Biden Starts to go “wobbly” Concerning Israel

 

It had been reported at the time of the killing of Osama Bin Laden that Biden was opposed to the effort and encouraged “not to do it.” Famously known as the guy who never shoots straight when it come to foreign policy, Israel may suffer the same fate as his other foreign policy disasters.

Will Israel really be the ones conducting the war? Biden is already “asking” them to delay the war until the civilians can be removed. Only thing, Hamas has no intention of letting them go anywhere. Speaking of going anywhere, am I the only one who noticed that Biden’s pressure on Egypt and other countries to take a million plus refugees has only fueled anger toward us and Israel by the Arab states?

Egypt with a population of about 100 million is expected to take in 1 million, and take care of them. But wait, I am sure the U.S. will be more than willing to do an air lift here to the U.S. Then of course, after we bomb the land back into a dessert again, we will rebuild it and of course the Palestinians will be happy to go home. Anyone buying this scenario?

And lets be real. Does anyone think that Biden is directly involved in any of this? I would hazard a guess, that Obama and his well ensconced henchmen are running it, and we know how Obama feels about Israel.

Many complained in Obama’s other wars that he was involved in the minutiae down to when many of the bombs were sent.

I don’t envy Israel to have their fate tied up with our feckless leader. As Jesse Waters states, a man who can’t even get up the stairs.

Good luck Israel.

 

 

Meanwhile?

Biden NSA Jake Sullivan Won’t Rule Out Potential Deal With Hama Terrorists For American Hostages. Thanks Jake…. after all our pockets are deep don’t you know. Let’s turn on the green light for more hostage taking. It comes to about one billion buckeroos per person. Sometimes Jake, just keep your mouth shut.

 

 

Our savant Jake… but his story is for another day.

The coup de grace from the man himself.

Jake Sullivan, the former Clinton aide who participated in the both the Benghazi and Russia hoaxes, is one of those responsible for the worst foreign policy debacles and scandals in American history.

 

A week before the Hamas attack on Israel

Biden National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan (last week): “The Middle East region is quieter today than it has been in two decades”

 

Biden National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan (last week): "The Middle East region is quieter today than it has been in two decades" pic.twitter.com/59MYUXhmHf

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) October 7, 2023

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Iran’s Massive Protests – What is the U.S. Responsibility in this Brutality?

How is this an American problem?  How is the Biden administration guilty of ignoring and giving legitimacy to the Iranian regime? Asks the writer of this post. We can set aside and forget that the U.S. played a hand in deposing the Shah. But we should not forget what life was like previously, especially for women. They want that life back.

Iran 1970s Photos Before Revolution

Mustang gives us his thoughts:

Writer Majid Rafizadeh recently opined that the Biden Administration’s inaction gives legitimacy to Iran’s brutality.  He bases his concerns on an Oslo-based non-governmental organization (NGO) calling itself Iran Human Rights.  The NGO claims that in a recent round of anti-government protests, 326 people have died and 15,000 others have been arrested — and executions have already begun. 

People run for cover as Iranian police open fire during protest at Tehran metro station 5 days ago.

Yesterday reported:

Iran protesters set fire to Khomeini’s ancestral home

Footage circulating on social media appears to show a fire raging at the ancestral home of the late founder of the Islamic republic of Iran, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, with activists saying it was torched by protesters.

Rafizadeh quotes Churchill in his piece, “I never worry about action, but only about inaction.” 

Well, okay.  I am sitting in my living room and wondering, what am I supposed to do about these abuses in a faraway land?  I’ve been over to the United Nations website to see what they say about human rights abuses, and I came across a 72-page booklet of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights — which is far too much for a journal post, so let me break it down just a bit. 

In 2015, Mr. Zeid Ra’ad Al-Hussein, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, penned the following as an introduction to this 72-page booklet. 

“In perhaps the most resonant and beautiful words of any international agreement, “all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.” The commitments made by all States in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights are in themselves a mighty achievement, discrediting the tyranny, discrimination, and contempt for human beings that have marked human history. 

“The Universal Declaration promises all the economic, social, political, cultural, and civic rights that underpin a life free from want and fear.  They are not a reward for good behaviour.  They are not country-specific or particular to a certain era or social group.  They are the inalienable entitlements of all people, at all times, and in all places — people of every colour, from every race and ethnic group; whether or not they are disabled; citizens or migrants; no matter their sex, their class, their caste, their creed, their age, or sexual orientation.  

 “Human rights abuses did not end when the Universal Declaration was adopted.  But since then, countless people have gained greater freedom.  Violations have been prevented; independence and autonomy have been attained.  Many people – though not all – have been able to secure freedom from torture, unjustified imprisonment, summary execution, enforced disappearance, persecution, and unjust discrimination, as well as fair access to education, economic opportunities, and adequate resources and health-care.  They have obtained justice for wrongs, and national and international protection for their rights, through the strong architecture of the international human rights legal system. 

 “The power of the Universal Declaration is the power of ideas to change the world.  It inspires us to continue working to ensure that all people can gain freedom, equality, and dignity.  One vital aspect of this task is to empower people to demand what should be guaranteed: their human rights.  This booklet constitutes a modest but significant contribution to that work.”  

Let’s assume that the Oslo-based NGO has offered us a truthful view of human rights abuses in Iran.  Let us assume that reports of nearly 400 people murdered by the government and another 15,000 incarcerated are entirely unembellished.  How is this an American problem?  How is the Biden administration guilty of ignoring and giving legitimacy to the Iranian regime?  

So, is this problem an American/Biden Administration issue, or is this a problem that falls under the purview of the United Nations? 

 The United Nations peace-keeping budget for 2022-23 is $6.5 billion.  The amount was allocated to ten peace-keeping missions, one support operation, three logistics bases, and one somewhat large headquarters element.  The allocation amounts to an increase of $74 million over the previous fiscal year. 

 What would Mr. Rafizadeh have Mr. Biden (or the American taxpayer) do?  What does the Oslo-based human rights organization prefer?  Shall we, for example, invade Iran?  When the United States invaded Iraq in 2003, the justification for that invasion included concerns about Saddam Hussein’s oppressive treatment of his people — mass murder of an unbelievable scale.  We were told in 2003, as many as 10,000 Iraqis were.  During U.S. military operations ending in 2011, more than 207,000 Iraqi civilians were killed by armed violence. 

 

I would ask — how brutal was that? 

 

During the long and short of it, there aren’t many options for any country.  As we’ve all seen over the past 40 years, economic sanctions promote American objectives more than international goals — and don’t work.  While initially agreeing to support U.S. (or U.N.) economic sanctions, the international community finds ways to violate those sanctions over time when it is in their economic interests to do so.  In the end, evil regimes aren’t squeezed into civilized behavior or made to stop genocide, avoid armed violence genocide, or limit the importation of lethal armaments. 

 Mr. Rafizadeh may be correct about the Biden administration — imposing so many sanctions worldwide, only to be laughed at by almost everyone and then not seeing any positive result.  But Mr. Rafizadeh is wrong to assume this business in Iran is an American problem.  

Maybe it would be best if John Kerry and his family were not in bed with “the enemy,” and perhaps it would be better if the American people had a lucid president — but in any event, there is nothing anyone can do about the genocide in Iran.  Nothing that works, in any case — and I certainly could not justify even more pain and suffering while trying to save the people.   

 But if anyone was going to stop it, then shouldn’t that burden fall upon the United Nations?  Isn’t that what Mr. Al-Hassan promised?  I don’t question any of the information provided by the Oslo-Human Rights Group.  I also don’t doubt Mr. Rafizadeh’s outrage.  I only ask why he is not demanding that the United Nations do its job.

Mustang has blogs called  Fix Bayonets and Thoughts From Afar

Hezbollah – Next Door

by Mustang

Hezbollah (also the “Party of God”) is a Lebanese Shia Islamist militant group led by Hassan Nasrallah.  Hezbollah is the militant wing of a Shia Jihad Council; its political wing is the Resistance Bloc Party in the Lebanese Parliament.  Civilized nations have designated Hezbollah as a terrorist organization.  Lebanon, Iraq, and Russia are not among them.

“Hezbollah Flag” by upyernoz is licensed under CC BY 2.0

Following Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 1982, Lebanese clerics adopted the model established by Ayatollah Khomeini during the Iranian Revolution of 1979.  The organization of Hezbollah was an Iranian effort, through funding and the dispatch of a core group of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, to aggregate a variety of Lebanese Shia groups into a unified organization to resist Israeli occupation.

According to some, Hezbollah has grown more powerful than the Lebanese Army.  With control over radio and television stations, social services, and operational control over paramilitary fighters in other countries, Hezbollah, with financial support from Iran and Syria, has become a state within a state.

Hezbollah is responsible for carrying out terrorist attacks in Israel, Lebanon, Kuwait, Argentina, Panama, the United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia, and Bulgaria.  In Latin America, Hezbollah was responsible for the bombing of the Israeli Embassy in 1992 and the Argentina Jewish Center in 1994.  In both incidents, Hezbollah murdered 114 people.  The bombing in 1994 was the first Hezbollah assault outside Lebanon or the Middle East.  The Hezbollah terror network is also suspected of downing Alas Chiricanas Flight 00901 in Panama one day after the Argentina Jewish Center.

Note: No one should be foolish enough to think that Hezbollah’s terrorist network is confined to Latin America. The Hezbollah terror network that moved from Lebanon to Colombia and the tri-border area between Paraguay, Brazil, and Argentina to carry out the 1994 bombings, remains active today.  Known as Unit 910 (also its External Security Organization (ESO)), Hezbollah is popularly supported in Latin America because it co-opted Lebanese families living throughout Central and South America and the Caribbean Islands.

Presently, 300,000 Shia Moslems live in the United States; they receive their religious instruction from Shia mosques, the largest of which is in Dearborn, Michigan.  If Lebanese immigrants residing in Central and South America can throw their support behind Hezbollah, there is no reason to think that Lebanese living in the United States would not do the same.

Since 1994, Hezbollah has morphed from a terrorist network into a narcotics cartel.  Of the more than 2,000 individuals identified as narcotics associates, 200 affiliate with Hezbollah.  Today, Hezbollah’s business affairs component (HBAC) directs and manages its growing money-laundering schemes and multi-ton shipments of cocaine.  Hezbollah’s involvement in drug trafficking is not new.  Since 1994, Hezbollah kingpins have invested in media outlets, established numerous investment mechanisms and cash/credit businesses to help launder illicit revenues.

One of these, the most notable, is Al-Inmaa Engineering and Contracting, whose managing director carries a Venezuelan passport.  Other business enterprises involve textile industries, beef, charcoal, electronics, tourism, real estate, and construction firms.  In 2018, the US Justice Department listed Hezbollah as one of the world’s top five transnational criminal organizations.

Naming Hezbollah (along with three Mexican cartels and the Central American criminal gang, popularly known as MS13) was a wake-up call for Latin American nations.  Most Latin American politicians did not know that Hezbollah had so thoroughly infiltrated their criminal elements.  Today, Hezbollah has become the principal hybrid threat to Latin American security.

For well over 150 years, beginning during the Ottoman Era, wave after wave of immigrants arrived in Venezuela from Lebanon, Syria, and Armenia.  Moslems, Christians, and Jews primarily settled in Margarita Island, Puerto Cabello, Punto Fijo, and La Guairá.  By 1975 (at the beginning of the Lebanese Civil War), tens of thousands of Lebanese migrated to Venezuela seeking safety.  At the time, Venezuela had a high standard of living, and the people were allowed to pursue their unfettered dreams by the government.

Hezbollah wasted no time exploiting transplanted Lebanese to build local support networks and did so, initially, without most Lebanese immigrants knowing about it.  Slowly, an army of logistics professionals, entrepreneurs, lawyers, and accountants, emerged from within the diaspora to raise money, conceal and move illicit funds, most of which funded Hezbollah’s global terror network.

Today, Hezbollah’s terrorist network operates through compartmentalized familial clan structures, now embedded within the Maduro regime’s illicit economy and its bureaucracy.  Many of these clans assimilated into the Maduro apparatus and bureaucracy; they are now high-ranking officials, have much to say about Venezuelan society, and these, in turn, are working their way into the political structures of neighboring countries.

Hezbollah’s crime-terror network in Colombia and Venezuela came to light in 2011.  Following a two-year investigation, law enforcement authorities arrested 130 criminals and seized $23 million of illicit funds that moved through West Africa into Lebanon through the Lebanese-Canadian Bank.  It was called Operation Titan.

Operation Titan was a joint Colombian-US effort started in 2008 targeting the Medellin Cartel, called La Oficina de Envigado.  The investigation connected Medellin to Lebanese families and communities and eventually to Hezbollah.  The investigation resulted in the collapse of Hezbollah’s transregional cocaine trafficking scheme through Ayman Saied Joumaa, a Colombian-Lebanese drug kingpin.  The United States indicted Joumaa for his involvement in drug trafficking with Los Zetas in Mexico. According to US federal authorities, he runs an extensive maritime shipping network tied to Hezbollah.  Sadly, Joumaa remains free.

Ali Mohamad Saleh, a prominent Shia businessman and Hezbollah kingpin facilitated a complex maze of cross-border trade and bulk-cash transactions between Colombia and Venezuela. It was more than drugs; it involved weapons, contraband, bulk-cash smuggling, and money laundering. Mohamad and his brother, Kassem, became Hezbollah’s primary Latin-American terror financiers in 2012. Colombian and US officials exposed Mohamad and Kassem, but they escaped to Venezuela.  Today, they are living in Maracaibo, working with another prominent Maduro-supported Lebanese clan.

The Saleh family is not the only terrorist clan operating with impunity in Venezuela.  Ghazi Nassereddine has been a person of interest to the Federal Bureau of Investigation since 2015.  Ghazi’s older brother, Abdallah, is a prominent businessman with substantial investments in real estate, commercial centers, and tourist traps.

Migrants from Lebanon, the Nassereddine rose to political prominence after Hugo Chávez became president of Venezuela.  Ghazi entered the foreign ministry, attaining official diplomatic status, and Abdallah worked his way into an important position within the United Socialist Party.  Ghazi used his position to establish relationships between Hezbollah operators, Venezuelan ministers, and military counterintelligence chief Carvajal Barrios.

The result of these interactions was a cocaine-for-weapons scheme between FARC[1] and Hezbollah.  FARC transferred cocaine to the Maduro regime, and a planeload of weapons arrived from Lebanon and found their way into Colombia.  Today, Ghazi directs a think tank called Global AZ; it has ties to France, Germany, and Italy.  Other members of Nassereddine run political indoctrination camps, paramilitary training camps, weapons and drug smuggling operations, and petroleum security operations.

Maicao is a historic commercial hub in La Guajira, Colombia.  It has a large concentration of Lebanese immigrants dating back to the 1800s.  In 2017, Colombian immigration officials deported a Lebanese-Hezbollah financier named Abdala Rada Ramel.  Ramel ran drug trafficking operations and a smuggling ring from Maicao to Cartagena.  Ramel bragged about his relationship with Hezbollah ESO leader Salman Raouf Salman — a known global terrorist thought to be instrumental in the 1992 and 1994 bombings.  Salman has more aliases than most people have socks.

Argentina issued an arrest warrant in 2009 and offered a $7 million reward for information leading to his capture.  Salman and his brother José Salman El Reda were instrumental in establishing Hezbollah support networks in Latin America.  Salman Raouf Salman and José Salman remain free.

Since 2014, US-Colombian joint investigations led to ten separate but interrelated kingpin designations and three federal indictments by the US federal government.  Involved in the convergence points were air and sea bridges between Venezuela, Iran, and Hezbollah.  It is a transregional threat that props up Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela and Bashar al-Assad in Syria.

Concluding discussion

The situation in Venezuela is critical.  Millions of citizens are unable to access primary healthcare and adequate nutrition.  Most people have no access to safe water.  The Maduro government routinely commits atrocities against citizens, including extrajudicial executions, kidnapping, illegal incarceration, the summary court-martial of civilians, torture of detainees, and beatings of people the government declares as “trouble-makers.”

Venezuelan citizens today are fleeing repression and shortages of food, medicine, and medical supplies.  It is one of the most significant migration crises in recent Latin American history.  Some 5.5 of 32-million Venezuelans have fled their country since 2014.  Many of these forced immigrants remain in irregular status, meaning they cannot obtain work permits, send their children to school, or access health care.  This, in turn, subjects them to exploitation and abuse in their temporary refuges.

What can we do about any of this?  Actually, nothing.  But it is instructive to note that Venezuela regressed from a nation with a high standard of living to a fourth-world cesspool within the span of a single generation.  Latin American caudillos have been a plague among their people for two hundred years.  The list of them is long.  They all followed similar paths to achieve and maintain power.

Many met an untimely (but well-deserved) end … some met a much-deserved end but took their time achieving it.  Castro depended on Russia, and now Venezuela depends on Iran, Syria, and Hezbollah.  The situation should elicit some empathy for these people, who have no guns to defend themselves nor any means of fighting for their liberty.  More disturbing, however, is that a lethal terrorist group has found its way into the political structure of Venezuela.  This cannot and will not end well for the Venezuelan people.

Meanwhile, there is a well-entrenched terrorist group in Central and South America, with swarms of illegal immigrants crossing the US border in Texas — people from Haiti, Colombia, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Mexico, and yes … Venezuela; people whose true identities we cannot ascertain.  And then, there are significant quantities of drugs flowing across the border, as well (as if hundreds of Covid-infected illegals weren’t enough).  Where is the fentanyl coming from?  According to the US DEA, it’s coming from China through Mexico.  According to the US DEA, 90,000 Americans died from drug overdoses in 2020 alone.

Oh, and one more thing.  In this toxic environment, the American people elected Joe Biden to lead their nation.

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[1] Also, Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, FARC began as a guerrilla group in 1964 known to employ a variety of terrorist tactics.  Initially funded through kidnapping and ransom, illegal mining, and extortion.

Mustang also blogs at Fix Bayonets and Thoughts From Afar

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Where the Buck Stops

by Mustang

President Joe Biden recently parroted an earlier Democrat, who famously stated, “The Buck Stops Here.”  Well, it sounds nice, but no president or high-ranking cabinet official ever faced more “buck” than losing an election or being asked to resign.  It occurs to me that “accountability” should involve more than looking for another high-paying job.

I actually do marvel at our system of government.  We (sort of) choose our president; he alone determines the people who serve in his cabinet and whom, for the most part, dig our graves (with the blessings of the Senate, of course).

History tends to suggest that cabinet secretaries, particularly those involved in foreign policy and national defense, too often do more harm than good.  No matter who these people are (whether they benefit the American people or make matters worse), their product is always associated with the president who appointed them.

For example, American citizens suffered the consequences of the Truman Policy or doctrine, even if Truman had little more to do with it beyond some vague idea that he passed along to a subordinate.  Truman’s Policy led to armed conflicts in Korea and Vietnam, where nearly 100,000 Americans died.  So far in his administration, Biden’s foreign policies appear to rival those of Neville Chamberlain.

Presidents and their spokespersons often explain policy decisions in this way: “I have determined that it is in the interests of the United States to …”  They never seem to get around to providing any details, of course, because for the most part, the specifics are none of our business.  We still do not know how the invasion of Afghanistan or Iraq was in the United States’ national interests.  All we know is that thousands more Americans (and coalition partners) died, along with tens of thousands of Afghan/Iraqi civilians.  Did either of these decisions benefit the United States or the American people?

The State Department (also known as Foggy Bottom) claims that it has four primary policy goals: (a) Protect the United States and Americans; (b) Advance democracy, human rights, and other global interests; (c) Promote international understanding of American values and policies, and (d) Support US diplomats and other agencies at home and abroad.

Well, the State Department did not protect the United States or its people in 2001.  Given the amount of human suffering that resulted from our invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, we cannot say that the State Department achieved its second goal, either.  None of our allies seem interested in lining up behind our attempts to promote international understanding … in fact, most of our allies shake their heads in wonderment and may even ask themselves, “Who are these idiots?”

In protecting the United States, the State Department argues that it uses diplomacy to address terrorism.  Well, again, it hasn’t worked because most terrorists hold little interest in floating position papers with American diplomats.  Terrorists are, for the most part, non-state actors who receive the direct or indirect support of states known to sponsor terrorist activities.

We know, for example, that Saudi Arabia sponsors terrorism.  They send vast amounts of money to Pakistan, whose intelligence service launders the money and uses it to purchase and distribute arms and munitions to their surrogates — Wahhabists who are more familiar to us as “Taliban.”  The Saudis also fund the massive increase in Islamic mosques throughout the western world — physical structures that proselytize Islamic imperatives and recruit madmen to assault western societies.

We also know that Pakistan, in partnership with Saudi Arabia, funnels lethal weapons to terrorist organizations and diverts US Foreign Aid, intended to help feed the masses, into terrorist-centered programs and to help pay for their nuclear weapons platforms.  The Pakis also shift US technology to China and North Korea.  In essence, Pakistan provides our technology to our potential enemies, who will undoubtedly use these platforms against our armed forces.

Given the foregoing, I can’t understand how our State Department can assert “friendship” with either the Saudis or the Pakistanis.  We also know that Saudi Arabia started the civil war in Syria. Yet, we side with the Saudis against the Syrians — and do so for no other reason than to maintain the pretense of Saudi-American friendship.  Why?  What have Syrians ever done to the American people?

Has the State Department protected the United States and the American people from Saudi-sponsored terrorism?  Answer: NO.  In fact, by virtue of the government’s reassurances that the Saudis and Pakistanis are our friends, our presidents and State Department have made ongoing terrorism a near-guarantee.

As responsible citizens, realizing that once we elect a president, he alone appoints cabinet secretaries, and armed with the knowledge of recent history, who are these selected people who contrive to make our lives more complex and, in some cases, horribly miserable?

Bill Clinton appointed Madeline Albright as the first female Secretary of State.  Her name at birth was Marie Jana Korbelova, a Czech who immigrated to the United States and obtained advanced degrees from Columbia University.  Before becoming Secretary of State, she worked as an aide to Senator Edmund Muskie and later as an acolyte of Zbigniew Brzezinski on the National Security Council.  This made her an “expert” in foreign affairs and a much-sought-after advisor to Democratic candidates.

Today, Albright remains a celebrity and continues to inflict her hubris upon the American people. She believes (even today) that the United States has a moral obligation to interfere in the affairs of other nations.  She insisted that the United States was justified in imposing sanctions against Iraq, even if a half-million children had to die due to them.

In defense of this incredible “foreign policy objective,” Academic (with no real experience outside the classroom or air-conditioned NSC offices) Albright asserted, “We stand taller and see further into the future.”  There is no evidence to support her claim, but that’s where she was coming from. On the use of military force, she asked Colin Powell, “What’s the point of having this superb military that you’re always talking about if we can’t use it?”

As Secretary of State, Albright thought of our service personnel as pawns in a global chess game, readily sacrificed if she determined that it was necessary.  But how much “good” has Albright, and others just like her, done for the United States in implementing failed foreign policies?  Succeeding Albright, Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, and Rex Tillerson just continued to dig that bottomless hole to contain the human remains of people whom some of us loved.

And then we have other cabinet secretaries, few of which deserve more than our scorn.  As Secretaries of Defense, we’ve had Dick Cheney, Les Aspin, William Perry, William Cohen — all of whom we could classify as obnoxious pricks.  Donald Rumsfeld had a few good ideas, and he was honest enough to admit to his staff that he was out of his depth about the Afghanistan situation. Still, we cannot offer him or Paul Bremer our gratitude for his handling of the invasion/occupation of Iraq.

Robert Gates may qualify as our best Defense Secretary since 1947, a man who seemed to care most about the injury and death of our forward-deployed combat troops, but I cannot think of one Interior Secretary whose policies substantially improved the lives of our Native American populations.

So, then, where does the buck stop?  Do we ever ask, before an election, specifically whom the presidential candidates have in the queue to advise them?  If we did ask, would they tell us?  And if they didn’t know, should we vote for them?  I’m only asking because grasping at straws does not a policy-maker make.

Mustang also blogs at Fix Bayonets and Thoughts From Afar

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Back to Chinese Checkers

Back to Chinese Checkers

by Mustang

A few interesting developments among the so-called China watchers.  There is nothing for you to do about this, of course, but I thought it would provide at least some amusement.  So, there is this fellow named Sandeep Dhawan who writes advice to the US State Department suggesting what they ought to do about China.  I’m sure the State Department appreciates this advice — the Lord knows if anyone needed advice, it’s the US State Department.  Sandeep’s bona fides include the fact that he’s a former commander in the Indian navy.  I found this curious, so I did a few minutes of G-searching and could not find one single incident where the Indian Navy ever distinguished itself in a combat role at sea.  Well, it may not matter. 

Russia India and China

Sandeep is concerned because, as the United States withdraws from its foreign outposts, China is moving in to “fill up the vacuum.”  Moreover, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s latest visit to the Middle East seems to indicate (to Sandeep) that China is definitely “moving in.”  Now, maybe it’s just me, but … so what?  Yi’s vow to “work with Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Iran, UAE, Bahrain, and Oman to “help protect their core interests against foreign interference” doesn’t bother me in the least.  More to the point, if Iran invaded Saudi Arabia tonight at midnight, I couldn’t care less.  Remember, I have long advocated that the solution to the petty tyrants in the Middle East is to convince the Saudis that the Iranians are good to eat.  Sorry, my friends, but I don’t care if China spends all of its silver taels on Algeria, Egypt, Palestine, Eritrea, or on Huey, Dewey, and Louie.  In fact, I think China should spend all their money in the Middle East.  We American taxpayers need a break.

Note:  I wonder if China realizes that all those countries hate each other almost as much as they hate us?

What does concern me, however, is that given America’s hunger for Chinese-made plastic bowls, it will be OUR spending at Wal-Mart that will actually fund China’s mischief in the Middle East.  Painfully, we all know that the average female shopper at Wal-Mart would trade in her first born son for a set of eight plastic storage bowls if they come in multiple colors.  Yeah, patriotism is important, so long as it doesn’t interfere in plastic storage ware.

Meanwhile, Russia’s Putin and China’s Xi are forming a mutual support arrangement.  They didn’t do this when Trump was president, of course … they know what a war hungry maniac Trump was.  But now that Joe Biden’s in the White House … well, off come the gloves.  Truly, this IS the danger of electing a nitwit to the presidency, and a former prostitute as his Vice … do you think anyone in the old country will respect America’s leadership, or will they take advantage of the opportunities handed to them by the American voter?

Note:  I don’t know for a fact that Kamala Harris ever was a prostitute, but that’s what Peter, who comments here, said — and it may all boil down to how one defines prostitution, but for the record I trust Peter, and this should go a long way toward reducing what I owe him.

But let’s be optimistic … even assuming that China and Russia “divide the world” among them, so what?  At some point in the future, the American dim-bulbs who voted for Biden will be called away and we’ll end up with a president with cajones.  After this new president nukes everyone one who is friends with China or Russia, the world will belong to us.  Then we can start fighting among ourselves, which is what we like to do almost better than anything (except Wal-Mart shopping).

Mustang’s take on the post Chinese checkers in the Middle East: Play or Perish

Omar tells Sanders supporters, he will ‘fight against western imperialism’

 

Rep. Ilhan Omar says she is excited Sen. Bernie Sanders will “fight against western imperialism.”

“I am beyond honored and excited for a president that will fight against western imperialism and fight for a just world,” Omar said during a Sanders campaign rally in Minneapolis.

 

Omar could only praise comrade Sanders, who spent his honeymoon in the Soviet Union. We are to forget the Soviet Union wasn’t on everyone’s bucket list as a travel destination. This at the height of the cold war. That he is even polling a number tells us what has happened to our educational system.

“The fight for human rights is undeniable. And when we recognize injustices of the past and present,” Omar said. “Whether it is genocide against Jewish people, Armenians or Rwandans or Bosnians or Native Americans or more. We realize that that recognition isn’t about punishing our political foes, but leading within a moral obligation.”

Other than that all is well in the swamp.

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Senator Feinstein caught talking to Iran on unsecure IPhone

If we thought the latest kerfuffle over Kerry’s mixing into foreign policy regarding Iran recently was a Logan problem, add the concept of Feinstein walking around congress on an unsecured line talking on her IPhone to Iranian Prime Minister Zarif.

The same Zarif that Kerry is so involved with. Keep in mind, Kerry’s daughter Vanessa is married to an Iranian national and physician. His best man at the ceremony was the son of Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iran’s Minister of Foreign Affairs. Zarif was also Kerry’s chief counterpart in the nuclear deal negotiations.

First just for old times sake:

Kerry and his Iranian in-law relatives. Could he be black mailed?

March 12, 2015

“I am proud of the Iranian-Americans in my own family, and grateful for how they have enriched my life,”

“But what if the regime simply decides to round up Nahed’s family members and torture them? Or sends its goons to visit them at home? Or exerts some form of more subtle pressure on them that gets no publicity, and then makes it known they want the United States to release Iranians jailed in the United States on terrorism charges or for attempting to procure weapons technology or military spare parts”?

But back to the business at hand. A portion of the take down by Mark Levin that is well worth hearing the full thing.

LevinTV host Mark Levin called out the hypocrisy of the Democrats after Sen. Dianne Feinstein, was caught on the phone with Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif earlier Thursday, and the media said nothing.

“He’s the foreign minister to an enemy state that seeks to attack American military personnel in the Middle East, that seeks to put nuclear warheads on ICBMs so they can reach the United States. It is a terrorist regime, an Islamo-Nazi regime in Tehran, that has killed Americans, that funds Hezbollah to kill Americans, that funds Hamas to kill, and is a threat to our national security, obviously,” Levin said. “What in the hell is the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee doing talking on an iPhone around the Capitol to Javad Zarif?”

“What is it with these Democrats fronting for this Islamo-Nazi regime that wants to kill Americans and Jews in Israel? You’ve got Frankenfeinstein, you’ve got … John Kerry — or the real Frankenstein — giving aid and comfort to the enemy! It’s not enough that they released $150 billion to this regime; now they’re giving it advice, against the president of the United States. You want to talk about the Logan Act? You want to talk about collusion?”

Levin pointed out that the media, of course, has said nothing about Feinstein’s phone call.

“Don Trump Jr. has a meeting with a couple of Russians, meeting turns out to nothing, and it’s the crime of the century. Except Mueller says it’s not, but the media says it is. You have Dianne Frankenfeinstein on her damn cell phone with the foreign minister of Iran! Anybody want to know what they discussed? ‘No, no, that’s Dianne, we like her,’” Levin said.   H/T: Blazing Press

 

The Error of Our Ways

 

 

The Error of Our Ways

 

by Mustang

At the end of World War II, Harry S. Truman was looking for ways to switch the United States from its war-time economy to one better suited to a society that wanted —and needed peace.  Unhappily, the President’s cost-cutting measures involved a one-third reduction of the military services: Army, Navy, and Marines.  Washington, D. C. was a busy place between 1945-1950:

• World War II veterans were expeditiously discharged
• The Department of War was transformed into the Department of Defense.
• The Navy Department was rolled into DoD.
• The Army-Air Force became the United States Air Force.

New Jersey mothballed 1948

Missions and structure for all services was under review.  Within the naval establishment, one-third of the Navy’s ships were moth-balled.  In the Army and Marines, infantry battalions were forced to give up one rifle company, which meant that battalions had no combat reserve; no way to rotate company off the front lines; no way to form the battle area in depth.

In 1949, Secretary of State Dean Acheson produced a study of Sino-American relations.  Officially, this document was titled United States Relations with China with Special Reference to the Period 1944-1949. Its short title was simply, the China White Paper.  In over 1,000 pages, Acheson explained that America’s intervention in China was doomed to failure.  Chinese Communist Party Chairman Mao Zedong was overjoyed to hear this news.

Then, on 12^thJanuary 1950, Secretary Acheson gave an address before the National Press Club.  In his discussion of the all-important US Defense Perimeter, he neglected to include the Korean Peninsula and Formosa as places the United States was prepared to defend.  North Korean leader Kim Il-sung immediately conferred with the Soviet Union.  Would the USSR back him in reunifying the Korean peninsula?

This wasn’t the first time where America’s diplomatic incompetence caused harm to the American people —nor was it the last.

Thanks to Truman’s cost cutting and Acheson’s incompetence, war once more turned its horrid face toward America in June 1950; worse, America was unprepared to fight it.  There was no money for training, munitions for live fire exercises, fuel for military aircraft, or replacement parts for vehicles.  Military skills are perishable.  Pilots who are limited in their flight hours lose their edge in the cockpit.  Infantry units that do not regularly train with artillery and armored units lose their efficiency.  So, it should not have surprised anyone in July 1950 when the US Army’s first act in the Korean War was full-scale retreat to Pusan in southeast South Korea.  It was a very bad situation; and America’s army was in real danger of being pushed into the Sea of Japan.

Well, we know why America was unprepared for the Korean War in 1950: Truman was a Democrat and the Secretary of Defense was his shill.  But why did Truman pursue a deadly, costly, and static strategy for three years?  The effect of this muddleheaded policy was the loss of 38,000 American lives.  Did we learn anything?

Apparently not … because the US repeated this foolishness during the Viet Nam War —a conflict we never have entered in the first place.  Washington insiders tried time and again to convince President Eisenhower to send combat troops to Viet Nam in the mid-1950s; beyond providing US funds, however, Eisenhower refused to take that bait.  Under Democrat Lyndon Johnson, America gave up another 58,000 lives.

In my mind, the lessons from both of these conflicts are self-evident—and yet, George Bush and Barack Obama managed to involve and keep us in conflicts that have nothing whatever to do with “national defense.”  I keep asking, how is going to war in the Middle East in our nation’s best interests?  What are those interests, exactly?

I believe that the American people have a right to know what our interests are BEFORE getting involved in foreign entanglements … something more than telling us that it’s in our national interest.  I also think that whenever a decision is made to go to war, then our government is obliged to prosecute it with unmatched ruthlessness.  If we are going to war, then we must beat the enemy so bad that he won’t consider another war for ten more generations —and for the sake of God, get the damn thing over with.  No more pussyfooting around with the lives of our service men and women.  Short wars, if you have to fight them, are better than protracted wars.  Americans hate going more than four quarters in any contest.

If Democrats were serious about “national defense,” then why are we importing terrorist-refugees into the United States to wreak havoc here at home? Where is the sense in having porous borders where very bad people can walk through at their leisure?  Isn’t Congress and the administrative departments and agencies obliged to “defend” Americans here at home?  Note: Republicans could have fixed the southern border issue but didn’t.  Now they’re criticizing Democrats for doing nothing.  Our entire congressional structure does “nothing.”

We Americans —or at least the governments we elect— still have not learned any important lessons about our enemies.  Otherwise, we wouldn’t have been tiptoeing around the extremist issue since the early 1990s.  Rather than addressing the problem directly, our government pursues a failed static policy. How long have we been in Afghanistan? Folks, America needs a reset.

• Let us resolve to avoid involving ourselves in the internal affairs of other nations.  If we do not want Russia meddling in our political affairs, then we should refrain from meddling in their elections (Bill Clinton).
• Let’s stop pretending that we understand the Islamic mindset.  We don’t.
• Let us stop pretending that our diplomats understand anything or are clever; if anything, our diplomats are incompetent or criminally malfeasant.
• Let us be fair and consistent in our dealings with the extremist mentality.  They can do as they wish in their own back yards —but God have mercy should they ever attack, assault, or give menacing looks toward any American citizen.  Our resolve should be to terminate with extreme prejudice anyone who threatens the safety of the American people, but more than this, we should be resolved to take out the entire kitchen staff, as well.  If the extremists (foreign or domestic) do not stop this nonsense, our intention should be to completely eradicate them: lay down such waste on their homeland that no human being will be able to live there for another ten generations (or until the year 2319).

This is how you bring peace and prosperity to America.  Why have we not learned from the error of our ways?

‘The Final Year’ film exposes Obama team and their foreign policy naivety

 

 

How about a film review for a sleepy Saturday on a holiday weekend? I had heard that this documentary was in the works months ago. That being following around the Obama team the last year of his administration. Apparently it is about to hit HBO, however there has been a limited screen showing. I read they cover Samantha Power and her coming to terms with their loss. I for one am looking forward to it. I’ll throw in a couple of clips. Ben Rhodes is a laugher.

Quoting Weasel Zippers: This is by turns hilarious, yet also incredibly sad to think that this is the flummoxed administration we were saddled with for 8 years.

Free Beacon:

Ben Rhodes sputters incoherently at the end of “The Final Year,” the documentary about former President Barack Obama’s foreign policy team and their diplomatic efforts throughout 2016.

He’s rendered speechless by an event he says wasn’t going to happen during the film: The election of Donald Trump.

Yet throughout the documentary, he’s also flummoxed by finding out Vladimir Putin isn’t out to promote what the U.S. thinks Russia’s interests are, the media’s response to his pronouncement that they were stupid rubes suckered into promoting the Iran nuclear deal, people who think climate change isn’t a bigger threat than Islamic terrorism, and at one point, getting into the back seat of a van.

Keep reading…

Quoting the New York Post

In a moment of woeful irony in the Obama-administration documentary “The Final Year,” UN Ambassador Samantha Power travels to Cameroon to offer photo-op comfort to families terrorized by Boko Haram — only to have her motorcade kill a 7-year-old boy.

Greg Barker, the director of this fan film, does his best to downplay the accident: It is discussed while we watch a clip of Power’s convoy moving at a crawl when in fact it was reportedly traveling at over 60 miles an hour when it struck the boy.

But to understand why Rhodes and Obama are so pleased with their foreign policy, you have to understand the way they think. The documentary is revealing about that.

Naïvety, meet arrogance. These were the guiding forces behind the Rhodes-Obama foreign policy. The arrogance came in thinking that all previous administrations were too thick to come up with this awesome idea Rhodes had: Military force is bad.

Snip…

….but it’s Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes who has the most amusing reaction to Donald Trump’s victory.

Asked whether a Trump administration might endanger his accomplishments, he says, “I’ve never really considered that.” So what does the speechwriter and former aspiring novelist have to say when Trump wins? “I mean, uh, I can’t even [long pause] I can’t, I ca - - [long pause] I mean I, I can’t, I can’t, I can’t put it into words. I don’t know what the words are.”

THE FINAL YEAR Trailer #1 NEW (2018) Barack Obama Documentary Movie

 

The Rough ‘Final Year’ of Ben Rhodes

Flashback – John Kerry back to his old tricks of undermining State policy

 

For my flashback Saturday, or “whatever happened to” I didn’t have to go far today. Kerry breeches into the news, once more the traitor he has always been. Doing all he can to make sure his own idiotic Iranian deal stays in place by visiting the major principles. Meeting with Iranian Prime Minister Zarif whose son was best man at his daughter’s wedding.  I will get to that, but first some of the best from the past.

 

“I am proud of the Iranian-Americans in my own family, and grateful for how they have enriched my life,” Kerry said in the official statement.

Kerry’s daughter Vanessa is married to an Iranian national and physician. Who was best man at the ceremony? The son of Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iran’s Minister of Foreign Affairs.

Zarif was also and Kerry’s chief counterpart in the nuclear deal negotiations.

Kerry also said he was “strongly committed to resolving” the differences between the United States and the Islamic Republic of Iran, “to the mutual benefit of both of our people.”

 

Kerry and his Iranian in-law relatives. Could he be black mailed?

March 12, 2015 – bunkerville

Among Sen. John Kerry’s top fund-raisers are three Iranian-Americans who have been pushing for dramatic changes in U.S. policy toward the Islamic Republic of Iran.

So he didn’t need to have an Iranian-American family member to believe that the United States should forge direct relations with the Islamic Republic or ease U.S. pressure on the regime.

John Kerry and Syria

The Washington Free Beacon in an article titled “An Affair to Remember: John Kerry Hearts Bashar al-Assad” called Kerry the Syrian dictator’s “highest-ranking apologist in American politics”:

Kerry thwarted efforts during the Bush administration to diplomatically isolate Syria after the administration’s own efforts to engage the regime ended in failure in 2003.

…It wasn’t so long ago that Kerry made repeated pilgrimage to Syria, meeting with Assad five times between 2009 and 2011.

He famously used the adjective “generous” to describe Assad, as the Wall Street Journal’s Bret Stephens recalled in a column:

On March 16, 2011—the day after the first mass demonstration against the regime—John Kerry said Assad was a man of his word who had been “very generous with me.” He added that under Assad “Syria will move; Syria will change as it embraces a legitimate relationship with the United States.” (This is the man who is our secretary of state, and mastermind of the Iran nuclear deal.)

As Michael Rubin recently wrote in Commentary Magazine, Kerry’s staffers described “their collective cringe when, after a motorcycle ride with Bashar al-Assad, he returned to Washington referring to Bashar as ‘my dear friend.’”

The National Review detailed more about Kerry’s positive impression of Assad (2007):

After a “long and comprehensive” meeting with Assad in April of that year, Kerry described it as “a very positive discussion.” A month later, Kerry was back in Syria. His spokesman, insisting that “Syria can play a critical role in bringing peace and stability if it makes the strategic decision to do so,” asserted that Kerry had “emerged as one of the primary American interlocutors with the Syrian government.” Despite the senator’s interlocutions, Assad, it appears, has made the wrong “strategic decision.”

 

Now the latest from our traitor:

Former Secretary of State John Kerry is actively working to keep the Iran nuclear deal in place as U.S. weighs the future of the deal, according to a new report.

Kerry, who served as the nation’s top diplomat under former President Barack Obama, was an instrumental leader in the development of the 2015 Iran deal, which put Iran’s nuclear program on ice in exchange for relief from crippling sanctions.

The Boston Globe reports Kerry met with Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif to examine how to preserve the deal.

Additionally, he has met and spoken with several European officials on the matter, including German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier and French President Emmanuel Macron.

More at Washington Examiner