Archive for the ‘Foreign policy’ category

« WarSclerotic home page
Newer Entries »

Non-intervention with a wink

December 10, 2014

Non-intervention with a wink, Israel Hayom, Prof. Abraham Ben-Zvi, December 10, 2014

[T]he president has also indicated, with extra emphasis, that he intends to play an especially active foreign policy role, even in the twilight of his presidency, and will seek to forge a new diplomatic horizon on the Palestinian front after Israel holds its elections.

*********************

Despite unequivocal promises issued publicly by the U.S. administration just a few days ago, to refrain from intervening in the Israeli general elections campaign, it appeared the dam had already been breached on Tuesday during a speech at Bar-Ilan University by U.S. Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro.

Even though the message he delivered underwent a few cosmetic tweaks and was embedded in rhetoric of pleasantries and appeasement, the cellophane packaging and pastel colors were unable to blur the fundamental underlying significance. Indeed, underneath the heartwarming coating the ambassador time-traveled backward, straight to the beginning of the Obama era, a time when all the president’s men emphasized their belief in the linkage between diplomatic progress in the Israeli-Palestinian arena to the American superpower’s general array of diplomatic and strategic goals in the region.

And while the Arab spring shattered this conception on the jagged rocks of reality, the president has reverted — through his ambassador to Israel — to championing this idea; and at a politically sensitive time no less.

In essence, Obama is expanding and empowering the linkage principle, and is doing so while formulating an equation in which he has positioned the improvement of America’s status and clout as a superpower as a derivative of Israeli policies, and the extent to which those take into account American interests and goals, as opposed to strictly reflecting Israel’s immediate security needs and constraints.

By doing so the president has also indicated, with extra emphasis, that he intends to play an especially active foreign policy role, even in the twilight of his presidency, and will seek to forge a new diplomatic horizon on the Palestinian front after Israel holds its elections.

The goal of this message is obvious — the administration is looking squarely toward March 17 (the date of Israeli elections), and is clearly signaling that the political conditions it wants created as a result will ensure the continuation of the American-Israeli alliance with all the benefits and support associated with it.

From this perspective, the carrot of benefits is being waved alongside the whip of warnings and threats, functioning as a type of “guide for the Israeli voter,” who values this partnership with the American patron. This was indeed the opening salvo of the administration’s interventionism in the current political campaign.

Categories: Foreign policy, Israeli elections, Middle East, Netanyahu, Obama, Peace process
Tags: , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

SecDef Nominee Says Iranian Nukes ‘Most Significant Strategic Threat’

December 10, 2014

SecDef Nominee Says Iranian Nukes ‘Most Significant Strategic Threat,’ Washington Free Beacon, December 10, 2014

(If Mr. Carter fails to change his views on Iran, or at least stop talking about them, how long will he last as Obama’s Secretary of Defense? — DM)

Ashton CarterAshton Carter / AP

President Barack Obama’s nominee for secretary of defense Ashton Carter has a very strong position on nuclear non-proliferation issues, the Tower reports.

Some of those positions stand in contrast with those of the Obama administration.

Politico on Tuesday described him as a “leading member of a clique of defense intellectuals long concerned with the possibility of a nuclear terrorist attack” and suggested he “could be more consequential when it comes to Obama’s plans for dealing with Iran’s nuclear program.”

Two months before President Obama’s 2008 election, Carter argued, in a paper coauthored with diplomatic heavyweights including former Special Middle East Coordinator Dennis Ross and Nonproliferation Policy Education Center Executive Director Henry Sokolski, that “Iran’s nuclear development may pose the most significant strategic threat to the United States during the next Administration.” The Times of Israel covered Carter’s nomination, noting that he was a “vocal proponent of stronger action to stymie nuclear proliferation.” Carter had visited the Jewish state in 2013, and was quoted as telling a group of Israeli soldiers that “protecting America means protecting Israel, and that’s why we’re here in the first place.”

The Jerusalem Post reported on Friday that as part of the Pentagon’s Defense Advisory Acquisition Group, Carter played an “instrumental” role in the transfer of F-35 fighter jets from the U.S. to Israel. Israel recently placed a preliminary order to purchase 25 more of the state of the art fighters. Speaking Friday to reporters at the State Department press briefing about U.S.-Israel ties, Deputy Spokesperson Marie Harf reaffirmed the closeness of the relationship, calling ties between the countries “incredibly close, essential” and “unshakable” and noting that it is “arguably the closest military-to-military relationship” the countries have ever had.

Categories: Ashton Carter, Department of Defense, Foreign policy, Iran, Iran scam, Iranian nukes, Obama
Tags: , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

Iran Launches ‘We Love Fighting Israel’ Campaign

December 10, 2014

Iran Launches ‘We Love Fighting Israel’ Campaign, Washington Free Beacon, ,December 10, 2014

(But the humanitarian, peace-loving Islamic Republic of Iran, where sanity, good will toward all and freedom flourish, needs nukes to take its rightful place in our multicultural International Community. Right? — DM)

Ali KhameneiAli Khamenei / AP

The Iranian regime has launched a nationwide social media campaign called, “We Love Fighting Israel,” which encourages Iranian children, teens, and Internet users to photograph themselves alongside messages of hate for the Jewish state.

The movement has sprouted online in the last few days across social media sites such as Twitter, Instagram, and other platforms as a result of a recent call by Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei rallying the nation to take on Israel.

The campaign drew outrage from opponents of Iran’s hardline regime and calls for sites such as Instagram to shut it down for violating policies against hate speech.

Thousands of Iranians are reported to have already joined the electronic movement following comments by Khamenei’s outlining Iran’s goal of destroying the Jewish state.

“Our people love fighting against the Zionists and the Islamic Republic has proved this as well,” Khamenei was quoted as saying in a recent speech by the country’s state-run media. “By Allah’s Favor and Grace, we have passed through the barrier of denominational discord.”

These remarks inspired Iranian social media users to take to the Internet and launch the “We Love Fighting Israel” movement. The campaign even has spawned its own hashtag on Twitter, “#FightingtheZionists.”

The anti-Israel campaign now “has gone viral on the web,” according to Iran’s state-controlled Mehr News Agency, “getting more and more boost from individuals who post photos reading similar sentences, [and] sharing the #Fightingthezionists hash tag.”

More than 300 pictures have already been posted to an Instagram account titled, “FightingTheZionists.” The account, which had some 3,000 followers as of Tuesday evening, links to Khamenei’s personal Instagram account.

Users post pictures with messages declaring, “We love fighting against Israel,” “I love to fight Israel,” “We are lovers of fighting Israel,” and “I love fighting against Zionists,” among other similar messages.

One picture in particular has caught the eye of Iran critics on the web and prompted a harsh response to the anti-Israel campaign.

The photo shows a young child decked out in military gear and holding a sign that translates from Farsi as, “I love fighting against Zionists.”

Captioned alongside the photo is an English language message that reads: “Our people love fighting against the Zionists and the Islamic Republic has proved this as well, Ayatollah Khamenei.”

[Please see Washington Free Beacon article for a photo which I can’t reproduce here. Many other photos are available here. — DM]

It is not the only photo to depict young children as participating in the campaign to fight Israel.

The photos posted on the Instagram page depict “several groups of people including war veterans, students, journalists, and people from all walks of life joining the campaign,” according to Mehr News.

The American nonprofit group United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI), which works to prevent Tehran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, expressed disgust at the campaign on its Twitter account.

UANI lashed out at the Iranian regime for promoting “vile hate” and the “indoctrination of hate children.”

Additionally, Matan Shamir, UANI’s director of research, called on social media sites to immediately take steps to remove the Iranian campaign.

“The Iranian regime’s brazen exploitation and indoctrination of innocent children to hate and commit violence is utterly deplorable,” Shamir said. “Instagram and its parent company Facebook must enforce their own guidelines prohibiting hate speech and incitement to violence, and remove such propaganda immediately.”

Shamir went on to criticize Iran for its own domestic human rights abuses, such as preventing average citizens from accessing the Internet.

“It is intolerable that while the regime blocks its own citizens from accessing many popular social media platforms, it uses them to advance its own crude and hateful ideology,” he said.

Categories: Antisemitism, Foreign policy, International Community, Iran, Iran scam, Iranian nukes, Islam, Israel, Jews, Nukes, Obama
Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Comments: 1 Comment

Israel air strikes wiped out Russian hardware for thwarting US no-fly zone plan over Syria

December 10, 2014

Israel air strikes wiped out Russian hardware for thwarting US no-fly zone plan over Syria, DEBKAfile, December 8, 2014

Israeli_jets_of_bombing_two_installations_inside_Syria7.12.14Israel jets bombing Syrian targets

High-ranking American military sources revealed Monday, Dec. 8, that Israel’s air strikes near Damascus the day before wiped out newly-arrived Russian hardware including missiles that were dispatched post haste to help Syria and Hizballah frustrate a US plan for a no-fly zone over northern Syria.

The advanced weapons were sent over, as DEBKAfile reported exclusively Sunday, after Russian President Vladimir Putin learned that the Obama administration and the Erdogan government were close to a final draft on a joint effort to activate a no-fly zone that would bar Syrian air force traffic over northern Syria.

The Kremlin has repeatedly warned – of late in strong messages through back channels – that the establishment of a no-fly or buffer zone in any part of Syria would be treated as direct American intervention in the Syria war and result in Russian military intervention for defending the Assad regime.

According to the US-Turkish draft, American warplanes would be allowed to take off from the Turkish airbase of Incirlik in the south for operations against Syrian warplanes, assault helicopters or drones entering the no-go zone. Thus far, Ankara has only permitted US surveillance aircraft and drones the use of Incirlik for tracking the movements of Islamic State fighters in northern Syria.

The Obama administration was long deterred from implementing a no-fly zone plan by the wish to avoid riling Moscow or facing the hazards of Syria’s world-class air defense system.

But Washington was recently won over to the plan by a tacit deal with Damascus for American jets to be allowed entry to help Kurdish fighters defend their northern Syrian enclave of Kobani against capture by al Qaeda’s IS invaders.

However, the US administration turned down a Turkish demand to extend the no-fly zone from their border as far as Aleppo, Syria’s largest city, over which Syrian army forces are battling rebels and advancing slowly into the town.

The no-fly zone planned by US strategists would be narrow – between a kilometer and half a kilometer deep inside Syria. However Moscow is standing fast against any such plan and objects to US planes making free of Syrian airspace, a freedom they are now afforded over Kobani.

To drive this point home, the Russians delivered a supply of advanced anti-air missiles and radar, whose use by the Syrian army and transfer to Hizballah in Lebanon were thwarted by the Israeli air strikes Sunday.

Moscow reacted swiftly and angrily with a Note to the United Nations Monday accusing Israel of “aggressive action” and demanding “that such attacks should not happen again… Moscow is deeply worried by this dangerous development, the circumstances of which demand an explanation.”

The Assad regime has held back from reacting to past Israeli air raids for preventing advanced weaponry from reaching Hizballah. This time, spokesmen in Damascus warned that their government’s response would be clandestine and cause Israel “unimaginable harm.”

Categories: Foreign policy, Israel, No fly zone, Russia, Syria, Turkey
Tags: , , , , , ,

Comments: 4 Comments

Obama’s Christmas Gift to ISIS and Al Qaeda

December 9, 2014

Obama’s Christmas Gift to ISIS and Al Qaeda, Front Page Magazine, Daniel Greenfield, December 9, 2014

(According to an NBC News article,

Outgoing Uruguayan President José Mujica has made clear that Uruguay would not hold or restrict the six Guantanamo detainees who were recently resettled in his country.

“The first day that they want to leave, they can leave,” said Mujica in a Spanish-language interview with state television TNU.

— DM)

obama-1-419x350

Everyone likes presents; even murderous Muslim terrorists.

That must be why Obama decided to give ISIS, Hamas and Al Qaeda an early Christmas present by freeing their followers from Guantanamo Bay and dispatching them to Uruguay.

Why Uruguay? It’s one of several South American countries run by Marxist terrorists.

Uruguayan President Jose Mujica, a former Marxist terrorist, already offered to take in Syrian refugees and a number of the freed Gitmo Jihadists are Syrians who trained under the future leader of what would become ISIS. If they stay on in Uruguay, they can try to finish the job of killing the Syrian refugees resettled there. If they don’t, they can just join ISIS and kill Christian and Yazidi refugees back in Syria.

It’s a win-win situation for ISIS and Marxist terrorists; less so for their victims.

Most of the Guantanamo detainees freed by Obama were rated as presenting a high risk to America and our allies. They include a bomb maker, a trained suicide bomber, a document forger and a terrorist who had received training in everything up to RPGs and mortars.

The only thing Obama left out was the partridge in the pear tree. It probably wasn’t Halal.

These terrorists aren’t about to settle down in a country best known for its agricultural sector. There is no major demand for bomb makers to herd sheep or suicide bombers to milk cows.

Obama’s Christmas gift to Islamic terrorists includes Mohammed Tahanmatan, a Hamas terrorist who told American personnel at Gitmo that he “hates all enemies of Islam, including Americans, Jews, Christians and Muslims who do not think as he does.”

Uruguay is filled with these enemies of Islam, but so is the rest of the world. There’s no telling where Mohammed Tahanmatan will take his Jihad against Americans, Christians and Jews; he might go back to Israel or head over to Syria. Or he might just go back to Afghanistan and Pakistan to kill the American soldiers still left there.

Either way the blood of his victims will be on Obama’s hands.

And yet Mohammed Tahanmatan is the least dangerous of the terrorists freed by Barack Obama.

Ahmed Adnan Ahjam, Abd al Hadi Omar Mahmoud Faraj, Ali Husain Shaabaan and Jihad Ahmed Diyab were members of the Syrian Group which left an Assad crackdown to join Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. The Syrian Group was headed by Abu Musab al-Suri, a key ideological figure in international Jihadist circles, who was linked to multiple bombings in Europe, including one that wounded American soldiers.

The Damascus Cell of the Syrian Group was run by the uncle of Al Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi who also sat on AQIQ’s advisory council. Al Qaeda in Iraq is known today as ISIS.

Even while Obama bombs ISIS in Syria and Iraq, he releases experienced ISIS recruits from Gitmo.

Ahmed Adnan Ahjam was listed as receiving advanced training from Al Qaeda in the use of a wide range of battlefield weapons up to artillery. He will be invaluable to ISIS in its campaign in Kobani.

Obama’s present of Ahjam to ISIS will aid in genocide against the Kurds of Kobani. Ahjam was rated a “high risk” and should never have been released.

Abd al Hadi Omar Mahmoud Faraj received training at a camp run by Zarqawi providing him with an even more direct link to ISIS. He is a trained suicide bomber. ISIS will make use of him to train suicide bombers including its growing army of brainwashed and abused child soldiers.

Faraj was rated “high risk”. He should never have been released.

Ali Husain Shaabaan also trained at a Zarqawi camp. He was listed as “high risk”. Like Farj and Ahjam, there is little doubt that he will be in Syria before too long.

Jihad Ahmed Diyab is a document forger who provided documents to the Jihadist network of Abu Zubaydah linked to the bombing plot against Los Angeles International Airport, he worked with Zarqawi and associated with 9/11 terrorist recruiter Mohammed Zammar.

Jihad Diyab was not only listed as being “high risk”, but also as being of high intelligence value. He has connections to multiple Islamic terrorist groups around the world. That makes Jihad potentially the most valuable member of the Syrian Group to be released by Obama in his Christmas gift to ISIS.

ISIS will find Jihad Diyab useful for providing forged documents to smuggle its fighters into Syria and also to potentially move terrorists into Europe and America.

And yet giving this gift of Jihad to ISIS may pale next to Abdul Bin Mohammed Abis Ourgy, the final Gitmo Jihadist, who not only has many links to Muslim terrorist groups, but is a bomb maker who also trained terrorists in his explosive arts. The United States suspected that he may have even known beforehand about 9/11.

Ourgy is likely to head for North Africa and his ability to move money around will help strengthen the operations of Al Qaeda and Al Qaeda linked groups in the area. His bomb making skills will be used to train the next generation of terrorists. The blood of those they kill will be on Obama’s hands.

It goes without saying that Ourgy was listed as “high risk” and that releasing a bomb maker who will train other terrorists to build bombs is about as irresponsible as it gets.

Obama didn’t just free six more Gitmo detainees. He dumped “high risk” Jihadists with skills that make them extremely useful to ISIS and extremely dangerous to us into a country run by a former terrorist.

These terrorists are not just Al Qaeda, but the majority of them have personal links to Syria and to the network of what has become ISIS.

“We’ve offered our hospitality for human beings who have suffered a terrible kidnapping in Guantanamo,” President Jose Mujica has said, making it clear once again where his sympathies lie.

The former Marxist terrorist predictably sympathizes with the terrorists, not the terrorized. Obama might as well have given the new ISIS recruits a plane ticket directly to Istanbul. The only difference between doing that and doing what he did is plausible deniability.

As soon as the money gets wired to them from Saudi Arabia or Qatar, they’ll be at Carrasco International Airport. After a plane trip from there to Buenos Aires to Istanbul, the rest will be a jaunt across the border with a wink and a nod from friendly Turkish border guards happy that ISIS is committing the genocide that their prospective position in the European Union won’t allow them to openly carry out.

Of the terrorists released from Gitmo, 100 were confirmed as having returned to terrorism. Thanks to Obama’s Christmas present to Hamas, Al Qaeda and ISIS, that number is about to go up.

Categories: Foreign policy, Guantanamo, Iraq, Islamic State, Jihad, Obama, Syria, Terrorism
Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Comments: 7 Comments

Netanyahu’s epic understandings with Egyptian, Saudi and UAE rulers – a potential campaign weapon

December 6, 2014

Netanyahu’s epic understandings with Egyptian, Saudi and UAE rulers – a potential campaign weapon, DEBKAfile, December 6, 2014

Abdullah-al_sisiEgyptian and Saudi rulers take charge of Arab affairs

Netanyahu may or may not opt to brandish Israel’s diplomatic breakthrough to the Arab world as campaign fodder to boost his run for re-election.  Whatever he decides, the rulers of Saudi Arabia, the Arab emirates and Egypt are turning out to have acquired an interest in maintaining him in office as head of the Israeli government, in direct opposition to President Obama’s ambition to unseat him.

******************

The six Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) rulers meet in the Qatari capital of Doha next week amid high suspense across the Arab world. Its agenda is topped by moves to finally unravel the 2010 Arab Spring policy championed by US President Barack Obama, moves that also bear the imprint of extensive cooperation maintained on the quiet between Israel and key Arab rulers.

DEBKAfile reports that the Doha parley is designed to restore Egypt under the rule of President Abdel Fatteh El-Sisi to the lead role it occupied before the decline of Hosni Mubarak. Another is to root out the Muslim Brotherhood by inducing their champion, the young Qatari ruler, Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, to drop his government’s support.

At talks taking place in Riyadh ahead of the summit, Qatari officials appeared ready to discontinue the flow of weapons, funds and intelligence maintained since 2011 to the Brothers and their affiliates across the Arab world (Libya, Egypt, Syria, Jordan and Hamas-ruled Gaza), as well shutting down the El Jazeera TV network – or at least stopping the channel’s use as the Brotherhood’s main propaganda platform.

The Doha summit is designed to crown a historic effort led by Saudi King Abdullah, UAE ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed and President El-Sisi to undo the effects of the Obama administration’s support for elements dedicated to the removal of conservative Arab rulers, such as the Brotherhood.

They have found a key ally in this drive in Israel’s Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who took advantage of the chance of an epic breakthrough in relations with the leading bloc of Arab nations, with immediate and far-reaching effect on Israeli security and its standing in the region.

Yet at the same time, Netanyahu has kept this feat under his hat – even while smarting under a vicious assault by his detractors – ex-finance minister Yair Lapid and opposition leader Yakov Herzog of Labor – on his personal authority and leadership credibility (“everything is stuck,” “he’s out of touch.”) and obliged to cut short the life of his government for a general election on March 17.

He faces the voter with the secret still in his pocket of having achieved close coordination with the most important Arab leaders – not just on the Iranian nuclear issue and the Syrian conflict, but also the Palestinian question, which has throughout Israel’s history bedeviled its ties with the Arab world.

When Yair Lapid, whom Netanyahu sacked this week, boasted, “I am talking to the Americans” while accusing the prime minister of messing up ties with Washington, he meant he was talking to the Americans close to Barack Obama, whom Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi, hand in hand with Netanyahu, have judged adverse to their regimes.

This Arab-Israeli collaboration encompasses too many areas to keep completely hidden. Its fruits have begun breaking surface in a string of events.

This week, Israel apparently out of the blue, quietly agreed to Egypt deploying 13 army battalions in Sinai (demilitarized under their 1979 peace treaty), including tanks, and flying fighter jets over terrorist targets.

A joint Saudi-Israeli diplomatic operation was instrumental in obstructing a US-Iran deal on Tehran’s nuclear program.

Another key arena of cooperation is Jerusalem.

Friday, Dec. 5, Jordan announced the appointment of 75 new guards for the Al Aqsa Mosque compound on Temple Mount. The director of the mosque, Sheikh Omar al-Kiswani, said they will begin work in the coming days.

This was the outcome of Jordanian King Abdullah’s talks with the Egyptian president in Cairo Sunday, Nov. 30, in which they agreed that the Muslim Waqf Authority on Temple Mount must change its mode of conduct and replace with new staff the violent elements from Hamas, the Al Tahrir movement and Israeli Arab Islamists, which had taken charge of “security.”.

The Moslem attacks from the Mount on Jewish worshippers praying at the Western Wall below and Israeli police have accordingly ceased in the two weeks since Israel lifted its age restrictions on Muslim worshippers attending Friday prayers at Al Aqsa. Israel groups advocating the right to Jewish prayer on Temple Mount were discreetly advised to cool their public campaign.

The Palestinian riots plaguing Jerusalem for months have died down, except for isolated instances, since, as DEBKAfile revealed, Saudi and Gulf funds were funneled to pacify the city’s restive Palestinian neighborhoods.

Cairo and the Gulf emirates have used their influence with Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas to get him to moderate his invective against Israel and its prime minister, and slow his applications for Palestinian membership of international bodies as platforms for campaigning against the Jewish state.

Concerned by the way the mainstream Arab world was marginalizing the Palestinian question, Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal chose his moment Friday – ahead of the White House meeting between the Jordanian monarch and President Obama – to try and re-ignite the flames of violence in Jerusalem. He went unheeded.

Netanyahu may or may not opt to brandish Israel’s diplomatic breakthrough to the Arab world as campaign fodder to boost his run for re-election.  Whatever he decides, the rulers of Saudi Arabia, the Arab emirates and Egypt are turning out to have acquired an interest in maintaining him in office as head of the Israeli government, in direct opposition to President Obama’s ambition to unseat him.

Categories: Abbas, Foreign policy, Gaza, Hamas, Iran, Iranian nukes, Israel, Jerusalem, Leftists, Netanyahu, Obama, Peace process, Saudi Arabia, Sisi, Syria
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

Can President Obama Pass Disraeli’s Test?

December 5, 2014

Can President Obama Pass Disraeli’s Test? American Thinker, Ken Blackwell and Bob Morrison, December 5, 2014

(Please see also Reports: Obama Mulling Sanctions on Israel. — DM)

Applying the Disraeli Test to this administration, President Obama’s policies fail on every count. No wonder our present foreign policy seems to stray so far from true American principles and interests.

***************

British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli famously said: “The Lord deals with the nations as the nations deal with the Jews.” Winston Churchill was an avid student of Disraeli’s “Tory Democracy” and passed Disraeli’s test easily, as Steven Hayward wrote recently in the Weekly Standard.

This raises a most interesting question: How would President Obama fare on a Disraeli test? His policy toward the Jewish State of Israel leads us to question whether this outstanding student, this graduate of Columbia University and Harvard Law School, could pass a simple, three-question test suggested by one of the Nineteenth Century’s leading statesmen.

President Obama made it a point to skirt around Israel during the entire four years of his first term, while making it his point to go to Turkey, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia in those years.

First, what about Turkey? In 2009, President Obama congratulated that secular republic on its commitment to democratic rule. Turkey is the only member of NATO with a Muslim majority. As such, Turkey’s 50-year alliance with the U.S. and its longtime support for Israel — the only Muslim land in the Near East to give such support — were certainly an important factor worthy of consideration in U.S. foreign policy. But under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey has moved farther and farther away from the United States and closer to Russia.

As to Israel, Turkey has become a leading sympathizer of the Hamas terrorist-led regime in Gaza, attempting to run the Israeli blockade of Gaza and charging Israel with violating the human rights of the Arabs of Palestine. Interestingly, while Israel formally supports the idea of statehood for Palestinian Arabs, Turkey denies statehood for its hugeKurdish minority of 20 million. In fact, the Kurds are by far the largest ethnic group in the Mideast denied a state.

Does President Obama hold the Turks to the same standard that he applies to the Israelis? Not at all. He has not begun to press the Turks on Kurdish rights. Until 2000, it was illegal for a person holding Turkish citizenship to identify himself as a Kurd. Contrast this with Israel, where Arabs not only can so identify, they actually sit in the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, as Arabs and form legal Arab political parties.

Now, what of this administration’s view of Egypt? President Obama speedily recognized the Muslim Brotherhood-dominated government in Egypt headed by Mohamed Morsi. Morsi — educated in the U.S. but strongly rejecting American principles of religious liberty and constitutional government — quickly brought Egypt to the brink of chaos. Morsi planned a visit to the U.S. — one eagerly anticipated by the Obama administration — even though Morsi announced he would press the White House to pardon a terrorist.

Morsi wanted Obama to release Sheikh Omar Abdul Rahman, in prison for his part in the first terrorist attack on the World Trade Center. That attack killed seven Americans in 1993.

National Review’s Andrew C. McCarthy provided this stunning profile of Mr. Obama’s obeisance to the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.

Reports that the State Department was discussing a transfer of the Blind Sheikh back to Egypt surfaced months ago, in the context of a potential swap for democracy activists the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces was then detaining. The administration then issued a visa to Hani Nour Eldin, a member of the Islamic Group — the Blind Sheikh’s terrorist organization, to which it is a felony to provide material assistance. The purpose was to invite Eldin to, yes, the White House, for consultations with top American national-security officials on prospective relations between the United States and the new, Islamist Egypt. As the administration had to know he would do, he pressed his top agenda item: The United States must return the Blind Sheikh as a “gift to the revolution.”

Fully willing to give hundreds of millions in U.S. aid to Morsi, Mr. Obama promptly yanked that aid when Egypt’s military finally pulled the plug on the Muslim Brotherhood’s misrule in Egypt.

That leaves Saudi Arabia as the final question in Mr. Obama’s “Disraeli Test.” It is illegal for a Jew to live in Saudi Arabia. Any Saudi national who converts to Judaism is beheaded for apostasy. In February, 1945, President Roosevelt appealed to Saudi Arabia’s founding monarch, Abdulazziz, for the Jewish survivors of the Holocaust. Even then, the Saudis were unyielding. FDR, hoping to touch the desert despot’s heart, told him that three million Jews had been murdered in Poland. It was one of the first confirmations by a world statesman of the plight of European Jewry. Abdulazziz’s reaction to this horrific news? There was obviously no need for a Jewish state in the Mideast since there would now be plenty of room for Europe’s surviving Jews — in Poland!

Despite this history of no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, no compromise with Israel, President Obama shamefully bowed to the King of Saudi Arabia. No American president had ever bowed to anyone before.

Applying the Disraeli Test to this administration, President Obama’s policies fail on every count. No wonder our present foreign policy seems to stray so far from true American principles and interests.

 

Categories: Egypt, Foreign policy, Hamas, Israel, Obama, Saudi Arabia, Turkey
Tags: , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

Is the Islamic State finding refuge in Turkey?

December 3, 2014

Is the Islamic State finding refuge in Turkey? Al-Monitor, Ahmet Insel, December 2, 2014

(Please see also The new Ottoman Emperor. — DM)

According to the Kobani watchers in Caykara [Mahzer] village, Islamic State (IS) forces crossed from Turkey and attacked the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) forces controlling the Syrian side of Mursitpinar border, crossing from the rear. IS badly wants to capture the crossing.

Did the IS car bomb attack at Mursitpinar Saturday morning [Nov. 29] originate from Turkey? Information provided by official sources about how the attack was carried out is murky. The Mahzer crowd congregating directly behind the Mursitpinar crossing insist the bomb-laden vehicle came from Turkey, broke the lock on the gate and crossed to Syria.

Even more interesting are reports that the presence of IS elements in Turkey is not confined to this attack. People who had to abandon their homes in the Mursitpinar area and settle in nearby villages because of security reasons say IS has been entering the houses they had to abandon.

Egrice [Betke] village is about a kilometer from the border. There are 18 native households plus 12 families that came over from Syria. Native villagers are also hosting a few families who had to evacuate their homes in Etmenek near Mursitpinar in Turkey. If you talk to these people from Etmenek you will hear that IS militants have been crossing the border at will and entering the abandoned buildings and even staying in them. One Etmenek villager said, “My uncle’s house is near my house. Although it is banned, we sometimes go over to our homes and then return here. When I went there last time I saw IS people in my uncle’s house.” Another villager also claimed his house was taken over by IS.

You hear similar accounts from the Caykara-Mahzer crowd who hail from Kucuk Ermenek. Some say Turkish soldiers are at one end of the village and IS militants at the other. We are talking about settlements on the Turkish side around Mursitpinar and its fringes. IS taking over Soil Products Office silos along the border and firing down on YPG forces from [inside] is not the only case of IS militarily violating the Turkish border.

At Egrice village you can see hundreds of cars Kobani refugees were not allowed to bring with them to Turkey. In the same place you also see cattle herds which are not allowed to cross to Turkey because of risk of foot and mouth disease. Villagers say the animals are slowly dying and IS elements frequently come to the car park and take any vehicle they want. Villagers say they send their children to take care of the animals and Turkey has been providing them with animal feed.

On top of the water tower you can see the IS flag. According to refugees from Kobani, the Syrian side of the border, from Mursitpinar to Akcakale, is under the control of IS.

Those who constantly watch the border from Caykara insist that IS had attacked YPG from the rear by crossing the border from Turkey. For them, the lack of intervention by the Turkish military tasked with border security is a sign that Turkey prefers to have IS control the border crossing.

But even more worrying are the allegations that IS people have been freely entering abandoned houses on the Turkish side. There is no need to elaborate what kind of security fears this causes in the region and how it amplifies the distrust felt for security forces. Contradictory statements by senior civil servants and their ignoring of eyewitness accounts only intensify people’s lack of confidence.

As much as it is important to provide a full and clear explanation of the attack at the Mursitpinar crossing, it’s vital to give proper responses to claims that IS militants are freely entering and leaving Mursitpinar and its fringes.

 

Categories: Foreign policy, Islamic State, Kurdish refugees, Turkey
Tags: , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

Humor: By Executive Action, Obama’s life and glory will be soon be presented in a ballet

December 2, 2014

By Executive Action, Obama’s life and glory will be soon be presented in a ballet, Dan Miller’s Blog, December 1, 2014

(Please see also Imagine a World Without America? Obama Can — DM)

A ballet depicting the life and glory of their hero, Hugo Chavez, is the current rage among all good Chavistas. Barack Humble Obama, who has brought us greater peace, prosperity, happiness and even laughter than Chavez ever did, deserves far better.

 

By Presidential Memorandum released on December 1st, Obama directed:

Presidential Memorandum re. public acknowledgment  of My unsurpassed greatness, December First, Year the sixth of the reign of Obama:

By virtue of the authority vested in Me as the Dear Leader of the True American Revolution, We I hereby direct all Federal entities, and request all significant stakeholders, to collaborate in the creation of a ballet to memorialize My uniquely outstanding magnificence, particularly as shown through My numerous  successes.

To that noble end, all Federal Agencies and Departments shall first consider among themselves and, with the voluntary cooperation of all significant stakeholders — including all State and local governmental entities, non-governmental organizations and other interested parties —  shall further consider the highly treasured successes I have bestowed upon them and upon My adoring people:

♥ Vastly improved health care;

♥ Unprecedented governmental transparency;

♥ A massively stimulated national economy;

♥ Uniquely clean Government with no hint of scandal or waste;

♥ Heroic advances in social justice;

♥ Tremendously improved race and multicultural relations;

♥ Greatly diminished White privilege;

♥ My historically unique approach to foreign policy, which has united many of our allies and former enemies; and

♥ Many others which We are I am far too humble to mention here.

As soon as the ballet has been written and I have approved it, it shall be featured by all mass media outlets during prime time and performed in all cities and towns throughout My domain that have suitable facilities. Places unfortunately lacking such facilities are authorized and requested to apply promptly for appropriate Federal grants. My Department of Homeland Security, as well as all other relevant Federal departments and agencies, are directed to approve them expeditiously.

The ballet shall be presented each year on the twentieth day of January, which I shall soon declare a national holiday by Executive Order.

Upon reviewing the Presidential Memorandum with their customary diligence, MSNBC, NBC, CNN, ABC and CBS offered high praise for Obama’s grand initiative. Using a ballet to remind everyone in the United States of Obama of what He has done to for them was seen not only as a true masterstroke but as His most masterful yet, sure to win the hearts and minds of even His most obstructionist opponents.

They suggested that the construction of much needed theatrical facilities throughout the entire country, in places now sadly deprived of the cultural enrichment they bring, will further stimulate our already vastly improved economy. They also suggested that necessary funding be stripped from all warmongering activities of the U.S. military, sparing only funds needed to improve gender equality and multicultural advances.

Faux News had little to say beyond suggesting that such a ballet should be produced after, rather than during, Obama’s term of office. Republican House Speaker Boehner contended that too many horror shows featuring Obama are already broadcast on national television and cable and that, for that reason, no Federal funds should be wasted on Obama’s grand initiative. However, he stated that no shutdown of the Federal Government is now contemplated in response. Some right wing activists terrorists suggested that, as an alternative to Obama’s grand initiative, the Little Abner musical, which they had enjoyed years ago when they were children, should be presented on national television, including all cable channels.

 

It would be gratifying for all to learn, through the medium of ballet, that the country is now in even better hands than ever before.

Categories: Domestic policy, Foreign policy, Humor, Ideology, International Community, Islam, Obama
Tags: , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

Newer Entries »