Americans Stand with Israel

USAID Delivering U.S. Aid in Afghanistan With No Markings Indicating It's U.S. Aid

2012-03-01T15:34:00.001-05:00

a FILE - In this June 3, 2010 file photo, Afghan Army soldiers arrive to join a mission with Canadian soldiers with the 1st Battalion, in Khebari Ghar in the Panjwayi district, south-west of Kandahar, Afghanistan. Gunmen, including one believed to be an Afghan soldier, killed two NATO troops Thursday, March 1, 2012 in southern Afghanistan, just hours after the top NATO commander in the country allowed some foreign advisers to return to work at government ministries. (AP Photo/Anja Niedringhaus, File)

By Penny Starr

March 1, 2012

CNS NEWS

(CNSNews.com) – Removing the markings that identify humanitarian aid being delivered to Afghans living in temporary camps is not in response to the deaths of at least four Americans, a spokesman for USAID told CNSNews.com.

“This precedes the current situation over the Quran burnings,” the spokesman said on Wednesday.

The USAID spokesman said the practice is not out of a “particular fear of ordinary citizens,” but of insurgents looking for specific targets.

“There’s not branding in specific incidences where there could be a threat,” the spokesman said. “It’s important to make that distinction.”

But media reports have linked the anonymous help coming from the United States – the largest donor of humanitarian aid in Afghanistan – with the “anti-American climate” in the country.

National Public Radio reported on Wednesday that people at the camps don’t know that some of the aid in the camps for displaced persons comes from the United States.

“But with the anti-American climate in Afghanistan - even before the Quran burnings - USAID has been keeping its logo off the aid it gives because of the danger it might pose,” said NPR reporter Quil Lawrence. “Even for a refugee, it's not safe to bed down on a blanket with a big American insignia on it.

“After the killings of American servicemen deep inside the Afghan interior ministry, some are wondering if the same danger applies to NATO advisors,” Lawrence said.

A Feb. 12 report in the New York Times said the USAID director in Afghanistan “confirmed that the aid was not being identified as coming from the United States, in case it might pose some risk or discomfort to the recipients.”

The same article quoted Lane Hartill, a spokesman for Save the Children, who said the humanitarian organization preferred to distribute aid without identifying the source.

“Our ability to provide help in a place like Afghanistan relies on us being neutral and being perceived as neutral,” Hartill said.

Bee's NOTE:

See the following: Two more troops are dead - shot by Afghan soldiers - American Thinker

and now, please read: U.S. Ambassador Doesn't Rule Out 'Proceedings' Against U.S. Troops Who Burned Qurans - CNS NEWS

I am sure "Save the Children" is a mighty charitable cause and one we should be wholeheartedly supporting. However, I think it is important to remember that our troops have been stationed in Afghanistan for over ten years, not because they want to be there, thousands of miles away from home, but because they are fighting to keep America safe. At first, they went over there to find bin-Laden and fight the terrorists who had attacked America on 9/11.

Years later, the cost in lives and the billions poured into this War on Terror is now boiled down to chasing Taliban terrorists (same as al-Qaeda terrorists), while our Administration speaks of winding down this war and bringing our troops home. And yet, the war is ongoing and never-ending. Our troops put their lives on the line as long as they remain in Afghanistan.

I personally believe that "Save America's Troops" is a far more charitable and worthy a cause than any other charity organization in this world -- period! And to have our Administration apologize to these Islamic countries where our troops are dying and being murdered, by cowards who wear no uniform (or, worse, who have been trained by our very own troops) and then annouce that our soldiers may be tried by NATO, at the requests of Islamic terrorists and a corrupt Afghanistan government, for the mistake of burning a few Korans - the property of Taliban prisoners, is the highlight of stupidity. My mind cannot wrap around the betrayal of our troops, by the very leaders in Washington who should be supporting them! What pure hypocrisy! Since when is the United States military judged by our enemies - Muslims under their Sharia laws? This has got to be the lowest and most nasty reaction by Obama's team since the day he first stepped inside the White House.

And, please, someone, ask this Commander-in-Chief when a President of the United States ever sided with America's enemies at the expense of our troops safety - when?
Never! Never in the history of this nation have we ever fought a war while its President stabbed our troops in the back - never! Common sense has left and in its place, political correctness and stupidity guide our leaders in Washington. Heaven help us all!

Ongoing: PA TV glorifies terror attack that killed 22 children and 4 adults in Ma'alot, in 1974

2012-03-01T14:58:00.000-05:00

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 29, 2012

Doc's Talk

Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik

Poster glorifying terrorists of the Ma'alot massacre in 1974, which killed 22 children and 4 adults
Last week, official Palestinian Authority TV repeatedly broadcast video tributes to terrorists from the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP). The tributes included glorification of the terrorist "Martyrs," as well as their many terror attacks, in which dozens of Israeli civilians were murdered. Palestinian Media Watch reported last year that PA TV ran similar videos honoring DFLP terrorists. PA TV glorified the Ma'alot massacre in which school children were taken hostage. 22 of them were murdered along with four adults. A poster honoring the three DFLP terrorists was shown during the video tributes (see right), in addition to posters glorifying dozens of other terrorists and their murders of civilians.

The PA TV tributes were in honor of the anniversary of the founding of the DFLP and were broadcast more than 10 times last week.

A collage labeled "Heroes of the special operations in northern Palestine" showed 16 photographs of DFLP terrorists posing with weapons and some dressed in military uniforms. The term "operations in northern Palestine" is a euphemism for 'terror attacks in northern Israel,' which originated in Lebanon.

"The Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
Heroes of the special operations in northern Palestine"

The terror attacks DFLP carried out in northern Israel include:

-The 1970 attack on a school bus near the town of Avivim in which 9 children and 3 adults were killed;

-The 1974 attack in the town of Ma'alot in which 22 children and 4 adults were killed, when terrorists took them hostage in a school.

-A 1974 attack in the city of Beit Shean in which 4 civilians were killed.

-A 1979 bomb attack in the city of Tiberias in which 2 civilians were killed.

The following are more pictures from the video tribute glorifying the DFLP:

Poster honoring terrorists from Beit Shean attack in which 4 were killed:
Text: "Glory to the heroes of Beit Shean,
the pride of the Palestinian revolution"

DFLP poster depicting Israel as "Palestine"
Text: "Gaza, West Bank and Galilee. Uncompromising struggle for national independence"

"Martyrs (Shahids) of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine in Nablus. The Palestinian National Resistance Brigades."

Poster glorifying Hani Al-Akad, who in 2004 recruited female suicide terrorists and planned a double suicide attack in Tel Aviv.

Rifles with flowers

Grenades mixed with fruit in the poster

Click to view more examples of the Palestinian Authority's policy of continued terror glorification.

Note:
The following video is explained, line by line, on Ron Mossad's blog: It is quite an in-depth article on the terrorism Israel faces daily and nothing has changed since it was first posted in 2010.

Living on a Thin Line: Israel, terrorism and the world in 2010...EXPLAINED

Itamar: Torah Celebration in Memory of Massacred Family

2012-03-01T14:44:00.001-05:00

The community of Itamar remembers the Fogel family one year after the brutal murder, dedicates Beit Midrash named for Udi Fogel.

By Elad Benari & Yoni Kempinski

First Publish: 3/1/2012, 2:43 PM

ISRAEL NATIONAL NEWS

Bereaved Fathers Dance with Torah Scroll

Flash 90

On Wednesday, the Shomron community of Itamar marked the first anniversary of the brutal murder of five members of the Fogel family by Arab terrorists.

Rabbi Ehud (Udi) Fogel, his wife Ruth, 11-year-old Yoav, four-year-old Elad, and three-month-old Hadas were stabbed to death by terrorists who entered their home on Friday night, March 11, 2011, and mercilessly killed them..

To commemorate the day, a Beit Midrash [study hall] called Mishkan (Tabernacle of) Ehud was dedicated in memory of Udi Fogel, in Itamar. Among the speakers at the dedication ceremony were KnessetSpeaker Reuven Rivlin (Likud), Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz (Likud) and MK Uri Ariel (National Union). Also speaking were Udi Fogel’s father, Haim Fogel, and Ruth Fogel’s father, Rabbi Yehuda Ben-Yishai of Machon Meir, who are raising the remaining Fogel children.

MK Ariel spoke of the unity among the people of Israel which the horrific murder brought with it, noting that it is a shame that Israelis are not united this way all year long.

“The terrible murder of the members of the Fogel family united for a period of time all the people of Israel, right and left, in a unity which is a shame we do not have throughout the year,” said Ariel. “Everyone put Itamar and the mission that Udi, Ruth and the rest of the residents fulfill here every day for their beliefs, into their minds. Even those who don’t agree with us identified with us for one moment.”

Ariel said that the Beit Midrash “is the true ‘price tag’, it is the proper Zionist response. It’s not a price tag of violence and vandalism, but a price tag of action, construction, Zionism and Torah.["Price tag" is the name ascribed to private acts of vandalism against Arabs in response to actions against Jews, ed.]

“We respond to destruction with construction, we respond to murder with life,” he added. “That’s the real message to the murderers and their supporters: you will not drive us out of here with your violence. Each murder only strengthens us further.”

Knesset Speaker Rivlin called on the Israeli government to strengthen the land of Israel, not just Judea and Samaria, by building in it and doing it constantly, not just after an act of terrorism.

“I call my friends in the Israeli government, we must not wait anymore,” he said. “Building the land of Israel is an ongoing national act, and it must be done, by government decision, legally and publicly, not secretly as a private initiative, not under the cover of darkness or in response to terrorist acts.

“We must learn from Ruth and Ehud about devotion to the building of Eretz Yisrael,” added Rivlin. “We are not allowed to build in Judea and Samaria only in response to terrorist acts. It is our duty to build in Judea and Samaria, and in the entire Land of Israel, every day. This is the commandment of the Torah and this is the commandment of Zionism. To build the country Israel does not need excuses, no justifications, and certainly not more acts of terrorism.”
Haim Fogel, father of Udi Fogel, said, “A year has passed since the catastrophe, a difficult year of memories and nostalgia, of soul searching among public and private grief. Now that we inaugurated the Beit Midrash named after Udi, our main task is to fill this place with students who will continue Udi and Ruth’s legacy.”

Rabbi Yehuda Ben-Yishai, father of Ruth Fogel said that the Mishkan Ehud Beit Midrash “is a living testimony to the ability of the people of Israel to stand up and be revived. I look at the holy ark, made up of stones and rocks, seemingly without life - and yet in this ark is the Book of Life. From these rocks comes out life.

“Rabbi Ehud and his wife Ruth were really rocks,” said Rabbi Ben-Yishai. From the outside they seemed like ordinary people. And yet so many things are growing out of them. From these rocks so many lives come out.”
Photos: Flash 90

Afghanistan: USA Military - Pics from the "Front" ....

2012-03-01T13:17:00.000-05:00

NOTE: Thank you, Weasel Zippers, for the following post and pictures. A great tribute to our troops!

Pics From The Front…

Best of the best.

A Coalition Special Operations Forces servicemember ducks under a departing UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter during a mission in Kunar province, Afghanistan, Feb. 25, 2012. The Commando-led mission conducted reconnaissance for a future Village Stability Platform, a site Afghan forces and coalition SOF will use to live and work with villagers. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Clay Weis / Released)

Coalition special operations forces members cover their faces to avoid flying debris as they wait to board a UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter during a mission in Kunar province, Afghanistan, Feb. 25, 2012.

Coalition special operations forces members sprint to board a UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter during a mission in Kunar province, Afghanistan, Feb. 25.

A U.S. Air Force A-10C Thunderbolt II from the 47th Fighter Squadron “Dogpatchers,” taxis for takeoff Feb. 29, 2012, at Bagram Air Field, Afghanistan. The 47th Fighter Squadron is deployed from the Air Force Reserves, Barksdale Air Force Base, La.

Pvt. Anthony McCarthy keeps watch outside an Afghan Local Police checkpoint in Marzak village Feb 26. U.S. Army Photo By Staff Sgt. Charles Crail, Task Force Blackhawk Public Affairs, 172nd Infantry Brigade

Second Lt. Theodore Hardy, the platoon commander for 2nd platoon, India Company, 3rd Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment, leads his platoon during a partnered patrol with the 3rd Tolai, 2nd Kandak, 2nd Brigade, 215th Corps, Afghan National Army, Feb. 20. Hardy and the rest of India Company have been mentoring and training the ANA to take over. The Afghan soldier here, patrolled with the Marines in support, through an area known for insurgent activity. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Lance Cpl. Timothy Lenzo)

A U.S. Marine assigned to the 2d Battalion, 9th Marine Regiment shakes hands with an Afghan child while on a walking tour of the bazaar with Deputy Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter in Marjeh, Afghanistan, Feb. 24, 2012. Secretary Carter was in Afghanistan visiting with U.S. Service members and Afghan leadership. (DoD Photo by Erin A. Kirk-Cuomo/Released)

Posted by ZIP on Wednesday, February 29, 2012, at 10:10 pm - WEASEL ZIPPERS

18 Reasons Why Obama Is Unfit To Be Commander-in Chief

2012-03-01T13:02:00.004-05:00

EXPOSE OBAMA

For a number of years,it has been known that the guy called President Obama has little to no known qualifications with the exception of being a street hustler and community organizer. Frankly,the man is not qualified to be a Cub Scout leader and would have difficulty running a lemon aid stand even if he could make proper change.
Give it some serious thought,dear readers. What has he accomplished that benefited our country aside from economic world-wide chaos and rudderless foreign policy which makes the entire world a very scary place? As the worlds remaining superpower,he is doing all he can in his power to destroy our status in that area as well.

As an anti-war candidate,the irony is that there doesn’t seem to be a conflict he is unwilling to enter in Eurasia. Ah yes,do we remember his repeated failures during the Arab Spring.

Now proving that he loathes the military,he has been doing everything possible to destroy it and the morale of its members. Why not? After all,he has become a dictator,and no one in Congress has enough estrogen or testosterone to have him impeached. Below,you will find a number of insults heaped upon our men and women in uniform:

1. He cut the military budget as he gave federal bureaucrats a raise.

2. Obama planned to force early retirement in the military with reduced pay. Not likely to fly as it would need congressional approval.

3. He made many new friends by changing the rules of military combat pay. That’s right,no combat pay unless the soldier is being shot at,never mind that most of the deaths and blood shed comes from I.E.D. ‘s.

4. In a classic move,Obama had the DOD end sale of expended Military brass to re-manufacturers. Order rescinded almost immediately due to the firestorm of criticism. It sure wouldn’t be a good idea for “right-wing extremists,” particularly those who read the bible and especially members of our armed forces returning home,who have also been designated a threat,to have less expensive “reloads” for ammunition. Hell no,we just can’t have a well armed militia can we?

5. Obama has begun negotiating new START legislation that would decrease our nuclear weapons by 80% while our enemies are developing them. But of course he plans to give away our nuclear secrets to the Russians so they won’t fear us.

6. Obama caves to Saudis as they blackmail him for more US made F-15’s

7. Military commanders have been ordered to lie about Afghanistan.

8. Obama made the decision NOT to award the Purple Heart to the fallen and survivors of the Ft. Hood Shooting by Muslim Terrorist Maj. Nidal Hasen,calling it “workplace violence.”This guy is great,isn’t he?

9. As Commander-in Chief,against the advice of his commanders while pandering to his gay constituents,he kept his promise and had Don’t Ask Don’t Tell rescinded. Who knows,he may want to “openly serve” in the military to make up for being a woeful president and leader.

10. Obama disrespected the families of U.S. Navy SEALs. Yep,Mr. 24-7 campaigner-in-chief,always up for a photo-op and against the families wishes,showed up when the caskets were delivered at Dover AFB and gave a pathetic limp-wristed salute.

This from the guy who doesn’t want to offend any of our enemies by wearing an American Flag lapel pin or putting his hand over his heart while saying the pledge of allegiance. We might need to cut him some slack here;if he’s not one of us as suspected by many,perhaps he will wait for his return to Kenya or Indonesia before following protocol.

11. Obama violated the rights of Military Chaplains. That’s right,he ordered them not to discuss issues of contraception as mandated by his new forced contraception upon the Catholic Church (a clear violation of church and state.)

12. Obama embarrassed our military by apologizing to Karzai on the Qur’an incident when Afghan soldiers shot two American officers in the back of the head. The Quran’s in question were being passed around with messages between prisoners. Interestingly,there has been NO apology from the U.S.-trained-and-funded Afghan military for the murders.

13. Obama lied about bin Laden’s death, claiming SEAL TEAM VI involvement (completely against spec/ops protocol,putting families of the alleged members and their base in danger.) No pictures are available because he has been dead since the early 2000s.

14. Obama wanted injured military to pay for their own medical expenses because they had volunteered to fight in the military.

15. Proving yet again that his hair-brained ideas are virtually limitless,Obama forced members of the military into Obama Care exchanges and slashed their healthcare benefits in the process.

16. Keeping up with the ever-present need to be politically correct in the military,NCO’s have been ordered to wear fake belly and breasts to better understand how females in the military feel. Yep,let’s waste tax dollars on such nonsense rather than put the woman on medical leave. Are male soldiers planning on becoming pregnant in the near future?

17. Obama doesn’t stand with Military as NATO tries to prosecute the soldiers who burned the Koran.

18. Thought by many to not be a natural-born citizen,Obama receives little respect from the military,the most notable example being Lt.Col.Terry Lakin, among many others.

I’m sure there have been more insults heaped upon those that protect our Constitution. Feel free to leave your comments as you remember those I have missed.

To say this author lacks a warm and fuzzy feeling for the guy who calls himself the leader of the most powerful nation on earth until he destroys it would be a very safe bet.

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it. I’m J.C.,and I approve this message.

February 29th,2012

When the World Did Nothing - by David Stolinsky

2012-03-01T12:55:00.000-05:00

Buchenwald Concentration Camp

IRAN AWARE
My wife and I just saw the film “In Darkness,” which tells the true story of a Polish man who saved a dozen Jewish men, women and children from the Nazis by hiding them for 14 months in sewers. The heroism of the man is clear, but so is the depressing state of a world that forced human beings to hide in sewers.

Hitler rearmed Germany, thus breaking the treaty that ended World War I. Then he reoccupied the Rhineland. Then he seized part of Czechoslovakia, and then the rest of it. Still the world did nothing, hoping the Nazi regime would be satisfied. But its appetite was merely whetted. Before the Nazis were defeated, at least 40 million people were dead, including one-third of all the Jews in the world, and four out of five European Jews.

At first, Hitler wanted the Jews to leave, “For all I care, on luxury liners.” But with few exceptions, no nation admitted them. In 1938, delegates from 32 nations, including the United States, met in the French resort town of Evian. The result: no one did anything. Whenever I see a bottle of Evian water, I think about apathy in the face of evil, and I remember this quote from Leon Wieseltier:

Obama seems to think that there is some force in the admonition that the world is watching; but history plentifully demonstrates that when the world is watching, all the world does is watch.

During his 2009 trip, President Obama visited the site of the Nazi concentration camp at Buchenwald. Over 56,000 civilians and prisoners of war were murdered there. The president declared that no one should deny the Holocaust.

(Photo credit: Lars K. Jensen)”]

Buchenwald main entrance [6/6

But the purpose of remembering the Holocaust is to prevent a recurrence. The leaders of Iran threaten to wipe Israel off the map, and at the same time are developing nuclear weapons and the missiles to deliver them. What is the “world community” doing about it? With Holocaust 2 on the horizon, it does no good to remember Holocaust 1, while making the same mistake that allowed it to occur − attempting to appease aggressors. What are we doing about Iran? Economic sanctions are proving useless. Meanwhile, President Obama distances himself from Israel.

The strong make demands of their enemies. The weak make demands of their friends. The strong evoke anxiety in their enemies. The weak evoke anxiety in their friends. As a result, the weak have more enemies and fewer friends.

History tends to repeat itself, because human nature doesn’t change. There are variations on the themes, but the themes recur with depressing regularity:

● When tyrants make promises, we shouldn’t listen.

● When tyrants make threats, we should listen.

● When tyrants threaten mass murder based on myths of racial or religious superiority, we should listen carefully.

● When tyrants build weapons with which to carry out their threats, we are fools if we don’t act before the weapons are operational.

What is the lesson of the Holocaust? To people of good will, it is: Never again. But to people of ill will, the lesson is: It succeeded. Four out of five European Jews were murdered, and the “world community” did nothing. Do you believe that the leaders of Iran, Hamas, and Hezbollah haven’t studied that lesson attentively? What reason are we giving them to believe that things will be different this time? None. What reason are we giving them to believe that they can’t murder another six million? None.

I wonder what many people in many nations, including our own, are really thinking. Could it be this? − “Let the crazies in Iran build their nukes. Let them eradicate Israel, which is just a pain in the backside. Then we’ll do something, in case they’re serious when they chant, ‘Death to America.’ We can serve tea and cookies, and collect money for the few survivors, just like last time. That will make us feel really self-righteous. And we can build an annex to the Holocaust Museum. It’s the least we can do. Literally.”

For every Evangelical or Jew who wants Obama to do something before Iran nukes Israel, there is at least one closet anti-Semite who wants Obama to do nothing until after Iran nukes Israel. We hear much about the pro-Israel lobby, but there is also an anti-Israel lobby that is at least as powerful. Which will prevail remains to be seen.

Even if Iran acquires nuclear weapons but doesn’t use them, its neighbors will be terrified and rush to acquire nukes themselves. The Mideast is unstable now − imagine what it will be like with nuclear-armed Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the Gulf States. If Iran blocks the Strait of Hormuz, who will dare to break the blockade? Regardless of what happens to Israel, this prospect is frightening.

During his trip to Germany, President Obama visited Dresden, the site of a World War II air raid. He signed a memorial book and lit a candle in honor of those who died in the bombing. Obama was making an unspoken apology for the bombing, and also drawing a false moral equivalence between violence done to start a war and violence done to end it.

One can argue that the Dresden raid was militarily unnecessary. One can argue that the resulting firestorm was a tragedy. But one can also argue that Germany surrendered 12 weeks later, so the bombing may well have played a role in the decision.

The concept of proportionality holds for ordinary attacks. If a man punches me, I can punch him back. But if a man breaks down my door and attacks me with a knife, I need not turn my back, rush to the kitchen, and try to select a knife of equal length. I can use any means available to defend myself and my loved ones. I can grab a gun and shoot the man. At least, that is the law in most parts of America.

The same principle applies to nations. Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan started an aggressive war. They seized the lands of their neighbors. They committed unspeakable atrocities. They murdered tens of millions of civilians. For years, the outcome hung in the balance.

Those who fought the German Nazis and the Japanese fascists were in the same position as the homeowner faced by the knife-wielding intruder. No rational person would demand that they measure each action precisely, to be sure it matched the actions of the aggressor to the millimeter and was not “disproportional.”

True, we must not sink to the level of the aggressors. We must not practice genocide or commit horrible atrocities. But to go further and demand that we abide by the Marquess of Queensbury rules, while our opponents attack us with the methods of an alley fight, is to doom us to certain defeat − and probable death.

Who but an enemy would make such a demand? Who but a self-destructive fool would comply with it?

The criminal who kicked in the door and attacked the homeowner with a knife was responsible for his own death − not the homeowner, and not the gun. The monsters who ran concentration camps were responsible for the firestorm in Dresden, not the Allied officials who ordered the raid, and not the airmen who carried it out. It was literally a case of sowing the wind and reaping the whirlwind.

The point is not only that if the Nazis had been stopped before they grew strong, the victims of Nazism could have been saved. The point is also that Germany could have been spared from terrible destruction. The same holds for other would-be aggressors, including Iran.

That was the lesson President Obama should have taught the world as he visited Dresden.That was the opportunity he missed. Instead of offering veiled apologies for Dresden, and for Hiroshima and Nagasaki, he should have pointed out the obvious cause-and-effect relationship. If he had done so, he would have gone a long way toward securing peace in the world.

Would-be aggressors must be told bluntly that our response may be very far from “proportional.” When we go out of our way to reassure them that we will not “over-react,” we invite further aggression. And in the era of nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons, that aggression may well be catastrophic.

The president should have said, “If you attack our friends with weapons of mass destruction, we will react as if you attacked us. People who force human beings to hide in sewers may end up hiding in sewers themselves − in Dresden, or in Tehran.”

Posted by David Stolinsky

Article printed from FrontPage Magazine: http://frontpagemag.com

URL to article: http://frontpagemag.com/2012/03/01/when-the-world-did-nothing/

In Memoriam: Andrew Breitbart (1969-2012)

2012-03-01T10:49:00.000-05:00

Posted by Larry Solov Mar 1st 2012 at 5:58 am in Featured Story, News | Comments (64)
BIG JOURNALISM

With a terrible feeling of pain and loss we announce the passing of Andrew Breitbart.

Andrew passed away unexpectedly from natural causes shortly after midnight this morning in Los Angeles.

We have lost a husband, a father, a son, a brother, a dear friend, a patriot and a happy warrior.

Andrew lived boldly, so that we more timid souls would dare to live freely and fully, and fight for the fragile liberty he showed us how to love.

Andrew recently wrote a new conclusion to his book, Righteous Indignation:

I love my job. I love fighting for what I believe in. I love having fun while doing it. I love reporting stories that the Complex refuses to report. I love fighting back, I love finding allies, and—famously—I enjoy making enemies.
Three years ago, I was mostly a behind-the-scenes guy who linked to stuff on a very popular website. I always wondered what it would be like to enter the public realm to fight for what I believe in. I’ve lost friends, perhaps dozens. But I’ve gained hundreds, thousands—who knows?—of allies. At the end of the day, I can look at myself in the mirror, and I sleep very well at night.

Andrew is at rest, yet the happy warrior lives on, in each of us.

***

Media inquiries: jpollak@breitbart.com

NOTE:

America lost a good man today. A "truth-seeker" and a voice that was heard and felt in the hearts of all Conservatives. He most certainly did "fight the good fight" and shall be sorely missed. RIP dear friend and our prayers and sympathy are with the Breitbart children and family.

BREAKING: Andrew Breitbart dead at 43

2012-03-01T10:06:00.000-05:00

Breitbart died early Thursday morning in Los Angeles. | Reuters

POLITICO

By TIM MAK | 3/1/12 9:25 AM EST

Conservative journalist and activist Andrew Breitbart died early Thursday morning in Los Angeles at the age of 43, says a report from Big Journalism, one of Breitbart’s websites.

“Andrew passed away unexpectedly from natural causes shortly after midnight this morning in Los Angeles,” writes Big Journalism writer Larry Solov. “We have lost a husband, a father, a son, a brother, a dear friend, a patriot and a happy warrior.”

Breitbart.com editor-in-chief Joel Pollak confirmed to POLITICO on Thursday morning that Breitbart had passed away.

Conservative pundit Jonah Goldberg said Thursday on Fox that Breitbart was “the most fearless guy I ever knew. He truly loved the fight.”

Radio show host Monica Crowley told Fox, “It’s a huge loss to the conservative movement. He was a social media pioneer”

Pollak said that Breitbart had been taken by ambulance to the UCLA medical center, where he was pronounced dead shortly after midnight.

Pollak, who was present at the hospital, said that Breitbart had no known serious medical issues, but declined to say more on the matter out of respect to Breitbart family.

“He continues to inspire us, and we’ll be moving forward [on his projects]… as he would have wanted,” said Pollak. “We’re devastated by his loss.” An autopsy is pending.

Breitbart last tweeted at 11:25 pm Pacific Time, which is evidently shortly before he was taken to the hospital.

Breitbart leaves behind four children and a wife.

SYRIA: BREAKING NEWS! and VIDEO: How Wounded journalist evacuated from Syria

2012-02-29T12:25:00.001-05:00

Helicopters fire on Syrians as siege intensifies, activists say

By the CNN Wire Staff

updated 11:58 AM EST, Wed February 29, 2012

(CNN) -- Helicopter gunships fired on civilians Wednesday in the besieged neighborhood of Baba Amr as Syria's intensifying campaign triggered fears among residents that a full-fledged ground invasion could be imminent, opposition activists said.

Baba Amr, in the opposition stronghold of Homs, was also under its heaviest shelling yet and ground troops advanced in al Hakura, in the old part of the neighborhood.

While helicopters have flown over the area in previous days, Wednesday marked the first time they fired at people on the ground, two opposition activists in Baba Amr said.

Violent clashes between the regime's army and the opposition's Free Syrian Army lasted hours, opposition activists said.

Numerous neighborhoods in Homs were under violent attacks and explosions that shook the area, including al Khalidiya, al Bayada, Karm al Zaytoun, Bab Sbaa and others, an opposition activist said.

There was a water, electricity, and communications outage and a crippling blockade by the regime's battalions on the neighborhoods, the activist said.

France said it was trying to evacuate its two nationals stranded in Homs, in coordination with Syrian authorities and the Red Crescent. "We expect the government of Damascus to meet all the conditions for a safe and rapid evacuation, including an immediate cease-fire on Baba Amr," French Foreign Ministry spokesman Bernard Valero told CNN.

Syrian state-run news agency SANA, which consistently blames the violence on "armed terrorist groups" reported on violence in Homs as well. One such "terrorist group" killed a nurse at a hospital, while another attacked a water plant in the Homs countryside, SANA said.

Violence also raged in other parts of the country.

A 13-year-old boy was killed by sniper fire in the eastern city of Deir Ezzor, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition activist group.

And an undisclosed number of people were killed and injured by rockets falling on the western city of Rastan, the group said.

Meanwhile, in the Damascus suburb of Zabadani, Syrian forces stormed residential buildings searching for and detaining men ages 13 and above, said an opposition activist named Mostapha.

CNN and other media outlets cannot independently verify opposition or government reports because Syria has severely limited access to the country by foreign journalists. But the vast majority of reports from the ground indicate that government forces are killing citizens in an attempt to eliminate those seeking President Bashar al-Assad's ouster.

UN: Death Toll In Syria Repression Crosses 7,500 Mark

No NATO role in Syria, Rasmussen says

WikiLeak Dump Shines Light On Democrats Stuffing Ballot Boxes, Bribes, and Russian $$$

2012-02-29T10:10:00.000-05:00

Diogenes Sarcastica™

From PIC

Democrats have been rigging elections and committing fraud for decades. It is also not surprising that Obama, and his operatives, are involved. The Wikileak’s dump shines light onto the ballot stuffing that happened in Ohio and Philadelphia (isn’t that where the Black Panther goons were intimidating poll workers and voters?) and paid a bribe to Jesse Jackson to keep his constantly flapping mouth shut. It also details the Obama team accepting Russian money (Obama has done a lot to help Russia).

From Wikileaks:

To: secure@stratfor.com

Subject: Insight – The Dems & Dirty Tricks ** Internal Use Only – Pls Do

Not Forward **

** Internal Use Only – Pls Do Not Forward **

1) The black Dems were caught stuffing the ballot boxes in Philly and Ohio as reported the night of the election and Sen. McCain chose not to fight. The matter is not dead inside the party. It now becomes a matter of sequence now as to how and when to “out”.
2) It appears the Dems “made a donation” to Rev. Jesse (no, they would never do that!) to keep his yap shut after his diatribe about the Jews and Israel. A little bird told me it was a “nice six-figure donation”. This also becomes a matter of how and when to out.

3) The hunt is on for the sleezy Russian money into O-mans coffers. smoking gun has already been found. Will get more on this when the time is right. My source was too giddy to continue. Can you say Clinton and ChiCom funny money? This also becomes a matter of how and when to out.Many people have no clue about Stratfor but they are on of the best intelligence gatherers and several government agencies use their services. I subscribe to them and get updates about what’s happening worldwide. I guess now that these e-mails have been “outed” we will being to learn more about what the Democrats did and what ties this has to Obama. Let’s look at what the e-mails expose:...... Keep Reading

Posted by Diogenes Sarcastica™ on 2/28/2012 03:14:00 PM

Note:

See: Media Partners in Crime with WikiLeaks? - The Canada Free Press.

I I received an E-mail last night from someone mentioning Wikileaks and he comments:

"Wikileaks has published two days ago "Israeli commandos, along with Kurdish forces,

And they destroyed several underground installations - ground that are used for

defense and nuclear projects of Iran". No Israeli official refers to it and you

can doubt this, but the source of Wikileaks is an American intelligence company.

If this individual's opinion is correct and the "source of Wikileaks is an American

Intelligence" organization, is it any wonder that our allies cannot trust

this administration with information that would harm their own international

security? .... just wondering!

Israel tells Obama 'no warnings'

2012-02-29T09:23:00.000-05:00

ISRAEL MATZAV

Tuesday, February 28, 2012

A US intelligence official has told the Associated Press that Israeli officials have told the Obama administration that Israel will not give any advance warning to the United States in the event that Israel decides to attack Iran.

Israeli officials said that if they eventually decide a strike is necessary, they would keep the Americans in the dark to decrease the likelihood that the US would be held responsible for failing to stop Israel's potential attack. The US has been working with the Israelis for months to persuade them that an attack would be only a temporary setback to Iran's nuclear program.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak delivered the message to a series of top-level US visitors to the country, including the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the White House national security adviser and the director of national intelligence, and top US lawmakers, all trying to close the trust gap between Israel and the US over how to deal with Iran's nuclear ambitions.

Netanyahu delivered the same message to all the Americans who have traveled to Israel for talks, the US official said.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive strategic negotiations.

The White House did not respond to requests for comment, and the Pentagon and Office of Director of National Intelligence declined to comment, as did the Israeli Embassy.

To get an idea of how far apart the US and Israel are, watch this interview with Representative Mike Rogers (R-Mi), who is the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. The first 2:45 deals with Iran, but there's another minute that deals with Syria, and while it doesn't directly involve Israel, it's also quite interesting.

The bottom line is that Israel no longer trusts the United States, and will not trust the United States so long as Obama is in power. And with good reason.

What could go wrong?

AND

THE TIMES OF ISRAEL February 28, 2012

US official: Israel won’t warn us before Iran strike

Israeli officials reportedly decide to keep the US in the dark to spare it from blame in the event of a preemptive attack

An anti-aircraft gun position at a nuclear enrichment facility in Natanz, Iran (photo credit: AP/Hasan Sarbakhshian)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Israeli officials say they won’t warn the US if they decide to launch a preemptive strike against Iranian nuclear facilities, according to one US intelligence official familiar with the discussions. The pronouncement, delivered in a series of private, top-level conversations, sets a tense tone ahead of meetings in the coming days at the White House and Capitol Hill.

Israeli officials said that if they eventually decide a strike is necessary, they would keep the Americans in the dark to decrease the likelihood that the US would be held responsible for failing to stop Israel’s potential attack. The US has been working with the Israelis for months to persuade them that an attack would be only a temporary setback to Iran’s nuclear program.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak delivered the message to a series of top-level US visitors to the country, including the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the White House national security adviser and the director of national intelligence, and top US lawmakers, all trying to close the trust gap between Israel and the US over how to deal with Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

Netanyahu delivered the same message to all the Americans who have traveled to Israel for talks, the US official said.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive strategic negotiations.

The White House did not respond to requests for comment, and the Pentagon and Office of Director of National Intelligence declined to comment, as did the Israeli Embassy.

Iran claims its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes, but the International Atomic Energy Agency has raised alarms that its uranium enrichment program might be a precursor to building nuclear weapons. The US has said it does not know whether Tehran has decided to weaponize its nuclear material and put it on a missile or other delivery device.

The secret warning is likely to worry US officials and begin the high level meetings with Israel and the US far apart on how to handle Iran.

But the apparent decision to keep the U.S. in the dark also stems from Israel’s frustration with the White House. After a visit by National Security Adviser Tom Donilon in particular, they became convinced the Americans would neither take military action, nor go along with unilateral action by Israel against Iran. The Israelis concluded they would have to conduct a strike unilaterally — a point they are likely to hammer home in a series of meetings over the next two weeks in Washington, the official said.

Barak will meet with top administration and congressional officials during his visit. Netanyahu arrives in Washington for meetings with President Barack Obama next week.

The behind-the-scenes warning belies the publicly united front the two sides have attempted to craft with the shuttle diplomacy to each other’s capitals.

“It’s unprecedented outreach to Israel to make sure we are working together to develop the plan to deter Iran from developing a nuclear weapon,” and to keep them from exporting terrorism, said Maryland Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee.

He traveled there with the Intelligence Committee chairman, Rep. Mike Rogers, a Michigan Republican, to meet Israel’s prime minister and defense minister, along with other officials.

“We talked about the fact that sanctions are working and they are going to get a lot more aggressive,” Ruppersberger added.

They also talked about presenting a unified front to Iran, to counter the media reports that the two countries are at odds over how and when to attack Iran.

“We have to learn from North Korea. All those (peace) talks and stalling and they developed a nuclear weapon,” he said. “We are going to send a message, enough is enough, the stalling is over. … All options are on the table.”

“I got the sense that Israel is incredibly serious about a strike on their nuclear weapons program,” Rogers told CNN on Monday. “It’s their calculus that the administration … is not serious about a real military consequence to Iran moving forward.

“They believe they’re going to have to make a decision on their own, given the current posture of the United States,” he added.

U.S. intelligence and special operations officials have tried to keep a dialogue going with Israel, despite the high-level impasse, sharing with them options such as allowing Israel to use U.S. bases in the region from which to launch such a strike, as a way to make sure the Israelis give the Americans a heads-up, according to the U.S. official, and a former U.S. official with knowledge of the communications

Cooperation has improved on sharing of intelligence in the region, according to one current and one former U.S. official. Israel is providing key information on Syria for instance, now that the U.S. has closed its embassy and pulled out both its diplomats and intelligence officials stationed there, the U.S. official said.

AP National Security Writer Anne Gearan contributed to this report.

Dozier can be followed on Twitter (at)kimberlydozier.

BOMBSHELL: US IN TALKS TO SWAP JIHAD TERROR SHEIKH OMAR ABDEL RAHMAN ; 49 OTHERS FOR 19 AMERICANS HELD IN EGYPT

2012-02-29T08:08:00.001-05:00

ATLAS SHRUGS
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Shocking. This would be the nadir of Obama's craven foreign policy of surrender, releasing the mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing that killed six people and injured more than a thousand. Treason.

Al-Arabiya: US in talks to swap jihad terror Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman & 49 others for 19 Americans held in Egypt thanks to Robert Spencer

About to get a Get-Out-of-Jail-Free Card?
Al-Arabiya is reporting, in Arabic only so far, that the U.S. is talking with the Egyptian government to free the blind Sheikh and 49 other Egyptians currently imprisoned in the U.S. in exchange for the freedom of the 19 Americans the Egyptians are holding.
The blind Sheikh, Omar Abdel Rahman, is in prison for his role in masterminding the 1993 World Trade Center jihad terror bombing. If he is freed, it will be the apotheosis of Obama's policy of appeasement toward the Islamic world.
"Omar Abdel Rahman at the head of Egyptian-American swap deal," from al-Arabiya (Arabic), February 28 (thanks to Emad). This is my translation from the Arabic:
The Egyptian government has started real action to respond to a U.S. offer offering to release 50 Egyptians in American prisons, including Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, in return for the release of 19 Americans accused of foreign funding of nongovernmental organizations, as confirmed by Major General Mohamed Hani Zaher, an expert on military research and the fight against international terrorism.
Zaher told the newspaper that the Egyptians need to exploit the weak U.S. position, especially after the conviction of their nationals on charges affecting Egypt's sovereignty over its territory, and not to allow this deal to take place without the agreement of the U.S. administration to release more than 500 Egyptian prisoners in U.S. custody; the Egyptian Foreign Ministry does not know anything about them.
He added that the Egyptian Foreign Ministry asked the Egyptian Embassy in Washington for a list of Egyptian prisoners in the United States of America, and the Egyptian consulate there had already started procedures to account for the number of Egyptian prisoners and detainees in custody on a number of charges in the United States, he said, adding that among the prisoners in the Consulate files was Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, the Mufti of Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya (the Islamic Group) and currently imprisoned in America....

Posted by Pamela Geller on Wednesday, February 29, 2012 at 03:30 AM

Torture, Riots, Burnt Korans: One Afghan Jail’s Dark History

2012-02-29T07:58:00.002-05:00

By Spencer Ackerman
February 28, 2012 |
DANGER ROOM

Former war commander Gen. David Petraeus tours the Detention Center in Parwan, 2010. Photo: ISAF

When the U.S. military overhauled its huge detention center at Afghanistan’s Bagram Air Field in 2009, it swore the prison wouldn’t be an embarrassment for Washington anymore. But the burning of the Koran at the prison last week, an error that may have jeopardized the entire war, indicates that 10 years of wartime detentions pose problems that cosmetic changes can’t resolve.

Military spokespeople rarely say outright that the Koran burning took place at the jail. Official statements more often say instead that it took place at “Bagram” or at an unspecified location in “Parwan,” as if the U.S. doesn’t want to recognize the connection between what the military calls an accidental incinerationand its Afghan mega-prison.

Which is ironic. The detention center is indeed located on Bagram Air Field, although visitors have to be driven to the base’s outskirts to view it. But when the U.S. rebooted the prison, it didn’t want any verbal associations with Bagram, which had become associated with lawless, opaque detentions and outright torture; you were supposed to call it the Detention Facility in Parwan, for Parwan Province. Subtext: This Is Not Bagram.

The reason was simple. At least two detainees were beaten to death at Bagram in the early years of the war; a documentary was even made about it. More recently, rumors circulated throughout Afghanistan that a secret torture chamber, called the “Black Jail,” still existed at Bagram. A former Navy SEAL, Vice Adm. Robert Harward, took charge of overhauling detention operations for Gen. Stanley McChrystal, then the commander of the war, and he concluded he needed a whole new prison to signify a clean break.

So the U.S. spent $60 million building a new wartime jail, opening its doors to its unwilling denizens in late 2009. Its former warden, Brig. Gen. Mark Martins, took me on a tour that August. He took pride in the gardens and sewing machines on the premises where detainees could learn horticultural or tailoring skills that could help them earn a peaceful living. The Detention Facility at Parwan was heavy on communal living, a subtle rebuke of the military’s previous reliance on isolating detainees.

It earned praise from some of the critics of the old Bagram jail. The Red Cross said it had “routine” access to detainees at Parwan. Others fretted to me about insufficient due process for the detainees, but considered Parwan an improvement over the old jail.

The U.S. liked the detention center so much, it decided to keep it for a while. Last month, it backed off a plan to turn Parwan to the Afghans, who it said weren’t yet ready to run the jail professionally. Then it signed a $35 million contract to expand it massively, building living quarters that can hold 2,000 detainees, double Parwan’s current size and dwarfing the approximately 180 detainees at Guantanamo Bay.

That gargantuan size laid bare a truth that cuts against the Obama administration’s narrative of a war that’s winding down. The longer the U.S. fights in Afghanistan, the more detainees it will have to hold. And running a huge detention center is a complex task, with considerations that stretch far beyond avoiding torture.

One of those considerations may be responsible for the Koran burning. Guards at detention centers typically try to control how inmates communicate. Illicit messages are often suspect. While it’s by no means clear yet what actually led to the incineration, one leading theory is that detainees were using Korans from the Parwan prison’s library to pass each other notes. That may — repeat: may — have led to guards destroying material from the library; the official explanation thus far is that the guards didn’t know the Korans were included in the pile of books and papers slated to go up in smoke.

It’ll take the conclusion of the NATO’s official investigation to know for sure. On Monday, a spokesman, Navy Capt. John Kirby, told reporters he didn’t know when the inquiry would wrap up, although Pentagon reporters were told it would be done by month’s end later this week. It’s also unclear if the inquiry will recommend any changes to detention operations, in addition to the narrower question of how to dispose of Korans.

The war’s commander, Marine Gen. John Allen, has ordered all his troops to undergo re-training in how to handle religious materials with respect. But it may not just be a respect issue. While U.S. troops can certainly exercise common sense about the Koran, the pressures of running a giant military detention center for years to come may not be getting similar scrutiny. If they don’t, no amount of rebranding may save the Afganistan war.

Obama, Iran in Secret Nuclear Deal - by Reza Kahlili, DC

2012-02-29T07:45:00.002-05:00

ISRAPUNDIT

February 28, 2012

Reza Kahlili, DC

My sources inside Iran tell me that President Obama, seeking to protect the recovering U.S. economy and bolster his chances of being re-elected in November, apparently has entered into an informal agreement with Iran that he believes will defuse the nuclear weapons crisis and keep Israel from attacking the Islamic regime.

The agreement calls for the United States to acknowledge that Iran is not pursuing nuclear weapons, and for Iran to hand over its highly enriched uranium, which is necessary for nuclear weaponization.

Iran, for its part, though engaging Obama, has no intention of abiding by the agreement and is stepping up its nuclear enrichment program clandestinely, even as it prepares for a war it believes it can win.

When Obama took office in 2009, he threw out the Bush administration’s aggressive posture in negotiating with Iran and instead sought a new approach, one of diplomacy and friendship. He had a golden opportunity to support millions of Iranians who took to the streets over Iran’s fraudulent elections that June, but instead turned his back on freedom and democracy while believing that negotiations with the Islamic regime would yield results.

Once the protests had died down, the Iranians, after months of promises, announced that a proposed agreement by the West that limited their nuclear activity was no longer acceptable and that they had successfully enriched uranium to 20 percent, which is nine-tenths of the way to nuclear weaponization.

The Iranians have now expanded their nuclear program to the point where they not only have enough low-enriched uranium for six nuclear bombs but also have doubled their stock of highly enriched uranium of 20 percent. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) recently reported that Iran has added 3,000 more centrifuges to the Natanz facility, bringing the total to 9,000, and has started enriching to 20 percent at the previous secret site, the Fordow facility, which is deep within a mountain and secure against any attack. Such production could give Iran weapons-grade uranium for nuclear bombs within weeks.

Obama knows that Israel is losing patience with the lack of progress over Iran’s unabated continuation of its illicit nuclear program despite four sets of U.N. sanctions and other sanctions imposed by the U.S. and the European Union. He also knows that any confrontation between Israel and Iran will drag America into an unwanted war and therefore destabilize the American economy and harm his chances of re-election.

Iran knows that its best chance to delay any attack on its nuclear and military facilities and its best opportunity to be in a win-win situation is to once again engage Obama, believing he is weak, that Iran holds the key to his re-election and that a Republican win in November could mean direct confrontation

As revealed in January, Obama sent a message to the Iranian leaders through three different channels. Part of it, disclosed by the Iranian officials, reflected a message by the U.S. president asking for cooperation and negotiation based on mutual interests, but more importantly, it assured Iran that America will not take any action against the Islamic regime.

Sources within Iran reveal that Khamenei, in a secret meeting with his top officials and military commanders, has issued a directive to push for a step-by-step Russian proposal to defuse the crisis in which Iran would only hand over its 20 percent enrichment stock while keeping all low-enriched uranium stock (enough for six nuclear bombs) and cooperate more with the IAEA (all the while continuing its enrichment activity). In exchange, the West would ease up on the sanctions as each step is taken.

The U.S., for its part, had to announce that Iran is not after the nuclear bomb, backing Israel into a corner and pressuring it not to take any action.

In the same meeting it was decided that if the West did not take the offer, then a limited war in the region could help the Iranian leaders further consolidate power at home, incite further uprisings in the region, become the leader of the Islamic movement by attacking Israel and still save some of its nuclear facilities, which are either at secret locations or deep underground. And that would justify their pursuit of the nuclear bomb.

The Obama administration responded positively. First, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Martin Dempsy, publicly announced that Iran is a rational actor and that it is not after a nuclear bomb. Then, just as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was to arrive in Washington for talks with Obama over Iran’s nuclear program, the consensus of 16 U.S. intelligence agencies said Iran has already stopped efforts to build a bomb.

This despite the most recent IAEA report clearly indicating the military aspect of the Iranian nuclear program and last week’s announcement by the U.N. nuclear agency that Iran has ramped up by 50 percent its production of highly enriched uranium, well beyond what is normally needed for peaceful nuclear energy.

In response to the Americans meeting Khamenei’s demands, the Iranian supreme leader responded by publicly announcing that Iran has never sought and will never seek nuclear weapons as it regards possession of such weapons a great sin.

Other Iranian officials did their part by announcing that the cooperation with the IAEA will continue to once again show the world that claims of Iran wanting a nuclear bomb are unfounded.

In this high-stakes game, Iranian leaders believe Obama is hamstrung by politics, and even if war comes, ultimately Russia and China will intervene to support Iran, demanding a cease-fire and therefore giving Iran a victory similar to the outcome of the 2006 Hezbollah-Israel war.

Though an election year, Obama must know that radicals ruling Iran, if given time, will obtain nuclear weapons, changing the world as we know it forever, no matter who is in the White House come 2013.

Reza Kahlili is a pseudonym for a former CIA operative in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and the author of the award-winning book, A Time to Betray. He is a senior fellow with EMPact America, a member of the Task Force on National and Homeland Security and teaches at the U.S. Department of Defense’s Joint Counterintelligence Training Academy (JCITA).

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2012/02/27/obama-iran-in-secret-nuclear-deal/#ixzz1ni4d2FDq

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2012/02/27/obama-iran-in-secret-nuclear-deal/#ixzz1ni4WGYwg

Posted by Ted Belman @ 10:23 pm | 5 Comments »

NOTE:

1. Please visit Israpundit to read comments and/or post a comment.

2. Read this, posted on The Christian Science Monitor:

Reports: Netanyahu will push Obama hard on Iran

Iran nuclear program: 5 key sitesBut White House officials say Netanyahu will go home empty-handed. The Los Angeles Times reports that Obama has no intention of making any policy shift toward Iran and that he believes the current US strategy – diplomacy and increasingly strict sanctions – is taking a toll on Iran.

“A more explicit military threat is not helpful,” senior White House officials told The Times. WhileWashington's red line is Iran acquiring a nuclear bomb,Israel's threshold is lower: Iran merely acquiring the knowledge and industrial means to build a nuclear bomb.

There are several countries who have the capability to build a nuclear weapon but have never tried, it reports, and Pentagon and intelligence officials have said that they do not believe Iran has decided to build a bomb. ..... read more

America's Iranian Self-Deception

2012-02-28T08:17:00.000-05:00

NOTE: Browsing through some of the best on the Internet early this morning, and over the past week, there are two major themes topping headlines: Iran and the latest apology to the Muslim world by our "Champion of all things Muslim" - President Obama. I haven't decided which of the two are the most deceptive, but will be running articles pertaining to both issues throughout the day. The following is from The Wall Street Journal's Opinion section:

Let's admit the facts about its nuclear program and then have an honest debate about what to do.

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

By FREDERICK W. KAGAN AND MASEH ZARIF

Americans are being played for fools by Iran—and fooling themselves. There is no case to be made that Iran is not pursuing a nuclear weapons capability. There is no evidence that Iran's decision-makers are willing to stop the nuclear program in exchange for lifting sanctions or anything else. The International Atomic Energy Agency reported on Friday that it has made no progress in its negotiations with Iran and that Iran continues to accelerate its enrichment operations, which are in violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions and agreements with the IAEA.

Yet the policy discussion in the U.S. is confused. Former Ambassador Dennis Ross writes that the Iranians are ready for talks. Anonymous administration officials refer to one of the most dangerous Iranian nuclear installations, Fordow, outside the city of Qom, as "a Potemkin facility." The media are full of comparisons to Iraq in 2003, when suspicions that Iraq was pursuing a covert nuclear program led to war.

People are conflating intelligence assessment with policy recommendation. The prospect of war with Iran is so distasteful that people are desperate to persuade themselves that the problem is not serious.

UPDATE: Daytona drivers, fans survive the mayhem

2012-02-28T07:52:00.000-05:00

<a href='http://msn.foxsports.com/video?videoid=eb6af5ba-7af8-485a-85fc-73b5d85b5d64&src=v5:embed::' target='_new' title='Highlights: Daytona Explosion' >Video: Highlights: Daytona Explosion</a>

FOX SPORTS
UPDATED FEB 28, 2012 5:35 AM ET

MARK KRIEGEL

Mark Kriegel is the national columnist for FOXSports.com. He is the author of two New York Times best sellers, Namath: A Biography andPistol: The Life of Pete Maravich, which Sports Illustrated called "the best sports biography of the year."

DAYTONA BEACH, FLA.

It began as a trickle, a line of lava spilling down the slope of the track. In a moment, it had combusted into something like a huge bonfire. Then, within seconds, it had transfigured yet again: a wall of flame, awesome, terrifying, almost biblical.

The 54th running of The Great American Race was plagued by rain and fire and, as it ended at 12:56 a.m. EST, covered in a shroud of fog. Still, for all the alleged plagues, I’d consider it a miracle. I refer mostly to the survival and continued good health of Juan Pablo Montoya, driver of the No. 42 Target Chevrolet, and the driver he hit, Duane Barnes.

For the past 24 years, Barnes has driven the Service Master jet dryer at Michigan International Speedway. For the past few days, he’s been plowing around the damp Daytona asphalt.

Dale Earnhardt Jr., who lost his father on this track 11 years ago, had a foreboding sense after seeing the flames rise from the wreck. “It looked like something that was tragic,” he said.

By the time I got out to the backstretch, the fire had been doused. The asphalt was white with foam, a sea upon which floated an armada of fire engines and ambulances. Montoya awaited his discharge from the Infield Care Center, and Barnes was on his way to the Halifax Medical Center, where he would be treated, observed and released.

But fans were still craning to get a look through the chain-link fence. Others were perched atop their motor homes, spellbound at the sky, where the DirecTV blimp was enveloped in an acrid mist.

Smoke unfurled from the wreck in a thick, black stream. But dispersed in the atmosphere, it formed gargantuan, moonlit, blue-gray clouds. It felt apocalyptic, but just the same, wondrous. Nobody died. Nobody was even seriously hurt.

“Phenomenal,” said Daytona International Speedway president Joie Chitwood III. “We had approximately 200 gallons of burning jet fuel on the racetrack. . . . Tonight validates what we do.”

The Speedweeks seemed to tempt fate. Fans want to see pack racing. They want to see wrecks. But you could not help but wonder whether the risks have become too great.

“You bring such a nice car down here,” Earnhardt drawled. “And the odds of it getting torn up are pretty high.”

Of the 43 cars in the Monday night race, 25 were damaged. Eleven couldn’t finish, eight of those because of accidents. It’s been that way since the drivers arrived here. In the Budweiser Shootout — as dangerous as it was spectacular — 21 of 25 cars were damaged. Twelve did not finish because of accidents. The Nationwide race Saturday saw 37 of the 43 cars damaged. Altogether, including the truck and qualifying races, there were 196 entrants over the past 11 days. One hundred and eighteen were damaged. Sixty-one were unable to finish because of accidents.

A tragic outcome did not seem an improbable one. Actually, it felt like a certainty after Montoya’s Chevy punctured the dryer’s fuel cell. He had just come out of a pit stop.

“I wasn’t even going that fast,” Montoya recalled. “It just felt really strange, as I was talking on the radio the car just turned right . . .

“I have hit a lot of things. But a jet dryer? No.”

Montoya’s helmet was on fire as he got out of the car. He sustained no damage, other than scraping his foot on the clutch. As for Duane Barnes, they shared an ambulance ride to the infield.

“He was pretty scared,” Montoya said. “ . . . I am sure he is pretty shaken and is going to be sore to his person, but I think he is OK.”

“OK” is a relative diagnosis, not a medical one. Still, Barnes was released from the hospital even before the track was ready again. Workers sprayed fire retardant, drying agents, bonding agents and several applications of soap and water. Finally, after two hours and five minutes, the race resumed.

There were 40 laps to go, most of them with Roush Fenway drivers Matt Kenseth and Greg Biffle running first and second, respectively, and Earnhardt in third.

As it ended, Earnhardt pushed past Biffle just before the finish line. He just didn’t have enough car to threaten Kenseth, who won his second Daytona 500 in the past four years.

“Those Roush cars are just really strong,” Earnhardt said. “I could get in between them. I just couldn’t get in front.”

He’ll second guess himself in the coming days, wonder what he could’ve done differently. After all, Earnhardt’s winless streak now stands at 130 races.

Still, he couldn’t help but remark on his good fortune. He starts the season with a pile of points. His car remains in one piece, not an inconsiderable accomplishment at this track. But more than that, the tragic outcome had been avoided. It makes for an especially happy ending if your name is Earnhardt.

“I was happy to hear that everybody was OK,” he said, “and able to go home to their families tonight.

BEE'S NOTE:

Americans Stand with Israel will be following NASCAR races more closely this year, as we are very proud of NASCAR's support for Israel, with the new car "United We Stand" emblem blazing across the top of the hood of the "American Israel Racing" car, with driver J.J.Yeley. The new car is included in our logo, as a demonstration of Americans supporting Israel.

http://www.jpost.com/NationalNews/Article.aspx?ID=259018&R=R1

Iran's Christian pastor alive, execution looming

2012-02-28T06:46:00.001-05:00

FOX NEWS

By Lisa Daftari

Published February 27, 2012

| FoxNews.com

An undated photograph circulated by religious rights organizations shows Youcef Nadarkhani and his family

The Christian pastor sentenced to death in Iran last week for leaving Islam and converting to Christianity was confirmed alive as of early Sunday, sources close to his attorneys told Fox News.

Iran’s government backtracked over the weekend, stating that no execution order had been announced for Youcef Nadarkhani, and that he was being held not for apostasy, but for rape and “other crimes,” according to the Islamic Republic’s state-controlled Press TV.

Nadarkhani’s attorneys believe the government toned down its rhetoric in response to an international outcry. The execution order, however, remained in effect, they said.

Supporters fear Nadarkhani, a 34-year-old father of two who was arrested more than two years ago on charges of apostasy, fear he may be executed at any time, as death sentences in Iran can be carried out immediately or dragged out for years.

Others fear Nadarkhani will be used in broader political negotiations as Iran endures crippling sanctions and international pressure in response to its nuclear agenda and rogue discourse. The number of executions in Iran has increased significantly in the last month.

“If a human being becomes a bargaining chip for the ayatollah, that’s not a situation that will lead to anything positive,” said Jordan Sekulow, executive director of the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ), a human rights advocacy group that has led international campaigns to free Nadarkhani.

“When it’s a high-profile case, they test the international community’s reaction to these stories and how they change as geopolitical priorities shift.”

Iran’s judiciary, fearing its ultimate decision will have far-reaching political implications, has been caught in a bind in determining Nadarkhani’s fate.

Should the court release the pastor, it will appear disrespectful of the tenets of Shariah, or Islamic law, which call for an apostate to be put to death. If it executes him, it will face increasing criticism from the international community that continues to petition for the Nadarkhani’s release.

Dozens of human rights groups along with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, 89 members of Congress, and leaders from the European Union, France, Great Britain, Mexico and Germany have condemned Iran for arresting Nadarkhani and have called for his quick release.

Last week, the State Department and White House put out statements condemning Tuesday’s execution verdict.

Congress has scheduled a vote as early as Wednesday on House Resolution 556, which condemns the Iranian government and calls for the pastor’s quick release.

Nadarkhani converted to Christianity at 19 and came under the Islamic regime’s radar in 2006 when he applied for his church to be registered with the state. He was arrested and soon released, according to sources.

In 2009 he went to local officials to complain about Islamic indoctrination in his school district, arguing that his children should not be forced to learn about Islam.

He was subsequently arrested and found guilty of apostasy by a lower court in Gilan, a province in Rasht, where he and his family live.

The court gave Nadarkhani a chance to recant and return to Islam, but he refused.

Death sentences for apostates in Shariah Law are prescribed both by fatwas, or legal decrees, and reinforced by Iran’s penal code. Article 225 of the Iranian penal code states, "Punishment for an Innate Apostate is death," and "Punishment for a Parental Apostate is death.”

While all religious minorities in Iran, including Bahais, Zoroastrians, Jews and Christians, have faced various forms of persecution and political and social marginalization, the government saves its harshest retribution for those who have abandoned Islam.

Iran says no execution order for apostate from Islam; attorneys say order remains in effect

Obama: Sharia Enforcer

2012-02-27T10:24:00.000-05:00

IRAN AWARE
February 27, 2012

Madness has overtaken Washington, and the world. Every day this past week has brought fresh reports of more people murdered in Afghanistan over the burning of some copies of the Qur’an at Bagram Airfield. In response, every day new apologies come from American officials. Barack Obama, Leon Panetta, the commander of NATO troops in Afghanistan, General John Allen, and others have all issued abject apologies to Afghan President Hamid Karzai, the “noble people of Afghanistan,” and everyone else in sight.

Even the most minor of officials are getting into the act: Peter Lavoy, acting assistant secretary of defense for Asia and Pacific security affairs, scraping the bottom of the barrel for a suitable object for his abject submission, apologized to Muslims in the Washington, D.C. area.

Some have rightly skewered Obama and his cohorts for their cowardice and eagerness to appease the Afghan mobs, especially as the death toll steadily mounts. No one, however, has noted the most remarkable aspect of this entire episode: the United StatesGovernment has, no questions asked, eagerly embraced Islamic law (Sharia) regarding the treatment of the Qur’an, and assured the Afghans that it will be enforced.

In his apology letter to Karzai, Obama said that the Qur’an-burning was “inadvertent,” but that nevertheless “we will take the appropriate steps to avoid any recurrence, including holding accountable those responsible.”

If it was “inadvertent,” why does Obama intend to hold them accountable? Accidents will happen. If he is going to adopt Sharia to the extent that he thinks that anyone should be held accountable for this at all, is he going to adopt Sharia punishments for this “crime” as well? Will he have the U.S. soldiers whom he finds to be responsible for the Qur’an-burning beheaded?

If not, why not?

If burning the Qur’an is now a crime for Americans, and we are thus now subject to Islamic law, how much Sharia are we under? To what extent have we capitulated? Where does Obama draw the line, if anywhere?

Will there be stonings of adulteresses, amputations of the hands of thieves, and beheadings of apostates from Islam and blasphemers of Muhammad on the Mall? If you think these are absurd questions, consider that these are all elements of the same Islamic law that Obama has now vowed to enforce in regard to the burning of the Qur’an. Meanwhile, Secretary of State Clinton has held a closed-door meeting with the Secretary-General of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in order to discuss strategies for enforcing Sharia restrictions on free speech regarding Islam in Western countries. Obama’s Justice Department has gone to court more than once to compel American businesses and educational institutions to change the way they operate in order to accommodate particularities of Islamic law and practice.

What will be the outcome of all this? No one knows or cares, because even conservative news outlets are now bowing to delicate Islamic sensibilities and dropping coverage of jihad news. It’s over ten years since 9/11, and nothing much has happened since then, right? And there is so very much election coverage to be gotten to.

Never mind that the jihad’s continued advance is best illustrated by Obama’s eagerness to appease, and by the collective Western failure to stand up and say what should be said to what General Allen called the “noble people of Afghanistan”: “What madness has overtaken you? None of the people you have killed ever burned a Qur’an. And are your Allah and your Muhammad so fragile that burning one copy, or even a few copies, of a book of which millions and millions of copies exist, really hurts them so much that you think killing people who had nothing to do with it is a proper response? No killing is appropriate in this case, even of those who did this. You people have gone mad. All decent people should rise and condemn you.”

The jihad terrorists who struck America on 9/11 were doing so in order to weaken the U.S. to the extent that eventually our free society would surrender to the rule of Islamic law. And now it is happening – but as the OIC’s agenda of stifling every critical word about Islam also advances apace in the U.S., fewer and fewer people will know about it. How will they find out? The Left is complicit, and the Right is afraid to tell them.

Has the conquest of a great nation ever been this easy?

Posted By Robert Spencer On February 27, 2012 @ 12:50 am In FrontPage

Obama, "Champion of all things Muslim", Begs Forgiveness (video included)

2012-02-27T09:56:00.001-05:00

February 27, 2012

AMERICAN THINKER

Jeannie DeAngelis
Barack Obama has turned his attention toward soothing the offended sensibilities of inconsolable Muslims. In his role of Apologizer-in-Chief, the President requested forgiveness for military personnel who inadvertently burned some library Qurans at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan.

Rather than send a firm message of his own, a conciliatory Barack Obama, champion of all things Muslim, reacted quickly to the growing violence over the Quran offense by promptly responding with heartfelt contrition. Taking a break from fundraising, he penned a three-page letter to an ungrateful Afghan President Hamid Karzai on "bilateral relations that included 'an expression of his regret and apologies for the inappropriate and inadvertent mishandling of religious materials.'"

How did the Qurans end up being burned? Allegedly, detainees were writing secret messages in the books; viewed as a security matter, troops confiscated the books from the detainee library at the high-security Parwan Detention Facility, promptly discarded and then mistakenly burned them in an incinerator together with a pile of trash.

Most would agree it's nearly impossible to maintain security in a place where small children are recruited to be suicide bombers and a religion's sacred text becomes a delivery system for covert communiqués.

Apparently some Afghan laborers emptying the garbage discovered the charred copies, and since then the Middle East has been awash in carnage, and once again the contrition of an American president falls short. The Pentagon, NATO, and the U.S. military have also apologized, all to no avail. They shouldn't be surprised.

It was an accident, but in certain circles the apology/forgiveness concept carries no weight. Requests for absolution have been met with two American officers being shot dead in Kabul, a growing number of civilians being killed, a British WWII graveyard in Libya being desecrated, mobs charging U.S. bases in Afghanistan, and a call by Iran for the White House - residence of the apologist - to burn.

Meanwhile, in Iran, an impenitent Christian pastor sits condemned to death for the sin of questioning the "Muslim monopoly on the religious instruction of children in Iran." Youcef Nadarkhani, arrested in 2009, still refuses to denounce Jesus Christ, repent, and embrace Islam, and so his death by hanging appears eminent. The original charge of "protesting" was later changed to "'apostasy' - abandoning Islam - and 'evangelizing Muslims,' all of which carry the death sentence."

Some believe Iran is looking to execute Youcef to send a defiant message to America over sanctions against Iran's nuclear program and to embarrass a President who quietly endures ongoing threats to kill American soldiers and citizens, Christians, Jews, and innocent Muslim civilians.

Christian Church officials say that there "may be as many as 100,000 devoted Christians in [Iran] and that Iran's leadership is concerned about the spread of Christianity." Before apologizing again for accidental book burnings, Barack Obama should take note of the fact that in Afghanistan there is no forgiveness for religious insult, which is similar to Iran, where there is no pardon for religious autonomy.

One would think that after being spurned by protestors, whose reaction to a plea for pardon is to "kill foreigners," the President would decide to try defending something worthwhile, recognizing that those planning to execute Pastor Nadarkhani are of the same ilk as those storming U.S. bases over the inadvertent burning of the Qurans/secret-message carriers. Yet, despite the White House's most recent condemnation of Nadarkhani's plight, President Obama still insists on turning the lion's share of attention toward placating those who will never be placated.

Compared to Quran rioters in Afghanistan attempting to burn down a UN building, Iran is more sophisticated when disposing of Christians. If Barack Obama is truly as concerned as he says he is about protecting the religious sensibilities of the worldwide faithful, it should be noted that Youcef Nadarkhani, deemed an 'apostate,' is as committed a Christian as the Muslims who are rebelling over the burning of Islamic holy books. When the court ordered Nadarkhani to "recant his faith in Jesus Christ" and "return to the religion of [his] ancestors - Islam," Nadarkhani replied "I cannot."

There's no question President Obama cares deeply that some Qurans were mistakenly incinerated, but what he should really care even more deeply about is the fact that if Youcef Nadarkhani should hang, he will be the first Christian in two decades to be officially executed in Iran, which is both a chilling message and a monumental milestone.

Barack Obama should take heed; after his open profession of conversion to Jesus Christ, if he were in Iran standing in Nadarkhani's shoes, he too would be facing the same fate for rejecting the faith of his Muslim ancestors.

Although believed by many to be intelligent, Obama still hasn't figured out that issuing useless apologies is like giving "dogs what is sacred." The Bible says if "you do, they may trample them under their feet, and then turn and tear you to pieces" - which is exactly what they're trying to do.

As gunmen dressed in Afghan army uniforms opened fire and killed two US advisors in the Afghan ministry, Nadarkhani, seeking only to extend the gift of eternal life, contemplated being made an example of by religious zealots. And as demonstrators raged on and the Taliban continued to encourage Afghans to not rely on "mere protests and empty slogans" but rather to "kill foreign troops," an Iranian Christian prayerfully contemplated the number of steps from his jail cell to the gallows.

Barack Obama's mea culpa has done nothing to stop angry Afghans shouting anti-US slogans from storming an American military base. Wouldn't it be better for Obama, instead of offering heartfelt apologies that will never be accepted, to try to aggressively negotiate the release of Pastor Nadarkhani, who has peacefully accepted the unjust probability of impending martyrdom?

While the Quran protests rage on in Afghanistan, the soon-to-be-nuclear Iran vows to wipe both Youcef Nadarkhani and the nation of Israel off the map. Yet President Obama continues to underestimate (or disregard) the plight of the Jewish nation targeted for genocide and a Christian pastor slated for execution.

Instead of sending a firm reprimand on behalf of the world's Christians, Jews, and other potential martyrs to Muslim extremists wherever they are, President Barack Obama liberally expresses heartfelt regrets to zealots much like those he claims to condemn in Iran - extremists who, in the name of religion, eagerly mete out bloody retribution. Instead of seeking forgiveness from those who will never forgive, Barack Obama should focus more seriously on the fate of a genuinely virtuous man sentenced to die for the sin of preaching Christian forgiveness.

BENADOR: America Needs No President Apologizing to Muslim Invaders - Right Side News

and, from Atlas Shrugs:

PAKISTAN: THOUSANDS OF QURANS DUMPED IN RAW SEWAGE CANAL

NATO promises Afghans trial for alleged Koran burners

2012-02-27T09:38:00.000-05:00

CREEPING SHARIA
Posted on February 27, 2012 by creeping

And from the news reports we’ve seen those on trial would be American soldiers, unless they hang (no pun intended) some other NATO or Afghani’s out to dry. At what point do we hold NATO or the Joint Chiefs responsible for the useless killing of American soldiers? via Joint Statement by the Delegations Assigned to Probe Bagram Incident. h/t Sun Tzu

3. NATO officials promised to meet Afghan nation’s demand of bringing to justice, through an open trial, those responsible for the incident and it was agreed that the perpetrators of the crime be brought to justice as soon as possible.

4. The assigned delegations demand from the government of Afghanistan to take over from the Americans the authority of the Bagram prison so no such incidents can recur and calls on the US government to fully and comprehensively cooperate to this end.

5. The delegations also want from the Afghan government to formally praise those brave Afghan army soldiers and all others who showed feelings against the disrespectful act by preventing more religious books and Quran copies from burning, so that the pure Muslim sentiments of our honored Mujahid nation can remain alive.

There’s a judge in Pennsylvania, a governor in New Jersey and a President in DCwho’d all ensure a quick conviction.

Here Comes Obama's 3 AM Phone Call

2012-02-27T09:18:00.000-05:00

February 27, 2012

AMERICAN THINKER

By James Lewis

In the next 60 days Obama's presidential career will finally meet that concrete wall of reality. He will either fail or survive. Trouble is, he might take many innocent people with him if he fails.

So far, the most hyped-up and unqualified president in US history has shown no capacity at all to act, in the face of a do-or-die challenge. This is the ultimate test of character, the one that John F. Kennedy met well enough in the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. This is the test that Jimmy Carter failed so miserably that Ronald Reagan beat him handily in the following election. This is the same test of reality that every single Democratic Administration has tried to avoid; it's the reason why Bill Clinton refused to do anything about Osama Bin Laden when he had four separate chances to take him out.

This time, abject apologies to ranting Pakistani mobs will not make a smidgen of difference. Even Axelrod's disinformation campaigns can't save Obama now, because that 3 am phone call is almost sure to come by April Fool's Day of 2012, when the real fool will stand revealed to the world.

On or about April 1 of 2012, that 3 AM phone call will reach the White House. We know what it will be -- which is itself a sign of stunning incompetence in this White House. None of this information should ever be public. Ever.

But this administration has chosen its Secretary of Defense to publicly leak the most closely guarded secret of Israel's back-against-the-wall defense against Iranian nuclear weapons.

Such public leaks amount to near treason in time of war. Imagine if someone leaked General Eisenhower's plans for the D-Day invasion in June of 1944. FDR would have fired them instantly, or if they were foreigners he would have felt justified to have them killed. Hundreds of thousands of American and Allied lives were at stake on D Day. In Israel today, hundreds of thousands of Jewish lives are at stake. Don't expect countries fighting for their national survival to act any differently.

The Israelis have now publicly retaliated against the Panetta leak. They have accused General Dempsey, our top general, of publicly taking the Iranian side in the confrontation. But General Dempsey is not the target. The General knows better. The real target is his boss in the White House.

This is the moment every sane person knew had to come, ever since Jimmy Carter and Zbigniew Brzezinski knowingly allowed the radical suicide regime of Ayatollah Khomeini to overthrow the modernizing Shah of Iran. That was the single most self-destructive decision by any American President in modern history.

Jimmy Carter empowered the first Islamic throwback regime since Kemal Ataturk modernized Turkey in the 1920s.

Since Khomeini, Islamic radicalization has only accelerated, culminating in the 9/11/01 attack on New York City. Obama's equally suicidal "Arab Spring" has now brought the Muslim Brotherhood to power in Egypt, instead of our long-time ally Hosni Mubarak. Mubarak's predecessor Anwar Sadat was assassinated by the Muslim Brotherhood, and Obama knowingly chose to support Sadat's assassins.

So much for America's loyalty and word of honor.

Now Egypt is in economic and political despair, along with the other "Arab Spring" countries. The Saudis are ordering their own nuclear weapons, because they cannot trust the United States to protect their vital interests any more.

Obama thrives on crisis and chaos. He is a gambler and a con artist who follows Napoleon's slogan of "audacity, audacity, always audacity." But Napoleon met his Moscow winter and his Waterloo. The only question is when Obama will crash into his own brick wall of reality.

April Fool's Day would be a very suitable target date for the coming Iranian nuclear crisis. The Administration has already started to undermine Israel's case for defending itself by claiming, dontchaknow, that the Iranians are not making nukes after all. They are just making highly enriched uranium, folks. Nothing to worry about. False alarms, all you fools! It's just that Zionist plot again.

Obama's string puppets at J Street and other Soros fronts are bound to start anti-Israel propaganda again, aided by the New York Times and its ilk. But the Iranians just said (again!) that they are bound and determined to "wipe Israel off the map."

It will make no difference. The Israelis are sensitive to hate propaganda by the international left, except when survival is at stake. Then they act to survive. That used to be US policy as well, until the fantasy-ridden Democrats took over the country. Today Obama is cutting our defense budget and reducing US nuclear weapons to the lowest level ever, even while nuclear proliferation breaks out all over the world. Good timing, BHO.

The conventional wisdom is that Israel must attack Iranian nuclear sites soon, because Ahmadinejad is moving his nuclear industry into deep mountain tunnels on an emergency basis. Once his nuke industry is deeply bunkered it is essentially invulnerable to conventional weapons. It is the point of no return.

The conventional wisdom also claims that Israel cannot maintain a long-term bombing campaign. Only the United States can do that. But the US is refusing to be the cop on the block, leaving the defense of the world's biggest oil supply to ... nobody. No one else has the power to do it. Which is why the Saudis are nuking up.

Israel will act as in defense of its right to live. The left will predictably turn reality upside-down, the way it always does. They keep their brains in the darkest place they can find. Nothing will change those facts.

The United States is the only nation with the power to knock down the Iranian threat with reasonable safety to itself and other countries. We have done it before. If Israel acts without our active help, the risks of great casualties on all sides will be much, much greater. In 1973 Golda Meir came close to using Israel's own nuclear arsenal when invading tank divisions from Egypt threatened to overrun Israel's cities. That decision was barely averted when Israeli tanks broke through the Egyptian lines.

Obama is by far the most mentally fixated president in the nuclear age. Nobody else has come even close to having his mental blinders, not even Jimmy Carter. Obama has little regard for human life, which is why he whipped up regional chaos in the "Arab Spring," by demanding the resignation of Egypt's Hosni Mubarak. Obama is happy to empower radical Islamist regimes, just like Jimmy Carter. With a solid phalanx of media liars, Obama has been able to evade responsibility for three years of solid misgovernment in foreign and domestic affairs.

But the coming crisis cannot be evaded. Obama and his propaganda media will spin and spin -- before, during, and after the coming crisis between Israel and Iran. Obama wanted above all to force Israel to retreat back to 1948 or face a nuclear Iran. It was a choice between slow genocide and fast genocide.

It looks like Netanyahu and Ehud Barak, the left and the right of Israel's parliament, called Obama's bluff. No American president has ever allowed an international crisis to come so close to the brink. Obama has now allowed the Middle East to deteriorate so far that he has lost control. He now owns whatever is going to happen. His fingerprints are all over it.

Around April 1, the biggest fool of the 21st century will stand revealed to the world.

After that, the American people will have to decide.

Breaking; Turkey restricts use of air space by Israeli cargo planes

2012-02-27T08:41:00.000-05:00

ISRAEL MATZAV
by Carl in Jerusalem

Monday, February 27, 2012

Until now, Turkey only refused to allow Israeli military aircraft to use its airspace. Now, it's been extended to cargo planes (Hat Tip: Joshua I).

Turkey has begun banning Israeli flights carrying “dangerous materials” from using its airspace, Haaretz learned on Sunday.

The ban effects El Al and CAL cargo flights carrying materials designated as “dangerous.” This designation includes most of the cargo flights in and out of Israel, as it doesn’t include only explosives, but also any flight carrying batteries and even perfume, which are flammable and require special storage procedures.

From now on, Turkey is requiring that it be notified about flights of this type at least 10 days in advance, so that they may review whether or not to approve them.

The new move is causing substantial financial damage to Israeli airlines, as most Israeli flights, and all those flying to the Far East, regularly use Turkish airspace, and are now being forced to use longer flight routes that circumvent Turkey.

The two companies have contacted the Civil Aviation Administration of Israel, demanding Israel reciprocate with comparable restrictions on Turkish flights, which currently use Israeli airspace freely.

An industry executive told Haaretz that this was “a very serious move by Turkey, which must be met by an immediate response from the Civil Aviation Administration of Israel.”

I agree - reciprocal measures against the Turks (as far as I know, we have not taken any) are long since overdue. But at the end of the day, it's just money. The whole reason we are flying over Turkey in the first place is because we cannot fly over the Arab countries to our east. We overcame that restriction and we will overcome this one.

What could go wrong?

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 11:36 AM

'Israel doesn't need recognition as Jewish state'

2012-02-27T08:35:00.000-05:00

THE JERUSALEM POST

By GREER FAY CASHMAN02/27/2012 09:24
Former Mossad Chief Efraim Halevy states any treaty or agreement signed with Israel is tantamount to recognition, says unlike Jordan, Egypt, a Syrian peace deal was scuttled over recognition.

By Ariel Jerozolimski

Former Mossad Chief Efraim Halevy doesn't think that Israel needs to insist on having the Palestinians or anyone else for that matter recognize Israel as a Jewish state or approve its right to exist.

Halevy who was speaking at Jerusalem's Kehilat Moreshet Avraham on Sunday night noted that Israel is a Jewish State and that any treaty or agreement signed with Israel by any other state or entity is tantamount to recognition. It doesn't have to be spelled out.
Related:
'Peace can't be based on ignoring the truth about J'lem'
Peace talks wait to see if Hamas, Fatah unite

The fact that there are those who do not accept a Jewish State does not make Israel any less Jewish, he pointed out. "Our Jewishness does not depend on them. But we have that problem that we need their recognition."

In the peace treaties that Israel signed with Egypt and Jordan, said Halevy, there is no mention of recognition of Israel as a Jewish state, so there is no need to insist on this in dealings with the Palestinians. Israel was also close to a deal with the Syrians, but decided not to go forward said Halevy, who surmised that had a peace agreement with the Syrians eventuated, it would not contain reference to recognition of Israel as a Jewish state or any mention of Israel's right to exist.

"We believe that our influence on the mindsets of our enemies is next to nil, and if they don't accept our existence here, yhis is a threat with which we cannot live."

After reaching a peace agreement with Egypt which had been Israel's "most formidable enemy," Israel should have surely gained an enormous injection of self confidence, because in this achievement, Israel had broken the Arab anti-Israel alliance of solidarity, said Halevy.

Moreover, he suggested, Israel should gain confidence from the fact that since its acceptance as the 59th member state of the United Nations, it has succeeded in opening embassies throughout the world.

"The world accepted us as a member of the community of nations, and yet we always demand that they recognize our right to exist."

Halevy questioned why Israel needs such assurance, and cited a conversation that he had engaged in with a prominent Palestinian, who had told him that Israel's insistence on recognition, would suggest that if the Palestinians don't recognize Israel, Israel would lose its right to exist.

Israel has convinced the free world that if Hamas doesn't recognize Israel's right to exist, "we won't talk to them," said Halevy, who implied that this was so much hogwash. "We talk to them all the time," he said, then later corrected himself, saying that Israel may not be talking directly to Hamas, but communicates with Hamas.

As for the Iranian nuclear project, Halevy disclosed some ofthe details of a meeting on nuclear non-proliferation that he had attended in a European capital. There were several high ranking Iranian representatives at this meeting and the Iranian ambassador had declared that Israel must be forced to sign the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.

*Israel has never said that it has nuclear weapons, nor has it said that it hasn't," said Halevy, who had seized on the Iranian ambassador's remarks and had told him that he was absolutely right, because only legitimate states signinternational treaties and that this was the first time that the Iranians had recognized the State of Israel.

The ambassador had tried to bluster his way out, but the point made by Halevy had prevailed.

Although Israel has many near miraculous achievements to its credit, Halevy believes that Israelis have not overcome an inherent Jewish perception of being the victim. After 2000 years of suffering, being despised among the nations and victims of anti-Semitic actions that resulted in massive loss of life, Israelis still have difficulty in being self confident when it comes to personal and national security. One would have expected Israelis to emerge from the 1948, '56, '67, '73,
'82 and '96 victories of war with a great feeling of self confidence said Halevy, but Israelis always labor under threat despite the fact that "we have the most efficient, most capable and most brutal defense capability in the region."

Instead of gaining confidence from past victories, Israel always faces threats with great trepidation Halevy observed. "There is a deep ingrained feeling which inhibits us in our activities and our approach to the enemy."

Despite the fact that Israel has "an intelligence community which is second to none," Israel always fears the worst, he said. Halevy conceded that Israel should prepare for the worst, but should not fear that the worst has a better chance than something less than the worst.

In negotiating with the Palestinians, Halevy continued, Israel has always focused on an end to the conflict. "There will never be an end to the conflict," he asserted. "We need to translate conflict into something you live with in different terms."

World Wars One and Two were supposed to bring an end to conflict he said, but they didn't. Halevy instanced several conflicts in which the adversaries have found a way to live together without peace treaties or final borders. "So why should we demand a final border?" he queried. "Why should we always want the ultimate?"

Halevy was relieved that the concept of a Middle East common market envisaged several years ago by President Shimon Peres, when as Foreign Minister he had written his book on The New Middle East, had not come to fruition, having been rejected by the Arab states. Halevy asked his audience to imagine the economic havoc if all the countries in the region had accepted this idea and what would have happened to the Middle East economy in the wake of the Arab Spring. "Sometimes certain types of rejection are a blessing in disguise," said Halevy.

Sunday, Feb. 26, 2012: Racing for Israel at Daytona

2012-02-26T11:42:00.001-05:00

COMMENTARY/CONTENTIONS

Jonathan Neumann | @NeumannJ02.24.2012 - 3:25 PM

If you’re watching the Daytona 500 – ‘‘The Great American Race’’ – this Sunday, look out for the No. 49 Robinson-Blakeney Toyota, sponsored by the non-profit, America-Israel Racing, and driven by J.J. Yeley, one of the top drivers in NASCAR.

Conceived last year by two Charlotte, N.C., men, America-Israel racing looks ‘‘to promote awareness of and support by Americans for Israel, the only true democracy in the Middle East’’ and hopes ‘‘to educate Americans on the importance [of] the United States’ relationship with Israel through exposure provided by one of the largest spectator sports in the world.’’

The car design features a bald eagle with the national flags of the United States and Israel in its claws and an olive branch in its beak.

It may seem odd to make such a statement in sport – a realm often idealized as separate from politics. But it’s not about politics, they insist. And though advertising costs can run into the millions, they also note that it’s not a product they are trying to sell. Rather, ‘‘it’s a belief.’’ For probably the only televised sport where races are preceded by prayer, perhaps beliefs are appropriate.

The team has worked hard to qualify for the race, and hope to maintain the sponsorship throughout the season. As it happens, Daytona 500 is the only race televised in Israel. The Israeli government sent them a letter expressing excitement.

Here’s hoping they stay safe.

See: Official link: http://americaisraelracing.com/

http://www.jjyeley.com/bio_jj.aspx?no=true

Muslims complain about cartoon in NY Post Newspaper

2012-02-26T11:27:00.000-05:00

The complaints lodged against this cartoon in the NY Post newspaper includes the false accusation of racism. Islam is NOT a race. That the characters are emulating the founder of islam, mohammad seems to be also offensive. Of course, mohammad did teach he was to be copied as the most perfect example of human behavior.

Fortunately, few follow this teaching or the world would be so much worse than it is. Exponentially increased violence, aggression, all sorts of sexual pervasion including rape and child molestation, crimes of person and property, murder, etc.

Does the cartoon generalize, well sure. The truth is that a terrorist can’t be identified by looks and can just as easily be “hidden amongst us”. But, who wants to see a cartoon of a terrorist that looks like anyone. It is the evil the dwells inside that provides the evil of terrorism, not any nationality or ethnic group or race. This evil is islam.

SOURCE: Thoughts and Truth from the Impossible Life