Archive for April 2016

If Every ISIS Fighter Was Killed – The Global Jihad Would Roll On

April 12, 2016

If Every ISIS Fighter Was Killed – The Global Jihad Would Roll On, Understanding the Threat, April 11, 2016

(Please see also, ISIS or Islam: Which Breeds Terrorism? — DM)

ISIS is not THE enemy.  ISIS is a part of a much larger threat to the West.  The enemy we face calls itself the Global Islamic Movement.  It is a global jihad to establish Islamic rule on the planet.

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For several years after 9/11/01, the American government focused all it’s energy hunting down Al Qaeda and its leaders.  The American public was told it was in a war against Al Qaeda.  Yet today, it is as if Al Qaeda evaporated from the planet and our only adversary is ISIS.

isis-300x150

The fact is, if every Muslim jihadi fighting for ISIS were killed today, the global Islamic jihadi Movement would not stop.

ISIS is not THE enemy.  ISIS is a part of a much larger threat to the West.  The enemy we face calls itself the Global Islamic Movement.  It is a global jihad to establish Islamic rule on the planet.

This Movement is primarily led by the International Muslim Brotherhood, but there are other parallel Islamic Movements working together.  There are many violent jihadi organizations like ISIS, Al Qaeda, Hamas, Hizbollah, and hundreds of others battling in Iraq, Syria, Libya, parts of Africa, and elsewhere.

The leadership of the international Muslim community is the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) which is made up of every Islamic nation in the world at the head of state and king level.  It is the largest voting block in the United Nations.  The OIC’s stated goal is the implementation of Sharia (Islamic Law) across the world.

ISIS, Al Qaeda, the Muslim Brotherhood, all of the other jihadi organizations, as well as the leaders of the entire Islamic world have the same objective:  the establishment of a Caliphate under Sharia.  Each facet uses a different avenue to the same objective.

A Caliphate under sharia is also the objective of Islam as defined in all Islamic Law (Sharia) which comes from the Quran and the example of the prophet Mohammad.

When the West collectively decides to understand the threat as it truly is, and that Sharia is the blueprint for our enemy as well as what they seek to impose on the world, we will have the clear ability to strategize a war plan for victory.

Stanford Students Reject Western Civilization By A 6-To-1 Margin

April 12, 2016

Stanford Students Reject Western Civilization By A 6-To-1 Margin, Daily Caller, Blake Neff, April 12, 2016

(Perhaps in retirement Obama could provide a course on the evils of western civilization that the gentle snowflakes of Stanford would find acceptable. — DM)

An effort by a group of Stanford University students to restore a Western civilization class requirement has been decisively rejected by the student body, with voting results released Monday showing it mustering less than 15 percent support.

The ballot initiative was promoted by members of the school’s conservative-leaning Stanford Review. If passed, it would have called for Stanford to require that all freshmen complete a two-quarter course covering “the politics, history, philosophy, and culture of the Western world.” Stanford once possessed a similar requirement, but eliminated it after a student campaign in the 1980s that denounced it as fostering racism, sexism, and other perfidious -isms.

Supporters managed to collect 370 signatures on their petition, enough to include it as a ballot measure for Stanford’s spring student government election.

But it turns out Stanford has no enthusiasm for requiring the study of Western civilization. In election results released Monday, the proposal failed by an overwhelming margin, with 342 votes in favor and a whopping 1992 votes against.

In contrast, over 90 percent of students voted in favor of an initiative requiring the school to administer a new campus climate survey designed to find the rate of sexual assault on campus. The school already administered such a survey in 2015, but it outraged activists by finding a sexual assault rate of just 1.9%, which they deemed far too low.

The mere suggestion that Stanford require studying Western civilization had generated immense outrage among certain Stanford communities. A low-income advocacy group at the school suspended a member based on the suspicion that he wrote an anonymous piece supporting the proposal. A hostile column in The Stanford Daily warned that accepting the proposal would mean centering Stanford education on “upholding white supremacy, capitalism and colonialism, and all other oppressive systems that flow from Western civilizations.”

 

ISIS or Islam: Which Breeds Terrorism?

April 12, 2016

ISIS or Islam: Which Breeds Terrorism? Front Page MagazineRaymond Ibrahim, April 12, 2016

isis (1)

Originally published by PJ Media.

A lie conceals the truth.  And ugly but hidden truths never have a chance of being acknowledged, addressed, and ultimately ameliorated.

Because of this simple truism, one of the greatest lies of our age—that violence committed in the name of Islam has nothing to do with Islam—has made an intrinsically weak Islam the scourge of the modern world, with no signs of relief on the horizon.

One of the latest manifestations of this lie took place in Pakistan.  On Easter Sunday, March 27, a suicide bombing took place near the children rides of a public park, where Christians were congregated and celebrating the resurrection of their Lord.  At least 74 people—mostly Christian women and children—were killed and nearly 400 injured.  “There was human flesh on the walls of our house,” recalled a witness.

Who—or what—was responsible for this assault?  “We claim responsibility for the attack on Christians as they were celebrating Easter,” said Jamaatul Ahraar, a splinter group of the Taliban.  In a media statement, the group said it had “deliberately targeted the Christian community,” adding that “we had been waiting for this occasion.”

The Taliban and its affiliates are not alone.  Click herehereherehere, and here, for numerous examples of similarly lethal attacks on Christians celebrating Christmas or Easter by other Islamic groups and individuals around the world who also “had been waiting for this occasion.”  Even “the terror cell that struck in Brussels [last month, killing 34] was planning to massacre worshippers at Easter church services across Europe, including Britain, intelligence chiefs believe.”

Still, connecting the dots and understanding what binds all Islamic terrorist groups is a big no-no for the so-called mainstream media.  The problem, we will be told, is the “Taliban,” which “has nothing to do with Islam.”  Rather, it’s a finite, temporal, localized problem: defeat it, and the problem vanishes.

Meanwhile, about 5,000 miles west of Taliban territory, in Nigeria, Christians are also under attack.  Indeed, according to a new report, since 2000, some 12,000 Christians have been slaughtered for their faith and 13,000 churches destroyed.  Just last month, over 500 Christians were butchered.

According to the official narrative, something called “Boko Haram” is responsible.  This is another group that defines itself exclusively according to Islam; another group that habitually bombs churches during Christmas and Easter; and another group that, we are told, “has nothing to do with Islam,” but rather is a finite, temporal, localized problem: defeat it, and the problem vanishes.

About 5,000 miles west of Nigeria, in the U.S., Americans were told that something called “al-Qaeda” attacked and killed 3,000 of their countrymen on 9/11; defeating that finite group would cease the terror.  Its leader, Osama bin Laden, was killed, and victory loudly proclaimed—except that an even more savage manifestation, this time called the “Islamic State” (it too “has nothing to do with Islam”) came on the scene and has gone further than al-Qaeda could’ve ever dreamed, in great part thanks to the Obama administration.

It gets worse.  The problem is not only that the media and decision-makers refuse to connect the dots and insist on treating each of the aforementioned groups as disparate, finite groups with different motivations—none of which has to do with Islam.  The problem is that regular Muslims who are not called “Taliban,” “Boko Haram,” “al-Qaeda,” “ISIS,” ad infinitum commit similar acts, and much more frequently, though this is rarely ever mentioned by the MSM.

Thus, although the “Taliban” was behind the recent Easter Day massacre, it is everyday Muslims who discriminate against, persecute, enslave, rape and sometimes murder Christians every day in Pakistan (click here for a typical month); it was everyday Muslims who burned a young Christian couple alive due to unsubstantiated rumors that they had insulted Muhammad.

Those who slaughtered 500 Christians last month in Nigeria were not “Boko Haram” but rather un-affiliated (but Muslim) herdsmen.  Likewise, “Northern Muslim political and religious elite are also major actors of targeted violence towards the Christian minority.”

Although ISIS claimed the Brussels attack, it is everyday Muslims who ban, burn, bomb, and urinate on Christian churches, and who, as in Pakistan and other Muslim majority nations, target non-Muslim European women for rape on the basis that they are subhuman “infidels.”

This is the real issue.  While the media may name the terrorist groups responsible for especially spectacular attacks—followed by the customary admonitions that they “have nothing to do with Islam”—few dare acknowledge that Muslims in general engage in similar acts of violence and intolerance against non-Muslims.  According to a recent study, Muslims —of all races, nationalities, languages, and socio-political and economic circumstances, hardly just “terror groups”—are responsible for persecuting Christians in 41 of the 50 worst nations to be Christian in.

These statistics are consistent with a recent Pew poll finding that, in 11 countries alone, at least 63 million and as many as 287 million Muslims support ISIS.  Similarly, 81% of respondents to a recent Al Jazeera poll supported the Islamic State.

In sum, what “extremist” “terrorist” and “militant” groups (that “have nothing to do with Islam”) are doing is but the tip of the iceberg of what Muslims are doing all around the world.  (See “Muslim Persecution of Christians,” reports which I’ve been compiling every month since July 2011 and witness the nonstop discrimination, persecution, and carnage committed by “everyday” Muslims against Christians.  Each monthly report contains dozens of atrocities, any of which if committed by Christians against Muslims would receive 24/7 blanket coverage.)

Media aren’t just covering up for Islam by pretending that the spectacular attacks committed by Islamic groups on non-Muslims “have nothing to do with Islam.” They are covering up for Islam by failing to report the everyday persecution non-Muslims experience at the hands of everyday Muslims—Muslim individuals, Muslim mobs, Muslim police, and Muslim governments (including America’s closest “friends and allies”)—not just Muslim “terrorists.”

Because of these entrenched lies, the world must continue to suffer from Islamic terror.  Not only have these lies allowed countless innocents to be persecuted into oblivion in the Muslim world, but they have allowed the same persecution to enter America and Europe, most recently via mass immigration.

The fact remains: an ugly truth must first be acknowledged before it can be remedied.   It may be hard to acknowledge an ugly truth—that Islam, not “radical Islam,” promotes hate for and violence against non-Muslims—but anything less will just continue to feed the lie, that is, continue to feed the jihad and terror.

Fatah Spokesman Osama Qawasmeh: The West Sponsors Islamic Extremism; 9/11 Was No Coincidence

April 12, 2016

Fatah Spokesman Osama Qawasmeh: The West Sponsors Islamic Extremism; 9/11 Was No Coincidence, MEMRI-TV via You Tube, April 11, 2016

The blurb following the video states,

In an interview, broadcast by the Palestinian Authority’s official TV channel, Fatah spokesman Osama Qawasmeh talked about the situation in Syria, and said that “it was the [Americans] who worked to create Islamic extremism,” adding that “they are indoctrinated with certain notions, and leaders created in the West and in Israel are planted in their midst.” Qawasmeh further said that the timing of 9/11 was “no coincidence”: it pushed the Palestinian cause to the sidelines in the international media. The interview aired on April 5, 2016.

 

Senior PLO Official Killed in Lebanon Blast

April 12, 2016

A prominent Fatah official is assassinated after demanding tighter security from a meeting of PLO factions.

By: Hana Levi Julian

Published: April 12th, 2016

Source: The Jewish Press » » Senior PLO Official Killed in Lebanon Blast

General Fathi Zeidan, PLO’s Fatah leader in the Mieh Mieh refugee camp in southern Lebanon, near Sidon.
Photo Credit: Lebanon Ministry of Information

A prominent member of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s leading Fatah faction was assassinated Tuesday in southern Lebanon.

General Fathi Zeidan was killed by a car bomb that also took the life of a passerby near the Palestinian Authority refugee camp of Ain al-Hilweh, according to The Daily Star in Lebanon.

Zeidan was the senior Fatah officer in the nearby Mieh Mieh refugee camp, according to a terse statement by the Lebanese Ministry of Information National News Agency.

The ministry said Zeidan was “targeted in the explosion that rocked Sidon’s southern Palestinian refugee camp of Ain al-Hilweh.

“The bomb was planted in Zeidan’s car. Security officers cordoned off the area.”

No one has yet claimed responsibility for the attack.

Zeidan was reportedly attending a security meeting in Mieh Mieh at the time of the attack, The Daily Star reported.

Fatah official Maj. Gen. Munir Maqdah told LBCI that prior to the attack, Zeidan had met with other PLO factions, demanding tighter security measures in Mieh Mieh, according to the Iranian Tasnim News Agency.

There have been many clashes between rival Arab factions over the past few weeks, Tasnim reported. Ain al-Hilweh is home to several extremist terror groups and has been repeatedly rocked by violence, according to Tasnim.

Christian Self-Defense Forces Emerge in Iraq & Syria

April 12, 2016

Christian Self-Defense Forces Emerge in Iraq & Syria, Clarion ProjectRyan Mauro, April 12, 2016

Babylon-Brigade-HPMembers of the Christian Babylon Brigade in Iraq (Video: screenshot)

The Christians of Iraq and Syria have had a breathtaking commitment to passivity since being victimized by what we all now finally agree qualifies as a genocide.

Now, the Christians are increasingly organizing to defend themselves—and the West should stand by them instead of outsourcing our moral responsibility to the Iraqis and their Iranian partners and various groups with questionable track records.

A poll in December 2014 found that only one-third of Iraqis say they are concerned about the persecution of Christians in their country. About 67 percent said they are not concerned at all or only “somewhat” concerned.

It’s easy to say that the U.S. should pressure the Iraqi government to protect the Christians, but its track record and these poll results do not inspire hope that it’ll work. The pace of the genocide is such that the Christians and those who care for them simply cannot afford to spend time hoping for the best.

A Christian force known as the Babylon Brigade has been incorporated into the Popular Mobilization Units, an assortment of militias led by the Iraqi government and their partners from the Iranian regime and Hezbollah. The Babylon Brigades and their supporters boast of their nationalism, having battled the Islamic State in non-Christian areas like Ramadi and Tikrit.

However, it numbers only 500 to 1,000 The Iraqi government should be applauded for supporting a Christian unit, but don’t mistake this for an Iraqi commitment to a Christian self-defense force that enables the community to have a say over whether it goes extinct or not.

Current U.S. policy still gambles their survival on the chance that the Iraqi government tied to Iran will protect them, particularly when the U.N. says Christian persecution in Iran has reached unprecedented levels.

The Kurds are allies of the U.S. but, when it comes to protecting Christians, they have been far from ideal. The Iraqi and Syrian Christians have plenty of stories of mistreatment at the hands of the Kurds.

The growth of a number of Christian self-defense forces in Iraq and Syria show potential for what could happen if they receive outside support.

There’s the Nineveh Plain Protection Units in northern Iraq under the helm of the Assyrian Democratic Movement of Iraq, which has a branch in northeastern Syria named the Gozarto Protection Forces. They are backed by the Middle East Christian Committee. The secretary-general of the Assyrian Democratic Movement claims that proper support would quickly grow the NPU’s numbers to 5,000.

Another small force is called Dwekh Nawsha, which is linked to the Assyrian Patriotic Party and has gotten attention because of Westerners joining their ranks. One of their advisers warned in November, “All we’re saying is we’re done. We don’t have equipment. We don’t have the weapons. We don’t have the training,” as he pleaded for U.S. backing.

In Syria, there is the Syriac Military Council, estimated to be about 2,000-strong including a Christian female unit. It belongs to a Kurdish-majority coalition known as the Syrian Democratic Forces. There is also a local Christian defense force near the Khabur River called the Khabur Guards.

Of course, any Christian force will have to be properly vetted. Hezbollah has set up a non-denominational force named Saraya al-Muqawama that includes Christians, Sunnis and non-religious Shiites.

A Christian police force that is favorable towards the Assad regime clashed with Kurdish forces in Qamishli, Syria. Sources close to the situation there emphasize that the Christians who embrace Assad are motivated by a fear of Islamist rebels, not because of any affinity for dictatorship or the regime’s brutality.

It would be a mistake to dismiss the viability of Christian self-defense forces because of their current sizes and capabilities. Unlike the Iraqi and Syrian militias and rebels, the Christians have had to rely only upon themselves for survival. They don’t have a state sponsor like Saudi Arabia, Qatar or Iran to build them up.

The U.S. has provided material support to Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds, despite records of human rights abuses, Islamism and ties to terrorists and enemy regimes. The Christians are reliable foes of Islamic extremism who, despite all they have suffered, have never formed a sectarian militia to exact bloody revenge.

It’s time for the U.S. to ask itself: Why are Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds worthy of our direct material aid but the Christians are not? Why do they deserve a chance to stop the murder, raping and torturing of their people, but the Christians do not and are left facing extinction if trends continue?

28 Blank Pages: Washington’s Cover-Up Of The Saudi Role In The 9/11 Terrorist Attack Continues

April 12, 2016

28 Blank Pages: Washington’s Cover-Up Of The Saudi Role In The 9/11 Terrorist Attack Continues

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 04/10/2016 22:20 -0400

Source: 28 Blank Pages: Washington’s Cover-Up Of The Saudi Role In The 9/11 Terrorist Attack Continues | Zero Hedge

In light of today’s 60 Minutes segment, according to which classified “28 pages” may shed light on Saudi ties to terrorism, here is a an article which was originally posted in the December 2015 edition of Future of Freedom. More to follow tomorrow.

28 Blank Pages: Washington’s Cover-Up Of The Saudi Role In The 9/11 Terrorist Attack Continues

Do Americans have the right to learn whether a foreign government helped finance the 9/11 attacks? A growing number of congressmen and senators are demanding that a 28-page portion of a 2002 congressional report finally be declassified. The Obama administration appears to be resisting, and the stakes are huge. What is contained in those pages could radically change Americans’ perspective on the war on terror.

The congressional Joint Inquiry Into Intelligence Community Activities Before and After the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001, completed its investigation in December 2002. But the Bush administration stonewalled the release of the 838-page report until mid 2003 — after its invasion of Iraq was a fait accompli — and totally suppressed a key portion. Former U.S. Sen. Bob Graham (D-Fla.) chairman of the investigation, declared that “there is compelling evidence in the 28 pages that one or more foreign governments was involved in assisting some of the hijackers in their preparation for 9/11.” Graham later indicated that the Saudis were the guilty party. But disclosing Saudi links to 9/11 could have undermined efforts by some Bush administration officials to tie Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein to the 9/11 attacks.

Almost everyone has forgotten how hard the Bush administration fought to torpedo that report. In April 2003, controversy raged on Capitol Hill over the Bush administration’s continuing efforts to suppress almost all of the report by the Joint Intelligence Committee investigation. Some intelligence officials even insisted on “reclassifying” as secret some of the information that had already been discussed in public hearings, such as the FBI Phoenix Memo. On May 13, Senator Graham accused the Bush administration of engaging in a “cover-up” and said that the report from the congressional investigation “has not been released because it is, frankly, embarrassing … embarrassing as to what happened before September 11th, but maybe even more so the fact that the lessons of September 11th are not being applied today to reduce the vulnerability of the American people.” Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) complained that intelligence agencies sought to totally censor the report: “The initial thing that came back was absolutely an insult, and it would be laughable if it wasn’t so insulting, because they redacted half of what we had. A lot of it was to redact a word that revealed nothing.”

When the report was finally released, Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) added an additional opinion in which he castigated “the FBI’s dismal recent history of disorganization and institutional incompetence in its national-security work.” The congressional report was far blunter than the subsequent 9/11 Commission. The congressional investigation concluded that the FBI’s “mixed record of attention contributed to the United States becoming, in effect, a sanctuary for radical terrorists.” But the Bush administration may have succeeded in stonewalling the most damaging revelations.

Suppressing the 28 pages was intensely controversial at the time. Senator Shelby, the vice chairman of the joint inquiry, urged declassification of almost all of the 28 pages because “the American people are crying out to know more about who funds, aids, and abets terrorist activities in the world.” Forty-six senators, spearheaded by Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and including almost all the Democratic members, signed a letter to President George W. Bush urging the release of the 28 pages.

Bush, at a July 30, 2003 press conference, justified suppressing the 28 pages:

We have an ongoing investigation about what may or may not have taken place prior to September the 11th. And therefore, it is important for us to hold this information close so that those who are being investigated aren’t alerted…. If we were to reveal the content of the document, 29 [sic] pages of a near-900-page report, it would reveal sources and methods. By that, I mean it would show people how we collect information and on whom we’re collecting information, which, in my judgment, and in the judgment of senior law-enforcement officials in my administration, would be harmful on the war against terror.

And then he dangled a carrot: “Now, at some point in time, as we make progress on the investigation, and as a threat to our national security diminishes, perhaps we can put out the document. But in my judgment, now is not the time to do so.”

Protecting incompetence

The claim of secrecy is routinely a cloak for incompetence. As former Senator Graham said earlier this year, “Much of what passes for classification for national-security reasons is really classified because it would disclose incompetence. And since the people who are classifying are also often the subject of the materials, they have an institutional interest in avoiding exposure of their incompetence.”

Rep. Walter Jones (R-N.C.) revived the push to declassify the pages in 2013. Jones is a conservative stalwart best known for coining the phrase “freedom fries” in 2003 when France opposed invading Iraq. He has since become one of the most outspoken opponents of reckless U.S. intervention abroad. He explained that he introduced a resolution because “the American people deserve the truth. Releasing these pages will enhance our national security, not harm it.”

Jones further explained that “the information contained in the redacted pages is critical to our foreign policy moving forward and should thus be available to the American public. If the 9/11 hijackers had outside help — particularly from one or more foreign governments — the press and the public have a right to know what our government has or has not done to bring justice to all of the perpetrators.”

Last May, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) fresh from a bracing filibuster against the renewal of the USA PATRIOT Act, joined the 28-page fight. He introduced the Transparency for the Families of 9/11 Victims and Survivors Act, co-sponsored by Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.). The suppressed pages are another wedge between Paul and other Republican presidential candidates: New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie rejects declassification, instead urging deference to the president’s judgment on the issue. A person attending a recent New Hampshire event asked Christie, “Don’t we have a right to know?” Christie replied, “That’s for the president of the United States to decide.… [The] question is: In his judgment and the judgment of the people in the national-security apparatus, do they believe there’s something in there that’s classified that would cause harm or danger to American interests?” But cravenness is never a good recipe for safety.

Members of Congress can read the still-classified pages in a special secure room on Capitol Hill if they get prior permission from the House or Senate Intelligence Committee. Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.),  one of the few members to read the report, was shocked: “I had to stop every couple of pages and just sort of absorb and try to rearrange my understanding of history for the past 13 years and the years leading up to that. It challenges you to rethink everything.” Massie is one of 18 co-sponsors of Jones’s resolution in the House.

Too much trouble

It is encouraging that the effort spearheaded by Congressman Jones has garnered support on Capitol Hill. But it is surprising that the 28-page disclosure campaign has not yet spurred far more members of Congress to read the document. Unfortunately, members of Congress were also grossly negligent when it came to the evidence to justify invading Iraq. In October 2002, prior to the vote on the congressional resolution to permit Bush to do as he pleased on Iraq, the CIA delivered a 92-page classified assessment of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction to Capitol Hill. The classified CIA report raised far more doubts about the existence of Iraqi WMDs than did the five-page executive summary that all members of Congress received. The report was stored in two secure rooms — one each for the House and the Senate. Only six senators bothered to visit the room to look at the report, and only a “handful” of House members did the same, according to the Washington Post. Sen. John Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) explained that congressmen were too busy to read the report: “Everyone in the world wants to come to see you” in your office, and going to the secure room is “not easy to do.” Hundreds of thousands of Americans were sent 6,000 miles away to swelter for months in burning deserts because congressmen could not be bothered to walk across the street. Most congressmen had ample time to give saber-rattling speeches for war, but no time to sift the purported evidence for the invasion.

Why is the Obama administration continuing to suppress a report completed more than a dozen years ago? It is not as if the White House’s credibility would be damaged by revelations of Saudi bankrolling the worst attack on American soil since Pearl Harbor (15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudis).

And it is not as if the Saudis became squeaky-clean Boy Scouts after 9/11. Saudi sources are widely reported to be bankrolling Islamic State terrorists throughout the Middle East; Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a Senate committee last September, “I know major Arab allies who fund [ISIS].”

Barack Obama just ordered more U.S. troops to Iraq to seek to rebuff the ISIS onslaught. If the Saudis are helping sow fresh chaos in the Middle East, that is another reason to disclose their role in an attack that helped launch conflicts that have already cost thousands of American lives and more than $1.6 trillion, according to the Congressional Research Service.

“Don’t confuse me with the facts” should be the motto of the war on terror. Self-government is an illusion if politicians can shroud the most important details driving federal policy. If Americans have learned anything since 9/11, it should be the folly of deferring to http://fff.org/explore-freedom/article/cover-damning-911-report-continues/Washington secrecy.

‘We are active on fronts near and far’

April 12, 2016

We are active on fronts near and far’ Netanyahu visits IDF drill in Golan overlooking Syria, emphasizing Israel’s ‘relative quiet’ in a ‘stormy, raging Middle East.’

By Ido Ben-Porat

First Publish: 4/11/2016, 5:47 PM

Source: ‘We are active on fronts near and far’ – Defense/Security – News – Arutz Sheva

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu took a tour on Monday to the Golan Heights to see a drill by the reserve soldiers of the Paratroopers Brigade, and during his visit he stopped at an outlook overlooking Syria.

At the start of his tour Netanyahu was given an update on the drill by Deputy Chief of Staff Maj. Gen. Yair Golan, Northern Commander Aviv Kokhavi and division commanders.

After viewing part of the drill, Netanyahu toured the field and spoke with the reserve soldiers and commanders taking part.

The Prime Minister praised the commanders for maintaining stability in the front, while noting the various security threats facing the Jewish state.

“We have Da’esh (Islamic State) on the other side of the fences here (in Syria), Hezbollah on the other sides of the fences here and there (in Syria and Lebanon), we have Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Gaza and global jihad and Da’esh in Sinai,” he said.

“We are proud of how in the entire stormy, raging and rambunctious Middle East, we succeeded in preserving relative quiet in the state of Israel and relative security. We are acting when we need to act, including here, beyond the border, in dozens of strikes, to prevent Hezbollah from [acquiring] game-changing weapons.”

Credit: Kobi Gidon/GPO

Netanyahu addressed the soldiers, saying, “we are also active in other fronts near and far, but we do it wisely. If we must enter combat – and that possibility stands before us and for that reason you are here – that is because we could not prevent the danger to the state of Israel through another way, and (it is) in order to give you the maximum in tools to defeat and win for the state of Israel.”

“You look at the earthquake around us and you see peoples and states getting erased, and if someone expects that someone will come to help them that doesn’t happen,” he said, again addressing the soldiers.

“If we learned one thing, it’s that we must be prepared to defend ourselves with our own power. That is the meaning of reserve army duty that you are doing here.”

“I want to thank you and express my esteem for all that you are doing, and I want you to know that the nation expresses esteem for that, and as much as possible we will give that expression in terms of resources, but the greatest resource is what you have in your hearts.”

Israel launched Syria strikes to prevent Hezbollah from obtaining weapons – Netanyahu

April 12, 2016

Israel launched Syria strikes to prevent Hezbollah from obtaining weapons – Netanyahu

Published time: 11 Apr, 2016 17:07

Source: Israel launched Syria strikes to prevent Hezbollah from obtaining weapons – Netanyahu — RT News

FILE PHOTO. Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (R) talks with Israeli soldiers at a military outpost on February 4, 2015 during a visit at Mount Hermon which sits in the Israeli occupied Golan Heights on the border between Lebanon, Syria and Israel. © Baz Ratner
Israel has launched dozens of strikes in Syria, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has announced. It marks the first time that the leader has acknowledged such attacks against arms transfers to Lebanon’s Hezbollah.

“We act when we need to act, including here across the border, with dozens of strikes meant to prevent Hezbollah from obtaining game-changing weaponry,” Netanyahu said while on a visit to the occupied Golan Heights on Monday, as quoted by Reuters.

The prime minister failed to specify what kind of strikes Israel had conducted in Syria.

Although Israel welcomed a cessation of hostilities in Syria in February, it has indicated that it could still launch attacks there if it sees a threat from the Iranian-backed Hezbollah, whose fighters have been allied with Syrian President Bashar Assad.

Read more

© Baz Ratner

Israel is officially neutral on Syria’s civil war, but has frequently pledged to prevent shipments of advanced weaponry to Hezbollah, which is based in Lebanon. It has, however, stopped short of confirming specific air operations.

Tel Aviv last fought a war with Hezbollah in 2006. That conflict included rocket strikes inside Israel and an Israeli air and ground offensive in Lebanon.

Israeli leaders have stated that since then, Hezbollah has built up and improved the range of rocket arsenal that can now strike deep inside Israel.

Tension has been mounting between Tel Aviv and Hezbollah in recent months, with Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah threatening to hit Israeli chemical and nuclear sites.

Netanyahu’s Monday comments come less than one week after intelligence firm Stratfor revealed satellite images of an area on the northern Lebanese-Syrian border which indicate that Hezbollah has been consolidating positions it gained from Syrian rebels in June 2013.

However, Netanyahu noted that Hezbollah isn’t the only worry facing Israel, citing threats from Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL), Hamas, and Islamic Jihad, as well as jihadists in Sinai.

He went on to state that “going into battle” is a “possibility that lies ahead,” adding that no one else will defend Israel.

Who Is the Real Ted Cruz?

April 11, 2016

Who Is the Real Ted Cruz? Commentary Magazine, April 11, 2016

(Commentary Magazine has with substantial consistently opposed Trump and favored Cruz. This article, which deals with Cruz’s positions on immigration, does neither. — DM)

Ted CruzImage by © Porter Gifford/Corbis

The New York Times noted the indisputable similarities between this statement and that made by Jeb Bush, who said that families coming to the United States illegally are performing “an act of love.”

Ted Cruz is whoever he needs to be whenever he needs to be it. In a fashion, that’s no liability when it comes to running campaigns and winning elections. It does, however, give pause to voters concerned with authenticity and judgment. Who is the real Ted Cruz? That’s a subject of debate.

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From the moment he embarked on a political career, Ted Cruz had his finger on the pulse of the core Republican electorate. For this key voting bloc, he calibrated his appeal to satisfy the largest number of conservatives without sacrificing his brand as a principled truth-teller. It is a clever strategy, but one that only works when executed skillfully. For years, Cruz was that skillful operator. He probably never anticipated that he would be outmaneuvered at his own game.

Cruz’s approach to navigating the bramble thicket of center-right sentiment by presenting himself as the most conservative candidate that can still appeal to a majority of the GOP primary electorate has not been without cost. To preserve his image as the most conservative figure in the room, Cruz sacrificed authenticity. For Republicans who concern themselves little with such qualities as predictability in their standard-bearers, this was no sacrifice at all. Cruz did not foresee that an even more skilled executor of the populist bombast tone that the Texan had spent years cultivating would outflank him. Donald Trump keenly demonstrated that conservative purism was never the quality for which the “angry” electorate was pining. A deft negotiator of the political game, Cruz is again changing tactics. In adopting yet another persona to overcome the adversity of the moment, though, Cruz is once again giving up on genuineness.

There is perhaps no better barometer to gauge the sentiment of the activist right than the issue of immigration. Ramesh Ponnuru presciently forecast a political storm on the horizon when, in February of 2015, he observed that the Republican Party’s class of political professionals had reached a consensus on the matter of immigration. That consensus diverged sharply from that of a small but committed faction within the Republican coalition. For many months,public opinion surveys and state-level exit polls have demonstrated that only a small minority of GOP voters believe immigration is the most important issue facing the nation. Occasionally, Republican majorities even tell pollsters they favor a pathway to legalization or even citizenship for the nation’s illegal immigrant population. There is, however, an intensity gap on the issue that favors the anti-immigration reform GOP voter – their passion is a marked contrast from the lukewarm pro-reform voter – and Cruz picked up on this sentiment early.

There may be no better example of the pose Cruz struck for the benefit of his admirers on the right than a November 2014 speech on the Senate floor in which the Texas senator postured as the successor to Marcus Tullius Cicero himself. In adapting a passage from Cicero’s famed orations against the Catilinarian Conspirators, Cruz indicted the president’s anti-republicanism on matters ranging from border security to the IRS. The Texas senator’s dramatics sent eyes rolling right out of their sockets among his myriad critics, but they were not the intended audience. Similarly, Cruz cemented animosity among his Senate colleagues when he helped organize opposition to a House measure intended to address the crisis of unaccompanied minors surging across the border in the summer of 2014. His stated concerns were that the emergency measure would not include pre-2012 election language designed to stop the implementation of that year’s executive orders on immigration (which would have failed in the Democrat-led Senate).

From the perspective of establishmentarian Republicans, the conservative wing had imposed paralysis on the GOP. Ted Cruz fatally undermined the Republican position — that what was occurring on the border was a crisis precipitated by the president’s leadership – by robbing the GOP of agency and leaving it to the president to resolve what the GOP had for weeks been calling a national emergency. For anti-immigration reform activists on the right, however, this was a noble display of opposition to any border measure that was judged insufficiently compromising. Indeed, Cruz made his opposition to immigration reform along the lines of the 2013’s “Gang of Eight” reform bill central to his campaign. So, this must be the real Ted Cruz: an immigration maximalist and the tribune of the conservative wing of the GOP.

Not so fast. The anti-immigration reform absolutist is no Ted Cruz that any of the senator’s colleagues on George W. Bush’s 2000 presidential campaign would recognize. In a five-page 1999 memo for Bush on the issue of immigration, Cruz said he opposed “amnesty” but noted that the Republican nominee should strike a calibrated tone on the matter. He advised Bush to advocate for higher caps on the number of skilled workers coming to the country. As for illegal immigration, Cruz advised Bush to state his opposition to the phenomenon and to advocate stricter border security measures. “At the same time,” Cruz wrote, “we need to remember that many of those coming here are coming to feed their families, to have a chance at a better life.” The New York Times noted the indisputable similarities between this statement and that made by Jeb Bush, who said that families coming to the United States illegally are performing “an act of love.” Even amid deliberations and maneuvering in the Senate over the reviled “Gang of Eight” bill, Cruz supported an amendment that would, in his own words, get illegal immigrants “out of the shadows” and allow them to apply for legal status.

That is not the real Ted Cruz, says Ted Cruz. No, this Ted Cruz was merely playing a republican game designed to scuttle the reform bill. Don’t believe him, Cruz’s colleagues who worked with him on immigration matters during the 2000 campaign insist. “I’m disappointed in Ted because he’s a very bright, articulate lawyer with a substantial base of knowledge about immigration,” said Houston attorney Charles Foster, who worked with Cruz on Bush’s immigration team. “But instead of using that knowledge, he’s acting like a typical politician and just talking about the border being out of control.” Indeed, Ted Cruz has begun to adopt the language of the “typical politician.”

To continue to compete with Donald Trump for the mantle of most uncompromising figure in the race is a losing prospect. Cruz will always be outbid in that contest. Instead, the Texas senator is talking like something he and his supporters dismissed as a contrivance: an electable, bridge-building centrist.

In an April 9 speech to the Republican Jewish Coalition (according to the invaluable dispatches ofAtlantic editor David Frum and CNN reporter Teddy Schleifer), Cruz softened his approach in an effort to expand his appeal to the GOP’s “electability” voter. Cruz hyped his appeal to Hispanic voters, noting his own ability to win 40 percent of this demographic in the recent Texas primary. He touted the necessity of expanding the Republican map into purple states like Pennsylvania, where the party has not on the presidential level since 1988. He repeatedly touched on the issue of tone, and noted to this socially liberal group of voters that campaigns based on divisive cultural issues are rarely produce general election winners. “Nobody wants to elect a hectoring scold,” he said.

Cruz noted that he is better positioned today than any of his competitors to unite the GOP behind him and that unity will maintain critical party cohesion in November. Frum observed that Cruz touted the United States and Israel as the only two nations on earth founded to serve as “havens for the oppressed.” “Immigration must serve the needs of the American people,” Cruz added. “Business wants wages low. I want to see wages rise because businesses are competing for labor.” This is a tough-on-immigration tone that nonetheless appeals to pro-reform voters – voters the party’s maximalists probably convinced themselves they had defeated.

Is this the real Ted Cruz? Who knows? Ted Cruz is whoever he needs to be whenever he needs to be it. In a fashion, that’s no liability when it comes to running campaigns and winning elections. It does, however, give pause to voters concerned with authenticity and judgment. Who is the real Ted Cruz? That’s a subject of debate.