Archive for July 2, 2015

Reality versus Fantasy – Obama’s Proxy War In Syria

July 2, 2015

Reality versus Fantasy – Obama’s Proxy War In Syria

Author

By Eddie Pedersen — Bio and Archives July 2, 2015

via Reality versus Fantasy – Obama’s Proxy War In Syria.

Funding alleged Freedom Fighters aka Magical Fighters who historically fall prey to swapping allegiances increase the risk of genocide to astronomical proportions, unwarranted

The Kurdish people are fighting our terrorist enemies and losing their lives in the process, and it’s not just men, 30% of Kurdish fighters are now female fighters, who can never be captured alive.  Think about that the next time you can’t find a shopping cart at the local grocery store.  Think about it when you’re grilling hot dogs and burgers this Fourth of July, or when you hear the national anthem this weekend.  These men and women fight in your place.  Think about what you have done for them.

Of course Turkey is making a bundle off of this Syrian proxy war, monies from the USA and concerned European nations are pouring into Turkish President Erdogan’s hands, and Ankara’s political big wigs don’t want the cash to stop flowing.  But for now, the Kurds have warned Erdogan to stay the hell out of their Syrian affairs, because they are too busy killing the real terrorists to be bothered with Erdogan’s vendetta against Assad.  And the Kurds should get away with saying it too.  Not surprisingly, Turkey is upset because the Kurds are expanding their grip on the border, therefore they are able to secure and shut down supply routes from Turkey to the alleged freedom fighters in Syria, while strengthening Kurdish power in Syria.

Arresting the flow of enemy arms into a hot shooting war is a good idea.  If our administration was really interested in human rights and human suffering they would be compelled to stop funneling arms into the hands of Syria’s alleged freedom fighters.  Remember how the libs always love to say, ‘oh, if it just saved one life, just one single life then it would all be worth it’.  Remember that about Iraq?  Now the tables are turned and our administration is funneling in arms to alleged Freedom Fighters.  Funneling arms and monies into the hands of alleged Freedom Fighters who have pledged allegiances to the same terrorists the Kurds are fighting.  And it’s killing their Kurdish brethren not to mention Syrian civilians who are dying by the thousands.

Freedom fighters aka Magical fighters

On to the Magical Fighters!  First, to contrast things, we have two articles, just released into cyberspace: First one is titled Syria’s Kurds Warn Turkey Not to Intervene Militarily, and then there is example B, the Obama administration, U.S. Defense Secretary says, that he won’t speed up the training of Syrian Freedom Fighters thereby lowering their abilities.  Freedom fighters who have sworn allegiances to known terrorist factions in Syria we ask?  They don’t shoot at the terrorists yet sometimes they do?  But of course they always shoot at Assad, who protects the Syrian Christians plus other rare and interesting people endemic to this quaint region of the globe.  Come on, what is that?  Freedom from reality?  Are these magical fighters who operate in total submission to an administration in a far away distant capitol?  Yet we’re all supposed to believe these magical fighters will somehow make a significant difference.  A difference worth losing Kurdish fighters to bullets and arms American tax dollars paid for?  At some point we must say, this has gone on long enough, put an end to the lunacy.

To further pontificate.  The world’s population see the Kurdish people making startlingly significant gains in an anti terror war by cutting enemy supply lines; and their “reward” is they are now being threatened by a thug, Turkey’s Erdogan, because the Kurds dare cutting off highly profitable supply lines to these alleged Magical Fighters who attack Assad in conjunction with the enemies that they (the Kurds) are fighting right now, aka Islamic terror!  See the problem here?  The reality is this self destructive Kurdish self sacrifice is being demanded because of this administration’s pipe dream fantasies.  Thusly the Kurds, who are actually killing the enemies of humanity (Islamic terror), are being threatened by a Muslim brotherhood thug (Erdogan) because they (the Kurds) are cutting off supply lines for Erdogan and our administration’s outlandish fanatical obsession with killing Assad.

So somehow the Kurds are supposed to allow arms into the hands of alleged Freedom Fighters who have sworn allegiances with the terrorists because these alleged Magical Fighters say they will only shoot in Assad’s direction?  And not let their arms fall into the hands of terrorists who would definitely turn the gun barrels and rocket launchers towards Kurdish held areas?  These are all the assurances we get?  Remember, real people are fighting these terrorist monsters and dying, Kurdish men and women die daily, and to make matters worse this is a hideously ugly Islamic war being fought against Daesh monsters who do the most horrific things to the people they capture.  This isn’t a nice squeaky clean Geneva convention conflict.  Kurdish women really do carry the last bullet for themselves and in some cases have had to actually use it.  This particular war will be long remembered as an incredibly ugly and notoriously dark chapter in human history.  You can rest assured of that.

Arresting the flow of enemy arms into a hot shooting war is a good idea

Once again, in a hot shooting war it’s a good idea to starve the bad guys of weapons while funneling superior weaponry into the hands of those who are fighting in our stead.  Our Administration has let their ambition get the better of them in that weapons being funneled into a region known for factions allegiances changing overnight puts thousands of civilians at risk and could case the loss of Kurdish fighting men and women.  Let us be crystal clear about Assad.  Yes, Assad has done some really bad things, everybody knows that.  Yet he protects Syria’s Christians who are just one faction amongst many rare and unique peoples in Syria, and Assad supports a secular society, yet he has used gas in the past.  And it is here where we come down to the hard realities of this whole nightmare.  Hard realities beget hard problems that demand the harshest remedies.  And the realities in the region aren’t this Zinn and Chomsky blame-America-First alternate reality, but the one true reality,  which is that Assad, like him or not, his Syrian dilemma is incredibly similar to Muammar Gadhafi and the collapse of Libya.  It is a dramatically yet eerily similar situation, only it is happening in a completely different country.  So hear our warning now, pull the keystone out of this particular arch and an entire nation comes crashing down in genocidal ruins.  This is the reality, not some alternate reality, where the Freedom Fighters turn into Magical Fighters and defeat Assad then plant their magical flag in Damascus and the Terrorists all go away!  Just like the comic books!  Please, Washington, get a grip, come on, people. This isn’t that hard a thing to figure out, if we can do it, then our government should be able to do it too.

We are subjected to an endless Assad obsession

Time and time again we think ‘what the heck is it with the obsession to oust Assad’.  Is it that Obama once said he would (and like his promise to pull out of Iraq) topple Assad regardless of the consequences?  Is that it?  Is it petro dollars being fueled into this horrible specter shooting war to oust Assad and build the Islamic pipeline?  Is that it?  Is it oil rich checkerboard Arabic states?  Is it them?  Are they the ones fueling the west’s fantasy that they can oust Assad and then become billionaires by investing in the mega Islamic oil and natural gas pipeline that would surely be constructed?  Is it being done to further cripple Russia by breaking their grip on European fossil fuel markets?  Is it a vendetta, pure hatred or blind ambition and greed?  What compels one to funnel in vast amounts of arms and money into the hands of deserters and insurrectionists who can change allegiances overnight?  Many put it up to man’s vanity.  Some say it’s being done because it serves the egos that fuel their oppositional defiant disorder.  But the overarching reality remains, people are needlessly dying because of it.  This policy could touch off the worst genocide of the new millennium.  With America’s Magical Fighters being the catalyst, all   preventable.

Vietnam…again!

July 2, 2015

(Mr. President, stop screwing with our young and brave soldiers NOW! – LS)

Israeli army says Hamas helping Islamic State in Sinai

July 2, 2015

Israeli army says Hamas helping Islamic State in Sinai

Top officer claims Gaza providing military, medical support to the IS offshoot behind Wednesday’s massive attack that killed dozens

By Times of Israel staff July 2, 2015, 8:28 pm

via Israeli army says Hamas helping Islamic State in Sinai | The Times of Israel.

Smoke rises in Egypt's northern Sinai, as seen from the border of the Gaza Strip, on July 1, 2015, amid fierce clashes between government forces and Islamic State-affiliated gunmen. (Abed Rahim Khatib /Flash90)

Smoke rises in Egypt’s northern Sinai, as seen from the border of the Gaza Strip, on July 1, 2015, amid fierce clashes between government forces and Islamic State-affiliated gunmen. (Abed Rahim Khatib /Flash90)

 

The IDF has acquired intelligence that Hamas is providing weaponry and other support to the Islamic State’s Sinai affiliate, Wilayat Sinai, the group thought to be behind Wednesday’s deadly attack on Egyptian security services, a top Israeli officer said Thursday.

The coordinator of government activities in the territories, Maj. Gen. Yoav Mordechai, told the Arabic-language news network al-Jazeera that along with military support, Hamas has also been providing medical support to injured IS operatives.

Wednesday’s attack, which included a wave of suicide bombings and assaults on security installations by dozens of militants, saw Sinai’s deadliest fighting in decades. Security officials said dozens of troops were killed, along with nearly 100 attackers.

Mordechai claimed a high-ranking officer in Hamas’s military wing, named as Wa’al Faraj, has been smuggling injured Islamic State fighters into the Gaza Strip for medical treatment.

COGAT commander Maj. Gen. Yoav Mordechai, left, at the Bitunya Crossing near Ramallah (Photo credit: Yonatan Sindel/ Flash 90)

COGAT commander Maj. Gen. Yoav Mordechai, left, at the Bitunya Crossing near Ramallah (Photo credit: Yonatan Sindel/ Flash 90)

 

Another top Hamas commander involved in training fighters, Abdullah Kishta, had been lending his expertise to Islamic State jihadists in Sinai, Mordechai said, adding that the IDF has “proof” of these direct ties.

Wilayat Sinai (Province of Sinai) was known as Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis before it pledged its allegiance to the Islamic State.

The IDF on Thursday beefed up its presence along the border with the Sinai Peninsula following the attacks, as security officials cautioned that the IS-affiliated group could attempt to overrun the Gaza Strip.

The Israeli army deployed additional troops and was monitoring the fighting across the border using UAVs, Israel Radio reported Wednesday.

“We see in front of our eyes IS acting with extraordinary cruelty both on our northern border and at our southern border,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday, referring to operatives of the group who have been fighting in the Syrian civil war.

“Our hearts are with the Egyptian people, we send our condolences to the Egyptian government and the families of those who were killed in battle by cruel terror.”

Egyptian officials said the military killed 23 extremists in dawn raids Thursday in northern Sinai, just south of the border town of Rafah, near the Gaza Strip.

They said the army was also seeking out militants house to house in the town of Sheikh Zuweid — where the militants attacked at least five army checkpoints the previous day — and de-mining roads in and around the area that extremists had booby trapped with mines and improvised explosives devices.

A photo shared by the Egyptian military shows a weapons cache seized from IS-linked jihadists in the Sinai Peninsula (Facebook/Egyptian army)

A photo shared by the Egyptian military shows a weapons cache seized from IS-linked jihadists in the Sinai Peninsula (Facebook/Egyptian army)

 

The Sinai attacks were the most brazen in their scope since jihadists launched an insurgency in 2013 following the army’s overthrow of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi.

Militants took over rooftops and fired rocket-propelled grenades at a police station in Sheikh Zuweid after mining its exits to block reinforcements, a police colonel said.

“This is war,” a senior military officer told AFP. “It’s unprecedented in the number of terrorists involved and the type of weapons they are using.”

One car bomb attack against a checkpoint south of Sheikh Zuweid killed 15 soldiers.

The Islamic State group said its jihadists surrounded the police station after launching attacks on 15 checkpoints and security installations using suicide car bombers and rockets.

Troops regularly come under attack in the Sinai, where jihadists have killed hundreds of policemen and soldiers since Morsi’s overthrow.

IS said the assault had involved three suicide bombers. “In a blessed raid enabled by God, the lions of the caliphate have simultaneously attacked more than 15 checkpoints belonging to the apostate army,” it said in a statement.

AP and AFP contributed to this report.

Iran Violates Past Nuclear Promises on Eve of Deal

July 2, 2015

Iran Violates Past Nuclear Promises on Eve of Deal, Washington Free Beacon, July 2, 2015

(As the scorpion said to the frog, “that’s just what scorpions do.” Like the frog, Obama and Kerry are anxious to give the scorpion a ride, but on our backs.– DM)

Kerry on crutchesJohn Kerry outside the hotel where the Iranian nuclear talks are being held / AP

Wednesday’s disclosure by the IAEA sent the State Department rushing to downplay the Iranian violation.

Obama administration officials insisted that despite Iran’s failure to meet its obligations, negotiations were still on track and that Tehran would face no repercussions.

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VIENNA—Senior Obama administration officials are defending Iranian nuclear violations in the aftermath of a bombshell report published Wednesday by the United Nations indicating that Iran has failed to live up to its nuclear-related obligations, according to sources apprised of the situation.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) disclosed yesterday that Iran has failed to meet its commitments under the interim Joint Plan of Action to convert recently enriched uranium gas to powder.

While Iran has reduced the amount of enriched uranium gas in its stockpiles, it has failed to dispose of these materials in a way that satisfies the requirements of the nuclear accord struck with the United States and other powers in 2013.

Secretary of State John Kerry declared last summer that Iran would be forced to comply with such restrictions, and State Department officials were assuring reporters as recently as last month that the Iranians would meet their obligations.

Wednesday’s disclosure by the IAEA sent the State Department rushing to downplay the Iranian violation.

Obama administration officials insisted that despite Iran’s failure to meet its obligations, negotiations were still on track and that Tehran would face no repercussions.

One U.S. official who spoke with the Associated Press on Wednesday said that instead of converting its uranium gas into uranium dioxide powder as required, Iran had transformed it into another substance. The IAEA found that Iran had converted just 9 percent of the relevant stockpile into uranium dioxide.

The official went on to downplay concerns about Iran’s violation, claiming that Tehran was only having some “technical problems.”

The “technical problems by Iran had slowed the process but the United States was satisfied that Iran had met its commitments,” the AP reported the official as saying.

“Violations by Iran would complicate the Obama administration’s battle to persuade congressional opponents and other skeptics,” the AP continued.

David Albright, a nuclear expert and founder of the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS), warned that the United States is weakening its requirements on Tehran as a final deal gets closer.

“The choosing of a weaker condition that must be met is not a good precedent for interpreting more important provisions in a final deal,” Albright wrote in an analysis published late Wednesday.

While Iran was not in compliance with the oxidation requirement, the IAEA found that it did get rid of uranium gas that surpassed a self-imposed benchmark of 7,650 kg.

The IAEA’s disclosures are in contrast to comments made by Kerry last summer when he assured observers that Iran would live up to the interim agreement.

“Iran has committed to take further nuclear-related steps in the next four months” and “these include a continued cap on the amount of 5 percent enriched uranium hexafluoride and a commitment to convert any material over that amount into oxide,” Kerry said.

The Israel Project (TIP), which has sent officials to Vienna to track the deal, wrote in an email to reporters that the administration looked like it was “playing Tehran’s lawyer” in a bid to defuse potential fallout from the IAEA’s report.

This is not the first time that Iran has been caught by the IAEA cheating on past nuclear arrangements.

As negotiations between the sides slip past their June 30 deadline and stretch into July, Iranian officials have become more insistent that the United States consent to demands on a range of sticking points.

President Hassan Rouhani also threatened to fully restart Iran’s nuclear program if negotiators fail to live up to any final agreement.

One Western source present in Vienna said the administration is scrambling to ensure that nothing interferes with a final deal.

“Once again, the White House will go to any length needed to preserve the Obama-Iran deal, even if it means covering up Iran’s failure to convert all of the nuclear material as promised,” said the source.

“If they had admitted Iran failed to live up to the letter of the JPOA—as is the case—this one-week extension period of the JPOA would be totally invalidated and the talks would be over,” the source added. “Like they have for months, the administration continues to hide violations and is acting more like Iran’s advocate than the honest broker the American people deserve. “

German Intelligence Report Confirms CSP Report on Brotherhood Role in Anti-Israel Protests

July 2, 2015

German Intelligence Report Confirms CSP Report on Brotherhood Role in Anti-Israel Protests, Center for Security PolicyKyle Shideler, July 2, 2015

A recent article in the Jerusalem Post cites a recent German Intelligence report warning that hundreds of Hezbollah and Hamas operatives are present in Germany, and playing a role in stoking anti-Israel protests and tensions there. In particular the report, authored by Germany’s internal security agency known as Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) notes approximately 300 Hamas members present in Germany, and played a role in orchestrating anti-Semitic and pro-Hamas protests during Israel’s Operation Protective Edge:

“Hamas was successful” in mobilizing its organization and people outside of its core support to participate in anti-Israel protests, the BfV report said. There was “public anti-semitism at pro-Palestinian demonstrations” against Israel’s Operation Protective Edge, the agency said, adding, “It was noticeable that a large number of mostly young people with an immigrant background expressed themselves in an anti-Semitic and hate-filled way.”

This analysis by German intelligence serves as confirmation of a Center for Security Policy product produced during Operation Protective Edge, which cited the ability of Muslim Brotherhood front organizations to carry out mass protests on behalf of Hamas, some of which turned violent, in both Europe and the United States.

That report, entitled, “Command and Control The International Union of Muslim Scholars, The Muslim Brotherhood, and The Call for Global Intifada during Operation Protective Edge,” examined how instructions and messaging for Brotherhood activities flowed out of the pronouncements by Muslim Brotherhood chief jurist Yusuf Al-Qaradawi. The Center’s piece concluded:

An examination suggests that both the timing, and the content of numerous worldwide Gaza protests do indeed correspond with the timing and nature of the declarations issued by Yusuf al-Qaradawi and the International Union of Muslim Scholars, and echoed by formal Muslim Brotherhood channels regarding Operation: Protective Edge. In all cases there are signs of support for jihad, and specifically support for Hamas, and in many cases, the Muslim Brotherhood more generally. In cases where speakers’ statements could be acquired, there was a correlation with themes expressed by Qaradawi. In numerous cases protest organizers included groups with known ties to the global Muslim Brotherhood, and in some cases, direct ties to organizations established or affiliated with Qaradawi.

The Brotherhood’s apparatus has been designed, since the late 1980s, to quickly and rapidly support Hamas internationally, and it continues to fulfill that role.The BfV report should be taken to heart by Western intelligence agencies. Analysts should be encouraged to draw lessons from Hamas’ “successful” mobilization of political and public relations support, and recall that providing propaganda on behalf of a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization falls well within material support statutes.

Designating Foreign Terrorist Organizations and Immigration Enforcement

July 2, 2015

Designating Foreign Terrorist Organizations and Immigration Enforcement, Center for Immigration StudiesDan Cadman, July 2, 2015

During . . . (2009-2014 . . .  half of a decade), ICE agents have removed exactly three aliens. Three. And yet the FBI director, the director of national intelligence, and others tell us that the nation is peppered with Islamic State supporters, not to mention the plethora of other terrorist groups one can choose to affiliate with.

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The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has just issued a public report on the process used to designate foreign terrorist organizations (FTOs) under the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), which assigns lead responsibility to the Secretary of State. It is called “Combating Terrorism: Foreign Terrorist Organization Designation Process and U.S. Agency Enforcement Actions”.

GAO initially prepared and distributed the report to the Department of State (DOS) and other government parties in April, but withheld it publicly until material that DOS identified as “sensitive but unclassified” (SBU) was redacted from the public version just released.

Even with the SBU redactions, one finds some interesting and suggestive factoids buried in the report in typically dry bureaucratic language.

Among them is that, under the designation process developed by DOS, various agencies participating in the targeting and review can put “holds” on designation. Section 219 of the INA, which outlines the legal basis for designation of FTOs contains no such proviso.

The reasons described for placing “holds” are just a wee bit fuzzy and this arouses my suspicious nature because, in addition to the other government agencies one would expect to participate (such as the Central Intelligence Agency, National Security Agency, Justice and Homeland Security Departments, etc.), one finds mentioned the DOS regional bureaus (see note 16 in the report). These are the folks that look out for the political angles of inter-governmental relationships between the United States and other countries. Could it be that bilateral politics are involved in FTO designation? One fears so, because it is suggestive that, although various other statistics are scattered throughout the GAO report, the number of holds and who placed them is nowhere to be found. Could this be the “sensitive” data that DOS didn’t want revealed to the public? If so, under which secretaries of State did such regional bureaus exercise this extra-statutory ability? And how many such holds have been placed, and for how long?

Another interesting factoid is that between 2009 and 2014 Customs and Border Protection inspectors denied entry to over 1,000 alien applicants for admission based on terrorism grounds, including membership in or affiliation with designated FTOs. We can reasonably assume that some portion of these aliens were applying for admission under the visa waiver program (VWP) and that a significant number were granted multiple entry visas by DOS consular officers before the terrorist connection was known, but that their visas were not revoked by DOS after the connection was made.

Then there is the abysmally low number of aliens taken into custody within the United States on terrorism-related removal grounds, presumably by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. During the same date range used to calculate CBP figures, (2009-2014 — half of a decade), ICE agents have removed exactly three aliens. Three. And yet the FBI director, the director of national intelligence, and others tell us that the nation is peppered with Islamic State supporters, not to mention the plethora of other terrorist groups one can choose to affiliate with.

The shockingly low number comports with remarks I made in a prior posting when I commented that since the formation of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), whose mission is obviously to protect the homeland, we Americans — and most particularly the leaders in this administration — seem to have forgotten the important lesson about the nexus between safe communities and using the deportation laws to remove foreign threats.

Two other noteworthy items that merit their own examinations in full, but not here: that waivers have been granted to individuals with terrorist connections, apparently both to enter the United States, and to gain various immigration benefits administered by one of DHS’s subordinate agencies; and that of the 69 FTOs designated since 1997 when the law authorizing designation took effect, 10 (nearly 15 percent of total designations) have been removed from the list by the Secretary of State.

How not to write about Iran

July 2, 2015

How not to write about Iran, The New York Times, Ishaan Tharoor, July 2, 2015

(The NY Times article is a good example of how not to write about Iran. History is important, but Iran’s more recent activities are even more important. That ancient Persia and its Islamic successors engaged in and supported terrorism is important, but that the Islamic Republic of Iran still does is more important. Please see also, Rouhani Threatens Nuclear Breakout. — DM)

In the Western imagination, Iran has long been a kind of bogeyman. It’s the land of hostage crises and headscarves. It was part of the Axis of Evil (whatever that was). Its leaders grouse about defeating Israel, an American ally. Its mullahs, say Iran’s critics, plot terror and continental hegemony.

Supporters of the ongoing talks in Vienna, where Iranian diplomats and their international counterparts are wrangling over a final agreement on Tehran’s nuclear program, are in part hoping to change this overwhelming narrative.

Rapprochement between Iran and the U.S., they argue, would signal a new era for U.S. relations in the Middle East — and, at the very least, put to rest fears of yet another American military escalation in the region.

But whether that changes the actual Western discourse around Iran is another matter. Every society or culture gets stereotyped in some way by others — but Iran, even before the rise of the Islamic Republic in 1979, has been a very conspicuous victim.

That’s in part a consequence of its history. As the inheritor of Persia’s ancient empires, Iran has been the Other — the enemy of the nominal “West” — since classical times and the famous wars with Greek city-states. In the 18th century, some European writers and thinkers popularized the image of a “decadent” and “despotic” Persia as an allegorical device to critique their own societies. A century later, as Europe’s empires gained in power, the Orientalist cliches hardened and served to bolster the West’s own sense of racial and moral superiority.

Even in the present day, many of the old tropes have been trotted out during the nuclear talks. While giving testimony to Congress in 2013, Wendy Sherman, a senior State Department official and lead negotiator with Iran, counseled caution when dealing with the Iranian regime because “deception is in their DNA.” The remarks, which infuriated Tehran, gestured at much older Western perceptions of Iranians as “wily” swindlers who cannot be trusted.

Sherman was hardly alone in conjuring up this stereotype: Those opposed to her efforts have also done the same. An editorial in the Wall Street Journal last year warned against “haggling in a Mideast bazaar” and embarking on a “Persian nuclear carpet ride.” This April, Michael Oren, Israel’s former U.S. ambassador, went on a cringe-worthy ramble about the crafty tricks of Persian rug salesmen.

“The Iranians are not just expert carpet merchants,” Oren wrote, stretching the ungainly metaphor to its frayed, tasseled edges. “They also deal in terror and endangering American allies.”

Other more nuanced assessments fall into similar traps, too. Earlier this week, James Stavridis, a retired U.S. admiral, top NATO official and the dean of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, painted a picture of the Iranian regime with the broadest brush he could possibly find.

“Tehran’s geopolitical strategy,” he wrote, “is taken directly from the playbooks of the first three Persian empires, which stretched over a thousand years.”

To no great surprise, this view of Iran as a mysterious realm, beholden to its past (and its vast store of carpets), irks some observers.

“Iran is an ancient civilization with a rich culture that definitely has roots in its old history,” Iranian-American journalist Negar Mortazavi tells WorldViews. “But to stereotype modern Iran and Iranians based on what happened thousands of years ago is wrong.”

Mortazavi argues that you would never see such simplistic, overreaching appraisals of American allies: “Do we view today’s Europe through the affairs of the Vikings? No. Do we look at Saudi Arabia through the lens of its old Islamic Empire when it was taking over the world? No.”

Arash Karami, the Iran editor of the Middle East news site Al-Monitor, dismisses the idea “that Iran has imperial ambitions in the Middle East simply because of its history.” He adds that “most Iranians only have a vague understanding” of the long-gone Achaemenid dynasty or the medieval Safavids.

The stereotypes in play seem to support the contention of some hawks that Iran is not a normal, rational state actor. Critics of the Islamic Republic may see nothing wrong with that, but these sorts of characterizations were being made well before the 1979 Islamic Revolution and the collapse of U.S.-Iran ties.

In a write-up published in January 1952, Time magazine named Iran’s democratically-elected Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh  as “Man of the Year.” The recognition was not particularly flattering. It sneeringly described Iran as “a mountainous land between Baghdad and the Sea of Caviar.” And it went on to attack both Mossadegh’s plan to nationalize Iran’s oil — at the expense of British and American energy interests — and the leader’s character.

Time actually called the Iranian politician “a strange old wizard.”

A year later, the Ivy League buddies of Time’s editors in the C.I.A. helped engineer a coup that ousted Mossadegh, scrapped Iran’s fledgling democracy, and re-installed the country’s monarchy as an American client. Memory of that event still informs the political conversation within Iran, but is rarely recognized in the West.

“In American media, it seems that either those wily Persians are calculating ‘chess masters’ outwitting the well-meaning Westerner,” says Karami, “or they’re bumbling idiots” who resent how “the West rules the Middle East.”

To be sure, there are many negative things that should be said about Iran’s political status quo — where a repressive theocratic government curbs dissent, jails journalists and actively supports armed proxies elsewhere in the Middle East. But you don’t need to start quoting Xenophon or Morier to get there.

“If you’re writing about a country of more than 77 million people,” says Kia Marakechi, news editor at Vanity Fair, “and the metaphors or signifiers you draw on come more from ‘Aladdin’ than a serious understanding of that nation’s politics and culture, you should probably hand the assignment to someone else.”

Rouhani Threatens Nuclear Breakout

July 2, 2015

Rouhani Threatens Nuclear Breakout, Commentary Magazine, July 2, 2015

Obama, Kerry, and negotiator Wendy Sherman have effectively become Iran’s lawyers. In doing so, they have applied the logic of “it depends on what the meaning of ‘is’ is” to U.S. national security. All one has to do, however, is look at the thinly veiled threats and logical somersaults of Iran’s top leaders . . . to understand just what a capability Tehran is after.

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Where brinkmanship is in the blood of Iranian negotiators, careerism and obsession about legacy appears to be in the blood of their American counterparts. By playing good cop, bad cop with Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, by quibbling over every understanding previously reached, and by increasingly threatening to walk away, the Iranians appear to be wringing the Americans dry. Obama and Kerry have voided their own red lines, and prepare to normalize an Iranian path to a bomb whenever the Iranian government makes a decision to pursue that option.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani is part and parcel of Iran’s brinkmanship. According to the Islamic Republic News Agency in Persian, he declared: “…If they do not fulfill their commitments, the government will be ready to immediately reverse the path in a more severe way than they can ever dream of.”

If Iran’s program has always been peaceful—as repeated Iranian officials have maintained—then reverting to Iran’s previous behavior would mean what exactly?  Threats from Rouhani, the supposed moderate, should get the attention of Congress.

Increasingly, Iran is tripping upon its own internal inconsistencies. First, there was Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s (as yet unseen) sacrosanct nuclear fatwa that forbids nuclear weaponry and yet the Iranian leadership refuses to come clean on past nuclear work for fear it would show nuclear weaponry work. There has also been Iran’s insistence that it seeks a completely indigenous program, yet it doesn’t possess enough natural uranium to fuel an expanded civilian energy program. Now, Rouhani has more or less threatened to build a nuclear bomb, the same threat made previously by Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and a number of clerical associates of Khamenei himself. On May 29, 2005, for example, Hojjat ol-Islam Gholam Reza Hasani, the Supreme Leader’s representative in the Iranian province of West Azerbaijan, declared possession of nuclear weapons to be one of Iran’s top goals. “An atom bomb …must be produced as well,” he said.

Obama, Kerry, and negotiator Wendy Sherman have effectively become Iran’s lawyers. In doing so, they have applied the logic of “it depends on what the meaning of ‘is’ is” to U.S. national security. All one has to do, however, is look at the thinly veiled threats and logical somersaults of Iran’s top leaders, however, to understand just what a capability Tehran is after.

Pulling down the slaver flags of Islam and Africa

July 2, 2015

Pulling down the slaver flags of Islam and Africa, Front Page Magazine, Daniel Greenfield, July 2, 2015

flag_of_muslim_league_1

In our incredibly tolerant culture, it has become politically incorrect to watch the General Lee jump a fence or a barn, but paying tribute to the culture that sent the slaves here and that still practices slavery is the culturally sensitive thing to do.

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The return of the Confederacy was averted in the summer of 2015 when major retailers frantically scoured through their vast offerings to purge any images of a car from the Dukes of Hazzard. If not for their quick thinking, armies of men in gray might have come marching down the streets of New York and San Francisco to stop off for an Iced Mocha Frappucino ™ at a local Starbucks before restoring slavery.

History will little note nor long remember the tired wage slaves making $7.25 an hour while checking Amazon and eBay databases for tin models of an orange car with a Confederate flag on top. During this courageous defense of the homeland from the scourge of a mildly politically incorrect 80s show, Hillary Clinton committed her own unpardonable racist hate crime by saying, “All lives matter”.

The politically correct term is, “Black lives matter.”

Even while our own Boss Hoggs in DC and SF are locking up the Duke boys as a symbol of racism, they are loudly arguing that black lives matter, all lives don’t. The proportion that the weight of a life should be measured by race is the sort of idea that we might have associated with slavery. Today it’s an idea that we associate with racial tolerance as we heal our nation’s racial wounds one race riot at a time.

Romanticizing the South means a whipping from our cultural elite. Instead of romanticizing the culture that bought slaves, they romanticize the Middle Eastern and African cultures that sold them the slaves.

When Obama condemned Christianity for the Crusades, only a thousand years too late, in attendance was the Foreign Minister of Sudan; a country that practices slavery and genocide. Obama could have taken time out from his rigorous denunciation of the Middle Ages to speak truth to the emissary of a Muslim Brotherhood regime whose leader is wanted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity. But our moral liberals spend too much time romanticizing actual slaver cultures.

It’s a lot easier for Obama to get in his million dollar Cadillac with its 5-inch thick bulletproof windows, a ride Boss Hogg could only envy, and chase down a couple of good ole boys than it is to condemn a culture that committed genocide in our own time, not in 1099, and that keeps slaves today, not in 1815.

Even while the Duke boys were being chased through Georgia, Obama appeared at an Iftar dinner; an event at which Muslims emulate Mohammed, who had more slaves than Robert E. Lee. There are no slaves in Arlington House today, but in the heartlands of Islam, from Saudi mansions to ISIS dungeons, there are still slaves, laboring, beaten, bought, sold, raped and disposed of in Mohammed’s name.

Slavery does not exist under the Confederate flag eagerly being pulled down. It does exist under the black and green flags of Islam rising over mosques in Iraq, Saudi Arabia and America today.

In our incredibly tolerant culture, it has become politically incorrect to watch the General Lee jump a fence or a barn, but paying tribute to the culture that sent the slaves here and that still practices slavery is the culturally sensitive thing to do. In 2015, slavery is no longer freedom, but it certainly is tolerance.

And it’s not just about Islam.

If romanticizing Dixie is wrong, so is romanticizing those ancient African cultures so beloved by amateur anthropologists and professional sociologists with more plastic tribal jewelry than sense. Slavery was an indigenous African and Middle Eastern practice. Not to mention an indigenous practice in America among indigenous cultures.

If justice demands that we pull down the Confederate flag everywhere, even from the top of the orange car sailing through the air in the freeze frame of an old television show, then what possible justification is there for all the faux Aztec knickknacks? Even the worst Southern plantation owners didn’t tear out the hearts of their slaves on top of pyramids. The romanticization of Aztec brutality plays a crucial role in the mythology of Mexican nationalist groups like La Raza promoting the Reconquista of America today.

Black nationalists romanticize the slave-holding civilization of Egypt despite the fact that the narrative of the liberation of the Hebrew slaves from bondage played a crucial role in the end of slavery in America. The endless stories about the “Amazons” of the African kingdom of Dahomey neatly fit into the leftist myth of a peaceful matriarchal Africa disrupted by European colonialism, but Dahomey ran on slavery.

The “Amazons” helped capture slaves for the Atlantic slave trade. White and black liberals are romanticizing the very culture that captured and sold their forefathers into slavery. “In Dahomey,” the first major mainstream black musical was about African-Americans moving to Dahomey. By then the French had taken over old Dahomey and together with the British had put an end to the slave trade.

The French dismantled the “Amazons” and freed many of Dahomey’s slaves only for the idiot descendants of both groups to romanticize the noble last stand of Dahomey fighting for the right to export black slaves to Cuba and condemn the European liberators who put a stop to that atrocity.

If we crack down on romanticizing Dixie, how can we possibly justify romanticizing Dahomey or the Aztecs or Mohammed? If slavery and racism are wrong, then they are wrong across the board.

Even by the miserably racist standard under which all lives don’t matter, only black lives matter, Dahomey and Mohammed had bought, sold and killed enough black lives to be frowned upon.

If we go back far enough in time, most cultures kept slaves. The Romans and Greeks certainly did. That’s why the meaningful standard is not whether a culture ever had slaves, but whether it has slaves today. If we are going to eradicate the symbols of every culture that ever traded in slaves, there will be few cultural symbols that will escape unscathed. But the academics who insist on cultural relativism in 19th century Africa, reject it in 19th century South Carolina thereby revealing their own racism.

And so instead of fighting actual modern day slavery in Africa and the Middle East, social justice warriors are swarming to invade Hazzard County.

As Ben Carson pointed out, we will not get rid of racism by banning the Confederate flag. Even when it is used at its worst, by the likes of Dylann Storm Roof, it is a symptom, not the problem. Roof was not radicalized by the dead Confederacy, but by the racial tensions kicked off by the Trayvon Martin case.

The same racial tensions that led to the murder of two police officers by a #BlackLivesMatter protester in New York City led to the massacre of nine black congregants in a church in Charleston. This surge of violence has its roots in racist activism by Obama and his supporters seeking power and political gain, but feeding racial tensions for political purposes eventually risks leading to actual violence.

The Confederate flag is a matter of history. The racial tensions stirred up by Obama have actually gotten people killed. Slavery is not making a comeback and Robert E. Lee will not come riding into San Francisco any time soon. The Civil War ended long ago. The country would be a better place if modern racists who believe that some lives, whether black or white, matter more than others would stop trying to start one.

Live by the Sword, Die by the Sword

July 2, 2015

Syrian rebels turn tables on ISIS fighters by releasing slick execution video of them shooting jihadis while dressed in orange jumpsuits

By Jay Akbar For Mailonline Published: 03:36 EST, 1 July 2015

(Workplace violence. – LS)

A rebel group battling ISIS in Syria has turned the tables on its enemies by capturing and slaughtering dozens of Islamic State soldiers on camera.

Dressed in orange jumpsuits – attire usually worn by ISIS’s victims – the Jaysh Al-Islam soldiers lead 13 shackled jihadis to their deaths.

Jaysh Al-Islam calls itself the ‘Army of Islam’ and reportedly commands as many as 25,000 loyal fighters following the merger of around 60 rebel factions inside Syria.

Islamic State’s captured soldiers are forced to kneel as a commander announces: ‘Allah did not make a disease without appointing a remedy to it.’

Revenge: The rebels, dressed in orange - attire usually worn by ISIS's victims - has executed 13 ISIS militants (pictured)
Revenge: The rebels, dressed in orange – attire usually worn by ISIS’s victims – has executed 13 ISIS militants (pictured)
Long walk: Jaysh Al-Islam fighters lead the shackled ISIS soldiers to their deaths in an unknown part of Syria
Long walk: Jaysh Al-Islam fighters lead the shackled ISIS soldiers to their deaths in an unknown part of Syria
Atrocity: They then unmask the ISIS militants before a commander refers to their group as the 'most serious calamity for our jihad today' 
Atrocity: They then unmask the ISIS militants before a commander refers to their group as the ‘most serious calamity for our jihad today’
Eye for an eye: A Jaysh Al-Islam commander (pictured) reads a statement before Islamic State militants are shot from point blank range
Eye for an eye: A Jaysh Al-Islam commander (pictured) reads a statement before Islamic State militants are shot from point blank range

The jihadis – dressed entirely in black – are then given something to drink before each of their faces are clearly shown in the 19 minute-long propaganda video. They are then shot in the back of the head at point blank range with shotguns.

Before they are killed, a Jaysh Al-Islam militant says: ‘The most serious calamity for our jihad today is a group of people who grow at a time of division among Muslims.

‘This group claimed to be the mother state and made Takfir [accused of apostasy] on other Muslims, shed their blood and looted their properties and dignities.

‘They worsened… the ordeal of Muslims by corrupting their religion and livelihood and killing the jihadi leaders who did their best to help our stricken nation.

‘They wreaked havoc on our people in liberated areas and cut the supply route of jihadis. They left… Tehran intact and instead they attacked our mosques.

‘This is the penalty for what they have committed. We also call on their fellows to repent.’

In April this year, Jaysh Al-Islam released a striking video showing off 1,700 troops, a fleet of armoured tanks and special forces soldiers in an impressive military parade.

Deceased: The 19 minute-long propaganda video focuses on the faces of the ISIS militants before they are shot
Deceased: The 19 minute-long propaganda video focuses on the faces of the ISIS militants before they are shot
Deceased: The 19 minute-long propaganda video focuses on the faces of the ISIS militants before they are shot
Network: The gruesome footage was then shared online by Jaysh Al-Islam, just as ISIS has done with some many videos in which its militants are the executioners 

Strength: Four armoured tanks and thousands of soldiers formed part of a graduation ceremony (pictured) held by Jaysh Al-Islam, a militant group that opposes ISIS and the Syrian regime
Strength: Four armoured tanks and thousands of soldiers formed part of a graduation ceremony (pictured) held by Jaysh Al-Islam, a militant group that opposes ISIS and the Syrian regime
Might: Jaysh Al-Islam (pictured) calls itself the 'Army of Islam' and reportedly commands as many as 25,000 loyal fighters
Might: Jaysh Al-Islam (pictured) calls itself the ‘Army of Islam’ and reportedly commands as many as 25,000 loyal fighters
Powerful: The group, who are allegedly being funded by Saudi Arabia, show of a fleet of armoured tanks (pictured) during the graduation ceremony for its recruits

It operates in the war-ravaged Syrian city of Damascus and its ongoing battle against President Bashar Al-Assad is reportedly funded by the wealthy nation of Saudi Arabia.

The Arab kingdom has sent millions of dollars to arm and train their fighters so they can defeat the Syrian regime and ‘increasingly powerful Jihadi organisations’, according to the Guardian.

Known as the Army of Islam, the insurgent group was created in 2011 when Saudi Arabia allegedly engineered the merger of over 50 rebel factions after growing alarmed at the rise if Al-Qaeda and ISIS in Syria.

It is a fierce enemy of both those Islamist groups as well as Jabhat Al-Nusra, but embraces independent rebel forces and ‘non-Jihadi’ units.

Their graduation ceremony for trainee soldiers in the Ghouta suburb of Damascus was attended by the militants’ leadership who watch proudly as their troops march in perfect unison across the expanse.

Jaysh Al-Islam is led by Sheikh Zahran Aloush who addresses the thousands of armed soldiers and tanks once they have assembled on the vast concrete ground below.