They Lost China, and Iran, and Iraq, and Libya, and Afghanistan and Pakistan and...
John Ransom / Townhall Columnist
A victory beyond the wildest dreams of Osama bin Laden is within reach of fighters from ISIL, a group of which he would likely approve regardless of what current Al Qaeda leadership says about the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. And it's all Obama's fault.
"Iraqi troops battled to dislodge an al Qaeda splinter group from the city of Tikrit on Monday," reports the Hindustan Times, "after its leader was declared caliph of a new Islamic state in lands seized this month across a swathe of Iraq and Syria."
The caliphate claims worldwide authority over all Muslims, and poses a challenge not to U.S. control in the region—because we have none-- but to Iran's control of Iraq.
So no matter who wins, we are pretty much doomed to an outcome that will cost America hugely in the future. Currently, Russia is sending military aid to Iraq to bolster the current government. In response to the crisis, President Obama has sent Iraq an autographed copy of his book, a $25 gift card from Starbucks, and outtakes of planted questions from a recent press conference on Iraq.
It's hilarious. I've seen it.
What's not hilarious is that they lost China, they lost Iraq…and Iran, and Libya, and Afghanistan and Pakistan AND they tried mightily to lose Egypt. Fortunately, the U.S. trained officers of the Egyptian Army have more sense than they do.
Who are the "they" in this scenario?
Well despite what our own prophet of doom, Dr. Ron Paul, says about Iraq-- he blames it squarely on G.W. Bush-- this is all president Obama's fault.
He's the "them" here.
Because here's the thing: Let's pretend for a moment that Obama actually cared about foreign policy and national security.
I know that's hard to do, but please try.
Obama can't fight wars and then expand welfare; he can't fight wars and expand social security disability; he can't fight wars and have Obamacare too.
In short, Obama and his leftist friends have decided that the only common defense that they care about is defending the government's reach to every corner of American society.
So national security can be damned.
We just can't afford to make the country secure right now.
There are too many free telephones, birth control, and bailouts for Obama cronies to give away with your money to afford a luxury item like a free and secure country.
"I knew from the start that if I left the woman I love--the Great Society," said president Lyndon Johnson about America's involvement in Vietnam, "in order to fight that bitch of a war, then I would lose everything. All my programs. All my hopes. All my dreams."
Obama and his friends will not make the same mistake that Johnson, the old liar, claims he made.
The Obama folks: many of them are, after all, the folks who toppled LBJ in 1968, the Democrat who created the Great Society.
LBJ once said Gerald Ford couldn't walk and chew bubble gum at the same time.
Actually Ford was a gifted athlete.
It's LBJ and his contemporary liberal friends who can't do two things at once.
And this is part of the reason why the Obama administration is so obsessed with spying by the NSA.
Being the amateurs that they are, they have no idea what the real job of the intelligence community is.
They think that spying is a cheap substitute for national defense, which it is not.
That type of policy only leads to the gutting of our national liberty and the gutting of our national defense, all in the name of defending our liberty to have free phones, free birth control, and free money.
The loss of the Middle East is a loss that even LBJ would be ashamed of.
"Tell me something Lieutenant," said Hippy in author Karl Marlantes' epic depiction of the Vietnam War, Matterhorn, written from the viewpoint of a Marine infantry company. "Just tell me where the gold is. Yes, the gold, the f---ing gold, or the oil, or uranium. Something. Jesus Christ, something out there for us to be here."
Well, the gold is now at home. The Federal Reserve has it, as Dr. Ron Paul would no doubt remind us.
But the oil? That's in the Middle East.
And even an old, grizzled Marine knows deep down that that is something worth fighting for.
Robert Spencer in Truth Revolt: The Free World's Willful Ignorance About the Global Jihad
In Truth Revolt I discuss the ongoing refusal to face reality.
The world is in flames because of jihad, and yet the fog of deception is thicker than ever. If you have ever tried to point out to friends or coworkers the violent texts and teachings of Islam that jihadists use to justify violence and supremacism, you may have experienced its effects yourself: charges of "racism," "bigotry," and "hatred"; invocations of the Crusades, the Inquisition, and the Book of Joshua; and a reminder that the Catechism of the Catholic Church says that Muslims "together with us…adore the one, merciful God" (841).
Yet none of this actually addresses the uniqueness of the jihad phenomenon: Muslims, not Christians or Jews or Hindus or Buddhists, are committing acts of violence today on a global scale, and justifying those acts and making recruits by pointing to their own sacred texts. When foes of jihad terror point this out, however, they tend to place themselves in the position of Dr. Thomas Stockmann in Henrik Ibsen's An Enemy of the People.
The play is a marvelous parable for our times. Stockmann's town is famous and prosperous because of its baths, which are believed to have healing properties. But then Stockmann finds to his horror that the baths are not beneficial at all, but actually poisonous, and are making those who bathe in them even worse off than they were previously.
Ever the good citizen, Stockmann sends a report on this to the town's mayor, recommending that the baths be closed temporarily and costly repairs undertaken to render the waters truly medicinal and not deadly. He expects that the townspeople will be grateful to him for pointing out this looming disaster and helping them avert it. But to his shock, the town leaders are dismissive, even contemptuous, of his findings. They refuse to say anything publicly about what he has discovered, for fear of causing panic and demoralization among the townspeople and ruining the reputation of the baths, which could bankrupt the town.
They warn Stockmann to keep quiet and go along as well, but he refuses, calling a town meeting on his own. There, he is shocked again as the townspeople show themselves no more receptive to his discoveries and recommendations than the authorities were. They see that the baths are making the town rich, and that Stockmann's findings will hurt the town's reputation and cost a great deal of money to implement — and they don't care that the benefits of implementing the repairs he recommends will outweigh the liabilities in the long run. They make fun of him and denounce him, calling him an enemy of the people. And with Stockmann thoroughly discredited, they continue happily on their pathway to their own destruction, and the destruction of untold numbers of other people.
That, in a nutshell, is what will happen to you if you stand up against jihad terror today. Willful ignorance completely blankets the discourse about jihad-related issues.
A particularly egregious example came in the UK's Daily Mail this week, in a piece devoted to how jihadists from Nigeria and Kenya to Syria and Iraq have set so much of the world aflame. The Mail interviewed Andreas Krieg, a Middle East security analyst at King's College London in Qatar, about the rise of "Islamist extremism." Krieg agreed that there was a problem: "All the empirical evidence shows that it is on the rise. You're seeing it in all the headlines, then you're looking at Iraq, you're looking at Syria, you're looking at Nigeria." However, he added, "in all three cases this has nothing to do with Islam. I think people in the West may think it is because they feel alienated by Islam.
There is a lot of Islamaphobia."
Krieg attempted an explanation for how all this Islam that has nothing to do with Islam came about: "When communities become disenfranchised – and lot of them are Muslim – they use Islam to further their particular cause. They adhere to a radical interpretation of Islam, but it has nothing to do with the religion."
How could a "radical interpretation of Islam" have "nothing to do with the religion"?
How could it be possible that these groups that uniformly explain and justify their actions on the basis of Islam have nothing to do with Islam? How can it be that a group that calls itself the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant and another that calls itself the Congregation of the People of the Sunnah for Dawah and Jihad have nothing to do with Islam?
It is also noteworthy that this risible interview got printed at all. What stake does the mainstream media have in absolving Islam of responsibility for evils perpetrated in its name and in accord with its teachings? Why does the mainstream media always rush to exonerate Islam of any connection to the ever-mounting number of atrocities done in its name and inspired by its texts and teachings, instead of explaining the ideology that jihadis say motivates and inspires them?
This fog of deception and willful ignorance is only hindering genuine attempts to formulate positive and effective ways to limit the power of Islamic teachings to incite to violence. But it doesn't look as if it is going to clear anytime soon.
Israel air force bombs jihad terrorist bases in Gaza, blasts 'Palestinian' kidnappers' Hebron homes
Photo: Blowing up top floor of kidnapper's Hebron home. The kidnapper should be blown up as well.
The savages who elected Hamas and pass out candy when Jewish kids are kidnapped and killed deserve the same fate.
Israel air force bombs terrorist bases in Gaza, blasts Palestinian kidnappers' Hebron homes
DEBKAfile Special Report July 1, 2014
Monday night, June 30, the Israeli Air Force bombed 34 Hamas and Jihad Islami facilities in the Gaza Strip while, in the West Bank town of Hebron, soldiers demolished sections of buildings inhabited by the kidnappers who murdered the three Israeli teenagers Eyal Yifrach, Gil-Ad Shaer and Naftali Frenkel.
Their bodies were found during the day abandoned in the field of a Palestinian village after a nerve-wracking 18-day hunt. The Israeli cabinet went into emergency session Monday night after the discovery and will continue sitting Tuesday to decide on fitting punishment for this shocking crime. Meanwhile, air force planes and drones struck 34 empty Hamas and Jihad Islami facilities in the Gaza Strip, from which the terrorists had fled to safety in good time.
debkafile: The ministers and army chiefs knew that the enemy, which kidnapped and murdered the three teens in cold blood, would again escape harm and, worst still, lose none of their capacity to continue harassing southern Israel with a rocket blitz.
And indeed, the Israeli air bombardment was followed immediately by three rockets launched from the Gaza Strip against the Eshkol District. They damaged buildings.
There were no Israeli casualties.
The two Palestinian terrorist groups were making it clear that should Israel intensify its punishment for the boys' murders, they too were fully capable of answering back with heavier and more precise guided rocket strikes against the Israeli population.
debkafile's military sources: Both the IDF and Hamas-Gaza have evidently opted for a controlled confrontation until one of the two adversaries determines how to proceed next. Israel's deliberations continue Tuesday amid pressing demands by Israelis, stunned by the tragedy, for action to hurt the terrorists where it counts and deter them from ever again abducting an Israeli.
The statement Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu issued from the cabinet meeting Monday night was a clear vow: "Hamas is responsible, and Hamas will pay."
On the West Bank, Israeli soldiers early Tuesday razed sections of the Hebron homes of the two Hamas activists, Marwan Qawasmeh, 37, and Omar Abu Aysha, 33, who are held guilty of the kidnap and murder of the three Israeli boys. The attorney general who was first consulted ruled that the demolition of the large dwellings must be confined to the sections inhabited by the two men.
The half a million population of the Hebron district, where the kidnaps and murders took place, has been placed under lockdown for the hunt for the perpetrators, who have not been seen since the kidnapping occurred on June 10.
According to Israeli intelligence, they are still holed up somewhere in this district. At some points, Palestinian youths stormed the soldiers who opened fire to repel them.
Near Jerusalem, an Israeli woman of 21 was rescued from a house in Beit Jallah, which adjoins the Jerusalem suburb of Gilo, claiming she had been snatched by Palestinians. Heavy army and policy forces, moved into this Palestinian location to retrieve her. Her claim is being investigated..
In a separate incident, Israeli soldiers on a counter-terror operation in the Jenin refugee camp further north came under attack. A Palestinian mob hurling firebombs, rocks, explosives and iron bars was broken up when the Israeli soldiers began shooting. One of the assailants was shot dead.
Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas was on the phone to world leaders Monday night and early Tuesday to plead with them to hold Israel, driven to retaliate for the teenagers' murders, in check.
No decisions were reached in Ramallah about the future of the unity government Abbas sealed with Hamas last month.
In his message of condolences to the Israeli nation, US President Barack Obama urged "all parties to "refrain from steps that could further destabilize the situation" and encouraged Israel and the Palestinians "to work together to find those responsible for the crime with US support."
The post Israel air force bombs jihad terrorist bases in Gaza, blasts 'Palestinian' kidnappers' Hebron homes appeared first on Pamela Geller, Atla
Iraq, U.S. Domestic Energy And Rising Gas Prices
by Sam Rolley / Personal Liberty Digest
PHOTOS.COAs many Americans hit the road en route to the perfect spot to celebrate the Fourth of July, their patriotic feelings may give way to grumblings about the foreign policy and energy independence failures of the Nation's leaders in recent decades.
According to AAA, gas prices throughout the U.S. for Fourth of July travel are at an average of about $3.68 per gallon, about 20 cents higher than this time last year.
Gas prices usually fall slightly preceding what has become the Nation's busiest summer travel holiday. But this year the prices are on the rise as the result of the United States' failures to create a stable Iraq in the oil-rich Mideast.
The U.S. imports only about 300,000 barrels of oil per day from Iraq. But as radical extremists make their way across the war-torn country and move into regions dominated by oil production, an already thin global oil supply is being stretched to its limits. High demand for petroleum from China and other rapidly developing nations combined with a standstill in production in oil-producing regions such as Libya, Sudan and Nigeria are also factors that make Iraq's ability to produce petroleum paramount.
Moreover, American petroleum consumers are further forced to pay higher prices at the pump because of U.S. sanctions barring the purchase of petroleum from Iran and Syria.
Currently, extremist Sunni factions in Iraq working under the banner of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) haven't made major inroads into the country's Shiite-dominated southern regions, where the glut of Iraq's oil industry is situated. But ISIS advances in the northern part of the country have shut oil fields and forced companies to evacuate workers from areas that were once considered primed for growth on the heels of the United States' long-standing occupation.
While gas prices in the U.S. are nearing highs that Americans haven't seen since about 2008, some watchers have noted that the situation could be much worse if not for the shale boom that has led to increased U.S. oil production.
"The net amount of crude the U.S. has added to global markets has resulted in one of the longest periods of oil price stability in years, and has helped push the broader trend down," Business Insider's Rob Wile noted last month.
Republican lawmakers have made moves in recent weeks to seize on the energy stability produced by increased domestic oil and natural gas production by passing legislation to expand drilling offshore and on publicly owned lands.
Representative Doc Hastings (R-Wash.), who sponsored the bill, said the legislation was an effort to force the Barack Obama Administration to remove "roadblocks" to U.S. energy production.
"In order for America to prosper, we need access to reliable and affordable energy," Hastings, chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, said in a statement. "The best way to create jobs and help address rising prices is to develop the American energy resources we have right here at home."
Other lawmakers are focused on combating energy price spikes, especially those stemming from the current Iraq crisis, by compelling the oil market regulators at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to tamp down on Wall Street speculation of commodity prices.
"I am getting tired of big oil companies and Wall Street speculators using Iraq as an excuse to pump up oil and gas prices," Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said last week.
Posted by Diane Sori at 11:34 AM 1 comment: Links to this post
Op-ed:
The 'Constitution-Free' zone is anything but constitutional
"When you go into business in this country today you do NOT give up your moral conscious."
- Part of the Supreme Court ruling in favor of Hobby Lobby
Ending the biggest assault by any administration on religious freedom, 'We the People' won two battles yesterday as the Supreme Court ruled in favor of both Hobby Lobby and that caretakers do NOT have to join or pay unions so they can take care of loved ones at home.
Two battles won but there are so many more to go before our beloved America is set right again, and one battle that looms large as it affects our welfare system, our healthcare system, and our economy is our unsealed southern border situation... especially in Texas.
Texas has become hell...literally...as Obama sits back and smiles because for him everything is about votes...future Democratic votes. We all know this is his true motive as he does NOT give a damn about these people per se only about what they can do for the party. And he knows they're willing to sell their souls by way of their votes so as NOT to bite the hand that feeds them. But there are things kept hidden by this administration that concerns NOT only those crossing our borders but how their doing so affects each and every one of us.
First, what's happening now is that America is being assaulted by an influx of ILLEGAL criminals...YES criminals...crossing our southern border. Called 'undocumented immigrants' by the media these folks...even the children...do NOT deserve that moniker because they're criminals by their very act of crossing into our country without following our immigration laws...meaning they've broken our laws to get here. And if you break our laws you're a criminal...as the meaning of the word criminal is that you've done something ILLEGAL.
However, doing something ILLEGAL is NOT just a catch-phrase for those crossing our borders, it also applies to the questionable activities of the Obama administration...and questionable includes keeping from public knowledge ILLEGALITIES done in reference to those crossing ILLEGALLY.
Now here's something few are aware of although it was mentioned fleetingly some years back on FOX...something regarding the extent to which the Obama administration monitors, collects information about us, and trashes our Constitution. It seems in 2009, the DHS...which is charged with securing our nation's borders... announced it would conduct a 'Civil Liberties Impact Assessment' of its in-place 'suspicionless' search-and-seizure policy...and what's in place encompasses the entirety of the United States. Claiming it was done in the name of national security...the DHS made-up what's called the 'border zone'...a zone that stretch 100-miles inland from every coast and from our northern and southern borders, including where U.S. land meets oceans in addition to recognized borders with Mexico and Canada. Legally, the 100-mile border zone is called the 'extended border' of the U.S., as defined by Title 8 of the Federal Code of Regulations that deals with "Aliens and Nationality."
There's also something called the 'functional equivalent border,' which encompasses areas around international airports within the interior region of the U.S. And this spreading into the interior is part of a broad expansion of border powers with the potential to affect the lives of we ordinary Americans who have NEVER left the country let alone tried to enter it. So with that the DHS has now set themselves above the Constitution and done so by making, setting, and enforcing their own rules.
And get this...within the border zone the DHS can search your electronic belongings for NO reason whatsoever...and NO reason whatsoever is buried within their own DHS regulations as long as three criteria are met: first, a person must have recently crossed a border meaning if they're already here they become exempt; second, an agent should know that the object of a search hasn't changed; and third that 'reasonable suspicion' of a criminal activity must exist...yet ignoring that crossing the border ILLEGALLY is a criminal activity in and of itself.
Bottom line...as a result of the DHS created 100-mile border zone, there are now almost 200 million people living within this zone, including those in New York City, Houston, Los Angeles, and Philadelphia. In addition, the DHS made it so that they can 'overrule' the Fourth Amendment...which mandates that a search or seizure done by a government agent must be 'reasonable'...NO matter that the courts have construed Fourth Amendment 'reasonableness' as requiring probable cause and a judicially granted warrant. And the DHS can now also 'overrule' the First and Second Amendments within that 100-mile border zone, initiating what amounts to a Constitutional crisis for the Supreme Court has recognized several exceptions to certain Constitutional amendments, one of which is the border search exception within said zone.
Oh really...
Enter center stage the ubber liberal American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) who surprise of all surprises honored the rule of the law...the law as laid down in the Constitution...saying that any regulation allowing customs and immigration agents to search electronic devices at America's borders without 'just cause' was, is, and will always remain wrong. And least people forget, two years earlier the ACLU tried to warn us that the 100-mile border...dubbed by the DHS as a 'Constitution-Free' zone'...was going to be put in place. But did we listen...NO we did NOT as the media...except for the brief mention on FOX...hushed it up for obvious reasons.
And of course the DHS then countered the ACLU by saying that according to legal precedence... District Judge Edward Korman's upholding of the Obama administration policy granting officials the authority to search American's laptops and other electronics including cell phones...citing a controversial premise that makes citizens within 100 miles of the border eligible for a police check...basically meaning that the Fourth Amendment does not apply along the border zone. Saying that customs and immigration agents can "exercise long-standing constitutional and statutory authority permitting suspicionless and warrantless searches of merchandise at the border and its functional equivalent," the DHS grossly overstepped their bounds as far as 'We the People' are concerned.
So as we come full circle at the borders...militia groups are now gathering at the border to do the job border agents can't do or simply won't do...can't do because they're overwhelmed by the numbers of people crossing the border...or won't do as they know they can't stop the influx of ILLEGALS entering our country because our president does NOTHING to stop them...instead encouraging more to come.
And as for the ILLEGALS...especially in regards to the children being shipped to areas within the 'Constitution-Free' zone...within the100-mile border zone...they cannot be touched...meaning they cannot be deported as this exception from searches and deportation was made part of the 'Immigration and Nationality Act.' So ILLEGALS get protection from being searched and/or deported but 'We the People' get NO such protection.
And so it seems U.S. laws are NOT in effect in the 'Constitution-Free' zone...NOT the First, Second, or Fourth Amendments. And with the Border Patrol NOT doing what they're supposed to do...what their job dictates they do...as in detect and prevent ILLEGAL aliens, terrorists, and terrorist weapons from entering the U.S., along with preventing ILLEGAL trafficking of people and contraband. But trafficking is exactly what the Obama administration does when shipping ILLEGAL children off to Arizona...and our border agents can't do a damn thing as they've been delegated to changing the diapers of these ILLEGAL criminal children swarming our borders.
So as more of our civil liberties erode away...especially if you live in a border state within the 100-mile zone...you have more to fear from your government than those entering our country ILLEGALLY...and sadly that's how it is in today's America.
Posted by Diane Sori at 12:00 AM 21 comments: Links to this post
Labels: 100-mile border zone, 4th Amendment, ACLU, Barack HUSSEIN Obama, Constitution-Free Zone, Democratic votes, DHS, ILLEGALS, Immigration and Nationality Act, southern border, suspicionless search and seizure, Texas
They Lost China, and Iran,...
Robert Spencer in Truth Revolt: The Free World's W...
Israel air force bombs jihad terrorist bases in Ga...
Iraq, U.S. Domestic Energy And Rising Gas Pricesby...
Op-ed: The 'Constitutio...