Tag: National Interests

If There Is a Neocon Warning – Pay Attention


John R. Houk

© June 26, 2019

The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) in conjunction with the Think Tank American Enterprise Institute (AEI) has put together a report measuring Russia’s potential threat to American interests today.

 

In the Bush II Presidential years the AEI had a Neoconservative reputation in its policy advocacy. In this day and age Neocons are pretty much castigated by the American Left and American Right.

 

On a personal level I have been an admirer of Neoconservatism’s American Exceptionalism and a Foreign Policy based on military strength. Traditional Conservatives (sometimes called Paleocons) view this kind of aggressive Foreign Policy as a Big Government budget destroyer. There are those the American Left would label as the racist Right who castigate Neocons as ex-Communist Jews that can’t be trusted.

 

There is a large amount of truth to the “ex-Communist” association since a large number of early Neocon proponents were indeed Communists or at least Marxist sympathizers, BUT these rebels against Communism woke up to the ideological failures. Socialism (and yes this includes National Socialism aka Nazism) and varieties of Marxism have led to much of history’s oppressive regimes and the genocide of huge groups of human beings.

 

However, to label a “Communist” a “Jew” is a bit of an oxymoron. Communists are anti-religion atheists by nature and a good Jew practices the religious faith of Judaism. It is true there are people of a Jewish heritage that have repudiated the religious tenets of Judaism and embraced Marxist-Communist ideology. If one embraces Communism one rejects religion. That would make a Jew who became a Communist an ex-Jew. Incidentally, a person of Christian heritage, Islamic heritage, Buddhist heritage or any religious heritage who embraces Communism have rejected their religious heritage and have become an ex-whatever heritage.

 

Condemning all Jews because a few rejected their religious heritage should logically lead to the same condemnation of other people rejecting their religious heritage. I doubt Jew-haters follow that logic since one rarely hears the label that all Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, etc. are evil because a few accept atheistic One World Government Communism. Hence the hypocrisy of hating Jews because of Communism is just plain racism. (Muslims hate Jews because their revered writings tell them to hate Jews [Percentages]. That’s a whole different kind of racism. One sees that kind of racism among idiot Christians who believe all Jews are responsible for killing Jesus when it was a secret night tribunal of Jewish leaders fearing a rebellion would displace status among their Roman overlords. Human fear and jealousy got Jesus Crucified. God’s love Resurrected the Son of God which offers Saving Redemption to ALL who Believe in the Risen Savior – to the Jew first then to the non-Jew.)

 

The American Left deride the Neocons’ American Exceptionalism as nationalistic anti-globalist rejectors of Socialism/Marxism.

 

Have Neocons made mistakes? DEFINITELY! The principle of nation-building based on American Republic Representative-Democracy only works in cultures amenable to the Western heritage. This unfortunate discovery became evident in wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Those cultures have been brainwashed into Islamic thought for too long for the populace to understand let alone accept Western Representative Democracy.

 

When Neocons have a warning about Russia in relation to American National Interests and National Security the benefit of the USA is what is in mind.

 

JRH 6/26/19

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CONFRONTING THE RUSSIAN CHALLENGE

 

Russian Soldier

 

By Frederick W. Kagan, Nataliya Bugayova, and Jennifer Cafarella

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY (PDF)

Institute for the Study of War

[Institute for the Study of War (ISW) and Critical Threats Project (CTP) at the American Enterprise Institute]

June 2019

 

Russia poses a significant threat to the United States and its allies for which the West is not ready.  The West must act urgently to meet this threat without exaggerating it.  Russia today does not have the military strength of the Soviet Union. It is a poor state with an economy roughly the size of Canada’s, a population less than half that of the U.S., and demographic trends indicating that it will lose strength over time.  It is not a conventional military near-peer nor will it become so.  Its unconventional warfare and information operations pose daunting but not insuperable challenges.  The U.S. and its allies must develop a coherent global approach to meeting and transcending the Russian challenge.

 

[Download the full report here and the Executive Summary here.]

 

The Russian Threat

 

President Vladimir Putin has invaded two of his neighbors, Georgia and Ukraine, partly to stop them from aligning with NATO and the West.  He has also illegally annexed territory from both those states. He has established a military base in the eastern Mediterranean that he uses to interfere with, shape, and restrict the operations of the U.S. and the anti-ISIS coalition.  He has given cover to Bashar al Assad’s use of chemical weapons, and Russian agents have used military-grade chemical weapons in assassination attempts in Great Britain.  Russia has threatened to use nuclear weapons, even in regional and local conflicts. And Moscow has interfered in elections and domestic political discourse in the U.S. and Europe.

 

The Russian threat’s effectiveness results mainly from the West’s weaknesses.  NATO’s European members are not meeting their full commitments to the alliance to maintain the fighting power needed to deter and defeat the emerging challenge from Moscow. Increasing political polarization and the erosion of trust by Western peoples in their governments creates vulnerabilities that the Kremlin has adroitly exploited.

 

Moscow’s success in manipulating Western perceptions of and reactions to its activities has fueled the development of an approach to warfare that the West finds difficult to understand, let alone counter.  Shaping the information space is the primary effort to which Russian military operations, even conventional military operations, are frequently subordinated in this way of war.  Russia obfuscates its activities and confuses the discussion so that many people throw up their hands and say simply, “Who knows if the Russians really did that?  Who knows if it was legal?”—thus paralyzing the West’s responses.

 

Putin’s Program

 

Putin is not simply an opportunistic predator.  Putin and the major institutions of the Russian Federation have a program as coherent as that of any Western leader.  Putin enunciates his objectives in major speeches, and his ministers generate detailed formal expositions of Russia’s military and diplomatic aims and its efforts and the methods and resources it uses to pursue them.  These statements cohere with the actions of Russian officials and military units on the ground.  The common perception that he is opportunistic arises from the way that the Kremlin sets conditions to achieve these objectives in advance. Putin closely monitors the domestic and international situation and decides to execute plans when and if conditions require and favor the Kremlin. The aims of Russian policy can be distilled into the following:

 

Domestic Objectives

 

Putin is an autocrat who seeks to retain control of his state and the succession.  He seeks to keep his power circle content, maintain his own popularity, suppress domestic political opposition in the name of blocking a “color revolution” he falsely accuses the West of preparing, and expand the Russian economy.

 

Putin has not fixed the economy, which remains corrupt, inefficient, and dependent on petrochemical and mineral exports.  He has focused instead on ending the international sanctions regime to obtain the cash, expertise, and technology he needs.  Information operations and hybrid warfare undertakings in Europe are heavily aimed at this objective.

 

External Objectives

 

Putin’s foreign policy aims are clear: end American dominance and the “unipolar” world order, restore “multipolarity,” and reestablish Russia as a global power and broker.  He identifies NATO as an adversary and a threat and seeks to negate it.  He aims to break Western unity, establish Russian suzerainty over the former Soviet States, and regain a global footprint.

 

Putin works to break Western unity by invalidating the collective defense provision of the North Atlantic Treaty (Article 5), weakening the European Union, and destroying the faith of Western societies in their governments.

 

He is reestablishing a global military footprint similar in extent the Soviet Union’s, but with different aims. He is neither advancing an ideology, nor establishing bases from which to project conventional military power on a large scale.  He aims rather to constrain and shape America’s actions using small numbers of troops and agents along with advanced anti-air and anti-shipping systems.

 

Recommendations

 

A sound U.S. grand strategic approach to Russia:

 

  • Aims to achieve core American national security objectives positively rather than to react defensively to Russian actions;

 

  • Holistically addresses all U.S. interests globally as they relate to Russia rather than considering them theater-by-theater;

 

  • Does not trade core American national security interests in one theater for those in another, or sacrifice one vital interest for another;

 

  • Achieves American objectives by means short of war if at all possible;

 

  • Deters nuclear war, the use of any nuclear weapons, and other Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD);

 

  • Accepts the risk of conventional conflict with Russia while seeking to avoid it and to control escalation, while also ensuring that American forces will prevail at any escalation level;

 

  • Contests Russian information operations and hybrid warfare undertakings; and

 

  • Extends American protection and deterrence to U.S. allies in NATO and outside of NATO.

 

Such an approach involves four principal lines of effort.

 

Constrain Putin’s Resources.  Russia uses hybrid warfare approaches because of its relative poverty and inability to field large and modern military systems that could challenge the U.S. and NATO symmetrically.  Lifting or reducing the current sanctions regime or otherwise facilitating Russia’s access to wealth and technology could give Putin the resources he needs to mount a much more significant conventional threat—an aim he had been pursuing in the early 2000s when high oil prices and no sanctions made it seem possible.

 

Disrupt Hybrid Operations.  Identifying, exposing, and disrupting hybrid operations is a feasible, if difficult, undertaking.  New structures in the U.S. military, State Department, and possibly National Security Council Staff are likely needed to:

 

  1. Coordinate efforts to identify and understand hybrid operations in preparation and underway;

 

  1. Develop recommendations for action against hybrid operations that the U.S. government has identified but are not yet publicly known;

 

  1. Respond to the unexpected third-party exposure of hybrid operations whether the U.S. government knew about the operations or not;

 

  1. Identify in advance the specific campaign and strategic objectives that should be pursued when the U.S. government deliberately exposes a particular hybrid operation or when third parties expose hybrid operations of a certain type in a certain area;

 

  1. Shape the U.S. government response, particularly in the information space, to drive the blowback effects of the exposure of a particular hybrid operation toward achieving those identified objectives; and

 

  1. Learn lessons from past and current counter-hybrid operations undertakings, improve techniques, and prepare for future evolutions of Russian approaches in coordination with allies and partners.

 

The U.S. should also develop a counter-information operations approach that uses only truth against Russian narratives aimed at sowing discord within the West and at undermining the legitimacy of Western governments.

 

Delegitimize Putin as a Mediator and Convener.  Recognition as one of the poles of a multipolar world order is vital to Putin.  It is part of the greatness he promises the Russian people in return for taking their liberty.  Getting a “seat at the table” of Western-led endeavors is insufficient for him because he seeks to transform the international system fundamentally.  He finds the very language of being offered a seat at the West’s table patronizing.

 

He has gained much more legitimacy as an international partner in Syria and Ukraine than his behavior warrants.  He benefits from the continuous desire of Western leaders to believe that Moscow will help them out of their own problems if only it is approached in the right way.

 

The U.S. and its allies must instead recognize that Putin is a self-declared adversary who seeks to weaken, divide, and harm them—never to strengthen or help them.  He has made clear in word and deed that his interests are antithetical to the West’s.  The West should therefore stop treating him as a potential partner, but instead require him to demonstrate that he can and will act to advance rather than damage the West’s interests before engaging with him at high levels.

 

The West must not trade interests in one region for Putin’s help in another, even if there is reason to believe that he would actually be helpful.  Those working on American policy in Syria and the Levant must recognize that the U.S. cannot afford to subordinate its global Russia policy to pursue limited interests, however important, within the Middle East.  Recognizing Putin as a mediator or convener in Syria—to constrain Iran’s activities in the south of that country, for example—is too high a price tag to pay for undermining a coherent global approach to the Russian threat.  Granting him credibility in that role there enhances his credibility in his self-proclaimed role as a mediator rather than belligerent in Ukraine.  The tradeoff of interests is unacceptable.

 

Nor should the U.S. engage with Putin about Ukraine until he has committed publicly in word and deed to what should be the minimum non-negotiable Western demand—the recognition of the full sovereignty of all the former Soviet states, specifically including Ukraine, in their borders as of the dates of their admission as independent countries to the United Nations, and the formal renunciation (including the repealing of relevant Russian legislation) of any right to interfere in the internal affairs of those states.

 

Defend NATO.  The increased Russian threat requires increased efforts to defend NATO against both conventional and hybrid threats.  All NATO members must meet their commitments to defense spending targets—and should be prepared to go beyond those commitments to field the forces necessary to defend themselves and other alliance members.  The Russian base in Syria poses a threat to Western operations in the Middle East that are essential to protecting our own citizens and security against terrorist threats and Iran.  Neither the U.S. nor NATO is postured to protect the Mediterranean or fight for access to the Middle East through the eastern Mediterranean. NATO must now prepare to field and deploy additional forces to ensure that it can win that fight.

 

The West should also remove as much ambiguity as possible from the NATO commitment to defend member states threatened by hybrid warfare.  The 2018 Brussels Declaration affirming the alliance’s intention to defend member states attacked by hybrid warfare was a good start.  The U.S. and other NATO states with stronger militaries should go further by declaring that they will come to the aid of a member state attacked by conventional or hybrid means regardless of whether Article 5 is formally activated, creating a pre-emptive coalition of the willing to deter Russian aggression.

 

Bilateral Negotiations.  Recognizing that Russia is a self-defined adversary and threat does not preclude direct negotiations.  The U.S. negotiated several arms control treaties with the Soviet Union and has negotiated with other self-defined enemies as well.  It should retain open channels of communication and a willingness to work together with Russia on bilateral areas in which real and verifiable agreement is possible, even while refusing to grant legitimacy to Russian intervention in conflicts beyond its borders.  Such areas could include strategic nuclear weapons, cyber operations, interference in elections, the Intermediate Nuclear Forces treaty, and other matters related to direct Russo-American tensions and concerns.  There is little likelihood of any negotiation yielding fruit at this point, but there is no need to refuse to talk with Russia on these and similar issues in hopes of laying the groundwork for more successful discussions in the future.

 

READ THE FULL REPORT HERE.

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If There Is a Neocon Warning – Pay Attention

John R. Houk

© June 26, 2019

_______________________

CONFRONTING THE RUSSIAN CHALLENGE

 

1400 16th Street NW, Suite 515 Washington, DC 20036
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Shameful Social Media Jew-Hatred


John R. Houk

© February 12, 2018

 

12 1 Now [in Haran] the Lord had said to Abram,

 

“Go away from your country,
And from your relatives
And from your father’s house,
To the land which I will show you;

 

3 And I will bless (do good for, benefit) those who bless you,
And I will curse [that is, subject to My wrath and judgment] the one who curses (despises, dishonors, has contempt for) you.
And in you all the families (nations) of the earth will be blessed.” (Genesis 12: 1, 3 AMP)

 

 

I chastised José Feliciano for his delusional anti-American photo:

 

 

The discussion became verbally heated. José then posted a long list of Jew-hating lies about what Jews did in which most cases the actual perpetrators were Muslims. I was about to respond when old José blocked me. Here is a truncated version that I gleaned from the email notification:

 

José Feliciano mentioned you in a comment on José Feliciano’s post.

+John Houk

A Brief history of Mossad Black Ops and False Flags, Mossad: a shell organization for Jewish/Israeli terrorism all over the world. False Flags: Committing an atrocious act, and blaming another party or nation for it. The point is to turn public opinion against an entity, and have someone else fight your battles for you.

Lusitania Churchill, who was 1/2 Jewish, leaked intelligence to Germany that Lusitania carried munitions, and then it was sent it in a U-boat infested area. The ship was…

 

Here is what I was about to respond with until José blocked me:

 

José, I don’t have time to go through the salacious lies about Jews here (but I will address them in a future blog post). But just as a point of reference for you and your fellow Jew-haters here are some links that discuss the blood libel lies that Antisemitic love to delusionally point their fingers at Jews:

 

https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/conspiracy-theories-the-jews/

 

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/abraham-h-foxman/conspiracy-theories-anti_b_806777.html

 

https://www.adl.org/blog/explosive-growth-of-hateful-memes-and-anti-semitic-conspiracy-theories-against-jared-kushner

 

José Feliciano is a Hispanic name typically associated with Catholicism. José is no Catholic because I was blocked I recall one of his retorts as something similar “God bless Hezbollah.” Hezbollah is a Jew-hating Islamic terrorist organization that nearly controls Lebanon and is a Shi’ite terrorist client of the crazy Shi’ite Muslims running Iran. Obviously, I can presume José Feliciano is a pseudonym for a radical believing Shi’ite.

 

I wish I had copied José’s Antisemitic tirade of lying accusations so I could rebut them with the truth. Oh well, c’est la vie.

 

This is what I’m going to do. I will address some Antisemitic blood libel lying Conspiracy Theories and put down a, “What really happened,” brief scenario. Beginning with what I can figure out of the cropped lie from my email notice.

 

Intelligence Agencies and National Interests

 

Intelligence agencies of nations with military/political power are very capable of acts that normal-citizens in society would find abhorrent. Nations off the top of my mind but probably not limited to are the USA, Russia (including 20th century versions of the USSR), China, UK, France, various Muslim nations, Germany AND even though a diminutive nation compared to any nation (powerful or not) – Israel. Those intelligence agencies typical motive for espionage is to act for the National Interest of their home nation. In this day and age, world domination is rarely ever viewed as a National Interest for any nation. Rather, National Interests typically surround a nation’s status in global economics and National Security from another nation’s National Interests which may do harm to the home nation. Today the clash of National Interests is the tinder box for war more than the useless concept of world domination.

 

In the USA a Capitalist economy and the personal Liberty of individuals to pursue happiness is the prime mover of American politics as viewed by voters. The current inner struggle among voters is the dichotomy of visions of traditional American values or a further transformation into a Social Democratic polity whence Liberty is defined by the State more than natural unalienable Rights. U.S. National Interests tend to sway back and forth depending on voter mandates during elections.

 

The National Interests of most European nations is a Social Democratic polity influenced highly by Multiculturalism.

 

The National Interests of Russia center around regional hegemony as a buffer from invaders.

 

The National Interests of China is also regional hegemony but more in the nature of securing economic power bolstered with the bully pulpit of an increasing military strength.

 

The Muslim nations’ National Interests primarily center around a medieval solidification of Islamic culture followed closely tribal power structures within the primarily European carved out national borders. In the case of solidifying Islamic Culture, itty bitty Israel has become a cultural slap in the face of the teaching that once conquered by Islam, then the land must always be Islam. It doesn’t help Israel that Judaism is eternally vilified in Islam’s revered writings – Quran, Hadith and Sira.

 

Tiny Israel’s National Interests center around securing their Biblical National Homeland and protecting its borders from Muslims believing Jews are the heritage of apes and pigs. Sometimes Israeli National Interests clash with Western Nations’ National Interest desiring to placate oil rich Muslim nations which too leads to cooperation with Muslim Antisemitism. It is in those cases that a sophisticated Israeli Intelligence agency (most noticeably Mossad) intrude in both the Muslim dominated world and Western Intelligence agencies which may include the USA when it shows sympathy to Jew-hating entities such as the Palestinian Authority (PA) and the umbrella of Islamic terrorist organizations that have the explicit goal of destroying Israel and killing Jews.

 

911 Executed by Jews

 

While there is no one theory uniting them [i.e. Truthers], it can generally be said they believe the U.S. government and/or the Jews and/or anyone other than unhinged terrorists orchestrated the events of 9/11 in order to further their own dark and secretive agenda.

 

…

 

Israel’s spy agency knew about the attacks, and got 4,000 Jews out of there

 

The blame-the-Jews theory is very popular in the Middle East. In a 2008 poll conducted in Egypt, as many as 43 percent of Egyptians thought Israel was somehow behind the 9/11 attacks. Among the most persistent post-9/11 rumors was that 4,000 Jews did not show up for work that September morning at the World Trade Center because Mossad, Israel’s spy agency, warned them against it.

 

Although an exact tally doesn’t exist, the consensus is that anywhere from 10 to 15 percent of the victims of the 9/11 attacks – up to 450 people – were Jewish religiously or had Judaism as their primary cultural affiliation. The U.S. Census has generally put the percentage of Americans who are Jewish at a maximum of 2 percent in recent years. It would be nonsensical of the Jews to leave hundreds behind as martyrs to cover their trail. Even if they had, it’s not as if Israel has been made any “safer” by 9/11. – READ ENTIRETY (9/11 conspiracy theories won’t stop; By JOSHUA NORMAN; CBS News; 9/11/11)

 

 

Blame CIA and Mossad 

 

A former President of Italy gives conspiracy theories fuel when he assets that all of the Italian centre-left knows that the Central Intelligence and Mossad were behind the attacks, making Muslim terrorists as the fall guys. This allows the US to throw its full weight behind Israel. In addition, a former head of Pakistan’s Inter-Service Intelligence agency asserts that the ISI had prior knowledge of the attacks, knowing that the CIA was acting with Israeli operatives to plan and mount the attacks. And the attacks were a perfect opportunity for the forces of Zionism to take control of world affairs in retribution. – READ ENTIRETY (10 top 9/11 conspiracy theories; By Mick O’Reilly; Gulf News; 5/2/16 14:00)

 

Actual 911 Truth

 

WORLD TRADE CENTER

 

On September 11, 2001, at 8:45 a.m. on a clear Tuesday morning, an American Airlines Boeing 767 loaded with 20,000 gallons of jet fuel crashed into the north tower of the World Trade Center in New York City.

 

…

 

OSAMA BIN LADEN

 

The attackers were Islamic terrorists from Saudi Arabia and several other Arab nations. Reportedly financed by the al-Qaeda terrorist organization of Saudi fugitive Osama bin Laden, they were allegedly acting in retaliation for America’s support of Israel, its involvement in the Persian Gulf War and its continued military presence in the Middle East.

 

Some of the terrorists had lived in the United States for more than a year and had taken flying lessons at American commercial flight schools. Others had slipped into the country in the months before September 11 and acted as the “muscle” in the operation.

 

The 19 terrorists easily smuggled box-cutters and knives through security at three East Coast airports and boarded four early-morning flights bound for California, chosen because the planes were loaded with fuel for the long transcontinental journey. Soon after takeoff, the terrorists commandeered the four planes and took the controls, transforming ordinary passenger jets into guided missiles.

 

…

 

TWIN TOWERS COLLAPSE

 

Less than 15 minutes after the terrorists struck the nerve center of the U.S. military, the horror in New York took a catastrophic turn when the south tower of the World Trade Center collapsed in a massive cloud of dust and smoke.

 

The structural steel of the skyscraper, built to withstand winds in excess of 200 miles per hour and a large conventional fire, could not withstand the tremendous heat generated by the burning jet fuel.

 

At 10:30 a.m., the north building of the twin towers collapsed. Only six people in the World Trade Center towers at the time of their collapse survived. Almost 10,000 others were treated for injuries, many severe. – READ ENTIRETY (9/11 ATTACKS; History.com)

 

Steel Beams

 

…

 

One of the most-cited and well-publicized pieces of evidence offered by this group is the claim that jet fuel does not burn at high enough temperatures to melt the steel beams. By this logic, explosives or some other form of fuel must have been used to bring the buildings down.

 

While jet fuel, which burns at around 800 to 1,500 degrees Fahrenheit, may not reach the 2,750-degree melting point of steel, it is only about half as strong at 1,100 degrees, according to a comprehensive report compiled by Popular Mechanics in 2005. For the towers to collapse, the steel would not have needed to turn into a puddle of molten metal, it would only have had to bend enough to compromise the structural integrity of the building. –READ ENTIRETY (5 Times Scientists Tackled Conspiracy Theories, and Won; By Nathaniel Scharping; Discover Magazine; 8/16/16 1:20 pm)

 

The Jews are Responsible for Sinking Sea-Liner Lusitania 1915

 

The U.S. and UK pointed fingers that a German U-Boat (submarine) sank the civilian sea-liner leaving New York City bound for Britain as a part of its WWI blockade. For sure this is at least a partial truth. A U-Boat shot a torpedo to sink the Lusitania. It is the “WHY” that history is having difficulty with:

 

The sinking of the Cunard ocean liner RMS Lusitania occurred on Friday, 7 May 1915 during the First World War, as Germany waged submarine warfare against the United Kingdom which had implemented a naval blockade of Germany. The ship was identified and torpedoed by the German U-boat U-20 and sank in 18 minutes. The vessel went down 11 miles (18 km) off the Old Head of Kinsale,[1]:429 Ireland, killing 1,198 and leaving 761 survivors. The sinking turned public opinion in many countries against Germany, contributed to the American entry into World War I and became an iconic symbol in military recruiting campaigns of why the war was being fought.[1]:497–503

 

Lusitania fell victim to torpedo attack relatively early in the First World War, before tactics for evading submarines were properly implemented or understood. The contemporary investigations in both the United Kingdom and the United States into the precise causes of the ship’s loss were obstructed by the needs of wartime secrecy and a propaganda campaign to ensure all blame fell upon Germany. Argument over whether the ship was a legitimate military target raged back and forth throughout the war as both sides made misleading claims about the ship. At the time she was sunk, she was carrying over 4 million rounds of small-arms ammunition (.303 caliber), almost 5,000 shrapnel shell casings (for a total of some 50 tons), and 3,240 brass percussion fuses, in addition to 1,266 passengers and a crew of 696.[2][3] Several attempts have been made over the years since the sinking to dive to the wreck seeking information about precisely how the ship sank, and argument continues to the present day.

 

Date 7 May 1915
Time 14:10 – 14:28
Location North Atlantic Ocean, near Old Head of Kinsale, Ireland
Coordinates 51°25′N 8°33′WCoordinates: 51°25′N 8°33′W
Cause Torpedoed by German U-boat U-20
Outcome
  • 1,198 of the 1,959 people aboard killed, leaving 761 survivors.
  • Turned international opinion against Germany.

 

… READ ENTIRETY (Sinking of the RMS Lusitania; Wikipedia; last updated 1/30/18 14:53)

 

The general Conspiracy theory that has at least a probability of truth is that the Lusitania was that Germany was tricked by the UK or the USA (10 Conspiracy Theories That Sound Great, But PROBABLY Aren’t True!: 9 – The Lusitania was purposely sunk to draw the United States into World War I; Me Time For The Mind) to sink the Lusitania so American voters would abandon the long held Isolationist policy to foreign entanglements and the USA enter on the side of the Allies in WWI. The less credible Conspiracy Theory and frankly, quite absurd by lacking logic for the reality of resources, the Jews tricked the German Empire to sink the Lusitania for the U.S. to help secure a Jewish Homeland.

 

The credible Conspiracy website never mention any Jewish involvement with the Lusitania. However, there are plenty of Jew-hating websites of the White Supremacist or the Islamic nature spewing their fiction hate:

 

Steemit Example of Antisemitism

 

We are coming up to the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Lusitania, just off the Irish coast, on May 7th 1915.

We are also speeding towards the end of those liberties and freedoms which were won at such cost by our forebears, and given up so easily, by us, to the ‘Jew’ World Order.

 

Like every other ‘reason’ given before or since, for the occupied U.S.A government to ignore its own Constitution, and international law, and engage in official or unofficial war with nations that had never posed any threat to it, the sinking of the Lusitania was a ‘false flag’.

 

… the Lusitania was sunk by strategically positioned charges exploded at a discrete, observed, and documented interval after the German torpedoes had hit the Lusitania. We’ll consider the details of this particular false flag in a moment.

 

…

 

The Lusitania was a ‘success’ from the point of view of its planners. … the decision to go to war with Germany had been decided long in advance by the ‘Jewish’ Banksters in the U.S.A.

The false flag was just the last act in a chain of decisions and manipulations intended to produce the desired outcome.

 

…

 

The notion that America was forced to ensure ‘freedom of the seas’ after Germany began its campaign of submarine warfare was, and has always been, heavily pushed by the full spectrum propaganda machine of the Zionist ‘Jews’.

 

…

 

These forms of mass media were dominated and owned by the Jewish bankers who had made heavy investments in the European war. They had bought and sold bonds for the British government, which would have become worthless should Britain lose the war. These bankers would lose vast amounts of money should Germany win this war. Britain and France would have a terrible time trying to repay their huge war loans to the Banksters in the U.S and Europe.

 

…

 

Always and everywhere ‘Jews’ provoke fights, and then when their opponents fight back, they scream, in all the world’s media, that they are being ‘attacked’.

 

[Blog Editor: Now check out this blatant deceitful sanctification for both World Wars:]

 

In all cases in history it has been the Germans that were the most humane, and the Germans who always tried to respect international law and decency. Only to be demonized by the ‘Jewish’ propaganda machine, and thus demonized in all the official ‘histories’ of WWII, not to mention the mass media, and Hollywood, both of which have always been controlled and dominated by ‘Jews’.

 

…

 

Enjoy your ‘Jew’ World Order.

2800 ‘Goy’ slaves for every one of the 144,000 ‘Jewish’ masters.

Remember that ‘God’ made all the other non-Jews, the ‘Goys’, who are NOT human, in the FORM of humans, merely to be of better service to the ‘Jews’ as sex slaves, workers, and pets.

 

… This ENTIRE post on Steemit spews Jew-Hatred with proven lies. In fact, this post reminds me a lot of the José Feliciano Jew-Hate lies that he blocked me from responding (100 years after that ‘false flag’ called ‘The Lusitania’, we have learned nothing, and are being lead to war once more; By [Muslim sounding pseudonym[ troonatnoor; Steemit; “last year” being 2017)

 

Other Jew-Hatred Websites:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Trust me, the above is merely a sample of lying Jew-Hatred websites.

 

Jews Rule the World Via Rothschild Family Banking

 

It is the conspiracy theory perhaps most beloved by antisemitic anoraks the world over. First peddled in the mid 19th century, it’s now nearly 200 years and the myth that the Rothschild family – having plotted and profited from wars, caused the Holocaust and arranged the assassination of political opponents – secretly control the global economy is still going strong.

 

…

 

The Rothschilds have long been a favourite target of fascists. The Nazis made a 1940 movie about them, while American white supremacists and antisemites such as the Liberty Lobby have obsessed over their supposed control of the Federal Reserve Bank.

 

…

 

The original and most powerful Rothschild conspiracy theory contains many of the core elements of its later variations. The subject of the 1940 Goebbels production Die Rothschilds Aktien auf Waterloo, it dates back to 1846 and was published in a pamphlet written under the pseudonym Satan. It focuses on Nathan Rothschild, founder of the London branch of the bank and son of the dynasty’s creator, Mayer Amschel Rothschild.

 

As Brian Cathcart, professor of journalism at Kingston University and author of News From Waterloo: The Race To Tell Britain of Wellington’s Victory, has recounted, “Satan” (the cover adopted by a French left-wing antisemite Georges Dairnvaell), alleged that Nathan was on the battlefield in June 1815 to witness the French defeat. Hastily returning to Britain before the news broke back home, he was able to use his knowledge to make 20 million francs on the stock exchange. In Dairnvaell’s telling, Cathcart writes, the Rothschilds’ “vast fortune was built upon the bloodshed of the battle of Waterloo”.

 

…

 

Over time, the edifice upon which Dairnvaell constructed his story was demolished. Nathan was not at Waterloo. The newspaper which allegedly reported the story of his share spending spree turned out to contain no such item. And there was, in fact, not even a huge collapse in share prices from which he could have profited.

 

…

 

Perhaps the most pernicious and offensive of the Rothschild conspiracy theories, however, is that the family somehow engineered the second world war and the Holocaust in order to generate the sympathy necessary to establish the state of Israel. But, as Dunning notes, the “only seed of truth” to the claim that the Rothschilds “funded the Holocaust” is that the Nazis seized the Austrian Rothschilds’ assets, effectively holding the head of the family, Baron Louis, prisoner for several months as they stole his money. But for those wishing to stir the pot of antisemitism, the facts are never allowed to get in the way of a good story. – READ ENTIRETY (The Rothschilds, the banks and antisemitism – the truth and the myths; By Robert Philpot; The Jewish Chronicle; 12/11/17)

 

Sandy Hook Massacre Antisemitic Idiocy

 

Iran’s Press TV scored an international scoop Tuesday. It turns out, it reports, the massacre of 20 schoolchildren and six of their teachers and administrators was not the work of a troubled loner. Rather, it was Israeli death squads exacting vengeance over a recent United Nations General Assembly vote granting Palestine nonmember observer status.

 

…

 

The claim came from Michael Harris, who was one of three panelists in a discussion about the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. While the other panelists focused on a culture of violence in America, or the issue of gun laws, Harris unleashed a torrent of Jew hatred. – READ ENTIRETY (Iran TV Blames Israel for Sandy Hook; By Steve Emerson; Newsmax; 12/21/12 10:32 AM)

 

On December 14, 2012, the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting occurred. The perpetrator, Adam Lanza, fatally shot his mother before murdering 20 students and six staff members at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, and later committing suicide.[1]

 

…

 

Claims broadcast by Iranian television

 

…

 

The Washington Post reported that claims broadcast on Press TV contain a large number of “obvious logical fallacies” typical of Iranian propaganda, which “has a well-earned reputation for incendiary anti-Israel stories and for wild conspiracy theories.”[6] The Atlantic wrote that the story “obviously plays on the worst fears of those who believe in secret Jewish cabals that run the world, but it’s a pretty pathetic attempt at slander, even for Iran.”[5] – I just focused on the Antisemitic angle, there are a half-dozen or so other Sandy Hook Conspiracy Theories (Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting conspiracy theories; Wikipedia; page last updated 1/31/18 19:07)

 

I’ve just looked at two of the idiotic accusations against Jews that absolutely make no sense. Here’s the granddaddy of Jewish Conspiracy theories created in France but most widely distributed in Czarist Russia that the Jews sole goal is world domination. I am writing about the most debunked document in modern history – The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion:

 

Five years after 9/11, lingering conspiracy theories hold that Jews planned the attacks. The charges’ staying power, though, is nothing compared to that of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

 

The century-old text has been discredited many times over its hundred-plus-year history. Yet even today the tale finds willing believers among those who oppose Zionism—the idea that Jews should have a homeland in Palestine, an idea that was fulfilled in the creation of the state of Israel in 1948.

 

…

 

The Protocols tell the tale of a secret plot in which a shadowy and powerful cabal of Jewish leaders and Freemasons sets out to dominate the world. The text purports to be the minutes of secret meetings held in Switzerland at the time of the First Zionist Congress in 1897.

 

The book outlines the group’s endeavors to conquer the globe by manipulating the media and the global economy, promoting religious conflicts, and supporting socialism.

 

A Web search reveals thousands of Web sites with Protocols-related content. Most refute the texts and offer ample evidence of their fraudulent nature. But plenty of others exist to propagate the myth.

 

…

 

Hoax Exposed

 

…

 

In 1921 the Times of London published convincing proof that The Protocols were largely plagiarized from books published decades earlier—primarily The Dialogue in Hell Between Machiavelli and Montesquieu, by Maurice Joly (1864) and Biarritz by Hermann Goedsche (1868).

 

In subsequent years similar exposés appeared in Germany and the United States. A U.S. Senate committee declared that The Protocols were bogus. And in 1993 they were officially declared fraudulent by a court in the country of their origin—Russia.

 

… READ ENTIRETY (pg. 1 & pg. 2) (Anti-Semitic “Protocols of Zion” Endure, Despite Debunking; By Brian Handwerk; National Geographic News; 9/11/06)

 

Here is a timeline excerpt of The Protocols from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM):

 

1864
French political satirist Maurice Joly writes The Dialogue in Hell Between Machiavelli and Montesquieu. Joly’s book never mentions Jews, but much of the Protocols would be fabricated based on ideas contained in it.

 

1868
Prussian writer Hermann Goedsche publishes the novel Biarritz, in which the twelve tribes of Israel meet secretly in Prague’s Jewish cemetery. Goedsche’s book, like Joly’s, contains ideas incorporated in fabricating the Protocols.

 

1897–1899
Although the origin of the Protocols is still a matter of debate, it was most likely fabricated under the direction of Pyotr Rachovsky, chief of the foreign branch of the Russian secret police (Okhrana) in Paris.

 

1903
An abbreviated version of the Protocols is published in a St. Petersburg, Russia, newspaper, Znamya (The Banner).

 

1905
Russian mystic Sergei Nilus includes the Protocols as an appendix to his book, The Great in the Small: The Coming of the Anti-Christ and the Rule of Satan on Earth. By 1917, Nilus publishes four editions of the Protocols in Russia.

 

1920
The first non-Russian language edition of the Protocols is issued in Germany.

 

1920
The Protocols is published in Poland, France, England, and the United States. These editions blame the Russian Revolution on Jewish conspirators and warn of Bolshevism spreading to the West.

 

1920
Lucien Wolf, a British journalist and diplomat, exposes the Protocols as a fraudulent plagiarism in The Jewish Bogey and the Forged Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion.

 

1920
Automaker Henry Ford’s Dearborn Independent publishes The International Jew, an Americanized version of the Protocols. The International Jew is translated into more than one dozen languages.

 

August 16–18, 1921
Journalist Phillip Graves exposes the Protocols as a plagiarism in series of articles in London Times.

 

1921
New York Herald reporter Herman Bernstein publishes The History of a Lie: The Protocols of the Wise Men of Zion,the first exposure of the Protocols as a fraud for an American audience.

 

…

 

1924
Benjamin Segel, a German-Jewish journalist, exposes the Protocols as a forgery in his Die Protokolle der Weisen von Zion, kritisch beleuchtet (The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, Critically Illuminated).

 

…

 

1927
Henry Ford issues a public apology for publishing the Protocols, which he admits are “gross forgeries.” Ford directs that remaining copies of The International Jew be burned, and he orders overseas publishers to cease publishing the book. Ford’s directives to foreign publishers are ignored.

 

…

 

1964
The US Senate Judiciary Committee issues a report titled The Protocols of the Elders of Zion: A Fabricated “Historic” Document. The committee concludes: “The subcommittee believes that the peddlers of the Protocols are peddlers of un-American prejudice who spread hate and dissension among the American people.”

 

…

 

1988
Article 32 of the Covenant of the Islamic Resistance Movement (HAMAS) reads: “The Zionist plan is limitless. After Palestine, the Zionists aspire to expand from the Nile to the Euphrates. When they will have digested the region they overtook, they will aspire to further expansion, and so on. Their plan is embodied in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and their present conduct is the best proof of what we are saying.”

 

1993
The Protocols is declared a fraud in a Moscow trial of Pamyat, an ultra-nationalist Russian organization that published the Protocols in 1992.

 

…

 

2002
The US Senate passes a resolution urging the government of Egypt and other Arab states not to allow government-controlled television to broadcast any program that lends legitimacy to the Protocols.

 

2005
A edition of the Protocols published in Mexico City suggests that the Holocaust was orchestrated by the Elders of Zion in exchange for the founding of the State of Israel.

 

2005
An edition of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, authorized by the Syrian Ministry of Information, claims that the Elders of Zion coordinated the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States.

 

2007
A typical Internet search for the Protocols yields several hundred thousand sites.

 

… READ ENTIRETY (PROTOCOLS OF THE ELDERS OF ZION: TIMELINE; USHMM; Copyright © United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC)

 

Evidently the last time the timeline was updated was in 2007. As the 2007 point suggests, an Internet search will display hundreds of thousands results. It will boggle your mind how many of those search results lead you to Jew-hatred websites. Hatred of Jews is becoming so virulent again, that even after proven debunking of the validity of The Protocols, the document is the center piece of spreading Antisemitism globally.

 

I just realized exposing Antisemites could turn into a book. If you’ve made this far, you are aware that I am erudite enough to write that book. If you are that erudite writer and have the time for research, PLEASE be the person that exposes the likes of Jose Feliciano and other Jew-Hating morons.

 

12 1 Now [in Haran] the Lord had said to Abram,

 

“Go away from your country,
And from your relatives
And from your father’s house,
To the land which I will show you;

3 And I will bless (do good for, benefit) those who bless you,
And I will curse [that is, subject to My wrath and judgment] the one who curses (despises, dishonors, has contempt for) you.
And in you all the families (nations) of the earth will be blessed.” (Genesis 12: 1, 3 AMP)

 

JRH 2/12/18

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Russia, Iran & Turkey Axis


John R. Houk

© October 18, 2017

 

The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) has put together a map showing how the Russian military is targeting civilians in Putin’s effort to support Iranian client dictator Bashar al-Assad to remain in power in Syria.

 

Take notice of the regimes in full military cooperation to keep al-Assad in power: Russia, Iran and incredulously NATO-member Turkey.

 

Russia officially may not be a Communist nation, but an old Communist former-Soviet Union KGB officer runs Russia in Vladimir Putin. Ever since the October 1917 Lenin led Communist revolution overthrew and assassinated the Russian Czar and the entire royal family, Russia has been no friend of the USA.

 

Iran ceased being an American friend after crazy Khomeini kicked out the Shah, killing royal loyalists, killing fellow anti-Shah revolutionaries, including Western-minded Iranian civilians, and allow Khomeini activists to overrun the U.S. Embassy in Tehran holding American Embassy staff under torturous conditions for 444 days.

 

Turkey became an essential Cold War ally of the U.S. because the Communist Soviet Union was an actual threat to the Turkish Republic. Hence, Turkey became a member of NATO in Europe’s goal to be protected from Russian Communist imperialism which at the time made Eastern Europe Communist vassals. What changed with Turkey?

 

One – Russia became less a Communist global exporter and more a nationalist power broker. Two – Turkey under Erdogan’s leadership, has experienced a revival of Islamic originalism. Meaning Turkey is on a path to be a Sunni radical Islamic propagator as much as Iran is a radical Shia Islamic propagator. The only redeeming factor Turkey-Iran is eventually the age-old Sunni-Shia rivalry will eventually click in. Until Sunni-Shia mutual hatred diverts Turkey and Iran, Russia, Iran and Turkey have one mutual interest of taking down American power. Eventually all three will turn on each other, but until then American National Interests will face a tough road of uneasy speculative choices.

 

JRH 10/18/17

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*This e-mail is being resent with the corrected title and dates in the banner. We apologize for any inconvenience.

 

Russia Renews Targeting Civilians

[Info pertains to these dates: August 14 – October 7, 2017]

 

By Matti Suomenaro and the ISW Syria and Turkey Teams

Sent 10/17/2017 8:40 AM

Institute for the Study of War (ISW)

Email sent from: press@understandingwar.org

 

Russia renewed its violent, indiscriminate air campaign against civilians in Western Syria in order to coerce groups opposed to the Bashar al-Assad regime to accept a ceasefire or ‘de-escalation zone’ in Idlib Province. Russia shifted its air campaign to target rebel-held terrain in Idlib and Hama Provinces following an offensive launched by Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) – the successor of Syrian al Qaeda affiliate Jabhat Fatah al-Sham – in Northern Hama Province on September 19. The Russian Ministry of Defense launched an immediate disinformation operation to present this shift in its air campaign as a legitimate series of strikes against extremist groups attempting to disrupt a ‘de-escalation zone’ in Idlib Province brokered by Russia, Turkey, and Iran on September 15. Russia nonetheless mounted a systematic campaign of airstrikes against civilian infrastructure – including hospitals, schools, power stations, and mosques – as well as former U.S.-backed rebel groups unaffiliated with HTS or al Qaeda. The strikes marked a return to the widespread punitive air campaigns Russia previously directed against opposition-held terrain across Western Syria. Russia also employed advanced weapons systems to further inflict violence against Idlib Province under the guise of counter-terrorism operations. The Russian Black Sea Fleet’s Permanent Mediterranean Task Force launched Kalibr cruise missiles targeting Ma’arat al-Numan in Southern Idlib Province on September 22. Russia Tu-95MS ‘Bear’ strategic bombers later launched Kh-101 cruise missiles targeting the outskirts of Idlib City on September 26. Russia’s deliberate use of violence against civilians precludes any legitimate, Russian-enforced ‘de-escalation’ zone in Idlib Province.

 

Russia also leveraged its ongoing air campaign to co-opt Turkey away from the U.S. and NATO in order to further set conditions for the planned ‘de-escalation zone’ in Idlib. Russia concentrated its airstrikes in areas of Western Idlib Province along the Syrian-Turkish Border from September 25 – 30. The Russian Air Force likely sought to interdict the movement of HTS and opposition forces ahead of a Turkish Armed Force (TSK) deployment into Idlib by targeting rebel-held areas connecting Western Aleppo Province to the Bab al-Hawa Border Crossing on the Syrian-Turkish Border as well as key supply routes around Idlib City. Turkish President Recep Erdogan subsequently announced the start of cross-border operations to implement the Idlib ‘de-escalation zone’ on October 7. Erdogan stated that Russia would support his intervention. The TSK began deployments to observation positions in Northern Idlib Province near the majority-Kurdish Afrin Canton on October 12 following earlier reconnaissance missions. Russia likely perceives an opportunity to exploit widening diplomatic fissures between the U.S. and Turkey. Russia could thus attempt to use the ‘de-escalation zone’ to compel Turkey into deeper – albeit temporary – cooperation with Russia in Northwestern Syria at the expense of the United States.

 

The following graphic depicts ISW’s assessment of Russian airstrike locations based on reports from local Syrian activist networks, statements by Russian and Western officials, and documentation of Russian airstrikes through social media. This map represents locations targeted by Russia’s air campaign, rather than the number of individual strikes or sorties. The graphic likely under-represents the extent of the locations targeted in Eastern Syria, owing to a relative lack of activist reporting from that region.

High-Confidence Reporting. ISW places high confidence in reports corroborated by documentation from opposition factions and activist networks on the ground in Syria deemed to be credible that demonstrate a number of key indicators of Russian airstrikes.

Low-Confidence Reporting. ISW places low confidence in reports corroborated only by multiple secondary sources, including from local Syrian activist networks deemed credible or Syrian state-run media.

 

ISW – Russian Airstrikes in Syria map- 8-14 to 9-14-17

 

[Blog Editor: The following posted on email but not webpage]

 

The preceding graphic depicts ISW’s assessment of Russian airstrike locations based on reports from local Syrian activist networks, statements by Russian and Western officials, and documentation of Russian airstrikes through social media. This map represents locations targeted by Russia’s air campaign, rather than the number of individual strikes or sorties. The graphic likely under-represents the extent of the locations targeted in Eastern Syria, owing to a relative lack of activist reporting from that region.

 

Visit our websites — www.understandingwar.org and http://iswresearch.blogspot.com  — and follow us on Twitter (@TheStudyofWar).

_______________

Russia, Iran & Turkey Axis

John R. Houk

© October 18, 2017

_________________

Russia Renews Targeting Civilians

 

The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) is a non-partisan, non-profit, public policy research organization. ISW advances an informed understanding of military affairs through reliable research, trusted analysis, and innovative education. We are committed to improving the nation’s ability to execute military operations and respond to emerging threats in order to achieve U.S. strategic objectives. Visit us at www.understandingwar.org.

 

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Our Mission

 

The Institute for the Study of War advances an informed understanding of military affairs through reliable research, trusted analysis, and innovative education. We are committed to improving the nation’s ability to execute military operations and respond to emerging threats in order to achieve U.S. strategic objectives. ISW is a non-partisan, non-profit, public policy research organization.

 

We believe ground realities must drive the formulation of strategy and policy. In pursuit of this principle, ISW conducts detailed, open-source intelligence analysis to provide the most accurate information on current conflicts and security threats. ISW researchers spend time in conflict zones conducting independent assessments and enhancing their understanding of realities on the ground. Through reports and timely events, our research educates military and civilian leaders, reporters, and the public to enhance the quality of policy debates.

 

Borderlands: First Moves in Romania


Borderlands around Russia map

That which happens in Ukraine matters to America. George Friedman gives you the reasons why.

 

JRH 5/27/14

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Borderlands: First Moves in Romania

 

By George Friedman

MAY 27, 2014 – 03:02

STRATFOR

 

I arrived in Bucharest, Romania, the day after U.S. Vice President Joe Biden. U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel will be here in a few weeks. The talk in Bucharest, not only among the leadership but also among the public, is about Ukraine. Concerns are palpable, and they are not only about the Russians. They are also about NATO, the European Union, the United States and whether they will all support Romania if it resists Russia. The other side of the equation, of course, is whether Romania will do the things it must do in order to make outside support effective. Biden left Romania with a sense that the United States is in the game. But this is not a region that trusts easily. The first step was easy. The rest become harder.

 

If this little Cold War becomes significant, there are two European countries that matter the most: Poland and Romania. Poland, which I visit next, stands between Germany and Russia on the long, flat North European plain. Its population is about 38 million people. Romania, to the south, standing behind the Prut River and bisected by the Carpathian Mountains, has a population of about 20 million. Of the roughly 82 million people along the eastern frontier (Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria), approximately 58 million live in Poland and Romania. Biden’s visit to Romania and U.S. President Barack Obama’s planned visit to Poland provide a sense of how Washington looks at the region and, for the moment at least, the world. How all of this plays out is, of course, dependent on the Russians and the course of the Ukrainian crisis.

All Soviet satellites emerged damaged after the collapse of the old order in 1989. Few were as damaged as Romania. In many ways, the damage was self-inflicted: The villain of the piece was a Romanian, Nicolae Ceausescu. Ceausescu followed an anti-Soviet line, staying in the Warsaw Pact but displaying singular hostility to the Soviet Union. I recall Americans being excited about Ceausescu’s Romania since, being anti-Soviet, it was assumed that by definition he had to be pro-American. To America’s amazement, he wasn’t. He wasn’t even pro-Romanian given that he concocted a scheme to pay off all of Romania’s foreign debts by destroying the lives of a generation of Romanians by consigning the vast majority of the country’s agricultural and industrial production to hard currency exports. Beyond that, he created a nightmarish security system that was both corrupt and vicious. The world barely noticed. When the end came, it also came for Ceausescu and his wife, the only Eastern European leaders to be executed (amid intense fighting between factions).

 

For all that, Romania has done remarkably well. Romania’s unemployment rate is only about 7 percent, which by European standards is remarkably low. Its annual growth rate stands at more than 3 percent, which is conversely high. In talking to Romanians, it is hard to see into their hearts. They seem a gracious and friendly people, with a measure of distrust and a taste for conspiracy no greater than the norm for this region. What is remarkable about the Romanians is that they are unremarkable. They have emerged from a nightmare inflicted by one of their own and have regained their balance.

 

Ceausescu aside, the nightmare was initiated by the Soviets, who were drawn in by the Germans. This has resulted in a lasting national trait: When the Russians act, it strikes fear deep into the Romanian heart. When the Russians act and the Germans have a hand in the action, the Romanians’ worst nightmare is realized. Their reaction doesn’t manifest itself as with the Poles, who are always committed to the decisive confrontation. Instead, the nightmare scenario elicits a more cautious and sinewy response involving the search for a way both to resist and if necessary to accommodate. Above all, it elicits a search for allies, preferably far enough away not to occupy them and strong enough to offer meaningful support. Obviously, the Americans are tailor-made for this role, so long as they don’t overstep their bounds and generate fears of domination.

 

The Ukrainian Factor

 

Events in Ukraine have, of course, set this process in motion. Remarkably, the United States, which remained a bystander other times, has gotten quickly and significantly involved this time around. There is no question in Romania as to the importance of Ukraine to Russia, nor any belief that the Russians will let go of it. My view is that Russia will not let go, but will let things quiet down a bit. The Russian gamble is that no matter what the outcome of Ukraine’s elections, the Ukrainians will be unable to form a coherent government. If that is true, then the Russians can pick the Ukrainians apart over time, returning to the status quo ante. Therefore, the Russians will wait. Time, if this view is correct, is on the Russians’ side.

 

The Russians do not want to be excessively aggressive for another reason: namely, Germany. The Germans do not want to go beyond occasional rhetoric in confronting Russia. In fact, they don’t want to confront Russia at all. They want to do business with Russia. I heard several times that the Germans have already opted to align themselves with Russia for commercial reasons. In my view, German policy is moving in that direction, but the deal is not yet sealed. In the same way that Russian President Vladimir Putin rushed to China to gain at least the appearance of strategic options, so, too, Putin wants as deep a relationship with Germany as he can get. He will not be excessively and overtly aggressive until and unless he must be. The Germans cannot be seen as simply abandoning their European allies, and Putin cannot put them in that position

.

The Russians want to quiet Ukraine down for another reason. Crises galvanize Americans to act rapidly, and frequently, effectively. Crises that are dying down cause the Americans to pause and consider the direction of events. As Biden’s visit to Romania indicated, Washington moves fast in crisis mode. The Russians can control the tempo of American actions by cooling things down in Ukraine — or so they think. And this is precisely what worries the Romanians. They see themselves as having a long-term Russian problem. At the moment, they are making a large bet that the Americans will follow through on their commitments and interest even as the Russians dial down the immediate crisis.

 

Fairly or not, the Romanians see the Obama administration as insufficiently engaged and heedless of the dangers the Russians pose. They also see the administration as intensely critical of Romania’s culture of corruption — which the Romanians admit is a problem — but intensely interested in military and political coordination. They understand the United States, which is what worries them. On the one hand, they will be courted intensely by the vice president only to be condemned by the State Department, and expected to expose themselves to Russian retaliation. I tried to explain the complexities of being American. The Romanians’ sympathy was restrained. They think they heard a real commitment from the American side, but they simply don’t know how genuine it is.

 

In the course of various conversations I tried to explain my view of the situation. The United States has a pattern of engagement in Europe. It postpones intervention to the last moment, builds alliance structures, supports allies with economic and military aid, and then waits until late in the game to intervene, always hoping it won’t have to. Biden’s and Hagel’s visits are part of the process of creating a regional bloc to contain the Russians and to establish a framework for military aid. Intervention comes much later, if ever.

 

The Romanians are more comfortable with this than the Poles are, who have asked for 10,000 NATO troops on their territory. The Romanians have no such expectations. They are also prepared to increase their defense budget to 2 percent of gross domestic product, which is significant for Europe these days. But they expect the United States to help finance the cost of the weapons they need to purchase. Expecting credit when facing the Russians, however, is no more reasonable than subjecting a country to State Department criticism while the Defense Department is urging risk taking. The Romanians ultimately feel that the U.S. intent isn’t clear.

 

U.S. Goals

 

The American intent at this point is to maintain an independent, pro-Western Ukraine. That might simply not be possible. But the problem is that in having this goal, and pursuing it to some effect, the United States has convinced the Russians that it intends to break the Russian Federation by denying it an essential sphere of influence. The Russians have now concluded that whatever happens in this round in Ukraine, this process will not end.

 

Whatever the American thoughts initially, they are realizing that the Russian threat to Ukraine is permanent, and that whatever happens in Ukraine, it will extend to countries like Romania. And Romania particularly matters to the Russians for two reasons. First, Romania is on the Black Sea, and the Black Sea is Russia’s southern maritime access to the world. That’s why they had to hold Sevastopol, and that’s why Odessa mattered so much. The Russians are aware that they need access to the Bosporus, controlled by the Turks. Still, American aircraft in Romania and Romanian ships in the Black Sea could complicate the Russians’ lives substantially, including their power in the Caucasus, since Georgia is on the Black Sea as well. It should be noted that boosting naval power is on the Romanian-American agenda, and both countries understand the challenge this creates for Russia.

 

The second challenge is that Romania is potentially capable of producing significant hydrocarbons, including oil. The Russians’ only real card in this game is their energy sales to Europe. If they withhold it, the pressure is enormous and that economic pressure can be converted to political power. Germany’s attitude is influenced by several things, but energy dependence is certainly one of the main ones.

 

There is no simple energy alternative to Russia, but one can be cobbled together from several sources, if not to replace Russian energy then to mitigate its power. Romania has energy and other resources to contribute to this, and the public statement issued by the United States and Romania included a commitment by Romania to focus on energy production as a critical element of the partnership. This is not as easy as it sounds. Romania has a reputation abroad for enormous complexity and unreliability in its permitting process.

 

This is another point where Romania’s new strategy intersects with Russian interests. The Romanian view is that the Russians are extending their influence throughout the region, but particularly in Romania. They do it by the traditional means of using their intelligence services to try to manipulate the political process in Romania. As important, they can use commercial relations to weave networks of influence that are designed to make it costly for Romania to resist the Russians. The Russians are particularly adept at using Gazprom, its subsidiaries and other Russian energy companies to purchase and invest in Romanian and regional companies. The deals are never unattractive to either side in business terms, but they also serve to put the Russians in a position to shape both energy policy and political dynamics. This what I call commercial imperialism: the use of deals, particularly in energy, to create blocking points within the political system when Russian interests are threatened. This is not confined to Romania; the Russians use this tool to shape the behavior of other countries. Though certainly far less unpleasant than Soviet occupation, it nevertheless poses a challenge to U.S. influence.

 

Moldova, Energy and Russian Subtlety

 

There is another dimension to all of this, namely, Moldova. Moldova is ethnically Romanian but has been dominated by the Soviet Union and before that the Russian Empire. It is a place that survives by its wits and by accommodating Russian influence. It is an important place in the sense that if it were to be occupied by the Russians, Moscow would have access to the Prut River, with only a plain between it and Bucharest. If Moldova were to join Romania, then NATO would be on the Dniester River, less than a hundred miles from Odessa.

 

But such calculations matter only in wartime, and the Russians are inherently weak. Their single advantage is energy exports, and that advantage depends on the world price of oil, where they make their real profits. They do not control that price and in the future it is possible that the United States, suddenly a massive producer of oil, will be pushing the price downward. If that happens, there is little left for them.

 

But that won’t happen for a couple of years, if it happens at all. And the full strength of the United States will not be at Romania’s call for a few years, if it does become available. And Romania’s obligation to produce energy won’t manifest itself for a couple of years. So here in southeastern Europe, the Russians have a window of opportunity to create a framework that can withstand the winter that is coming.

 

 

They cannot live without Ukraine. They cannot take Romania. With or without the Americans, the Russians aren’t strong enough for that. What they can do is manipulate, subvert, confuse and deflect. They need to undermine the Romanian entente with the United States, and they are skilled at the political maneuvering needed to do that. To many in Romania, Russia is near and strong, America far and indecisive. This was pointed out to me at one meeting. I replied: “In the 20th Century, the United States has won three wars in Europe. How many have the Romanians won?”

 

The most remarkable thing about Romania and even Europe as a whole is that in spite of the historical reality that the United States wins European wars, there is a view of the United States that it is naive, unfocused and bumbling. This goes beyond this administration to every administration I can recall. And yet, it is the United States that decides the fate of Europe consistently.

 

The Romanians know this, but they still feel that the Russians are more clever and capable than the United States. I think the reason is that the Russians move with enormous subtlety and complexity. They do this to compensate for their weakness. The United States operates more simply. It can afford to; it is playing from strength. For now, the Romanians accept this, but their acceptance is fragile. It depends on political consistency on the part of the United States, but with great distance come options and the ability to change one’s mind. Romania is here and can’t go elsewhere. It can only change alliances and hope for the best, something both sides need to consider.

______________________________

Reprinting or republication of this report on websites is authorized by prominently displaying the following sentence, including the hyperlink to Stratfor, at the beginning or end of the report.

 

“Borderlands: First Moves in Romania is republished with permission of Stratfor.”

 

Copyright © 2014 Stratfor | 221 West 6th Street Suite 400 – Austin, TX 78701, USA

George Friedman is the Chairman of Stratfor, a company he founded in 1996 that is now a leader in the field of global intelligence.  Friedman guides Stratfor’s strategic vision and oversees the development and training of the company’s intelligence unit.

 

Dr. Friedman is the author of The New York Times best-seller
 The Next Decade, which forecasts the major events and challenges that
 will test America and its presidents over the course
 of the next decade. Dr. Friedman’s previous book, The Next
 100 Years, was also a New York Times best-seller and was published in over 20
 languages. His other books on warfare and intelligence include America’s Secret War, The Future of War and The Intelligence Edge.

 

A very popular keynote speaker, Dr. Friedman is … READ THE REST

What if Japan became a Military Power Again?


Imperial Japan Re-Armed

John R. Houk

© December 27, 2013

 

Japan embarked on military campaigns in the 1930s to become an Asian political hegemon and to obtain the natural resources to maintain hegemony. The beginning of the end for Japan’s hegemonic agenda occurred when the Japanese Imperial Military attacked the U.S. Naval Base at Pearl Harbor Hawaii with the design to cripple the U.S. Navy in the Pacific. Military aggression was bad enough; however even worse things than aggression took place against innocent civilians and Prisoner of War (POW) personnel. Civilians of China, Korea, Philippines and other Asian peoples were rampaged, put into slave labor, raped, murdered, tortured and a lot of Korean gals were drafted to be pleasure girl prostitutes for the Japanese Imperial Military personnel. The American, British and the Asian nations lucky enough to have any kind of military were also tortured and brutalized as POWs.

 

Because of European Theatre of WWII and the NAZI implemented Holocaust, most Americans are cognizant of the atrocities particularly against the Jews and other groups of people that were considered genetically inferior to the NAZI super race. The Nuremberg War Crimes trials of NAZIS is prominent on documentary channels such as the History Channel and in American entertainment motion pictures. BUT did you know the Japanese treatment of conquered people may have been more brutal in its nature of execution than the Holocaust. Perhaps not as many people died as in the Holocaust (Approximately 6 million Jews and 6 million other people by race and physical limitations).

 

Apparently the Japanese Imperial Military was better at covering their tracks than the NAZIS. Genocide expert R.J. Rummel produces the number genocide victims at the hands of the Japanese to be between 3 MILLION and 10 MILLION. You can find Rummel’s research on Japan’s acts of genocide at “STATISTICS OF DEMOCIDE: Chapter 3; Statistics Of Japanese Democide Estimates, Calculations, And Sources”. Rummel uses the word “Democide” rather genocide. He defines Democide thus:

 

Democide is the murder of any person or people by a government, including genocide, politicide and mass murder. Democide is not necessarily the elimination of entire cultural groups but rather groups within the country that the government feels need to be eradicated for political reasons and due to claimed future threats. According to Rummel, genocide has three different meanings. The ordinary meaning is murder by government of people due to their national, ethnic, racial or religious group membership. The legal meaning of genocide refers to the international treaty on genocide, the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. This also includes nonlethal acts that in the end eliminate or greatly hinder the group. Looking back on history, one can see the different variations of democides that have occurred, but it still consists of acts of killing or mass murder. A generalized meaning of genocide is similar to the ordinary meaning but also includes government killings of political opponents or otherwise intentional murder. In order to avoid confusion over which meaning is intended, Rummel created the term democide for the third meaning.[7]

 

The objectives of such a plan of democide include the disintegration of the political and social institutions of culture, language, national feelings, religion, and the economic existence of national groups; the destruction of the personal security, liberty, health, dignity; and even the lives of the individuals belonging to such groups.[8]

 

Rummel defines democide as “the murder of any person or people by a government, including genocide, politicide, and mass murder”. For example, government-sponsored killings for political reasons would be considered democide. Democide can also include deaths arising from “intentionally or knowingly reckless and depraved disregard for life”; this brings into account many deaths arising through various neglects and abuses, such as forced mass starvation. Rummel explicitly excludes battle deaths in his definition. Capital punishment, actions taken against armed civilians during mob action or riot, and the deaths of noncombatants killed during attacks on military targets so long as the primary target is military, are not considered democide.[9]

 

You can read the entire article from Wikipedia (Democide; Wikipedia)

 

With this information in hand I have to ask you. Did you know that Japan has a National Shrine dedicated to their war dead that reaches back to 1867? The place honoring Japan’s war dead is called the Yasukuni Shrine.

 

Yasukuni Shrine … is a Shinto shrine located in Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan. It was founded by Emperor Meiji to commemorate individuals who had died in service of the Empire of Japan during the Meiji Restoration.[1] The shrine’s purpose has been expanded over the years; the deities enshrined at the Honden shrine within Yasukuni currently include more than 2,466,000 individuals who died in conflicts spanning from the Boshin War of 1867 to the end of World War II,[2] and the adjacent Chinreisha “spirit-pacifying” shrine commemorates all of the dead from all wars fought worldwide throughout history.[3]The shrine also includes a war museum, Yushukan, which honors Japan’s war dead and presents a pro-Japanese narrative of World War II.[4] (Yasukuni Shrine; Wikipedia)

 

As Americans we can understand honoring our war dead for we do that as well (we just don’t deify our war dead as the Japanese do). That is what Arlington National Cemetery is for in Virginia near Washington DC. The thing that bothers the billion or so Chinese and the Koreans (North and South) and to a certain extent the U.S. government is that Japan buried notorious war criminals at Yasukuni Shrine. The big dog himself, the Japanese Premier during WWII – Hideki Tojo.

 

Here comes the most recent controversy over the Yasukuni Shrine. Yesterday Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe went to the shrine to honor Japan’s war dead in a Shinto religious ritual. On the diplomatic front the official governments of Communist China and South Korea formerly protested vehemently that the highest representative of the Japanese government essentially honored all the Japanese war dead INCLUDING WWII war criminals. The Obama Administration joined his displeasure with the Chinese and South Koreans expressing disappointment with Prime Minister Abe’s display of honor.

 

The AEI organization posted an essay on this situation entitled, “Japan officially enters Cold War with China and Korea”. That article explains that antagonism between these nations (which included nuclear armed North Korea) has been brewing for some time.

 

Here is a snapshot to look at about a brewing new military paradigm emerging among the Asian nations of the Pacific Ocean.

 

Abe’s finance minister Taro Aso, a former prime minister, declared in 2006 that there was nothing wrong with discussing whether Japan should possess nuclear arms. A Japan Times article last month, entitled “Nuclear arms card for Japan,” noted that politicians who had advocated nuclear weapons, officially and unofficially, included former prime ministers—Nobusuke Kishi (Abe’s grandfather), Hayato Ikeda, Eisato Sato, Yasuo Fukuda and Aso.

 

During the election campaign last year, Shintaro Ishihara, who was an LDP member until last year and now leads the extreme nationalist Japan Restoration Party, declared: “It’s high time Japan made simulations of possessing nuclear arms,” saying that it would be a form of deterrent against China. He has previously insisted that Japan had to have nuclear weapons.

 

The same Japan Times article reported that the Japanese government in September 2006 compiled an internal report examining “the possibility of domestically producing nuclear weapons.” A Defence Ministry source told the newspaper that the secret document had been produced by the Foreign Ministry and had aroused serious concerns in the US State Department.

 

According to the article, the report found that it would take three to five years and 200 to 300 billion yen ($US2.2 to 3.3 billion) for Japan to manufacture nuclear weapons. A significant obstacle was the impurity of the plutonium produced in Japan’s commercial power reactors. The Rokkasho reprocessing facility, which has taken more than $US21 billion and two decades to build, would be able to provide weapons-grade plutonium. No date has been set for its start up but the Japan Atomic Energy Commission and the plant’s operator, Japan Nuclear Fuel, say it could be as early as October. However, the Nuclear Regulation Authority has indicated that safety guidelines will not be ready until December.

 

…

 

In March and April, Washington deliberately inflamed tensions on the Korean Peninsula, provocatively sending nuclear-capable strategic bombers to South Korea, supposedly to counter North Korean threats. The US sought to use the crisis to put pressure on China for economic and strategic concessions, including to rein in Pyongyang.

 

However, the Abe government also exploited the North Korean “threat” to deploy anti-missile systems in Japan, and establish a political climate of fear to justify military rearmament—including potentially with nuclear weapons. The US is directly responsible for creating the conditions for a nuclear arms race in Asia that would enormously heighten the danger of conflict and war. (READ ENTIRETY – Is Japan Developing a Nuclear Weapons Program? By Peter Symonds; Global Research; 5/7/13)

 

And Here

 

It became clear at the 28th Annual Conference of the Council on U.S.-Korean Security Studies in Seoul this past week that the DPRK’s recent escalatory rhetoric and other provocations has reinforced the concerns of some South Korean strategists about the credibility of U.S. extended deterrence guarantees in Asia.

 

As the United States becomes vulnerable to a North Korean nuclear strike, the credibility of its extended deterrence guarantees to its Asian allies is called into question. Some South Koreans, including some of the former ROK general officers at the conference, already doubt that the U.S. officials would defend them against a DPRK attack if North Korea could destroy Los Angeles in retaliation. They want to acquire their own national nuclear deterrent, whose use in response to an attack against them would be much more credible than that of a third party.

 

If more South Koreans lose faith in the U.S. willingness or capacity to defend them, or they come to fear that potential foreign aggressors doubt the credibility of U.S. assurances, then South Korea might pursue alternative security policies, including possibly seeking their own nuclear weapons. Such a move could easily prove counterproductive by harming the ROK’s relations with the United States and other countries, resulting in a net decrement to the country’s security.

 

… READ THE REST (North Korean Threats Deepen Southern Nuclear Insecurities; By Richard Weitz; The Diplomat; 7/4/13)

 

And Here

 

As China rattles sabers over its newly claimed airspace in the East China Sea directly over Japanese sovereign soil, as reported by the Israeli news portal Arutz Sheva on Dec. 2, 2013, one thing that many international watchers agree would rattle China’s cage would be a militarily-allied and nuclear-armed Japan and Republic of Korea (ROK).

 

Especially a nuclear Japan and ROK independent of U.S. military control.

 

Tensions are still running high since China claimed international airspace over Japan’s Senkaku Islands, the southernmost of the 3,000 islands comprising the Japanese archipelago.

 

… READ THE REST (Getting China’s attention: A nuclear-armed Japan and South Korea; Examiner.com; 12/2/13)

 

The picture here is that of a lot of Asian mistrust including the mistrust of U.S. Military capabilities to protect Japan and South Korea from an aggressive China and North Korea. AND YET due to history neither is South Korea entirely trusting with a Japan independent of the USA arming itself with nuclear weapons.

 

I see two things that could happen affecting American National Security Interests.

 

The positive: A nuclear armed Japan and South Korea means a decrease in military defense deterrence as a buffer between South Korea versus China and North Korea as well as a buffer between Japan versus China and North Korea. Lessening the commitment means lessening the U.S. budget as it pertains to the Military policing the Pacific due to our National Interests.

 

The negative: A nuclear armed Japan would flex muscles over land disputes with China and Russia and undoubted retaliate against North Korean adventurism that was not well thought out; such as the sinking of a Japanese commercial or naval vessel. Or perhaps North Korea shooting an airline pertaining to Japanese commercial or military interests. Amazingly a global war could start that has very little to do with Muslim psycho-Caliphate supporters.

 

In essence, any path the USA chooses would be a gamble, hopefully an informed and educated gamble.

 

JRH 12/27/13

Please Support SlantRight 2.0

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Japan officially enters Cold War with China and Korea

 

By Michael Auslin 

December 26, 2013

Originally National Review Online

American Enterprise Institute

Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe (C) is led by a Shinto priest as he visits Yasukuni shrine in Tokyo December 26, 2013.Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe (C) is led by a Shinto priest as he visits Yasukuni shrine in Tokyo December 26, 2013. 

 

 

 

Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe (pronounced “Ah-bay”) has just visited Yasukuni Shrine, Ground Zero for political controversy with China and Seoul. In doing so, he has all but acknowledged that a cold war exists between Japan and its northeast-Asian neighbors China and South Korea. It’s a shot across the bow of both countries, boldly, perhaps recklessly, announcing that Japan will no longer seek better relations on their terms. Nor does he have the support of the United States. Abe is putting Japan on a path of increasing diplomatic self-reliance, but doing so with the belief that it is the right response to continued tensions with Beijing and Seoul. That it will inflame those tensions, he is well aware.

Yasukuni Shrine is somewhat analogous to Arlington National Cemetery, being the religious site where the spirits of Japan’s war dead since 1867 are commemorated. Founded in 1869 across from the Imperial Palace in Tokyo, there are nearly 2.5 million individuals enshrined there. Among them are 14 Class A war criminals from World War II, including wartime premier Hideki Tojo. These individuals were enshrined in 1978, nearly two decades after the first Class B and C war criminals were included in the shrine. Emperor Hirohito, who reigned during the war, refused to visit the shrine after 1978 and the inclusion of Tojo and others.

There was little international controversy about the shrine until 1985, when then–prime minister Yasuhiro Nakasone paid an official visit to offer prayers for the dead. The outcry forced him to abandon plans for future visits, but annual visits by popular prime minister Junichiro Koizumi between 2001 and 2006 again fanned the flames of diplomatic protest. Both Beijing and South Korea have heatedly and vehemently condemned visits to the shrine by any serving Japanese cabinet official, and especially the prime minister. While no doubt feeling true outrage over what they see as attempts to whitewash the memory of the atrocities committed by the Class A war criminals, Chinese and Korean officials have also used the shrine visits as a means of pressuring Japan and keeping it diplomatically isolated in Asia. Contemporary politics have as much to do with the furor over Yasukuni as does the historical record.

Since 2006 no serving Japanese prime minister visited Yasukuni, in part to try and stabilize relations with China and South Korea. Yesterday, a year after taking office and refraining from going to the shrine, Prime Minister Abe made an official visit. The reaction from Beijing and Seoul was swift and expected. According to the BBC, “China called the visit ‘absolutely unacceptable to the Chinese people’, and Seoul expressed ‘regret and anger’.” More surprisingly, and worryingly, the BBC reports that “the US embassy in Tokyo said in a statement it was ‘disappointed’ and that Mr. Abe’s actions would ‘exacerbate tensions’ with Japan’s neighbors.” It was a clear message that Washington doesn’t trust Abe’s judgment and may not see him as a responsible ally.

Both Beijing and Seoul will undoubtedly take comfort in the U.S. pronouncement, seeing it as a signal to pressure Tokyo and continue with their relentless attempts to isolate Japan. South Korean president Park Geun Hye has been particularly vociferous in her anti-Japanese statements, taking the opportunity during the visits of Vice President Biden and Defense Secretary Hagel to publicly chastise, if not embarrass, Japan. For those concerned over Washington’s repeated attempts to restrain Tokyo’s response to China’s provocations in the waters around the disputed Senkaku Islands, the embassy statement will seem yet another instance of the U.S. government undercutting its ally.

The real question is not what China and South Korea will do in response to Abe’s visit. The question is, rather: Why now? Abe is regularly labeled a nationalist and right-winger, by political opponents at home and anti-Japanese voices abroad, in both Asia and America. His plans to increase Japan’s defense budget and lift some of the remaining post-war restrictions on Tokyo’s ability to engage in collective self-defense, as well as undertake some controversial constitutional reforms related to civil liberties, has alarmed critics at home and abroad.

From Abe’s perspective, the trend line in northeast Asia is getting worse. He has been rebuffed for nearly a year by the South Korean president, who has met with the Chinese. Last month, China established a controversial air defense identification zone in the East China Sea that partly overlaps Japan’s own zone over the Senkaku Islands. Instead of a firm American response, Tokyo saw Vice President Biden fail to demand a repeal of the zone during his visit to Beijing. China’s military modernization and growth plan shows no sign of abating, and it is starting to develop sophisticated offensive weapons such as aircraft carriers and stealth fighters.

Thus, rather than start 2014 on the defensive, Abe seems to have decided to take the bit between his teeth. It shows he’s willing to buck his only ally, the United States, and pursue a more independent path. His visit was a message that his administration will not continue to apologize for its history, having done so numerous times in the past. It is also a signal that he will not supplicate for better relations with China and Korea at the expense of what he thinks is in Japan’s best interests. At the outer edge of interpretation, that may well mean a more muscular response to China’s interloping around the Senkaku Islands or moving ahead on strike capabilities that could target North Korea. Combining this with a push for high-level diplomatic talks with Beijing and Seoul could possibly blunt the impact of his visit, but for the foreseeable future, Japan’s relations with China and South Korea will be in a deep freeze.

___________________________

What if Japan became a Military Power Again?

John R. Houk

© December 27, 2013

___________________________

Japan officially enters Cold War with China and Korea

 

©2013 American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research

Tony Newbill Emails 9/10 to 9/25/13


American Dollars

 

This set of emails begins with more of Newbill following the possible reasons that Obama is interested in what happens in Syria. It does have to do with American National Interests, natural gas, oil and Russia. The other emails deal with the dangers facing the American economy and the Federal Reserve’s economic management.

 

JRH 10/9/13

Please Support NCCR

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

This Syrian War is a Pipeline Dance among the Global Elites!!!!!!!

Sent: 9/10/2013 1:51 PM

 

Russia wants to be the Supplier to Europe but Needs the energy from the Middle East regions that they are Associated with to make this happen:

 

 http://www.downstreamtoday.com/news/article.aspx?a_id=39600&AspxAutoDetectCookieSupport=1

 

Pipeline Politics; Is Putin Running Out of Gas?

 

The Cold War is now so over that it might as well be grouped with the ancient ice ages, but there is one echo rolling across Europe from East to West: the Russian attempt to dominate the natural gas market on the European continent. As the energy sector accounts for 25 percent of Russia’s economy, any large changes in energy markets present major challenges for Vladimir Putin. Those old enough to recall the Soviet gas pipeline controversy of the early 1980s a high-profile fight of the Reagan administration to deprive Moscow of hard currency are right to have a feeling of déjà vu, as Putin’s motives transcend honest commerce.

 

Despite huge gas reserves waiting to be tapped, most of Europe lags the United States in the shale gas boom for several reasons: a lack of mineral rights on private land, bureaucratic obstacles, the usual intransigent opposition from Europe’s potent green lobby, and, perhaps most important, the lack of adequate pipelines to connect new gas fields to the market. Hence, natural gas prices in Europe are several times higher than U.S. prices. Since natural gas and oil are Russia’s principal export commodities, the prospect of newly abundant oil and cheaper gas outside of Russia is a grave threat to Russia’s economic and political might in the region. Russia can’t do much about global oil trends, but Putin and the state-controlled Gazprom are doing everything they can to throttle new gas development in Eastern Europe, rerunning the same kind of behind-the-scenes propaganda against shale gas that the KGB ran against new NATO missiles back in the Cold War. Propagandists in Russia are promoting every translation possible for the message fracking=bad. The second prong of Putin’s strategy is to control pipeline development as far as possible. But things are not going well for him.

 

Gazprom is the linchpin of Putin’s political and economic strength. The state-controlled natural gas conglomerate is a huge source of revenues for the Russian budget, but also a slush fund for Putin’s clan the corrupt network of power-political and economic relationships that rules Russia today. Immediately after coming to power in 2000, Putin moved to put the company under his direct control. In short order, he made his protégé and current prime minister, Dmitry Medvedev, chairman of Gazprom’s board and appointed another protégé, Alexey Miller, as CEO. According to a book by two prominent former Russian politicians, 11 of the 18 executive positions in Gazprom were quickly filled with Putin cronies. He then moved to make the company a national champion, giving it an exclusive license for the export of the country’s gigantic gas wealth. It is widely believed that Putin makes all of the key Gazprom decisions himself.

 

 

Putin’s energy cronyism is vertically integrated, as he ensures that infrastructure projects such as pipeline construction go to his friends’ firms at lucrative prices. Gazprom pipelines typically cost two to three times more than those built by Western companies, despite the much lower wages paid to Russian labor. While the German portion of the Nord Stream pipeline, for instance, cost $2.8 million per kilometer, the Russian portion built by one of Putin’s handpicked companies cost $6.5 million/km. This is one reason Putin likes pipelines, even if he can’t guarantee they will be fully utilized.

 

Sitting on 18 percent of the world’s current proven gas reserves (a percentage that shrinks with each new discovery elsewhere), Gazprom became one of the largest companies in the world. At the 2008 peak of the bubble in oil prices, to which Russian gas prices were indexed, Gazprom’s hubris overflowed. With a market valuation of $365 billion at the time, Alexey Miller confidently predicted that his company would become the largest in the world, with a market cap of up to $1 trillion by 2015, and that it would dominate the huge Chinese market as well as 10 percent of the American market with shipments of liquefied natural gas (LNG). Gazprom’s optimists thought it could command 30 percent of the world market.

 

…

 

Two other threats to Gazprom’s fortunes must also be mentioned. For years Gazprom and Kremlin propaganda have done their level best to scare the Europeans away from shale gas exploration. Alternatively dismissing it as a Hollywood invention or conjuring up an ecological apocalypse, the Kremlin seemingly believed that it can wish this threat away, despite evidence of the massive impact of the shale gas revolution in America. Early on, things seemed to go their way, with France and Bulgaria imposing a moratorium on shale gas exploration. No longer. With Great Britain now allowing fracking and Germany’s government submitting a draft law to do the same, the genie is out of the bottle. It’s only a matter of time before European countries begin exploiting their domestic shale gas fields, posing yet another challenge to the Russian monopolist.

 

Vladimir Putin may have dreamed of becoming the J.R. Ewing of Europe, but his recent moves are more in the mold of the hapless Cliff Barnes. His signature initiative at the moment is the proposed South Stream pipeline, which would run under the Black Sea and through Bulgaria to points west. Putin was hoping Gazprom could retain monopoly control of the pipeline, but because it runs through European Union territory, it is subject to the EU’s market regulations (known as the Third Energy Package ), which require that all pipelines be available for use by competing suppliers and overseen by an independent EU regulator. These conditions are unacceptable to Putin and make it unlikely that South Stream will be built.

 

…

 

That strategy envisaged South Stream as achieving two key political objectives. In bypassing Ukraine, heretofore the key transit country for Russian gas to Europe, it would provide the Kremlin with a powerful weapon for continued economic and political blackmail of Kiev. And, just as important, it would preempt the realization of the competing Nabucco pipeline project, designed to bring non-Russian gas from the Middle East and Central Asia into Europe. The Nabucco pipeline will run to Europe either by way of Greece and Albania into southern Italy, or through Bulgaria, Romania, and Hungary to a hub at Baumgarten, Austria. A decision on the final route is expected in June. The defeat of South Stream holds dire implications for Russia’s standing as the indispensable gas supplier to Europe and for the political fortunes of Putin. [Bold Emphasis Blog Editor – It is my impression Tony Newbill is drawing attention to the fact that the control of the proposed Nabucco Pipeline from Syria by Putin would make up for his ongoing apparent natural gas designs gone awry.]

 

…

 

Putin’s grand scheme of strong-arming Ukraine, Poland, and others and making Europe ever more dependent on Russian gas has not only failed but seriously endangers the gas monopoly’s very existence. Well-known experts such as Mikhail Korchemkin, head of East European Gas Analysis, believe that Gazprom has only a few years before bankruptcy. With Russia’s future oil exports looking soft the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Energy Research Institute in early April forecast that oil exports could drop by 20 percent over the next 30 years weakness in gas exports will deliver a double-whammy to Putin’s power base. The financial flop of the Soviet gas pipeline in the 1980s contributed significantly to the eventual collapse of the evil empire a few years later; the prospective collapse of Putin’s energy strategy may similarly hasten the demise of his evil empire lite. (READ ENTIRETY – Pipeline Politics; Is Putin Running Out of Gas? By Alex Alexiev & Steven F. Hayward; Downstream Today – Originally Weekly Standard; 5/27/13)

 

 

The Competition to this is described here in this link:

 

http://www.examiner.com/article/it-s-not-about-the-chemical-weapons-it-s-about-the-syrian-pipeline

 

It’s not about the chemical weapons, it’s about the Syrian pipeline (Photos)

 

Obama is going after Syria to secure gas pipelines for Sunni Muslims.

 

America’s quest to bomb Syria is not about chemical weapons being used against the Syrians. Chemical weapons are basically a smoke screen, and Obama desperately wants to remove Assad from power for other reasons.

 

The players in this continuing world drama are Turkey, the United States, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Russia. There is a good reason why Turkey and Saudi Arabia both have their backs against the wall and are desperate to take out Assad.

 

…

 

Two years ago, Syria announced it found a promising gas field in its country, and Oil Minister Sufian Allawai said “The first wells were drilled at Qara in Homs governorate, and the flow rate is 400,000 cubic meters per day.” This is great news for Syria’s energy revenues. Besides the prospect of its own gas field, Syria is also one of the most strategic locations for natural gas pipelines to flow to Europe.

 

Qatar, home to the world’s largest gas field along with Iran, has proposed a gas pipeline from the Gulf to Turkey that would traverse Syria to the Mediterranean, with the gas then being shipped to Europe. Assad in 2009 refused to go along with the Qatar plan, instead inking deals with Russia and Iran.

 

Called the Islamic pipeline, it is set to open in 2016; in fact, Iran, Iraq and Syria signed deals in 2011 to construct the 3,480 mile natural gas pipeline that runs from Iran’s South Pars to Europe. This Iran-Iraq-Syria pipeline is set to be the largest gas pipeline in the Middle East. It will snake through Iran, Iraq, Syria, South Lebanon and through the Mediterranean; in addition, the best refinery and infrastructure is in Damascus. Further talks between Iran, Syria, and Iraq for construction of the Islamic Pipeline kicked off in Baghdad today.

 

The Islamic pipeline through Syria could cut energy power of Qatar and Turkey. To make matters worse, most Arabs view the Islamic Pipeline as a Shi’ite pipeline serving Shi’ite interests. After all, it originates in Shi’ite Iran, passes through Shi’ite Iraq, and flows into Shi’ite controlled Syria. Therefore, the Sunni-dominated Gulf nations have both an economic and to a lesser extent, a religious reason, for stopping the Islamic Pipeline from becoming a reality. So far, the Gulf nations have violently opposed Syria’s adoption of the Islamic Pipeline by arming opposition fighters within Syria in order to destabilize the nation.

 

This is certainly one reason why President Obama helped run weapons from Benghazi, Libya, through Turkey into the hands of the Syrian rebels. Al Qaeda strongly opposes the Assad government and has joined other rebel factions in an effort to overthrow Assad and to install a more Sunni-friendly government.

 

Russia has built up naval presence in the ports of Latakia and Tartus to protect the pipeline.

 

Saudi Arabia is desperate to get rid of Assad. The Saudi’s, through their intelligence … (READ ENTIRETY – It’s not about the chemical weapons, it’s about the Syrian pipeline By Vicky Nissen; Examiner; 9/9/13)

 

And the US Political Elites on both sides of the Isle are Involved, see here look at the board members:

 

 http://www.idt.net/about/press/story.aspx?id=41777

 

And this Link shows you the connection between the  Genie Oil & Gas Co and the Pipeline project that will compete with Russian Interests if Syria Falls:

 

http://www.globalresearch.ca/israel-has-granted-oil-exploration-rights-inside-syria-in-the-occupied-golan-heights/5346959

 

Israel has granted oil exploration rights inside Syria, in the occupied Golan Heights

 

Israel has granted oil exploration rights inside Syria, in the occupied Golan Heights, to Genie Energy.

 

Major shareholders of Genie Energy – which also has interests in shale gas in the United States and shale oil in Israel – include Rupert Murdoch and Lord Jacob Rothschild. This from a 2010 Genie Energy press release:

 

Claude Pupkin, CEO of Genie Oil and Gas, commented, “Genie’s success will ultimately depend, in part, on access to the expertise of the oil and gas industry and to the financial markets.

 

Jacob Rothschild and Rupert Murdoch are extremely well regarded by and connected to leaders in these sectors. Their guidance and participation will prove invaluable.”

 

… (READ THE REST – Israel has granted oil exploration rights inside Syria, in the occupied Golan Heights; By Craig Murray; Global Research; 8/26/13)

 

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

This will rock your world!!!

Sent: 9/12/2013 9:35 AM

 

http://pro.wsdinsider.com/WCXFEDLIFEPRCLOU/EWCXP933/?email=N3ANGUS%40centurylink.net&a=24&o=5435&s=6014&u=851400&l=116551&r=MC&g=0&h=true

 

[Blog Editor: The above link is to a video that has interesting information but will make an offer to deal with the info. Video title below]

 

Could Take Effect as Early as October 17

 

“When it happens, 16 states are ready to disappear from the United States, including California and Florida.” Wall Street Journal

 

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Warren Buffet, Bank of America and all the Big Banks

Sent: 9/20/2013 7:42 AM

 

Warren Buffet and Bank of America as well as all the Big Banks have this helping them profit…. It’s the greatest group of insiders ever in the history of the world!!!!!  This will take you right to page 144 and show you the insider information …….

 

http://www.scribd.com/doc/60553686/GAO-Fed-Investigation#outer_page_144

 

Here is how they are controlling inflation…. and it shows how the insider’s club is not helping the debt investment market that feeds a consumer supply-side demand. So this means the market is overpriced.

 

http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/the-federal-reserve-is-paying-banks-not-to-lend-1-8-trillion-dollars-to-the-american-people

 

The Federal Reserve Is Paying Banks NOT To Lend 1.8 Trillion Dollars To The American People

 

Did you know that U.S. banks have more than 1.8 trillion dollars parked at the Federal Reserve and that the Fed is actually paying them not to lend that money to us?  We were always told that the goal of quantitative easing was to “help the economy”, but the truth is that the vast majority of the money that the Fed has created through quantitative easing has not even gotten into the system.  Instead, most of it is sitting at the Fed slowly earning interest for the bankers.  Back in October 2008, just as the last financial crisis was starting, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke announced that the Federal Reserve would start paying interest on the reserves that banks keep at the Fed.  This caused an absolute explosion in the size of these reserves.  Back in 2008, U.S. banks had less than 2 billion dollars of excess reserves parked at the Fed.  Today, they have more than 1.8 trillion.  In less than five years, the pile of excess reserves has gotten nearly 1,000 times larger.  This is utter insanity, and it will have very serious consequences down the road.

 

Posted below is a chart that shows the explosive growth of these excess reserves in recent years…

Excessive Reserves of Depository Institutions Chart

 

This explains why all of the crazy money printing that the Fed has been doing has not caused tremendous inflation yet.  Most of the money has not even gotten into the economy.  The Fed has been paying banks not to lend it out.

 

But now that big pile of money is sitting out there, and at some point it is going to come pouring in to the U.S. economy.  When that happens, we could very well see an absolutely massive tsunami of inflation.

 

Posted below is a chart that shows the growth of the M2 money supply over the past several decades.  It has been fairly steady, but imagine what would happen if you … (READ THE REST – The Federal Reserve Is Paying Banks NOT To Lend 1.8 Trillion Dollars To The American People; By Michael Snyder; The Economic Collapse; 7/1/13)

 

Then they pumped this into the equities markets:

 

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/wall-street-week-ahead-fed-215017066.html

 

Wall Street Week Ahead: Fed may taper without causing market tantrum

 

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Months of anticipation will come to an end next week when the Federal Reserve finally says whether it will start to rein in its massive stimulus of the economy, which has flooded financial markets with some $2.75 trillion over the past five years, supercharging returns on everything from stocks to junk bonds.

 

But for all the concerns that the reduced presence of such a giant asset buyer would be calamitous for investors, it appears equity and bond markets are poised to take next week’s Fed decision largely in stride – provided the central bank doesn’t surprise with the size of its move or shock in some other way.

 

The Fed has telegraphed its intentions to … (READ THE REST – Wall Street Week Ahead: Fed may taper without causing market tantrum; By Ryan Vlastelica; Yahoo Finance; 9/13/13 5:50 PM EDT)

 

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Big Government Rationed Economic System

Sent: 9/25/2013 5:30 PM

 

Obamacare is a Result of this Trend because they have not the will to try and continue to allow the free market economic concept to feed demand because of Peak Earth Ideology!!!!!!

 

This 15 year chart shows why the Governments around the world are setting up the free market consumer driven international economy to become a Big Government rationed economic system.

 

The rate of this inflation is an unsustainable signal that demand is out pacing any kind of supply-side growth potential in the key areas of resource production and development that sustains life growing at the rate it has been.

 

This is why we see a dysfunctional Government not willing to up hold the values of the Constitution in their entirety.

 

This is a 15 Year chart of key resource price inflation and interest rates

 

 

                                                      1998           2013         % Change

Dow Jones Industrial Ave.     7,908        14,840         4.29%/year

Federal Funds Rate                 5.50%        -.25%           -100%

Prime Rate                                 8.5%             3.25%        -62%

10-Year Treasury Bills            5.54%          2.73%         -49%

Gold (lb.)                                    $290             $1,470        +11.43%/year

Copper (lb.)                               66¢               $3.23          +11.17%/year

Oil (barrel)                                 $8.74            $101            +17.72%/year

Lean Hogs (cwt.)                     $38               $96                 6.37%/year

Live Cattle (cwt.)                     $58                $128              5.42%/year

Land (per acre)                       $1,801           $8,296          10.72%/year

Corn (bu.)                                 $1.99             $7.27             9.02%/year

Soybeans (bu.)                       $5.85             $15.36           6.65%/year

Wheat (bu.)                              $3.17              $7.52            5.93%/year  

 

This will end in nation Isolating from the International free market Scheme because as these supply demand struggles increase without any future growth expanding the supply and population continuing to expand incomes in the free market will not be able to manage the continued inflation in the key vital resource categories and nations will have to respond to their society outcry with intervention in free market profitability. 

________________________

© Tony Newbill

Edited by John R. Houk

JAMES BUCHANAN’S NEW CELLMATE (Or the Price we pay for electing a Mental Weakling


BHO - Yes we can flip-flop

james buchanan. by_titanicfan

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Intro to ‘JAMES BUCHANAN’S NEW CELLMATE’

Intro by John R. Houk

Posted September 9, 2013

 

Who is James Buchanan? Buchanan was the 15th President of the USA elected as a Democrat (You know, the same political party as Barack Hussein Obama). Buchanan’s term of Office was from 1857 to January 11, 1861. Even though Buchanan was from Pennsylvania he supported the Slave States’ position on slavery. Buchanan mouthed his support of the U.S. Constitution and the Union of the United States of America; however as President he took no action to preserve America’s Union. Controversies of if a new State should be admitted as slave or free knocked loggerheads together politically. After Abraham Lincoln was elected as a Republican President in 1860, Southern State after Southern State seceded from the Union and formed the Confederate States of America to preserve a slave economic culture in the South.

 

You have to understand Buchanan’s ineptitude to comprehend the title of John Bert’s essay castigating President Barack Hussein Obama Foreign Policy and specifically Obama’s desire to engage Syria militarily.

 

BTW – I believe I am at least one of the reasons that John Bert reposted this essay. You can tell this might be about a week or so dated; nevertheless the thoughts are still valid. I might point out I don’t completely agree with John Bert on the issue if engaging Bashar al-Assad is not to our National Interest. I believe it is to the USA’s interest (See Also HERE) but NOT the Obama is trying to convince people to engage Assad. The lone wolf path will make things worse before it is better.

 

JRH 9/9/13

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I am re-posting this by request

JAMES BUCHANAN’S NEW CELLMATE (Or the Price we pay for electing a Mental Weakling)

 

By John Bert

Reposted September 9, 2013 2:27 pm

John Bert Facebook Post

 

I am re-posting this by request

JAMES BUCHANAN’S NEW CELLMATE (Or the Price we pay for electing a Mental Weakling)

Well…Folks GET READY…Obama has JUST CHECKMATED the Congress with the Syria issue. I am CERTAIN he did not make these decisions on his own…someone with an actual working brain made these calculations…not Obama.

Here is where we are:

1.) At this point there is NO Tactical advantage (or otherwise) for the type of military strike that the imbecile in chief, Obama, has been broadcasting to the enemy that we would be making.

2.) It is most assuredly NOT in our “National Interest” or in the “Security Interests” to proceed with limited military action of the sort the “president” has proposed. There is No pressing nor imminent danger. These horrible poison gas weapons are being used in theater only.

3.) Many months back Obama’s teleprompter (we have to blame it on anyone BUT him, right?) caused Obama to shoot off his mouth about “red lines”. The “red line” has been repeatedly crossed. Now, trapped by his own mouth, he had to put up or shut up. Shutting up makes him (and the country by default) look WEAK, which is no shock to anyone who has observed HIM for more than 5 minutes, as the Russians and Iranians surely have.

4.) So now, feeling the heat (and MOST importantly watching his poll numbers plummet) he had to try to find a “way out”. Now he (or actually one of his handlers) has done so. By “seeking the authority of congress” he has effectively REVERSED the tables. Now the BLAME will fall on Congress for whatever mess comes out of Obama’s desperate need to save face for his earlier case of diarrhea of the mouth about “red lines”. Maybe we should call this approaching debacle the “Vanity War”?

Here is what WILL HAPPEN NOW… The very people that you have heard repeatedly saying taking military action against Syria was a BAD IDEA with no goal and no plan and worse, it could cause the entire region to go up in flames, these very SAME PEOPLE will now (many of them) FLIP and say the Congress MUST authorize the President to do something that an hour ago they were vehemently AGAINST. Yep…you read that right. The reason will be that we MUST authorize the President to make an asinine mistake, because if we do not Iran and everyone in the world will see the USA as weak and not living up to our word (Well…not our word…but the imbecile’s). In other words by Obama seeking congressional authority he has abdicated his leadership and authority to act and will have it BOTH WAYS…

a.) If Congress denies him the authority he will point the finger at CONGRESS.

b.) If Congress grants him the authority whatever happens when he does launch his military action against Syria, now THEY–CONGRESS will stand right with him in assuming the blame for the consequences of military action with NO clear objective and no real benefit to the USA.

THIS IS PURE GENIUS!! Either way Congress is holding the bag!!

Just when you thought this Amateur could not screw things up worse he pulls a rabbit out of his hat and promptly drops it in the lap of Congress.

The price to pay for this one move will ripple forward in time with ramifications that are hard to fathom on sooo many fronts.

If it could not get worse…it will…Obama is getting ready to fly to RUSSIA for the G20 summit. This will be a circus. Do you remember the videos of Obama walking along a line of dignitaries in Russia and NO ONE SHAKING HIS HAND…Obama sticks his hand out and NO ONE takes it…reason?? Russians are proud people and would rather be shot dead than be seen with a WEAKLING and COWARD. They KNOW who and what Obama is and they will not shake the hand of a coward…it is as simple as that. So watch as the White House staff does their best to shepherd Obama clear of any opportunities for another round of videos of folks refusing to shake his hand.

The dire foreign policy issues will multiply from this decision. Israel now knows (if they had not before they SURE DO NOW) that they are on their own. Iran now knows beyond any illusions that Obama’s word is worthless…utterly. Russia already knew.

Remember Obama did NOT seek congressional approval for Libya did he? NO. It is being done here for Obama’s VANITY reasons, NOT for the benefit of the USA. It is a Parlor Trick to pull HIS ass out of the fire and stick Congress in his place. He knows historians will look on this as abdication of authority and he is desperate to find a scapegoat…he now has, IF the Congress is stupid enough to fall for this ploy.

This man is a travesty beyond comprehension. This little stunt will be paid for and I fear the price in American lives will be STEEP.

As a side note Obama has made a laughingstock out of his brand New Secretary of State. Kerry has gone out on a limb trying to assemble “partners” making a vocal and impassioned plea for military action NOW, while Obama just sawed off the limb Kerry was clinging to. Want to bet THAT picture will quickly emerge in the Political Cartoons?? I wish I could draw!

Brilliant, right? Destroy the country’s credibility. Weaken foreign policy. Throw your Sec of State under the bus….and on and on…trust me this will NOT be the last act. I could write a BOOK on what MIGHT happen from here….none of it will be good. This idiot just sealed his fate historically as probably the most inept President. Move over James Buchanan you have a new cellmate.

Postscript: I have already heard Ambassador Bolton and Charles Krauthammer, two men that have repeatedly said the Syria military intervention is a horrible idea, now start sounding like Obama’s cheerleader for authority to act based upon the premise I recite above…geez…it did not take long.

Friends and Countrymen IF we are to stop this madness we NEED to let our Senators and Congressmen KNOW that voting for military intervention of the type Obama has proposed in Syria is STILL a HORRIBLE IDEA, and does NOT serve any security interest of this Country, only now, if they grant him the authority, THEY will join him in the history books as the Village Idiots who got out foxed by an Rank Imbecile.

You have my permission to post this as you see fit.

___________________________

© John Bert

Edited by John R. Houk

A Vital U.S. Interest?


US Military Forces Around Syria map

Intro to: A Vital U.S. Interest?

My Brief Lone Wolf Opinion

Intro by John R. Houk

Posted 9/7/13

 

Justin Smith believes there is no benefit to American National Interests if President Barack Hussein Obama punishes Bashar al-Assad for the use of Chemical Weapons against Syria.

 

I know I am beginning to sound like a lone wolf among my fellow Conservatives, but I do think it is to the National Interests of the USA to remove Assad. And yes, I do realize Assad’s removal could lead to a Sunni version of Iran’s Shi’ite theocracy. That is exactly why I believe Assad’s removal is to America’s National Interests. Assad’s removal throws a monkey into Iranian hegemonic plans for the Middle East. If a Sunni regime stands between the Radical Islamic Shias of Iran and the Radical Islamic Shias of Hezbollah residing in Lebanon, the situation then highlights the violent divide between Sunnis and Shias. Sunni-Wahhabi support of Syrian rebels by Saudi Arabia is an illustration of Sunnis trying to prevent the power of emerging Nuclear WMD Iran from being a dominating Middle Eastern hegemon hating Israel. Keeping the divide between Sunnis and Shias is to Israel’s National Interests and thus to U.S. National Interests.  I realize that is increasingly my lone Conservative opinion, but there you go.

 

JRH 9/7/13

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A Vital U.S. Interest?

 

By Justin O. Smith

Sent: 9/2/2013 9:43 PM

 

The President of the United States has become an increasingly powerful branch of government over the past century, simply because Congress has not successfully checked the President whenever a power overreach occurred. So now, more from fear of being mocked than dismay over 1429 dead, including 400 children, Obama has placed himself in a politically precarious position and the U.S. in a dangerous military venture, over his “red line” comment and the use of weapons of mass destruction. He is poised to intervene in Syria through cruise missile strikes, with or without Congressional approval, since he has not let that stop him in the past in foreign or domestic policy.

The War Powers Act (WPA) is very clear on this matter. A U.S. President can only act in his capacity as Commander-In-Chief of the U.S. Armed Forces and engage an enemy of our nation, when an attack has already occurred or is imminent against the U.S. or one of our allies or when a vital U.S. interest is under a heavy threat.

President Bill Clinton acted outside the WPA when he involved the U.S. in the Serbian conflict; when President Ronald Reagan sent the U.S. Marines to Grenada, he did so to protect U.S. citizens attending medical school on the island from a Cuban invasion force.

Obama is essentially damned if he commits to this limited surgical strike and damned if he doesn’t. Two weeks ago, it wasn’t a question of if, but a question of when President Obama was going to order a strike on Syria on his own authority; and now, after speaking with Denis McDonough, White House Chief of Staff, Obama seems quite reticent to act on his own and without Congressional approval, which led Syria’s state-run newspaper, Al Thawra, to call this “the start of the historic American retreat.”

I must ask once again, “What vital interest of the U.S. is at stake in Syria, and what risk of imminent attack exists?”

The answer for the moment is that the U.S. has never had any vital interests concerning Syria, except to closely scrutinize Syria as Iran’s ally and to keep Syria and Iran from going nuclear; however, Obama’s loose-lipped “red line” comment is driving him towards proceeding with an attack which will give Iran its excuse for a retaliatory attack on Israel, according to a senior mullah in Iran, not that Obama is too worried about Israel. So, whether he attacks or not, he is seen for the indecisive, weak, and timid U.S. President, who is guided by his own arrogant self-image and false pride, rather than any clear and concise foreign policy.

More asinine reasoning is readily viewed in statements from Obama, Senator John McCain and Senator Lindsey Graham, who have continually spoken of “regime change” and Assad’s ouster, although Obama now states that this is not the mission. All three were wrong in Libya…wrong in Egypt…and now that they are on the record they are wrong in stating that any U.S. military intervention should “deter and degrade” Assad’s government’s ability to launch chemical weapons and level the field for the “rebels.” And, to what end? So Al Qaeda and Ansar al-Nusra can more easily take Syria for their own and run terrorist operations out of Syria for the rest of the century?

It should trouble us all to see hundreds and thousands of little innocent Syrian children suffering, and trouble me greatly it does. But once more, this crisis of humanity gives me pause and offers up more questions than answers.

Where were those who advocate “intervention for human rights” crises, such as Susan Rice, NSA advisor and ex-Ambassador to the U.N., Samantha Power, Obama advisor and current U.N. Ambassador and ex-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton…or for that matter Secretary of State John Kerry, when the freedom fighters of Tiananmen Square in China, the Greens of Iran or the people of Rwanda and the Congo were crying out for their assistance? Susan Rice, for one, was busy lining her pockets through her close business relationship with Rwandan dictator Paul Kagame, which extended through her time at Intellibridge and her position as the State Department’s top African affairs expert, during the Clinton administration. John Kerry was probably cruising Boston Harbor on his yacht.

The harsh reality exists that the U.S. cannot be the world’s policeman. Simply put, we help when and where we can, without doing any harm. As much as we all wish to save all the hurt and suffering people of the world, the enormity of the task is simply too much for any one nation; but this has not stopped Prince Saud al-Faisal from begging the international community to “stop Assad’s aggression” against his people, while at the same time, the Arab League, Great Britain and the U.N., all three, have given Obama a vote of no confidence and refused to join him in any coalition for intervening in Syria, because Obama is not trusted as a world leader.

It mat bear reminding that more than humanitarian aid is at the forefront of Prince Faisal’s mind. This is the same family who teach the youth of Saudi Arabia that “jihad-is-the-road-to-paradise”, and because they viewed jihad, holy war, as a proper response through the Q’uran to the U.S. led invasion of Iraq, they left their borders open with Iraq. The Faisal family tacitly supported the flow of non-Iraqi islamofascist insurgents into Iraq, in much the same manner that they now support the “rebels”/islamofascists in Syria!

The best of intentions all too often go awry, and no matter that Obama calls this a “limited surgical strike” or McCain’s refrain of “no boots on the ground” echoes through the halls of Congress, to date, the military proposal has not been properly limited in its scope or duration; many Democrats and Republicans alike already stand in opposition to this intervention with great logic: Senator Christopher Murphy (D) asks, “Will a U.S. attack make the situation better for the Syrian people or worse?” And, on ‘Meet the Press’ this past Sunday, Senator Rand Paul seemed to answer that very question, as he stated, “If we start a bombing campaign in Syria that expands the misery. Assad’s not an ally, but I’m not convinced that anyone on the rebel side will be an American ally.”

Nearly two million refugees have fled Syria. Little elementary school children have witnessed unspeakable horrors and the deaths of numerous friends and family members, and the head of the United Nations Human Rights Commission says that “we are looking at a lost generation of children traumatized by this war.” And there are no good answers to far too many questions, as the world rings its hands. Is this America’s problem? No, I tend to view this more as the entire Middle East’s problem due to its cultural aberrations; under no circumstance should the U.S. further involve itself in this mess, under a Commander-In-Chief I certainly could never have served. As harsh and unfeeling as this may sound, the world has all too often stood on the sidelines and allowed much worse to take place; if the attack on our consulate at Benghazi did not warrant a U.S. military response, how can Obama justify an intervention in Syria? …He can’t!

 

By Justin O Smith

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© Justin O. Smith

Editor-Intro John R. Houk

The Continuing Discussion with Brig. Gen. Sharaf of Pakistan


Transfiguration of Christ

John R. Houk

© July 31, 2013

 

Brig. Gen. Samson Simon Sharaf (ret.) of Pakistan has sent a critique of my post ‘A Response to “Samson Simon Sharaf and Pakistani Christian Patriotism”’ via the Google+ comment system. I usually place my thoughts preceding responses to comments; however General Sharaf’s comment is a post length and is well written with ideas I agree with as well as disagree. I’ll do my best to answer the Brigadier General’s well thought out comments below his post.

 

JRH 7/31/13

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Brig. Gen. Sharaf (ret.) Defends Pakistan Patriotism and USA Criticism

(Title created by Editor)

Comment posted: July 28, 2013

Google+ Comment

 

Dear John,

Please understand that like you, we Pakistanis are also justified to claim our patriotism. . The right to freedom of thought cannot be viewed in black and white and selectively. If American citizens have a right to criticise government policies, so do we. I neither despise USA nor its people. Our opinions manifest fundamental rights and freedom of expression.

 
USA is a great country, the world’s only super power with a rich history. American Civil War was the Zenith of the Renaissance, Industrial Revolution and Nation States. Yet it took USA over a century to come to grips with civil rights epitomised in the tragedies of Martin Luther King and John F Kennedy. Social dynamics in an instant go berserk, but ages to take a correction course.

The America of our dreams that rose out of the civil war and the land of opportunities is not the America we see in recent international policies. Cocooned in its trans-Atlantic isolation, the advantages of globalisation do not manifest themselves in the policy towards conflict zones that lie far away. There are dual standards we protest.

The biggest and most enduring lesson of the Civil War was the decisive nature of the Social Dimension of conflict, again brought to fore in WWI and II. Hence post WWII, the process of rebuilding and restructuring was initiated for Central Europe, Japan and South Korea. The same was not done for Afghanistan and Pakistan in the post-Soviet withdrawal in the late 80s. The forces of religiously inspired militancy that were US allies from 1979 to 1989 were disowned and allowed to rot in Afghanistan and Pakistan. I felt then and in retrospect feel convinced that had USA followed the development model of Japan/Germany thereafter, much of what is happening now could have been moderated and contained.  In fact, the absence to factorise societal factors and psych-social dynamics in policy and war plans has hurt countries adversely: from Gulf of Tonkin that destabilised the entire peninsula to AFPAK that has destabilised the entire region. The SledgeHammer and Daisy Cutter approach to kill a fly can only be paid back by collective hate.

  
USA and its allies could also have played a more assertive role in settling political issues in South Asia and prevented it from becoming a nuclear keg. Rather, Arab militants were allowed to transcend international borders and create a floating threat. OBL was allowed to Sudan and after Kenyan bombings facilitated to enter Afghanistan. Mansur Ijaz, an American opinion maker claims that USA refused to take him over from Sudan and I know through personal knowledge that USA refused to take him [OBL] over through a neutral country once Taliban wanted to hand him over in 2001.

 
In strategic parlance, Pakistan was the pivot from which the act of containing godless communism and Iranian revolution took place. Pakistan’s allies notably USA promoted the policy of using religion for strategic purposes as a result of which no measures were taken to hedge against religious and sectarian divides. The process began in 1949 and continued to become more exclusive with time. It is this effect we see in the religiously motivated violence in our country.

Unlike 1947-1971, Pakistani Christians are seen an extension of western influence.  Acts of intolerance against Christians saw a sharp rise after 1981, when USA began sponsoring religiously inspired violence against Iran, Shia populations and USSR. Apart from blasphemy cases, in 28 incidents of terrorism spanning 10 years, 116 Christians have been killed and 410 severely impaired. 7 churches or properties have been destroyed.  Human rights organisations and many Christian NGOs watching Pakistan through a periscope ignore the linkages of this violence to global politics. The socio-economic indices of Christians have plummeted and majority resigned to life in slums and ghettos. This is what I am fighting against as a Pakistani Christian activist.

During a lecture at Vatican, I said that we do not need reinforcement of Faith. In all adversities, we stick to our religion. Please convince the world to follow constructive policies that will help us prosper in other things as we do in Faith (3rd Letter of St. Paul, 1:2). As a religious right and a strong lobby, it is also your responsibility to instil the fear of God in your policy makers, whose Shock and Awe rains hell for Pakistanis and Afghans.

 
God Bless

_______________________

John R. Houk Response

July 30, 2013

 

General Sharaf is absolutely correct that he has as much right to criticize foreign and domestic governments as much as I do. Well anyway, from an American perspective. I doubt that General Sharaf would criticize the Pakistan government action that potentially would criminalize a group of Pakistani Christians for having an outdoor Easter Sunrise Service. General Sharaf is a Roman Catholic thus if he chose such criticism I suspect he would run afoul of Pakistan’s Blasphemy Laws. It would be blasphemous for a Muslim to accept an open Christian Service proclaiming the Resurrection of Jesus Christ the Son of God. Christ’s Resurrection and Sonship are a direct contradiction of the Islamic Quran. Hence the probable accusation of breaking a Blasphemy Law.

 

That was the point I was attempting to drive home in the post that got this discussion rolling – “Samson Simon Sharaf and Pakistani Christian Patriotism”. It is a mystery to me that Pakistani Christians are patriotic to a government that validates Islamic Sharia Law that results in persecution for the simple practice of Religious Freedom (e.g. proclaiming Jesus is the only way to God and all other paths – including Mohammed’s – are false paths). In America it is annoying to Biblical Christians when Muslims preach that Mohammed is the last Prophet and his revelation from Allah is truth while the People of the Book are deceived following a corrupted Scriptures. Annoyance does not lead to societal riots in which Mosques are burnt to the ground and Muslims homes and stores are destroyed and women are violated. That is something that does occur in Pakistan aimed at Christians when Americans speak what they believe is the truth about Islam. Muslims go beyond being annoyed to something said in a nation foreign to them leading toward taking out their vitriol on Pakistani Christians. AND still Pakistani Christians are patriotic to a government that does little prevention and only sometimes prosecutes only a few Muslims when hundreds may have been involved in violence and desecration of Churches. I have to be honest, Pakistan Christian loyalty and Patriotism mystifies me.

 

General Sharaf you say America is great nation then write a paragraph of America’s Civil Rights struggles in the past that are better now than any time in our history as if that greatness has now evaporated. I do agree America’s shining star on the hill status has diminished but Civil Rights have not been the cause of that dimming light. The American struggle to rekindle the fire to the light has more to do with the unfortunate success of Left Wing politics diminishing America’s moral fabric by separating all things Christian from influencing the nation on a Federal, State and Local level.

 

Prayer has been removed from our Public Schools, Christian symbolism in Public buildings are being extracted by legal means, lax abortion laws has enabled the murder of millions of unborn children and America’s Left has successfully forced American society to accept homosexuality and transgenderism as a part of the society’s normal fabric. There are a plethora of moral issues that I haven’t mentioned that the Left is using as a legal war on Christianity in an attempt to slowly expunge our faith and Biblical Morality.

 

America’s Founding Fathers believed in a Church-State separation; however that separation was not a two-way street like the American Left has been revising for the last 50 years or so. America’s First Amendment to the Constitution guarantees Religious Freedom and ensures that the government will not establish a State-managed Church. There is no mention whatsoever in the U.S. Constitution of preventing Christianity (literally any ‘religion’ in the wording, but the intent was referencing Christianity) from influencing the morals of American society on a Private or Public level.

 

The result of this moral encroachment by America’s Left has seen a skyrocketing of crime on an urban and rural level. Children that were once predominantly innocent angels have multiplied into disrespectful violent criminals. Most of America’s rural areas (which was my upbringing) had so much neighborly and community trust that people did not lock their doors in their homes or their automobiles. Those days are gone in the 21st Century. Actually those days left before the 21st Century arrived.

 

Chuckle. Now look what you did General. You got me contemplating the things that I do find disturbing about America’s current state of society.

 

Addressing America’s international policies there is an essence of truth to what you have observed. America’s Foreign Policy had a central paradigm that was established by our first President George Washington. Do not meddle in European affairs. Americans distrusted Europeans shortly after the American Revolution. Even after the establishment of our honored Constitution that has been the benchmark of American governance, America’s military strength was purposefully kept small because Americans do not trust the power of government which controlled the military. Even after America’s Civil War military personnel was reduced monumentally to limit government interference with American citizens. Only after a war began was there a military mobilization. This included America’s involvement in WWI. After WWI was over the military was reduced. The political reasoning for military reduction was because of the belief of the difficulty for foreign powers (with the focus on Europe) to cross the Atlantic and/or Pacific Oceans to make a sustained attack on American soil. The policy was called Isolationism.

 

Japan’s bombing of the Navy Base at Pearl Harbor Hawaii changed America’s military strategy forever. America had to play catch-up in mobilizing the army and navy to confront Japanese aggression in the Pacific and join the British in fighting Japan’s European ally Nazi Germany in the Atlantic-European theatre.

 

After WWII America was the big winner. All of Europe from the Atlantic Ocean to Moscow Russia suffered the devastation of truly horrible carnage and destruction. Japan’s industrial complex had been destroyed as well.

 

There was only one nation that did not experience destruction on their home soil during WWII. Of course that was the USA. Part of the reason for this again were the two oceans of the Pacific and the Atlantic; however it was obvious from WWII that ocean protection was quickly coming to an end. Soon after WWII the old Soviet Union set out to turn lands their Red Army had captured into a Communist Empire by imposing Satellite status of European nations the USSR did not directly absorb into their Marxist union.

 

If the USA had returned to past demilitarization as in all previous wars Europe and Japan would have to depend on their own diminished resources to rebuild their Industrial Complex AND they would become an obvious target of Stalin’s Communist expansionism that was quickly forming an Iron Curtain.

 

Seeing the change in the wind of geopolitics and National Security it became a wise choice to use America’s abundant resources to aid Europe and Japan to rebuild their Industrial Complex. Thus it was also inevitable that America would protect their investment from Soviet aggression by protecting it. To protect the USA had to expand their Military Complex for its first time in history.

 

Nuclear energy and hi-tech science turned America into the most formidable military the world has ever seen to the chagrin of the Soviet expansionist agenda. The USSR was constantly playing technical catch-up with our Military and Scientific Complex but were always a step behind. Marxist principles simply could not develop innovation with their resources in the same way as America’s Free Market Capitalism did. Even Russia’s nuclear program and armament was the result of espionage rather than personal development.

 

Have there been Foreign Policy mistakes and bad decisions by the American government? We all know the answer is yes. Nonetheless, America’s National Interests are more important to us than that of an unstable or destabilized nation that has the capacity to initiate WWIII conventionally or with a nuke war strategy.

 

General you stated the Muslim world (well specifically you use the global stretch example of the AFPAK area through the Vietnamese Gulf of Tonkin) could have benefitted from the post-WWII rebuilding of Western Europe and Japan. This a point I believe is categorically incorrect. In the case of the Muslim dominated world, it is not willing to allow the kind of American encroachment that would have been needed to create industrialism and an uncorrupted government Civil Service ex nihilo. Europe and Japan had a long history of a growing industrialism and a Civil Service to make the apparatus of government to function efficiently. Islamic Supremacism and Tribalism among Muslim nations makes such an American investment nearly impossible.

 

I didn’t use to believe that. I too felt the Westernized traditions of the Europe and Japan (yes Japan learned Western ways to make their nation military world power in the 1930s) paradigm would also benefit the Muslim world. Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have shown that nation-building political infrastructure that would infuse stable institutions of governance and economy cannot happen between America and Third World Muslim nations. America was able to do this with nations that already had a foundation to rebuild upon.

 

Ironically the Iranian model will probably work best among Muslim nations; however that government is so full of loathing of everything non-Muslim that American National Interests compels the USA to marginalize Iranian development. General you have to realize Pakistan has the capacity to become a model for the Muslim world, but again Islamic Supremacism compels the USA to meddle in Pakistan internal affairs. After all Pakistan has nukes. Perhaps saner people are managing Pakistan’s military than those managing the Iranian military; nonetheless from an American National Interest standpoint the Radical Islam that appears to becoming more and more pervasive makes the USA to overtly or covertly meddle to maintain some kind of balance of weakness rather than a balance of strength. The issue of finding Osama bin Laden holed up in Pakistan for years certainly adds to that distrust.

 

You don’t seriously think America was going to fix Vietnam (Gulf of Tonkin reference) after developing a Marxist paradigm for their economy and industry? Even today Vietnam maintains a Maoist-Stalinist repressive regime in which Civil Rights are non-existent unless you accept the Communist paradigm. Just briefly on Southeast Asia: South Korea and Taiwan join Japan in creating an Economic-Industrial Complex with American help.

 

I checked out the source you mentioned concerning Mansur (or Mansoor) Ijaz. There appears to be a bit of controversy on Mr. Ijaz’s reliability. The Memogate scandal he caused in Pakistan (and less publicized in the USA) in which Ijaz accuses Pakistan’s President Zardari and the Pakistani Ambassador at the time to the USA to be in collusion with America in allowing soldiers to fly into Pakistan and attack bin Laden’s Abbottabad paramilitary complex which resulted in OBL’s death. If true, in my opinion that is a plus for Pakistan’s President. Any Pakistan negative public reaction frankly shows why Pakistan should be a concern to American National Interests. As the USA departs from Afghanistan militarily the Afghanis deserve what happens to them if their good citizens allow the Taliban to rule again. After an Afghan departure the USA has less reason to meddle in Pakistan internal affairs except perhaps as to who controls Pakistan’s nuke arsenal. And also I have to be frank: the killing of Osama bin Laden makes it easier for American citizens of a Conservative nature to stomach leaving Afghanistan even with the failure of Presidents Bush and Obama to use a win at all costs strategy as was last practiced during WWII. The win at all costs strategy probably would have ended America’s interest in fighting in Afghanistan sooner; however as in WWII civilian collateral damage in both Afghanistan and Pakistan would have been much steeper. Musharraf’s game of getting US military aid in exchange for Pakistan cooperation in creating an anti-Taliban front was a travesty of a faithful alliance with Pakistan.

 

Apparently Mansur Ijaz is the global source of how America could have captured Osama bin Laden two times before the 9/11 Islamic Terrorist attack that led America into a Middle East war. The reasoning is no OBL means no 9/11 attack. No 9/11 attack suggests no American Global War on Terror (GWOT). The reality is 9/11 caused an American military mobilization like Pearl Harbor caused a mobilization to participate in WWII. You see WWII had been going on in Europe since 1939 and in Asia between Japan since before the Day of Infamy on December 7, 1941 in the early 1930s. Islamic Terrorists had been attacking Israel-Jews since before its inception in 1948 and American interests since at least from the late 70s and early 80s. It took around 3000 deaths on American soil to wake up American sensibilities that Islamic Terrorists are more than just a nuisance, but rather a threat to the American way of life at home and abroad. Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar simply gave the USA something tangible to extend American wrath for the senseless killing of Americans just because they are Americans. Frankly I and a lot of Americans would not be bothered using our resources to strike down Islamic Terrorists wherever they are hiding no matter the sovereign nation. Whether it takes the reach of SEAL Team 6 or Drones, Islamic Terrorists need to feel the pain they inflict on others. If Islamic Terrorists are dumb enough to hide among accepting non-combatants then so be it.

 

I apologize General I know it sounds harsh. Honestly though I’ve grown weary of Islam’s contribution to messing up the trust between individuals that I experienced in my childhood and youth.

 

Okay, back to Ijaz.

 

Ijaz claims the USA could have collected bin Laden from Sudan with the full consent of Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir. Google exploration appears to validate Ijaz (See Also HERE) however the 9/11 Commission and Clinton Administration disagreed with Ijaz’s contention. Exposing Clinton to potential Foreign Policy screw-ups made Mansoor Ijaz a media darling among American Conservatives. However, more and more evidence seems to be pointing toward Ijaz as a narcissistic showboater in the case of Memogate.

 

Journalist David Frum believes Mansoor Ijaz is a faker because he lied about Frum under oath in a Pakistan investigation:

 

I finally concluded that Ijaz’s version of events was almost certainly bogus, and I raised the possibility that “Pakistani democracy has been corroded, and the U.S. and Pakistan have been pushed toward a dangerous confrontation, by a reckless fantasist motivated by childish vanity.”

 

In commission proceedings on March 15, Ijaz was asked about my column. He answered as follows:

 

Q: Do you know Mr. David Frum, who is also a contributor to CNN?
 
A: I don’t know Mr. David Frum personally, but I know about him. He has extensively written against me with regard to this matter.
 
Q: Do you have an article contributed on December 8, 2011, by Mr. David Frum?
 
A: I don’t have it.
 
Q: How did Mr. David Frum describe you in the said article?
 
A: I don’t recall, but it was in negative terms. [Volunteers] In view of the fact Mr. Frum defamed me my lawyers in Washington informed him that if he does not retract, I will be taking legal action against him.

 

(You can read the transcript here. This exchange is on page 43.)

 

Let me state flatly for the record: that quoted statement of Mansoor Ijaz is false. I have not been threatened with legal action by any lawyer representing Mansoor Ijaz. I have not had any communication of any kind from any lawyer representing Mansoor Ijaz.

 

Mansoor Ijaz did ask CNN.com to post a response from him, not only to my column, but also to a column by my CNN colleague Peter Bergen detailing the long, sorry history of false claims by Ijaz. That response can be read here:

 

David Frum can call me all the names he wants — it won’t change the facts. It certainly will not deter me. And it won’t help to fix what ails Pakistan.

 

Peter Bergen can ridicule my three or four claims that turned out to be inaccurate over a five year period of being interviewed nearly four or five times a week — it won’t change the facts, or the accuracy with which I recorded them in this instance.

 

That’s a bold new defense: ‘My claims turned out to be false only three or four times!’

 

Now there is a fifth time (at least) when an Ijaz statement has been revealed as false.
 
May it please the court, I think we have a regular pattern of behavior here. (READ ENTIRITY – Did The Notorious Mansoor Ijaz Lie About Me Under Oath? By David Frum; The Daily Beast; Mar 21, 2012 10:58 AM EDT)

 

General Sharaf, using Mansoor Ijaz as a source seems unreliable; nonetheless giving him the benefit of the doubt the U.S. government did not have a sense of a homeland security problem with Islamic Terrorism. It was still viewed as a legal Court issue rather than a military matter. Not until 9/11 occurred that National Security strategists began to view Islamic Terrorism as a homeland National Security matter. Of all the problems blamed on President Bush including some misjudged Foreign Policy decisions, he is a hero to me. President GW Bush made the decision to face Islamic Terrorism as a military threat that the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans could not throw up a wall big enough to keep the barbarians out. America’s war with the Taliban for protecting Osama bin Laden was the disturbing fault of the Taliban leadership of which Mullah Omar was the Chief leader among many.

 

So if Omar Mullah desired to give up Osama bin Laden in cooperation with the USA before 9/11, why not after 9/11 when bin Laden was considered a military war criminal?

 

General Sharaf you point out Pakistani Christians became persecution targets of American meddling in religious affairs of Iran. You do remember what the Shi’ite Mullocracy did to the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in 1979 right? An Embassy by international protocol is the national soil of the nation that occupies that Embassy. The protocol for diplomatic extinction is to order the national diplomatic personnel to leave the host nation. The protocol is not to attack an Embassy and hold the personnel hostage for nearly ONE YEAR screaming espionage where diplomatic immunity applies. If one thinks the USA will not inflict mayhem at least covertly for such ignorance of the sanctity of diplomatic immunity is sadly mistaken. I suspect the only reason President Carter did not respond as if this was an act of war was because he is Democratic Party Liberal like America’s current President Obama. Most American Liberals live under the delusion that ALL acts of aggression can be solved with a carrot more than with a stick. Radical Muslims do not respond well with carrots from the kafir. Carrots are viewed as weakness. It is only the stick that elicits a negotiation point with the ideology of Radical Islam. Iran is an enemy of the USA. Carter screwed up the opportunity to put Iran in its place. Instead Carter made Iran look like it was negotiating from a point of strength and enabled the Iranian Mullocracy to have an agenda of building a Military Complex that is not only threatening to American National Security but also to initiating yet another global conflict by forcing nations to choose sides if such a conflict breaks out.

 

The Epistle of Paul to the Romans (Canonical)

 

13 1 Let every soul be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God. 2 Therefore whoever resists the authority resists the ordinance of God, and those who resist will bring judgment on themselves. 3 For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to evil. Do you want to be unafraid of the authority? Do what is good, and you will have praise from the same. 4 For he is God’s minister to you for good. But if you do evil, be afraid; for he does not bear the sword in vain; for he is God’s minister, an avenger to execute wrath on him who practices evil. 5 Therefore you must be subject, not only because of wrath but also for conscience’ sake. 6 For because of this you also pay taxes, for they are God’s ministers attending continually to this very thing. 7 Render therefore to all their due: taxes to whom taxes are due, customs to whom customs, fear to whom fear, honor to whom honor. (13: 1-7 NKJV)

 

I get why Pakistani Christians should submit to the governing authorities imposing Islamic Supremacism over the Religious Freedom of Christians. After all the authorities appointed are from God regardless of Christian, Islamic, other religion or atheist. However when rulers fail to do good or be a minister of good, that ruler is outside the mandated appointment. When that ruler or rulers support evil over good God raises up another instrument to do the will of God knowingly or unknowingly (e.g. Nebuchadnezzar).

 

18 O king, the Most High God gave Nebuchadnezzar your father a kingdom and majesty, glory and honor. 19 And because of the majesty that He gave him, all peoples, nations, and languages trembled and feared before him. Whomever he wished, he executed; whomever he wished, he kept alive; whomever he wished, he set up; and whomever he wished, he put down. 20 But when his heart was lifted up, and his spirit was hardened in pride, he was deposed from his kingly throne, and they took his glory from him. 21 Then he was driven from the sons of men, his heart was made like the beasts, and his dwelling was with the wild donkeys. They fed him with grass like oxen, and his body was wet with the dew of heaven, till he knew that the Most High God rules in the kingdom of men, and appoints over it whomever He chooses.

 

22 “But you his son, Belshazzar, have not humbled your heart, although you knew all this. 23 And you have lifted yourself up against the Lord of heaven. They have brought the vessels of His house before you, and you and your lords, your wives and your concubines, have drunk wine from them. And you have praised the gods of silver and gold, bronze and iron, wood and stone, which do not see or hear or know; and the God who holds your breath in His hand and owns all your ways, you have not glorified. 24 Then the fingers[a] of the hand were sent from Him, and this writing was written.

 

25 “And this is the inscription that was written:

 

MENE,[b] MENE, TEKEL,[c] UPHARSIN.[d]

 

26 This is the interpretation of each word. MENE: God has numbered your kingdom, and finished it;27 TEKEL: You have been weighed in the balances, and found wanting; 28 PERES: Your kingdom has been divided, and given to the Medes and Persians.”[e] (Daniel 5: 18-28 NKJV)

 

I am biased nonetheless I believe America has been an instrument of good globally since WWII. I also believe standing as an instrument of good could be endangered because of the American Left purging of America’s Christian foundations that helped bring about good government when a council of diverse people agreed upon a national experiment that has been the U.S. Constitution. All the geopolitical meddling in the internal affairs of foreign nations under the policies of American National Interests and National Security might allow another instrument to spank the USA a few times to get the people to wake up. A paradigm God used with the Hebrew Tribes until the disregard of faith in God led to Assyria deporting the Northern Tribes of Israel and 100 years later Babylon under Nebuchadnezzar deported Judah and Benjamin. The largest of the remaining 12 Tribes was Judah and thus the Hebrew descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob became labeled as Jews. After punishment Jews by prophecy returned to their homeland about 70 years later ironically by the direction of the King of Persia which is present day Iran.

 

My point is God chooses whomever whether of faith or not to accomplish His purpose on the Earth. The New Testament warns that the Antichrist will fool people that he represents God. The Antichrists actions ultimately reveal who he belongs to whether as an individual or as an Antichrist spirit corrupting people and nations. I still believe the USA is God’s global instrument; however the further America descends away from Christianity the more likely that instrumentation will come to an end.

 

JRH 7/31/13

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Our National Interests and Syria


Bashar al-Assad in vise toon

 

John R. Houk

© June 3, 2013

 

The blogger Danny Jeffrey has often been critical of the U.N. and Obama international principle of Responsibility to Protect (R2P). The public presentation of R2P is that the international community has a responsibility to protect civilians of a nation placed in a life threatening dangerous position from either its government or perhaps internal terrorism the local government cannot cope with or both. AND that sounds altruistic enough, don’t you think?

 

Jeffrey’s criticism is simple. R2P is a tool of Leftist Globalists and the U.N. to have an excuse to further the agenda of a global New World Order under some kind of dual Leftist-Islamic design. Danny Jeffrey off the top of my head seems to emphasize the Caliphate agenda of Radical Islam.

 

I say “off the top of my head” because it seems that Danny’s essays that I have read tend to be suspicious of Islam’s goal to destroy Israel and the Leftist tend to agree with that agenda. I personally think global Leftists and the Caliphate agenda Muslims are taking advantage of each other with the intention of screwing each other over. My reasoning for this thinking is that Leftists are not fond of religious influence in general and Islam is not fond of any other religions or ideologies that are secularist at best and atheistic at worst. As far as Islam is concerned that would run the Leftist gamut of Secular Humanist Socialists to atheistic Marxists.

 

Thus in my line of thinking the Leftist-Radical Islam unity is more like an “enemy of my enemy is my friend” agenda until that enemy is eliminated. If that situation occurs you can imagine the global bloodlust that would follow a global Leftist vs. global Muslim Caliphate war. It would be like medieval days when the winners destroyed en masse the losers. Protocols of modern Western Civilization would be totally thrown out the door while such a war would be a series of battles in which each battle victory by either side would be an ethnic cleansing moment until the victors would be the only ones standing after ethnic cleansing annihilation.

 

A global Leftist-Caliphate war would be an End Times apocalypse in nature.

 

In this sense I agree with Danny that R2P is a nefarious thing that the long term affects will be of no good for people (Mostly Americans) who love Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. The long term affects of R2P will strengthen the ulterior motives of global Leftists and global Caliphate Muslims to the horrible misfortune of Christians and Bill of Rights minded Americans. Both Christians and Bill of Rights minded Americans are the target of destruction by global Leftists and global Caliphate Muslims.

 

However when it comes to Syria, I believe dumping Bashar al-Assad will throw a monkey wrench in the Caliphate agenda because it will highlight the mutual hatred that Sunnis and Shias have for each other. Sunnis represent roughly 90% of Islam and Shias represent roughly 10% Islam.

 

The largest Shia nation is Iran of which that nation’s Mullocracy are mostly Twelver Shias. They are called Twelvers because they believe a Twelfth or Hidden Imam will reveal himself and force Islam upon the whole Earth. That Twelfth Imam is a direct descendant of the Prophet Mohammed. Therein lay the hatred between Sunnis and Shias.

 

The Sunnis beat back the Shias in a war in which the last Mohammed relative that was a Caliph – Ali – had his Caliphate terminated by assassination. The Shias believed only a person of a Mohammed ancestry line could guide Muslims as Caliph. Allegedly the last living relative of Mohammed (the twelfth in lineage that is) disappeared. I am uncertain what the Sunnis believe about this guy – perhaps Sunnis believe he was killed or perhaps never existed; thus ending any claim to a hereditary Caliphate. I am certain that the Shias believe this twelfth Imam and descendant of Mohammed via Ali went into some sort of occultation to be hidden until the time was right for revealing himself to secure the Earth for Islam.

 

Okay that is a brief summary of the Sunni-Shia divide that is roughly correct but I am sure is filled with anomalies from the Sunni or Shia perspective.

 

The thing is Iran – a Shia theocratic nation – has regional designs as in being the top Muslim dog in the Middle East. Iran is the only Muslim nation that has an open destructive against both Israel and America that will undoubted be threatening because the development of nuclear weapons.

 

Iran’s principle allies in the region are Assad’s Shia-Alawite minority Syrian government and Hezbollah-Shia terrorist dominated Lebanon. Taking out Assad from this religious maniac alliance of Iran-Syria-Hezbollah will disrupt the military designs of Iran.

 

Of course the problem that Danny will point is that Syrian rebels fighting against Assad are religious nuts of radical Sunni-Muslims that essentially and probably will lead to a problem for the USA and Israel. My thinking is though that the USA and Israel already have a problem with Israel. So why not place Iran is a situation that some of their nefarious regional goals are disrupted by killing or booting Assad out of Syrian control?

 

So here I am in the unenviable position of both agreeing and disagreeing with Danny Jeffrey’s most recent essay on R2P, aiding the Syrian rebels, Obama’s support of those rebels and Senator McCain’s pushing Obama to support those rebels.

 

And yet I also have to tell you that Obama is the most corrupt President as to supporting the Constitutional principles of the Founding Fathers since Aaron Burr almost attained that Presidency in our then young Republic. When Obama says “Change” he means transform America away from the Bill of Rights and to at least make America a Multiculturalist Socialist-Democratic nation and at worst a Marxist utopia with no Liberty whatsoever.

 

JRH 6/3/13 (Hat Tip: Danny from Facebook Group 1683 AD)

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