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UN peacekeepers to protect world heritage sites from ISIS attacks

October 18, 2015

UN peacekeepers to protect world heritage sites from ISIS attacks

Published time: 17 Oct, 2015 21:02

Source: UN peacekeepers to protect world heritage sites from ISIS attacks — RT News

The Temple of Bel at the historical city of Palmyra © Omar Sanadiki
The Temple of Bel at the historical city of Palmyra © Omar Sanadiki / Reuters
UNESCO has approved Italy’s proposal to send UN peacekeepers to protect heritage sites around the world from various threats, primarily from terrorist attacks and destruction by militants.

“UNESCO has said yes to the Cultural Blue Helmets,” Italian culture minister, Dario Franceschini, said adding that 53 countries alongside UN Security Council members supported the suggestion in the light of the destruction of cultural sites, including Syria’s Palmyra, by Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) militants.

“Faced with IS terrorist attacks and the terrible images of Palmyra, the international community cannot stand back and watch,” Franceschini stressed as quoted by AFP.

View image on Twitter

According to the minister, potential new UN peacekeeping mission would aim to protect “important sites at risk from terrorist attacks, or in war zones, or zones hit by natural disasters, where the international community will be able to send Cultural Blue Helmets to … defend them before they can be destroyed.”

Franceschini also called on the United Nations to “immediately define the operational aspects of this international task force.”

Italy has been calling for the formation of a “blue helmets of culture” group since late March. At that time, Franceschini said that protecting world’s cultural heritage could not be left to an individual state, stressing that “an international rapid response force” was needed “to defend monuments and archaeological sites in conflict zones.”

In April, UNESCO Director-General, Irina Bokova, urged the Security Council to add the protection of cultural sites to the list of tasks for UN peacekeeping forces.

View image on Twitter

However, the threat to cultural sites comes not only from Islamic State but also from other conflicts around the world. On Friday, Irina Bokova expressed her concern over the escalation of violence against cultural and religious heritage in the Middle East and condemned the arson committed against Joseph’s Tomb in West Bank.

“Cultural and religious heritage embodies values that transcend the lines of culture and faith. Nothing can justify their violation,” she said in an official statement.

In a recent interview with RT, the UNESCO chief called the “cultural cleansing” of the Middle East conducted by Islamic State “a human tragedy.”

When someone “persecutes people on the basis of their ethnicity or religion, destroys their monuments, their temples, deprives them of their intangible heritage, attacks their identities – they stop being humane,” she said.

She also stressed that protecting cultural site was “not only about monuments, they are linked to human lives; it is part of the people’s identities.”

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United Nations Apologists for Deadly Palestinian Violence

October 18, 2015

United Nations Apologists for Deadly Palestinian Violence

By Joseph A. Klein

Bio and Archives October 18, 2015

Source: United Nations Apologists for Deadly Palestinian Violence

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On the same day as Palestinians torched a site containing Joseph’s Tomb in the Palestinian Authority-controlled West Bank city of Nablus, the United Nations Security Council held an “emergency” session to address the escalating violence in Jerusalem and the West Bank.  The October 16th meeting was called by Jordan, a non-permanent member of the Security Council. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu has expressed his willingness to meet with the Palestinian leadership and resume peace talks immediately without preconditions, in order to bring calm to the region. The Palestinian leadership’s response was to have Jordan act as their promoter-in-chief and call on the Security Council to hold the “emergency” meeting for the purpose essentially of condemning Israel and rationalizing the Palestinian killing spree.

Mr. Tayé-Brook Zerihoun, Assistant Secretary General for Political Affairs, briefed the Security Council on the latest developments. Although strongly condemning the attack on Joseph’s Tomb, Mr. Zerihoun tried to explain away the wave of Palestinian violence in general as stemming from the “persistence of the occupation and the diminishing prospects of achieving Palestinian aspirations for statehood.” He also threw in the “continued and expanding settlement activities” as contributing “to the anger and frustration driving the violence we are seeing today.” Finally, he added the widespread unfounded fears in the Muslim world that “Israel is aiming to change the status quo at the holy sites.”

There is no justification whatsoever for random stabbings of innocent civilians including children, women and the elderly. But that is exactly what Palestinian assailants have been doing while the so-called “international community” looks the other way. Israel has every right to use whatever means of restraint it deems necessary to protect its own civilians from such harm. Indeed, that is the first obligation of any responsible state – to defend its own citizens.  Yet vacuous phrases such as “collective punishment” and “violations of international law” are thrown at Israel for trying to contain the violence instigated by Palestinian thugs.

Mr. Zerihoun acknowledged the “impact of social media and irresponsible rhetoric” in playing “a dramatic role in escalation.” However, he failed to reference the incontrovertible evidence that the abuse of social media and irresponsible rhetoric to incite violence are coming almost exclusively from the Palestinian side, not the Israeli side. Instead, Mr. Zerihoun disgracefully indulged in the UN’s typical moral equivalence narrative, saying that “both sides have much to be blamed for.”

As just one example of the incitement to violence appearing on social media posted by Palestinians or their sympathizers, the following tweet was posted recently under the hashtag “The Intifada Has Started”: “There is no greater reward in Islam than the one given for jihad, and there is no greater reward than the one given for #Slaughtering_the_Jews… Kill them wherever you find them.” (Source: The Middle East Media Research Institute [MEMRI])

Tutorials on how to most effectively stab Jews to death

There are also tutorials on how to most effectively stab Jews to death. For instance, in a tweet posted from an individual in Gaza under the hashtag ” Poison The Knife Before You Stab,” the following ghastly advice was offered: “Dip [your] knife in an active poison before carrying out [a stabbing], so that even if the knife does not manage [to kill], the poison will do the job.” (Source: MEMRI)

Another gives elaborate instructions on how to stab a Jew, illustrated by a graphic anatomical diagram with protruding knives.

The issue used on social media to fire up the Palestinian assailants involves the false rumors about alleged Israeli plans to change the status quo at the Temple Mount or, as Muslims refer to it, Haram al-Sharif. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu has repeatedly stated that Israel is fully committed to maintaining the status quo at the compound. But that has not stopped exploitation of the false rumors by social media and by Palestinian leaders including Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

Abbas’s lies and incitements to violence

Here is one recent example of the big lie propagated by Abbas, delivered in a speech on Palestinian TV on October 14th:

“These days Israel’s hostile attack on our Palestinian people, its soil and its holy sites is intensifying, and the savage racism in its ugly form adds hideousness and repulsiveness to the occupation. These pose a threat to peace and stability and herald the lighting of the fuse of a religious conflict that will spark an all-consuming conflagration not only in the [Middle East] region but in the entire world.”

“We say explicitly and unequivocally that we will not agree to a change in the status quo in the blessed Al-Aqsa and we will not allow Israel to carry out any plot intended to damage its sanctity and its purely Islamic [character]. The right [over Al-Qasa] is our exclusive right – Palestinians and Muslims everywhere. We seek rights, justice and peace. We have attacked nobody and we will not agree to attacks on our people, our homeland and our holy sites.” (Source: MEMRI)

Abbas also lied in accusing Israel of “executing” in cold blood a 13 year old “child.” The Palestinian boy is in fact alive and being treated in an Israeli hospital. And he was no innocent victim caught in the crossfire. He had stabbed an Israeli boy his own age who was riding along on his bicycle.

Abbas’s lies and incitements to violence are to be expected. That’s what Palestinian leaders do. However, even worse, the Palestinian leaders are getting cover for their lies from the so-called “international community” as represented at the United Nations. For example, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein blamed the escalating tension on various Israeli actions, including “the ongoing settlement expansion” and “recent restrictions imposed by the Israeli authorities on Palestinian worshippers wishing to access the Al-Aqsa compound.”

While other UN officials such as Deputy Secretary Tayé-Brook Zerihoun denounce the use of social media to incite or glorify violence, there is disturbing evidence that personnel working at the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) are guilty of doing just that.  UN Watch has issued a report, which it sent to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and UNRWA chief Pierre Krähenbühl, compiling examples of hate-filled social media posts by individuals claiming to work for UNRWA. Here is a sampling from the UN Watch report:

  1. “Stab Zionist Dogs” – caption to a cartoon posted by self-describe d “Projects Support Assistant at UNRWA”
  2. Video demonstrating use of guns, knives and Molotov cocktails – posted by individual who said he “works at UNRWA”
  3. Video of “mosque sermon in which Sheikh Abu Rajab pulled out a knife and, with violent stabbing motions, exhorted Palestinians to murder Jews in the name of Islam” – posted by self-described “teacher at UNRWA”
  4. “Mohammed Assaf, UNRWA’s ‘Youth Ambassador’ and most famous personality — an ‘Arab Idol’ winner who is a key fundraiser and face of the organization, appointed by UNRWA’s Commissioner-General — has been using his UN imprimatur to glorify violence throughout his Facebook timeline” including display of “three Palestinian youths who attacked Israeli Jews.” The Palestinians are referred to as “shahid,” which means martyrs.

UNRWA might as well change its name to the Palestinian Propaganda Agency

UNRWA might as well change its name to the Palestinian Propaganda Agency. Originally established as a temporary relief agency for displaced Palestinians with the objective of resettling them in communities willing to receive them, UNRWA has morphed into a permanent Palestinian advocacy fixture. Its clientele today are some 5 million registered Palestine “refugees,” most of whom are descendants separated by several generations from the actual refugees who left their homes when Israel was created and who were supposed to have been resettled and integrated into their new communities. UNRWA intends to stay in business until as many of the 5 million so-called “refugees” as possible can return “home” from Jordan where they are already citizens of that Palestinian majority country and from Lebanon, Syria, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. “Home” to UNRWA and its clientele is not limited to just a new state bordering Israel along essentially the pre-1967 lines. It also means the “refugees’” claimed “right of return” to lands encompassing pre-1967 Israel.

Against that backdrop, consider UNRWA’s rationalization for the recent spurt of Palestinian violence:

“The root causes of the conflict, among them the Israeli occupation, must be addressed. Across the occupied Palestinian territory there is a pervasive sense of hopelessness and despair resulting from the denial of rights and dignity… An entire generation of Palestinians is at risk.”

UNRWA officially condemned Israel’s response to the violence initiated by Palestinian assailants, who have been lionized by self-proclaimed UNRWA personnel in their social media postings. When Palestinian assailants die or are injured after Israeli security forces respond to quell the violence and take down the murderous aggressors, the Palestinians, we are told,  were simply acting on their understandable anger born of “hopelessness” and “frustration.” Israeli security forces are accused of using “excessive” force even as they themselves are attacked when trying to defend their own lives and the lives of innocent civilians.

Violence is not the Palestinians’ last resort, born of frustration after seeing that nothing else has worked. It is the Palestinians’ first reflexive action in dealing with their own self-inflicted plight. The Palestinians regularly lie to the world with their propaganda campaign aimed at exonerating themselves of all responsibility and at delegitimizing the Jewish State of Israel. The United Nations establishment serves as their apologist and enabler

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Corruption Rears its Head Again at the United Nations

October 14, 2015

Corruption Rears its Head Again at the United Nations Bribery: Business as usual at the UN.

October 14, 2015 Joseph Klein

Source: Corruption Rears its Head Again at the United Nations | Frontpage Mag

In announcing bribery and tax fraud charges last week against former United Nations General Assembly President John Ashe, U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said that “John Ashe, the 68th president of the U.N. General Assembly, sold himself and the global institution he led.” Moreover, the U.S. Attorney put the UN on notice that his investigation was not over. “We will be asking: Is bribery business-as-usual at the U.N.?” he said.

UN Secretary General spokesperson Stephane Dujarric took umbrage at the U.S. Attorney’s “business-as-usual” remark, telling reporters that “corruption is not business as usual at the U.N.” He also said that Secretary General Ban Ki-moon was “shocked and deeply troubled” by the allegations against Mr. Ashe. “The Secretary-General reaffirms that there will be no tolerance for any corruption at the United Nations or in the name of the United Nations,” Mr. Dujarric added.

In view of the pervasive pattern of past corruption at the UN, including most notably the oil-for-food scandal, procurement scandals and multiple allegations of sexual exploitation of civilians by UN peacekeepers assigned to protect them, the UN has been knee deep in wrongdoing for years. The current scandal fits the pattern.  Indeed, the UN bureaucracy responded to the latest scandal with the same modus operandi it has used previously – first, to sweep it under the rug, then to pretend it is an isolated occurrence not involving the UN system and then belatedly to initiate an internal review.

The federal complaint announced by U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara last week was brought against six individuals including Mr. Ashe, who served as the UN ambassador from the country of Antigua and Barbuda before taking the post of UN General Assembly president during the 2013-2014 session. The complaint charged, among other things, that Mr. Ashe received over a million dollars of cash payments, some of which he used to pay for lavish “personal expenses,” from a Chinese real estate developer, Ng Lap Seng. Mr. Ng Seng’s company, the Sun Kian Ip Group, was allegedly looking for favors to help its real estate business in Macau China. In particular, according to the complaint, Mr. Ashe was tasked to facilitate obtaining official UN approval for the building of a permanent multibillion-dollar UN-sponsored conference center in Macau that would have benefited the Sun Kian Ip Group. In exchange for the alleged bribes he received, Mr. Ashe submitted an official UN document to the Secretary General claiming there was a purported need to build the expensive UN Macau Conference Center. Mr. Ng Seng allegedly used the letter to promote his proposed conference center, which could be used to host events focused on what is known in UN parlance as South-South cooperation.  South-South cooperation is a buzzword used to describe programs among developing countries to share knowledge, skills, expertise and resources to meet their development goals through concerted efforts.  The UN has made this a priority as part of the global effort to implement the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development adopted by world leaders at the United Nations Sustainable Development Summit on September 25, 2015. The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development includes a set of 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and 169 targets aimed at supposedly ending poverty, fighting inequality and injustice, promoting sustainable consumption and production patterns, promoting good governance and tackling climate change by 2030.

At first, Mr. Dujarric, the UN spokesperson, tried to distance the UN system from the allegations against John Ashe, claiming that they involved a former president of the General Assembly who does not answer to the Secretary General. The UN Secretariat, he said, did not have the power or mandate “to investigate individuals or entities that weren’t considered staff or part of the official UN umbrella.” A day later, however, Mr. Dujarric announced a change in course. He told reporters that the Secretary General had decided to request that the UN’s Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) launch an audit of the interaction between the United Nations and the Sun Kian Ip Group as well as with a foundation known as the Global Sustainability Foundation, whose leader was also charged with having alleged corrupt dealings with Mr. Ashe. But before anyone thinks the UN is taking this matter seriously, consider this distinction drawn by a deputy UN spokesperson a few days later: “It’s not really an inquiry. It’s an audit.”

The UN bureaucracy is continuing to hide behind a veil of secrecy rather than demonstrate the full transparency that it lectures everyone else about. A full-fledged investigation is overdue since Mr. Ng Seng’s company through his foundation has financial ties directly with the UN Secretariat. Mr. Ng Seng may have used Mr. Ashe to facilitate his business interests involving the UN and paid him for his services. But he also put his hooks into the UN Secretariat itself.

In fact, Mr. Ng Seng, who himself was arrested last month for lying about his plans for $4.5 million in cash he had brought into the U.S. over several years aboard private jets, had six months earlier signed a funding agreement with the Director of the UN Office for South-South Cooperation at the time,  Mr. Yiping Zhou. Under the agreement, Mr. Ng Seng’s company (or the foundation bearing his company’s name) would contribute $5 million a year for three consecutive years to a UN multi-partner trust fund to be set up by the UN Office for South-South Cooperation.  In August, just a month before his arrest, Mr. Ng Seng appeared along with Mr. Zhou, who called the Sun Kian Ip Group foundation “our partner,” and with Mr. Ashe, the foundation’s honorary co-chairman, at a co-branded High-level Multi-stakeholders Strategy Forum on South-South Cooperation for Sustainable Development held in Macau. The United Nations used $1.5 million contributed by the Sun Kian Ip Group to help pay for the conference.

The UN Office for South-South Cooperation is now trying to play damage control. According to an Associated Press report, the office is rejecting the remainder of the $15 million total offer from the Sun Kian Ip Group. The UN office also claimed it sent a team to Macau in April 2015, a month after it had signed the funding contribution agreement, to do due diligence on the foundation and found nothing unsuitable. However, this is very curious considering that the UN Global Compact, a self-declared voluntary initiative based on CEO commitments to implement universal sustainability principles and to take steps to support UN goals, had expelled the Sun Kian Ip Group in early April for failing to report its activities two years in a row.

The Sun Kian Ip Group foundation does not appear to have filed tax forms in the U.S., even though it has maintained a New York City address. At minimum, the UN Office for South-South Cooperation should have checked the public record to confirm whether appropriate tax forms were filed by a foundation maintaining a New York City address before agreeing to accept monies that might have been derived from illicit activities and conceivably contributed to the UN office at its New York City headquarters for the purpose of buying influence.

In contrast to the UN Office for South-South Cooperation’s minimal due diligence, the Las Vegas Sands Corporation had commissioned a background investigatory report on Mr. Ng Seng as far back as 2010.  Sands was advised in the report to be wary of “red flags” regarding Mr. Ng Seng and to proceed with “extreme caution” in any dealings with him. As mentioned in the report, large donations he had reportedly made to President Bill Clinton’s team in the 1990’s were reportedly later returned. This may have been because of concerns raised in the media about the origin of the funds, which were said to have possibility been linked to criminal activities including the international slave prostitution trade, although Mr. Ng Seng did not have a past criminal record.

Now the law has caught up with the UN’s donor, Mr. Ng Seng, who was arrested last month in the United States on charges of bringing monies into the United States under false pretenses. Most disturbingly, the UN Office for South-South Cooperation appears to have done nothing to re-examine its relationship with Mr. Ng Seng’s company or foundation between the time that Mr. Ng Seng was arrested in September and when the criminal complaint against the former president of the UN General Assembly and his ties to Mr. Ng Seng were made public last week. The UN office was afforded an opportunity to explain this apparent lapse, which would have been included in this article, but it failed to do so despite multiple requests. It is reasonable to infer from the UN’s business-as-usual attitude that it was prepared to take the entire $15 million from the Sun Kian Ip Group and pretend nothing had happened until that stance was no longer tenable in light of the revelation of the criminal complaint linking Mr. Ng Seng to the former president of the UN General Assembly.

Jorge Chediek, the current Director of the UN Office for South-South Cooperation, did tell the Associated Press that his office is conducting an internal review of “all details of relationships” with the Sun Kian Ip Group foundation as well as with the Global Sustainability Foundation. According to the Associated Press report, “Chediek said the [Sun Kian Ip Group] foundation’s $15 million offer was ‘never operational’ beyond the $1.5 million his office used. He said all of the $1.5 million had been accounted for, with no evidence found of misuse.” Mr. Chediek added that “we are reviewing our whole partnership strategy.” That is little more than closing the gate after the horse has left the barn.

The UN’s “partnership strategy” to date has evidently been to take money for its causes from any source, no questions asked. A for-profit Las Vegas hotel-casino company had enough concerns to mount a background check on Mr. Ng Seng before entering into a potential business relationship with him five years ago. The investigation report raised “red flags” and advised “extreme caution.” Yet the UN Office for South-South Cooperation, which operates under the aegis of the Secretary General, blindly accepted contributions from Mr. Ng Seng’s foundation. In doing so, the UN system quite possibly helped him to disguise the source of monies that might have been derived from criminal activity if any, potentially evade taxes on business income and at the same time buy influence at the UN for his personal business benefit.

One of the UN’s targets in meeting its highly publicized Sustainable Development Goals is to “substantially reduce corruption and bribery in all their forms.”  Another target is to “develop effective, accountable and transparent institutions at all levels.” The UN establishment would do well to lead by example. The latest corruption scandal indicates it is woefully unprepared to do so.

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The cipher in the White House

October 11, 2015

The cipher in the White House, Washington Times, Wesley Pruden, October 8, 2015

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Mr. Obama, humiliated by Vladimir Putin’s seizure of the initiative in the Middle East, seems not to understand what has happened to him. No one fears him or respects him. He has become a harmless cipher in an empty suit in the affairs of serious men. The nation pays the price.

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ANALYSIS/OPINION:

Perhaps it’s not fair to blame Barack Obama for the mess he’s making. The Middle East is where chaos was invented, after all, and perhaps not even the collection of incompetents and boobs the president has installed in the White House could make things this bad. Maybe it’s someone else’s fault. He blames the Jews.

When Mr. Obama promised the United Nations General Assembly earlier this month “a different type of leadership,” he prescribed “a leadership strong enough to recognize that nations share common interests and people share a common humanity.” That’s all very nice, and Mr. Obama should buy the world a Coke (or at least a Perrier in a glass bottle). He may have a profitable post-White House career waiting for him writing treacle for greeting cards.

Well-meaning he may be (or not), but he doesn’t have a clue about how such leadership would deal with people who do not share the common humanity. Some people have no humanity, but are the bastard progeny of an alien species of an evil planet in a cosmos, far, far away from our own.

Israel, which has seen pain and death in every guise, was stunned this week by a round of stabbings and shootings, including the murder of an American and his Israeli wife, seated in their car on the road near Nablus, by Palestinian gunmen who required their four children — aged 9, 7, 4 and 4 months — watch while their mother and father bled out their lives. The brutes fled, leaving the terrified children to deal with the terror and the gruesome aftermath of unspeakable cruelty.

The Palestinians celebrated the slaying with what Palestinian newspapers described as “joy” over the “heroics” of the gunmen. They put up photographs of their grim work on Twitter and Facebook. In Washington, the government of the “leader from behind” said it was “monitoring” the violence with a “growing sense of alarm.” The leader from behind hoped the perpetrators would be “swiftly brought to justice.”

Senior officials at the White House viewed with alarm, and pointed with pride at the moral equivalence served at the State Department. “We are deeply concerned about recent violence and escalating tensions in the West Bank and Jerusalem, and we condemn in the strongest terms violence against Israeli and Palestinian civilians.”

And then, with its reserves of decency spent, comes the “but” that everyone knew was on the way. “We call upon all parties to take affirmative steps to restore calm, and refrain from actions and rhetoric that would further escalate tensions.” Memo to Israel: “This means you.” Those parents with their four children should have known their presence on the road was a provocation. Why else assess the not-so-subtle blame for both killer and prey? The super-sleuths in Foggy Bottom are still trying to figure out whether the slaying of the couple on the road, with their four children watching, was an “act of terror.” Why not ask the 9-year-old?

President Obama and his friends dismiss as canard the logical conclusion of a reasonable man that this president just doesn’t like Jews very much, and scorns Israelis in particular.

Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu demonstrated with devastating effect his dilemma in getting a fair hearing for Israel at the U.N. When he observed that only 70 years after the Holocaust, Iran, guaranteed by Mr. Obama’s deal to get a nuclear bomb, threatens anew to annihilate the Jewish state. There was no response from the General Assembly audience — not a cheer, not even a rumble of applause, nothing but the silence of frightened churls. Mr. Netanyahu did not disturb the silence while 44 seconds ticked off the clock. The only movement in the hall was the squirming in the ranks of the West by the occasional delegate with still a remnant of shame.

The same audience had wildly cheered President Obama the day before as he took a victory lap for his deal with the mullahs, and for making sure a docile Congress took nothing away. The delegates now sat again in stony silence when Mr. Netanyahu observed that Iran continues to spread fear and terror, opposing every interest of America and the democracies, and works without rest toward establishing dominion over the region. Worst of all, there was no silence more profound and more frightening than in the ranks of the American delegates.

Mr. Obama, humiliated by Vladimir Putin’s seizure of the initiative in the Middle East, seems not to understand what has happened to him. No one fears him or respects him. He has become a harmless cipher in an empty suit in the affairs of serious men. The nation pays the price.

Categories: Death to Israel, Dishonor, Foreign policy, International Community, Iran scam, Islam's war on Jews, Islamic supremacy, Islamic terrorism, Islamism, Israel, Jews, Middle East, Netanyahu, Obama - Middle East, Obama - rogue president, Obama and Israel, Obama's affinity for Iran, Obama's anti-semitism, Obama's foreign failures, Obama's legacy, Palestinian heroes, Palestinians, Russia - Middle East, United Nations
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Obama’s UN Whoppers Exposed

October 10, 2015

Obama’s UN Whoppers Exposed Another analysis of the mind-numbing banalities and outright falsities that emanated from Barack Obama’s mouth at the United Nations

Source: Obama’s UN Whoppers Exposed

This article originally appeared at Kopp Online. Translated from the German by Boris Jaruselski

Stupidity…arrogance… or both?

Those who made the effort during US President Obama’s speech to listen without falling asleep as Secretary of State John Kerry would clearly have preferred to do would have noticed a clear contrast with the later speech of the Russian President.

Barack Obama’s emotions were discernible before he ended his first sentence. He displayed an extraordinary mix of contempt and arrogance: “We possess the largest, baddest Armed Forces; to the rest of you, we determine where they will go.”

It is scarcely possible to find an honest sentence whilst reading through the official transcription of Obama’s speech in this example of not grey, but black propaganda art. I quote some of the most egregious points where right at the beginning after the usual pious evaluation of 70 years of US history Obama says:

“The United States has worked with many nations in this Assembly to prevent a third world war — by forging alliances with old adversaries; by supporting the steady emergence of strong democracies accountable to their people instead of any foreign power.”

I am hard pressed to find a single strong democracy accountable to its citizens which has been supported by US interventions in recent years. On the contrary, since the US invasion and destruction of Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003 the US State Department under Hillary Clinton initiated the Arab Spring destabilizations, a false flag installation of “democracy” perpetuated through NGO’s and Social Media.

This destruction was brought to Africa’s most stable and peaceful state namely Ghaddafi’s Libya and thereafter in 2013 to Ukraine with a US supported Maidan-coup which propelled a band of Neofascist hooligans to power for the purpose of destabilising Russia.

Every covert and overt US intervention has brought the world substantially closer to the Third World War. The most recent step in this direction is the US intention to station their most modern nuclear weapons on German soil which will represent a significant imbalance to the current status quo between NATO and Russia.

Continuing with Obama’s speech, after presenting the audience with snazzy sounding words from the wonderful principles of the UN Charter including shining examples such as “collective endeavours” and “diplomatic cooperation of the major world powers”, follows this illogical conclusion:

“I lead the strongest military that the world has ever known, and I will never hesitate to protect my country or our allies, unilaterally and by force where necessary.”

A modern cover-version of 1970’s Jim Croce songs would go something like “You don’t mess around with Barack”. So much for the UN Charter. This is the iron fist in the velvet glove which has only too often represented the core of the US’s Foreign and Military policies.

Obama then proceeds to talk about tyrants and dictators. He attempts to dismiss accusations of US involvement with NGO’s to facilitate regime change.

“It is not a conspiracy of U.S.-backed NGOs that expose corruption and raise the expectations of people around the globe; it’s technology, social media, and the irreducible desire of people everywhere to make their own choices about how they are governed.”

The reality as most amongst the UN Audience are already aware of, through personal experience with US financed NGO’s such as the National Endowment for Democracy, Freedom House and George Soros’ Open Society Foundations, is that it is exactly these “US backed NGO’s” and “weaponised democracy and human rights” methods which topple legitimate governments when they refuse to bow down to Washington’s agenda.

As revelations by Snowden and others confirmed, US Social Media networks such as Facebook, Twitter and others are connected to or cooperate with the CIA and State Department in order to facilitate slick NGO regime change. A blatant lie follows as the US President explains:

“No matter how powerful our military, how strong our economy, we understand the United States cannot solve the world’s problems alone. In Iraq, the United States learned the hard lesson that even hundreds of thousands of brave, effective troops, billions of dollars from our Treasury, cannot by itself impose stability on a foreign land.”

With all due respect, Mr President, if you’ve gained this bitter experience after seeing “Billions of Dollars” not belonging to the US Treasury but to the American Taxpayer, Chinese and others who invested in your Treasury Bonds to finance the Iraq War debacle wasted, why are you then in Syria today?

What are you doing now when you’re training the Ukrainian Armed Forces? Why go everywhere around the world in order to stir up people? Why do you build military bases around the world where you can dig a hole to plant the US Flag? You’ve admitted yourself that this has been an unmitigated disaster. It seems that nowadays Washington is becoming further detached from reality.

Finally the President addresses the real cause of his current discomfort: Russia.

“Consider Russia’s annexation of Crimea and further aggression in eastern Ukraine. America has few economic interests in Ukraine. We recognize the deep and complex history between Russia and Ukraine. But we cannot stand by when the sovereignty and territorial integrity of a nation is flagrantly violated. If that happens without consequence in Ukraine, it could happen to any nation gathered here today. That’s the basis of the sanctions that the United States and our partners impose on Russia.”

This statement skillfully ignores the reality of events in Ukraine in 2013 and 2014.

It is proven that a Washington sponsored Colour Revolution in November 2013 brought  demonstrations to the Maidan Square against the legal, elected government of the corrupt but legitimate President Viktor Yanukovych.

These Soros NGO sponsored demonstrations began literally seconds after a tweet from  US-backed and current Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk called for “Euromaidan” protests against the legitimate decision of the Yanukovych Government to accept the economically more attractive (than joining the EU) Russian proposal to join the new Eurasian Economic Union. Under this arrangement Ukraine would have received a 30 percent rebate for Russian gas and a Russian obligation to buy 15 billion dollars worth of Ukrainian government bonds.

It was left to the Neoconservative Assistant Secretary of State Department Victoria “Fuck the EU” Nuland (who says Washington forgot how to act diplomatically?) together with Vice President Joe Biden, Ambassador (to Ukraine) Geoffrey Pyatt and dozens of Ukraine based CIA agents in February 2014 to – as George Friedman, American head of Stratfor, put it – stage “the most public coup in history”.

In the coup aftermath Washington selected members of the Ukrainian Government including a US State Department veteran as Ukraine’s new Finance Minister. Joe Biden’s son was apppointed to head the board of a Ukrainian State Gas Enterprise.

The Syrian Swindle

At long last Obama addressed Syria, the issue which recently brought Russian diplomacy to world attention. Obama explained:

“Nowhere is our commitment to international order more tested than in Syria. When a dictator slaughters tens of thousands of his own people, that is not just a matter of one nation’s internal affairs — it breeds human suffering on an order of magnitude that affects us all.”

Until now it has not been proven that Assad “slaughtered tens of thousands of his own people”. Secondly, it attempts to justify the pernicious concept of “Responsibility To Protect” aka RTP which Washington used in 2011 to destroy Libya.

RTP represents a violation of the UN Charter by Washington. Washington’s “coalition” air-attacks on Syria, supposedly against ISIS, is another UN Charter violation (as drafted by the US in 1945) since this involves the bombing of a sovereign country without an official request from its government.

Moderate Syrian Opposition?

Washington insists on first expelling elected President Assad whilst simultaneously claiming to want to eradicate ISIL. (Also known as IS, ISIS and Daesh depending on which of its many names you choose to use.) Russia’s position is unambiguous: Bashar al Assad’s government, the Syrian National Army and Syria’s Secret Service are the only organised forces in Syria today capable of eliminating Salafist terrorists.

Obama makes mention in his speech of US support for ‘moderate’ opposition rebels. Already in April 2013, when ISIS was still called Al-Qaeda in Syria and Iraq and led by a US-trained lieutenant of Osama Bin Laden, the New York Times citing numerous US officials documented that virtually all rebel fighters in Syria were hardline Islamic terrorists. There are currently no ‘moderate’ opposition fighters. The so-called ‘moderate’ Free Syrian Army signed a non-aggression pact with ISIS in 2014.

Two weeks before Obama’s UN Address General Lloyd Austin III, who heads of the US “War against ISIS” program, testified to an Armed Services Committee hearing in the US Senate that the program which is supposed to produce 5400 trained fighters per year only had “four or five” active fighters in Syria.

All the others defected to ISIS or the al-Nusra-Front of Al-Qaeda, the US backed “moderate opposition” to ISIL. At the same senate hearing Christine Wormuth, State Secretary for the Syrian War at the Pentagon, testified that Assad still has significant resources at his disposal and that the Syrian Government “still had the most powerful military force in the country.” According to current estimates the Syrian Government need not fear being overthrown.

In Moscow a joke is making the rounds in which Putin returns to the Kremlin after his New York excursion and talks with Obama on Syria and other issues. A close confidant asks how the talks went.

Putin reports: to soothe the nerves and relax the atmosphere prior to serious discussions such as the Syrian conflict and the situation in Ukraine he suggested they sit down for a game of chess. On the game with Obama he had the following to say: “It is like playing against a dove. First it knocks over all of the pieces, then it defecates on the board and struts about as if it had won.”

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Off Topic? | A new global police to fight “Violent Extremism” in the U.S.?

October 6, 2015

A new global police to fight “Violent Extremism” in the U.S.? Front Page Magazine, Matthew Vadum, October 6, 2015

(Not long ago, I would have thought this a nutty conspiracy article. Now, not so much. With the UN and Obama involved, what could go wrong?  — DM)

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The Obama administration plans to create a global police force that counters “violent extremism” in the United States and elsewhere.

The problem is that in Obama-speak “violent extremism” refers not only to jihadists wishing to harm Americans but also to conservatives and Tea Party activists. Just ask all the law-abiding right-of-center nonprofit groups targeted by Lois Lerner’s IRS during the Obama presidency.

Ominously, President Obama and U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch unveiled the Strong Cities Network last week at the United Nations.

America’s chief executive, who speaks in hushed and reverent tones when discussing the Muslim faith, said the U.S. will use “all of our tools” to fight Islamic State terrorists.

“This is not an easy task,” Obama said. “This is not a conventional battle. This is a long-term campaign — not only against this particular network, but against its ideology.” The United States and a coalition of 60 other countries are “pursuing a comprehensive strategy” for dealing with Islamic State, he said.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Justice teased the Strong Cities Network in a press release:

Cities are vital partners in international efforts to build social cohesion and resilience to violent extremism.  Local communities and authorities are the most credible and persuasive voices to challenge violent extremism in all of its forms and manifestations in their local contexts.  While many cities and local authorities are developing innovative responses to address this challenge, no systematic efforts are in place to share experiences, pool resources and build a community of cities to inspire local action on a global scale.

“The Strong Cities Network will serve as a vital tool to strengthen capacity-building and improve collaboration,” Lynch was quoted saying. “As we continue to counter a range of domestic and global terror threats, this innovative platform will enable cities to learn from one another, to develop best practices and to build social cohesion and community resilience here at home and around the world.”

The media release continues:

The SCN will include an International Steering Committee of approximately 25 cities and other sub-national entities from different regions that will provide the SCN with its strategic direction.  The SCN will also convene an International Advisory Board, which includes representatives from relevant city-focused networks, to help ensure SCN builds upon their work.  It will be run by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD), a leading international “think-and-do” tank with a long-standing track record of working to prevent violent extremism …

Although the European scene is different from the American, the London-based Institute for Strategic Dialogue doesn’t come across at first glance as a neutral observer.

Its website, which is filled with left-wing buzzwords, warns

The tragic attacks in Norway on 22 July, 2011 drew Europe’s gaze to the dangers of the growing presence of far-right extremism across Europe and the increasing legitimisation of anti-immigration and anti-Islamic discourses within mainstream European politics. The blurred relationship between violence from the extreme right and broader trends of Islamophobia and anti-immigration sentiment poses several challenges for policy makers seeking to address the increasing risk of violent right-wing extremism.

And although American conservatives might not quibble with a new U.S.-based initiative aimed at “violent extremism” outside America’s borders, they have ample reason to be concerned about one that targets organizations within the United States.

Conservative champion Pamela Geller railed against the Strong Cities Network in a column at Breitbart News.

This plan “amounts to nothing less than the overriding of American laws, up to and including the United States Constitution, in favor of United Nations laws that would henceforth be implemented in the United States itself – without any consultation of Congress at all.”

Announcing the plan at the United Nations is curious she writes, because the UN “is a sharia-compliant world body, and Obama, speaking there just days ago, insisted that ‘violent extremism’ is not exclusive to Islam (which it is).”

It is unlikely the new body will be used as a “global police force” to crush counter-jihad forces, she wrote.

After all, with Obama knowingly aiding al-Qaeda forces in Syria, how likely is it that he will use his “global police force” against actual Islamic jihadists?

I suspect that instead, this global police force will be used to impose the blasphemy laws under the sharia (Islamic law), and to silence all criticism of Islam for the President who proclaimed that “the future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam.”

Geller and other conservatives are painfully aware that in the parlance of the Left, “violent extremism” refers to conservatives and other patriotic Americans.

If you are opposed to enlarging the redistributive state and spreading the wealth around then by definition you’re a potential terrorist.  If you’re a conservative or a libertarian, if you believe in gun rights or don’t support abortion rights or an immigration amnesty, if you don’t like high taxes or welfare programs or if you dare to believe that the Constitution actually limits the power of the government, you’re at risk of turning to terrorism.

In 2009, Janet Napolitano, then head of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security gave her blessing to a spurious DHS report titled, “Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment.”

Drawing heavily from so-called research by the loony-left Southern Poverty Law Center, the report lumped Ku Klux Klansmen and violent militias together with good government types and members of the Federalist Society. This law enforcement guidance claimed that large swaths of the nation that did not vote Democratic in the last election were boiling over with hatred and intolerance.

Anticlimactically, the report noted that there is no actual evidence “that domestic rightwing terrorists are currently planning acts of violence.” Nonetheless the report speculated, using language that would later be embraced by the violent Occupy Wall Street movement, that “the economic downturn and the election of the first African American president” might help these “rightwing extremists” gain new recruits.

Guffaws from Republicans and some of her fellow Democrats forced Napolitano to disavow the report but in the intervening years Obama’s DHS has kept up the pressure on patriotic Americans in an attempt to stigmatize and marginalize conservative beliefs.

As recently as this past February, DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson released a report on what CNN called the grave “domestic terror threat from right-wing sovereign citizen extremists.”

“The government says these are extremists who believe that they can ignore laws and that their individual rights are under attack in routine daily instances such as a traffic stop or being required to obey a court order,” the news network reported.

To the Obama administration, zealous civil libertarians and ornery old guys in pickup trucks are a much greater threat to the homeland than Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter, al Qaeda, and Islamic State combined.

CNN paraphrased Mark Potok, a senior fellow at — you guessed it, the Southern Poverty Law Center — hailing the report.

“Potok said that by some estimates, there are as many as 300,000 people involved in some way with sovereign citizen extremism. Perhaps 100,000 people form a core of the movement, he said.”

Around the same time counterinsurgency and counterterrorism expert Sebastian Gorka ridiculed the obviously politicized DHS report for going off the deep end.

Gorka, a professor who lectures on irregular warfare at the College of International Security Affairs at the National Defense University, said over the last two decades he could not remember right-wing extremists flying jumbo jets into buildings, bombing a marathon, or beheading Christian hostages.

“It really is the most egregious politicization of national security,” Gorka opined. “We’re going to be looking for right-wing extremists when ISIS prepares to attack us? It’s outrageous.”

“We have tens of thousands of people in the Middle East and elsewhere and here in America who have committed themselves to the destruction of this great nation. And we’re going to be focusing on the small cluster of right-wingers here in the United States?” he said. “This could endanger American lives.”

All of this brings to mind the jarringly strange thing then-Senator Obama said on the campaign trail in October 2008.

“We cannot continue to rely only on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that we’ve set,” he said. “We’ve got to have a civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well funded.”

Is the Strong Cities Network the civilian national security force Obama mentioned just once and then never brought up again?

We’re about to find out.

Categories: Europe, European Union, Human rights, Ideology, Islamic culture, Islamic immigration, Islamic supremacy, Islamism, Islamophobia, Multiculturalism, Obama - rogue president, Obama's America, Obama's legacy, Sharia law, Strong Cities Network, United Nations, Violent extremism
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Ban Ki-moon, Obama work to Humiliate Israel

October 3, 2015

Ban Ki-moon, Obama work to Humiliate Israel, Breitbart, Pamela Geller, October 3, 2015

GettyImages-490838840-640x480Andrew Burton/Getty Images

There has been such a mass (or maybe mess is more fitting) of bad news this week that it is not surprising that a number of shocking news items fell through the cracks — which is always the case with the running dogs in the media when the news reflects so very dreadfully on the community organizer in the White House.

Barack Obama was upstaged, upended and usurped by Russia’s Vladimir Putin this week, when, in one fell swoop, by his actions in Syria and speech at the United Nations, Putin took over the leadership role in the Middle East. Once again, Obama was “caught off guard.” That has become the rallying cry of his presidency.

Obama’s response? To further humiliate and denigrate our one steadfast and true ally.

Breitbart News reported that Obama actually went so far as to call Secretary of State John Kerry and the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, into a video conference just before Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivered his historic and courageous speech to the UN General Assembly last Thursday.

The remnants of the U.S. delegation that did attend the speech pointedly did not applaud. The lowlife administration struck again. Obama was casting pearls before swine.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon broke protocol and summarily left when Netanyahu came to the lectern. Deputy UNSG Jan Eliasson slipped into the chair. The UN Secretary General is always present when a head of state addresses the General Assembly. But they broke the rule to humiliate the Jewish people. He left. There is no way that Ban Ki-moon would have shown such disrespect had he not been given the idea or, at the very least, the sanction, by the Jew-hater in the White House.

Why? Why would Obama publicly snub our tried and true ally in the hottest region in the world? Because he is evil. He embodies the hatred of the good for being the good.

Meanwhile, Vladimir Putin has seized the initiative. After announcing that it was beginning operations against the Islamic State (ISIS), Russia is bombing our allies, Bashar Assad’s enemies, in Syria — not ISIS at all. “It’s one thing for us to be humiliated, but another for it to be shown to the world,” said Charles Krauthammer.

Put a fork in him: Barack Obama is done, and he has taken the United States, our allies, and freedom-loving peoples around the world with him. Now that Putin has so thoroughly shown him up, Obama’s only option now is to grovel. And he is groveling assiduously.

Obama’s surrender to the Russians this week has overturned the order of the Middle East and, by extension, the order of the entire world. He relinquished American hegemony in the Middle East–right after paving the way for a nuclear Iran. Obama’s subordinate role to the Russians in the “deconfliction” talks was stunning. Putin had Obama begging for “deconfliction” talks–and how quickly he turned over the deconfliction codes!

Deconfliction codes keep aircraft or missions apart to reduce the likelihood of so-called friendly fire. Has America ever done that before? According to Daniel Dombey in the Financial Times: “Two prior administrations, one of which was seen to be extraordinarily favourably disposed toward anything Israel, declined to do that.” That is, they declined to turn over the deconfliction codes to Israel at the start of the American invasion of the Iraq war and later. But when Russia demanded them, Obama jumped.

I don’t think that Bashar Assad should go. I never have. He kept the Christian and religious minorities safe, and if he goes, the Islamic State is the primary force in place to benefit from his fall. On Assad’s remaining in power as a bulwark against the Islamic State, Putin is right. Even a broken clock is right twice a day.

But this is much bigger than Assad. Obama’s turning the Middle East over to Russia and Iran is one of those terrible moments in history that you can point to, shaking your head in horror and saying, “If only…” Turning over the Middle East to Russia is a major historical blunder. That said, Putin is killing jihadists. Obama whines that Putin is killing the “opposition,” “our allies.” Who is Russia bombing? The 5 recruits that cost the US 500 million to train? “Moderate al Qaeda”? Jabhat al Nusra? #silverlining

The build-out of the Russian air base at Latakia has Russia flexing its muscles. Previously, Israel had a fairly free hand to carry out strikes against arms shipments that go from Iran through Syria to the Iranian-backed jihad group Hizb’Allah in Lebanon. But now the Russian presence in Syria severely limits Israel’s freedom of action.

What the future might hold as a result of Obama’s fecklessness, perfidy, and betrayal of Israel is anyone’s guess, but the catastrophic consequences of the Russia-Iran-Syria axis are far-reaching. The Islamic State is likely not only to survive, but to grow–and Ambassador John Bolton predicts that Putin and Iran’s Hassan Rouhani will eventually make a deal with them, reaching a modus vivendi with the Islamic State.

Catastrophe upon catastrophe, all courtesy of Barack Hussein Obama.

Categories: Assad, Ban Ki-Moon, Diplomacy, Dishonor, Foreign policy, Iran - Middle East, Iran - Syria war, Iran scam, Iranian proxies, Israel, John Bolton, Kerry, Middle East, Netanyahu, Obama - Middle East, Obama - rogue president, Obama and Israel, Obama's America, Obama's foreign failures, Obama's legacy, Putin, Russia - Middle East, Russia - Syrian war, United Nations
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The Moscow-Washington-Tehran Axis of Evil

October 3, 2015

The Moscow-Washington-Tehran Axis of Evil, Canada Free Press, Cliff Kincaid, October 3, 2015

(I am not posting this because I currently accept its conclusions or some of their bases. However, it’s frightening, interesting and has at least some food for thought. — DM)

KINCAID100315

The conventional wisdom is that Vladimir Putin has blindsided Barack Obama in the Middle East, catching the U.S. off-guard. It’s another Obama “failure,” we’re told. “Obama administration scrambles as Russia attempts to seize initiative in Syria,” is how a Washington Post headline described it. A popular cartoon shows Putin kicking sand in the faces of Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry on a beach.

The conventional wisdom is driven by the notion that Obama has the best of intentions but that he’s been outmaneuvered. What if his intention all along has been to remake the Middle East to the advantage of Moscow and its client state Iran? What if he knows exactly what he’s doing? Too many commentators refuse to consider that Obama is deliberately working against U.S. interests and in favor of the enemies of the U.S. and Israel.

In his U.N. address, Obama said, “As President of the United States, I am mindful of the dangers that we face; they cross my desk every morning. I lead the strongest military that the world has ever known, and I will never hesitate to protect my country or our allies, unilaterally and by force where necessary.”

This is laughable. We still have a strong military, but the inevitable conclusion from what’s recently transpired is that he doesn’t want to protect the interests of the U.S. or its allies in the Middle East. This is not a “failure,” but a deliberate policy.

The trouble with conventional wisdom is the assumption that Obama sees things the way most Americans do. In order to understand Obama’s Middle East policy, it is necessary to consult alternative sources of news and information and analysis. That includes communist news sources.

A fascinating analysis appears in the newspaper of the Socialist Workers Party, The Militant, one of the oldest and most influential publications among the left. You may remember the old photos which surfaced of Lee Harvey Oswald selling copies of The Militant before he killed the American president.

The headline over The Militant story by Maggie Trowe caught my eye: “‘Reset’ with US allows Moscow to send arms, troops to Syria.” It was not about Hillary Clinton’s reset with Moscow years ago, but a more recent one.

Here’s how her story began: “Moscow’s rapid military buildup in Syria is a result of the ‘reset’ in relations forged with the Russian and Iranian governments by the Barack Obama administration. The deal—reshaping alliances and conditions from Syria, Iran and the rest of the Middle East to Ukraine and surrounding region—is the cornerstone of U.S. imperialism’s efforts to establish a new order in the Mideast, but from a much weaker position than when the now-disintegrating order was imposed after World Wars I and II.”

Of course, the idea that “U.S. imperialism” is served by giving the advantage to Russia and Iran is ludicrous. Nevertheless, it does appear that a “reset” of the kind described in this article has in fact taken place. The author writes about Washington’s “strategic shift to Iran and Russia” and the “downgrading” of relations with Israel and Saudi Arabia. She notes that Moscow “seeks more influence and control of the country [Syria] and its Mediterranean ports and a stronger political hand in Mideast politics.” Iran “has sent Revolutionary Guard Quds forces to help prop up Assad, and collaborates with Moscow on operations in Syria,” she notes.

It is sometimes necessary to reject the conventional wisdom and instead analyze developments from the point of view of the Marxists, who understand Obama’s way of thinking. They pretend that Obama is a pawn of the “imperialists” but their analysis also makes sense from a traditional pro-American perspective. Those who accept the evidence that Obama has a Marxist perspective on the world have to consider that his policy is designed to help Moscow and Tehran achieve hegemony in the region.

At the same time, the paper reported, “Since Secretary of State John Kerry’s congenial visit with Putin in May, it has become clear that Washington would accept Moscow’s influence over its ‘near abroad’ in Ukraine and the Baltics, in exchange for help to nail down the nuclear deal with Tehran.” Hence, Obama has put his stamp of approval on Russian aggression in Europe and the Middle East. This analysis, though coming from a Marxist newspaper, fits the facts on the ground. It means that more Russian aggression can be expected in Europe.

The wildcard is Israel and it looks like the Israeli government is being increasingly isolated, not only by Obama but by Putin. The story notes that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with Putin in Moscow on September 21, saying his concern was to “prevent misunderstandings” between Israeli and Russian troops, since Israel has carried out airstrikes in Syrian territory targeting weapons being transported to the Iranian-backed Hezbollah terrorists in Lebanon.

Some reports indicated that Israel had set up a joint mechanism with the Russian military to coordinate their operations in Syria.

However, the Russian leader reportedly told Obama during their U.N. meeting that he opposes Israeli attacks in Syria. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz ran a story that Russia intends to “Clip Israel’s Wings Over [the] Syrian Skies.” The paper added that Putin’s remarks to Obama showed that despite Netanyahu’s meeting with Putin in Moscow, “Russia intends to create new facts on the ground in Syria that will include restricting Israel’s freedom of movement in Syrian skies.”

It hardly seems to be the case that Obama has been outsmarted in the Middle East, or that Putin and Obama don’t like each other. Instead, it appears that Obama is working hand-in-glove with Putin to isolate Israel and that Obama is perfectly content to let the former KGB colonel take the lead.

Israel has always been seen by most U.N. members as the real problem in the region. Obama is the first U.S. President to see Israel in that same manner and to act accordingly. This is why Putin has not caught Obama off-guard in the least. They clearly see eye-to-eye on Israel and Iran.

Don’t forget that Obama actually telephoned Putin to thank him for his part in the nuclear deal with Iran. The White House issued a statement saying, “The President thanked President Putin for Russia’s important role in achieving this milestone, the culmination of nearly 20 months of intense negotiations.”

Building off the Iran nuclear deal, it looks like the plan is for Russia and the United States to force Israel to embrace a U.N. plan for a nuclear-free Middle East. That would mean Israel giving up control of its defensive nuclear weapons to the world body. Iran will be able to claim it has already made a deal to prohibit its own nuclear weapons development.

Such a scheme was outlined back in 2005 in an article by Mohamed Elbaradei, the director-general at the time of the U.N.‘s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). That’s the same body that is now supposed to guarantee Iranian compliance with the terms of the nuclear deal signed by Russia and the U.S.

Elbaradei argued there would have to be “a dialogue on regional security as part of the peace process,” to be followed by an agreement “to make the Middle East a nuclear-weapons-free zone.”

The “dialogue” appears to be taking place now, mostly under the authority and auspices of the Russian government, with President Obama playing a secondary role.

The obvious danger is that Israel would be forced to comply with the plan for a “nuclear-weapons-free-zone,” while Iran would cheat and develop nuclear weapons anyway.

Netanyahu told the U.N. that “Israel deeply appreciates President Obama’s willingness to bolster our security, help Israel maintain its qualitative military edge and help Israel confront the enormous challenges we face.”

This must be his hope. But he must know that Israel’s security is slipping and that the survival of his country is in grave danger in the face of this Moscow-Washington-Tehran axis.

Before Putin further consolidates his military position in the Middle East and Iran makes more progress in nuclear weapons development, Netanyahu will have to launch a preemptive strike on the Islamic state. “Israel will not allow Iran to break in, to sneak in or to walk in to the nuclear weapons club,” the Israeli Prime Minister said.

In launching such a strike before the end of Obama’s second presidential term, Israel would bring down the wrath of the world, led by Russia and the U.S., on the Jewish state.

Categories: Airstrikes, Assad, Communism, Death to America, Death to Israel, Defense of Israel, Diplomacy, Dishonor, Foreign policy, Free world, IAEA, Imperialism, Iran - Middle East, Iran - Syria war, Iran / Israel War, Iran nuke inspections, Iran scam, Iranian nukes, Iranian proxies, Iranian Threats, Israel, Israeli nukes, JCPOA, Kerry, Middle East, Netanyahu, Obama - Middle East, Obama - rogue president, Obama and Israel, Obama's America, Obama's legacy, Obama's motivations, P5+1, Peace in our time, Putin, Russia, Russia - Middle East, Russia - Syrian war, Russian Aggression, Saudi Arabia, Syria war, Treason, U.S. allies, U.S. politics, United Nations
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Benjamin Netanyahu • United Nations Address • 10/1/15

October 1, 2015

Benjamin Netanyahu • United Nations Address • 10/1/15 via You Tube, October 1, 2015

 

 

According to the blurb at You Tube,

October 1st, 2015 • Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu renewed his warning that the Iranian nuclear deal threatens to destabilize the Middle East and will make a war more likely. He cautioned that already Iran is ramping up efforts to fund terror cells worldwide, while also arming Islamists in Syria, Yemen, Lebanon, and the Palestinian territories.

Netanyahu told that Iran was already building up its own armament stockpiles and that billions of dollars in sanctions relief would only fuel the effort. He reminded the nations of the world that Iran already has the capability to target Israel with ballistic weapons and that it’s current ballistic efforts can only be meant to threaten Europe and the United States.

The Prime Minister chastised the member states of the U.N. for their failure to speak out against Iranian threats to destroy Israel, and that the silence was deafening. Netanyahu emphasized the point by staring at the delegates in silence for 45 seconds.

Netanyahu responded to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s declaration the previous day that it would no longer honor the Oslo Peace Accords by offering to reopen peace talks with the PA without any conditions. He also rejected the assertion by Abbas that Israel intended to change the status of the al-Asqa Mosque on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, a Palestinian allegation that has recently fomented violent incidents.

Prime Minister Netanyahu pleaded with U.N. member states to cease decades of anti Israeli rhetoric, and to undertake an honest effort to work toward an Israeli – Palestinian peace agreement.

He also urged the United Nations to advance peace in the Middle East after decades of the UN working against Israeli interests.

Categories: Abbas, Defense of Israel, Human rights, Iran scam, Iranian proxies, Islamic supremacy, Islamism, Israel, Middle East, Netanyahu, Obama - Middle East, Obama's America, Obama's legacy, Palestinian Authority, Palestinian heroes, Palestinians, Peace process, Two state solution, United Nations
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Obama’s show of weakness

October 1, 2015

Obama’s show of weakness, Israel Hayom, Prof. Abraham Ben-Zvi, October 1, 2015

The U.S. has been relegated to dragging its feet in a trail blazed by the Russian leader, as Washington is left to practically beg Moscow for a seat at the table where Assad’s fate will be determined.

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U.S. President Barack Obama’s address to the U.N. General Assembly on Monday was his worst and most embarrassing yet. Despite the fact that it has been seven years since he was elected president, it seems Obama has yet to learn anything from his growing list of failures, especially when it comes to foreign policy.

Obama continues to naively preach about the importance of traditional diplomacy and broad international cooperation as a prerequisite to conflict resolution; and he does so despite the fact that his decision to prematurely withdraw American troops from Iraq, compounded by his aversion to putting boots on the ground in Syria, have done nothing but breed violence, fanaticism and radical Islamism in the Middle East.

Against the backdrop of the bloody conflicts in Syria, Iraq and Yemen, Obama delivered a disconnected and utterly surreal speech before the U.N., lauding democracy and international agreements, even deficient, hollow ones, like the nuclear deal with Iran.

Beyond the sanctimonious sermon to nations and movements without any loyalty to the principles of Western democracy, Obama’s speech lacked any new message. On the contrary — he essentially legitimized Russia’s military presence in Syria, and the pivotal role Moscow has appropriated in the region due to American inaction against Syrian President Bashar Assad.

This inexcusable failure, which followed Washington’s acquiescence in allowing Russian President Vladimir Putin become the new mediator in the chemical warfare crisis in Syria in 2013, has afforded Moscow a coveted opportunity to become a major player in the Middle East, one shaping a new political and security reality.

The U.S. has been relegated to dragging its feet in a trail blazed by the Russian leader, as Washington is left to practically beg Moscow for a seat at the table where Assad’s fate will be determined.

Indeed, if you strip the envelope of democracy vs. dictatorship from Obama’s speech, it becomes more than evident that he is not only willing to foster partnerships with tyrants and oppressive regimes, but also that the dispute between the White House and the Kremlin over Syria is marginal, as it focuses on Assad’s status in the new political order that will be forged in Syria once the fighting subsides.

The American Gulliver, it seems, is coming to terms with the end of the single-world power hegemony. While the Russian military airlift to Syria continues in full swing, Obama is content with philosophical reflections on the desired nature of the new world order, yielding to the new balance of power emerging in the war-torn country.

One can only lament the fact that the U.S. president’s incomprehensible weakness only undermines the very democratic dream he himself has outlined.

This was evident in the meeting between Obama and Putin following their respective U.N. addresses. Despite Obama’s desire to give his Russian counterpart the cold shoulder, the fact the he declared before dozens of world leaders that the U.S. has “no desire to return to a cold war” took the sting out of his message.

This was nothing but an attempt at damage control over the harm caused to the U.S.’s prestige and status in the global theater by drawing new red lines to limit Russia’s operation in the Middle East. The problem is that we already know how blurry those red lines are when it comes to Syria.

Categories: Assad, Diplomacy, Dishonor, Foreign policy, Iran scam, Iranian proxies, Islamic State, Obama - Middle East, Obama's foreign failures, Obama's legacy, Putin, Russia, United Nations
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