Actions Instead of Words

 

President Obama just gave an impassioned talk in Turkey in which he reiterated his misbegotten views of Islam ... saying that this religion is not one of violence and that it is Muslims who are the overwhelming victims of those radicals (a bit of a contradiction). He also warned that the West's equating of ISIS with the Muslim faith will only lead to larger recruitment of such terrorists. And he also cautioned that to use a religious test to sift out potential terrorist from among the Syrian immigrants is not the American way and is shameful. For those of you who want to scratch you head over Obama' s full speech, it is reproduced HERE..

Excuse me Mr. President but you are full of hot air. Your actions defy your words. Time and time again you have ignored opportunities to begin to move the Muslim religion away from its radical tendencies and have enabled them to march further into the depths of depravity. Your strategy to "diminish and defeat" these ISIS savages and the other radical elements of Islam does nothing but let them have their leash. Let me count the ways:

- From the very first days of your presidency, you have embraced and met with the Muslim Brotherhood ... a group that has since been identified as a terrorist organization.

- You have diminished and slighted Israel at every opportunity ... the only true ally we have in the Middle East and a major bulwark against the radical elements of Islam.

- When el Sisi, President of Egypt, called for a "reformation" within Islam for it to denounce its more radical tenants, what was your reaction? You stayed stunningly mum.

- You pulled our troops out of Iraq ... only to have this country sink below the waves and spawn ISIS. And instead you created a surge of 30,000 U.S. troops into Afghanistan ... the "good war." However, the rules of engagement you imposed upon then neutered them to the point where nothing got accomplished ... except "green on blue" killings of Americans by turncoat Afghans.

- You have repeatedly crowed that the greatest threat to world security is ... climate change! Yes, climate change!! We don't have enough turnip trucks in the United States for our people to fall off of for this bit of sinister misdirection to be believed.

- President Obama, last year, proudly released five hardened Islamic terrorists back to the battlefield in exchange for the Army deserter, Bowe Bergdahl ... one of the most bone-headed prisoner exchanges in history.

- And when Egypt offered the Palestinian Authority large swaths of the Sinai Peninsula so that they could  expand the Gaza Strip into a real two-state solution, what was your reaction? You refused to even acknowledge this act of statesmanship of Egypt's part.

- Your attempts to neutralize ISIS, for some strange reason, did not include the bombing of its capital, Raqqa, or the elimination of the oil infrastructure that provides much of its operating budget. In fact the number of air sorties over Iraq and Syria that you have authorized are but a tiny fraction of what would be required ... with 2/3rds of our jets returning with their weapons unused. You have no strategy to defeat ISIS ... you barely have any tactics.

-You have cozied up to the Ayatollahs in Iran and given them the resources to continue their sponsorship of Islamic terrorism throughout the world ... and clearly given a path to atomic weapons.

Need I document more of your tilt toward Islam?

Mr. President, I can't imagine that, if you truly believe in the bilge that was spewing out of your pie hole, that you would have behaved, over the last seven years, in the ways other than what I have just recounted.

Foxy

Fox News did our nation an important service last night when it aired an exclusive interview by its anchor, Bret Baier, with Egypt's president, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi (see: Fox News Story), in which the Egyptian leader said many things that American citizens should find encouraging:

1) He called for an "Arab-ready" force to battle the Islamic State (ISIS),

2) He asked Muslims around the world to stand up to the more radical elements of Islam in a religious revolution. (I have called it a reformation ... see: A Modern Crusade.)

3) He hinted that the United States may not be on Egypt's side in that it had suspended arms shipments to his country after the coup that ousted that Muslim Brotherhood dictator, Mohammed Morsi ... and still is holding back on critical needed materials.

4) When asked how his Arab allies view America's (read Obama's) leadership in the region, he responded, "Difficult question."

This interview was continually (and strangely) interrupted by transmission difficulties and didn't touch on other issues that would have been revealing ... such as Egypt's offer to the Palestinian Authority to extend the Gaza Strip lands with a huge chunk of the Sinai peninsula ... see: The Impossible Dream.

Clearly the Obama administration is still on the outs with Egypt over el-Sisi's removal of the Muslim Brotherhood from its government, but, in doing so, it is failing to recognize one of the real hopes to counter radical Islam encroachments around the world.

If el-Sisi continues on his current tack, I am convinced that history will treat him with more kindness than Obama. George Will has even gone so far to suggest that el-Sisi should win the Nobel Peace Prize. I concur.

Killing Two Birds

Botox Boy, John Kerry, has pledged $212 million of borrowed Chinese money to help rebuild the Gaza Strip after this summer's demi-war with Israel. Obviously this aid has no strings attached ... see: Fox News Story. Why would it? We've been in Mahmoud Abbas's back pocket for all of Obama's term of inaction.

What then should we do? How about making this donation contingent upon the Palestinian Authority's (PA's) acceptance of Egypt's generous offer of a wide swath of the Sinai to expand Gaza's breathing room ... see: The Impossible Dream. The current concentration-camp atmosphere in Gaza is what is causing most of the problems there ... obviously on purpose. Clearly fixing this space problem is the most critical issue that needs addressing ... and could easily usher in the desired two-state solution.

Therefore, making the PA's acceptance of this Egyptian offer a prerequisite of our giving it $212 million of rebuilding aid would be killing two birds with one stone.

The Impossible Dream

Why is it that the American media is so myopic in its coverage of world events? Or are they propounding an agenda that restricts what they chose to report? Did you know that Egypt recently offered the Palestinian Authority (PA) 618 square miles of the Sinai adjacent to the Gaza Strip for the settlement of Palestinian refugees. I didn’t … until I just read about it in Commentary Magazine. This offer should have made banner headlines in the New York Times but, as of yet, this newspaper and other American media outlets seem to have run out of ink for such a startling revelation (see: Commentary Magazine Article.) After all the Gaza Strip itself is only 139 square miles. This Egyptian offer would have more the quintupled the living space in Gaza.

Of course, Mahmoud Abbas of the PA rejected this offer with the feeble excuse that “[I]t’s illogical for the problem to be solved at Egypt’s expense. We won’t have it.” Of course the real reason that Abbas rejected this extremely generous offer is that the presence of these all-suffering Palestinian refugee pawns in an over-crowded Gaza Strip is what keeps fulminating the PA’s attacks on Israel … and what elicits the sympathy of the world to their plight. If a two state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian eternal conflict is ever going to be achieved, it will never be done by carving up Israel. This Egyptian proposal would have opened the door to a real two-state solution and a lasting peace in this area.

But I guess peace is not what is deep-down desired. Even for the “moderates” such as Abbas, the objective clearly is the ultimate destruction of this Jewish state. The sooner the world comes to accept this reality, the sooner it will stop dreaming the impossible dream.

Peace

Rush Limbaugh has espoused that peace will not be achieved in the Israeli-Palestinian (or any) conflict until one side wins … and wins decisively. I agree. The reason why this belligerency seems interminable is that as soon as Israel achieves a limited tactical advantage, the world rises up in banner-headline protests (I wonder why this is), and Israel withdraws to await the next Hamas (or whomever’s) onslaught.

Already we see the negative press surrounding Israel’s attempt to stop the rocket and mortar barrages from the Gaza strip. Our Secretary of State, John Kerry, reflects this administration’s private cynicism over Israel’s incursions into Gaza (“pinpricks?”) … even while tepidly endorsing Netanyahu’s efforts.

To establish a lasting peace in this region, Israel must destroy Hamas, kill all its leaders, destroy all its weaponry, collapse all its tunnels, and severely punish all its warriors and fifth column. Anything else means that this charade will re-occur and re-occur until such time as those who want to destroy Israel finally achieve their goal. Then perhaps the liberal left in this country and in Europe will fall silent … and happily declare peace.

Demographics

I’ve only studied a bit of econometrics, but I know enough of it to know that most long-term economic growth has its real basis in demographic expansion.  Yes, a country like Russia can experience a spurt of economic growth, based on new energy discoveries, while at the same time showing negative population growth.  And there are other abnormal instances of explosive population growth which does not translate into strong economic numbers … such as currently being experienced in the Gaza Strip.  (This situation seems particularly driven by an aberrant political objectives and not natural economics.) 

But for liberals to espouse zero or negative population growth strikes me as national suicide … see: Breitbart Story.  One needs only fly across the United States a view the vast tracks of nothingness to realize that, were this country to reach the population density just in the Rockies, of say Switzerland, we could support many times more people than currently.  And this would in turn drive economic expansion and dynamic/dramatic technical developments.  Let us have faith in what has previously worked.  The most important thing that our political leaders should strive for is that this expanding population stay a melting pot and not become a Cobb salad … and focus on fulfilling more important objectives than applauding Beyonce’s hip wiggling or choosing the brackets for March Madness. 

Pact with the Devil

David Ignatius, columnist for the Washington Post, does not head my list of favorite people, but he recently wrote an op-ed which goes as far as he is allowed to go to take the Obama administration to task.  Please read the whole thing and then return for my vinegar: Washington Post - Ignatius.

Comparing the United States’s reaction to the Egyptian riots that ousted Hosni Murabak and the recent ones over Egypt’s current President, Mohamed Morsi’s overreach, one can readily see that the Obama/Clinton tag team have made a pact with the devil, the Muslim Brotherhood.  Shortly after Obama’s first inauguration, he met, sub rosa, with the Muslim Brotherhood where who-knows-what transpired (see: Washington Times Article) … and numerous times since.  But, as a result, we can clearly see the Obama Administration’s tilt toward this radical (my term) Muslim group … including its backing of the Arab Spring and our numerous faulty diplomatic Middle-East moves thereafter … including the Benghazi attack and its cover-up.

Shortly after Morsi helped to stop the recent rocket attacks on Israel from the Gaza Strip (which he previously probably abetted), he must have felt he had the leverage and quickly assumed Pharaoh-like powers in Egypt.  This caused an eruption of Egyptian secularists on the streets of Cairo … to which Obama and Hillary managed to look the other way.  Yes, they may have contacted Morsi in private to cajole him, but they took no strong public stance against such Morsi totalitarianism, like they did with Murabak.  This would have sent a clear message to the Arab street that the U.S. backed true Democracy, not autocratic rule.  This also tells me nothing more than there must be a secret understanding between Morsi and Obama that we are still reluctant to abandon.

Unlike the classic Faustian bargain, I doubt if Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton are willing or even able to turn the tables on this Mephistopheles.