Tag: Syria

The Syria Situation: The President Who Couldn’t (and, Wouldn’t) Shoot Straight

On By kingsjesterIn Politics5 Comments

obamabowYesterday afternoon, a high-ranking Administration official spoke to the American people, in a quest to win support for attacking Syria and interfering in a Civil War.

And, it was not President Barack Hussein Obama, it was John (I served in Vietnam) Kerry, the Secretary of State.

Lurch (Secretary of State John Kerry) presented the Administration’s case for attacking Syria, in a prosecutorial fashion, laying out meticulously prepared points, one after another…

…in order to protect sources and methods, some of what we know will only be released to members of Congress, the representatives of the American people.

That means that some things we do know, we can’t talk about publicly.

So, what do we really know that we can talk about? Well, we know that the Assad regime has the largest chemical weapons program in the entire Middle East. We know that the regime has used those weapons multiple times this year, and has used them on a smaller scale but still it has used them against its own people, including not very far from where last Wednesday’s attack happened.

We know that the regime was specifically determined to rid the Damascus suburbs of the opposition, and it was frustrated that it hadn’t succeeded in doing so. We know that for three days before the attack the Syrian regime’s chemical weapons personnel were on the ground, in the area, making preparations. And we know that the Syrian regime elements were told to prepare for the attack by putting on gas masks and taking precautions associated with chemical weapons. We know that these were specific instructions.

We know where the rockets were launched from, and at what time. We know where they landed, and when. We know rockets came only from regime-controlled areas, and went only to opposition-controlled or contested neighborhoods.

And we know, as does the world, that just 90 minutes later all hell broke loose in the social media. With our own eyes we have seen the thousands of reports from 11 separate sites in the Damascus suburbs. All of them show and report victims with breathing difficulties, people twitching, with spasms, coughing, rapid heartbeats, foaming at the mouth, unconsciousness and death.

And we know it was it was ordinary Syrian citizens who reported all of these horrors.

…Now, we know that after a decade of conflict, the American people are tired of war. Believe me, I am too. But fatigue does not absolve us of our responsibility. Just longing for peace does not necessarily bring it about.

And history would judge us all extraordinarily harshly if we turned a blind eye to a dictator’s wanton use of weapons of mass destruction against all warnings, against all common understanding of decency. These things, we do know.

We also know that we have a president who does what he says that he will do. And he has said very clearly that whatever decision he makes in Syria, it will bear no resemblance to Afghanistan, Iraq or even Libya. It will not involve any boots on the ground. It will not be open-ended. And it will not assume responsibility for a civil war that is already well underway.

The president has been clear: Any action that he might decide to take will be limited and tailored response to ensure that a despot’s brutal and flagrant use of chemical weapons is held accountable. And ultimately, we are committed, we remain committed, we believe it’s the primary objective is to have a diplomatic process that can resolve this through negotiation because we know there is no ultimate military solution. It has to be political. It has to happen at the negotiating table. And we are deeply committed to getting there.

Uh huh. And, Obamacare will not cost anyone their jobs. Oh…and you can keep your doctor.

Hearing from the Haughty One, John F. Kerry, is all well and good. However, why didn’t the author of this pre-fabricated war come out and speak to the American People live, instead of taping a short speech to air after SOS Kerry did his job for him?

Perhaps it was because he knows that 80% of Americans want no part of his Pre-Fab War.

Obama was either too scared to speak to us yesterday, or he considers us all ignorant peons, who are not worth his time or consideration.

Which would account for the fact that Obama has kept us in the dark concerning the fact that the Syrian Rebels, otherwise known as al Qaeda, have Saudi Arabian backing.

You remember Saudi Arabia, the ones who putz around with our oil prices, who own an interest in Fox News, and the nation who gave birth to the murderous Radical Muslims, who were responsible for the largest Terrorist attack ever perpetrated on American soil, during which over 3,000 Americans were slaughtered, the day which shall live in infamy, September 11, 2001?

Yeah, those guys.

Per syrianews.cc,

The totalitarian dictatorship of Saudi Arabia, one of the best friends of the Western “democratic governments”, has sent weapons to the hands of the Syrian Al-Qaeda offshoot in the northern region of the Arab nation and according to several reports by the journalist team of ANNA news, these reports about Saudi weapons and ammunition in the hands of Al Qaeda in northern Syria are true.

The team of ANNA news on site in Syria had recently already reported that several foreign-backed terrorist groups used a new kind of missiles in their attacks on troops of the Syrian Arab army (SAA). In addition the team of ANNA news even had luck some weeks ago because a group of foreign-supported terrorists had also fired several of this new kind of missiles on the team.

According to the recent reports about Saudi weapons and military equipment in the hands of the Syrian Al-Qaeda branch in northern Syria about 60% of the arms shipments by the totalitarian dictatorship of Saudi Arabia to Syria have been supplied by Saudi Arabia to the jihadist groups, which are linked to the al-Qaeda offshoot on Syrian soil. The United Nations (UN) has received some intelligence information that confirms the delivery of Saudi weapons and ammunition to the Islamist forces in northern Syria.

In a new report by the Lebanese newspaper “al-Akhbar”, the intelligence information that has been received by the United Nations (UN) confirms that the Jabhat al-Nusra (al-Nusra Front / Syrian Al-Qaeda offshoot) as well as the Islamic Emirate of Iraq and Sham, also linked to the terrorist organization of Al Qaeda, once established by the U.S. administration, have received the major part of the shipped weapons cargos from the totalitarian dictatorship of Saudi Arabia to the foreign-backed terrorists in Syria.

The same will happen with the upcoming shipments of U.S. weapons and Israeli arms to Syria due to the situation that the Syrian Al-Qaeda branch is already more powerful and present in Syria than e.g. the foreign-supported criminals and terrorists of the so-called “Free Syrian Army” (FSA).

In addition, it is not a huge surprise that Saudi weapons have arrived in the hands of Islamists and jihadists in Syria. The totalitarian dictatorship of Saudi Arabia is not only one of the best friends of Western states but also one of the biggest sponsors of terrorism on this planet – while the dictatorship oppresses its own people and also destroys ancient religious places in Saudi Arabia in order to build supermarkets, malls, and hotels for tourists.

The totalitarian dictatorship of Saudi Arabia has supplied a lot of weapons from one of the East European countries, which were alleged to be shipped to the so-called “Free Syrian Army” (FSA) in Syria, but the dictatorship in Riyadh has finally delivered the weapons and ammunition to the Al-Qaeda-linked jihadist brigades in Syria, according to the new report by the Lebanese daily “al-Akbhar” from yesterday.

The Permanent Representative of Syria to the United Nations (UN), Dr. Bashar al-Jaafari, has recently already confirmed the arms deal between Saudi Arabia and the Israeli regime. Birds of a feather flock together. According to reports, the totalitarian dictatorship of Saudi Arabia made this deal with the Israeli regime about weapons from Israel in order to also sent these Israeli arms to the foreign-backed terrorists on Syrian soil. This is, to be honest, a declaration of war by Saudi Arabia in direction to the Syrian government and the Syrian people.

Yesterday, pundits all over the Internet were writing that we are about to go to war, simply because Obama’s ego is bruised, because Assad daring to cross an imaginary “red line”, which Scooter ad-libbed about in a speech many months ago.

I believe that there is more to this situation than that. I believe that during the meetings at the White House with the Muslim Brotherhood, an agreement was reached to back their efforts, including those of their off-shoot, al Qaeda, to bring the entire Middle East under Radical Muslim rule, as a part of a never-ending “Arab Spring”.

The reason that Obama did not face the nation, live in front of the cameras yesterday, and announce his decision, is due to the tremendous blowback he is receiving, concerning his plans to basically facilitate a regime change in Syria.

Yes. Assad is a bad guy. However, it is very obvious to anyone who is paying attention, what Obama is actually doing.

I am certain that he is being called out by his own Party Leaders, and other Advisers within his Administration, as to how feckless he is looking to American citizens and the rest of the world, including our enemies.

Now, Obama is caught between a rock and a hard place. He either alienates his “allies” in the Muslim Brotherhood and al Qaeda, or he risks possible impeachment hearings, for getting us involved in another country’s Civil War.

Either way, the Manchurian President is “choomed”.

Until He Comes,

KJ

The Syria Situation: Yippee-Ki-Yay, Mr. President

On By kingsjesterIn Politics9 Comments

obamacowboyhatPresident Obama’s proposed “coalition of nations”, which he sought to put together to justify his bombing of Syria, has deserted him as rapidly as if it were last call at the local bar, and the last man standing has to pick up the check.

Both Great Britain, through a resounding no vote by Parliament, and Germany, have told Obama, in no uncertain terms,

Here’s the book. Here’s the phone. See ya later. You’re on your own.

Meanwhile, France, while claiming solidarity with Obama’s “mission”, is considering dropping their rifles once again, (which this time, would actually be a smart move).

So, did that detour America’s strongest supporter of al Qaeda (euphemistically referred to by the White House and their minions as “Syrian Rebels”) from his personal “Jihad”?

Is Miley Cyrus a virgin?

…administration officials made clear that the eroding support would not deter Mr. Obama in deciding to go ahead with a strike. Pentagon officials said that the Navy had now moved a fifth destroyer into the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Each ship carries dozens of Tomahawk cruise missiles that would probably be the centerpiece of any attack on Syria.

Even before the parliamentary vote, White House officials said, Mr. Obama decided there was no way he could overcome objections by Russia, Syria’s longtime backer, to any resolution in the Security Council.

Although administration officials cautioned that Mr. Obama had not made a final decision, all indications suggest that a strike could occur soon after United Nations investigators charged with scrutinizing the Aug. 21 attack leave the country. They are scheduled to depart Damascus on Saturday.

Gosh, when Booosh would act on his own like this, Senator Obama and the rest of his Liberal Friends would jump all over him, like  Meghan McCain attacking a ham sammich.

In fact, the “smartest people in the room” came up with a phrase to attack the Foreign Policies of both  President Ronald Reagan and President George W. Bush.

And, when Obama was a candidate for the Presidency, he was still accusing Booosh of operating in this manner

What was this phrase?  

On May 15, 2008, The New York Times ran the following story…

President George W. Bush used a speech to the Israeli Parliament on Thursday to denounce those who would negotiate with “terrorists and radicals” – a remark widely interpreted as a rebuke to Senator Barack Obama, the Democratic presidential contender, who has argued that the United States under some conditions should consider talking with countries like Iran and Syria.

Bush did not mention Obama by name, and the White House said the president’s remarks – which came as the Illinois senator has been trying to assure Jewish voters of his support for Israel – were not aimed at the senator.

But the comments created a political firestorm, especially after they were enthusiastically endorsed by the presumptive Republican candidate for the presidency, Senator John McCain. Political analysts took Bush’s remarks as a sign that he will not hesitate to intervene sharply in the election campaign on McCain’s behalf.

In a lengthy speech intended to promote strong U.S.-Israeli ties, the president invoked the emotionally volatile imagery of World War II to make the case that talking to “terrorists and radicals” was no different than appeasing Hitler and the Nazis.

“Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along,” Bush said.

“We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: ‘Lord, if I could only have talked to Hitler, all this might have been avoided.’ We have an obligation to call this what it is – the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history.”

Bush then made a surprising segue, adding: “Some people suggest that if the United States would just break ties with Israel, all our problems in the Middle East would go away.” He did not say who those people were.

…Obama and his supporters issued a series of angry responses, on television, via e-mail and by conference call. They characterized Bush’s remarks as a stunning violation of the longtime injunction to “leave politics at the water’s edge.”

In an e-mail statement to reporters, Obama denounced Bush for using the 60th anniversary of Israel to “launch a false political attack,” adding, “George Bush knows that I have never supported engagement with terrorists, and the president’s extraordinary politicization of foreign policy and the politics of fear do nothing to secure the American people or our stalwart ally Israel.”

An Obama aide, Robert Gibbs (and Future Press Secretary), used even stronger language.

“This is an unprecedented political attack on foreign soil,” he told CNN. Gibbs called it “cowboy diplomacy.” And he noted that Bush’s own defense secretary, Robert Gates, has argued for holding talks with Iran.

Former Congressman, Lt. Col. Allen West, summed up Obama’s Smart Power! Foreign Policy in the Middle East, and, especially, in the Syrian Situation,

Ok, I get it now, President Obama stated we would pivot away from the Middle East as part of his foreign policy strategy, or lack thereof. A few months ago, he gave a speech at the National Defense University to state that the “war on terror” has ended. Obama’s grand strategy in the Middle East Seems to be how many countries he can destabilize: Libya, Egypt, and now Syria? In each case he has removed not so good guys, but has enabled Islamic terrorists and totalitarians to gain power. Therefore, not only has Obama sought to “fundamentally transform” America but also the Middle East. He is becoming the best buddy of the Muslim Brotherhood and jihadists and a nightmare for our true buddy, Israel.

So, let me let me try to understand this…when Dubya stood up and defended our staunchest ally, Israel, in front of those who would destroy God’s Chosen People in a heartbeat, that was “cowboy diplomacy”.

But, when The Manchurian President refuses to justify to the American People, an unjustifiable military operation, which will place our Brightest and Best in harm’s way, in order to set up a possible regime change, so that his Radical Muslim”Allies” can rise to Power, , that’s not “cowboy diplomacy”, that’s “protecting the citizens of Syria”.

Sure, Scooter. And September 11, 2001, was not the largest Terrorist Attack ever perpetrated on American Soil…it was the world’s largest “Man-Caused Disaster”.

You warned us that you would “stand with the Muslims” should the political winds blow in an ugly direction”.

And, this appears to be a promise you actually intend to keep regardless of its effect on our closest ally, or the citizens of the nation whom you are sworn to protect…and serve.

Until He Comes,

KJ

Obama/Syria: Declaring War By Executive Order

On By kingsjesterIn Politics4 Comments

obamacarterSo, here we are, Americans. Sitting on the precipice, looking down into the Abyss, of a possible World War III. President Barack Hussein Obama’s Smart Power! has been a colossal failure, if its purpose was to keep the peace in the Middle East. If  The purpose of Obama’s Smart Power was replacing Moderate Muslim Leadership with Radical Islamacists, through violent revolution, the persecution of Middle Eastern Christians, and the loss of scores of human lives, then Smart Power! has been an unqualified success.

Now the Leader of America’s Regime, wants to involve us in the Civil War happening in Syria, because their president has been accused of launching a chemical attack against his own citizens.

Just a thought: If he goes through with this, what is Obama going to say if it turns out that al Qaeda launched the chemical attack? “Oops?”

A big problem, besides the fact that we do not need to be doing this, is,  the fact that Obama is Declaring War by Executive Order.

As you may know, if you took 9th Grade Civics class, like I did, Congress must authorize war.

Article I, Section 8 of the United States Constitution says “The Congress shall have the power … To declare war…”

Article II, Section 2 says “The president shall be commander in chief of the army and navy of the United States, and of the militia of the several states, when called into the actual service of the United States…”

Congress declared war:

In 1812 against Great Britain (War of 1812)

In 1846 against Mexico (Mexican-American War)

In 1898 against Spain (Spanish-American War)

In 1917 against Germany and Austria-Hungary (World War I)

In 1941 against Japan, Germany, Italy; in 1942 against Bulgaria, Hungary and Rumania (World War II)

Undeclared Wars:

There have been numerous undeclared wars in which the United States was engaged in military operations, but here are a few examples:

President John Adams asked Congress for legislation to protect American shipping, as American relations with France had deteriorated in 1798 to the point where the French navy had seized more than 300 American commercial ships. This was after the start of the French Revolution and was during a time of war between England and France.

President Thomas Jefferson asked Congress to pass legislation to protect American commercial ships against pirates from Tripoli in 1802; President James Madison did the same in 1815 against pirates from Algeria; the U.S. Congress authorized President James Monroe to use armed vessels to protect American shipping from pirates in the Caribbean and Latin American waters and he issued the Monroe Doctrine in 1823.

There were numerous wars fought against Native Americans.

U.S. military forces were used numerous times such as Commodore Perry carrying a letter from U.S. President Millard Fillmore to the Emperor of Japan and the opening of Japan to U.S. trade in 1853-1854; in the Boxer Rebellion in China 1900-1901; wars in Central America, etc.

Obama might want to consider what he is about to do, bypassing Congress and waging war on Syria. Public Support for “The Syrian War” is three times lower than it was for the beginning of the War in Vietnam.

And, with good reason. As I posited the other day, there are no good guys in the Syrian Situation.

The certifiable Former Democratic Congressman from Ohio, Dennis Kucinich,  spoke to thehill.com, the other day. And, it a moment of remarkable (for him) lucidity, he claimed,

Airstrikes on Syria would turn the U.S. military into “al Qaeda’s air force,” former Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) told The Hill.

The outspoken anti-war activist said any such action would plunge the United States into another war in the Middle East and embolden Islamist militants fighting Bashar Assad’s regime.

“So what, we’re about to become Al Qaeda’s air force now?” Kucinich said. “This is a very, very serious matter that has broad implications internationally. And to try to minimize it by saying we’re just going to have a ‘targeted strike’ — that’s an act of war. It’s not anything to be trifled with.”

The comments echo warnings from Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who voted against legislation to arm the Syrian rebels earlier this year by saying such a move would boost al Qaeda.

Kucinich also said President Obama would be violating the Constitution if he doesn’t get congressional approval before taking any military action in Syria.

Kucinich retired last year after 16 years in the House when his Cleveland district was redrawn and he lost his primary. He led the fight against President George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq and joined nine other lawmakers in suing Obama over his intervention in Libya two years ago.

Kucinich raised doubts about rebel forces’ allegations that Assad’s forces used poison gas to kill more than 1,300 people last week. He said the administration is “rushing” to what could becoming “World War Three” based on questionable evidence.

“This is being used as a pretext,” he said. “The verdict is in before the facts have been gathered. What does that tell you?”

Why, Mr. Kucinich, it tells this American, that Obama has been ready to do this for a long while now, quite possibly since the start of Arab Spring.

Back in May of 2011, during the zenith of Arab Spring, foxnews.com reported that

After popular uprisings overthrew regimes in Tunisia and Egypt, the Syrian government has used deadly force to quell demonstrations inside its borders. So far, the U.S. has shown no inclination to intervene militarily there, as it has to stop the advances of strongman Muammar al-Qaddafi in Libya.

But Syria pushed the envelope over the weekend, with reports showing that Palestinians living in Syria were bused to the border with Israel in the Golan Heights, where demonstrations and violence broke out.

Asked about the incident, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney accused the government of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad of “inciting” the protests to distract attention from demonstrations in Syria — a tactic he claimed would not work on the U.S.

Carney said Tuesday the U.S. was looking at additional measures to push Syria toward listening to its people.

“We are looking at ways to put pressure on the Syrian government … to pressure it so it ceases the violence against its own people and engages its people in legitimate dialogue,” Carney said.

While the White House is insisting that this action would not be “regime change”, it certainly sounds like Obama has been in favor of getting Syria “in line” with the other Middle Eastern countries, who were, like Egypt, taken over by Radical Muslim Groups, like the Muslim Brotherhood.

The concern raised by Kucinich is very real.If Obama’s strategy is to open the way for the Radical Muslim “Rebels” to take over Syria, with our help, then wouldn’t that be aiding and “abetting the enemy”?

Radical Muslims hate us, “The Great Satan”. What is Obama hoping to gain by lobbing a few strategic air strikes in Assad’s general direction? Certainly not fear.

As Democrat Presidents Carter and Clinton found out the hard way. Radical Muslims are not easily intimidated. 

After Carter’s failed Foreign Policy  debacles,it took President Ronald Reagan shooting a missile into Anwar Gadhafi’s bedroom, which shut him up for 25 years, to convince the Muslims that we meant business.

And, later on, it was President Clinton’s less-than-effective Foreign Policy ,which was the primary factor in the escalation of the growth of Radical Islam, leading up to the worst Terrorist Attack ever perpetrated on American Soil, on that horrible day of September 11, 2001.

Unfortunately for us, I do not believe that Obama has ever studied Carter and Clinton’s failed Foreign Policy efforts, because he sure does seem determined to repeat them.

God protect us.

Until He Comes,

KJ

 

 

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

On By kingsjesterIn Politics2 Comments

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

Impeachment, Egyptian Style: Obama Still Stands with Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood

On By kingsjesterIn Politics4 Comments

Eqyptian Uprising 1Back in March of this year, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry rewarded Egypt for President Mohammed Morsi’s pledges of political and economic reforms by gifting the Administration’s new-found friend $250 million of OUR tax money to support the country’s “future as a democracy.”

At the same time, Lurch…err…Kerry also told Morsi 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 any additional “gifts” would depend on it.

So, there’s $250,000,000 of OUR money down the cotton-pickin’- drain.

And, the sad thing is, even after his own countrymen threw Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood buddies out on their ear, our dhimmi president is still “standing with the Muslims”.

Bloomberg.com reports

The Obama administration’s call for an “inclusive” political process in Egypt with a role for the Muslim Brotherhood has been overshadowed by deadly clashes between security forces and supporters of the Islamist group.

Violent protests yesterday in Cairo and elsewhere over the military’s ouster of President Mohamed Mursi raised doubts about prospects for an eventual accommodation that would allow the Brotherhood that supports him to compete in new elections.

Enlarge image Obama Call for Muslim Brotherhood Role Eclipsed in Egypt Fight

While President Barack Obama’s administration has stopped short of condemning the July 3 military takeover, it has called on Egyptian leaders to pursue “a transparent political process that is inclusive of all parties and groups,” including “avoiding any arbitrary arrests of Mursi and his supporters,” Bernadette Meehan, a spokeswoman for the National Security Council, said July 4 in a statement.

The administration has urged the Egyptian military to stop using heavy-handed tactics, according to two U.S. officials who asked not to be identified commenting on private communications. They said the administration is concerned that some in the military may want to provoke the Islamists to violence and provide a rationale for crushing the movement once and for all.

Such a move would fail and probably prompt a shift to al-Qaeda type terrorist tactics by extremists in the Islamist movement in Egypt and elsewhere, the U.S. officials said.

In 2006, in an article titled “The Truth about the Muslim Brotherhood”, posted on frontpagemag.com, Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld and Alyssa A. Lappen wrote that…

Given that political subjugation of non-Muslims is built into Islamic law, and that the MB desires to return to “classical Islam,” it is not surprising that the organization was the fountainhead from which all Sunni terrorist organizations have flowed. Its offspring include Al-Qaeda,[157] HAMAS, [158] Palestinian Islamic Jihad, [159] Gamaat Islamiyyah, [160] the Philippine Abu Sayyaf group,[161] and the Algerian Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC) [162]and Armed Islamic Group (GIA) [163]. Between 1992-1998, the Algerian terrorists murdered an estimated 200,000 people. [164] Today, according to Italian security agencies, and as reported by Kathryn Haahr-Escolano [165] of the Center for Intelligence Research and Analysis, GSPC cells in Italy not only target Italy, but “employ a dual-track approach to planning terrorist attacks and provide support infrastructure—safe houses, communications, weapons procurement and documentation—to GSPC networks in other European countries.”

The ties of all these terrorist groups to the MB are evident from their identical strategies and overall Islamist agenda, and they often carry out joint operations. The MB even influenced Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, [166] who developed the Iranian version of their ideology in the 1970s. Indeed, Khomeini adhered to the teaching of Egyptian MB leader Qutb [167]and followed the lead of Muhammad Navab-Safavi, [168] who was a guest of the MB in Egypt in 1953. [169] Navab-Safavi later formed the dreaded Iranian death squad, the Fedaiyon-e-Islam, or the ‘Soldiers of Islam.’

In Egypt, where the group was founded in 1928 and later banned, the Brotherhood worked under the Islamic doctrine of “concealment” (kitman) [170] in order to “Islamize” the country. In the 1930’s and 1940’s, the MB collaborated with the Nazis. Hajj Amin al-Husseini,[171] the MB chief in British Mandate Palestine, strongly supported Arab links with the Nazis, particularly in Syria, Lebanon and Iraq, where he backed the short-lived pro-Nazi regime of Rashid Ali al-Gailani [172] in 1941. In Egypt too, the MB orchestrated riots, occupied police stations and attempted coups d’etat. Following their failed 1954 attempt to assassinate Gamal Abdel Nasser, [173] MB loyalists fled Egypt to the universities[174] of Saudi Arabia, where they were granted business monopolies to finance their future reemergence; in 1961 the sympathetic King Sa’ud [175] even funded their establishment of the Islamic University in Medina. In October 1981, an MB offshoot group assassinated Egyptian President Anwar Sadat. In the last decade alone, MB offspring including Gama’a al-Islamiya and the Abdullah Azzam Brigades repeatedly attacked Western tourists, killing hundreds and wounding many more.

Since the history of the MB is full of instigating civil wars and committing atrocities in countries such as Egypt, Syria, Sudan and Algeria, their expansion and success elsewhere is destined to wreak more havoc and destabilize every nation in which they are allowed to operate freely.

So, why is the President of these United States, Barack Hussein Obama, standing with an enemy of freedom? An enemy who wants every single American Infidel beheaded, and, who, to this day, refers to this sacred land as “The Great Satan”.

It is well known, that a young Obama, after his mother wed a  quite well-off fellow from Indonesia, attended a Madrassa, or Muslim School, in Jakarta.

I believe that the time he spent among “the religion of peace” in his youth, and the 20 years he spent under the “Reformed Muslim” (Liberation Theology) teachings of “ex”-American Muslim, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, molded and cemented his attitude toward Muslims.

Obama innately trusts Muslims…even radical ones.

Lari Regan, in an article for americanthinker.com, published in April of this year, wrote that…

Obama did not create the Islamist ideology that has fed the fervor of modern-day terrorism.  But from his Cairo speech through his speech Monday night just after the Boston bombings, in which he refused to call the attacks terrorism (he conceded the point the following day), he has made it clear that he does not believe that terrorism is a continuing threat to the lives and safety of Americans.  His refusal to use the terms “War on Terror” and “Islamic fundamentalism” are just examples of a belief either that he can wish away evil or that evil simply does not exist.  But what the country needs is a president who understands Islamic jihad for what it is — the totalitarian, fundamentalist dogma that drives the violence perpetrated by those who have waged holy war on the West.  And Obama has yet to give us any indication that he understands these very real threats, or that he is interested in, and capable of, protecting us from them.

Indeed.

Even after over 4 and 1/2 years in office, Obama, if he has a clue as to how barbaric and devious radical Muslims are, sure doesn’t let on.

Representatives of the Muslim Brotherhood have visited OUR White House several times now, during the Obama Presidency. Obama truly believes that he can broker peace in the Mid-East by standing by and supporting the Grandfather of all Islamic Terrorist Groups.

Naivete or a Fellow Traveler? You be the judge.

His love for, and embracing of,  these murderous barbarians could very well be the death of us all.

It sure as shootin’ hasn’t done the good folks living in the Land of the Pharaohs any good, whatsoever.

Until He Comes,

KJ 

Oh, What a Tangled Web We Weave: Syria, al-Qaeda, and Benghazi

On By kingsjesterIn Politics4 Comments

obamamyworkDo you remember, right after Obama assumed the office of  President of the United States of America, his minions in the State Department announced that they would no longer refer to “The War on Terror” and that “Muslim Terrorists Attacks”, would be referred to as “man-caused disasters?

Over the next 5 years, Obama would bungle his way though his dealings with those who would kill us without a second thought, embracing them as “our new allies”, inviting them to the White House, and trying to convince our greatest ally, Israel, God’s Chosen People, to give half of their country to them.

Now, the Kenyan Kaiser is arming them.

Per The Los Angeles Times,

The training and Obama’s decision this month to supply arms and ammunition to the rebels have raised hope among the beleaguered opposition that Washington ultimately will provide heavier weapons as well. So far, the rebels say they lack the weapons they need to regain the offensive in Syria’s bitter civil war.

The tightly constrained U.S. effort reflects Obama’s continuing doubts about getting drawn into a conflict that already has killed more than 100,000 people and the administration’s fear that Islamic militants now leading the war against Assad could gain control of advanced U.S. weaponry.

The training has involved fighters from the Free Syrian Army, a loose confederation of rebel groups that the Obama administration has promised to back with expanded military assistance, said a U.S. official, who discussed the effort anonymously because he was not authorized to disclose details.

The number of rebels given U.S. instruction in both countries since the program began could not be determined, but in Jordan, the training involves 20 to 45 insurgents at a time, a rebel commander said.

U.S. special operations teams selected the trainees over the last year when the U.S. military set up regional supply lines to provide the rebels with nonlethal assistance, including uniforms, radios and medical aid.

The two-week courses include training with Russian-designed 14.5-millimeter anti-tank rifles, anti-tank missiles, as well as 23-millimeter anti-aircraft weapons, according to a rebel commander in the Syrian province of Dara who helps oversee weapons acquisitions and who asked his name not be used because the program is secret.

The training began last November at a new American base in the desert in southwest Jordan, he said. So far, about 100 rebels from Dara have attended four courses, while rebels from Damascus have attended three courses, he said.

“Those from the CIA, we would sit and talk with them during breaks from training and afterward, they would try to get information on the situation inside Syria,” he said.

The rebels were promised enough armor-piercing anti-tank weapons and other arms to gain a military advantage over Assad’s better-equipped army and security forces, said the Dara commander.

Here’s were it gets…frightening, sickening, and…traitorous…

According to the United Nations,

The Libyan Islamic Fighting Group was listed on 6 October 2001 pursuant to paragraph 8(c) of resolution 1333 (2000) as being associated with Al-Qaida, Usama bin Laden or the Taliban for “participating in the financing, planning, facilitating, preparing or perpetrating of acts or activities by, in conjunction with, under the name of, on behalf or in support of”, “supplying, selling or transferring arms and related materiel to” or “otherwise supporting acts or activities of” Al-Qaida (QE.A.4.01), Usama bin Laden and the Taliban.

The Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) is an Al-Qaida (QE.A.4.01) affiliate. It was created in 1995 by Libyans who had fought in Afghanistan and had plotted against the Government of Libya. LIFG participated with the Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group (QE.M.89.02) in planning the May 2003 bombings in Casablanca, Morocco, that killed over 40 people and injured more than 100. LIFG has also been linked to the 2004 attacks in Madrid, Spain.

In 2002, Al-Qaida leader Zayn al-Abidin Muhammad Hussein (QI.H.10.01), also known as Abu Zubaydah, was captured in Faisalabad, Pakistan, accompanied by at least three LIFG operatives and a fourth individual, the former head of the Sanabel Relief Agency Limited (QE.S.124.06) in Kabul, Afghanistan, who was also known to have ties to LIFG. LIFG commanders, including Abu Yahya al-Liby and the now-deceased Abu al-Laith al-Liby, have occupied prominent positions within Al-Qaida’s senior leadership.

On 3 November 2007, LIFG formally merged with Al-Qaida. The merger was announced via two video clips produced by Al-Qaida’s propaganda arm, Al-Sahab. The first clip featured Usama bin Laden’s (deceased) deputy, Aiman Muhammed Rabi al-Zawahiri (QI.A.6.01), and the second featured Abu Laith al-Liby, who then served as a senior member of LIFG and a senior leader and trainer for Al-Qaida in Afghanistan.

LIFG is believed to have several hundred members or supporters, mostly in the Middle East and Europe. Since the late 1990s, many LIFG members have fled from Libya to various Asian, Arabian Gulf, African, and European countries, particularly the United Kingdom. It is likely that LIFG has maintained a presence in eastern Libya and has facilitated the transfer of foreign fighters to Iraq.

By now, you’re saying, “But, KJ…that’s Libya, not Syria.”

Bless be the ties that bind…

On November 27, 2011, the UK Telegraph reported…

Abdulhakim Belhadj, head of the Tripoli Military Council and the former leader of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, “met with Free Syrian Army leaders in Istanbul and on the border with Turkey,” said a military official working with Mr Belhadj. “Mustafa Abdul Jalil (the interim Libyan president) sent him there.”

The “covert operation” was immediately laid bare when a rival Libyan rebel brigade detained Belhaj at Tripoli airport, accused him of travelling on a fake passport, and declared they would jail the senior military leader.

Only a letter from the country’s interim president was enough to persuade them to let him leave the country.

The meetings came as a sign of a growing ties between Libya’s fledgling government and the Syrian opposition. The Daily Telegraph on Saturday revealed that the new Libyan authorities had offered money and weapons to the growing insurgency against Bashar al-Assad.

Mr Belhaj also discussed sending Libyan fighters to train troops, the source said. Having ousted one dictator, triumphant young men, still filled with revolutionary fervour, are keen to topple the next. The commanders of armed gangs still roaming Tripoli’s streets said yesterday that “hundreds” of fighters wanted to wage war against the Assad regime.

According to information found at discoverthenetworks.org, in early 2012, President Barack Hussein Obama signed an intelligence finding that authorized U.S. support for the Syrian rebels, among whom are many heavily-armed, al Qaeda-affiliated jihadists. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, Gen. Martin Dempsey (chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff), Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and then-CIA director David Petraeus unanimously back a plan to arm the Syrian rebels. (Even though, Obama and his entire Administration would vehemently deny it later.)

Also in early 2012, the CIA started working with Arab governments and Turkey to sharply increase the supply of arms shipments to Syrian rebels. (Source: The New York Times (March 25, 2013)

On the 11th anniversary of the most devastating Terrorist Attack ever perpetrated on American Soil, masterminded by Osama bin Laden and carried out by members of al-Qaeda, the U.S. Embassy Compound in Benghazi Libya, was overrun by Muslim Terrorists who killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other brave Americans.

Since then, there has been a lot of speculation as to the cause of the attack, and why Obama and his Administration tried to convince the world that an unknown Youtube video caused the Middle East Turmoil. David Horowitz’ discoverthenetworks.org tells us that there may have been a difference cause…

Frank Gaffney, founder and president of the Center for Security Policy, writes that after Muammar Qaddafi’s fall from power in the summer of 2011, “[Christopher] Stevens [is] appointed ambassador to the new Libya run by [Abdelhakim] Belhadj [leader of the al Qaeda-linked Libyan Islamic Fighting Group] and his friends.” At this point, Stevens is tasked with finding and securing “the immense amount of armaments that had been cached by the dictator around the country and systematically looted during and after the revolution.” Stevens’ mission is to help transfer “arms recovered from the former regime’s stocks to the ‘opposition’ in Syria,” where, “as in Libya, the insurgents are known to include al Qaeda and other Shariah-supremacist groups, including none other than Abdelhakim Belhadj.” These Syrian insurgents, organized under the banner of the “Free Syrian Army,” are fighting to topple the rule of their nation’s president, Bashar al-Assad. Benghazi is a logical place in which to station Stevens for this task, since, as Gaffney notes, it is “one of the places in Libya most awash with such weapons in the most dangerous of hands.”

Stevens’ duties include not only the transfer of arms, but also the recruitment of fighters willing to personally go into combat against the Assad regime in Syria. Aaron Klein writes that according to Middle Eastern security officials: “The U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi … actually serve[s] as a meeting place to coordinate aid for the rebel-led insurgencies in the Middle East.” Specifically, the building serves as a forum for U.S. collaboration with Arab countries—particularly the Turkish, Saudi and Qatari governments—on how to best support the Mideast’s various insurgencies, especially the rebels opposing Assad in Syria. Many of the fighters who are recruited are jihadists hailing from Libya and elsewhere in North Africa, and they are dispatched to Syria via Turkey (the lead coordinator of aid to the Free Syrian Army) with the help of CIA operatives stationed along the border shared by those two countries. One of the most noteworthy jihadists making his way to Syria is Abdelhakim Belhadj, former leader of the al Qaeda-linked Libyan Islamic Fighting Group that brought down Qaddafi in Libya before subsequently disbanding.

This type of covert activity “may help explain why there was no major public security presence at what has been described as a ‘consulate,’” says Aaron Klein. “Such a presence would draw attention to the shabby, nondescript building that was allegedly used for such sensitive purposes.”

Why are we arming those who want to “kill the Great Satan”? Is is naivete or insanity? Is Obama simply “standing with the Muslims”? Is he doing this in the “name of the Prophet”?

Can we Impeach him, yet?

Until He Comes,

KJ

 

Bosnia…Libya…Syria

On By kingsjesterIn Politics2 Comments

clintoncartoonIn the late 1990s, President Bill “Bubba” Clinton got our country involved in another nation’s civil war.

On August 15, 1996, Ted Galen Carpenter, Vice-President for Defense and Foreign Policy Studies at the Cato Institute and the author of Beyond NATO: Staying Out of Europe’s Wars. wrote a Foreign Policy Brief titled “The Domino Theory Reborn:  Clinton’s Bosnia Intervention and the “Wider War” Thesis.”

Here is an excerpt.

President Clinton’s assertion that the U.S.-led NATO mission in Bosnia is essential to prevent a wider European war is erroneous. Two of the wider war scenarios–Serbia as a runaway expansionist power like Nazi Germany and the prospect that the Bosnian conflict could ignite a continental conflagration just as a Balkan incident sparked World War I–are so far-fetched that they should be dismissed out of hand.

The other two scenarios–that copycat aggressors elsewhere in Europe would be emboldened by a NATO failure in Bosnia and that a Bosnia-style war could erupt in the southern Balkans, especially in Kosovo and Macedonia–have greater validity. But the success or failure of the Bosnia mission will have little impact on such dangers. Conflicts in other parts of Europe arise from local conditions and historical factors, and the belligerents will continue to pursue their unique agendas. War in the southern Balkans would not be a matter of the Bosnian conflict’s “spreading.” The disputes over Kosovo and Macedonia involve different grievances and, largely, a different set of potential adversaries.

The wider war thesis is merely a refurbished domino theory. Not every armed conflict in Europe is destined to lead to a massive war that would affect important American security interests.

…President Clinton repeatedly defended his decision to send American troops to Bosnia by insisting that if the United States and its NATO allies did not take steps to solidify the fragile peace in that country, they would risk the outbreak of a “wider war.” Such a conflict would threaten overall European stability, which is deemed important to America’s own security and well-being. Thus, in addition to any moral imperative to stop the carnage in Bosnia, the United States had no choice but to assume a leadership role to suppress the fighting, lest Europe descend into chaos for the third time this century.

The president used that reasoning in a November 1995 letter to House Speaker Newt Gingrich shortly before the signing of the Dayton accord.

This Administration, and that of previous Democratic and Republican Presidents, have been firmly committed to the principle that the security and stability of Europe is of fundamental interest to the United States. The conflict in Bosnia is the most dangerous threat to European security since the end of World War II. If the negotiations fail and the war resumes, as it in all probability would, there is the very real risk that it could spread beyond Bosnia, and involve Europe’s new democracies as well as our NATO allies. Twice this century, we paid a heavy price for turning our backs to conflict in Europe.

Secretary of State Warren Christopher had made a similar argument earlier, contending, “Twice in this century we have had to send our soldiers to fight in wars that began in Central Europe.” On another occasion he insisted that unless the Dayton peace accord succeeded, the Bosnian conflict could someday involve “the rest of Europe.” James Steinberg, director of policy planning at the State Department, was equally apocalyptic. “Without U.S. leadership in Bosnia, we would face the imminent danger of a widening war that could embroil our allies, undermine NATO’s credibility, destabilize nearby democracies, and drive a wedge between the United States and Russia.”

The president and his advisers tend to be vague, how-ever, about how the bloodletting in Bosnia could lead to a wider European war. Proponents of the U.S.-led peace enforcement mission act as though that danger were self-evident, but a careful examination suggests that most of the wider war scenarios are implausible.

That conclusion has important implications beyond the administration’s Bosnia policy, for the assumption that small conflicts will usually lead to larger ones is a crucial premise underlying Washington’s global network of security commitments. A proactive U.S. policy (including a military presence) in such regions as Europe, East Asia, and the Persian Gulf is supposedly essential because it preserves stability and makes any armed disruption less likely. Without that stabilizing U.S. role, the argument goes, there will be a proliferation of minor conflicts, any one of which may ignite a regional war that will entangle the United States. But if the wider war thesis is invalid with regard to Bosnia, serious questions ought to be raised about its validity elsewhere–indeed, about the intellectual foundation of America’s overall security strategy.

Current United States President Barack Hussein Obama, already made history repeat itself, by getting us involved in the civil war in Libya, which led to a Radical Muslim government being installed, and eventually, 4 brave Americans, including U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens, being savagely murdered.

Now…it appears that Obama is about to double down…

The Daily Caller’s Ariel Cohen reported yesterday that…

The White House said Friday it does not plan to send U.S. troops into Syria, despite offering aid to rebel groups fighting President Bashar al-Assad.

“Nobody has asked us to [go into Syria]. The Syrian opposition does not think that it’s a good idea,” Ben Rhodes, current Deputy National Security Adviser for Strategic Communication, said during a White House press conference Thursday evening. ”We certainly don’t think it’s in our national interest to send U.S. troops.”

The White House distinguished their actions in the Middle East from those of the previous administration’s, expressing a reluctance to enter a scenario similar to the 2003 Iraq War.

“We need to be humble here about our ability to solve the problem in Syria,” Rhodes said. “I think recent history teaches us that even when you have U.S. troops on the ground, you’re not necessarily going to be able to prevent violence amongst civilian populations. We saw that in Iraq, for instance. And at the same time, when U.S. troops are on the ground, that involves us in a much more dramatic way of making us the issue instead of the interest of the country where we are.”

Instead of sending U.S. troops into Syria, Obama plans to help opposition groups on the ground.

“Our stated national policy is for Bashar Al-Assad leave power,” Rhodes said. “It is our preference that this be done politically, but we are going to continue supporting those in Syria who are working for a post-Assad future.”

Rhodes said that the best course of action in Syria is to strengthen a “moderate opposition that would be able to represent the broader Syrian public” by providing aid to the rebel groups, but the administration has yet to comment on the specifics of the aid.

“While I understand the interests, we’re just not going to be able to get into that level of detail about the type of resistance that we provide,” Rhodes said.

“I’m not going to be able to inventory the types of support that we’re going to provide to the [Syrian Military Council], but I’d point to my previous answers — suffice it to say that a decision has been made about providing additional direct support to the SMC to strengthen their effectiveness,” Rhodes said. “This is more a situation where we’re just not going to be able to lay out an inventory of what exactly falls under the scope of that assistance, other than to communicate that we have made that decision.”

Critics opposing U.S. involvement in Syria claim that the White House can never be completely sure who receives American aid within the rebel groups — or how they will use it.

“It is unclear what national security interests we have in the civil war in Syria,” Kentucky Republicans Sen. Rand Paul wrote in a CNN.com piece warning against American intervention in the Middle East. “It is very clear that any attempt to aid the Syrian rebels would be complicated and dangerous, precisely because we don’t know who these people are.”

As I first reported in May, there is just one problem with arming these “Freedom Fighters”. It’s the same “problem” that we faced in Libya.

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 be 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.

In his biography, “The Audacity of Hope”, written by Bomber Bill Ayers, Obama says that,

I will stand with them [Muslims] should the political winds shift in an ugly direction.

That ugly direction is the Middle East…again.

Until He Comes,

KJ

 

Assad Vows to Attack Israel. He Doesn’t Know Who He’s Messing With.

On By kingsjesterIn Christianity, Politics2 Comments

americanisraelilapelpinSyrian President Bashar Assad announced in an interview yesterday,  that he is “confident in victory” in his country’s civil war, and he warned that his country would retaliate for any future Israeli airstrike on his territory.

Assad also told the Lebanese TV station Al-Manar that Russia has fulfilled some of its weapons contracts recently, but he was vague on whether this included advanced S-300 air defense systems.

The comments were in line with a forceful and confident message the regime has been sending in recent days, even as the international community attempts to launch a peace conference in Geneva, possibly next month. The strong tone coincided with recent military victories in battles with armed rebels trying to topple him.

The interview was broadcast as Syria’s main political opposition group appeared to fall into growing disarray.

The international community had hoped the two sides would start talks on a political transition. However, the opposition group, the Syrian National Coalition, said earlier Thursday that it would not attend a conference, linking the decision to a regime offensive on the western Syrian town of Qusair and claiming that hundreds of wounded people were trapped there.

Assad, who appeared animated and gestured frequently in the TV interview, said he has been confident from the start of the conflict more than two years ago that he would be able to defeat his opponents.

“Regarding my confidence about victory, had we not had this confidence, we wouldn’t have been able to fight in this battle for two years, facing an international attack,” he said. Assad portrayed the battle to unseat him as a “world war against Syria and the resistance” — a reference to the Lebanese Hezbollah, a close ally.

“We are confident and sure about victory, and I confirm that Syria will stay as it was,” he said, “but even more than before, in supporting resistance fighters in all the Arab world.”

Assad has said he would stay in power at least until elections scheduled in 2014, but he went further in the interview, saying he “will not hesitate to run again” if the Syrian people want him to do so.

Assad, evidently has never 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.

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

Until He Comes,

KJ

Israel Lights the Fuse

On By kingsjesterIn Christianity, Politics3 Comments

The Powder Keg that is the Middle East has exploded, once again. And this time, our ally, Israel, lit the fuse.

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak signaled that Israel is ready to escalate its military operations against Gaza after at least one long-range missile was fired at Tel Aviv by Palestinian militants.

The missile attack and the volume of fire in general toward Israel “is an escalation and there will be a price to pay,” Barak said on Channel 2 television yesterday. It was the first such attack on Israel’s commercial hub since Iraqi missiles in 1991 during the Gulf War.

Neither side showed signs of yielding as international diplomacy ramped up. Hamas kept up rocket fire in the most serious conflict since Israel sent troops into Gaza in December 2008 in a three-week offensive it said was aimed at stopping such attacks. Israeli Army Spokesman Brigadier General Yoav Mordechai told Channel 2 that the military was calling up 30,000 reservists hours after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the military was ready for a “substantial expansion” to stop rocket attacks.

In a phone call with Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi, U.S. President Barack Obama supported Israel’s right to self defense as the two leaders agreed on “the importance of working to de- escalate the situation as quickly as possible,” according to a Nov. 14 White House statement. United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon plans to go to Egypt and Israel next week, according to a Security Council diplomat informed of the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity because the trip hasn’t been announced. The UN spokesman’s office declined to comment.

Israel began a military operation termed Pillar of Defense against militants in the Gaza Strip on Nov. 14. At least 19 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli military strikes, including the leader of the Hamas military wing, and three Israelis died in one of 300 rocket attacks launched from Gaza in the past 24 hours.

Israel launched a wave of air strikes at 70 underground launch sites for medium-range rockets late yesterday, and direct hits were confirmed, the army said in an e-mailed statement. Israeli naval vessels fired on Hamas bases on the Gaza shore, the army said.

The rocket fired at the Tel Aviv area of Gush Dan, home to about 1.3 million people, probably fell in the sea, said police spokesman Mickey Rosenfeld, noting there was no damage and no injuries reported. Air-raid warnings sounded in the city, which is at the limit of the approximately 70-kilometer (44 mile) range of the Iranian-developed Fajr-5 rocket.

About the elimination of that Hamas Terrorist…the Jerusalem Post reports that

Israel’s leaders were literally looking in the opposite direction, and making sure everyone knew it, just before catching Hamas’s top commander in the Gaza Strip off-guard in an air strike that killed him.

In what now appears to have been a diversionary tactic, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak paid a visit to the Syrian frontier in the north, hours before the air offensive began in the south.

In fact, Israeli experts now say, the visit may have been part of a ploy to deceive Hamas into believing that a truce was in place in Gaza, so that the Israeli army could catch its target, Hamas military mastermind Ahmed Jabari.

“The sense of complacency that Barak and Netanyahu created … brought Jabari and his friends out of his holes and made possible the surprise attack,” military affairs analyst Alex Fishman wrote in Yedioth Ahronoth.

Israel has a thick list of potential targets in the Gaza Strip, an enclave regularly criss-crossed by IAF drones and where militants’ movements are routinely logged. The Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency), which oversaw the assassination of Jabari, keeps tabs on Hamas leaders with a network of informers.

So it is surprising that the usually cautious militant, who had just returned from a pilgrimage to Mecca, chose to drive in broad daylight down a main Gaza street. His car was hit by a missile in an attack filmed from the air and put on YouTube.

Jabari may have been lulled into the open by public signals from Israel that a round of cross-border violence along the frontier in the past week had run its course.

On Monday, Netanyahu convened the nine-member inner cabinet to discuss an upsurge of Hamas rocket attacks last weekend that had been disrupting life for a million Israelis in the South but seemed to be abating.

It was at that meeting, political sources said, that a Shin Bet plan to assassinate Jabari was approved and the first act of deception was played out: Minister Benny Begin, a member of the forum, went on Israeli radio to say the current round of violence appeared to be over.

Hamas apparently bought the message. Sami Abu Zuhri, a Hamas spokesman, said Israel, in launching the offensive, had violated an informal truce brokered by mediators.

“The factions abided by the understanding of calm, and the occupation bears the responsibility for the consequences that will follow the ugly crime,” he said.

Israel had largely suspended assassinations of top Hamas men in recent years, strikes that could have triggered wider violence along the Gaza frontier.

It focused instead on targeting rocket launching crews in low-intensity warfare marked by cyclical cross-border exchanges usually calmed by Egyptian-mediated ceasefires.

The IDF used similar ruses to conceal its plans before launching its three-week Gaza war in December 2008.

Days before that offensive began, Defense Minister Barak made an unusual and unannounced live appearance on a top-rated TV satire show, giving the impression that starting a war could not be further from his mind.

In another twist at the time, officers were summoned from garrisons around Gaza to a weekend with their families at a countryside spa. All but the most senior of those invited commanders were then surprised to be woken up, that Saturday morning, and sent back to base for combat within hours.

Were the Gaza missiles a  retaliation for Israel’s strike against Syria? It’s certainly a possibility.

Will President Barack Hussein Obama continue to defend our closest ally, or will he stand with the Muslims “should the political winds shift in an ugly direction”?

Considering Israel launched their attack on Syria after Obama’s re-election, I think Israel’s Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu knows exactly where Obama stands.

So, they threw the first punch.

I hope y’all are all prayed up.

You see, I know how this whole thing ends. I’ve read The Book.

Until he comes,

KJ

Obama Administration Unconcerned as Russia Sails Toward Syria

On By kingsjesterIn Politics3 Comments

On May 19, 2011, the 44th President of the United States, Barack Hussein Obama (mm mmm mmmm), gave the following speech, concerning the volatile situation in the Middle East, known as Arab Spring, as Muslim fanatics began to overthrow the Moderate Muslim Dictators that were in place:

The State Department is a fitting venue to mark a new chapter in American diplomacy. For six months, we have witnessed an extraordinary change taking place in the Middle East and North Africa. Square by square, town by town, country by country, the people have risen up to demand their basic human rights. Two leaders have stepped aside. More may follow. And though these countries may be a great distance from our shores, we know that our own future is bound to this region by the forces of economics and security, by history and by faith.

,,,Now, already, we’ve done much to shift our foreign policy following a decade defined by two costly conflicts. After years of war in Iraq, we’ve removed 100,000 American troops and ended our combat mission there. In Afghanistan, we’ve broken the Taliban’s momentum, and this July we will begin to bring our troops home and continue a transition to Afghan lead. And after years of war against al Qaeda and its affiliates, we have dealt al Qaeda a huge blow by killing its leader, Osama bin Laden.

…By the time we found bin Laden, al Qaeda’s agenda had come to be seen by the vast majority of the region as a dead end, and the people of the Middle East and North Africa had taken their future into their own hands.

…There are times in the course of history when the actions of ordinary citizens spark movements for change because they speak to a longing for freedom that has been building up for years. In America, think of the defiance of those patriots in Boston who refused to pay taxes to a King, or the dignity of Rosa Parks as she sat courageously in her seat. So it was in Tunisia, as that vendor’s act of desperation tapped into the frustration felt throughout the country. Hundreds of protesters took to the streets, then thousands. And in the face of batons and sometimes bullets, they refused to go home –- day after day, week after week — until a dictator of more than two decades finally left power.

The story of this revolution, and the ones that followed, should not have come as a surprise. The nations of the Middle East and North Africa won their independence long ago, but in too many places their people did not.

…In the face of these challenges, too many leaders in the region tried to direct their people’s grievances elsewhere. The West was blamed as the source of all ills, a half-century after the end of colonialism. Antagonism toward Israel became the only acceptable outlet for political expression. Divisions of tribe, ethnicity and religious sect were manipulated as a means of holding on to power, or taking it away from somebody else.

But the events of the past six months show us that strategies of repression and strategies of diversion will not work anymore. Satellite television and the Internet provide a window into the wider world -– a world of astonishing progress in places like India and Indonesia and Brazil. Cell phones and social networks allow young people to connect and organize like never before. And so a new generation has emerged. And their voices tell us that change cannot be denied.

The question before us is what role America will play as this story unfolds. For decades, the United States has pursued a set of core interests in the region: countering terrorism and stopping the spread of nuclear weapons; securing the free flow of commerce and safe-guarding the security of the region; standing up for Israel’s security and pursuing Arab-Israeli peace.

We will continue to do these things, with the firm belief that America’s interests are not hostile to people’s hopes; they’re essential to them. We believe that no one benefits from a nuclear arms race in the region, or al Qaeda’s brutal attacks. We believe people everywhere would see their economies crippled by a cut-off in energy supplies. As we did in the Gulf War, we will not tolerate aggression across borders, and we will keep our commitments to friends and partners.

Yet we must acknowledge that a strategy based solely upon the narrow pursuit of these interests will not fill an empty stomach or allow someone to speak their mind. Moreover, failure to speak to the broader aspirations of ordinary people will only feed the suspicion that has festered for years that the United States pursues our interests at their expense. Given that this mistrust runs both ways –- as Americans have been seared by hostage-taking and violent rhetoric and terrorist attacks that have killed thousands of our citizens -– a failure to change our approach threatens a deepening spiral of division between the United States and the Arab world.

And that’s why, two years ago in Cairo, I began to broaden our engagement based upon mutual interests and mutual respect. I believed then -– and I believe now -– that we have a stake not just in the stability of nations, but in the self-determination of individuals. The status quo is not sustainable. Societies held together by fear and repression may offer the illusion of stability for a time, but they are built upon fault lines that will eventually tear asunder.

… There must be no doubt that the United States of America welcomes change that advances self-determination and opportunity. Yes, there will be perils that accompany this moment of promise. But after decades of accepting the world as it is in the region, we have a chance to pursue the world as it should be.

Smart Power in action? Hardly.

We interrupt Little Barry Sunshine for this important story from the New York Times:

Russia said on Tuesday that it had dispatched a flotilla of 11 warships to the eastern Mediterranean, some of which would dock in Syria. It would be the largest display of Russian military power in the region since the Syrian conflict began almost 17 months ago. Nearly half of the ships were capable of carrying hundreds of marines.

The announcement appeared intended to punctuate Russia’s effort to position itself as an increasingly decisive broker in resolving the antigovernment uprising in Syria, Russia’s last ally in the Middle East and home to Tartus, its only foreign military base outside the former Soviet Union. The announcement also came a day after Russia said it was halting new shipments of weapons to the Syrian military until the conflict settled down.

Russia has occasionally sent naval vessels on maneuvers in the eastern Mediterranean, and it dispatched an aircraft-carrying battleship, the Admiral Kuznetsov, there for maneuvers with a few other vessels from December 2011 to February 2012. There were rumors in recent weeks that the Russians planned to deploy another naval force near Syria.

But the unusually large size of the force announced on Tuesday was considered a message, not just to the region but also to the United States and other nations supporting the rebels now trying to depose Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad.

Tartus consists of little more than a floating refueling station and some small barracks. But any strengthened Russian presence there could forestall Western military intervention in Syria.

The Russian announcement got a muted response in Washington. “Russia maintains a naval supply and maintenance base in the Syrian port of Tartus,” said Tommy Vietor, a spokesman for the National Security Council. “We currently have no reason to believe this move is anything out of the ordinary, but we refer you to the Russian government for more details.”

The announcement came as a delegation of Syrian opposition figures was visiting Moscow to gauge if Russia would accept a political transition in Syria that excludes Mr. Assad. It also coincided with a flurry of diplomacy by Kofi Annan, the special Syria envoy from the United Nations and the Arab League, who said Mr. Assad had suggested a new approach for salvaging Mr. Annan’s sidelined peace plan during their meeting on Monday in Damascus.

Barack Hussein Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton, the “Police Squad” in charge of the State Department:

Nothing to see here. Move along. Nothing to see here.