Bloody Gaza: The Dhimmi Purveyors of Smart Power! Press For a Cease-Fire.

Israel Hamas 72014Yesterday, the military operation launched by the nation of Israel to defend themselves from the Muslim Terrorist Group Hamas, who planned to invade Israel from the Gaza Strip, escalated into the bloodiest conflict ever seen in the Gaza Strip.

Meanwhile, United States President Barack Hussein Obama, Secretary of State John Kerry, and the entire State Department, seemingly, are taking the side of those who would destroy our staunchest ally, Israel.

I mean, you can read their contempt for Israel and her people from low-level bureaucrats, on up to the occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, himself.

Let’s start at the bottom and climb up the ladder, shall we?

The U.S. under secretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs on Sunday expressed his regret for tweeting a hashtag in support of Gaza.

Rick Stengel used the hashtag #UnitedForGaza in a tweet published late Saturday night calling for an international investigation into the crash of a Malaysian Airlines flight earlier this week in eastern Ukraine.

Hours later, on Sunday, Stengel removed the tweet and replaced it with a similar tweet using the hashtag #unitedforukraine.

Stengel added a tweet that read, “Earlier tweet with wrong hashtag was a mistake. My bad.”

Uh huh. Riiight.

Let’s climb another step up the Departmental Ladder…

The Jerusalem Post reports that

US Secretary of State John Kerry appeared to express frustration with Israel’s operation in Gaza privately while publicly trumpeting the Jewish State’s right to defend itself.

According to Politico, an open mic caught Kerry saying to an aide over the phone prior to an interview with Fox News Sunday, “It’s a hell of a pinpoint operation, it’s a hell of a pinpoint operation.”

Kerry appeared to be expressing frustration that the Israeli ground invasion was spiraling out of control in the conversation.

“We’ve got to get over there. Thank you John. I think John, we ought to go tonight. I think it’s crazy to be sitting around.”

In the interview itself, Kerry called on Hamas to consider a cease-fire. “It is important for Hamas to now step up and be reasonable and understand that (if) you accept the cease-fire, you save lives.”

Kerry also said that the United States believes Israel has a right to defend itself from rockets fired from Gaza and from attacks launched from cross-border tunnels.

[Words mean things.]

“You have a right to go in and take out those tunnels,” Kerry told Fox News. “We completely support that. And we support Israel’s right to defend itself against rockets that are continuing to come in.”

Israel, which has accused Palestinian terror group Hamas of using civilians as human shields by launching rockets from residential areas, sent ground forces into the Gaza Strip on Thursday after 10 days of air, naval and artillery barrages failed to stop the salvos.

At least 62 Palestinians were killed on Sunday in Israeli shelling of one Gaza neighborhood. The IDF announced early Sunday morning that two Israeli soldiers were killed in Gaza on Saturday, bringing the total number of Israeli military casualties to five since the start of the ground offensive.

In a separate interview on CNN, Kerry said President Barack Obama will ask him to go to the Middle East soon to aid in efforts to secure a cease-fire.

Speaking of The Lightbringer, what did the Head Dhimmi have to say about the War in Gaza?

Yahoo News has the story…

President Barack Obama called for an “immediate ceasefire” in Gaza, on the bloodiest day of fighting between Israelis and Palestinians, and dispatched top US diplomat John Kerry for talks with regional leaders.

Obama spoke by telephone with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to express his concern after more than 100 Palestinians and 13 Israeli soldiers were killed in one day.

Obama, who also condemned attacks by Hamas on Israel, “raised serious concern about the growing number of casualties, including increasing Palestinian civilian deaths in Gaza and the loss of Israeli soldiers,” the White House said in a statement.

“The president underscored that the United States will work closely with Israel and regional partners on implementing an immediate ceasefire, and stressed the need to protect civilians — in Gaza and in Israel.”

During their second call in three days about the escalating situation in Gaza, Obama and Netanyahu “discussed Israel’s ongoing military operation,” including “the loss of Israeli soldiers,” the White House added.

It said Obama “reaffirmed Israel’s right to defend itself.”

The two leaders spoke after Kerry did the rounds on US television talk shows, with Netanyahu also appearing on two of the programs.

Kerry will travel to Cairo on Monday, where he will meet with senior officials from Egypt and other countries about the struggle in Gaza, the State Department said.

The White House said Kerry will seek “an immediate cessation of hostilities based on a return to the November 2012 ceasefire agreement” and stressed the need to protect civilian life both “in Gaza and in Israel.”

According to the State Department, Kerry is standing behind Egypt’s initiative to back those efforts.

Because, of course, Egypt has had such a stable government for the last few years. No Muslim Violence there. Nope. None at all.

On May 24th, 2011, a man of courage conviction, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu, spoke before a Joint Session of the United States Congress. Here is an excerpt from that powerful address:

Peace can only be achieved around the negotiating table.

The Palestinian attempt to impose a settlement through the United Nations will not bring peace. It should be forcefully opposed by all those who want to see this conflict end. I appreciate the president’s clear position on these — on this issue.

Peace cannot be imposed. It must be negotiated.

But peace can only be negotiated with partners committed to peace, and Hamas is not a partner for peace. Hamas — Hamas remains committed to Israel’s destruction and to terrorism. They have a charter. That charter not only calls for the obliteration of Israel, it says: Kill the Jews everywhere you find them.

Hamas’ leader condemned the killing of Osama bin Laden and praised him as a holy warrior. Now, again, I want to make this clear:

Israel is prepared to sit down today and negotiate peace with the Palestinian Authority. I believe we can fashion a brilliant future for our children. But Israel will not negotiate with a Palestinian government backed by the Palestinian version of al-Qaeda. That we will not do.

So I say to [Palistine Liberation Organization]President [Mahmoud] Abbas: Tear up your pact with Hamas! Sit down and negotiate. Make peace with the Jewish state. And if you do, I promise you this: Israel will not be the last country to welcome a Palestinian state as a new member of the United Nations; it will be the first to do so.

My friends, the momentous trials over the last century and the unfolding events of this century attest to the decisive role of the United States in defending peace and advancing freedom. Providence entrusted the United States to be the guardian of liberty. All people who cherish freedom owe a profound debt of gratitude to your great nation. Among the most grateful nations is my nation, the people of Israel, who have fought for their liberty and survival against impossible odds in ancient and modern times alike. I speak on behalf of the Jewish people and the Jewish state when I say to you, representatives of America: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for your unwavering support for Israel. Thank you for ensuring that the flame of freedom burns bright throughout the world.

May God bless all of you, and may God forever bless the United States of America.

Netanyahu was thanking the majority of American Citizens and their political representatives who have sense enough to recognize that God’s Chosen People, since their nation’s birth in 1948, have been our staunchest ally.

He was not speaking to the Liberals/”l”ibertarians, in this country and in the Obama Administration, who don’t.

The Liberal Meme du jour this past weekend was the claim that Israel is murdering children.

Well, if those cowardly Muslim Terrorists, known as Hamas, would stop using the children living in the Gaza Strip as human shields, then these innocent children would no longer be losing their lives.

Additionally, if Obama, Kerry, and the bug-eyed bureaucrats in the State Department would quit bowing and scraping before our enemies, and start support our friends, like God’s Chosen People in Israel,then perhaps our allies and enemies alike would actually respect this administration, instead of laugh at them and then ignore their ineffectual sanctions.

President Ronald Reagan said,

There are no easy answers, but there are simple answers. We must have the courage to do what we know is morally right. – Ronald Reagan

And, that, boys and girls, is the reason that Obama’s Smart Power! Foreign Policy has failed so miserably.

Until He Comes,

KJ

 

While Being Ignored By Putin, Obama Seeks to Lecture Netanyahu

americanisraelilapelpinAs if Putin’s “unwanted excursion” into the Ukraine wasn’t enough for Obama to bungle, today he meets with Israel Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu concerning Obama’s wishes that Israel give have of its country to the nomadic tribe known as the Palestinians, returning Israel to where it was before the 1967 War, and to attempt to assure Netanyahu that Obama’s “deal” with Iran, will not result in the nuclear annihilation of Israel.

Fox News reports that

President Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will meet Monday with the major topics expected to be a potential Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement and international efforts to freeze Iran’s nuclear program.

The leaders will meet on the sidelines of the annual American Israel Public Affairs Committee policy conference in Washington.

Ahead of the meeting, Obama had some tough words for the Israeli leader, saying that if Netanyhau “does not believe that a peace deal with the Palestinians is the right thing to do for Israel, then he needs to articulate an alternative approach,” Bloomberg News reported.

Before leaving for the United States, Netanyahu said the two leaders would discuss the Iranian issue and the diplomatic process for mapping out a peace agreement, but said he’d be “steadfast” in defending Israel.

“I will stand steadfast on the State of Israel’s vital interests, especially the security of Israel’s citizens,” he said.

Netanyahu has for years appealed to the U.S. and other allies to stop Iran’s purported efforts to build a nuclear weapon — arguing that achieving that goal is within the grasps of the neighboring, rival country.

Iran has agreed to a deal, opposed by Netanyahu, to freeze its nuclear program in exchange for some easing of international sanctions.

Republicans have led a congressional effort to enact more sanctions — against the wishes of the Obama administration — should Iran fail to fulfill its end of the deal.

APAIC, the powerful pro-Israel lobby group, had supported the sanctions but now opposes them.

The group recently backed efforts by New Jersey Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, to halt the largely GOP Senate effort, saying the timing isn’t right for the upper chamber to vote on the sanctions. The bipartisan bill is co-sponsored by Menendez.

Netanyahu is also scheduled to meet this week with Secretary of State John Kerry and congressional leaders and deliver the APAIC keynote address Tuesday.

Obama is expected to ask Netanyahu to agree to a framework for the so-called “final status” peace agreement.

Kerry has set a goal of April 29 for getting the sides to agree on the final deal, after getting them back to the negotiating table this past summer. However, the Obama administration says such an agreement could take nine more months.

Back in November, when Obama’s “historic deal”,  it was met with less than thunderous applause.

John Bolton, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, served as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations in 2005-06. He says that it is nothing but “abject surrender”.  He posted this article at the Weekly Standard:

This interim agreement is badly skewed from America’s perspective. Iran retains its full capacity to enrich uranium, thus abandoning a decade of Western insistence and Security Council resolutions that Iran stop all uranium-enrichment activities. Allowing Iran to continue enriching, and despite modest (indeed, utterly inadequate) measures to prevent it from increasing its enriched-uranium stockpiles and its overall nuclear infrastructure, lays the predicate for Iran fully enjoying its “right” to enrichment in any “final” agreement. Indeed, the interim agreement itself acknowledges that a “comprehensive solution” will “involve a mutually defined enrichment program.” This is not, as the Obama administration leaked before the deal became public, a “compromise” on Iran’s claimed “right” to enrichment. This is abject surrender by the United States.

In exchange for superficial concessions, Iran achieved three critical breakthroughs. First, it bought time to continue all aspects of its nuclear-weapons program the agreement does not cover (centrifuge manufacturing and testing; weaponization research and fabrication; and its entire ballistic missile program). Indeed, given that the interim agreement contemplates periodic renewals, Iran may have gained all of the time it needs to achieve weaponization not of simply a handful of nuclear weapons, but of dozens or more.

Second, Iran has gained legitimacy. This central banker of international terrorism and flagrant nuclear proliferator is once again part of the international club. Much as the Syria chemical-weapons agreement buttressed Bashar al-Assad, the mullahs have escaped the political deep freezer.

Third, Iran has broken the psychological momentum and effect of the international economic sanctions. While estimates differ on Iran’s precise gain, it is considerable ($7 billion is the lowest estimate), and presages much more. Tehran correctly assessed that a mere six-months’ easing of sanctions will make it extraordinarily hard for the West to reverse direction, even faced with systematic violations of Iran’s nuclear pledges. Major oil-importing countries (China, India, South Korea, and others) were already chafing under U.S. sanctions, sensing President Obama had no stomach either to impose sanctions on them, or pay the domestic political price of granting further waivers.

Benjamin Netanyahu’s earlier warning that this was “the deal of the century” for Iran has unfortunately been vindicated. Given such an inadequate deal, what motivated Obama to agree? The inescapable conclusion is that, the mantra notwithstanding, the White House actually did prefer a bad deal to the diplomatic process grinding to a halt. This deal was a “hail Mary” to buy time. Why?

Buying time for its own sake makes sense in some negotiating contexts, but the sub silentio objective here was to jerry-rig yet another argument to wield against Israel and its fateful decision whether or not to strike Iran. Obama, fearing that strike more than an Iranian nuclear weapon, clearly needed greater international pressure on Jerusalem. And Jerusalem fully understands that Israel was the real target of the Geneva negotiations. How, therefore, should Israel react?

Most importantly, the deal leaves the basic strategic realities unchanged. Iran’s nuclear program was, from its inception, a weapons program, and it remains one today. Even modest constraints, easily and rapidly reversible, do not change that fundamental political and operational reality. And while some already-known aspects of Iran’s nuclear program are returned to enhanced scrutiny, the undeclared and likely unknown military work will continue to expand, thus recalling the drunk looking for his lost car keys under the street lamp because of the better lighting.

…Undoubtedly, an Israeli strike during the interim deal would be greeted with outrage from all the expected circles. But that same outrage, or more, would also come further down the road. In short, measured against the expected reaction even in friendly capitals, there is never a “good” time for an Israeli strike, only bad and worse times. Accordingly, the Geneva deal does not change Israel’s strategic calculus even slightly, unless the Netanyahu government itself falls prey to the psychological warfare successfully waged so far by the ayatollahs. That we will know only as the days unfold.

Israel still must make the extremely difficult judgment whether it will stand by as Iran maneuvers effortlessly around a feckless and weak White House, bolstering its economic situation while still making progress on the nuclear front, perhaps less progress on some aspects of its nuclear work than before the deal, but more on others.

And what can critics of the Geneva deal, in Washington and other Western capitals, do? They can try to advance the sanctions legislation pending in the Senate over administration objections, for the political symbolism if nothing else. Unfortunately, they’re unlikely to succeed over the administration’s near-certain opposition. Tehran judges correctly that they have Obama obediently moving in their direction, with the European Union straining at the bit for still-more relaxation of the sanctions regimes.

Instead, those opposing Obama’s “Munich moment” in Geneva (to borrow a Kerry phrase from the Syrian crisis), should focus on the larger and more permanent strategic problem: A terrorist, nuclear Iran still threatens American interests and allies, and almost certainly means widespread nuclear proliferation across the Middle East. A nuclear Iran would also be essentially invulnerable, providing a refuge that al Qaeda leaders hiding in Afghan and Pakistani caves could only dream of.

So in truth, an Israeli military strike is the only way to avoid Tehran’s otherwise inevitable march to nuclear weapons, and the proliferation that will surely follow. Making the case for Israel’s exercise of its legitimate right of self-defense has therefore never been more politically important. Whether they are celebrating in Tehran or in Jerusalem a year from now may well depend on how the opponents of the deal in Washington conduct themselves.

Given the disastrous track record of Obama and Kerry’s “Smart Power!”, with the ongoing Middle East Bonfire known as “Arab Spring”, Putin’s invasion of the Ukraine, and Obama’s undeserved and dangerous trust of the Rogue Nation of Iran, I don’t blame Prime Minister Netanyahu one bit.

I would not trust President Barack Hussein Obama on anything, much less Foreign Policy, any further than I can throw him.

United States President Barack Hussein Obama has proven himself to be more concerned about America’s Enemies than our Allies…and, more concerned about reaching out to Muslim Radicals than demanding the release of Christian American Pastor Saeed Abedina, who has been held captive by Iran since the summer of 2012.

Obama, Kerry, and the rest of his Liberal Dhimmi Cabal has shown where their loyalties unequivocally lie, with their braggadocio over this Chamberlain-esque “deal”. 

And, they are not with our allies nor the safety of the citizens of the United States.

Either due to naivete or simple over-reliance on the part of Obama and his Administration, in regards to their “superior intellect”, to quote Fred Thompson, as Admiral Josh Painter, in the great movie “The Hunt for Red October”…

This business will get out of control. It will get out of control and we’ll be lucky to live through it.

Until He Comes,

KJ

Obama and Kerry Negotiating With the Israelis…on Behalf of the Palestinians. Are You Kiddin’ Me?

americanisraelilapelpinAs if Obama’s failed Syrian Pep Rally and allowing Iran to continue their Uranium Enrichment Program wasn’t embarrassing enough, now the purveyors of “Smart Power!” are trying to negotiate an “agreement” between Israel and the Palestinians, which gives part of the Land of Abraham to the Palestinians.

Reuters.com reports that

Saudi King Abdullah offered his “enthusiastic support” to U.S. efforts to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on Sunday.

The U.S. diplomat made the comment after some two hours and 40 minutes of talks with the Arab monarch, who in 2002 floated a plan to try to bring peace to the Israelis and Palestinians.

During that meeting, as well as one with the king of Jordan earlier in the day in Amman, Kerry briefed the Arab leader on his three days of talks with Israeli and Palestinian leaders.

“I want to thank his majesty for … his enthusiastic support for the efforts that are being made with respect to the peace process,” he told reporters after seeing Abdullah at a desert palace outside Riyadh under a winter rainfall.

“Today, his majesty was not just encouraging but supported our efforts in hopes that we can be successful in the days ahead,” Kerry added, saying the Saudi ruler believed a peace deal could bring “great benefits” throughout the Middle East.

On his 10th peace-making trip to the region during the last year, Kerry had tried to establish what U.S. officials call a “framework” for guidelines for any eventual peace accord.

The U.S.-brokered Israeli-Palestinian talks resumed in July after a three-year halt, with Kerry pushing for an accord within nine months despite skepticism on both sides.

Kerry has previously asked Israel to reconsider the 2002 Arab peace plan, originally proposed by King Abdullah, which offers Israel full recognition in return for giving up land it captured in 1967 and a “just” solution for Palestinian refugees.

Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal also emerged from the desert talks upbeat, calling the rainfall a “great” omen and describing the meeting as “excellent.”

“There is really no meeting that could have been smoother and more productive than this meeting,” Saud al-Faisal told reporters while seated beside Kerry in an airport reception room.

“It’s a meeting that … belies any bad vibes about relations that were expressed in many of the media lately,” he added, referring to widespread reports of U.S.-Saudi strains over U.S. policy toward Iran, Syria and Egypt.

The foreign minister did not specifically echo Kerry’s comments about Saudi support for the Israeli-Palestinian peace process but he said an agreement that meets the Palestinians’ aspirations “will receive the full support of Saudi Arabia”.

From discoverthenetworks.org:

…The term “Palestine” (Falastin in Arabic) was an ancient name for the general geographic region that is more or less today’s Israel. The name derives from the Philistines, who originated from the eastern Mediterranean, and invaded the region in the 11th and 12th centuries B.C. The Philistines were apparently either from Greece, Crete, the Aegean Islands, and/or Ionia. They seem to be related to the Bronze Age Greeks, and they spoke a language akin to Mycenaean Greek. Their descendents, still living on the shores of the Mediterranean, greeted Roman invaders a thousand years later. The Romans corrupted the name to “Palestina,” and the area under the sovereignty of their city-states became known as “Philistia.” Six-hundred years later, the Arab invaders called the region “Falastin.”

Throughout subsequent history, the name remained only a vague geographical entity. There was never a nation of “Palestine,” never a people known as the “Palestinians,” nor any notion of “historic Palestine.” The region never enjoyed any sovereign autonomy, remaining instead under successive foreign sovereign domains from the Umayyads and Abbasids to the Fatimids, Ottomans, and British.

During the centuries of Ottoman rule, no Arabs under Turkish rule made any attempt to formulate an ideology of national identity, least of all the impoverished Arab peasantry in the region today known as Israel.

The term “Palestinian,” ironically, was used during the British Mandate period (1922-1948) to identify the Jews of British Mandatory Palestine.

…According to Palestinian revisionism, the Palestinians lived from time immemorial in historic Palestine, which is portrayed as a veritable paradise of flourishing orchards and fertile vineyards, teeming with happy peasants. Then, according to the mythic narrative, the Zionists came and, with the support of the British, stole the Palestinians’ land, exiled the people, and initiated a reign of terror and ethnic cleansing that has not abated until this very day.

Since the Six Day War of 1967, the Arab world’s most powerful leaders — in Egypt, Libya, Arabia, Syria, and Iraq prior to Saddam Hussein’s demise — have waged a war of words against Israel. Having failed to defeat Israel by means of naked military aggression, these leaders and their advisors decided, sometime between the end of the war and the Khartoum Conference of August-September 1967, to bring about the destruction of Israel by means of a relentless terror war.

To justify to the world their ruthless murder of Israeli civilians and their undying hatred of the West, these leaders needed to invent a narrative depicting Israel as a racist, war-mongering, oppressive, apartheid state that was illegally occupying Arab land and carrying out the genocide of an indigenous people that had a stronger claim to the land of Israel than did Israel itself.

Thus the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), under the tutelage of the Soviet KGB, invented “The Palestinian People” who allegedly had been forced to wage a war of national liberation against imperialism.

To justify this notion, Yasser Arafat, shortly after taking over as leader of the PLO, sent his adjutant, Abu Jihad (later the leader of the PLO’s military operations), to North Vietnam to study the strategy and tactics of guerrilla warfare in the hopes that the PLO could emulate Ho Chi Minh’s success with left-wing sympathizers in the United States and Europe. Ho’s chief strategist, General Giap, offered advice that changed the PLO’s identity and future:

“Stop talking about annihilating Israel and instead turn your terror war into a struggle for human rights. Then you will have the American people eating out of your hand.”

Giap’s counsel was simple but profound: the PLO needed to work in a way that concealed its real goals, permitted strategic deception, and gave the appearance of moderation. And the key to all this was creating an image that would help Arafat manipulate the American and Western news media.

Arafat developed the images of the “illegal occupation” and “Palestinian national self-determination,” both of which lent his terrorism the mantle of a legitimate peoples’ resistance. After the Six Day War, Muhammad Yazid, who had been minister of information in two Algerian wartime governments (1958-1962), imparted to Arafat some wisdom that echoed the lessons he had learned in North Vietnam:

“Wipe out the argument that Israel is a small state whose existence is threatened by the Arab states, or the reduction of the Palestinian problem to a question of refugees; instead, present the Palestinian struggle as a struggle for liberation like the others. Wipe out the impression . . . that in the struggle between the Palestinians and the Zionists, the Zionist is the underdog. Now it is the Arab who is oppressed and victimized in his existence because he is not only facing the Zionists but also world imperialism.”

So, President Barack Hussein Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry are asking Israel to “give back” land to the Palestinians, the Gypsies of the Middle East,who would rather kill them than look at them, in order to provide a country for them, that never existed in the first place.

This is “Smart Power”?

No. This is betraying a friend and embracing an enemy.

EPILOGUE: 

Genesis 12: 1-3 (NKJV)

12 Now the Lord had said to Abram:

“Get out of your country,

From your family

And from your father’s house,

To a land that I will show you.

2 I will make you a great nation;

I will bless you

And make your name great;

And you shall be a blessing.

3 I will bless those who bless you,

And I will curse him who curses you;

And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

Now…about that “Polar Vortex”… 

Until He Comes,

KJ

The Iranian Negotiations: Of Naivete, Nukes, and the Six-Day War

americanisraelilapelpinAs American’s learned earlier this week, President Barack Hussein Obama has been in secret negotiations with the leadership of Iran, consisting of the Ayatollahs and President Rohani.

The Obama administration began softening sanctions on Iran after the election of Iran’s new president in June, months before the current round of nuclear talks in Geneva or the historic phone call between the two leaders in September.

While those negotiations now appear on the verge of a breakthrough the key condition for Iran—relief from crippling sanctions—began quietly and modestly five months ago.

A review of Treasury Department notices reveals that the U.S. government has all but stopped the financial blacklisting of entities and people that help Iran evade international sanctions since the election of its president, Hassan Rouhani, in June.

On Wednesday Obama said in an interview with NBC News the negotiations in Geneva “are not about easing sanctions.” “The negotiations taking place are about how Iran begins to meet its international obligations and provide assurances not just to us but to the entire world,” the president said.

Negotiating with Barbarians. How quaint. 

It has been tried before, boys and girls.

On November 4, 1979, an angry mob of some 300 to 500 “students” who called themselves “Imam’s Disciples,” laid siege to the American Embassy in Teheran, Iran, to capture and hold hostage 66 U.S. citizens and diplomats. Although women and African-Americans were released a short time later, 51 hostages remained imprisoned for 444 days with another individual released because of illness midway through the ordeal.

…President Jimmy Carter immediately imposed economic sanctions and applied diplomatic pressure to expedite negotiations for the release of the hostages. First, Carter cancelled oil imports from Iran, then he expelled a number of Iranians from the U.S., followed by freezing about $8 billion of Iranian assets in the U.S.

At first, the Iranian government denied responsibility for the incident, but its failure to take action against the hostage-takers belied the denial. The Carter administration could do little other at that point than be patient and persistent.

In February 1980, Iran issued a list of demands for the hostages’ release. They included the Shah’s return to Iran, a demand for an apology for American involvement in Iran, including the coup in 1953, and a promise to steer clear of Iranian affairs in the future. From the president’s perspective, those demands could not be met.

In late April, Carter decided upon an ultra-secret mission to rescue the hostages. The operation, dubbed “Eagle Claw,” seemed hastily thrown together by some, doomed to failure by others. Teheran was surrounded by 700 miles of desert on all sides; the city itself was crammed with four million people, and the embassy was huge and well guarded. It was to have been a two-night process requiring a minimum of six helicopters and a handful of C-130 cargo aircraft. To be on the safe side, eight copters were prepared for the mission.

Once inside Iranian borders and advancing under cloak of night to a predetermined staging area 50 miles outside Teheran in the Great Salt Desert, one “helo” had to turn back with operating problems. Another helo and then another succumbed to a swirling dust storm, known in that area as a “haboob.” The mission was aborted.

Upon attempting their retreat, a miscommunication gave one helo the okay to lift off. The storm slammed the helo into a C-130, causing a gigantic fireball, killing three in the chopper and five in the airplane.

The aftermath, as Iranians eventually found and mockingly paraded the wreckage on worldwide television, was total humiliation for the United States, and spurred an onslaught of investigations and congressional hearings. Cyrus Vance, the secretary of state who had objected to the plan, resigned in protest. Back to square one.

Because if there is one thing that Muslim Fanatics want to do with American Infidels…it is sit down and talk.

After all…they are sooo refined, and don’t wish to harm a fly. Just ask Israel…and Former President Carter.

Back on February 24th, ynetnews.com reported that

As speculations over a possible strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities grow, the Islamic Republic is exacerbating its rhetoric.

Deputy Defense Minister Ahmad Vahidi on Friday warned Israel against mounting such an attack: “Any act by the Zionist regime against Iran will bring about its destruction.”

Hezbollah, he added, “Is at the forefront of the fight against Israel and it is growing stronger by the day.”

Speaking at a ceremony honoring past Hezbollah commanders, Vahidi said that “Israel is weaker than it has ever been and its army is tired and humiliated… This is why it is trying to solve its problems by talking about taking action against Iran. But these are ridiculous statements.

“Iran’s warriors are ready and willing to wipe Israel off the map,” he declared.

Hey,no worries President Obama…Prime Minister Netanyahu, Iran is a peaceful nation…just ask them.

Yesterday,Iranian President Hassan Rohani urged world powers not to miss an “exceptional opportunity” to reach an agreement in their ongoing nuclear talks in Geneva, .

According to the official Iranian news Agency and propaganda Tool, IRNA, Rohani said,

I hope that the P5+1 group make the most out of this exceptional opportunity that the Iranian nation has offered to the international community, so that we can reach a positive result within a reasonable timeframe.

The Iranian Leadership, if they are insincere about world peace, and still harbor thoughts of “wiping Israel off the map”, (as anyone who is not naive, believes that they do)  would do well to  read the accounts of the Six- Day War.

The Six-Day War took place in June 1967. The Six-Day War was fought between June 5th and June 10th. The Israelis defended the war as a preventative military effort to counter what the Israelis saw as an impending attack by Arab nations that surrounded Israel. The Six-Day War was initiated by General Moshe Dayan, the Israeli’s Defence Minister.

The war was against Syria, Jordan and Egypt. Israel believed that it was only a matter of time before the three Arab states co-ordinated a massive attack on Israel. After the 1956 Suez Crisis, the United Nations had established a presence in the Middle East, especially at sensitive border areas. The United Nations was only there with the agreement of the nations that acted as a host to it. By May 1967, the Egyptians had made it clear that the United Nations was no longer wanted in the Suez region. Gamal Nasser, leader of Egypt, ordered a concentration of Egyptian military forces in the sensitive Suez zone. This was a highly provocative act and the Israelis only viewed it one way – that Egypt was preparing to attack. The Egyptians had also enforced a naval blockade which closed off the Gulf of Aqaba to Israeli shipping.

Due to the superior size of the Invasion Force, the world’s  news media reported the imminent defeat of Israel as a fait accompli.

The Invaders were attacking God’s Chosen People from all sides.

Egyptian forces invaded Palestine from the South-west, captured Gaza and were thrusting along the coast to link up with –

Arab legion troops driving from the west towards Tel Aviv, the capital of the new State of Israel.

Another Egyptian column thrust 30 miles across the southern desert and entered Beersheba.

Lebanese and Syrian forces were about to attack from the north.

Iraqi and Trans-Jordan forces were moving in from the North-east.

An Arab legion column striking west from Jericho were only ten miles from Tel Aviv.

Israel’s chances of defeating the Invaders appeared hopeless. As an insurance policy, some of the invading nations had actually forbidden any armaments or weapons to be sold to Israel.

Additionally, the crack Arab Legion forces were trained and led by British Army officers.

Inexplicably, within days, all the invading forces were retreating as fast as their camels could carry them!

The Egyptians were forced back to the Nile. Jordan’s legions had to give up all their area on the west side of the Jordan River. Israel occupied Lebanon and the Golan Heights.

Secular History tells us that it was a combination of Israel taking out the planes of the Egyptian Air Force, while they were still on the ground, and the Commander of their Tank Brigade surrendering, because the reflection off of the desert floor multiplied the size of the Israeli Force, making it seem like the Invaders were surrounded by superior numbers.

However, at the time of Israel’s victory, strange rumors started making the rounds.

Invaders from the south reported that they were confronted by legions of unknown troops clothed in white!

And, the thing was…the Israeli troops reported similar stories!

The outcome of Six Day War of 1967 was very important, because, for the first time for 2,520 years, Israel captured and governed Jerusalem.

For all those years before, Jerusalem was under the thumb of  non-Jewish powers, but their control was prophesied only to continue ‘until the times allotted to the Gentiles are completed,’ Jesus said (Luke 21:24).

Naturally, Christians everywhere got very excited at the significance of this event.

The attack on Israel come out of nowhere. So…how was it that Israel gained such a rapid victory?

God’s Cavalry was there for God’s Chosen People in the Six Day War in 1967.

Arab generals said, ‘they did not know that Israel had large cavalry units.’

Why was Israel favored by God with such an intervention? Was it because they deserved it? The answer is ‘No’.

God kept his promise, found in Leviticus 26: 42-44…

42 I will remember my promise to Jacob, Isaac, and Abraham. I will also remember the land. 43 The land, abandoned by them, will enjoy its time to honor the Lord while it lies deserted without them. They must accept their guilt because they rejected my rules and looked at my laws with disgust. 44 Even when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not reject them or look at them with disgust. I will not reject or cancel my promise to them, because I am the Lord their God.

Rohani needs to remember that. President Barack Hussein Obama does, too.

Until He Comes,

KJ

Elizabeth O’Bagy and the Syrian Emergency Task Force: Taypayer-Funded Regime Change

Elizabeth O'BagyYou’re the Secretary of State of the United States of America. Your job is to carry out the Foreign Affairs Strategy of the President. Of course, you can’t do it by yourself. You need help.

So, who do you turn, too? Henry Kissinger is not available and Former Ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, thinks you stink on ice.

Well, I would think that you would reach for whatever resources you could…especially, if you were trying to justify inserting America’s Armed Forces into another nation’s Civil War, in an effort to assist the very Terrorist Group that killed 3,000 Americans on 9/11/01 and 4 brave Americans in Benghazi on 9/11/12. Perhaps, you would even accept the expert opinion of an op ed writer for the Wall Street Journal, whose own viewpoint matches your own.

Why, she even had a PhD! Or…maybe not.

The Syria researcher whose Wall Street Journal op-ed piece was cited by Secretary of State John Kerry and Sen. John McCain during congressional hearings about the use of force has been fired from the Institute for the Study of War for lying about having a Ph.D., the group announced on Wednesday.

“The Institute for the Study of War has learned and confirmed that, contrary to her representations, Ms. Elizabeth O’Bagy does not in fact have a Ph.D. degree from Georgetown University,” the institute said in a statement. “ISW has accordingly terminated Ms. O’Bagy’s employment, effective immediately.”

O’Bagy told POLITICO in an interview Monday that she had submitted and defended her dissertation and was waiting for Georgetown University to confer her degree. O’Bagy said she was in a dual master’s and doctorate program at Georgetown.

Kimberly Kagan, who founded the ISW in 2007, said in an interview that while she was “deeply saddened” by the situation, she stands by O’Bagy’s work on Syria.

”Everything I’ve looked at is rock solid,” Kagan told POLITICO. “Every thread that we have pulled upon has been verified through multiple sources.”

Paul Gigot, editorial page editor of The Wall Street Journal, told POLITICO in a statement that “we were not aware of Elizabeth O’Bagy’s academic claims or credentials when we published her Aug. 31 op-ed, and the op-ed made no reference to them.”

“We also were not aware of her affiliation with the Syrian Emergency Task Force, and we published a clarification when we learned of it,” Gigot said. “We are investigating the contents of her op-ed to the best of our ability, but to date we have seen no evidence to suggest any information in the piece was false.”

O’Bagy started at the institute as an unpaid intern and was pulled into their work on Syria when a researcher needed a fluent Arabic speaker, which transformed her internship into a much longer gig. Kagan hired O’Bagy as an analyst around August or September 2012, and said her understanding was that O’Bagy was working toward her Ph.D. at Georgetown.

The website known as Right Web, an arm of the Institute for Policy Studies, has a profile of Dr. *cough* O’Bagy, which states

Elizabeth O’Bagy is a research analyst based at the neoconservative Institute for the Study of War (ISW), where she has written several reports on the Syrian opposition.[1] She has also worked as the political director of the Syrian Emergency Task Force (SETF),[2] a D.C.-based advocacy group closely linked to the Syrian opposition that “aims to expedite the fall of the [Assad] dictatorship regime,” according to a statement on its website.[3]

O’Bagy has traveled to Syria several times and visited with armed opposition groups there. She is the author of numerous reports and op-ed pieces calling on the United States to provide heavy weaponry to the Syrian rebels and to launch missile strikes on critical regime infrastructure. “Any swift and decisive decision to materially aid the Free Syrian Army,” she wrote for the Atlantic in June 2013, “will necessarily include degrading or destroying the runways and infrastructure of Syria’s military airbases and commercial airports.”[4]

However, O’Bagy’s dual affiliation with ISW and SETF has been the source of some controversy, particularly after the publication of an August 2013 Wall Street Journal op-ed in which O’Bagy claimed that extremist groups were less prominent components of the armed Syrian opposition than is typically reported.

Information now shows that al Qaeda and affiliated groups actually make up the majority of the “Syrian Rebel Forces”.

Okay. So, whose checks was this overpaid, under-qualified blooming idiot cashing?

“Most of the contracts that I’ve been a part of through the Task Force have been through CSO, which is the Conflict and Stabilization Office[sic],” O’Bagy told The Daily Caller. O’Bagy was likely referring to the Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations, a State Department-funded organization.

In other words, boys and girls…YOU AND I WERE!!!

Our money has been going to a bunch of pointy-headed bureaucrats, who have been trying to figure out a way to engineer a “regime change” in Syria.

The plot sickens.

Obama, Kerry, and all their “Warhawks” have been insisting that the goal of Obama’s “limited engagement” plan in Syria is not “regime change.”

If it is not, why has the Obama Administration spent Our Money studying a Civil War, which has no effect on the daily lives of Americans?

Methinks they doth protest too much.

Until He Comes,

KJ

The Syria Situation: Tyrants and Turncoats and RINOs…Oh, My!

kerryassaddinnerMay I ask you something? If somebody is a tyrant and a dictator who hates your country with a passion,, and you were a sitting United States Senator, would you be having a “couples dinner” with him?

Well, back in 2011, as this picture which I have posted shows, that is exactly what our present Secretary of State John F. (I served in Vietnam) Kerry, did.

In fact, later in 2011, speaking at a think tank, Kerry said,

Well, I personally believe that — I mean, this is my belief, okay? But President Assad has been very generous with me in terms of the discussions we have had. And when I last went to — the last several trips to Syria — I asked President Assad to do certain things to build the relationship with the United States and sort of show the good faith that would help us to move the process forward.

The thing is, Kerry, by 2011, had a well-established history with Syrian President Assad, per David Horowitz’s discoverthenetworks.org…

Since the early 2000s, Kerry has been the federal government’s highest-ranking apologist for Syrian President Bashar Assad. Indeed it was Kerry who made numerous efforts to undermine the Bush administration’s attempt to isolate the Syrian dictator after its courtship of him ended in failure in 2003; after Bush repeatedly accused Syria of supporting terrorists in Iraq and elsewhere; and after the United States withdrew its ambassador to Syria following the 2005 assassination of Lebanon’s former premier Rafiq Hariri in a car bombing most likely orchestrated by the Assad regime.

In January 2009, just days after Barack Obama’s inauguration, Kerry was sent to Syria as part of a policy review by an Obama administration looking to establish new relationships with countries the Bush administration had considered hostile. (This was the first of five trips Kerry would make to Syria between 2009 and 2011.)

During the January 2009 trip, Kerry listened to Bashar Assad advise him that Washington must “move away from a policy based on dictating decisions,” and that future relations between the U.S. and Syria should be based on a “proper understanding” by Washington of Middle East issues and interests. In return, Kerry used the occasion to bash the former administration. “Unlike the Bush administration that believed you could simply tell people what to do and walk away and wait for them to do it, we believe you have to engage in a discussion,” he said.

A year later, Kerry, as the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, sat down once again with Assad. “Syria is an essential player in bringing peace and stability to the region,” he said in April 2010. “Both the United States and Syria have a very deep interest … in having a very frank exchange on any differences [and] agreements that we have about the possibilities of peace in this region.” And once again, he called on Syria to stop supplying weapons to Hezbollah.

In November 2010, disclosures of diplomatic cables by the WikiLeaks website revealed that Kerry had been busy undermining Israel as well: He had told leaders in Qatar that the Golan Heights should be returned to Syria, and that the capital of a Palestinian state should be established in East Jerusalem, as part of the “peace process.”

Now, in 2013, just last week, in the nationally-televised speech his boss did not have the nerve to make, Secretary of State, John Kerry, said,

In an increasingly complicated world of sectarian and religious extremist violence, what we choose to do — or not do — matters in real ways to our own security. Some cite the risk of doing things. We need to ask what is the risk of doing nothing.

It matters because if we choose to live in a world where a thug and a murderer like Bashar al-Assad can gas thousands of his own people with impunity, even after the United States and our allies said no, and then the world does nothing about it, there will be no end to the test of our resolve and the dangers that will flow from those others who believe that they can do as they will.

President Barack Hussein Obama and SOS John Kerry are playing a very dangerous game. Obama met with Senate RINO’s John “Juan McAmnesty” McCain, and his pet dog, Lindsey “Tiddie” Graham, trying to convince them to, once again, betray their party, and their nation.

The “Sunshine Boys” held a press conference after the meeting. Lt. Col. Allen West was watching, and made this observation:

Watched Senators McCain and Graham’s press conference after their meeting with President Obama on the subject of Syria. It seems the tagline to be used is ‘degrade Assad and upgrade the resistance.’ I hate to be the one to ruin the party, but this administration did exactly that in Libya and never considered the unintended consequences. Now in Libya we have a proliferation of Islamist forces who are training terrorist insurgents to head to Syria, supported by the Muslim Brotherhood and Al Qaeda, as well as a consulate attack resulting in the death of four Americans, one being an Ambassador. In Egypt we ‘deposed’ Mubarak and enabled the Muslim Brotherhood and the unintended consequences are a civil war in Egypt and increased persecution of the Coptic Christians. So here we go again with the Obama administration, and useful tools from Congress, embarking America on a nebulous endeavor in the Middle East without consideration of the untended consequences. The opposition in Syria are Islamists supported by Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey, and Al Qaeda, and the Muslim Brotherhood. The Obama administration has not supported the Free Syrian Army under COL Riad. NO, to any US military action in Syria. The Obama administration has a confused Middle East policy and has shown ineptness in understanding the second and third order effects.

Indeed.

As I have written before, I believe that Obama has made promises to the Muslim Brotherhood and its off-shoots like al-Qaeda. And, as we all know, he certainly doesn’t care what happens to Israel.

As for Juan the Maverick and his faithful dog, Tiddie, they are two full of their own self-importance and superior intellect, like the rest of the GOP Moderate Elite are, to realize that they are putting our entire nation at risk.

Dr. Charles Krauthammer called this while situation “Amateur Hour”.

Given the fact that there is plenty of amateurish behavior to go around, I would say that it is more like “The Gong Show”.

And, we desperately need Jaye P. Morgan to ring the Gong.

Until He Comes,

KJ

America On the Brink of War: Will Syria Be Obama’s Vietnam?

Obama-Shrinks-2I’m getting the feeling of Deja Vu…all over again.

News Outlets are trumpeting the warning that, within the next few days, Obama and his Administration are about the plunge the United States into the middle of a Civil War, happening within the Middle Eastern Country of Syria.

According to abcnews.go.com,

The White House says there is “very little doubt” that the Assad regime is responsible for the alleged chemical attack in Syria that is said to have taken place earlier this week.

“Based on the reported number of victims, reported symptoms of those who were killed or injured, witness accounts, and other facts,” a senior administration official tells ABC News, “There is very little doubt at this point that a chemical weapon was used by the Syrian regime against civilians in this incident. We are continuing to assess the facts so the President can make an informed decision about how to respond to this indiscriminate use of chemical weapons.”

White House officials also point out the attack was on rebel-held territory and apparently done using rockets that the rebels do not possess.

After reports that Syria’s regime will allow UN inspectors to access the site of the attack, the senior administration official suggested the move may be too late, after “the regime’s persistent shelling” has “significantly corrupted” evidence in the area.

“If the Syrian government had nothing to hide and wanted to prove to the world that it had not used chemical weapons in this incident, it would have ceased its attacks on the area and granted immediate access to the UN–five days ago. At this juncture, the belated decision by the regime to grant access to the UN team is too late to be credible,” the official said.

The president has ordered his national security team to draw up possible strike options on Syria, but there is a divide in the White House on how forcefully to respond, although another official told ABC News if there is a strike, it must be “timely” — done soon enough to prevent another chemical attack.

However, the White House does not want to act alone. U.S. officials are back channeling through the United Nations to see if Russia could be convinced to agree to a resolution.

If there is no UN authorization, the United States would lead any possible strike, but, a senior official told ABC News “we do not want to do anything on our own.” U.S. allies must commit both “resources” and “political will” the official said.

Didn’t Vietnam start out as a “U.N. Action”?

Obama is determined to put us right in the middle of another country’s Civil War.  And the problem with this one is…there are no “Good Guys”.

BBC.co.uk reported the following on April 10th…

The leader of the al-Nusra Front, a jihadist group fighting in Syria, has pledged allegiance to the leader of al-Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahiri.

Abu Mohammed al-Jawlani said the group’s behaviour in Syria would not change as a result.

Al-Nusra claims to have carried out many suicide bombings and guerrilla attacks against state targets.

On Tuesday, al-Qaeda in Iraq announced a merger with al-Nusra, but Mr Jawlani said he had not been consulted on this.

Al-Nusra has been designated as a terrorist organisation by the US.

Debates among Western leaders over whether to arm Syria’s rebels have often raised the concern of weapons ending up in the hands of groups such as al-Nusra.

“The sons of al-Nusra Front pledge allegiance to Sheikh Ayman al-Zawahiri,” Mr Jawlani said in a recording released on Wednesday.

But Mr Jawlani said al-Nusra had not been consulted on the merger with al-Qaeda in Iraq and insisted his group would not change its stance in Syria.

The al-Nusra statement assured Syrians that the “good behaviour” they had experienced from the front on the ground would continue unchanged, the BBC’s Jim Muir reports from neighbouring Lebanon.

Mr Jawlani said that the oath of allegiance to Zawahiri “will not change anything in its policies”, our correspondent adds.

But, hey, no worries. We have the mighty, mighty, Secretary of State John F. “I served in Vietnam” Kerry on our side. Lord knows, Sec. Heinz…err…I mean Kerry, will take a hard stand with both sides of the conflict in Syria and straighten things out.

And, if you believe that, I have a scholarship available for you at the Meghan McCain School of Political Punditry.

You see, David Horowitz’s discoverthenewworks.org  reports that Sec. Kerry and Syrian President Assad go way back…

Since the early 2000s, Kerry has been the federal government’s highest-ranking apologist for Syrian President Bashar Assad. Indeed it was Kerry who made numerous efforts to undermine the Bush administration’s attempt to isolate the Syrian dictator after its courtship of him ended in failure in 2003; after Bush repeatedly accused Syria of supporting terrorists in Iraq and elsewhere; and after the United States withdrew its ambassador to Syria following the 2005 assassination of Lebanon’s former premier Rafiq Hariri in a car bombing most likely orchestrated by the Assad regime.

In January 2009, just days after Barack Obama’s inauguration, Kerry was sent to Syria as part of a policy review by an Obama administration looking to establish new relationships with countries the Bush administration had considered hostile. (This was the first of five trips Kerry would make to Syria between 2009 and 2011.)

During the January 2009 trip, Kerry listened to Bashar Assad advise him that Washington must “move away from a policy based on dictating decisions,” and that future relations between the U.S. and Syria should be based on a “proper understanding” by Washington of Middle East issues and interests. In return, Kerry used the occasion to bash the former administration. “Unlike the Bush administration that believed you could simply tell people what to do and walk away and wait for them to do it, we believe you have to engage in a discussion,” he said.

A year later, Kerry, as the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, sat down once again with Assad. “Syria is an essential player in bringing peace and stability to the region,” he said in April 2010. “Both the United States and Syria have a very deep interest … in having a very frank exchange on any differences [and] agreements that we have about the possibilities of peace in this region.” And once again, he called on Syria to stop supplying weapons to Hezbollah.

And now, Kerry’s boss, President Barack Hussein Obama, is ready to go to war with the very Middle Eastern president whom Kerry and his fellow Dems lauded during the Bush Administration.

I guess Obama and Kerry like their new, more radical, Muslim Brotherhood Buddies even more.

Why is the United States of America going to war on the side of radical Muslims, who want to kill all of us “Infidels”?

Is it naiveté, ignorance, or something more malevolent?

Or, is this foreign policy action meant to serve as a distraction from domestic presidential malfeasance?

Until He Comes,

KJ

Sequestration? What Sequestration? Obama Gives OUR Money to Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood.

michelleobama2The Sequester has kicked in and Obama and his minions are still whining about how badly Sequestration with hurt our country. Evidently, great humanitarian that Obama is, he does not want to see his friends in Egyptian’s Musalim Brotherhood “hurting” as bad as we are.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Sunday rewarded Egypt for President Mohammed Morsi’s pledges of political and economic reforms by releasing $250 million in American aid to support the country’s “future as a democracy.”

Yet Kerry also served notice that the Obama administration will keep close watch on how Morsi, who came to power in June as Egypt’s first freely elected president, honors his commitment and that additional U.S. assistance would depend on it.

“The path to that future has clearly been difficult and much work remains,” Kerry said in a statement after wrapping up two days of meetings in Egypt, a deeply divided country in the wake of the revolution that ousted longtime President Hosni Mubarak.

Egypt is trying to meet conditions to close on a $4.8 billion loan package from the International Monetary Fund. An agreement would unlock more of the $1 billion in U.S. assistance promised by President Barack Obama last year and set to begin flowing with Kerry’s announcement.

“The United States can and wants to do more,” Kerry said. “Reaching an agreement with the IMF will require further effort on the part of the Egyptian government and broad support for reform by all Egyptians. When Egypt takes the difficult steps to strengthen its economy and build political unity and justice, we will work with our Congress at home on additional support.”

Kerry cited Egypt’s “extreme needs” and Morsi’s “assurances that he plans to complete the IMF process” when he told the president that the U.S. would provide $190 million of a long-term $450 million pledge “in a good-faith effort to spur reform and help the Egyptian people at this difficult time.” The release of the rest of the $450 million and the other $550 million tranche of the $1 billion that Obama announced will be tied to successful reforms, officials said.

Separately, the top U.S. diplomat announced $60 million for a new fund for “direct support of key engines of democratic change,” including Egypt’s entrepreneurs and its young people. Kerry held out the prospect of U.S. assistance to this fund climbing to $300 million over time.

Recapping his meetings with political figures, business leaders and representatives of outside groups, Kerry said he heard of their “deep concern about the political course of their country, the need to strengthen human rights protections, justice and the rule of law, and their fundamental anxiety about the economic future of Egypt.”

Those issues came up in “a very candid and constructive manner” during Kerry’s talks with Morsi.

“It is clear that more hard work and compromise will be required to restore unity, political stability and economic health to Egypt,” Kerry said.Ever since November 22nd, when President Morsi issued a declaration that granted him broad powers above the reach of any court, Egypt has become increasingly tense and politically fractured. After Morsi’s declaration, a Brotherhood-dominated constituent assembly rushed to finish a draft of a new constitution. More than a quarter of the assembly members resigned in protest, and there were clear violations of protocol, but the document was rammed through in a sixteen-hour voting session. Despite months of work, some articles were introduced only in that final session. The result is a slippery foundation for the future: a number of basic rights—including freedom of the press, due process for justice, and equality for women and minorities—aren’t adequately protected.

We’ve already seen just how unstable the Muslim Brotherhood-lead Egyptian Government is. On December 24th, 2012, the New Yorker Magazine reported that

…Ever since November 22nd, when President Morsi issued a declaration that granted him broad powers above the reach of any court, Egypt has become increasingly tense and politically fractured. After Morsi’s declaration, a Brotherhood-dominated constituent assembly rushed to finish a draft of a new constitution. More than a quarter of the assembly members resigned in protest, and there were clear violations of protocol, but the document was rammed through in a sixteen-hour voting session. Despite months of work, some articles were introduced only in that final session. The result is a slippery foundation for the future: a number of basic rights—including freedom of the press, due process for justice, and equality for women and minorities—aren’t adequately protected.

But the most revealing moment of the crisis occurred a week and a half ago. With protesters camped outside the Presidential Palace, in Cairo, Brotherhood members led a group of men who attacked peaceful demonstrators and tore down their tents. The violence kicked off an evening of escalating counterattacks; in the end, nine people died and more than a thousand were injured, with both sides sustaining heavy casualties. Some protesters, women among them, were detained and tortured by civilian groups that included members of the Brotherhood. Morsi, in a clumsy and dishonest speech to the nation, blamed it all on “thugs” and a “fifth column” organized by the remnants of Hosni Mubarak’s regime. But there was no question who had started the fighting. It was the first clearly documented case of political violence in more than fifty years of Muslim Brotherhood activity in Egypt.

Nonviolence has always been a point of pride for the organization. Some of its offshoot groups, like Hamas, have engaged in terrorism, but the Brotherhood never endorsed acts of violence in Egypt, despite decades of oppression under Mubarak that included the imprisonment of most of its leaders. That restraint, however, like the talk of coöperation, seems to have evaporated with the first taste of power. Sometimes an organization is nonviolent on principle, and sometimes it is nonviolent simply because it finds itself in a position of weakness.

For many Egyptians, it’s been a depressing month. The military seems to be aligned with Morsi, at least for the moment, and the country lacks a strong and coherent political alternative to the Brotherhood. Nevertheless, there are some reasons for optimism. The public response has been impressive, with tens of thousands of peaceful protesters surrounding the palace on many nights. These crowds are largely middle class, but they comprise people from all walks of life, including many who identify themselves as former supporters of Morsi. There are more women than usual. And expectations have changed since the beginning of the revolution. For almost two years, the media have operated with a freedom that never existed under Mubarak, and Egypt has held essentially fair elections for both parliament and the Presidency. Such progress remains fragile, but at least certain demands are being established.

Meanwhile, the Brotherhood has failed to evolve in the wake of the revolution. Traditionally, the organization’s strengths have been local religious training and charity work, which have made it effective at mobilizing grassroots support for elections. But for decades it was banned from full participation in Egypt’s government, so it has never been tested in the more subtle and complicated aspects of national politics. The leadership is dominated by people from technical fields: of the eighteen members of the Brotherhood’s Guidance Bureau, fifteen are doctors, engineers, or scientists. Their careers may not have taught them the arts of negotiation and compromise, and Morsi, an engineer by training, has shown no real flexibility in response to the unfolding crisis. Eight of his advisers and aides have resigned in the past three weeks. From the outside, it’s hard to distinguish between calculation and incompetence. On Sunday evening, the government suddenly announced major tax increases for a wide variety of goods, including gasoline, electricity, cooking oil, cigarettes, and alcohol—hardly a savvy move in a country with a ravaged economy and an ongoing political crisis. Later that night, after the decree had inspired a mad rush on Cairo liquor stores, Morsi cancelled it with a message posted on his Facebook page at 2:13 a.m.

The Brotherhood has “a huge ability to withstand negotiations that never reach anything,” Gaber Gad Nassar, one of the most prominent members who quit the constituent assembly, said last week. Nassar is a professor of constitutional law at Cairo University, and his analysis could be seen as either deeply pessimistic or perversely optimistic, depending on the tone of your inshallah. “They are extremely keen to take over power and use it,” he said. “However, the biggest problem they face is the lack of talent qualified to do that.” Critics have always made this point—that the worst thing that could happen to the Brotherhood might be a rise to power, because then their weaknesses would be exposed. But this is small consolation in Cairo. The world is full of bad regimes that survive just because they hurt others more than they hurt themselves. ♦

This Administration is having a hissy fit, claiming that they are not able to adequately fund our own government, while at the same time, they are giving money to an organization which is the Godfather of Muslim Terrorists Groups and hates our nation with an unholy passion.

Are Obama, Secretary of State Kerry, and the rest of the idiots in this administration tone deaf or dangerously stupid?

I vote for tone deaf and dangerously stupid. God help us.

Until He comes,

KJ