WarSclerotic

( My home, Eilat and Aqaba as seen from the western mountains. – JW )

U.S. Sends Arms to Aid Iraq Fight With Extremists – NYTimes.com.

( What the MSM and its “analysts” leave out is that this is one more of  many examples of Obama’s lean towards Iran and the Shiites against the Sunni Arabs. – JW )

Mahmoud Al-Samarrai/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Iraqis gathered in Tikrit on Tuesday to pray over journalists killed in an attack claimed by a Qaeda-affiliated group.

By MICHAEL R. GORDON and ERIC SCHMITT

Published: December 25, 2013

The move follows an appeal for help in battling the extremist group by the Iraqi prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, who met with President Obama in Washington last month.

But some military experts question whether the patchwork response will be sufficient to reverse the sharp downturn in security that already led to the deaths of more than 8,000 Iraqis this year, 952 of them Iraqi security force members, according to the United Nations, the highest level of violence since 2008.

Al Qaeda’s regional affiliate, the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, has become a potent force in northern and western Iraq. Riding in armed convoys, the group has intimidated towns, assassinated local officials, and in an episode last week, used suicide bombers and hidden explosives to kill the commander of the Iraqi Army’s Seventh Division and more than a dozen of his officers and soldiers as they raided a Qaeda training camp near Rutbah.

Bombings on Christmas in Christian areas of Baghdad, which killed more than two dozen people, bore the hallmarks of a Qaeda operation.

The surge in violence stands in sharp contrast to earlier assurances from senior Obama administration officials that Iraq was on the right path, despite the failure of American and Iraqi officials in 2011 to negotiate an agreement for a limited number of United States forces to remain in Iraq.

In a March 2012 speech, Antony J. Blinken, who is currently Mr. Obama’s deputy national security adviser, asserted that “Iraq today is less violent” than “at any time in recent history.”

In contrast, after a recent spate of especially violent attacks against Iraqi forces, elected officials and civilians, Jen Psaki, the State Department spokeswoman, issued a strongly worded statement on Sunday warning that the Qaeda affiliate is “seeking to gain control of territory inside the borders of Iraq.”

Pledging to take steps to strengthen Iraqi forces, Ms. Psaki noted that the Qaeda affiliate was a “common enemy of the United States and the Republic of Iraq, and a threat to the greater Middle East region.”

But the counterterrorism effort the United States is undertaking with Iraq has its limits.

Iraq’s foreign minister has floated the idea of having American-operated, armed Predator or Reaper drones respond to the expanding militant network. But Mr. Maliki, who is positioning himself to run for a third term as prime minister and who is sensitive to nationalist sentiment at home, has not formally requested such intervention.

The idea of carrying out such drone attacks, which might prompt the question of whether the Obama administration succeeded in bringing the Iraq war to what the president has called a “responsible end,” also appears to have no support in the White House.

“We have not received a formal request for U.S.-operated armed drones operating over Iraq, nor are we planning to divert armed I.S.R. over Iraq,” said Bernadette Meehan, a spokeswoman for the National Security Council, referring to intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions. For now, the new lethal aid from the United States, which Iraq is buying, includes a shipment of 75 Hellfire missiles, delivered to Iraq last week. The weapons are strapped beneath the wings of small Cessna turboprop planes, and fired at militant camps with the C.I.A. secretly providing targeting assistance.

In addition, 10 ScanEagle reconnaissance drones are expected to be delivered to Iraq by March. They are smaller cousins of the larger, more capable Predators that used to fly over Iraq.

American intelligence and counterterrorism officials say they have effectively mapped the locations and origins of the Qaeda network in Iraq and are sharing this information with the Iraqis.

Administration officials said the aid was significant because the Iraqis had virtually run out of Hellfire missiles. The Iraqi military, with no air force to speak of and limited reconnaissance of its own, has a very limited ability to locate and quickly strike Qaeda militants as they maneuver in western and northern Iraq. The combination of American-supplied Hellfire air-to-ground missiles, tactical drones and intelligence, supplied by the United States, is intended to augment that limited Iraqi ability.

The Obama administration has given three sensor-laden Aerostat balloons to the Iraqi government, provided three additional reconnaissance helicopters to the Iraqi military and is planning to send 48 Raven reconnaissance drones before the end of 2014. And the United States is planning to deliver next fall the first of the F-16 fighters Iraq has bought.

The lack of armed drones, some experts assert, will hamper efforts to dismantle the Qaeda threat in Iraq over the coming weeks and months.

“Giving them some ScanEagle drones is great,” said Michael Knights, an expert on Iraqi security at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “But is it really going to make much difference? Their range is tiny.”

¶ “The real requirement today is for a long-range, high-endurance armed drone capability,” added Mr. Knights, who frequently travels to Iraq. “There is one place in the world where Al Qaeda can run a major affiliate without fear of a U.S. drone or air attack, and that is in Iraq and Syria.”

¶ In an effort to buttress the Iraqi military’s abilities, the Obama administration has sought congressional approval to lease and eventually sell Apache helicopter gunships. But some lawmakers have been hesitant, fearing that they might be used by Mr. Maliki to intimidate his political opponents.

¶ A plan to lease six Apaches to the Iraqi government is now pending in the Senate. Frustrated by the United States’ reluctance to sell Apaches, the Iraqis have turned to Russia, which delivered four MI-35 attack helicopters last month and planned to provide more than two dozen more. Meanwhile, cities and towns like Mosul, Haditha and Baquba that American forces fought to control during the 2007 and 2008 surge of American troops in Iraq have been the scene of bloody Qaeda attacks.

¶ Using extortion and playing on Sunni grievances against Mr. Maliki’s Shiite-dominated government, the Qaeda affiliate is largely self-financing. One Iraqi politician, who asked not to be named to avoid retaliation, said Qaeda militants had even begun to extort money from shopkeepers in Ramadi, Anbar’s provincial capital.

¶ A number of factors are helping the Qaeda affiliate. The terrorist group took advantage of the departure of American forces to rebuild its operations in Iraq and push into Syria. Now that it has established a strong foothold in Syria, it is in turn using its base there to send suicide bombers into Iraq at a rate of 30 to 40 a month, using them against Shiites but also against Sunnis who are reluctant to cede control.

¶ The brutal tactics, some experts say, may expose Al Qaeda to a Sunni backlash, much as in 2006 and 2007 when Sunni tribes aligned themselves with American forces against the Qaeda extremists.

¶ But Mr. Maliki’s failure to share power with Sunni leaders, some Iraqis say, has also provided a fertile recruiting ground.

¶ Haitham Abdullah al-Jubouri, a 40-year-old government employee in Baquba, said that “the policy of the sectarian government” had “contributed to the influx of desperate young elements from the Sunni community to the ranks of Al Qaeda.”

¶ In Mosul, most of the security force members who are not from the area have left the city, and Al Qaeda controls whole sections of territory.

¶ “In the morning, we have some control, but at night, this is when we hide and the armed groups make their movements,” said an Iraqi security official, who spoke only on the condition of anonymity, out of fear of retaliation.

¶ Ayad Shaker, a police officer in Anbar, said that Al Qaeda had replenished its ranks with a series of prison breakouts, and that the group had also grown stronger because of the limited abilities of Iraqi forces, the conflict in Syria and tensions between Mr. Maliki and the Sunnis.

¶ Mr. Shaker said that three close relatives had been killed by Al Qaeda and that he had been wounded by bombs the group had planted.

¶

Ya’alon: Iron Dome Will Protect South – Defense/Security – News – Israel National News.

Overnight Wednesday, the IDF moved batteries of Iron Dome anti-rocket missiles to various areas of southern Israel

Iron Dome in action (file)

Overnight Wednesday, the IDF moved batteries of Iron Dome anti-rocket missiles to various areas of southern Israel. The IDF moved the batteries to the area in the wake of a recent increase in violence and attacks by Gaza Arab terrorists against Israelis.

The most serious incident occurred Tuesday when a Gaza Arab terrorist shot and killed 22-year-old Salah Abu-Latif of Rahat, a civilian IDF employee who was working on repairs to the Gaza security fence. The IDF views the incident as particularly serious due to the fact that Latif was murdered in Israeli territory, an army spokesperson said.

On Tuesday afternoon, the IDF hit six targets in Gaza linked to terrorist groups. Gaza terrorists again Wednesday night attempted to kill Israeli civilians when they fired a rocket at towns in the Hof Ashkelon Regional Council in southern Israel. The rocket exploded in an open area, causing no physical injuries or damages. The “Red Alert” siren was heard in the region prior to the explosion. On Sunday night, Gaza terrorists fired a Kassam short-range rocket into the same area.

Speaking Wednesday, Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon said that Israel would not stand for a terror rampage from Gaza, and would hold Hamas responsible for any attack or harm to Israelis. Regarding Tuesday’s murder of an Israeli civilian, Ya’alon said that “Hamas is responsible for the shooting, and they had better realize that unless Israeli citizens have quiet and security, Gaza won’t either. Palestinian Authority incitement is the cause for the recent wave of terror coming from Judea and Samaria, and we will do our best to thwart it.”

Just in case, he said, the IDF has deployed the Iron Dome system to southern Israel, but he stressed that even if the system successfully thwarts all attacks by Gaza Arab terrorists on civilians, the IDF would respond with full force against terror targets in Gaza.

Fundamentally Freund: Ignore Obama’s lame-duck quacking | JPost | Israel News.

By MICHAEL FREUND

12/25/2013 22:30

As the great comedian Bob Hope once noted, “The only thing chicken about Israel is their soup.” Let’s keep it that way.

If the various rumors and reports are true, January may prove to be one tough month for US-Israeli relations.

According to several accounts, the Obama administration is said to be gearing up to push Israel into a corner by offering its own proposals regarding how to shape a deal with the Palestinians.

With the clock ticking on the nine months allotted for an agreement to be reached, US Secretary of State John Kerry likely will be twisting Israel’s arm, and applying pressure to other anatomical parts, to coerce the Jewish state into capitulation.

Under normal circumstances, it would be difficult for an Israeli premier to rebuff a concerted, full-court press from Washington, particularly when it involves an issue about which both the president and America’s top diplomat seem overly obsessed.

But these are not normal circumstances, and it behooves Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to stand firm and spurn any pressure that may be applied.

For although Barack Obama still has another three years in office, he is already starting to look a heck of a lot like a lame duck, one whose quacking can and should be ignored.

Consider the following: according to a Washington Post/ ABC poll released last week, Obama is closing out his fifth year in office with the lowest approval rating at this point in a presidency since Richard “Tricky Dick” Nixon. That is not the kind of company that an occupant of the White House likes to keep.

The survey found that just 43 percent of Americans approve of the job that Obama is doing, which is less than the 47% that George W. Bush managed to garner at the end of his fifth year in office.

In other words, Obama is now less liked at this point in his presidency than even Bush was.

A Fox News national poll conducted jointly by Democratic and Republican polling firms produced similar results, with Obama earning an approval rating of 41% versus a 53% disapproval rating.

Even worse, the survey showed that more Americans now view him as dishonest rather than honest, with 45% saying Obama is trustworthy and 49% saying he is not.

By contrast, in 2009, a whopping 73% gave him a thumbs-up for honesty.

Even the normally pliant and reliably liberal American media has begun to wonder aloud about whether Obama is morphing into a Democratic version of Bush the younger, much of whose second term was spent in irrelevancy.

You might be wondering: does any of this really matter? Obama is still the president.

Actually, it does matter, both politically and diplomatically.

As Commentary editor John Podhoretz noted in a recent New York Post column, “the president has gone from being someone in charge of events to someone who is being buffeted about by them – and once a leader loses his hold on the levers of power it’s very difficult to get them back.”

Obama’s loss of standing and sliding popularity serve to feed into the perception that he too is entering an early lame-duck phase, when a president no longer enjoys the ability to ram through policies and steer the ship of state as he sees fit.

And Democrats are already looking ahead nervously to the 2014 midterm Congressional elections, when Republicans are expected to make big gains in both the House and Senate. Many Democrats worried about keeping their seats are unlikely to cuddle up to a weakened president who is increasingly viewed as incompetent and untrustworthy, nor will they be rushing to get behind any new initiatives he may try to pursue.

On top of it all, Obama has plenty of headaches at home, from the ongoing NSA surveillance scandal to the disastrous roll-out of Obamacare, which is causing chaos and confusion among millions of Americans.

Simply put, there is no reason for Israel to kowtow to a fading president desperate for a foreign policy “win,” whether the issue is Iran or the Palestinians.

Where our security is at stake or our existence is threatened, we must not be afraid of standing up to an American president, particularly one as anemic and ineffectual as Obama.

As the great comedian Bob Hope once noted, “The only thing chicken about Israel is their soup.” Let’s keep it that way.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Christmas Greeting – 2013 – YouTube.

Peace on earth and good will to all men…

Joseph Wouk

–

IDF strikes six Gaza targets in retaliation to shooting of Defense Ministry employee | JPost | Israel News.

By YAAKOV LAPPIN, HERB KEINON

LAST UPDATED: 12/24/2013 17:46

IDF employes air force, tanks and infantry in strike; Palestinian toddler reportedly killed in IAF airstrikes after Palestinian sniper fire kills Salah Shukri Abu Latyef; Ya’alon tells Hamas: “Don’t test our patience.”

The IDF struck targets in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday afternoon in retaliation for the cross-border shooting earlier in the day in which Israel sustained its first casualty since the end of Operation Pillar of Defense in 2012.

The IDF employed the air force, tanks, and infantry to launch a response against six targets in Gaza.

Officials from Hamas, the Islamic group which rules Gaza, and witnesses said IAF aircraft bombed the group’s training camps in Khan Younis and al-Bureij. Witnesses said IDF tanks fired shells east of Gaza city.

Gaza hospital officials said a three-year-old girl was killed by shrapnel during the strike on the Bureij facility. She was standing with other family members outside their home near the camp and her mother and two of her brothers were wounded, the officials said.

The strike’s targets were a site to manufacture weapons, and a terrorism infrastructure site in southern Gaza, a center for terrorism activity and a terrorism infrastructure site in central Gaza, and two terrorism targets in the north of the Strip had been hit, according to the IDF.

“We identified an accurate strike of the targets. All of our planes returned to their bases safely,” the IDF Spokesman said.

“Terrorist organizations have made it their goal to harm Israeli civilians. The IDF will act with determination against any element seeking to activate terrorism against the state of Israel. Hamas is the address and it is responsible,” the spokesman added.

Salah Shukri Abu Latyef, 22, a civilian Defense Ministry employee from Rahat, was working for Shabbat Drilling operating a tractor at the Gaza border when was shot by a Palestinian sniper.

He was airlifted to Soroka Medical Center in Beersheba where he later succumbed to his wounds.

“The incident occurred very close to the border,” one security source said.

“This was his first day working on the Gaza Strip border and unfortunately it was also his last day of life,” Latyef’s cousin said.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu responded soon after the sniper attack, calling it a “very grave incident” that Israel will not let go unanswered.

“Our policy up until now has been to prevent beforehand and to react with force, and this is how we will act now as well,” he said.

Netanyahu made his comment as he was just about to fly back to Jerusalem from Sderot, where he went Tuesday to dedicate the new Tel Aviv-Sderot train line.

An IDF spokesman said that the military had limited the access of farmers working in the immediate vicinity of the fence in the aftermath of the attack.

In a separate incident, a Palestinian youth who approached the fence on the border with northern Gaza entered the closed security zone, and ignored calls by soldiers to vacate the area. He was shot in the leg and evacuated to a Gazan hospital by the Red Crescent.

The cross-border shooting comes after a spate of attempts by Palestinians to plant explosives along the security fence and to damage the barrier in recent days.

Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon said there was “no direct relation” between terrorist attacks in Israel over the past two days and the cross-border shooting attack.

“We view take a most severe view of them. In Gaza, Hamas is sovereign, and we see it as being responsible for today’s shooting from the Strip and rocket launches over the past today at Israel. We will not allow a disruption to life in the South, and we will respond decisively and painfully to attacks on our sovereignty and against our civilians and soldiers,” the defense minister added.

He advised Hamas “not to test our patience,” calling on Gaza’s ruling regime to exercise its authority on the ground to prevent further attacks on Israel by other organizations.

“If there won’t be quiet in Israel, there won’t be quiet in Gaza either,” Ya’alon warned.

“Terrorism incidents are the continuation of previous attacks, most of which are the result of a lone attacker, or one who has been influenced by the atmosphere of incitement and hatred that exists in the Palestinian Authority against Israel. This is an intolerable situation from our perspective, and despite the difficulties in dealing with a lone individual incited to murder Jews, we will act with a resolute hand and in various ways to harm anyone who tries to carry out terrorist attacks,” Ya’alon pledged.

As long as the PA continues to incite against Israel and its civilians, and fails to promote a culture of peace, Israel will have to deal with attacks that result from this, he added. Ya’alon sent his condolences to the family of the fatally wounded civilian, and wished the policeman stabbed on Monday a swift recovery.

Shortly after midnight, on Sunday, Palestinian terrorists fired a rocket into southern Israel, triggering an air raid siren and sending residents fleeing for cover.

Security forces located the rocket’s remains after sunrise inside an Israeli village, where it fell between homes, failing to cause injuries or damages.

Jpost.com staff, Reuters and Yasser Okbi contributed to this report.

Not just the NSA: US spies rent a Jerusalem hotel suite to watch a secret Israeli site.

Uncle Sam is listening

Many Israelis were scandalized when documents released by Edward Snowden revealed that their best friend, America, had in 2009 targeted a former prime minister and defense minister for secret surveillance. But their political leaders were not surprised. For years, the United States has been running a complex eavesdropping and surveillance web to spy on friends and foes alike, including Israel. Satellites gather and transmit data to command centers, “informers” operate in the field and the most fertile sources of all are not human but the instruments which bug cell phones, tablets and social networks.

The US National Security Agency, NSA, exposed by its former agent the whistleblower Edward Snowden, can monitor these devices whenever it wants, just by beaming its instruments at a defined country, location, group of people or topics.
If, for instance, NSA electronically obtains a list of Israeli servicemen, their cell phone numbers and credit cards, its monitors can keep each one under constant surveillance.

The same applies to the personnel of Israel’s Air Force, Aerospace industry and other high-tech military manufacturers, such as Elbit and Rafael. Those lists may safely be assumed to be already in the agency’s hands.
To collect videos and images, American spy agencies only have to pan through such data gold mines as YouTube, Instagram, Tumblr and Pinterest, the last of which was recently crowned Content Curation. This is because Pinterest does much of the intelligence watchers’ work for them by assorting the material according to subject and field of interest and so unknowingly providing them with neat data packages.

The network catching on like wildfire of late is WhatsApp.

It is also a favorite of Israel’s elementary schoolchildren for swapping their thoughts and news.
A child may explain he or she can’t join the gang that afternoon because his or her father, an Air Force colonel or captain of a naval vessel, is just home from Crete or Sardinia. This will tell the eavesdropper that Israeli crews have been changed at those bases.

An Israeli officer driving his car only has to consult Waze for a short cut to his secret destination to reveal it to a clandestine watcher.

So who controls these armies of spies and directs their focus?

Those are murky waters which are virtually uncharted, as President Barack Obama implied obliquely in the comments he made at his end-of-year news conference Friday, Dec. 20. To still the uproar against indiscriminate spying on Americans, he promised a review and possibly reforms of the NSA, adding tellingly: “Just because we can do something doesn’t mean we necessarily should.”

Snowden’s revelations about the spies sitting on the phones of German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Brazilian President Dilma Roussef have got Washington into hot water. They also revealed the negligence of their own security services.

However, Israel, to our certain knowledge, has lived with this unwanted American attention from its earliest days. In the 1980s, when the late Menahem Begin was prime minister, an odd-looking vehicle sprouting a forest of antennae stood permanently and quite visibly beneath his office window in Jerusalem.
His staff identified it quite frankly as a mobile American listening station. The measures used later were a lot more sophisticated. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Defense Minister Ehud Barak and other Israeli officials, in their turn, had their e-mails intercepted regularly.

But after 2009, Washington introduced a high-powered, multilayered system of intelligence-gathering – especially against Israel, about which neither Snowden nor the Israelis have been forthcoming. This system had a single narrow focus: to pick up the slightest murmur or clue suggesting that Israel was about to launch an attack on Iran’s nuclear sites, which it had threatened to do without prior notice to Washington.

Listening in on the laconic conversations Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu held with Ehud Barak was not enough. What the spies were told to look for was out-of-the-way conduct, such as an order placed suddenly for a large quantity of aircraft fuel, or the import of an unusual amount of emergency medical equipment.

At the high noon of this period of mistrust, US officers of the highest ranks began dropping in on Israel with increasingly frequency. Every week to ten days, some many-starred general or fast-talking Pentagon official arrived for a visit. They were told to ferret out any signs of Israel getting ready for an attack on Iran in time for Washington to step in and stop it.

These emissaries had two directives:

1. To maintain a tight grip on the prime minister, defense minister and chief of staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz and other IDF generals and keep them in sight at all times;

2. To pick up on their every nuance of speech or behavior for signals of hidden activity too subtle for monitoring devices to register.
The tempo of these visits tapered off when Washington concluded that Israel had given up on a military strike on Iran at that stage.

However, the spying did not.

debkafile’s intelligence sources report that in recent months Israeli complained to the Obama administration about hotel suites which undercover agents had rented in Jerusalem at sites overlooking a secret military installation frequented by high Israeli officials for their most private consultations. The Netanyahu government asked Washington to stop this underhand surveillance. But meanwhile certain other – less friendly – Western spy agencies had caught on and took suites at the same location.
The conclusion from these incidents is that US clandestine surveillance of Israel is unlikely to stop in the foreseeable future – and not just against key figures and military personnel, but also involving economic and industrial espionage.

To combat the expanding exposure of its secrets, Israel has been introducing “sterile spaces” impenetrable to illicit penetration as well as using tricks to misdirect attention. However, the Americans and other interested parties keep on looking for holes in these barriers – and so the contest goes on.

Wake Up and Smell the Stench | Jerusalem Post – Blogs.

Earl Cox

Recent foreign “policy” decisions made by the Obama Administration have left most Americans and our allies wondering why all of his decisions seem to favor Islam.  

Those in the know fear the worst – that those in power in America are changing their alliances and goals.  In addition, heads of state appear scrambling to realign themselves for their own protection and according to their own needs.  Sunni Saudi Arabia and Shiite Iran exemplify the struggle inside the Muslim world.  In the end they will be in collusion, but for now, Sunnis and Shiites are at odds due to Islam’s ultimate goal of a world-wide Caliphate and each wants to prevail.

Is the U.S. government naive or are there evil forces behind the scenes helping craft policy for the administration that is causing the rift and favoring Islam? Is there a plan that ordinary Americans and our allies do not know about that will eventually destroy America as we know it and our faithful allies?

Americans must be disappointed and dismayed that Afghanistan’s president recently chose Iran to be its security partner instead of the U. S.  Is it that Muslim blood is thicker than water?  How much American blood was shed to bring “democracy” to Afghanistan?  Where is the “thank you” for the United States?  What has been happening in Iraq since Saddam’s fall?  The terrorists are taking over the country.  What was the administration really hiding in Libya?  Why did we just give Syria over to Russia and Iran?  Why did the military aid stop in Egypt after Morsi was removed and the Muslim Brotherhood was being disbursed?

Why do Americans stand by and watch as treasure and lives are spent on a lost cause – democracy in countries run by despots who want to devour the world with the “Big Satan” America as their ultimate prize and the “Little Satan” Israel as their target to wipe off the world map?  Why?  Who is changing minds inside America’s government?  Who is really writing and directing Middle East policy?

“The face of terror is not the true faith of Islam,” said George Bush.  “That’s not what Islam is all about.  Islam is peace.  These terrorists do not represent peace.  They represent evil and war.”  George Bush timidly, but definitely, expressed these words immediately after the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center.  Yet, not quite a year later, it was revealed in the Holy Land Foundation trial that influential Muslims, on stage with President Bush after 9/11, were exposed as unindicted terrorists co-conspirators in the 9/11 attacks.  Was Bush naïve or was he misinformed by his Muslim advisors?

The Muslim Brotherhood is recognized as an organization that terrorizes its opposition and funds enemies of the U. S.  Yet, even after the Holy Land trial, groups affiliated with the Brotherhood since the 1990s and the Clinton Administration, and after the 9/11 attacks, are continuing to operate freely in America.  In fact, powerful Muslim Brotherhood affiliated individuals have successfully infiltrated key areas of American society, getting key positions in law enforcements, the military, government, the CIA, the FBI, local and state police and the current presidential administration.  This is in spite of the fact that federal courts have deemed these numerous Muslim Brotherhood affiliated groups to be criminal and hostile to the U.S.

Is has been said that the infiltration of Muslim Brotherhood affiliates and individual inside American society and other Western societies around the world is likened to termites.  Erick Stakelback in his book, The Brotherhood – America’s Next Great Enemy, described the “Strategy of Termites.”  The Muslim Brotherhood Islamists burrow into a society and eat away at it until they are ready to make their move.  An Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal for the Group in North America outlines the intentions of Islamists in America.  It is about a 30-year plan.  A sign that they could be getting closer to making their move in America is this headline from a September 11, 2012 Press Release, “National Security Advisor Stresses Muslim as Part of American Family During Speech by Islamic Society of North America” (ISNA – indicted co-conspirator in Holy Land Trial).

Consider that the U. S. military training manuals and other official documents have eliminated training regarding Muslim extremists, that it took this long for the Fort Hood shooting at the Texas military base to be termed a terror attack, that the United Nations is on the cusp of making it illegal to disparage Islam in any way, and the uncanny fact that there are Muslim Brotherhood personages advising the White House and leading the Department of Homeland Security, it must be stated clearly that the United States homeland and national security are at risk.  Israel and the rest of the world are also at serious risk.

I wish it were time to wake up and smell the roses.  However, it is time to wake up and smell the stench.  No, the United States government is not naïve.  Nor is it stupid.  Whether public officials are aware or not aware, from deep inside the bowels of American government, Middle East policy is being influenced by the Muslim Brotherhood inside America’s institutions.  That is extremely troubling and it is putting us all in danger.

Analysis: Congress and the role of diplomat | JPost | Israel News.

By MICHAEL WILNER, BENJAMIN WEINTHAL

12/23/2013 09:28

American lawmakers’ bill on new round of Iran sanctions send clear message to US President Barack Obama: We don’t trust your administration to handle the Islamic Republic on its own.

WASHINGTON – Introducing a controversial bill last week long in the works, Senator Robert Menendez and a bipartisan group of 25 senators sent a clear message to US President Barack Obama: We don’t trust your administration to handle Iran on its own.

The bill, called the Nuclear Weapon Free Iran Act of 2013, would trigger a new round of sanctions against the Islamic Republic should a six-month interim agreement, forged last month in Geneva, expire without a comprehensive deal ending their nuclear program.

The Geneva deal agreed upon by Iran and the P5+1 powers – the US, United Kingdom, France, Russia, China and Germany – effectively halts Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for modest sanctions relief. But the deal includes a provision that was made available to Senate members well in advance of its signing: that “the US administration, acting consistent with the respective roles of the President and the Congress, will refrain from imposing new nuclear-related sanctions.”

Opponents of the deal in Congress do not believe Treasury Secretary Jack Lew when he insists, repeatedly, that the core sanctions regime – passed by Congress itself or independently ordered by the president – will remain unaffected by the deal.

Bill Kristol, editor of the conservative The Weekly Standard magazine, called the Geneva agreement “unfortunate” in an interview.

“It’s a bad deal,” Kristol said.

“It gives up the sanctions in a way that would be very hard to reverse, in return for no real dismantling or even setback of the Iranian nuclear program.”

Nor do conservatives trust US Secretary of State John Kerry when he speaks of alliance management. Kerry says that China, Russia and the European Union will no longer believe the US is genuinely working toward a peaceful diplomatic solution to the Iranian nuclear crisis if it appears interested only in inflicting punishment; yet the US has already eroded the trust of other allies, namely Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Israel, opponents retort.

It may be that the standard for these members of Congress, and the allies they speak of, is a form of Persian capitulation that will never realistically come to pass.

One consistent line from the Iranians has been that they will never forgo their right to a civilian nuclear program.

And to support diplomacy, a deal must be had; compromise must be made.

Congress led the way on sanctioning Iran throughout 2010 and 2011. But if Kerry is correct, then Menendez’s new bill could risk fraying a coalition put together not by Congress, but by the Obama White House.

“When the president says a major foreign policy priority would be torpedoed if it acted, it’s very hard for Congress to act,” said Patrick Clawson, director of research at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

“I don’t think Democrats want to embarrass the president,” Clawson added, “and Republicans don’t want to give the president an opportunity to say that his strategy would have succeeded without Republican obstructionism.”

And yet Menendez seems to believe his bill will not violate the Geneva agreement any more than has the designation of new companies as sanctions violators, as was done last week by the departments of State and Treasury.

The Iranians have explicitly said otherwise. Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has warned that passage of this bill would render the Geneva agreement “entirely dead.”

No doubt, testing Iran’s threats and lighting fire under the deal are risks these senators are taking with eyes wide open.

Kristol, a leading conservative voice calling for robust penalties against Iran, sees a “desperate desire” on the part of the Obama administration “to have a deal to avoid facing real choices” that compel Iran to end its nuclear program.

The US should “make much clearer that we are willing to use force,” Kristol said, advocating tougher sanctions legislation.

He noted that Iran pulled the plug on its nuclear program after the US invaded Iraq. “They [Iranians] were scared.”

“We are hitting the fork in the road,” he added.

Disaster averted as bomb explodes on bus after passengers evacuated | The Times of Israel.

( Nasralla said he’d get revenge… ? – JW )

Sapper reportedly lightly injured while trying to defuse device in apparent Bat Yam terror attack

The bus in Bat Yam after a bomb on board exploded Sunday. (photo credit: Yossi Zeliger/Flash90)

An explosive device blew up on a bus in Bat Yam on Sunday afternoon, but riders were saved as an alert passenger and bus driver had ordered the vehicle evacuated after noticing the bomb.

Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said no one was hurt in Sunday’s blast, though some Israeli media outlets reported a police sapper was lightly injured in the hand when the bomb exploded.

Police sources said that early indications pointed to an apparent terror attack.

The explosion damaged the Dan No. 240 bus, which was stopped at the time on the corners of Mivtza Sinai and Katznelson streets in the coastal city, which borders Tel Aviv on the south.

Pictures from the scene showed windows blown out at the back of the bus.

Passengers had been evacuated from the bus after a suspicious package was discovered, according to a Dan Company spokesperson.

“A passenger alerted the driver about a suspicious bag located behind the back door of the bus,” the spokesperson said. “The driver stopped the bus and examined the bag. He saw electrical wires attached to the bag and ordered all passengers off the bus, leaving after them. He then called police sappers.”

Bud Driver Michael yagur deflected praise that he had saved the dozen or so passengers on the bus.

“I’m a hero? What hero? One of the passengers told me there’s a suspicious bag on the bus. I asked whose bag it is. When they told me it didn’t belong to anyone, I took the passengers off the bus. I stopped at the bus stop and the people got off, the police dispatch arrived at the scene and ten minutes later the bus exploded,” he said.

A police sapper was attempting to defuse the bomb when it exploded, according to Army Radio.

“At this point in time we are under the impression that the incident was nationalistic. I urge the public to be aware and report any suspicious activity to the police,” Public Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch said, according to Walla News.

The Dan spokesperson praised the passenger and driver for their quick thinking.