, who invoked Hassoun in PowerPoint presentations to his military supervisors, is &#8220;workplace violence.&#8221; Gitmo recidivist Abu Sufian bin Qumu, lead suspect in the Benghazi attack, roams free despite the president&#8217;s promise to make &#8220;justice&#8221; his &#8220;biggest priority.&#8221;</p>
<p>Our commander in chief empties Gitmo of the worst of the worst jihadists and shrugs at the recidivists targeting American soldiers and civilians. And in a desperate attempt to deflect from the rising death toll of the Veterans Affairs book-cooking scandal, Obama gave Bob Bergdahl a Rose Garden stage to invoke Allah in Arabic.</p>
<p>If you&#8217;re not &#8220;whipped up&#8221; into Category 5 disgust, you&#8217;re not paying attention.</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>Putting &#8216;Memory&#8217; Back in the Next Memorial Day</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/christian-tureaud/putting-memory-back-in-the-next-memorial-day/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=putting-memory-back-in-the-next-memorial-day</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 30 May 2014 04:14:42 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Christian Tureaud]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[hero]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[honor]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Memorial Day]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[memory]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Military]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[The Hornet's Nest]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=226575</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Why we brought our warriors' stories to the silver screen in "The Hornet's Nest."]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/The-Hornet’s-Nest-2014-Movie.jpg"><img class=" wp-image-226577 alignleft" alt="The-Hornet’s-Nest-2014-Movie" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/The-Hornet’s-Nest-2014-Movie-450x285.jpg" width="315" height="200" /></a>It seems these days that every Christmas we are reminded of those who want to take Christ out of Christmas, but what about those who have taken the &#8220;memory&#8221; from Memorial Day and turned it instead into a holiday devoted to great deals on refrigerators at Best Buy? Or the blow-out sales at your local car dealership? Or perhaps it is about gathering with family and throwing some burgers on the barbecue while the kids splash around in the pool. This is the trend I saw yesterday.</p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">While hanging out with friends and going shopping is great, we know in our hearts that that&#8217;s not what this holiday was about. It&#8217;s about taking one day –just one day out of our busy year to remember the brave men and women who put on the uniform in our stead and defend our country and the values we stand for. But most didn’t even do that.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Soldiers go and fight a war, and then come home and fight another kind of war. What must it be like for a soldier sitting at home watching commercials for the annual Memorial Day events, all the while realizing what he really needs – if anyone was asking – is not a new car, but rather a new leg, or relief from his PTSD-induced nightmares, or a simple understanding from those around him? While America celebrates this day with friends and family, how many of us did something – anything – to honor and remember our brave men and women in uniform?</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">We have one slightly self-serving suggestion for how you can spend this time of year: you see we made a film called </span><i style="line-height: 1.5em;">The Hornet</i><i style="line-height: 1.5em;">’</i><i style="line-height: 1.5em;">s Nest</i><i style="line-height: 1.5em;"> </i><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">in the hope that we could bring stories of our heroic soldiers back home to the American heartland. We wanted to make a film that shows the real life of these soldiers. We have travelled the world visiting with troops and their families, sharing their joy and their pain and taking on the mission these soldiers always charge us with: “Please fight for us – tell America what is really going on.” </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">So we did just that. Our movie isn&#8217;t a fictionalized Hollywood movie – it&#8217;s the real deal. You&#8217;ll be there with our troops as bullets whiz overhead, as they face moments of disappointment, courage and triumph. And yes, you&#8217;ll suffer through the tragic loss of brave members of their company who didn&#8217;t make it through the battle. </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">So this Memorial day season, we hope you&#8217;ll consider putting a pause on the Memorial Day shopping for a few hours and put the “memory” back in Memorial Day, giving our troops the time they deserve to thank them for what they&#8217;ve done for us.</span></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>Does Obama Care About the Troops?</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/ben-shapiro/does-obama-care-about-the-troops/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=does-obama-care-about-the-troops</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 29 May 2014 04:52:33 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Ben Shapiro]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Afghanistan]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Military]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[photo-op]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[troops]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[visit]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=226427</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[America's photo-op Commander-in-Chief. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/afghanistan-us-obama-1.jpg"><img class=" wp-image-226428 alignleft" alt="afghanistan-us-obama-1" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/afghanistan-us-obama-1-450x319.jpg" width="315" height="223" /></a>On the day before Memorial Day, President Barack Obama secretly flew into Afghanistan for a surprise visit to the troops. &#8220;We&#8217;re going to stay strong by taking care of our wounded warriors and our veterans. Because helping our wounded warriors and veterans heal isn&#8217;t just a promise, it&#8217;s a sacred obligation &#8230; I&#8217;m here to say that I&#8217;m proud of you,&#8221; he stated.</p>
<p>But he wasn&#8217;t in Afghanistan out of mere pride for the troops. As usual, Obama was using the troops for political purposes. Whether he&#8217;s taking credit for their successful missions (&#8220;Today, at my direction, the United States launched a targeted operation against that compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan&#8221;) or portraying them as victims of brutal, hawkish foreign policy (we &#8220;have seen over 3,000 lives of the bravest young Americans wasted&#8221; in Iraq), the troops are but implements in Obama&#8217;s quest for political victory.</p>
<p>And so Obama headed for Afghanistan when news broke that hospitals with the Veterans Affairs had falsified waitlists, resulting in the deaths of dozens of veterans. Because he cares.</p>
<p>This follows a long pattern for Obama. In April 2009, Obama flew to Iraq for a surprise visit. The press dutifully recorded accounts of cheering throngs of troops eager to get a picture of the president with their cameras. They did not, however, report on allegations at the time that soldiers were pre-screened for placement at the Obama event, and that cameras were handed out to the troops.</p>
<p>In October 2009, Obama got up early — earlier even than he usually does for his tee times — to visit Dover Air Force Base, Delaware, and watch the coffins of fallen soldiers come home, amid accusations that the war in Afghanistan was spiraling out of control.</p>
<p>The New York Times reported, &#8220;The images and the sentiment of the president&#8217;s five-hour trip to Delaware were intended by the White House to convey to the nation that Mr. Obama was not making his Afghanistan decision lightly or in haste.&#8221; That sentence disappeared from the original report shortly after it hit the Internet.</p>
<p>The following month, Obama visited Osan Air Base in South Korea, where he stood before troops and stated, &#8220;you guys make a pretty good photo op.&#8221; He used that perspective to its full advantage one month later, when he announced his short-term, midlevel surge in Afghanistan at West Point (New York).</p>
<p>And, of course, when push came to shove during his re-election campaign, Obama showed up — surprise! — in Afghanistan, on the one-year anniversary of the killing of Osama bin Laden, where he stated, &#8220;The goal that I set — to defeat al-Qaida and deny it a chance to rebuild — is now within our reach.&#8221;</p>
<p>Obama has slashed military funding at historic levels; he insisted that sequestration cuts come largely from the Defense Department. His Veterans Affairs is a shambles, yet he won&#8217;t fire his top man, Eric Shinseki. Iraq is collapsing. Afghanistan will soon follow.</p>
<p>But he routinely claims that he loves the troops.</p>
<p>Do you believe him?</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>Amnesty By Any Means Necessary</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/arnold-ahlert/amnesty-by-any-means-necessary/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=amnesty-by-any-means-necessary</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 22 May 2014 04:37:06 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Arnold Ahlert]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Amnesty]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Dreamer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[executive action]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Illegal Immigration]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Military]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obama]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=226018</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Obama takes threats to abuse his executive powers to a new level. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/obama-mad-33.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-226019" alt="obama-mad-33" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/obama-mad-33-450x300.jpg" width="315" height="210" /></a>The Obama administration is determined to continue mocking the separation of powers concept contained in the Constitution. Thus, the president is contemplating another unilateral move with regard to illegal immigration, </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_IMMIGRATION?SITE=AP&amp;SECTION=HOME&amp;TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&amp;CTIME=2014-05-20-17-48-52">allowing</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> some illegal aliens brought here as children to serve in the United States military.</span></p>
<p>The move is an outgrowth of another unilateral decision made by Obama, known as the <a href="http://www.uscis.gov/humanitarian/consideration-deferred-action-childhood-arrivals-process">Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals</a> (DACA). DACA provided work permits and deferred action from deportation to approximately 500,000 younger illegals who met certain eligibility criteria. The Defense Department &#8220;continues to examine the laws and policies that address the eligibility of noncitizens to serve in the military in order to determine if and how our programs could be applied to DACA recipients,&#8221; Pentagon spokesman Lt. Cmdr. Nate Christensen said in a statement.</p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The move is yet another effort to push the envelope on comprehensive immigration reform cherished by the administration, the Democratic Party and a substantial number of Republicans. Several members from both parties hardly need pushing. Efforts were made to attach immigrant-related measures to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) being debated this week. Reps. Joaquín Castro (D-TX) and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/21/enlist-act_n_5360741.html">submitted</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> an </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://amendments-rules.house.gov/amendments/CASTTX_03151914083702372.pdf">amendment</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> aimed at allowing DACA beneficiaries, better known as &#8220;Dreamers,&#8221; to attend military academies. &#8220;The administration’s Deferred Action policy allowed many of these Dreamers to live, study, and work in this country without the fear of deportation,&#8221; Castro said in a statement about his amendment. &#8220;However, we must ensure that the doors of opportunity are not closed to them as they strive to get ahead.” </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">A trio of House Representatives submitted two different amendments aimed at allowing illegal aliens to join the military. Rep. Mike Coffman&#8217;s (R-CO) </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://amendments-rules.house.gov/amendments/COFF008516141334473447.pdf">proposal</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> also included a subsection that would grant &#8220;permanent residency” status to qualified enlistees. Reps.Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) and Jeff Denham (R-CA) </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.politico.com/story/2014/05/jeff-denham-immigration-reform-106853.html">filed</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> a measure on Monday called the </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://amendments-rules.house.gov/amendments/DENHAM_03051614145201521.pdf">Enlist Act</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> that would also allow enlistees to become eligible for citizenship. It was co-sponsored 50 House members, 26 Democrats and 24 Republicans. &#8220;There is no better way to show your patriotism, your commitment, your sacrifice and the willingness to earn that citizenship than being willing to serve in our military,” Denham asserted.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Apparently it has escaped Denham and others that a better way to demonstrate one’s commitment to the nation might be respecting its laws. Laws that include going to the back of the line of those attempting to immigrate here legally. </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Fortunately, in an </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.wjla.com/articles/2014/05/house-republicans-blocks-votes-on-immigration-defense-policy-bill-103351.html">early Wednesday</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> morning vote, the House Rules Committee blocked the immigrant-related amendments to the NDAA. A spokesman for House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) explained the Enlist Act would not be part of the NDAA debate. House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) was of like mind—temporarily. &#8220;We have supported it in the past, but trying to do this on the National Defense Authorization bill seems to be an inappropriate place to do it,&#8221; Boehner explained.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Rep. Castro was upset. ”I’m disappointed that expanding opportunity to all of our students to the U.S military academies is not allowed to be part of the discussion about our nation&#8217;s defense readiness,&#8221; he said in a statement.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Castro’s disappointment pales in comparison to that of Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-IL). In </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://gutierrez.house.gov/testimony-senate-appropriations-defense-subcommittee-immigrant-enlistment-force-multiplier-us-armed">testimony</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> on Monday before the Senate Appropriation’s Defense Subcommittee on the same subject, Gutierrez insisted that &#8220;our society must work around the fact that our immigration laws are thirty years out-of-date and the military is no exception.” Toward the end of his testimony, he doubled down. &#8220;The fact that we have an estimated 11 million or more people living and working here underground is a serious national problem that must be resolved,” he declared. &#8220;We have as a society rightly concluded that driving out 11 million people and their families is bad policy. But leaving the status quo is no solution, either. In the meantime, every institution in America, including our military, must work around the inability of our federal government and the U.S. House of Representatives to fix our immigration system.”</span></p>
<p>In other words, a United States congressman who took an oath to support and defend the laws of this nation is advocating for overt and widespread lawlessness. In a nation where the rule of law still mattered, calling for “every institution in America” to disobey the law this would be strongly condemned. In this nation, “noble” agendas now trump “trivial” legalities.</p>
<p>On Tuesday, Senate Democrats revealed their latest noble agenda. After meeting with pro-immigration advocates at the Capitol, they <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2014/05/senate-house-immigration-106917.html">announced</a> their intention to rally around one idea, as in focusing all of their efforts on recalcitrant House Republicans from now until the beginning of August when the Senate ends their current session. “We talked about doing everything we could to get the House to act before August recess,” said Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) following the meeting. “If they don’t act, you know, then the president is going to have no choice but to act on his own. But we’d all prefer that there be a legislative solution.”</p>
<p>Those who attended the meeting were primarily leftist pro-immigration factions, along with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and Democratic members of the Senate Gang of Eight that crafted the bill currently languishing in the House. Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) reportedly made the most persuasive case for waiting until August, in the hopes that legislative reform, with the full force of law behind it, would be enacted, rather than the kind of temporary relief implemented by the president.</p>
<p>Nonetheless not everyone was on board. Some at the meeting insisted that genuine movement on the issue must be seen by the Fourth of July recess, or early July. If not they expect &#8220;Senate Democratic leadership to be hand-in-hand with us completely on a broad relief both in terms of enforcement reforms and affirmative relief,” said Marielena Hincapie, executive director of the National Immigration Law Center.</p>
<p>Clarissa Martinez de Castro, director of civic engagement and immigration at the National Council of La Raza, echoed that assertion. “I think the pressure is going to continue mounting on all sides,” she said. “We are going to continue pressuring the White House. Whenever there’s delay on the issue of immigration, it hasn’t really served us well.&#8221;</p>
<p>Unsurprisingly, “us” doesn&#8217;t include millions of Americans who will be ill-served, <a href="http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/poll-47-unemployed-have-completely-given-looking-job_793422.html">including</a> the 47 percent of long-term unemployed Americans who say they&#8217;ve “completely given up on looking for a job,” or the 60 percent who say looking for work has been harder than expected, according to a Harris Poll. Nor are pro-immigration advocates the least bit concerned with a Congressional Budget Office (CBO) <a href="http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/attachments/44346-Immigration.pdf">report</a> revealing that average wages &#8220;would be slightly lower than under current law through 2024,” and “slightly raise the unemployment rate through 2020.”</p>
<p>All that currently matters to the coalition of leftist activists and Democrats, who envision a permanent leftist hegemony, and like-minded Republicans, along with the Chamber of Commerce and various technology firms who envision an endless supply of cheap labor, is being able to sell this monstrosity to an American public disguised as bipartisan cooperation, rather than the sellout of American exceptionalism it truly represents.</p>
<p>What little resistance remains among Republicans was addressed by Boehner spokesman Michael Steel. “Speaker Boehner has been very clear about this: He wants to fix America’s broken immigration system,” said Steel, “But no one trusts the White House to enforce the law as written.”</p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Including illegals themselves. A “crisis” condition has been </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.woai.com/articles/woai-local-news-sponsored-by-five-star-cleaners-119078/flood-of-unaccompanied-minors-sneaking-into-12371285">declared</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> in Texas, where so many undocumented and unaccompanied children from Central America have snuck into the country that the Border Patrol cannot find enough shelter to house them all. It is part of an effort by immigrant smugglers to take advantage of a U.S. law that prohibits children from being deported unless they are from Mexico. Children from everywhere else must be turned over to the Department of Health and Human Services, increasing their chances to stay in the country—and making it possible that their parents and other relatives can join them.</span></p>
<p>Astoundingly, more than 60,000 unaccompanied children are expected to cross into Texas this year alone. According to the report, many of them are being driven by the thought of getting DREAM Act amnesty, even though “it may not pass” and &#8220;only covers children who came here with their illegal immigrant parents, not alone, and children have to have entered the U.S. before 2012 to be eligible for the program.”</p>
<p>Really? The law was unilaterally enacted by the president, absent any input from Congress. Is there even a scintilla of doubt it could easily be “adjusted” when Democrat and media-fueled cries to do so “for the children” fill news cycle after news cycle?</p>
<p>A short <a href="http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/opinion/57952457-82/immigrants-immigration-illegal-million.html.csp">editorial</a> in the <i>Salt Lake Tribune </i>gets to the meat of such contempt for the law. It notes that a lack of enforcement in exchange for granting amnesty to nearly 3 million illegal aliens in 1986 has resulted in four times that number of illegals living in America today. It also poses the ultimate question Americans must ponder, following the passage of comprehensive immigration reform. &#8220;With the lack of will to enforce the law, what is the plan for the next 12 million illegal immigrants?” it asks.</p>
<p>Sadly, it’s an <i>optimistic</i> question. An additional 12 million illegal aliens attempting to enter the country in the hopes that still another round of amnesty will pass might be a <i>modest</i> total. That’s because Americans tend to think of illegal immigration as a problem almost wholly associated with nations to our south. The world is a far bigger place, and an American “welcome mat”—comprised of self-interested constituencies coupled with widespread contempt for the law—suggests we may be dealing with a far larger and more widespread assault on our borders in the future. And that’s assuming the word “border” retains any meaning at all in America’s future.</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>Amidst U.S. Retreat, France Scrambles for Strategic Allies</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/jerome-vitenberg/amidst-u-s-retreat-france-scrambles-for-strategic-allies/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=amidst-u-s-retreat-france-scrambles-for-strategic-allies</link>
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		<pubDate>Wed, 07 May 2014 04:02:15 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Jerome Vitenberg]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Africa]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[France]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Military]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Operation Sangaris]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[UK]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=224882</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Old colonial powers turn to one another to maintain security in central Africa. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/os.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-224935" alt="os" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/os-450x291.jpg" width="315" height="204" /></a>France’s role in Africa has changed in recent years.  To ensure that it is not perceived as – and does not conduct itself like – a neo-colonial power, its interventions in Africa have sought to accord with its own democratic values of respect for the rights of the people and for the rule of law, even in cases where this brings France into conflict with some African leaders who have become accustomed to a corrupt way of life.</p>
<p>In 1994, approximately one million people were slaughtered in the war crimes committed during the “Rwandan Genocide.” The shocking images of its atrocities increased recognition of responsibility in France and the West for preventing future humanitarian tragedies in Africa.</p>
<p>From a strategic perspective, any descent into chaos in Central Africa would also have consequences in North Africa, itself only a short distance from Europe’s southern shores. This is simply a modern-day application of the Eisenhower domino theory, without its counter arguments related to the occupation of countries by foreign forces: Today, local governments require time-limited Western military intervention to assist their own armed forces.</p>
<p>Combining a more enlightened role and modern strategic needs, Paris, thus currently favours brief UN-mandated military interventions to support African political solutions.  This is precisely the mission of France&#8217;s Operation Sangaris: to bolster the efforts of local armies and the African Union&#8217;s MISCA force in the CAR. However, due to severe financial constraints, France also needs Western and professional partners.</p>
<p>While the EU and the United States have been looked to for this role, inviting these two partners to join as the main contributors to peace-making in Central Africa may not be the most judicious choice. First, seeking military intervention from the EU outside of its borders strengthens its political status, and contributes to a corresponding decrease in the sovereignty of the various European nation-states by effectively ceding it new executive powers in an area that has hitherto been the preserve of the individual members.</p>
<p>Second, asking for financial and military assistance from the United States, the classic sponsor of such operations till 2008, fails to recognize what I have called the “US foreign policy Whirlfall” &#8212; a whirlpool generated by the US retreat from global interventions, reinforced by the windfall that America’s global rivals are reaping from US-imposed policy limitations on its allies. At a time of global retrenchment, President Obama is unlikely to engage in a new military mission in Africa.</p>
<p>Since the Fashoda Incident in 1898, when France and Britain faced off over their respective territorial claims in East Africa, and the signing of the Franco-British <i>Entente Cordiale</i> in 1904, it is Britain that has traditionally been France&#8217;s partner in Africa. With similar African histories, the two countries share the same democratic respect for the rule of law and human rights.  The British, too, understand that their role in Africa is to support the African people and governments, not to re-create a colonial empire.</p>
<p>The two countries already work closely in combating piracy and other maritime and coastal threats, and share human and electronic intelligence. But notwithstanding the British intelligence and logistical support provided for Operation Sangaris, the partnership has much greater potential, for Central Africa itself, as well as for the UK and France. Further, with its defense budget crippled, France has signaled its need for additional British involvement that would not only share the costs of the operation but also strengthen the operation&#8217;s effectiveness on the ground.</p>
<p>The British Armed Forces’ (BAF) operational capacity would offer more than simply logistical support. Expanded Royal Air Force operational missions could be flown in coordination with the French Air Force, while the British Army ground forces could contribute a few regiments of land personnel, both in operational and training roles.</p>
<p>Moreover, beyond the purely military dimension, the British offer an additional area of expertise, one that is critical to strengthening the establishment of civil societies that France is seeking to advance in Central Africa. With its excellent BAF education facilities, many of them affiliated with UK universities, the British have the ability to provide high-quality educational courses to the African armed forces that are in dire need of training to achieve greater efficiency and autonomy. These centres could also provide British academic training to relevant members of the region&#8217;s executive, legislative and judiciary branches, thereby sharing the financial burden of such training which France is now bearing alone. Such assistance would aid in the democratization process and support the regeneration of state institutions.</p>
<p>Britain&#8217;s failure to devote additional resources to stabilizing Central Africa would also be harmful to its future position in the region. Without greater UK involvement, France would remain financially strapped and politically isolated and would have no alternative but to lobby for the creation of a European task force and the implementation of “EUFOR RCA Bangui” approved in January 2014.</p>
<p>Is the UK willing to relinquish its national interests in Africa and cede still more of its national sovereignty by promoting Brussels’ influence?  The alternative is to make some adjustments to the severe budget cuts the British armed forces are facing and allow the UK Ministry of Defense to provide the French with a short-term increase in operational assistance.</p>
<p>With Britain under budgetary pressure, spending 150 million pounds a year – the approximate financial cost for this increased assistance – in an obscure and remote military enterprise whose outcome is uncertain, might seem like an unnecessary expense that should be avoided. Nevertheless, such expenditure would represent less than half a percent of the MoD&#8217;s annual budget.  As removed as Bangui may be from the British consciousness, it would be a small investment given the political, diplomatic, strategic and commercial dividends it will bring the UK in the years to come.  Dispatching a British brigade to the region would breathe new life into a partnership between two nations so famously committed to human dignity.  Surely this is reason enough for the UK to stand up and be counted.</p>
<p>Clearly, the main immediate beneficiaries would be the people of Central Africa who have suffered so much for so long. Assisting the French in Central Africa would represent a clear fulfillment on a humanitarian obligation.  Yet it would also keep France from becoming pushed into a corner in which it would be at the mercy of Brussels.  Finally, it would put London &#8220;on the map”, very close to what Winston Churchill described as the “Pearl of Africa”. British support for Sangaris is thus intrinsic to the UK&#8217;s modern global ethos.</p>
<p>Fashoda is approximately a century and 1,500 kilometers away from Operation Sangaris’s arena. Should the UK be supporting the MISCA and the French?  “To be or not to be” – there really is no question.</p>
<p><em>Jérôme Vitenberg is an international political analyst. He has taught Political Science and International relations for the LSE via the University of London’s International Programmes at DEI College, Greece.</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>
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		<title>NATO’s Next Secretary General: Jens Stoltenberg?</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/fjordman/natos-next-secretary-general-jens-stoltenberg/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=natos-next-secretary-general-jens-stoltenberg</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 27 Mar 2014 04:40:43 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Fjordman]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[angela merkel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[jens stoltenberg]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Military]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[NATO]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Norway]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=221999</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Why the former KGB ally is not fit for the job. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/jens-stoltenberg.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-222000" alt="jens-stoltenberg" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/jens-stoltenberg-450x330.jpg" width="270" height="198" /></a>The Norwegian press has been buzzing with rumors lately that Jens Stoltenberg &#8212; who until the autumn of 2013 was the Prime Minister of Norway &#8212; is a serious candidate for becoming the new Secretary General of the Western defense alliance NATO. The former Danish PM Anders Fogh Rasmussen is stepping down from this position later in 2014.</p>
<p>Apparently, German Chancellor <a href="http://www.thelocal.no/20140320/stoltenberg-had-long-discussions-with-us-on-nato-role">Angela Merkel</a> proposed Stoltenberg for the job. Merkel made her proposal directly to US President Barack Obama, who agreed that he was a good choice for the role. Stoltenberg allegedly spent months discussing the role with the US Secretary of State John Kerry and his security advisor Susan E. Rice while he was in New York, ostensibly in his role as UN Special Envoy for Climate Change.</p>
<p>This is not a done deal yet, however. One of Mr. Stoltenberg&#8217;s <a href="http://www.vg.no/nyheter/utenriks/eu/artikkel.php?artid=10146692">presumed rivals</a> for the job as head of NATO is José Barroso, Portugal&#8217;s former Prime Minister and also a former Communist. In 2014 Barroso will be stepping down as President of the European Commission, the unelected and unaccountable government for half a billion people in the EU. Barroso has held this job for ten years. Other possible NATO candidates who have been mentioned are Franco Frattini, Italy&#8217;s former Foreign Minister, and Radoslaw Sikorski, Poland&#8217;s current Foreign Minister.</p>
<p>The decision on who will become the next formal head of NATO has thus not been made yet. However, Jens Stoltenberg himself is taking this possibility so seriously that there are already rumors that he might soon be leaving his current position as the leader of the Norwegian Labour Party.</p>
<p>My opinion as a Norwegian is that Mr. Stoltenberg is personally unsuited for the task of being the Secretary General of NATO. Assigning him the job will further weaken the organization. Yes, this is mainly a symbolic position with limited power. However, the world is full of symbols because we realize that symbols can be important in real life. Elevating Jens Stoltenberg to such a position would send out the wrong signals.</p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">For instance, it is a documented fact that Jens Stoltenberg was one of quite a few left-wing politicians in Western Europe who had a file </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/fjordman/the-norwegian-lefts-kgb-romance/">with the KGB</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> because they considered him to be a </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.vg.no/nyheter/innenriks/artikkel.php?artid=5916647">friendly contact</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">. There are no indications that he did anything that was outright illegal with these friendly talks, but they were certainly unwise and reflect poorly on his character. The KGB was the secret police of the totalitarian entity known as the Soviet Union. Back then it was NATO&#8217;s primary enemy and a very real military threat. It would look strange if a man who was classified as a friendly contact by NATO&#8217;s primary enemy a generation ago were to become head of NATO today.</span></p>
<p>Moreover, as Norwegian Prime Minister, Jens Stoltenberg has in recent years been very weak in dealing with Islamic aggression.</p>
<p>Norway shares a border with Russia, as it previously did with the Soviet Union. I am not one of those who compare the Russian President Vladimir Putin to Hitler. This is hysterical hyperbole. However, Putin is certainly a ruthless Machiavellian character. While in power, Stoltenberg was not convincing when dealing with Putin or the Russians. He has a track record of being weak against almost any potential aggressor.</p>
<p><a href="http://gatesofvienna.net/topical/mullah-krekar/">Mullah Krekar</a> is perhaps the most notorious militant Muslim in Norway, where he is currently serving a prison sentence for death threats. He has previously praised the terrorist leader <a href="http://www.vg.no/nyheter/innenriks/artikkel.php?artid=592482">Osama bin Laden</a> and stated that Muslims will <a href="http://www.dagbladet.no/nyheter/2006/03/13/460523.html">conquer Europe</a>. Krekar in 2013 advised Muslims in Norway to vote for Stoltenberg&#8217;s <a href="http://www.thelocal.no/20130829/vote-labour-says-jailed-islamist-mullah-krekar">Labour Party</a>, as this would be the best option for the continued Islamization of the country. PM <a href="http://www.thelocal.no/20130918/norway-pm-demands-progress-boss-apologise-for-sneak-islamization">Jens Stoltenberg</a> responded by chastising the opposition Progress Party for having used the term &#8220;stealth-Islamization.&#8221;</p>
<p>The famous cartoons of Islam’s founder Mohammed, originally printed in the Danish newspaper <i>Jyllands</i>-<i>Posten</i> in September 2005, were republished by a tiny Christian newspaper in Norway whose editor was <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQD7JcORv-s">Vebjørn Selbekk</a>. He reprinted them because it was natural to show what the news story was about. As a result of this, he soon received dozens of explicit death threats from Muslims. Some of these were very graphic, describing plans to cut his throat in his bed. He had enjoyed a quiet family life prior to this. Now suddenly everything was turned upside down. Bodyguards instructed his family on how to check for bombs under their car.</p>
<p>In addition to the many Islamic threats against him, Selbekk was strongly pressured to back down by leading Norwegian politicians such as Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Støre of the Labour Party. PM Jens Stoltenberg, at a point when Selbekk’s family were living with constant death threats, pointed him out as personally responsible for inciting the attack by an angry Muslim mob on the Norwegian embassy in Damascus, Syria. He and his government thereby indirectly gave legitimacy to Islamic death threats against one of their fellow citizens.</p>
<p>Then Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen of Denmark showed some spine in 2005-2006 when faced with aggressive Islamic pressure in the same situation. Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg of Norway showed none. In Oslo, Selbekk was forced to <a href="http://www.nrk.no/norge/selbekk-beklager-dypt-1.518242">apologize</a> to Muslims in a press conference organized by the Stoltenberg government.</p>
<p>One of those who had incited anger and hatred among Muslims by this time was Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood. A delegation supported by the Stoltenberg <a href="http://www.dagbladet.no/nyheter/2006/02/14/457855.html">government</a> was soon sent to have talks with Mr. Qaradawi in Qatar. He there accepted Norway’s apologies to Muslims.</p>
<p>In 2008, members of the Muslim Brotherhood were invited for talks with the Foreign Ministry in Oslo. One of those who took part on behalf of the national authorities was <a href="http://www.vg.no/nyheter/innenriks/artikkel.php?artid=530563">Gry Larsen</a>, a former leader of the Labour Party’s youth movement AUF. The freethinker <a href="http://www.aftenposten.no/meninger/kronikker/article1240651.ece">Walid al-Kubaisi</a> has correctly indicated that the Brotherhood represent a dangerous Islamic movement with totalitarian goals. Kubaisi in February <a href="http://www.dagbladet.no/nyheter/2006/02/13/457665.html">2006</a> warned that by applauding Vebjørn Selbekk&#8217;s forced public apology to Muslims, the Stoltenberg government and Norwegian authorities could be seen as submitting to Islamic aggression against their own citizens.</p>
<p>Jens Stoltenberg seems to be just fine with the ongoing Islamization of his country and his continent. Meanwhile, he has expressed great concerns about <a href="http://www.dagbladet.no/2014/01/13/nyheter/innenriks/utenriks/politikk/samfunn/31245635/">global warming</a>.</p>
<p>NATO was designed to defend the West against expansionist Communist aggression from the Soviet Union and its satellite states. With some justification, many observers see the organization as a relic of the Cold War.</p>
<p>The greatest threats to the Western world today are:</p>
<p>1. Legal and illegal mass immigration from the global South, which has now grown so numerically large that it threatens the long-term stability and future of the Western world.</p>
<p>2. Islamic expansionist aggression and the renewed threat from Jihadist terror.</p>
<p>Yes, Russia, China and other countries are economic and potentially military rivals. Furthermore, there is always the threat of military and industrial espionage, among other things. However, the greatest threat to the future existence of the Western world is Third World mass immigration, and Muslim immigration in particular. NATO needs to deal forcefully with these threats in order to stay relevant and credible.</p>
<p>This task is complicated by the generally Islam-friendly attitudes and open borders-ideology of the ruling Western elites. Moreover, the rapidly re-Islamizing country of Turkey is still a member of NATO. The United States Government has long pushed for Turkey to join the European Union (EU). The EU itself is currently engaged <a href="http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/home-affairs/what-is-new/news/news/docs/20131216-roadmap_towards_the_visa-free_regime_with_turkey_en.pdf">in talks</a> about giving nearly 80 million Muslims from Turkey <a href="http://euobserver.com/enlargement/122350">visa-free access</a> to the EU.</p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">At some point NATO has to decide whether it wants to be a credible defense alliance, or whether it simply wants to be the armed wing of Amnesty International. If the organization picks Jens Stoltenberg as its next Secretary General, it has chosen the latter option.</span></p>
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		<title>Obama’s Appeasement Leads to War</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/obamas-appeasement-leads-to-war/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=obamas-appeasement-leads-to-war</link>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 10 Mar 2014 04:50:48 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Appeasement]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Cairo]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[disarm]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Military]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obama]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=220636</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[He blamed America first and put America last.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/obapp.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-220664" alt="Barack Obama" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/obapp-450x300.jpg" width="315" height="210" /></a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">On the shield of the Strategic Air Command a steel mailed fist grips a lightning bolt and an olive branch. The motto of the organization that was the nightmarish obsession of every Cold War leftist was “Peace is our Profession.”</span></p>
<p>To the moviegoers who sat through Dr. Strangelove, to the earnest leftists who saw the world going up in a puff of atomic smoke because the military industrial complex was obsessed with killing people, to the pseudo-idealists who passed on atomic secrets to Moscow to avoid an American monopoly on the bomb, the SAC’s motto was a demented joke. They knew that the only way to stop war was to disarm.</p>
<p>After the Soviet Union collapsed in the face of relentless pressure from Ronald Reagan, against their fervent opposition, their jeering of SDI defense and their clamor for total appeasement, they did not change their minds. They are even now penning earnest essays in <i>The Nation</i> explaining, as they did of Hungary and Czechoslovakia, that we are the warmongers who are making threatening moves.</p>
<p>In the spring of 2009, Obama delivered a speech in the Czech Republic calling for an end to nuclear weapons. Rather than celebrating the patriotic dedication of Americans throughout the Cold War which had made the freedom of the Czechs possible, he dug up the hoary leftist cliché of how “generations lived with the knowledge that their world could be erased in a single flash of light.”</p>
<p>Obama vowed “to put an end to Cold War thinking”, eliminate nuclear weapons and guarantee the defense of our allies “including the Czech Republic”.</p>
<p>That fall, Obama abandoned missile defense for Poland and the Czech Republic to appease Russia.</p>
<p>At his inaugural address, Obama had declared, “the lines of tribe shall soon dissolve”, “as the world grows smaller, our common humanity shall reveal itself” and “America must play its role in ushering in a new era of peace.”</p>
<p>The new era of peace was not to come. That same spring, his Cairo speech with its abandonment of American power and alliances would devolve the Middle East into murderous civil wars fought over lines of tribe and Islamist regimes rejecting common humanity with non-Muslims and even fellow Muslims.</p>
<p>Throughout his campaign, Obama had assured the country that Sunnis and Shiites would come together and negotiate a working arrangement once Americans troops were out of Iraq. Instead the Shiites seized power and Al Qaeda came surging back as the murderous champion of the Sunnis.</p>
<p>In Iraq, as in Ukraine and Syria, the lines of tribe held and common humanity was nowhere in sight.</p>
<p>The Democrats had exploited the Iraq War, which they had supported, to reinvent themselves as the anti-war party. John Kerry had gone from throwing his medals over the White House fence, to running for president on his Vietnam War service to mocking American soldiers by telling students, that if they didn’t study, they too would end up stuck in Iraq.</p>
<p>Gore had run against Bush by promising to be harder on Iraq. Kerry had run against Bush by promising to be harder on Iran. But then the Democratic Party’s ideological shift bore fruit and Hillary Clinton was suddenly too much of a warmonger to be president. The man who knocked her out of the race had become famous for delivering a confused anti-war speech to elderly Marxists in Chicago in 2002.</p>
<p>The Democrats had made it their priority to freeze Bush’s second term foreign policy by making it impossible for him to do anything about the terrorists streaming into Iraq out of Syria, Russia’s invasion of Georgia or Iran’s nuclear program. Meanwhile eager champagne drinking leftists held their glasses in the air, waiting for the ascension of their candidate who would “fix the world”.</p>
<p>By embracing the attacks on the Iraq War, the Democratic Party had reverted its foreign policy back before Reagan to the Carter era. Peace through strength was gone. Soft power was in. America would appease and apologize its way out of any foreign policy problems and surrender its way to peace.</p>
<p>By the time Obama’s 2009 world tour was done, American foreign policy lay in tatters. It would take years for the full damage to reveal itself, for the forces he had set in motion to crystallize into events such as the Syrian Civil War or the Russian invasion of Ukraine.</p>
<p>The men of the Strategic Air Command during the Cold War had understood, as the scribblers in <i>The Nation</i> did not, as the audiences giggling over Dr. Strangelove did not, that it wasn’t America power that would bring on war, but the elimination of that power.</p>
<p>They knew that they were standing against the long night. Now the night has come.</p>
<p>Obama deliberately abandoned American power. He threw it away with the same disdain that Kerry had tossed the medals over the White House fence. Unilateralism was over. It was a post-American world now with no more lines of tribe or border to get in the way of our uncommonly common humanity.</p>
<p>The message that he sent the world was that the Democratic Party’s opposition to the Iraq War had not been a temporary fluke or an opposition tactic. It was now government policy.</p>
<p>Obama abandoned Iraq to Iran and Afghanistan to the Taliban, snatching defeat out of the jaws of victory in both wars. Each time his foreign policy went up in flames, he rose from the ashes having learned nothing whatsoever from the experience.</p>
<p>Last year, Chuck Hagel’s Vision Zero group unveiled a parade of celebrities reciting Obama’s Czech speech. &#8220;I demand zero,&#8221; Matt Damon, Morgan Freeman and Whoopi Goldberg sonorously recited. They meant zero nuclear weapons, but they could have just as easily meant reducing American power to zero.</p>
<p>On Feb 24, Hagel unveiled a new series of drastic defense cuts that would take the US Army back to its smallest size since before the Cold War.</p>
<p>Three days later, Russia invaded Ukraine.</p>
<p>Obama and his ilk with their faith in international law and soft power had forgotten what Woodrow Wilson, that Democratic Party champion of international law, had said, “A steadfast concert for peace can never be maintained except by a partnership of democratic nations. No autocratic government could be trusted to keep faith within it or observe its covenants.”</p>
<p>Obama had put his faith in the submission of American power to autocrats, perverting Wilson’s already flawed vision. Distrusting American power, he had instead trusted in the willingness of Iran and Russia to meet his flexibility with friendship.</p>
<p>He blamed America first and put America last.</p>
<p>America has so far only paid the lightest price for the treason of the Democrats. The greater part of the price has been paid by the tens of thousands dead in the conflicts touched off by their foreign policy. But if the post-American foreign policy continues, then millions around the world, including Americans, will pay the price.</p>
<p>Every liberal today wants peace. Every diplomat wants to be a peacemaker. But their brand of peace, whether it is the negotiations with Russia, China, Iran, North Korea or Palestinian terrorists, is worthless. The only peace that counts is the one protected by the men of the Strategic Air Command who live the knowledge that the profession of peace can only be practiced with the tradecraft of war.</p>
<p>*</p>
<p>Don&#8217;t miss <strong>Daniel Greenfield </strong>on this week&#8217;s <strong>Glazov Gang</strong>. He discusses <em>Why Lois Lerner Pleaded the Fifth</em>, <em>Obama&#8217;s Belief that Abbas is a Peace Angel</em>, <em>Obama&#8217;s Helplessness Over the Ukraine</em>, and much, much more:</p>
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