WarSclerotic

MSNBC Reporter Caught Lying On Air About ‘Unarmed’ Palestinian Terrorist

by Jordan Schachtel16 Oct 2015

Source: MSNBC Reporter Lies On Air About Palestinian Terrorist

MSNBC’s Ayman Mohyeldin, a reporter who has time and time again displayed bias in favor of Palestinian terrorists and against Israeli Jews, was caught lying about a terrorist attack by his own anchor on air Friday while reporting on the newest developments in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Mohyeldin was on the scene in Jerusalem reporting on an incident where Israeli police subdued an armed Palestinian terrorist.

“Particularly at the time of this incident, we did not see any individual be stabbed, or get stabbed within this vicinity. You can see our overlook gives us pretty good access. We would have been able to get a sense of where something like that could have happened,” Mohyeldin said in asserting that Israeli forces killed an “unarmed Palestinian” man.

“Israeli police… suggest that this individual attempted to stab one of the Israeli police individuals that was here. We didn’t see any Israeli police officials being treated on the scene… We haven’t seen anyone here injured among the Israeli police,” Mohyeldin insisted.

“The individual was dressed in camouflage and I can tell you that he was a male… he did not look to be particularly armed,” the MSNBC reporter asserted. “That was confirmed by the fact that the police ultimately removed his clothes. They didn’t find any explosive devices on him. I was trying to keep an eye to see if they were taking anything off of his body, perhaps if they took a gun that was visible. There was no gun that was visible,” he said.

The MSNBC production crew then displayed a picture of the man in question as Mohyeldin continued to mislead his audience. The picture clearly shows the Palestinian attacker in camouflage and he appears to be armed with a large knife.

“At one point, we could clearly see… from where we were standing, from where his body was lying, both of his hands were open and both of his hands did not have a knife,” the MSNBC reporter said in lying to his audience.

The anchor back at the studio then interrupted his reporter on the ground in Jerusalem.

“Wait, Ayman… This is important because you’re covering this story live, and you’re seeing it once, and you’re actually witnessing it not knowing what you’re seeing until you actually process it,” the anchor said.

“In the video that you have… we can clearly see the man in camouflage t-shirt and pants with what appears to be at least in his right hand a knife,” and he is also holding something in his left-hand, the reporter back in the studio adds. In his right hand “appears to be a five-inch or longer black blade,” he adds.

“You heard over and over again officials telling him to stop” after the Palestinian terrorist crossed the security barrier, the MSNBC anchor continued. “Clearly, it seems to me, that he’s holding… in his right hand, what seems to be a knife.”

After asserting that the Palestinian terrorist was an unarmed victim of Israeli brutality, and being caught in a lie, Mohyeldin attempted to backtrack from his aforementioned claim.

“Everything was moving fast… it was obviously difficult for us to concentrate on that particular moment,” he then said in his defense.

This is just the latest in Mohyeldin’s long track-record of promoting Palestinian groups and reporting unfounded allegations against Israelis.

During Israel’s most recent war with Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, the MSNBC reporter was known to repeat Hamas talking points and use them in his reporting.

In July of 2014, he falsely reported that Israel was responsible for a strike on a Gaza hospital that killed civilians, when in fact, it was an Islamic terrorist organization whose rocket hit the hospital.

In another report from the Israel-Hamas war in 2014, Mohyeldin went on a pro-Hamas rant in which he complained that the U.S. government will not do more to support the terrorist group and to “rein in” Israel.

Western Analyst: How the Syria Game Has Changed, and Why Russia Will Win It

22:23 16.10.2015 (updated 23:53 16.10.2015)

Source: Western Analyst: How the Syria Game Has Changed, and Why Russia Will Win It

As Russia’s anti-terror campaign continues in Syria, the West is gradually realizing that Moscow’s strategy is the right strategy.

The United States has criticized Moscow’s airstrikes in Syria ever since they began on September 30. But from the beginning, Russia has acted in accordance with international law, acting on the behest of the legitimate government of President Bashar al-Assad.

© AFP 2015/ Tauseef MUSTAFA

ISIL Will Eradicate Christianity in Iraq, Syria Unless Stopped

Plus, as Robbin Laird and Ed Timperlake point out in an op-ed for Breaking Defense, Washington is in no position to cast moral stones, in light of recent revelations. The bombing of the Doctors Without Borders hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan earlier this month, as well the Drone Papers leak published by the Intercept on Thursday have both harmed America’s reputation abroad.

“‘US drone operations in Somalia, Yemen, and Afghanistan, including the mechanism of targeting suspects slated for assassination’ have been highlighted as virtual crimes against humanity,”they write, quoting the Intercept, “which provides the Russian leader with more than enough apparent justification to operate in the Syrian airspace to deal with US drones operating in Syrian airspace.”

But moral shortcomings aside, Washington’s strategy for dealing with the self-proclaimed Islamic State terrorist group has proven to be jumbled and ineffective.

© AP Photo/ Dusan Vranic

Assad Only Politician Able to Form National Unity Government in Syria – French Academic

“In the face of Russian strategy in Syria, the lack of clarity in US strategy and the use of the US military to support strategic incoherence is leaving it exposed,” they write. “There are clear limits to relying on UAV technologies except in unique circumstances, namely air dominance and clear strategic purpose.”

This incoherence is not limited to the Pentagon’s military strategy, but also manifests itself in the Obama administration’s foreign policy.

“…[Russia’s] Syrian actions are playing off of what Putin sees as the Obama strategy which includes a pro-Iranian stance, an alienation of Israel, a pro-Baghdad Iraq policy, and a very weak ‘air campaign’ burdened with more lawyers than airstrikes.”

Laird and Timperlake also point out Western hypocrisy in reinterpreting ground rules set by the United Nations.

© Sputnik/ Michael Klimentyev

America’s Indecisiveness Driving Mid East Allies to Side With Russia in Syria – Experts

“Putin is backing a sitting government, that of Assad. One should remember that the bias in the UN Charter is to support sitting governments and that Russian claims that Western strikes in Syria are illegal under the UN Charter is not just hyperbole,” they write.

“Russian actions in support of Assad also expose the incoherence of the ‘other side’ supporting the mishmash of opponents of Assad, ranging from ISIL, to the legitimate opponents of Assad.”

Support of that legitimate government is key.

“With a well-defined military force on the ground, namely those of Assad, and in support of the legitimate government of Syria, Russian airpower can rely on those Syrian forces to help find and mark targets…

© Sputnik/ Dmitriy Vinogradov

Russia and US to Sign Agreement on Security of Flights in Syria Soon – General Staff

“This is about crafting a clear strategy within which military assets can be used.”

If the Obama administration wants to maintain any influence in the conflict, it has to completely reassess its priorities.

“Simply opposing Putin will get the US nowhere. The Obama administration must recognize how the game has already changed and the approach to counter-insurgency which the US has followed for a decade…has been overtaken by events.”

“Putin has clearly put his marker down to be a player and kingmaker in the region.”

Leaks on “Drone Wars” Expose Obama’s Reign of Terror.

Written by  Alex Newman

Friday, 16 October 2015

Source: Leaks on “Drone Wars” Expose Obama’s Reign of Terror

Photo of U.S. Predator drone: AP Images 

Almost 90 percent of those executed during a five-month period in the Obama administration’s mass-murder-via-drone machinations were not even specific targets selected by the White House for extrajudicial assassination, according to reports surrounding a massive leak of classified official U.S. documents unveiled this week by The Intercept. In fact, it appears that despite his purported concerns over the death of innocents, Obama has killed far more innocent civilians, some of them U.S. citizens, than all of the mass-shooters in the United States throughout his term in office — combined.

To add insult to injury, the administration’s assassination squads — essentially operating under the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Pentagon’s Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) — routinely label the unintended and unidentified victims of its deadly schemes as “enemy killed in action,” even when there is little or no evidence of that being the case. “Anyone caught in the vicinity is guilty by association,” the whistleblower was quoted as saying. But as more information emerges, the outcry is growing louder.

The leaked materials, which cover 2011 to 2013, offer unprecedented insight into what is, at its core, an unconstitutional and murderous crime spree of epic proportions led by the Obama administration. The documents also shed new light into how a person ends up on Obama’s secret “kill list” — no charges, no trial, no jury, no due process of law, no innocent until proven guilty, no nothing — and what happens after that. All it takes is Obama’s word, and it’s off with your head — powers that even the world’s most murderous dictators have not been so open and non-chalant about usurping.

Making matters worse, the official documents leaked by the whistleblower show that raining death down from the sky is becoming institutionalized and normalized within the administration. They also suggest that instead of making Americans safer, the killing spree is creating a future tsunami of terrorism. And rather than the mas-murder programs slowing down, all indications point to their dramatic expansion, with no end in sight.

The implications should terrify every American — including Obama supporters who trust the current White House occupant but may not be as pleased with future U.S. presidents, or perhaps with foreign regimes, doing the same thing. In a series of eight investigative articles based on the revelations and six months of reviewing the materials, The Intercept documented some of the concerns — the loss of valuable intelligence from assassinating targets with information, the massive civilian death toll, the threat to traditional American ideals of justice, and much more.

After the articles came out, various organizations focusing on human rights and other issues also sounded the alarm. As the scandal grows, more and more voices are calling for congressional action and even international efforts to rein in the deadly schemes and explore the implications in more depth. But other alarming potential fruits of the murderous scheming have largely been left unaddressed thus far.

What if, for example, hostile foreign regimes — the ones ruling Russia, Communist China, North Korea, Cuba, Iran, and on and on — started dropping bombs on targets in the United States or other countries, based on secret information, by claiming they were “hunting suspected militants”?  Already, the United Nations, with support from Obama, is deploying unmanned aerial drones in support of its scandal-plagued “peacekeeping” armies. U.K. authorities are also assassinating people, in some cases their own citizens, in a similar manner.

With the U.S. government having already established the precedent, there is now little standing in the way of other governments deciding to start compiling “kill lists” for extrajudicial execution. Across multiple countries and continents — particularly Yemen, Somalia, Iraq, and Afghanistan — the American Nobel Peace Prize winner’s reign of terror has been raining down massacres from the sky since he took office in 2008. Even before that, the Bush administration had been lawlessly murdering people with missiles fired from drones, although on a far more limited scale.

Under Obama, the massacres have expanded to unprecedented levels, leaving death, destruction, and enough seething anti-American hate to fuel endless waves of terrorism into the future. The drone wars have also resulted in an “apparently incalculable civilian toll,” according to investigative reporter Jeremy Scahill with The Intercept, which obtained the documents from a source within the intelligence community who was involved in the types of operations described in the leaked documents.

According to Scahill, the source decided to leak the documents because he believes the American people have a “right to understand the process by which people are placed on kill lists and ultimately assassinated on orders from the highest echelons of the U.S. government.” Until now, despite smaller-scale leaks and occasional news reports, that has mostly been shrouded in mystery — even after the Obama administration murdered a 16-year-old American boy with a drone-fired missile. Dozens of Americans may be on Obama’s hit list, and Obama’s disgraced former Attorney General Eric Holder even wrote a twisted legal justification purporting to authorize Obama to murder U.S. citizens without charge or trial.

There have, of course, been some hints about it all. For instance, retired General Michael Hayden, the former boss of both the NSA and the CIA, boasted that the Obama administration has been murdering people around the world based solely on the so-called metadata collected by U.S. intelligence agencies. News reports about guests of wedding parties blown to smithereens by Obama’s bombs, and other tragedies, have also appeared over the years.

But now, the American people no longer have an excuse to stand idly by while the president, using their tax money, conspires with his “advisers” to secretly assassinate people, the source told The Intercept.

“This outrageous explosion of watchlisting — of monitoring people and racking and stacking them on lists, assigning them numbers, assigning them ‘baseball cards,’ assigning them death sentences without notice, on a worldwide battlefield — it was, from the very first instance, wrong,” the source was quoted as saying in one of the online journal’s reports about the leaked documents. “We’re allowing this to happen. And by ‘we,’ I mean every American citizen who has access to this information now, but continues to do nothing about it.”

Scahill said the source requested anonymity because the materials were classified, and that The Intercept granted the request because the Obama administration has “engaged in aggressive prosecution of whistleblowers.” And indeed, as this magazine and numerous other sources have documented, Obama’s “war on whistleblowers” has been unprecedented, with the administration even exploiting espionage laws to target and terrorize Americans who expose government crimes.

The source, echoing the content of the leaked materials, also suggested that the murder-by-drone or Special-Operations hit-squad was becoming entrenched within Washington. “The military is easily capable of adapting to change, but they don’t like to stop anything they feel is making their lives easier, or is to their benefit,” the whistleblower was quoted as saying. “And this certainly is, in their eyes, a very quick, clean way of doing things. It’s a very slick, efficient way to conduct the war, without having to have the massive ground invasion mistakes of Iraq and Afghanistan. But at this point, they have become so addicted to this machine, to this way of doing business, that it seems like it’s going to become harder and harder to pull them away from it the longer they’re allowed to continue operating in this way.”

The source and the documents also shed light on what is happening to the U.S. servicemen and their sense of morality when they are lawlessly ordered to hunt down people to kill them without even a semblance of due process. Within the “special operations community,” the source told The Intercept, the targets selected for assassination are utterly dehumanized.

“They have no rights. They have no dignity. They have no humanity to themselves. They’re just a ‘selector’ to an analyst,” he was quoted as saying. “You eventually get to a point in the target’s life cycle that you are following them, you don’t even refer to them by their actual name.” The practice contributes to “dehumanizing the people before you’ve even encountered the moral question of ‘is this a legitimate kill or not?’” he added.

Oftentimes, the “intelligence” used to track and murder people is brazenly incorrect, too, the source explained. “It’s stunning the number of instances when selectors [things like phone numbers] are misattributed to certain people,” he continued. “And it isn’t until several months or years later that you all of a sudden realize that the entire time you thought you were going after this really hot target, you wind up realizing it was his mother’s phone the whole time.”

Meanwhile, the leaked documents show that the Obama administration lies to the American people about its mass-murder program. According to the White House, for example, it only murders somebody — and murder is the correct term, since none of the victims have been proven guilty and properly sentenced to death in a court of law, and there are no declared wars going on — if that person poses a “continuing, imminent threat to U.S. persons.” The documents, however, show that somebody can be assassinated merely for allegedly posing “a threat to U.S. interest or personnel.”

In other words, under that standard, if you threaten whatever Obama claims is the “U.S. interest” — supporting jihadists in the Middle East, disarming Americans, nationalizing everything from education and healthcare to law enforcement, murdering “suspected militants” with drones, and much more — you can potentially have a missile land on your house or on your wedding. The short- and long-term implications, again, should terrify everyone. All of the agencies and departments involved refused to comment, citing the fact that the leaked documents are classified.

Then consider that the Obama administration has already made abundantly clear that it considers Americans with mainstream political views — particularly conservatives, libertarians, constitutionalists, veterans, and Christians — to be the primary threat to the “Homeland.” Perhaps instead of making a spectacle and worrying about how to strip Americans of their right to keep and bear arms with more “gun control,” lawmakers in Congress can begin with some “Obama control” to rein in the deadly White House reign of terror.

Responsibility for ‘incitement’ falls on both Netanyahu and Abbas, Obama says

Source: Responsibility for ‘incitement’ falls on both Benjamin Netanyahu and Abbas, Obama says – Israel News – Jerusalem Post

This is a friendly knife in the back of BB, but not a surprise , thus very obama clear.

“We condemn in the strongest possible terms violence directed against innocent people, and believe Israel has a right to maintain basic law and order,” Obama said.

WASHINGTON – Both Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas are responsible for rhetoric stoking a wave of violence between their peoples, US President Barack Obama said on Friday, in his first comments on the crisis.

“We condemn in the strongest possible terms violence directed against innocent people, and believe Israel has a right to maintain basic law and order,” Obama said. “We’re very concerned about the outbreak of violence.”

In a bloody two weeks for Israel and the Palestinians, scores have been wounded and over 39 have died, including eight Israeli citizens and several of their attackers.

“We also believe that its important,” Obama said, for both Netanyahu and Abbas “to try to tamp down rhetoric that may feed violence or anger, or misunderstanding.”

While the US State Department has characterized the recent wave of attacks against Israelis as “terrorism”– as well as an attack in Dimona by an Israeli Jew against his fellow Arab citizens – Obama declined to use the term on Friday, speaking at a press conference with the president of South Korea at the White House.

He rejected criticism of his secretary of state, John Kerry, for comments he made at Harvard University earlier in the week, which suggested a linkage between Israel’s settlement activity in the West Bank and the current terror wave.

“What’s happening is that, unless we get going, a two-state solution could conceivably be stolen from everybody,” Kerry said. “And there’s been a massive increase in settlements over the course of the last years, and now you have this violence because there’s a frustration that is growing.”

Responding to a query on the matter, Obama said reports on the quote mischaracterized the secretary’s words.

“I don’t think that’s what Secretary Kerry said,” Obama argued. What Kerry meant, the president said, is that the current atmosphere among Israelis and Palestinians “creates the potential for more misunderstanding and triggers, and that’s something that has been true now for decades.”

“There’s not a direct causation here,” he added.

Kerry will meet with Netanyahu in Germany next week to discuss the crisis, State Department officials confirmed on Friday. He will then travel to the region to meet separately with Palestinian leadership.

In an interview with NPR News published earlier in the day, Kerry said there was no justification for the attacks.

“No amount of frustration is appropriate to license any violence anywhere at any time. No violence should occur. And the Palestinians need to understand,” Kerry said.

“President Abbas has been committed to non-violence,” Kerry continued. “He needs to be condemning this, loudly and clearly. And he needs to not engage in some of the incitement that his voice has sometimes been heard to encourage. So that has to stop.”

Netanyahu said on Thursday he is willing to meet with Abbas, and called on the PA leader to condemn the violence as terrorism. Abbas has yet to do so, accusing Netanyahu of seeking to change the status quo arrangement on the Temple Mount (Haram al-Sharif) and Israeli security forces of conducting extrajudicial executions of innocent Palestinians.

The Israeli government says that both claims are lies that are inciting Palestinians to violence.

Israeli officials are privately seeking public US reassurances that it recognizes the continuance of the status quo on the Temple Mount, where non-Muslims are not allowed to formally pray. Confusion over Israel’s policy on the holy site appears to have been a spark of the recent uptick in violence.

But US officials are hesitant to issue that line, after a series of comments from Netanyahu throughout the month of September suggested, to their ears, that Israel may have been reconsidering its policy.

In his press availability, Obama said that “the status quo that allowed shared worship in and around these places needed to be maintained.” He did not comment on whether he believed the status quo had been breached or otherwise violated.

“We recognize that it is being maintained and we welcome the efforts by both Israel and Jordan to continue the maintenance of it,” State Department spokesman John Kirby said on Thursday. He was clarifying a statement the day before, when he said that the status quo had to be “restored.”

Israel’s ambassador to the United States, Ron Dermer, praised Kerry for his comments directed toward Abbas on Friday, and called on other international leaders to follow suit.

“Follow Secretary Kerry’s lead,” Dermer said, “pushing back on President Abbas and saying, ‘you have to condemn these terror acts.'”

He also said thanked the United States for its “very clear” position on Israel’s commitment to the status quo on the Temple Mount.

“The truth of the matter is, Israel is the guarantor of those sacred sites,” Dermer said. He noted that Joseph’s Tomb, a site holy to many Jews and Christians, was torched by Palestinian protesters the night before in the West Bank city of Nablus.

Obama backs Israel’s right to ‘protect its citizens from knife attacks’ President urges PM and Abbas to get their peoples to recognize that ‘random violence’ only brings ‘more hardship’

By Times of Israel staff

October 16, 2015, 10:08 pm

Source: Obama backs Israel’s right to ‘protect its citizens from knife attacks’ | The Times of Israel

If i was cynical i would think that Israeli coordination with Russia  had influence on his change of mind, and not his good relation with BB and Israel . 

President Barack Obama answers questions during a joint news conference with South Korean President Park Geun-hye in the East Room of the White House in Washington, Friday, Oct. 16, 2015. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

US President Barack Obama on Friday condemned “violence directed against innocent people” in the latest surge of Palestinian-Israeli conflict, and stressed Israel’s “right to maintain basic law and order and protect its citizens from knife attacks and violence on the streets.”

He also dismissed the notion of settlements as “a direct causation” of the spate of Palestinian terror attacks.

However, the president also reiterated his long-held belief that the only way Israel would be secure, and the Palestinians would meet their aspirations, was via a two-state solution. Indicating that the US was not about to start a new initiative in that direction, he said “it’s going to be up to the parties” to do that, “and we stand ready to assist.”

Speaking at a press conference with the visiting South Korean President Park Geun-hye, Obama expressed concern “about the outbreak of violence, that initially is centered on Jerusalem; but we always are concerned about the spread of violence elsewhere.”

He said the US condemns “in the strongest possible terms violence directed against innocent people” and believes “that Israel has a right to maintain basic law and order and protect its citizens from knife attacks and violence on the streets.”

He urged Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, and other officials on both sides “to try to tamp down rhetoric that may feed violence or anger or misunderstanding.” They needed to “get all people in Israel and the West Bank to recognize that this kind of random violence is not going to result in anything other than more hardship or insecurity.”

He added: “I don’t think we can wait for all the issues that exist between Israelis and Palestinians to be settled in order for us to try and tamp down on violence right now.”

He said Secretary of State John Kerry and others had made “enormous” efforts to broker a two-state solution, but that effort had “stalled.” And it would be up to the parties themselves to try to restart it. “But in the meantime, everybody needs to focus on making sure innocent people aren’t being killed.”

Asked twice about Kerry’s initial linkage of the new terror wave and settlements, subsequently walked back, Obama said Kerry had not make that linkage. After calling to end the violence, stressing Israel’s right to protect its citizens from random violence, urging all parties to lower the rhetoric, and stressing the need to maintain the status quo at Jerusalem religious sites, Kerry, said the president, had noted that the atmosphere of “tension and suspicion” between the two sides “obviously creates the potential for more misunderstanding and triggers.”

But, Obama stressed, where settlements were concerned, “there’s not a direct causation there.” The focus for now, he said, had to be “on innocent people not being killed.”

Russia, US agree on all technical questions over Syria flight safety – Russian military

Published time: 16 Oct, 2015 14:45 Edited time: 16 Oct, 2015 15:12

Source: Russia, US agree on all technical questions over Syria flight safety – Russian military — RT News

A Russian Su-34 fullback bomber jet © Dmitriy Vinogradov / RIA Novosti

Webb: U.S. Must ‘Draw a Line with China’ on Military Expansion Urges U.S. military to sail within 12 nautical miles of Beijing’s artificial islands in the South China Sea

BY: Daniel Wiser
October 16, 2015 1:57 pm

Source: Webb: U.S. Must ‘Draw a Line with China’ on Military Expansion – Washington Free Beacon

Jim Webb / AP

Jim Webb, a Democratic presidential candidate and former U.S. senator from Virginia, is urging the Obama administration to confront China about its military expansion in the South China Sea amid concerns raised by U.S. allies.

Webb said on Thursday that “we have to draw a line with China” in response to its aggressive efforts to seize disputed territories in the Asia-Pacific. U.S. officials say China has now constructed more than 3,000 acres of manmade islands in the Spratlys, which were previously just a chain of submerged reefs and rocks. U.S. allies in the region, including Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan, and Vietnam, all claim parts of the Spratlys.

Beijing is also adding military barracks, airfields, and artillery pieces to the artificial islands, raising the risk of conflict in waters that serve as an important transit area for international trade.

The Obama administration has previously failed to deter China from expanding its military ambitions in the region, Webb said.

“[The Chinese military] will create issues of sovereignty, mark their spots, and the United States would kind of defer and sort of call them tactical spats rather than clearly strategic sovereignty issues,” he said at the Council on Foreign Relations.

“And now is the time. We have to draw a line with China in terms of the Spratlys and keep a hold of the positive relationships that have come out of this.”

Webb, who is also a former secretary of the Navy and assistant secretary of defense in the Reagan administration, noted that China first declared its intentions in 2012 when it established a prefecture-level government in Sansha, an island city in the South China Sea. The Obama administration has said it does not take a position on sovereignty disputes in the region.

“To take no position on an issue that relates to these sovereignty issues is to take a position,” Webb said. “It is to accede, because China insists on bilateral solutions to these problems and they will always intimidate the smaller countries.”

Failing to challenge China in the South China Sea would also threaten other significant territories in the Asia-Pacific, Webb said. Beijing and U.S. ally Japan remain embroiled in a territorial dispute over the Senkaku islands, located in the East China Sea near U.S. military bases on Okinawa.

“To yield on the Senkakus eventually would be to call into question the sovereignty of Okinawa,” he said. “That’s just the way that it works.”

“When you have an expansionist nation that is not accepting international law in these things, you have to do something about it, and we’re the country that does,” he added.

Defense officials are considering the option of sailing U.S. warships within 12 nautical miles of China’s artificial islands to demonstrate that the United States does not support Beijing’s territorial claims. Under international law, only natural landforms are guaranteed the 12-mile zone of sovereignty.

Webb said he would send the ships into the 12-mile zone “in a heartbeat.”

He also called China’s cyber attacks against the United States “an act of aggression.” U.S. officials announced this summer that hackers working for Beijing had obtained personnel records or security-clearance files for more than 22 million Americans, including federal employees, their families and friends, and Webb himself, he said.

Additionally, Webb expressed opposition to the recently completed nuclear deal with Iran. The agreement means that the United States has “acquiesced to the idea that Iran could acquire … the materials to construct and use nuclear weapons” in a decade, he said, and it has reinforced perceptions that America is siding with Tehran against other regional powers.

“The lifting of sanctions, all these other things—is a very bad timing in the region with all of the instability that we are seeing because of other policies,” he said. “So the way—in my view, the way that this agreement is being viewed in the region is that we are acquiescing to Iran having a larger role in terms of the traditional balance of power.”