From ESPN Outdoors

The Obama administration has ended public input for a federal strategy that could prohibit U.S. citizens from fishing some of the nation’s oceans, coastal areas, Great Lakes, and even inland waters.

AP/Luis M. Alvarez

One sign at the United We Fish rally at the Capital summed up the feelings of recreational and commercial fishermen.

This announcement comes at the time when the situation supposedly still is “fluid” and the Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force still hasn’t issued its final report on zoning uses of these waters.

Fishing industry insiders, who have negotiated for months with officials at the Council on Environmental Quality and bureaucrats on the task force, had grown concerned that the public input would not be taken into account.

“When the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) completed their successful campaign to convince the Ontario government to end one of the best scientifically managed big-game hunts in North America (spring bear), the results of their agenda had severe economic impacts on small family businesses and the tourism economy of communities across northern and central Ontario,” said Phil Morlock, director of environmental affairs for Shimano.

“Now we see NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) and the administration planning the future of recreational fishing access in America based on a similar agenda of these same groups and other Big Green anti-use organizations, through an Executive Order by the President. The current U.S. direction with fishing is a direct parallel to what happened in Canada with hunting: The negative economic impacts on hard-working American families and small businesses are being ignored.
read more

Stand Up America Associate Writer

The United States has sat on top of the world for years as a leading super power. Many countries followed suit especially throughout most of Europe. We climbed as high as we could and unfortunately, failed to realize, sitting on the top has serious risks. We sat like a hunter who sits in a tree stand without securing safely into a safety harness.

Humpty Dumpty too sat like that hunter. He sat on a wall. He failed to secure himself. You know the results.

To sit in an elevated position, you have to secure yourself. Many believed we were secure however; we never fastened ourselves so if our platform was pulled from under us we would not get hurt. Today, we are hurting. We are hurting because of injuries we obtained from the continuous fall.
read more

From the “South Carolina Five”, the “Christmas Bomber”, and the “Gitmo” trials slated for NYC, to the Fort Hood attack, the numbers are rising. Do you wonder what we do not know about others as common citizens? How about the ones the government does not know or care about yet? With the number of people on the watch list doubling to over 6,000 names, are you sufficiently frightened enough yet? You should be, these are just the ones they have information about. How about all the training camps for Jihadis in most states? Please read on:

From the Examiner

By Jim Kouri

United States Attorney John E. Murphy announced that in San Antonio, a federal grand jury indicted 24-year-old Ahmed Muhammed Dhakane, a citizen of Somalia, on two counts of making false statements under penalty of perjury to federal authorities concerning his association with global terrorist organizations.

The indictment, returned on Monday and unsealed yesterday, alleges that on October 28, 2008, the defendant falsely omitted on an application for asylum that from a time prior to September 11, 2001, until January 2003, he was a member of, or was associated with, al-Barakat and Al-Ittihad Al-Islami (AIAI). Both organizations have been designated by the Department of Treasury pursuant to Executive Order 13224 as Specially Designated Global Terrorists (SDGT).

Al-Ittihad al-Islami, or the Islamic Union, is Somalia’s largest terrorist organization. The group gained power in the early 1990s following the collapse of the Siad Barre dictatorship. AIAI originally sought to form an Islamic state in Somalia and force the secession of the Ogaden region in Ethiopia, which it believed was wrongly seized during Somalia’s colonialist period.

It has known ties with other Islamic terrorist organizations, notably al-Qaeda, and advocates the spread of Islamic fundamentalism as well as a vehement hatred of the West and secular government.
read more

Associated Press Writer

A suburban Philadelphia woman “desperate to do something” to help suffering Muslims has been charged with using the Internet to recruit jihadist fighters and help terrorists overseas, even agreeing to move to Europe to try to kill someone, prosecutors said Tuesday.

Authorities said the case shows how terror groups are looking to recruit Americans to carry out their goals.

A federal indictment charges that Colleen R. LaRose, who called herself JihadJane online, agreed to kill a Swedish citizen on orders from the unnamed terrorists and traveled to Europe to carry out the killing. It doesn’t say whether the Swede was killed, but LaRose was not charged with murder.

A U.S. Department of Justice spokesman wouldn’t confirm the case is related to a group of people arrested in Ireland earlier Tuesday on suspicion of plotting against a Swedish cartoonist who depicted the Prophet Muhammad with the body of a dog. But a U.S. official speaking on condition of anonymity said LaRose had targeted the Swedish cartoonist and had online discussions about her plans with at least one of the suspects apprehended in Ireland. The official wasn’t authorized to discuss details of the investigation.

The official also said LaRose, who has blond hair and blue eyes, indicated in her online conversations that she believed her appearance would help her move freely in Sweden to carry out the attack.

LaRose is a convert to Islam who actively recruited others, including at least one unidentified American, and her online messages expressed impatience to take action, the official said.

U.S. Attorney Michael Levy said the indictment doesn’t link LaRose, a U.S. citizen who moved to Europe in August 2009, to any organized terror groups.

LaRose, 46, lived in Montgomery County, Pa., before moving to Europe, authorities said. She called herself JihadJane in a YouTube video in which she said she was “desperate to do something somehow to help” ease the suffering of Muslims, the indictment said. According to the 11-page document, she agreed to obtain residency in a European country and marry one of the terrorists to enable him to live there.

“Today’s indictment, which alleges that a woman from suburban America agreed to carry out murder overseas and to provide material support to terrorists, underscores the evolving nature of the threat we face,” said David Kris, assistant attorney general for national security.

LaRose also agreed to provide her co-conspirators in Asia and Europe financial and passport help, the indictment charged.

LaRose has been in federal custody since her Oct. 15 arrest in Philadelphia, authorities said. She had an initial court appearance the next day but didn’t enter a plea.

Her federal public defender Mark T. Wilson declined to comment Tuesday.

Muslim Day at the Florida State Capitol is being sponsored by a group called United Voices for America (UVA). The founder and director of UVA is Ahmed Bedier. While there is certainly nothing wrong with anyone petitioning their elected officials, the issue raised by the Florida Security Council (FSC), ACT! For America, Former Muslims United (FMU) and Americans Against Hate (AAHHh) is the need for legislators to know who they are meeting with and understand the UVA’s agenda.

“The purpose of Muslim Day at the Capitol,” says Tom Trento founder of the FSC, “is to deceive lawmakers into believing UVA is a benign civil rights organization, representing disenfranchised minorities and immigrants on such issues as healthcare and education. Since the Council of American Islamic relations (CAIR) was founded by HAMAS (Muslim Brotherhood of Palestine), and UVA was founded by a CAIR operative, this makes UVA the grandchild of a terrorist organization whose only reason for being is to wage a global Jihad against non-Muslims and former Muslims.”
read more

“Overwhelmingly, Florida Muslim leaders do not honor freedom to choose one’s beliefs as guaranteed under our First Amendment. That is the only conclusion we can draw from the overwhelming ‘silence’ and non-response to 47 letters containing a Freedom Pledge sent to Florida Muslim leaders by our organization in February 2010,” according to author and human rights activist Nonie Darwish. She is executive director of Former Muslims United (FMU) speaking at the America on Guard briefing to Florida legislators and staff about Muslim Day at the Capitol in Tallahassee, Florida.

Former Muslims United (FMU) is a human- and civil-rights organization whose mission is to protect and defend those who have chosen to leave Islam and face threats to their lives and property under Fatwas or rulings from Muslim clerics and legal authorities both here in the United States and abroad.

Darwish said, “the objective of letters sent by FMU was to request that Florida Muslim community leaders sign a pledge to honor the freedom of former Muslims to choose a personal belief other than Islam. We are dismayed. We call upon the majority of Florida Muslims who consider themselves law abiding citizens of this country to urge their leaders to reconsider their positions and sign the Freedom Pledge.”
read more

There are some important things that need to be said about the “tea party” movement, the grassroots and the Republican Party. In the past 9-12 months, we have witnessed a remarkable, non-violent uprising throughout this nation – a revolution like nothing before seen in our lifetimes. It started last spring when President Obama and the Democrat-controlled Congress passed the $800 billion so-called “stimulus”, a trillion dollar omnibus spending package, cap and tax legislation and few other massive, unfunded spending bills. As if that wasn’t bad enough, Obama also signed a series of executive orders before setting his sights on the implementation of a socialized healthcare plan that he cleverly attempted to sell to the American people as “healthcare reform”.

All of this took place even as unemployment skyrocketed to over 8% (something the president promised wouldn’t happen if his stimulus was passed). And in response to the passionate outcry of displeasure from the American electorate, expressed via phone calls, faxes, emails and letters to their elected representatives, many members of Congress – along with a complicit media – either blatantly ignored them, or disparaged, maligned and dismissed them as angry racists, unable to get over the fact that a black man was now in the White House.

As the nation’s frustration and anger continued to rise, a CNBC anchor by the name of Rick Santelli went on an on-air rant, clearly articulating what many everyday Americans were feeling as they watched from their living rooms – exasperation at the economic illiteracy of the White House and Congress. Citizens around the country who had never protested anything in their lives got tired of yelling at their televisions and being ignored by those with whom they’d entrusted the responsibility of leadership and representation by and of the people.
read more

NY Daily News

Also posted at Right Truth

Pakistani officials claimed Sunday they nabbed Adam Gadahn, the treasonous Californian Al Qaeda leader who has long been on Washington’s most wanted list.

But high-level U.S. officials said they could not verify the report – and there were growing indications it could be a mixup.

President Obama did not mention what would be a welcome blow against terrorist mastermind Osama Bin Laden when he made a statement to reporters about the Iraqi election yesterday. He ignored a shouted question about Gadahn.

“We are checking with Pakistani authorities to confirm one way or the other,” said FBI spokesman William Carter.

A Pakistani official told Agence France-Presse that “we thought it could have beena big catch, but it appeared it’s not Gadahn.”

The confusing swirl of reports began in Karachi, where The Associated Press and several news outlets quoted Pakistani officials announcing the arrest of Bin Laden’s American mouthpiece.

An English-language paper ran a photo of a man said to be Gadahn being taken away with a bag on his head. Later reports suggested the arrested man might not be Gadahn but a Taliban commander with a similar name.

Gadahn, 31, is the first American to be charged with treason since World War II. If convicted, he would face the death penalty.

Stories about Gadahn’s arrest came just hours after he appeared in a new Internet video urging American Muslims to go on shooting sprees like Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan’s at Fort Hood, Tex., last year.
read more

A terrorist’s use of a radiological dispersal device or improvised nuclear device – a/k/a ‘dirty bombs’ – to release radioactive materials into the environment could have devastating consequences.

The timely cleanup of contaminated areas, however, could speed the restoration of normal operations, thus reducing the adverse consequences from an incident. At the request of the U.S. Congress, the Government Accountability Office examined the extent to which federal agencies are planning to fulfill their responsibilities to assist cities and their states in cleaning up areas contaminated with radioactive materials from RDD and IND incidents.

GAO analysts also examined what is known about the federal government’s capability to effectively cleanup areas contaminated with radioactive materials from RDD and IND incidents, and the analysts looked at suggestions from government emergency management officials on ways to improve federal preparedness to provide assistance to recover from RDD and IND incidents.

Analysts also discussed recovery activities in the United Kingdom with that nation’s experts.
read more

The recent battle in Marjah in Afghanistan’s Helmand province was a key test case for new rules of engagement that emphasized protecting civilians rather than killing insurgents. The town was taken, but whether that was because of the new rules or despite them remains to be seen.

The rules of engagement are probably the most restrictive ever seen for a war of this nature. NATO forces cannot fire on suspected Taliban fighters unless they are clearly visible, armed and posing a direct threat. Buildings suspected of containing insurgents cannot be targeted unless it is certain that civilians are not also present. Air strikes and night raids are limited, and prisoners have to be released or transferred within four days, making for a 96-hour catch-and-release program.

In Marjah, the enemy quickly adapted to the rules, which led to bizarre circumstances such as Taliban fighters throwing down their weapons when they were out of ammunition and taunting coalition troops with impunity or walking in plain view with women behind them carrying their weapons like caddies. If World War II had been fought with similar rules, the battles would still be raging. Paradoxically, America’s most successful post-conflict reconstructions were in Germany and Japan, where enemy-occupied towns like Marjah were flattened without a second thought.
read more

The Weekly Standard

Also posted at The Gold Coast Chronicle

It is increasingly clear that the leak of the internal emails and documents of the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in November has done for the climate change debate what the Pentagon Papers did for the Vietnam war debate 40 years ago – changed the narrative decisively. Additional revelations of unethical behavior, errors, and serial exaggeration in climate science are rolling out on an almost daily basis, and there is good reason to expect more.

The U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), hitherto the gold standard in climate science, is under fire for shoddy work and facing calls for a serious shakeup. The U.S. Climate Action Partnership, the self-serving coalition of environmentalists and big business hoping to create a carbon cartel, is falling apart in the wake of the collapse of any prospect of enacting cap and trade in Congress.

Meanwhile, the climate campaign’s fallback plan to have the EPA regulate greenhouse gas emissions through the cumbersome Clean Air Act is generating bipartisan opposition. The British media – even the left-leaning, climate alarmists of the Guardian and BBC – are turning on the climate campaign with a vengeance. The somnolent American media, which have done as poor a job reporting about climate change as they did on John Edwards, have largely averted their gaze from the inconvenient meltdown of the climate campaign, but the rock solid edifice in the newsrooms is cracking.

Al Gore was conspicuously missing in action before surfacing with a long article in the New York Times on February 28, reiterating his familiar parade of horribles: The sea level will rise! Monster storms! Climate refugees in the hundreds of millions! Political chaos the world over! It was the rhetorical equivalent of stamping his feet and saying “It is too so!” In a sign of how dramatic the reversal of fortune has been for the climate campaign, it is now James Inhofe, the leading climate skeptic in the Senate, who is eager to have Gore testify before Congress.
read more

Washington Examiner

Our Declaration of Independence observes:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. – That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,—That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”

“Deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” This is boilerplate American history, and something that Americans – and, in particular, America’s political class – have long taken for granted.

But now things are looking a bit dicey. According to a recent Rasmussen Poll , only 21 percent of American voters believe that the federal government enjoys the consent of the governed. On the other hand, Rasmussen notes, a full 63 percent of the “political class” believe that the government enjoys the consent of the governed.
read more

National Review Online

Detained terrorists received more legal help than American prisoners do. Why?

This is not that hard. The salient issue in the controversy over Justice Department attorneys who formerly represented our terrorist enemies detained at Guantanamo Bay is this: They were volunteers.

The lawyers and their lefty legions expect you to overlook that. Lawyers presume that they have an elite status in our litigious society and that their superior knowledge of the law will intimidate critics into silence. Since they are trained advocates, they figure that if they feign enough indignation over somebody’s “questioning their patriotism,” then Americans will shrink from asking, “How is it patriotic to go out of your way to help America’s enemies in wartime?”

Often, that line of defense works. In 2007, these same lawyers managed to get a Defense Department official run out of town. His hanging offense? He observed that many American corporations might prefer to find a new law firm rather than continue retaining one that used clients’ legal fees to subsidize its representation of terrorists who murder Americans. The observation, of course, was common sense. If you found out a restaurant you patronized was using the profits from serving you to provide free meals for al-Qaeda, would you keep going there, or would you find another restaurant? But when The Profession shrieked, our politically-correct-on-steroids Defense Department cried “uncle” in about a nanosecond. The al-Qaeda Bar and its cheerleaders calculate that this sorry episode will make the rest of us pipe down if we know what’s good for us.

Not all of us.
read more

General Stanley McChrystal’s campaign to boot the Taliban out of southern Afghanistan is not going well. Marred by civilian casualties and stubborn Taliban resistance, his assault on the small town of Marjah has been slowed to a snail’s pace. Kandahar, the Taliban’s ‘capital’, remains far out of his reach.

Operation Moshtarak, which mobilised 15,000 allied and Afghan troops, was initially expected to last a few weeks. It was thought that the few hundred Taliban fighters defending Marjah would melt away into the mountains. Instead they are fighting back and have planted thousands of mines to check the American advance. The latest estimate is that the campaign might take twelve to eighteen months to reach its goal—if indeed it is ever reached.

The stakes are high. If McChrystal’s campaign fails – or simply gets bogged down in endless bloody skirmishes – then the whole strategy, which he persuaded President Barack Obama to adopt, will collapse.

McChrystal asked Obama for 40,000 men, in addition to the more than 65,000 U.S. troops already in the country. He got 30,000, as well as a few thousand more to add to the roughly 40,000 troops from 43 countries, mostly from America’s reluctant NATO allies. In all, he asked for – and will get – a total of close to 150,000 troops by the summer.
read more

In a January 20, 2010 editorial, the Editor in Chief of U.S. News & World Report, Mortimer Zuckerman, had this to say:

“Obama’s ability to connect with voters is what launched him. But what has surprised me is how he has failed to connect with the voters since he’s been in office.

He’s had so much overexposure. You have to be selective. He was doing five Sunday shows. How many press conferences? And now people stop listening to him… He’s lost his audience. He has not rallied public opinion. He has plunged in the polls more than any other public figure since we’ve been using polls. He’s done everything wrong. Well, not everything, but the major things… I don’t consider it a triumph. I consider it a disaster.” And that’s what his friends are saying about him.

As the boy president occupied the White House on January 20, 2009 it was predictable that his presidency would last a year, at most, because the things he promised and the things he stood for were so uniquely un-American. Looking back over his year in office, any reasonably precocious fourth grader could make a cogent argument in opposition to nearly everything he’s done.

In fact, his policies have been so extreme and so far outside the mainstream that he was destined to achieve the most spectacular fall from grace of any American president in history. It was easy to see him serving out the final three years of his term as a virtual exile in the White House… afraid to venture out among any but the most rabid partisans.

Seeing his most ambitious initiative, healthcare reform, die in the flames of the Massachusetts Massacre, Obama made a hastily-planned “sortie” to Ohio for yet another Bush-bashing, self-aggrandizing stump speech on job creation. It was vintage Obama… full of left wing hyperbole and planted questions from the Kool- Ade drinkers in the hand-picked audience… but there were just two things wrong with it: 1) Almost everything he said was either wrong or an outright lie, and 2) He is so overexposed that no one in the television audience really wanted to see him.
read more

Also Posted at The Gold Coast Chronicle

In war, military strategy is tailored to meet the enemy’s threat, to persuade those who might fight not to fight, and when necessary, to win and achieve Victory in the shortest possible time. In the War against Global Jihad and its network of enablers, America’s top leadership appears to be achieving the opposite outcome. American soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines are rightly lauded by the American public for their courage and sacrifice in the fight for United States national security, but the high quality of American soldiers and Marines at battalion level and below cannot compensate for inadequate senior leadership at the highest levels in war.

Today, the senior leadership of the U.S. armed forces is overly bureaucratic and process oriented risk averse to some degree in a prevailing strategy. Competent Generals and Admirals must communicate to their civilian superiors the truth of what is really happening and what actions and resources are required for success and Victory. War has no place for political correctness.

President Abraham Lincoln struggled with some incompetents in the Civil War until he found someone who won battles. The man was Ulysses S. Grant, an officer no one in the Army’s command hierarchy wanted. Long before America entered World War II, Gen. George C. Marshall, an officer who had waited 36 years for promotion to flag rank, ended his first year in office as Army chief of staff in 1940 by retiring 54 generals.

After the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, Marshall continued to replace hundreds of generals and colonels, elevating men like James Gavin, a captain in 1942, to brigadier general and division commander in 1944. When Gen. Matthew Ridgway assumed command of the Eighth Army in Korea, he was no less ruthless than Marshall had been with commanders in the field who did not measure up.
read more

By Sami Moubayed

Gulf News

Syria wants to keep all doors to Damascus open, much like it did in the 1990s, when Syria enjoyed excellent relations with the US, France, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and both Hamas and Hezbollah.

Image Credit: Nino Jose Heredia/Gulf News

Damascus was abuzz last week with what looked like a mini-summit, bringing together Syrian President Bashar Al Assad with his Iranian counterpart Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah. This meeting, which also included a high-profile encounter between Ahmadinejad and Khalid Mesha’al of Hamas, raised eyebrows and set off alarms in the West.

It reminded western officials of high-profile summits of the 1960s, uniting Russian leaders, Jamal Abdul Nasser and Yasser Arafat against the United States. The timing of the meeting, and the words of Al Assad and Ahmadinejad, sent a strong message to Israel that it should not try to wage war next summer against either Hezbollah, Syria, Hamas or Iran or all of the above.

The ‘summit’ came shortly after US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned Syria to move “away from the relationship with Iran” and stop supporting Hamas in Palestine, and Hezbollah in Lebanon. Ahmadinejad put it bluntly: “I say to them that the new Middle East is in the process of formation. I call on the Zionists to return to their senses and to recognise the legitimate rights of the people of the region … there will be no place for them in our region.” He then added that war would lead to the “inevitable demise” of Israel.
read more

- Charles B. Richardson

Courtesy of www.threatswatch.org

By Steve Schippert

Describing Ayatollah Mezbah Yazdi as Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s spiritual mentor is accurate, but hardly enough for a real understanding. Yazdi is a powerful leader within Iranian political and religious circles. Perhaps the best way to describe the nature of Yazdi’s (and thus Ahmadinejad’s) messianic belief structure is to imagine the most radical form of Islamic beliefs merged with a mixture of supernatural mysticism. (Have a look at the pious Ahmadinejad’s ring finger, for instance.)

It is a scary sight to behold, and one so frightening that many cannot quite come to grips with the fact that such a radical, even nutty, group of individuals has fingers on the levers of state power anywhere in the world. It remains a fact, regardless of reluctance to acknowledge.

Within that context, incomprehensible as it may seem to many, consider the latest development coming out of Iran.

Ayatollah Mezbah Yazdi wrote a book, The Islamic Revolution – Surges in Political Changes in History, for limited internal distribution (approximately 3,000) around the time of the 2005 Iranian elections. A copy of this book has surfaced and the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center has translated the Farsi to English and released portions.(Note: see attached).

On top of past hints of nuclear weapons ambitions by the most radical religious leaders and parts of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), Yazdi suggests that Iran not only has the right to but must develop “a special kind of weapon,” an unmistakable reference to nuclear weapons. Judge for yourself.
read more

By Jim Bunning

I have been serving the citizens of Kentucky for nearly 24 years in Washington. During that time I have been a member of both the House of Representatives and the United States Senate. I have taken thousands of votes in relation to spending the taxpayers’ money. I will be the first one to admit that I have cast some bad votes during my tenure, and I wish I could have some of them back. For too long, both Republicans and Democrats have treated the taxpayers’ money as a slush fund that does not ever end. At some point, the madness has to stop.

Over a month ago, Democrats passed and President Obama signed into law the “Pay-Go” legislation. It calls on Congress to pay for bills by not adding to our debt. It sounds like a common sense tool that would rein in government spending. Unfortunately, Pay-Go is a paper tiger. It has no teeth. I did not vote for the Democrats’ Pay-Go legislation because I knew it was just a political dog-and-pony show to get some good press after some political setbacks. Since the Pay-Go rule was enacted, the national debt has gone up $244,992,297,448.11 (as of Wednesday, that is).

Why now?

Last week, Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., asked to pass a 30-day extensions bill for unemployment insurance and other federal programs. Earlier in February, those extensions were included in a broader bipartisan bill that was paid for but did not meet Sen. Reid’s approval, and he nixed the deal. When I saw the Democrats in Congress were going to vote on the extensions bill without paying for it and not following their own Pay-Go rules, I said enough is enough.

Many people asked me, “Why now?” My answer is, “Why not now?” Why can’t a non-controversial measure in the Senate that would help those in need be paid for? If the Senate cannot find $10 billion to pay for a measure we all support, we will never pay for anything.

America is under a mountain of debt. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said in a hearing last month that the United States’ debt is unsustainable. We are on the verge of a tipping point where America’s debt will bring down our economy, and more people will join the unemployment lines. That is why I used my right as a United States Senator and objected.

Only in Washington

After four legislative days of impasse, I reached a supposed deal with Majority Leader Reid to have an up-or-down vote on a pay-for amendment that would fully fund the legislation and not add to the debt. Only minutes before the vote, Democrats used a parliamentary maneuver to set aside my amendment and not vote on the actual substance of it. Only in Washington could this happen. The Democrats did not want to vote on my amendment because they knew they were in the wrong and ignored their own rules. Hypocrisy again rules the day in Washington.

I have 40 grandchildren, and I want them to grow up in a country where they have all of the same opportunities I had as a child. I fear that they will not have those opportunities if Washington continues on its course of spending without paying for it. We are at over $12 trillion in debt. I know many Americans sit around their kitchen table and make the tough decisions. It is time for the politicians in Washington to do the same.

Jim Bunning is a Republican Senator from Kentucky.

Eric Holder’s Justice Department has stonewalled a number of requests for disclosure of the identities of seven unnamed DOJ lawyers who in the past represented or advocated for Guantanamo Bay detainees, an issue we’ve written about at NRO= and also in this article

The latest ad from the Keep America Safe focuses on these “al-Qaeda Seven” on YouTube :

The spot – and especially the “Al-Qaeda Seven” moniker – is not sitting well with some progressive groups. Ken Gude, Associate Director of the Center for American Progress (who is also an outspoken and, as it turns out, overly confident advocate of the closing of Guantanamo Bay) described the ad as “plainly unacceptable in the United States.”

“Condemnation is not sufficient. This is pure McCarthyism.”

Perhaps they meant Andy?

Meanwhile, a Justice Department spokesman stuck to the script, telling Politico in an statement only that all DOJ attorneys are “subject to ethics and disclosure rules as required under both Department guidelines and this administration’s own ethics rules, which are the strongest in history.”

Of course, the issue of whether the unnamed attorneys are acting ethically can’t even be properly posed until we know who they are.

FrontPageMag.com

I had occasion to see for myself an answer to this question when I recently visited the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. This is a state school with 20,000 students, and while I was there I audited an hour-and-a-half lecture about the Warren Court’s landmark decisions on civil liberties by a well-known and highly respected political scientist named Sheldon Goldman, a nationally recognized expert in the field.

There are no open conservatives on the faculty of the University of Massachusetts and none that the conservative students who were hosting me could identify. My student hosts were political science majors and the absence of conservative professors was a real problem for them given the extreme and abusive nature of many of their professors. One professor gave an exam, for example, that consisted of a speech by President Reagan. The exam question was: Explain why Reagan is wrong. Another professor was a militant leftist who required a paper on the Vietnam War. To avoid the political minefield which confronted him, a student wrote a paper comparing military strategies for the war. The professor rejected the paper with the comment: “We shouldn’t have been there in the first place.”

When I entered Goldman’s classroom I saw that half of my student hosts were taking his course, a relief they told me later from the harassment they experience in other political science courses. Goldman is regarded by these conservative students as the “best” and “fairest” professor on the UMass faculty, someone who every now and then would vent a “liberal” sentiment or prejudice but whose lectures were relatively free from bias and whose classroom behavior was respectful towards them. Political Science departments in my experience are more academic and less politicized than other departments such as Anthropology, Sociology and the various inter-disciplinary fields (“Peace Studies,” “Cultural Studies”) that tenured radicals have invented to establish their ideological claims.
read more

Approximately forty years ago, the United States was infiltrated. It was infiltrated not by a physical enemy rather, an ideology. The ideology stemmed from one of the greatest and successful operations conducted during the Cold War. This ideology spoken of was the Old Russian Marxist principle which many would argue has infiltrated the American minds today.

Yuri Bezmenov, an ex-KGB agent revealed how the former Soviet Union not only infiltrated the United States, he identifies the steps taken to socially condition the minds of the general American population. For those with no interest in watching his video found at Live Leak.Com, keep reading instead.

The United States educational institutions, arguably, have received continuous negativity due to the dominating liberal approaches within. While many may have believed this to be somewhat untrue, Mr. Bezmenov reveals that it was indeed the educational institutions infiltrated to promote prolonged social conditioning within an entire country.

A great majority of today’s politicians, educators, business owners, and societal leaders were educated during the memetic revolution instilled by old Soviet ideologies. To clarify, according to Richard Brodie author of Virus of the Mind, a meme is a cultural ideology which is extremely contagious and spreads similar to that of a virus. Within this old Soviet ideological sabotage attack, the meme used was Marxism.

Today, the United States has been demoralized due to the continuation of our Wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and throughout the Horn of Africa. We are on the brink of total destabilization because of the current economic crisis we currently face. The continuation of devastating natural and manmade disasters such as recent tsunami’s, flooding’s, and earthquakes continuously impacts each and every one of us daily.

We have been transformed into a sociocultural Marxist ontology. We are willing to give to anyone including our so called enemies until we bleed ourselves dry economically. We fail to take care of our own by means of capitalistic competition which forces individuals to strive for success.

We cannot depend on our government to take care of our needs and desires. Unfortunately, it is our government that has also been ideologically sabotaged. A counter action needs to occur before we become the next Soviet Union. Leaders must learn to lead and not just manage. People need to learn how to think critically rather than just take what is said or written as truth. We are a country in grave disaster. We can adapt and overcome however, it will take the entire nation to recover from this attack.

Center for Security Policy

Last week was not a good one for proponents of social re-engineering of the U.S. military. They had been buoyed by the previous week’s congressional testimony of Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Joint Chiefs Chairman Admiral Mike Mullen, widely seen as evidence the Pentagon was prepared to accede to President Obama’s demand that avowed homosexuals be allowed to serve in the armed forces. Now, however, four other members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff have weighed in, and all bets are off on the idea of experimenting with – and possibly breaking – the All-Volunteer Force.

The first official efforts to protect the military’s culture from the destructive agenda espoused by lesbian-gay-bisexual-transsexual (LGBT) activists were mounted on Tuesday by the leaders of the air and ground services. Air Force Chief of Staff General Norton Schwartz told the House Armed Services Committee: “This is not the time to perturb the force that is, at the moment, stretched by demands in Iraq and Afghanistan and elsewhere without careful deliberation.”

The same day, the counterpart Senate panel heard from the Army’s top general, Chief of Staff George Casey, who said that he has “serious concerns about the impact of repeal of the law on a force that’s fully engaged in two wars and has been at war for eight-and-a-half years.” Gen. Casey added, “We just don’t know the impacts on readiness and military effectiveness.”
read more

Washington Examiner

My brother and I have a running conversation about whether it is a good thing that Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., didn’t become president. We both voted for him, but I decided early on, as much as I oppose every Marx-tinged thing President Obama stands for, I was glad Obama had won and McCain had lost. At least, I was glad McCain had lost.

That’s because only out of ashes may the phoenix be reborn. The liberal-lite frustrations of a McCain administration would have smoldered on the Right but lit few fires, dampening the possibility of real post-Bush regeneration.

From Bush’s compassionate conservatism” (read: liberalism) to McCain’s compassionate bipartisanship (read: more liberalism), the nation would have continued to drift in the wrong direction. The “good” thing about the economy-crashing, military-breaking, ideologically mind-blowing Obama administration is that it puts us on a collision course that just might force Americans to bail and start over better. Metaphorically speaking.
read more

Dear Friends, Patriots, and Freedom Lovers,

I would like to take this opportunity to announce the “2010 Scott Vallely Soldiers Memorial Fund Spring Capital Campaign”. In past years, your generosity has helped a great many soldiers in the field, their families at home, supplied Christmas packages, and provided for scholarships to students wishing to make a career in the United States Military.

The efforts of so many volunteers has put smiles on the faces of many soldiers placed in harm’s way, and helped them to know they are not alone. Their families also make great sacrifices for our nation, and we do as much as we can with the limited funds available.

This year, we are kicking off our capital campaign to reach $50,000 by the end of spring in June 2010. This will help us gear up for the summer and fall so we can send out Christmas packages, aid families in need, and to award scholarships to the future leaders of our military. In these uncertain times, we need to start planning well in advance to ensure we are ready for any contingency.

In years past, we have seen surges employed in both Iraq and Afghanistan, making the job of helping our soldiers more difficult. With so many more forces in the field, and the inability to predict what will come next with saber rattling in so many areas, the Scott Vallely Soldiers Memorial Fund needs your help more than ever.

Every little bit helps. Whether it is a jar full of pennies from the child whose relative is in the Marine Corps, a five dollar bill from the weekly grocery account, or $100 from a former soldier, it all helps and it is all 100% tax deductible. Please consider giving today. Our web site is being updated to help you see where your dollars are going but we still have our donations page active throughout the update cycle. Please go to the following site to donate:

Scott Vallely Soldiers Memorial Fund

Or simply press this button below to go to the PayPal page setup for the fund:

Or go to our store to purchase our one-of-a-kind set of flag dog tags, or a book.

The proceeds go solely to the Fund to help in our efforts to help the troops. Additionally, we ask that you sign up for our newsletter or comment in any way and join our Facebook group for daily, weekly, and monthly updates.

We will share stories of our soldiers, their families, students, and other efforts we support, especially those who sacrifice daily on an individual basis like Bennett Compagno in Monterey. California. Read about this wonderful man’s story here. We will also tell you what needs to be done, changed, or added to in terms of legislation to aid our troops.

Please sign up and thank you for considering making a donation today. We will generate periodic updates about the success of the campaign and we encourage you to tell your friends, family, co-workers, neighbors, and acquaintances about this effort.

Please accept my humble regards,

Scott W. Winchell, Managing Director, Scott Vallely Soldiers Memorial Fund

By Paul E. Vallely and Kevin Collins

With tensions rising in the Middle East, where Israel, Lebanon, Iran, Syria, and others such as Hamas and Hezbollah play a game of chess on a grand scale that could erupt at any moment, we suggest you read this book. It will help you understand the players and the game. It is a fast paced novel with epic implications as the world wonders who will make the next step and if Israel makes a preemptive strike on Iran’s nuclear program.

Just a simple click on the book image or the button below and you are at PayPal, ready to order so you can read the book in the comfort of your home in mere days.

...Blood for our Future, a thriller where the stakes portrayed could not be higher. President Harlan Andrews of the US prepares to launch a joint preemptive first strike with Israel against the world’s Radical Islamic Terror States. The strike must be pre-emptive and carried out with overwhelming lethal force. A top secret intelligence report proves that there are just months remaining before Mohammed Waleed, the Iranian Islamic leader, completes the building of deliverable atomic weapons. The tension builds as time runs out. The plan is to trick and set a ruse for the radical Islamist to attack Israel. Then, they will fight a war based on America and Israel’s timetable. Only this pre-emptive offensive can save the free world from the global caliphate. If the plan works Waleed and his allies will be annihilated in this winner-take-all war. If the plan fails, America’s President and Israel’s Prime Minister will be tried as war criminals.

Also posted at The Gold Coast Chronicle

Why do the United States and its military/political leaders and strategists still languish in failed strategies from World War II to the present?

Fact: Jihadists with small arms and IEDS in faraway places cannot harm the United States so there is no reason to order massive armies that require large and extensive bases and massive logistical support to fight them on their home turf. But that is the essence of failed “counterinsurgency” (COIN) strategies that have bewitched US military political leaders. Yes, we have made great and innovative technological advances in weapons systems in the air, sea, and ground, in communications, in advanced intelligence systems and command and control systems.

Yes, we have operational war planners at all levels of command, senior policy and politicos in the White House and Department of Defense, a National Security Team and a multitude of military commands positioned around the globe to guide and lead us in national security. But where are the common sense and rational senior General and Admiral Strategists that we have trained and schooled to be innovative, aggressive and win our nation’s wars quickly and decisively? I rarely hear any of them talking about the valued Principles of War that successful combat leaders in the past have used to achieve success and victory. They cannot even talk in terms of victory, winning and bringing the troops home. Or maybe, they do not want to for politically correct reasons at home.
read more

“Do you know what it means to find yourselves face to face with a madman,” asks Luigi Pirandello’s Henry IV. “Madmen, lucky folk, construct without logic, or rather with a logic that flies like a feather.” What is true for individuals is sometimes also true for states. In the often absurd theatre of modern world politics, constructions that rest upon ordinary logic can quickly crumble before madness.

Consider Israel, especially as it may soon have to confront an Iranian nuclear adversary with a potentially “suicidal” preference ordering. Left to proceed unhindered with its ongoing and illegal (under international law) program of nuclearization, Iran’s current leadership (and possibly even a successor “reformist” government in Tehran) could proceed to value Israel’s destruction more highly than even its own physical security. Such a prospect is highly improbable, to be sure, but – if rooted in particular visions of a Shiite apocalypse – it is not inconceivable.

Israel’s ultimate source of national security lies plainly in nuclear deterrence. Although obviously still implicit, and not at all open or acknowledged, this policy that is necessarily based upon enemy rationality could “crumble before madness.” In certain imaginable instances, the result of failed Israeli retaliatory threats could be total destruction.

By definition, the logic of deterrence always rests upon assumptions of rationality. History, however, reveals the persistent fragility of all such assumptions. We know too well that nations sometimes even behave in ways that are consciously self-destructive. Sometimes, perhaps even mirroring the infrequent but decisively aberrant behavior of individual human beings, national leaders choose to assign the very highest value to preferences other than collective self-preservation.

Strange as it may seem, it has happened before, and it will happen again.
read more

You Tube: O America – Celtic Women

Examiner

A California teen and CAIR has filed a lawsuit against Abercrombie & Fitch for refusing to allow her to continue wearing her hajib, while working for the popular retailer. The teen was terminated with cause and is seeking damages under an Equal Employment Opportunity Commision against the at-will employer.

Hired as a stockroom employee in 2009, she was originally told she could wear her headwear but corporate policy changed during the path of her employment, per the terms of their brand identity. Upon notification that it was not ‘permitted’ she informed them that it’s part of ‘her religion’ (which it is not) and they complied for awhile so long as it matched her clothing.

A District Manager noticed the scarf while visiting one day and immediately instituted a new company policy stating that head scarves would no longer be permitted as they do not fit in with the corporate image. The employee was sent home, despite her stubborn protests, claiming, ’ but it’s my religious right!’

Uh, nice try, sweetheart. I’d love to see the passage of the qur’an that demands that the head be covered. Certainly the chest draped in modesty is part of the religious aspects of this political ideology (Islam is, after all, not a religion) but covering the head and shoulders is optional, considered cultural and therefore, not a protected right. The former employee has no claim, her litigation is without merit.
read more

Please read the following article posted on Front Page. When we are in a time of such difficulty, why do some want to rain on the parade of such a wonderful event that happens only once every four years in the winter? Is it not in our best interest to have something to cheer for? We are a nation of competitors, in business, in sports, and in war. At least we used to be.

My belief is that we still are a nation of winners, and I hope that lasts forever. That sets us apart as the greatest nation the earth has ever known. I for one will now be cheering even louder as the games begin to wind down. GO USA!

By Jacob Laksin

Front Page

The New York Times’ Alessandra Stanley is upset that NBC is focusing too much of its coverage of the 2010 Olympics on American athletes and seems to be (gasp) cheering for the Americans to do well and happy when they win events.

Technology evolves, organizers add new sports – this year it’s ski cross – but NBC’s Olympic reportage, up close and way too personal, never seems to change. And in Vancouver the best exploits of what the network unfailingly refers to as “Team USA” only bring out the worst in network heavy breathing.

At a time when American athletes are amassing record numbers of medals, and NBC is drawing an impressive number of viewers, sports fans couldn’t ask for more fulsome, pro-American coverage – they could ask for a little less. NBC anchors, including those paid by the news division, glom onto the glamour and reflected glory of winsome champions, as per Matt Lauer’s no-boundaries embrace of the skier Lindsey Vonn on “Today” after she won the downhill race. He draped a chocolate gold medal around her neck, gave her flowers (“just because we adore you”) and hugged her tight (“we are so proud of you”) – as if he and Meredith Vieira had spent the last 15 years rising at dawn to drive her to training.

The horror. Athletes who Americans know getting profiled and congratulated on American television during a world event that is supposed to be about national pride.

Meanwhile, not to be outdone, the virulent leftist copycats at Gawker’s Deadspin rewrite Stanley’s article to hate American dominance just that much more.

The U.S. is on its way to perhaps its most successful Olympics ever, “owning the podium” that Canada hoped to keep for itself. A lot of those medals were captured in events that the U.S. was expected to win, so puffing out our chests and trashing talking about how awesome our boys and girls are kind of makes us look like the globe’s equivalent of Yankee fans. Yet, there is one popular sport where America is not the big kid on the block, but since our plucky upstarts are dominating anyway … well, break out the cigars, a-holes! The world community has to pay attention to the United States for once!

Yes, our NHL All-Star team beat another country’s NHL All-Star team in a tough hard-fought non-elimination game that is seriously being compared to the most important international sporting victory in our nation’s history. (Today is the 30th anniversary of America’s loss of perspective.) Canada, the politest country in the hemisphere, is seriously hurting right now and we are perfectly content to push their faces back down into the mud. Why can’t we feel good about ourselves? After a decade of war and financial ruin that we’re pretty much responsible for haven’t we earned it?

So sorry we win things, Deadspin. I guess we should lay down in some of these events to “spread the wealth around” and redistribute victory a little bit. Apparently, minimizing American success is preferable to celebrating it.

By Paul Vallely and Fred Gedrich

Also Posted on the Gold Coast Chronicle

Now a Feature on Fox News

Team Obama, clearly exasperated that Iran’s terrorist state hasn’t reciprocated to its public and private engagement overtures, took a new tact during U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s recent Mideast tour.

The secretary declared that the Islamic Republic’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is supplanting the country’s clerical and political leadership and moving the nation toward a “military dictatorship.” And it seeks another U.N. Security Council resolution as a remedy.

Newsflash to Team Obama: Iran’s theocratic rulers, president and their IRGC protectors share the same nuclear weapons and terrorism goals and are the driving force behind the regime’s 31-year one-sided “Death to America” war. They collectively have successfully thwarted all previous economic sanctions imposed by the United States and the United Nations.

There are plenty of reasons why the Iranian regime (dating back to Reagan administration) and the IRGC (during George W. Bush administration) have been labeled as terrorists by the United States.

With the consent of the Iranian regime, IRGC members participated in seizing the American embassy in 1979 and holding 52 hostages for 444 days – in violation of international law and millennia of diplomatic protocols. Its Quds Force used Hezbollah proxies targeted and bomb the U.S. embassy and the Marine Barracks in Lebanon, bomb U.S. residences in Saudi Arabia, and kidnapped and murdered American captives (such as William Buckley and USMC Lt. Col. William Higgins). The Quds Force now manufactures and supplies lethal roadside bombs (IEDs) to Shi’ite militias in Iraq and the Taliban in Pakistan and Afghanistan that kill and maim American troops.

If that isn’t bad enough, the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog (IAEA) recently said the regime, with IRGC leading the way, may be on the verge of producing a nuclear warhead, to go along with their long-range missiles, which many believe will further threaten regional and global peace and security. Others believe Iran already possesses a nuclear capability and is in the process of achieving the capability of matching warheads to missiles.
read more

BY BERNARD I. FINEL

Armed Forces Journal

The U.S. military is a dominant fighting force, capable of rapid global power projection and able to defeat state adversaries quickly and at relatively low cost in American lives and treasure. Unfortunately, American leaders are increasingly trying to transform this force into one optimized for counterinsurgency missions and long-term military occupations. A fundamental problem with the adoption of population-centric counterinsurgency (COIN) doctrine as an organizing principle for American military operations is that it systematically fails to take advantage of the real strengths of the U.S. military.

It is true that not all political goals are achievable through the use of conventional military capabilities. However, “victory” in war is not dichotomous, and the cases of Iraq and Afghanistan — often seen as proving the necessity for COIN-capable forces as well as a commitment to nation-building — demonstrate in reality that the vast majority of goals can be accomplished through quick, decisive military operations. Not all political goals are achievable this way, but most are and those that cannot be achieved through conventional operations likely cannot be achieved by the application of even the most sophisticated counterinsurgency doctrine either.

As a consequence, I believe the U.S. should adopt a national military strategy that heavily leverages the core capability to break states and target and destroy fixed assets, iteratively if necessary. Such a strategy — which might loosely be termed “repetitive raiding” — could defeat and disrupt most potential threats the U.S. faces. While America’s adversaries may prefer to engage the U.S. using asymmetric strategies, there is no reason that the U.S. should agree to fight on these terms.

This essay argues the U.S. can largely defeat threats using conventional capabilities, and that what encourages a desire to engage in long-drawn-out asymmetric conflicts is not the elimination of threats, but rather the unattainable goal of trying to prevent threats from emerging in the future.

To demonstrate these points, I will first consider the nature of U.S. military power. Then I will identify the key war aims for the U.S. in Iraq, graph out when the aims were achieved, and show that the marginal expenditure of lives and resources to achieve maximalist goals is disproportionately large. I will further argue that the U.S. could have mitigated the negative consequences of potential developments in Iraq much more cheaply by embracing a willingness to reintervene rather than engaging in a drawn-out occupation. Finally, I will argue that in Afghanistan the Obama administration is likely to similarly pay too much to achieve at best marginal improvements in the current situation. In short, because of the nature of American power, the vast majority of the benefits from conflict come early and relatively cheaply, whereas the pursuit of additional benefits is increasingly costly and subject to diminishing returns.
read more

Credo quia absurdum. “I believe because it is absurd.” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu remains officially on record in favor of a Palestinian state, but only if the new Arab state is “demilitarized.” Naturally, any such notion of demilitarization will be anathema to the Palestinians and their supporters, and has already been rejected by all of them.

There is still no place on earth called “Palestine.” When a reborn Israel was authoritatively created by international treaties and international law in 1948, it did not replace “Palestine,” nor did it prevent Palestinian statehood. Nonetheless, most of the world, including U.S. President Barack Obama, prefers to think otherwise. Indeed, wherever one looks for informed commentary about the Middle East, a falsely symmetrical condition is usually alleged or implied. To wit, much of this commentary speaks of a protracted conflict between Israel and “Palestine.”

If this were the “only” pertinent falsehood here, Israel and its few real allies could still deal effectively with the attendant problems. Yet, certain “moderate” Palestinian factions still pretend to favor a “Two State Solution,” and Jerusalem, endlessly pressured by Washington, still goes along with the deception and charade. It follows that an authentic state of Palestine may soon come to fruition. This 23rd Arab country could quickly bring about de jure as well as de facto equivalence.
read more

Also Posted at Fox News

Also Posted on the Gold Coast Chronicle

Mr. President, you and the Congress have said unemployment is our number one priority. Well, let me tell you about an opportunity to prove that you mean it. The opportunity stems from a political maelstrom – the Air Force’s attempt to replace the KC-135 Eisenhower-era air refueling tanker.

Two great American companies are vying for the contract – Northrop Grumman and Boeing. The Pentagon appears to be stumbling again to construct a competition to decide if it will buy either Northrop Grumman’s KC-45 or Boeing’s KC-767. With the nation’s unemployment rate hovering at nearly 10 percent – and reaching as high as 17% in some states – there is only one smart option, as Governor Strickland of Ohio recommended to you in a letter on February 9, buy both. The fiscally responsible way to do that is with a dual, competitive award.

A dual competitive award operates differently. It awards the lion-share of the order to the company with the better value aircraft, while still giving work to the other company. Rather than the minimum 12-15 aircraft bought per year, the Air Force would field 36 a year as the late Congressman John Murtha suggested, much like we saw recently when United Airlines announced the procurement of both Boeing and Airbus aircraft, a practice not uncommon in the airline industry.

Fundamental to the competitive process is that every 3-5 years, there’s another contract award for the next batch of planes. In the process, both companies vie to keep costs down, capabilities up and honor their promises.

In this process, a dual procurement would put twice as many Americans to work – at least.
read more

New York Post

If you were hiring a lawyer to help pro tect Americans from terrorists, you likely wouldn’t choose a left-wing ac tivist who’s been a champion of the killers held at Guantanamo Bay.

Then again, you’re not President Obama. His Justice Department has raised eyebrows by tapping Jennifer Daskal, formerly “senior counterterrorism counsel” at Human Rights Watch, to work as counsel in its National Security Division and to serve on a task force deciding the future of Guantanamo and its detainees.

A former public defender, Daskal has no prosecutorial experience – let alone a background in national security. So how did she land an important job at Justice – one of only four political appointments at the National Security Division?

“Even when selecting political appointees, the administration must place qualifications above political views, especially in an office as important as the National Security Division,” says Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), the top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee.

Others note that if Daskal’s Human Rights Watch activism counted as lobbying, the hire would be a direct conflict of interest: She’s now working for the government on the same policies she was recently paid to shape from the outside.
read more

Examiner

New Jersey politician Ronald Salahuddin, 59, the former Deputy Mayor for Public Safety for Newark, was indicted on Friday by a federal grand jury on five counts of corruptly using his political post and his influence to financially benefit his business partner and himself in connection a city demolition business contract.

In addition to Salahhuddin, the Indictment names Sonnie L. Cooper, owner and president of S. Cooper Brothers Trucking, Inc. (“Cooper Trucking”), a company that performed demolition, waste-hauling and street sweeping, for both municipal governments and private entities in Essex County, New Jersey and elsewhere in the Garden State.

The Indictment alleges that Salahuddin, A Democrat, and Cooper had an ongoing financial relationship that Salahuddin attempted to conceal. This relationship included a partnership in a waste-hauling business. In addition to their relationship as business partners in waste hauling, Salahuddin had provided financial backing to Cooper.
read more

Courtesy of: New English Review and Israpundit

On the morning of September 11, 2001, I sat at my desk happily putting the finishing touches on the manuscript of the second edition of Approaches to Auschwitz which I co-authored with Professor John K. Roth of California’s Claremont-McKenna College.[1] I began that morning with an enormous sense of satisfaction that I was finally completing my share of a very arduous task. At the time, I had devoted the better part of a career of half a century to research, writing and lecturing on the Holocaust and the terrible phenomenon of genocide.

At about 8:45 A.M., I turned on the TV for the morning news and learned that American Airlines Flight 11 had just crashed into the 110-story North Tower of New York’s World Trade Center (WTC). I understood immediately that the crash was no accident. On February 26, 1993, Ramzi Yousef, an Islamic terrorist, had detonated a car bomb under the same tower with the intention of toppling it into the South Tower, collapsing both towers and hoping to kill the 250,000 people at work in the structures. Yousef and his accomplices meant to commit mass murder in the heart of New York. They failed to bring down the towers, but six people were killed and 1042 injured in the attempt.[2] As I watched in horror, I knew that Islamic extremists, whom I shall henceforth identify as Islamists, had finally succeeded. My horror was intensified, if that were possible, when I watched United Airlines Flight 175 crash into the twin South Tower. Minutes later, I learned that yet another plane had crashed into the Pentagon, and that United Airlines Flight 93 crashed into a field in Somerset County, Pennsylvania failing to reach its target, which was apparently either the White House or the United States Capitol.

Within the space of little more than an hour, the United States had experienced the most devastating attack on its homeland in its entire history. The iconic structures of American financial and military power had been successfully assaulted and only the selfless bravery of the doomed passengers on United Airlines Flight 93 prevented a similar strike on the center of American political power.

Apart from sheer horror, my immediate reaction was to ask myself whether our book on the Holocaust had instantly become an exercise in futility. Without delay, I sent John Roth an e-mail message saying that, as important as was the Holocaust, it happened sixty years ago and we were facing a very real present danger. I told him that henceforth my efforts were less likely to be focused on the Holocaust than on the threat of radical Islam. John was supportive in his reply, but insisted that both were equally important.[3] He was, of course, correct. As is evident from much of the material in this book, there is more than a little affinity between National Socialism and Islamic extremism. As partners in World War II, both sought the utter destruction of the Jewish people, a project Islamists have never abandoned. As is evident from a multitude of hateful sermons, media propaganda, and street demonstrations, all too many of which are available on the internet, today’s Islamists have recycled some of National Socialism’s most vicious anti-Semitic propaganda while peddling the obscene canard that the Israelis are latter-day Nazis.
read more

Jerusalem Post

Democratic US Congressman Eliot Engel slams Obama’s Mideast policy.

US President Barack Obama’s decision to re-appoint an ambassador to Syria was a “mistake,” US Congressman Eliot Engel (D-New York) told The Jerusalem Post.

Engel was the sponsor of a 2003 bill calling for sanctions against Syria if it doesn’t end support for terrorism and leave Lebanon. In reference to the brouhaha over the Foreign Ministry’s decision not to meet with J Street members accompanying a delegation of US congressman, Engel – who was in Israel last week – defended the government’s right to meet with whom it saw fit.

“It’s up to Israeli officials to decide who they will meet with, and who not to meet with,” he said.

He pointed out that a number of the congressmen that J Street brought over vote against Israel on resolutions that generally carry massive support on the House floor.

For instance, two of those congressman – California Democrats Lois Capps and Bob Filner – voted against House Resolution 867 that slammed the Goldstone Report and re-affirmed Israel’s right to self-defense.
read more

During the preparations for the 1980 Operation Eagle Claw (or Operation Evening Light), a military rescue operation of the hostages held by Iran during the Carter Administration, then Secretary of State Warren Christopher feared that the rescue troops would kill Iranians while saving the American hostages. During the planning stage, Secretary Christopher asked, “Can’t you just shoot them [the Iranian radicals] in the leg or something?” Clearly, this icon of the left possessed no experience with weapons and saw one too many motion pictures depicting war.

But have we returned to that ridiculous Carter-era mindset in 2010?

U.S. troops involved in President Barack Obama’s much-heralded military surge in Afghanistan are complaining about the new rules of engagement to which they must adhere. As a result of alleged killings of innocent civilians by Afghan and NATO troops, the Pentagon has promulgated strict rules that force soldiers and Marines to hold their fire until they are certain the individuals they face are armed.

While the Pentagon assures military commanders that the new rules are classified to keep terrorist and militant groups from obtaining them, troops claim that al-Qaeda, the Taliban and other enemy fighters know what actions are permitted and prohibited.

In addition, according to a source, who has trained Iraqi counterterrorists, these new rules are created by individuals who never fought in a war or who may be experienced military commanders but are or have become politicians rather than soldiers.
read more

By Scott Winchell

Also Posted at the Sonoran Weekly Review

We have all heard about the recent spate of uprisings at universities and colleges and other venues such as Senate hearings where speakers are disrupted. They have been pelted with objects, shouted down, and generally assaulted by a minority of vocal haters because they disagree with the invited speaker or guest. Unfortunately, these groups and individuals are the true haters. The have no legitimate arguments, just hatred.

At the University of California at Irvine, the Ambassador from Israel to the United States, Michael Oren, was invited to speak on the campus. The video below shows the welcome he received. The Ambassador, Faculty, and Staff asked for and expected a level of civility, respect, and hospitality as is customary for invited guests, especially when in the Middle East, and also as part of the code of conduct for students at the University. What they received from about 50 pro-Palestine students, and what appears obvious, many outsiders, was quite a bit different.

At UCal Irvine, the offending group sat together, read from notes as they shouted, and rose at intervals designed to totally disrupt the event. Then, en masse, they walked out in a very noisy fashion shouting epithets into the awaiting arms of the police.

They were well choreographed, well planned, and designed to stop the speech of others. They are almost always devoid of a true grasp of the facts of what they are representing, and are usually just young ultra-liberals who have a skewed view of the world. This is common on our campuses today when it comes to the Middle East.

They may have a voice that they want to spread, but they always seem to do so in the wrong manner. Shouting down a view point of theirs would create a riot, but it is okay for them to shout down others, hypocrisy at its best. These pro-Palestinian kids know so little of what they speak, yet they do not want to hear opposing factual accounts. Don’t trouble me with facts, I have made up my mind!

Please watch the video here, or at YouTube

By The Declaration of Independence states:

“To secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to affect their Safety and Happiness.”

We cannot permit the current leaders in the White House and Halls of Congress to continue in their efforts to lead us down the road of Progressive Socialism. This is the current battle we Constitutionalists face and we must be aggressive in our efforts. Notice, I have eliminated the terms of liberal…conservative…left and right, as they have little meaning in today’s battle for our Country. Incompetence of officials now come into play as relates to our National Security and Economy and is the rationale for resignations. The names of Holder and Napolitano ring first, and true.

My emphasis in this article will be on Demand Resignation by the people of this country.

Their oath is simple and reads:

“I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same, that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion, and that I will faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God.”

Sadly, we have seen them violate their oath. Fraud, lying, and corruption are rampant and some have engaged in treasonous activities, and they effectively thumb their noses at us and have sold you to the highest bidder.

The Articles of Confederation were replaced with the Constitution, which granted the federal government enough authority to cultivate, promote and secure the Blessings of Liberty. The balance of authority and individual liberty was understood. Power was confined to that which was enumerated in the Constitution with a certain and meaningful intent for check and balances.

Lincoln issued this warning in his inaugural address:

“Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government and form a new one. This is a most valuable and sacred right – a right which we hope and believe is to liberate the world.”

Being a representative republic, not a democracy, “rising up” means other than revolution by means of arms. The people must “rise up” from the grass roots; we must think of the greater good. We are limited in the peaceful transfer of power…resignation, elections, and impeachment.

Article One, S5, CII and the 10th Amendment provides the authority but this has been trumped by a system that rewards the powerful.

In 1803 each congressional district averaged 38,476 people, in 2010 it is forecast to exceed 710,000. These numbers indicate power growth, and it effectively grew eight fold in the 20th century alone. No wonder our representatives seek to stay in office so long. Power is the basis now for running for office and staying in office, where civilian service was the goal in the past! No wonder our representatives seek to stay in office so long. With incumbency comes power. The party in the majority assigns power, so a long-term sitting representative can expect such power. A representative expected to stay in office in the 3rd Congress for approximately 2 years now expects 12 years, or 6 terms – so much for a “citizen government.”

Tip” O’Neill, once said: “All politics are local.” This has never been truer than today when entrenched politicians, long in office, build war chests impossible to overcome. But this can be changed, through grass roots organization and discourse. We have recently witnessed that this can happen as is witnesses in “Tip” O’Neil’s own backyard with the ground-thundering win by Scott Brown who won Ted Kennedy’s old Senate seat. We must make it a local imperative and movement….of the People…by the People… and For the People.

“We, the People” have had enough.

Those in office now are on a socialist and treasonous death march and are bankrupting the country. We have watched them violate their sacred oath of office. “We, the People” cannot wait for the next round of elections. It is now that these public servants must put our interests above self-interest by resigning immediately. Our so-called Representatives and Senators are more interested in party loyalty than performing their duties. So, do not expect them to resign en masse or be impeached. Therefore the “people” must decide. A civil uprising is still not out of the question. They know which side of the bread their butter is on and it is not on our side. The Tea Party. Stand Up America and Saddle Up America Projects will continue to be the strength of this Constitutionalist movement.

I am confident more Resignations will be forthcoming based on the efforts of the people. The Vote in 2010 will be critical as well. This means raising your voice now to your neighbors, family, co-workers, and friends. Grass roots efforts have begun; it is now time to put that effort into over drive.

Paul Vallely is a retired MG, US Army and is Chairman of Stand Up America USA

Pocono Record

Just last week we learned of the death of one of the most intriguing politicians in U.S. history. Charlie Wilson, the man who fought tirelessly to defeat one of the world’s super powers, Russia, during the 1980s, recently passed away. A former congressman from Texas, he was the man who assisted the Afghan Mujahedeen to topple Russia when Russia attempted to seize control of Afghanistan.

Most individuals would never admit this, but Wilson was a pioneer when it came to insurgency warfare. A movie, “Charlie Wilson’s War,” was made about his unorthodox political schemes and his flamboyant character. He truly provides us today with a means and ability for counter-insurgency solutions. Many individuals will never hold claim that what Mr. Wilson did could ever work in defeating the Taliban in Afghanistan. However, as one who has been to the country on numerous occasions and served in both military and civilian capacities there, I fully disagree.
read more

Also posted at The Gold Coast Chronicle

That did not take long. After the horrendous Austin Texas incident, the left is labeling him a “Tea Party fanatic” or a “Tea Bag Terrorist”. Maybe he was a Tea Party supporter, by why the knee jerk reaction to label him as such?

Michelle Malkin called it the “Not Me” Syndrome as a knee jerk reaction of the left to such incidents:

“Remember “Not Me?” He was the famous invisible cartoon gremlin in the newspaper cartoon strip “Family Circus.” Whenever toys were left on the floor or other school-age disasters struck, the kids in the cartoon pointed their fingers at “Not Me.” Today, “Tea Party” is the juvenile Left’s new “Not Me” – an all-purpose scapegoat for every crime and disaster.”

Take a peak at a few instances:

From Jonathan Capehart at the Washington Post

“Joseph Stack was angry at the Internal Revenue Service, and he took his rage out on it by slamming his single-engine plane into the Echelon Building in Austin, Texas. We now know this thanks to the rather clear (as rants go) suicide note Stack left behind. There’s no information yet on whether he was involved in any anti-government groups or whether he was a lone wolf. But after reading his 34-paragraph screed, I am struck by how his alienation is similar to that we’re hearing from the extreme elements of the Tea Party movement.”
read more

By Erick Stakelbeck

CBN News has learned exclusively that five Muslim soldiers at Fort Jackson in South Carolina were arrested just before Christmas and are in custody. The five men were part of the Arabic Translation program at the base.

The men are suspected of trying to poison the food supply at Fort Jackson.

A source with intimate knowledge of the investigation, which is ongoing, told CBN News investigators suspect the “Fort Jackson Five” may have been in contact with the group of five Washington, DC area Muslims that traveled to Pakistan to wage jihad against U.S. troops in December. That group was arrested by Pakistani authorities, also just before Christmas.

Coming as it does on the heels of November’s Fort Hood jihadist massacre, this news has major implications.
read more

Also Posted at the Gold Coast Chronicle

As the CPAC (Conservative Political Action Conference) opens today, all the buzz is around the Mount Vernon Statement. You too can be a signatory to this document and join the illustrious signers listed below. Simply click here. Please read this magnificent document:

Constitutional Conservatism: A Statement for the 21st Century

We recommit ourselves to the ideas of the American Founding. Through the Constitution, the Founders created an enduring framework of limited government based on the rule of law. They sought to secure national independence, provide for economic opportunity, establish true religious liberty and maintain a flourishing society of republican self-government.

These principles define us as a country and inspire us as a people. They are responsible for a prosperous, just nation unlike any other in the world. They are our highest achievements, serving not only as powerful beacons to all who strive for freedom and seek self-government, but as warnings to tyrants and despots everywhere.

Each one of these founding ideas is presently under sustained attack. In recent decades, America’s principles have been undermined and redefined in our culture, our universities and our politics. The selfevident truths of 1776 have been supplanted by the notion that no such truths exist. The federal government today ignores the limits of the Constitution, which is increasingly dismissed as obsolete and irrelevant.

Some insist that America must change, cast off the old and put on the new. But where would this lead – forward or backward, up or down? Isn’t this idea of change an empty promise or even a dangerous deception?

The change we urgently need, a change consistent with the American ideal, is not movement away from but toward our founding principles. At this important time, we need a restatement of Constitutional conservatism grounded in the priceless principle of ordered liberty articulated in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.
read more

Examiner

America’s banking industry is aiding and abetting lawbreakers and there appears to be no one in Washington, D.C. interested in conducting an investigation into this corruption.

While the mainstream news media are hard at work covering the Democrats striving to achieve their dream of taking control of Americans’ health care, the Federal Reserve Bank continues working with the Mexican government to make it easier for illegal aliens to export US money to their homeland.

The Fed is currently devising several programs that will extend banking services to illegal aliens, and most of this money transfer scheme was created under the radar with few – if any – political figures are discussing the subject.

One such program being utilized by illegal aliens from Mexico is a remittance program with the ultimate goal of bringing illegal Mexican aliens – who send money home – into the mainstream of the US financial system, regardless of immigration status. In other words, The Federal Reserve Bank is aiding lawbreakers in moving their cash around in the US and Mexico. This obviously includes the myriad alien gangs and more than 50,000 gang members who are involved in narcotics trafficking, identity theft, homicides, and other criminal activity.
read more

Pakistani authorities, aided by U.S. intelligence, said Thursday they have apprehended more militant chiefs following the capture of the Afghan Taliban’s No. 2 figure – arrests that together represent the biggest blow to the militant organization since the U.S.-led invasion in 2001.

The roundups, which could still be under way, occurred as 15,000 U.S., NATO and Afghan forces are pressing the Taliban in their southern Afghan stronghold of Marjah, which had been the biggest town in the area under militant control.

The latest arrests took place late Wednesday and early Thursday when nine militants linked to al-Qaida were nabbed near Pakistan’s biggest city of Karachi, where the Taliban’s deputy chief Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar was picked up several days ago.

Others picked up in the recent sweeps included the Taliban’s ‘shadow’ governors in two provinces in northern Afghanistan, according to the official governor of the Afghan province of Kunduz, Mohammad Omar, and two Pakistani intelligence officers.

The Pakistani intelligence officials spoke Thursday on condition of anonymity because they did not have the authority to speak to the media.

Communications intercepted by U.S. authorities played a key role in tracking and arresting the suspects, who were in Karachi buying bomb-making equipment, the officials said. They were taken to Islamabad for questioning.

Many details of the arrests were unclear, including how they were linked to the capture of Mullah Baradar, who effectively ran the Taliban on a day-to-day basis on behalf of the reclusive leader Mullah Mohammad Omar.
read more

New York Post

Just when you thought Congress couldn’t reach a new low, it did. Only a third of US voters think their Congress members have earned the right to get sent back next year – a record-low number, a poll released yesterday shows.

Thirty-four percent of voters queried think members of the House and the Senate ought to be re-elected – while an astonishing 63 percent were in favor of throwing the bums out, the new CNN poll showed.

That’s the worst performance for Congress in the history of the network’s polling – the latest red flag for the floundering Democratic leadership as it heads into an anti-incumbent voter wave just eight months before the midterm elections.

“This is not a good year to be an incumbent, regardless of which party you belong to,” CNN polling director Keating Holland said.
read more

The nation’s highest court will hear a case that may redefine the difference between humanitarian aid and aiding and abetting terrorist groups such as Hamas, Hezbollah, al-Qaeda and Tamil Tigers.

The Humanitarian Law Project, a left-wing special interest group, contesting part of federal law that prohibits “material support” to terrorists and nations such as Iran. The HLP in their lawsuit claims that it is difficult to determine who are the terrorists and whether assisting them by lecturing about peace proposals, teaching them English, or rendering medical treatment equates with supporting terrorists and terrorism.

The Humanitarian Law Project described its support to the groups as “teaching and advocating the use of international law and other nonviolent means to reduce conflict, advance human rights and promote peace.”

As the law now stands, suspects providing such services to Hamas, for example, may be sentenced to upwards of 10 years in federal prison.
read more

By Ilana Freedman

On Wednesday night (February 11), I stayed up until my eyes were burning, reading the tweets coming from Iran as the uprising of February 11 unfolded. It was the anniversary of the Iranian Revolution and the day the Green Revolution had chosen to demonstrate against the repressive Iranian government. It was 4 am before I finally packed it in. Despite the eight and a half hour time difference, it was difficult to tear myself away as I watched history unfold through the magic of cyber communications. In preparation for the day, the Iranian government had attempted to shut down the lines of communication. Cell phones all over Iran were down. So was the Internet, Google e-mail, and many of the television stations. The primary vehicle for communications that night, therefore, was Twitter, which amazingly stayed open throughout the long day and the following night.

The pace of conversation over Twitter was almost overwhelming, with thousands of new tweets every few minutes. There were no videos, but a constant flow of reports, conjectures, confirmations, and much repetition of information that had been tweeted before. But the energy level was high, and the chatter was remarkable.

We in the West may find it difficult to understand what is now going on in Iran. We depend on the press to keep us informed and, even more than usual, the press let us down. As the streets of Iran filled with opposition Green demonstrators and the government forces who would try to beat them back, the world media barely reported anything out of the ordinary. What they did report, largely toed the government line. They played down the demonstrations, later calling them a “disappointing turnout” and a failure.
read more

As the newest major battle in Marjah, Afghanistan wages on, I am reminded over and over of what it means to support our troops. In recent years, this mantra has been used by many people, some quite disingenuously. I am not here to point fingers at those who “support our troops” in a left-handed manner, but rather, to remind folks of the great work performed by so many patriotic folks across the country and beyond.

There are many organizations set up to help like The Wounded Warrior Project, Any Soldier, and The Scott Vallely Soldiers Memorial Fund, but this story is about individuals doing what they can on their own. We at Stand Up America applaud any and all efforts to help our troops but we also need to recognize the efforts of individuals who do not receive any recognition.

Recently, a friend sent me an email string that high-lights the efforts of the many individuals, but primarily for one fellow, operating a deli near a base. Jim D. writes: “One of the most rewarding experiences I had when serving with the 25th Infantry Division in Vietnam was my weekly mail call. While most soldiers were delighted to receive a few pieces of mail, I normally would receive three mail bags full. The reason was because my mail was coming from a Ms. Jessie Beck.”

“The bags (care packages) contained all kinds of goodies donated by various people in Las Vegas (dealers, telephone operators, etc.) and my mission was to ensure that it all went to the hospital in Cu Chi for the recuperating wounded.”
read more

WSJ Global View

Suppose that on Nov. 4, 2009 – the day before he would open fire on his fellow soldiers at Fort Hood, killing 13 and wounding 30 – Major Nidal Malik Hasan had been arrested by military police and charged with intent to commit acts of terrorism. Where would his case stand today?

My guess: a public uproar, complete with exacting doubts about the strength of the evidence against him. This would be followed by sage lamentations about how a “Christianist” military had indicted a patriotic Muslim-American simply for having religious scruples about the justice of our wars. Further down the line one can imagine a Pentagon apology, a book contract, a speaking tour.

This scenario is worth thinking about on news that as many as eight officers, most of them doctors at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center, will be censured for failing to monitor, supervise and discipline Maj. Hasan properly as his behavior became increasingly suspicious. The censures will likely bring the officers’ military careers to an end. Whether they’ll do anything to change the mentality that permitted Maj. Hasan’s career to proceed unchecked until he brought it to its ghastly conclusion is another question.
read more

The news from Marjah is increasingly surreal as “counterinsurgency” theory goes into battle – “counterinsurgency” being a fancy word for hearts-and-minds nation-building.

Example: A rocket hits the wrong compound, killing 10 “civilians.” Since COIN means always having to say you’re sorry, the commanding general not only “apologizes” in the middle of the battle, he suspends the further use of the rocket in the middle of the battle. This is in line with the guiding fantasy of COIN warfare—that it is possible to “win” the confidence, trust, “hearts and minds,” whatever of the “people,” as though war were a popularity contest, and after eight-plus-years the Muslims of Afghanistan still can’t make up their minds who, between us and the Taliban, should win their coveted Miss Congeniality prize.

Of course, this rocket ban is just one more sicko rule of engagement to add to the passel of sicko rules of engagement Gen. Stanley McChrystal has imposed on his own troops to, as he has said, to protect the Afghan people from everything that can hurt them.

Other such ROEs include:
read more

National Review Online

The violence and cruelty of Arabs often perplexes Westerners.

Not only does the leader of Hizbullah proclaim “We love death,” but so too does, for example, a 24-year-old man who last month yelled “We love death more than you love life” as he crashed his car on the Bronx-Whitestone Bridge in New York City. As two parents in St. Louis honor-killed their teenage daughter with thirteen stabs of a butcher’s knife, the Palestinian father shouted “Die! Die quickly! Die quickly! . . . Quiet, little one! Die, my daughter, die!” – and the local Arab community supported them against murder charges. A prince from Abu Dhabi recently tortured a grain dealer whom he accused of fraud; despite a video of the atrocity appearing on television internationally, the prince was acquitted while his accusers were convicted. On a larger scale, one accounting finds 15,000 terrorist attacks since 9/11.

Governments throughout the Arabic-speaking countries rely more on brutality than on the rule of law. The drive to eliminate Israel still persists even as new insurrections take hold; the latest one has flared up in Yemen.

Several excellent attempts to explain the pathology of Arab politics exist; my personal favorites include studies by David Pryce-Jones and Philip Salzman. Now add to these The Strong Horse: Power, Politics, and the Clash of Arab Civilizations (Doubleday, $26), an entertaining yet deep and important analysis by Lee Smith, Middle East correspondent for the Weekly Standard.

Smith takes as his prooftext Osama bin Laden’s comment in 2001, “When people see a strong horse and a weak horse, by nature, they will like the strong horse.” What Smith calls the strong-horse principle contains two banal elements: Seize power and then maintain it. This principle predominates because Arab public life has “no mechanism for peaceful transitions of authority or power sharing, and therefore [it] sees political conflict as a fight to the death between strong horses.” Violence, Smith observes is “central to the politics, society, and culture of the Arabic-speaking Middle East.” It also, more subtly, implies keeping a wary eye on the next strong horse, triangulating, and hedging bets.
read more

Associated Press

MARJAH, AFGHANISTAN — Some American and Afghan troops say they’re fighting the latest offensive in Afghanistan with a handicap — strict rules that routinely force them to hold their fire.

Although details of the new guidelines are classified to keep insurgents from reading them, U.S. troops say the Taliban are keenly aware of the restrictions.

“I understand the reason behind it, but it’s so hard to fight a war like this,” said Lance Cpl. Travis Anderson, 20, of Altoona, Iowa. “They’re using our rules of engagement against us,” he said, adding that his platoon had repeatedly seen men drop their guns into ditches and walk away to blend in with civilians.
read more

By New York Post

Republicans were up in arms last week – and rightly so – over the outrageous accusation by John Brennan, President Obama’s top anti-terrorism advisor, that his critics “only serve the goals of al Qaeda.”

Sen. Christopher Bond (R-Mo.), vice chairman of the Intelligence Committee, said Brennan “needs to go” because he’s no longer “credible” on security matters. That’s putting it mildly.

Indeed, there are several reasons – apart from his shamefully partisan name-calling – to question Brennan’s effectiveness.

Start with the near-tragedy of the Christmas would-be airline bomber – who was foiled only by alert passengers: Brennan has admitted that the governemnt failed to make use of available intelligence to prevent this attack.

Add the absurd decision to Mirandize the terrorist, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, and send him to the civilian criminal-justice system – rather than treating him like the enemy combatant that he is.

Now, a lot of people – and not just Republicans – have attacked the administration for these policy errors and others. Brennan has a right to respond, of course. He did so – in a published newspaper column that’s so far over the top that it should be the last straw.

It is, as House Minority Leader John Boehner said, “a cheap, irresponsible political smear that doesn’t help keep the American people safe.”

And coming after seven years of the unconscionable abuse that Democrats – including Obama – heaped on then-President George Bush’s anti-terrorism policies, Brennan’s piece is particularly unseemly.

Brennan himself termed Bush’s policies “a recruitment bonanza for terrorists.” Unlike Bush, Brennan promised, Obama would not “validate al Qaeda’s twisted worldview.” Now, instead of an independent, nonpartisan intelligence official, Brennan has turned into what Bond correctly labels “a mouthpiece for the political arm” of the White House.

That kind of irresponsibility is not just unseemly, it’s potentially dangerous. Brennan needs to go. Now.

“…And if that still isn’t enough, there is her lapel pin. The politician who leads the populist opposition to Obama decided to make her most important speech since the 2008 election wearing a pin featuring the US flag and the Israeli flag…”

by Caroline Glick

US President Barack Obama is an inept, incompetent leader. More than his failure to pass his domestic agenda on health care and global warming despite his Democratic Party’s control over both houses of Congress, Iran’s announcement on Thursday that it is a nuclear power and has the capacity to produce weapons-grade uranium is a testament to Obama’s feckless incompetence. Even his most ardent supporters are admitting this.

Take The New York Times. In a news analysis Thursday of Obama’s failure to prevent Iran from advancing with its nuclear program, David Sanger wrote that for the US president, the last year has been “a year in which little in his dealings with Iran has gone the way that the White House expected.” Since Obama first announced his wish to sit down with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, at a Democratic presidential candidates’ debate in the spring of 2008, the 44th US president’s only strategy for dealing with Iran has been to appease its leaders. And as of Tuesday, he still believes that ingratiating himself with the regime is his best bet.

At his press conference Tuesday, Obama wouldn’t admit that appeasement has failed, even as all of Iran’s top leaders said they were expanding their illicit uranium enrichment activities. The most he would do was acknowledge that the regime’s leaders “have made their choice so far, although the door is still open.” As for sanctions, well, Obama said it will take “several weeks” to put those together at the UN.

Read more on the www.jewishworld review.com

This week’s column is about an age-old story, how Big Fish sacrifice small fry to stay Big Fish. The story the column was triggered by came out last Friday, when the Washington Post reported on military investigations into battles at Wanat, Ganjgal and Kamdesh, all in Afghanistan.

The U.S. military has reprimanded an unusually large number of commanders for battlefield failures in Afghanistan in recent weeks, reflecting a new push by the top brass to hold commanders responsible for major incidents in which troops are killed or wounded, said senior military officials.

Read more on “www.Dianawest.net”: http://www.dianawest.net/Home/tabid/36/EntryId/1272/Questions-for-Pentagon-Why-Was-There-a-COP-Keating-and-Why-Was-It-a-Kill-Pit.aspx

Contact: standupamericaceo@gmail.com

by Paul E Vallely

On 9-11, Americans were attacked and the World Trade Center’s destroyed along with the deaths of almost 3,000 innocents in New York, Washington DC and over the fields of Western Pennsylvania.. It was a pre-emptive attack and a horrific unthinkable act that arose from great and thorough planning of Al-Qaeda and its Radical Islamists followers. At this point in history, Israel is facing such a dilemma as it seriously contemplates the consequences of a threatened nuclear/missile and ground attack from Iran and her proxies. Does Israel act preemptively to potentially protect its territory and six million citizens and potentially precipitate a full-on regional conflict or anxiously wait while Iran inches closer to nuclear launch capabilities and follows through with its threats of “Death to Israel?”
read more

Inside The Ring

Washington Times

U.S. and British security officials launched a hunt recently for suicide bomber vests at Kandahar air base after an intelligence report said terrorists were planning a major attack on the strategic air base in southern Afghanistan.

However, after a six-day security lockdown of the air base, a major hub for the 30,000-troop surge in forces, no vests or bombers were found, said U.S. intelligence officials, who ultimately dismissed the human intelligence report as unconfirmed.
read more

The Declaration of Independence states:

“To secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to affect their Safety and Happiness.”

We cannot permit the current leaders in the White House and Halls of Congress to continue in their efforts to lead us down the road of Progressive Socialism. This is the current battle we Constitutionalists face and we must be aggressive in our efforts. Notice, I have eliminated the terms of liberal…conservative…Democrat…Republican…left and right as they have little meaning in today’s battle for our Country.

Incompetence and Dishonesty of officials now come into play as relates to our National Security and Economy and is the rationale for resignations. The names of Rahm Emanuel, Holder and Napolitano ring true. You can add and make up your own list!!!! My emphasis in this article will be on Demand Resignation of these officials by the people of this country.

The oath is simple and reads:

“I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same, that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion, and that I will faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God.”

Sadly, we have seen them violate their oath. Fraud, lying, and corruption are rampant and some have engaged in treasonous activities, and they effectively thumb their noses at us and have sold you to the highest bidder.

The Articles of Confederation were replaced with the Constitution, which granted the federal government enough authority to cultivate, promote and secure the Blessings of Liberty. The balance of authority and individual liberty was understood. Power was confined to that which was enumerated in the Constitution with a certain and meaningful intent for check and balances.

Lincoln issued this warning in his inaugural address:

“Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government and form a new one. This is a most valuable and sacred right – a right which we hope and believe is to liberate the world.”

Being a representative republic, not a democracy, “rising up” means other than revolution by means of arms. The people must “rise up” from the grass roots; we must think of the greater good. We are limited in the peaceful transfer of power…resignation, elections, and impeachment.

Article One, S5, CII and the 10th Amendment provides the authority but this has been trumped by a system that rewards the powerful. In 1803 each congressional district averaged 38,476 people, in 2010 it is forecast to exceed 710,000. These numbers indicate power growth, and it effectively grew eight fold in the 20th century alone. No wonder our representatives seek to stay in office so long.

Power is the basis now for running for office and staying in office, where civilian service was the goal in the past! No wonder our representatives seek to stay in office so long. With incumbency comes power. The party in the majority assigns power, so a long-term sitting representative can expect such power. A representative expected to stay in office in the 3rd Congress for approximately 2 years now expects 12 years, or 6 terms – so much for a “citizen government.”

“Tip” O’Neill, once said: “All politics are local.” This is never truer than today when entrenched politicians, long in office, build war chests impossible to overcome. But this can be changed, through grass roots organization and discourse. We have recently witnessed that this can happen as is witnesses in “Tip” O’Neil’s own backyard with the ground-thundering win by Scott Brown who won Ted Kennedy’s old Senate seat. We must make it a local imperative and movement….of the People…by the People… and For the People.

“We, the People” have had enough. Enough is Enough.

The Obama White House and identifiable Members of Congress are now on a progressive socialist and treasonous death march and are bankrupting the country. We have watched them violate their sacred oath of office. “We, the People” cannot wait for the next round of elections. It is now that these public servants must put our interests above self-interest by resigning immediately.

Our so-called Representatives and Senators are more interested in party loyalty than performing their duties. So, do not expect them to resign en masse or be impeached. Therefore the “people” must decide. A civil uprising is still not out of the question. They know which side of the bread their butter is on and it is not on our side. The Tea Party. Stand Up America and Saddle Up America Projects will continue to be the strength of this Constitutionalist movement.

I am confident more Resignations will be forthcoming based on the efforts of the people. The Vote in 2010 will be critical as well. This means raising your voice now to your neighbors, family, co-workers, and friends. Grass roots efforts have begun; it is now time to put that effort into over drive.

Paul Vallely is a retired MG, US Army and is Chairman of Stand Up America USA.

The comedy is finished!

Now, years after the international community has been deluding itself about Iranian nuclear intentions, Tehran openly and arrogantly confirms the worst. The Islamic republic is destined to become a fully nuclear power – international law and diplomacy be damned.

Not surprisingly, Iran has made clowns of all those smug world leaders who placed their faith in reason and statecraft. The principal loser in this lethal comedy is plainly apt to be Israel. What exactly does this microstate have to fear from a nuclear Iran?

Thirty years ago, I published the first of 10 books that contained authoritative descriptions of the physical and medical consequences of nuclear war, any nuclear war. These generic descriptions were drawn largely from a 1975 report by the National Academy of Sciences and included the following still valid expectations: large temperature changes; contamination of food and water; disease epidemics in crops, domesticated animals and humans caused by ionizing radiation; shortening of growing seasons; irreversible injuries to aquatic species; widespread and long-term cancers because of inhalation of plutonium particles; radiation-induced abnormalities in persons in utero at the time of detonations; a vast growth in the number of skin cancers; and increasing genetic disease.

What does all this mean to Israel, as it soon will face a determined and possibly jihadist nuclear adversary in Iran?
read more

Where did these people think Gitmo alum would be transferred TO? Which U.S. city would NOT be disrupted by such show trials? How could all of this been done WITHOUT costing American taxpayers millions, even billions of taxpayer money?

To quote President Obama, there’s a “teachable moment” here, and that is: Tasking one’s brain (aka THINKING) before acting or speaking – not to mention voting – is always good, but doing so when dealing with matters that may adversely affect your fellow citizens, is even better!

Regards, Ronni Shalit President National Security Roundtable

Does President Obama truly fail to understand just how opposed New Yorkers are to holding 9/11 terrorist trials here – and why?

Or does he just reflexively consider anyone who objects to one of his pronouncements obstructionist?

In the latest White House flip-flop on where to try Khalid Sheik Mohammed and his cohorts, Obama said Sunday he has “not ruled out” holding those trials near Ground Zero in lower Manhattan.

Yes, he noted that “I think it’s important for us to take into account the practical, logistical issues involved.” But then he added: “If you have a city that is saying no, and a police department that is saying no and a mayor that is saying no, that makes it difficult.”

Poor Obama – all he sees these days is people “saying no.”

Not a word about why the mayor and police commissioner – not to mention just about every elected official in the city and state – are “saying no.”

Like the minimum $200 million a year in security costs over a five-year period.

Or how such trials would disrupt the economically vital Financial District.

Or how they would disrupt the long-delayed rebuilding of Ground Zero, which may actually – finally – be showing some progress.

Or how they’d only boost New York’s dubious status as the terrorists’ No. 1 target.

Or how New York City has already contributed more than its fair share to the War on Terror.

(Then again, such trials don’t belong in a civilian courtroom anywhere, let alone just blocks from Ground Zero – given that KSM & Co. are enemy combatants who rightly belong before a military tribunal at Guantanamo.)

New Yorkers don’t want their city to be used as a showcase for the Obama administration’s dubious effort to convince the world of the US justice system’s merits.

Move the trials – now.

Also posted at The Gold Coast Chronicle

Please view the video below and make your own judgement:

Our Chairman at Stand Up America, Paul Vallely, has written another article on his thoughts regarding the current state of affairs in the Middle East and beyond. Please read the column in the section: The General’s Thoughts

A close friend, Andy Omeara responds to the General’s article with very salient points that frame the discussion further. His poignant list shows how the current administration is leaving Israel dangling from a thread, at a time when so much is taking place that threatens the very existence of Israel, and our own American way of life.

Also posted at The Gold Coast Chronicle

By Andy Omeara

It is the next crisis waiting to happen. The fact that the USA has a socialist administration with strong inclinations to support Islamic radicals makes matters even worse and effectively denies American support to Israel. The list of unethical or risk enhancing Administration initiatives include:

1 – Support of radical Islamic states supporting terrorists;

2 – Refusal to permit interrogation of the last airline bomber, who was given a lawyer and read the Miranda rights as if he were a citizen of the USA before the Intelligence Community had an opportunity to speak to the prisoner;

3 – The decision to try Islamic Terrorists in NY Federal Court with all the rights of American citizens;

4 – The continuing presence of disturbing evidence that the Commander in Chief may not be a US citizen;

5 – The failure of the President to provide adequate troops in a war zone;

6- Slashing the budget for military services and elimination of R&D projects in time of war;

7- Providing financial support for domestic radicals including the Black Panthers and Acorn in defiance of Congressional prohibition of the same;

8 – Hiring domestic radicals and former domestic terrorists to fill vacancies in his Administration;

9 – The institution of a vast array of new Tsarist posts beyond the reach of Congressional screening and without Constitutional authority, which constitutes an unconstitutional power grab;

10 – Relocation of the census bureau to a corrupt White House;

11 – Consistently lying to media and public audiences regarding his programs that amount to socialization of the economy and big business;

12 – Printing greenbacks at a rate that will create a new economic crisis coupled with unprecedented inflation;

13 – Running up the national debt at unheard of rates even more so than in WW II.

14 – All the while he continues to blame problems on the Bush Administration and throws money at his cronies in the guise of economic stimulus programs in unethical and arrogant disregards of law, the Constitution, the people, and responsible administration.

The secret transfer of the mobile surface-to-surface Syrian-made Fateh-110 (range 250km) missile to Hizballah sparked the prediction Friday, Feb. 5 from an unnamed US official that cross-border arms smuggling from Syria into Lebanon outside state control was “very dangerous” and “paved the way to war similar to Israel-Hizballah conflict of 2006. debkafile’s military sources report hat Israel warned Syria through at least two diplomatic channels against Hizballah using this lethal weapon, which is capable of reaching almost every Israel city.

Our sources disclose: Syria pulled the wool of Israel’s eyes for the transfer by openly training Hizballah in the use of SA-2 and SA-6 surface-to-surface missiles. Israel had warned it would deem their passage into Lebanon Syrian casus belli by Syria.

The Fateh-110 is still more lethal, accurate and dangerous than the SA-2 and SA-3. it confronts Israel now with a Hizballah armed with a solid-fuel propellant, road-mobile, single-stage, short-range ballistic system weighing three tons with a half-ton warhead and a range of 250 kilometers. It is not deployed in surface batteries but fired from mobile launchers, which the solid propellant renders capable of firing at speed with little advance preparation, before returning to the fortified underground silos Hizballah has sunk in mountain areas across Lebanon.

These features make the Fateh-110 a very tough target for Israeli bombers to strike. According to our intelligence sources, Israel posted warnings against Hizballah using the weapon through US Middle East envoy George missile who called on president Bashar Assad in Damascus on January 20 and ,even more emphatically, through Spanish foreign minister Miguel Moratinos who arrived in Syria on Feb. 3 after talks in Jerusalem. The message he carried was that if Hizballah ventured to fire the Fateh-110, Israel was determined to hit back at strategic and military targets inside Syria.

This warning instantly prompted the war rhetoric which emanated from Assad and his foreign minister Walid Moallem. Israeli foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman, known for his undiplomatic, blunt style, responded by warning Syria that it stood to lose the next war and the Assad family would lose its grip on power in Damascus.

Prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu and defense minister Ehud Barak are presumed to have endorsed the first part of Lieberman’s comment as representing their own view. But the minister added the personal threat on Syria’s leaders on his own initiative