Are we witnessing the end of Syria?

French Mandate of SyriaReuters has a report on how Quds Force Commander Gen. Soliemani mapped out Russian involvement to save beleaguered Syrian President Bashar Assad, “How Iranian general plotted out Syrian assault in Moscow.”  The strategy unraveling now is a joint air and ground assault to carve out an Alawite bastion in Western and Northwestern Syria ejecting CIA and Coalition-trained opposition, Al Qaeda Al Nusrah Front and Free Syrian Army forces. The air assault to date has focused on attacking these units in a strategic line north out of Damascus. The ground component is composed of fresh Revolutionary Guards and Hezbollah units. The Russian air assault contingent based in Latakia province is being bolstered by Russian “volunteers” a page out of Putin’s playbook for seizure of the Crimea and invasion of Eastern Ukraine. In the absence of significant US trained Sunni opposition contingents in this scenario; it would appear that Syria may devolve into a series of sectarian cantons akin to the  French Mandate for Syria granted by the League of Nations in the early 1920’s.

The objective of Iran is to build a virtual Shia crescent from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean coast including bringing in Shia extremist Imams and resettling  Shia refugees from Afghanistan and Pakistan in Syrian areas depopulated of Sunnis and Christians. The Alawites, who are secular, are troubled by this development and many have fled abroad. The Kurds have their de facto canton in Northeastern Syria abutting the Kurdish Regional Government in neighboring Iraq.

Turkey is clearly upset with the Russian presence in Syria, as is NATO, while the US is clearly dithering on what to do. Once again Obama has been outfoxed by Soliemani and Putin. That leaves allies like Israel, the Saudis and the Emirates seeking alternatives for their own sovereign protection. The Saudis and Emirates are talking about a jihad akin to that they funded in Afghanistan with CIA and Pakistan’s ISI in a secret war in the 1980’s that led to the rout of the Soviet 40th Army and gave rise to Bin Laden’s Al Qaeda.

A Der Spiegel article, “The Iranian Project: Why Assad Has Turned to Moscow for Helpportrays  President Bashar al-Assad as caught in a dilemma; “fear of friends”, meaning Iran versus “fear of opposition.”That former fear stems from reliance on Iran Revolutionary Guards, Shia auxiliaries from Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Sadr Brigade in Iraq and Shia fighters from Afghanistan and  Pakistan. They are under the command of Quds Force Commander Soliemani and make up for the decimation and desertions of draftees from the Syrian National Defense Forces. Iran’s intention is to build an Islamic Revolutionary State within  the areas along the Mediterranean coast and Mountains of Northwest Syria. To that end Iran has sent in radical Imams to create Shia religious centers directed at conversion of secular Alawites and Sunnis causing them to flee the country.  Thus, Assad has welcomed the Russia military assistance as Putin has allegedly no such interests in the current campaign, excepting protecting Russian interests in naval and military bases, as well as offshore gas developments.

Note these excerpts:

“Assad and those around him are afraid of the Iranians,” the Russian says. Anger over the arrogance of the Iranians, who treat Syria like a colony, is also part of it, the Russian continues. Most of all, though, the Syrians “mistrust Tehran’s goals, for which Assad’s position of power may no longer be decisive. That is why the Syrians absolutely want us in the country.”

Tehran’s goals go far beyond merely reestablishing the status quo in Syria. In early 2013, Hojatoleslam Mehdi Taeb, one of the planners behind Iran’s engagement in Syria, said: “Syria is the 35th province of Iran and it is a strategic province for us.” For several decades, the alliance between the Assads and Iran was a profitable one, particularly in opposition to the Iraq of Saddam Hussein, which long had the upper hand in the region. But today, Assad depends on Iran to remain in power, and Tehran is taking advantage of the situation.

It is, however, primarily in the civilian sector where significant changes are afoot. Just as in Damascus, Latakia and Jabla, increasing numbers of hosseiniehs — Shiite religious teaching centers — are opening. The centers are aimed at converting Sunnis, and even the Alawites, the denomination to which the Assads belong, to “correct” Shiite Islam by way of sermons and stipends. In addition, the government decreed one year ago that state-run religion schools were to teach Shiite material.

All of this is taking place to the consternation of the Alawites, who have begun to voice their displeasure. “They are throwing us back a thousand years. We don’t even wear headscarves and we aren’t Shiites,” Alawites complained on the Jableh News Facebook page. There were also grumblings when a Shiite mosque opened in Latakia and an imam there announced: “We don’t need you. We need your children and grandchildren.”

Talib Ibrahim, an Alawite communist from Masyaf who fled to the Netherlands many years ago, summarizes the mood as follows: “Assad wants the Iranians as fighters, but increasingly they are interfering ideologically with domestic affairs. The Russians don’t do that.”

Putin may have been prompted by Quds Force Commander Soliemani to aid mutual client Assad because he saw an opportunity to make a power play against the US in the region.  However, the secular Ba’athist Syrian tradition has been virtually suborned by the influx of Iranian Revolutionary Guards ‘and Shia proxies’ with the objective of creating a Khomeinist Revolutionary state. The confluence of those opposing interests, secular and religious, may ultimate end the decades’ long rule of the Assad family. That might lead to an ultimate apocalyptic conflict in Syria between nuclear equipped Shia Iran and the Sunni Salafist Islamic State.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in the New English Review.

VIDEO: Tens of thousands rally against Islamization in Germany

Not everyone in Europe is taking the massive refugee influx with alacrity and smearing as “racist” those who don’t want to see the continent overwhelmed and Islamized. This video gives you an idea of the scale of the pushback. Thanks to Marc.

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“Muslim Warriors” populate United Nations camps that U.S. gets it’s refugees from

Last week the Washington Examiner published a lengthy piece by Jonathan Foreman entitled, ‘Does foreign aid really do good?’ It addresses in great detail what we already know—mostly ‘humanitarian aid’ is a waste of money!

We take the majority of our Syrian refugees from UN camps!

I urge you to read it all, however, below is one section I wanted to highlight because: the U.S. State Department is taking the vast majority of UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) refugee referrals from those camps— Zaatari is one of them.

BTW, I see a lot of misunderstanding in the mainstream media. We will not be taking very many of the migrants who have invaded Europe (except perhaps a few from places like Malta where we are breaking the law by bringing their illegal aliens here).  The majority of our refugees are first “screened” by the UN elsewhere—like in Jordan.

Last I heard the UNHCR had 17,000 in a pipeline to America.

Remember, UN camps for Syrians are populated primarily by Sunni Muslims (ISIS and Al-Qaeda are Sunnis).  Therefore, we are taking mostly Muslim Syrians and not the Christians.

This is what caught my eye (emphasis is mine):

There are many other examples of conflict being fomented and prolonged by those housing and aiding refugees, accidentally or deliberately. Refugee warriors, as some have called them, operating from the sanctuary of camps established by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and others, have created mayhem everywhere from the Thai-Cambodia border to Central America and the Middle East.

Sometimes aid agencies have allowed this to happen as a result of ignorance. Sometimes it’s a matter of Red-Cross-style humanitarian ideology taken to the edge: a conviction that even the guilty need to be fed or a belief that providing security in refugee camps would be an abandonment of neutrality. And sometimes it’s because those providing aid are supporting one side in a conflict. The U.S. and Western countries did so from Pakistan during the Soviet-Afghan war.

For decades, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan allowed or encouraged Palestinian refugee camps to become bases for guerrilla and terrorist activity. This should make it clear that the aid world’s traditional ways of dealing with refugee flows are inadequate. Even purely civilian camps such as Zaatari, the sea of tented misery in Jordan that houses a million Syrians, quickly became hotbeds of radicalism and sinkholes of crime and violence, not least because they are unpoliced and because they are filled with working age men with nothing to do.

Read it all here.

They are leaving Zaatari!

There is an AP story yesterday about how ‘refugees’ are leaving Zaatari.  Some are going back to Syria and some are headed to (you guessed it!) Europe.

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EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is of Zaatari known as hotbed of radicalism and sinkhole of crime and violence.

Bill Maher, Richard Dawkins slam Left for giving Islam “free pass” despite Muslim terrorism

What is noteworthy about this is how selective and one-sided Maher and Dawkins are. They’re all upset about the Marxist anti-Semite Maryam Namazie being banned from speaking at a university because of her views on Islam, but have never said a word while for years Pamela Geller and I and others who tell the same truths about Islam that Namazie tells (and more consistently than she does because we do not support the “Palestinian” jihad as she does) have received the same treatment from universities and other venues. Maher and Dawkins would never think of speaking out on our behalf because they would likely think of us as “right-wing bigots” — as Sam Harris last year dismissed critics of jihad terror besides himself and his friends as “fascists.”

What Maher, Dawkins and Harris don’t seem to realize is that they only think of us as “fascists” because the same Leftist/Islamic supremacist smear machine (including their pal Namazie) that is now going after them for their “bigotry” has for years defamed us in exactly the same way, for saying essentially the same things they do about Islam. We are “right-wing” because the smear machine has called us “right-wing” for years — when I have never taken a public position on anyissue other than those involving jihad and Sharia, and the claim that defending free societies against jihad terror and Islamic supremacism is a right-wing issue, or constitutes “fascism,” is a media fiction.

I expect that Maher, Dawkins, and Harris wouldn’t be caught dead in the company of Pamela Geller or me, even though we note the same truths they do and defend the same freedoms they’re defending. That is testimony only to the effectiveness of the defamation campaign that has now turned against them, for the same reason its organizers targeted us. And as long as their indignation about the threat to the freedom of speech and the hollow truncheon of the “Islamophobia” charge remains restricted only to those on the Left, it remains inconsistent and hypocritical.

“Bill Maher, Richard Dawkins Slam Liberals for Giving Islam ‘Free Pass’ Despite Link to Terrorism,” by Stoyan Zaimov, Christian Post, October 5, 2015:

Two of the most famous atheists in the world, HBO host Bill Maher and evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, slammed liberals who they say are giving Islam a “free pass,” despite the human rights abuses being committed in Muslim countries and by Islamic extremist groups around the world today.

Dawkins was a guest on Maher’s “Real Time” on Friday, where Maher said it is “ridiculous” that some make out Muslims to be a “protected species.”

Dawkins added that people sometimes believe that those criticizing Muslims are racists.

Maher and Dawkins both took aim at liberals they said would shoot down free speech in order to protect Muslim sensitivities. Dawkins pointed out the case of Warwick University’s students’ union declining atheist and critic of extremist Islam Maryam Namazie the opportunity to speak at the school in October, out of fear of offending the religion.

Maher has himself faced push-back for his own university appearances, with University of California at Berkeley students starting a petition last year seeking to bar the HBO host from speaking at 2014’s fall commencement ceremony, due to his “racist” views on Muslims.

“If you can’t speak your mind at a university campus, where can you? I mean that’s what universities are about. It’s about free speech,” Dawkins said.

“So they think that if you you criticize Islam you’re being racist and you’re absolutely right that the regressive [liberals] give a free pass to Islam,” the atheist author continued. “They’re kind of right about everything else, I mean, they’re right about misogyny and all of the other good things. But in the case of Islam, it just gets a free pass and I think it is because of the terror of being thought racist.”

Maher added that those who criticize Islam are also called “Islamophobes,” which he said was a “silly word that means nothing.”

Maher, Dawkins, and other atheist authors, such as Sam Harris, have been criticized by religious commentators, such as Reza Aslan, for blaming Islam for the rise of terrorism….

Aslan added that such anti-theists get their ideas “from the most simplistic, the most unsophisticated and the most knee-jerk reaction to the very real problem of religious violence around the world,” and argued that it is “nothing less than idiotic to blame religion for religious violence without recognizing the multiple factors that are involved in violence of any sort.”

“Multiple factors” are “involved in violence of any sort.” This from a man who accused Pamela Geller and me of complicity in a murder that was initially blamed on “Islamophobia” but that turned out to be an Islamic honor killing. Aslan, of course, refused to retract.

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Another Temple Mount Intifada?

The Jewish religious calendar of the Days of Awe started with Rosh Hashanah, continued with  Yom Kippur and the harvest festival of Sukkot  ending with Simchat Torah-the celebration of Ha Shem’s gift of the torah.  In Israel  it has been the scene of daily violence and pitched battles on the Temple Mount between rock and Molotov cocktail throwing Palestinian protesters and Israel security and border police. This period of Jewish religious observance sorrowfully culminated in a murderous Palestinian spectacle in both Samaria and yesterday in Jerusalem.

Naama and Rabbi Eitam Henkin

Naama and Rabbi Eitam Henkin

Thursday, Palestinian terrorists committed a random drive by shooting murdering Rabbi Eitam and Naama Henkin z”l (of blessed memory)  from the community of Neira in their car while traveling on the road between Itamar and Elon Moreh in Samaria. She was killed instantly by the wanton gunfire. Rabbi Eitam Henkin  heroically opened his door to shield the couple’s four sons, ages  9 to less than three months  in the back seat,  later succumbing to his  mortal wounds. When the vehicle with its flashing emergency  lights  and a door open  was approached  by an Israeli paramedic one of the older Henkin surviving boys screamed, “they murdered my parents. “ Rabbi Eitam and Naama Henkin were American Olim from a respected Orthodox family.

The One Family Fund began an emergency appeal for support of the four orphaned and traumatized Henkin boys who are now in the care of their grandmother.  The Palestinians ‘celebrated’ this heinous crime.  Israel National News reported that Friday, October 2, 2015, thousands attended the funeral s of Rabbi Eitam and Naama Henkin who were interred in Jerusalem’s Har Hamenuchot Cemetery  located near the western entrance to the capital city.

From  New York,  Prime Minister Netanyahu excoriated Palestinian President Abbas, condemning him for his silence. This was in the wake of a speech by Abbas suggesting that Israel hadn’t implemented the Oslo Accords in effect  justifying non –observance of prevailing agreements. Of course, the UN  lent its tacit support by agreeing to raise the flag of the Palestinian Authority at the UN.  The PA  has never been admitted as a full member , although it holds observer non-state status, enabling it to avail itself of membership in a number of UN organizations and treaties including access to International Courts.

Rabbis Nehemia Lavi and Aharon Bennett z”l

Rabbis Nehemia Lavi and Aharon Bennett z”l

Then Saturday, we had another burst of Palestinian terrorism. The murders of two Rabbis Nehemia Lavi and Aharon Bennett near the Lion’s Gate in Jerusalem stabbed to shouts of “allahu akbar” all while recorded on security cameras. A news release from the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs noted what occurred:

At around 7:30 p.m. on Saturday evening (October 3, 2015), a knife-wielding Arab attacked Rabbi Aharon Bennett, his wife, their 2-year-old son and baby daughter who were on their way to pray at the Western Wall in Jerusalem’s Old City. Rabbi Nehemia Lavi, an Old City resident and IDF reserve officer, went down with his gun to try and save those wounded by the Arab terrorist in the attack, but the terrorist stabbed him and seized his weapon. Border Police forces stationed nearby shot and killed the attacker. ?

Israel Hayom reported, “15-year-old Moshe Malka sustained moderate wounds in another Jerusalem stabbing attack.”   The State Department issued a statement requesting calm by all parties involved.

In the wake of Saturday’s  murderous events in Jerusalem  PM Netanyahu scheduled a meeting with his Security Cabinet for Monday.  From New York he said:

Israel is waging an all-out war on Palestinian terrorism. This battle must be fought with determination and focus. We are increasing our prevention and punitive measures. We all feel outraged, but we have to let the IDF, Shin Bet and police fight terrorism, and no one should take the law into their own hands.

Could we be witnessing another Temple Mount Intifada?  Saeb Erekat, PA senior negotiator said it looks like the beginning of a Third Intifada, so did the perpetrator of the Jerusalem murders.  The Times of Israel (TOI) reported, 19 year old Muhannad Halabi posting the day before the attack on his Facebook page, “The Third Intifada is here”.

As Israel Hayom noted, Israel security officials made references to an all out campaign against Palestinian terrorism in Judea and Samaria akin to Operation Defense Shield during the Second Intifada:

A source privy to consultations held by top government officials over the past few days said that if the Palestinians “want a third intifada they will end up with a second Operation Defensive Shield. Steps will be taken on the ground to undermine Hamas infrastructure.”

Operation Defensive Shield, waged in 2002, was a large-scale military campaign targeting Palestinian terrorist infrastructure across Judea and Samaria in an effort to stave off increasingly deadly attacks.

Following Saturday’s attack, which came amid growing tensions in Jerusalem and a series of violent riots on the Temple Mount, the defense establishment decided to limit access to Al-Aqsa Mosque to Muslim worshippers aged 50 and over, who will be allowed to enter the compound through the Lions’ Gate only. No restrictions have been placed on Muslim women’s access to the compound.

Access for Jews and Muslims alike to the volatile holy site is often restricted for security reasons.

The Second or Temple Mount Intifada was fomented by the late Yasser Arafat emboldened by two events in 2000: the pell mell IDF withdrawal from the Southern Lebanon Security zone creating a vacuum for Shia Hezbollah to move in and his rejection of a peace deal at Camp David proposed by then PM Ehud Barack with the support of former President Clinton. Arafat triggered the uprising to coincide with the visit by the late PM Ariel Sharon to the Temple Mount on September 28, 2000.

Operation Defensive Shield began in earnest after the March 27, 2002 suicide bombing by Hamas of the Park Hotel in Netanya hosting a Passover Seder with largely elderly holocaust survivors. 30 civilians were killed and 140 were injured, the most casualties in the worst single event during Operation Defense Shield. It began on March 29, 2002 with Israeli tanks mounting a siege of Yasser Arafat in the Mukata in Ramallah. The IDF engaged in urban warfare in Palestinian major towns in the Samaria and the West Bank, withdrawing in May 2002 with cordons of these communities remaining during the Second Intifada. In one operation alone in Jenin 23 IDF soldiers were killed in close quarter attacks with armed Palestinian terrorists. The Second intifada went on for nearly five years. Arafat, the first PA president died in a French hospital before the end of the Second Intifada in  November 2004. He was succeeded by Mahmoud Abbas elected for a four year term in 2005 now serving in his 11th year.  According to the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism  Israeli casualties during the Second Intifada were 731 civilian and 231 IDF service personnel. The Israeli security fence  was constructed resulted in reducing terrorist attacks from the disputied terroritories.

The rise of murderous Palestinian terrorism during the Days of Awe comes amidst the entry of Iranian Revolutionary Guards units and Russian forces in neighboring Syria and cross border exchanges with Assad regime forces on the Golan. There are also allegations that some of the current Palestinian terrorist actions may involve Fatah, Hamas and Iranian proxy Palestinian Islamic Jihad.  A further complicating element has been the castigation of Israel security and border police  actions on the Temple Mount by Jordan’s King Abdullah II, the patron of the Jordanian religious leaders of the Waqf that control the Al Aksa Mosque complex. The late Moshe Dayan in the immediate aftermath of the liberation of Jerusalem in the June 1967 Six Days of War granted control of the Mosque complex atop the temple Mount to the Jordanian Waqf.  Adding  his voice to the chorus of fundamentalist  Muslim objections to Israel controlling security of the Temple Mount was Ayatollah Khamenei objecting to the ‘Zionist enterprise’ defending the security and access to this spiritual center of the Jewish nation of Israel.  Stay tuned for developments.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in the New English Review.

The Consequences of ‘Checking Out’: America’s absent strategy as Syria collapses

The Syrian conflict has taken many unpredictable turns over its terrible four years. But the developments this week are some of the most concerning so far.

Syria has always been not only a domestic civil war but also a place where regional powers have struggled with each other to promote and prop up their own interests. This seemed to be tolerable to much of the West when the countries vying with each other in Syria were Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, the Gulf States and others. But the arrival of Russia in an open, rather than covert, manner changes things completely.

Because Russia is now openly involved and engaged in seeing the civil war to the end they have always wanted, and just as Turkey has used air strikes purportedly against Isis to in fact engage in their war against the Kurdish PKK, so Russia, under the guise of pursuing Isis, has clearly been carrying out its own sectarian, pro-Assad business.

In all of this America has been not so much a bit player as an absent player. The most powerful military on earth appears to be barely semi-engaged. This is a simple result of the fact that US political will is disengaged. It does not help that some American lawmakers now propose jumping in as though out of pique – an ‘everyone else is engaged so why shouldn’t we be’ attitude. The problem is not being ‘left out’. The problem is having no strategy.

The situation we now see in Syria is a demonstration of what happens when America checks out. The one hour notice that the Russians gave the Americans before bombing  spoke volumes: the diplomatic equivalent of a courtesy call. But the answer to the pile-in in Syria is not to join it to no end. The answer is to weigh up our military alternatives based on a clear set of political aims. Some Americans may be tired of being the world’s policemen. But leaving the job to the Russians is not an option.


mendozahjs

FROM THE DIRECTOR’S DESK

It’s been a while since I have been able to say this in an international affairs context, but British pride and acknowledgement of doing the right thing have been restored this week courtesy of an extraordinary exchange between Prime Minister David Cameron and U.S. President Barack Obama at the United Nations.

Chairing the the U.N. Leaders’ Summit on Countering ISIL and Violent Extremism, Mr Obama stated “Violent extremism is not unique to any one faith, so no one should ever be profiled or targeted simply because of their faith.” Only to find that Mr Cameron was pugnacious in response, agreeing with the basic premise but then calling out the President for not naming the biggest problem in this regard today: “Barack, you are quite right, that every religion has its extremists, but we have to be frank that the biggest problem we have today is the Islamist extremist violence that has given birth to ISIL, to Al Shabaab to Al Nusra, Al Qaeda and so many other groups.”

Nor was Cameron finished there. Speaking about the linear development for those who progressed from extremism to acts of terrorism, he continued “They have extremist views and an extremist mindset before they make that final decision to be an extremist terrorist. We have to stop this process at the start, not at the end. We also need to challenge the extremist worldview right at the very start.” This even elicited a response from Obama, who agreed that “violent extremism is emerging out of an extremist worldview that has to be counteracted.”

We should not under-estimate the significance of these comments. Firstly, they indicate that the path which Mr Cameron entered on before the summer – of identifying Islamist extremism as being as much a problem of extremist ideology as extremist violence – is one that he intends to continue taking.

But that as importantly, by taking the lead so publicly on this issue when the US President demurred and then having had some impact on his thinking, Mr Cameron gives us hope that where Britain leads, the US may yet follow. Our disastrous counter-extremism policy of the mid 2000s was emulated across the Atlantic, so why not a more promising variant, particularly as a change of US administration looms in 2016?

Whatever the future, I can assure you that one thing will remain not subject to chance. Just as HJS has spent the past few years raising awareness of the threat Islamist extremism poses to our societies and worldwide, you can be certain that we will spend the next few helping those leaders determined to make policy changes to find the best way of doing so.

Dr Alan Mendoza is Executive Director of The Henry Jackson Society
Follow Alan on Twitter: @AlanMendoza

RELATED ARTICLE: The Moscow-Washington-Tehran Axis Of Evil

What is your Religion?

On 26 Nov 2008 at a tourist hotel in Mumbai India, a group of Islamic terrorists murdered 266 innocent people and injured over 250 more.  Their common question to the tourist’s at the hotel was “What is Your Religion”?  Christians and Jews were murdered because of their religion.  Muslim for the most part were allowed to live. Islamic terrorist’s Murder Jews and Christians

On 1 Oct 2015, Chris Harper-Mercer entered a community college in Oregon and murdered 9 people and injured many more.  He asked students, “What is Your Religion”?  Article by Pamela Geller Oregon Shooter Islamic Ties

Have you heard any discussion on the major news outlets about Chris Harper-Mercer’s religion or his ties to Jihad support?  Have you heard any Oregon law enforcement discussing Harper-Mercer’s ties to Islam?  Anything from the FBI or our pseudo President Obama?  No and you will hear little of anything about Harper-Mercer’s ties to Islam and his support of jihad (murder) against non Muslims at the Oregon community college.  You will only get such information from great people like Pamela Geller.

America will continue to have Islamic supporters murder our children in their schools for many years to come.  I have written several articles since 2003 about Islamic terrorists who have openly stated they will target our children in America.

What can be done.  In reality very little can be done to prevent these type murders because our senior law enforcement and politicians led by America’s number one Islamic supporter (Obama) will not allow common sense security measures to be implemented.

It is common sense that if one military force has an enormous supply of weapons and the other side has virtually none, the more heavily armed will conquer their foe.  This is why we give billions of dollars to Iraq and Syrian rebels.  We want them to be on the same playing field and have an equal chance of defeating ISIS in Iraq and Syria.

The same common sense concept needs to be applied in America.  Instead of limiting the number of people and guns that American citizens can own and legally carry/store in their homes and to be allowed to carry openly and concealed in public must increase.  Obama and the media (to include FOX News) will never advocate or encourage every lawful American over the age of 18 to carry a firearm with them at all times.  This means at schools, work, sporting events, and yes even our military on U.S. bases and recruiting centers.  Seems strange we should even have to discuss U.S. military personnel being allowed to be armed in America.  Seems common sense to me.

The vast majority of Americans are law abiding and the number of mass murderers are minimal.  If every lawful student in the Oregon college had a firearm do you think the murderer would have been able to kill nine and injure even more?  If criminals knew every American homeowner had firearms, every student in higher education schools had a firearm, every person in a bank had a firearm, every person at a sporting event had firearms, and every teacher and administrators in our elementary and high schools had firearms, do you think they would second guess themselves before planning a criminal act using a firearm.  Of course they would.

Islamic based terrorists and their supporters at all levels will continue to attack and murder innocent Christians and Jews around the world, and yes there will be more school type attacks in America.  Unfortunately there will continue to be Islamic terrorist supporters at the top level of our political chain who will continue to provide more rights for Muslims than they will for Christians and Jews.

America needs a leader who is strong such as Russia’s President Putin.  We need someone such as Donald Trump, otherwise America will fall just as Rome fell many years ago.

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German Minister: Islamic State fighters sneaking into country with Muslim refugees

Those who doubt what Thomas de Maiziere says here should remember that last February the Islamic State said it would soon flood Europe with as many as 500,000 refugees. And an Islamic State operative recently boasted that among the flood of refugees, 4,000 Islamic State jihadis had entered Europe. “They are going like refugees,” he said, but they were going with the plan of sowing blood and mayhem on European streets. As he told this to journalists, he smiled and said, “Just wait.” He explained: “It’s our dream that there should be a caliphate not only in Syria but in all the world, and we will have it soon, inshallah.” Shortly after that, the Lebanese Education Minister said that there were 20,000 jihadis among the refugees in camps in his country. Also, 80% of the migrants who claim to be fleeing the war in Syria aren’t actually from Syria at all. Why would these “refugees” think they had to come to Europe on false pretenses?

“ISIS may be active in refugee camps: German minister,” Press Trust of India, October 3, 2015 (thanks to Lookmann):

Islamic State militants have been sneaking into Germany mingling with tens of thousands of asylum-seekers arriving in this country, according to German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere.

Germany’s intelligence services have regularly received inputs about attempts by ISIS militants or other radical islamist groups to smuggle their people into the country and this heightened fears that there may be terrorists among the refugees, he said.

The secret services, however, have no concrete indication that extremists having orders to carry out attacks are among the migrants, even though “such a danger is always a possibility,” he said yesterday during a visit to the federal police force headquarters in Wiesbaden, near Frankfurt.

He also spoke of the threat posed to Germany’s internal security by extremist Islamic organisations such as salafists who try to radicalise the refugees by indoctrinating them in their reception centres to “use them for their purposes.”

Intelligence agencies have information that these groups are trying to recruit fighters for the war in Iraq and in Syria and very often, minors are their targets, he said.

Around 790 jihadists from Germany have already travelled to that region to join the ISIS forces, he said.

He said a vast majority of the refugees coming into Germany are in need of help and therefore it will be very inappropriate to treat all of them with suspicion of terrorism….

Germany’s interior ministry estimates that more than 60,000 refugees have entered the country since the beginning of this year and for the whole year it expects their number would go up to 800,000….

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Dealing with Putin: “Bomb Assad; Arm Ukraine”

Dr. Michael Rubin, Resident Scholar at the Washington, DC, American Enterprise Institute will be one of our guests on the Lisa Benson Show, Sunday, October 4th. He is the author of Dancing with the Devil:  the Perils of Engaging with Rogue RegimesWe published both a review of Dancing with the Devils and an interview with Rubin in the March 2014 New English Review. The introduction to our interview noted:

We met Rubin in 2005 when he returned to Yale to discuss his experience as a former Pentagon official on Iran and Iraq who also served as a political advisor to the Provisional Coalition Authority. He spoke about the emergence of the nuclear Iran threat under the “reformist” regime in Tehran led by Ayatollah Khatami. See Rubin’s background and blog at the AEI website, here and here. Our interview with Rubin ranged across an array of prevailing issues. Among these are the Iranian nuclear and ICBM threat and Putin’s great game of one sided politics in the Middle East and Eastern Europe. He also addressed Pakistan’s tolerance of terrorism and the lack of US support for the Kurds in both Iraq and Syria. He criticized the folly of the Administration’s support of Turkey under Premier Erdogan and the folly of its lead in the Final Status negotiations with the Palestinians imperiling Israel’s security.

As regards Putin and his current demarche to the Administration in Syria this exchange with Rubin from our interview illustrates how clear-eyed was his response:

Gordon:  How dangerous to American interests is Russian President Putin’s great game strategy in the Middle East?

Rubin:  Very. The problem is that Americans tend to see diplomacy as a means to compromise, a win-win solution. However, Putin sees international relations as a zero-sum game in which for Russia to win, everyone else must lose. When Neville Chamberlain goes up against Machiavelli, Machiavelli wins.

Rubin published in Commentary Magazine on October 2, 2015 some prescriptions on how to deal with Putin, “Bomb Assad; Arm Ukraine”.  Doubtless President Obama would aver, given his White House press conference yesterday.

Note what Obama said in response to a question from CBS Chief White House Correspondent Major Garrett regarding his former Secretary of State and Democrat presidential hopeful, Hillary’s Clinton’s change of heart on Syria in this Breitbart News report:

President Obama found himself in a bit of a conundrum after he denounced critics of his Syria policy as being full of “mumbo jumbo” and “half-baked ideas.”

In response, CBS reporter Major Garrett questioned Obama whether Hillary Clinton’s proposal to enforce a no-fly zone in Syria was a half-baked idea.

“Hillary Clinton is not half-baked in terms of her approach to these problems,” Obama said carefully, reminding reporters she served in his administration as Secretary of State.

But Obama pointed out that Clinton’s rhetoric on Syria is merely campaign rhetoric.

“I also think that there’s a difference between running for president and being president,” he said carefully, pointing out that he was having specific discussions with his military advisors about the right way forward in Syria.

“If and when she’s president, then she’ll make those judgments and she’s been there enough that she knows that, you know, these are tough calls,” he said.

Clinton broke with the White House on Syria, calling for a “no-fly zone” in Syria to protect Syrian citizens in an interview with a Boston TV station on Thursday.

dr michael rubin

Dr. Michael Rubin, Resident Scholar, American Enterprise Institute.

Here is what Rubin wrote in his Commentary column, “Bomb”:

Russia’s deployment to Syria — and its decision to bomb almost exclusively — more moderate Syrians and those who have received U.S. assistance has thrown down the gauntlet. It’s not just a matter of Syria, anymore. Vladimir Putin is showing the world President Obama’s impotence, and convincing every U.S. ally across the globe from Egypt to Estonia and from Kenya to Korea that they would have to be crazy to cast their lot with the United States.

Putin has pushed the line repeatedly and received little resistance, beyond a cute plastic button offered by then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Russian forces invaded Georgia without consequence. They cheated on the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, and faced no consequence. Indeed, Ellen Tauscher, the chief U.S. negotiator of the subsequent “New START” Treaty and a top Hillary Clinton aide, ended up going into partnership with a Kremlin-funded think tank while at the Atlantic Council. No wonder that, with such lack of seriousness emanating from Washington, Putin figured he could get away with murder in the Ukraine. To date, the Kremlin has faced little consequence for its actions beyond a smattering of sanctions. In the process of these outrages, Moscow demonstrated that the Budapest Memorandum in which the United States, among others, gave Kiev security guarantees wasn’t worth the paper it was written on.

There’s an irony here, of course, when it comes to the White House conception of credibility: Obama’s team shrugged off commitments to the Ukraine by insisting that the Budapest Memorandum was an agreement and not a treaty and so wasn’t sacrosanct. However, talk about walking away from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the so-called Iran deal, which is an agreement and not a treaty, and the White House and State Department insists that its terms must be observed with the entirety of U.S. credibility at stake.

Regardless, what is clear is that the White House has consistently misjudged Putin. There are two possibilities as to why Obama and Kerry fell into Putin’s trap: Either there has been a massive intelligence failure at the Central Intelligence Agency with regard to Putin’s outlook and intentions, or Obama and Kerry simply ignored what they were being told. Either way, in an atmosphere where accountability mattered, there would be resignations, either at the CIA or at the top of the State Department.

So what to do to restore credibility? There really is no option other than the military: Russian planes bomb targets close to those forces aligned with the United States? Then U.S. forces should bomb Syrian targets close to the Assad regime. A U.S. general in Iraq might give the Russian embassy there an hour’s notice to de-conflict. Kerry might be under the delusion that Assad can be worked with, but that simply shows how out-of-touch he is with the situation in Syria: He long ago passed the point of no return. Assad’s presence in Syria has become the chief recruiting tool for the Islamic State.

At the same time, it’s essential to arm the Ukrainians with enough lethal goods to help them roll back Russian proxies and send Russian forces home in body bags. That might not be the style of diplomacy to which Obama and Kerry adhere, but both are naïve if they think diplomacy means simply talking at the table absent any leverage or the threat of worse to come. Putin must realize that there is real cost to his course of action. If he isn’t stopped in Syria, ultimately he will have to be stopped in the Baltics, and that will be a far more tragic outcome for all sides.

The Lisa Benson Show will air Sunday, October 4, 2015 at 4PM EDT, 3PM CDT, 2PM MDT, 1PM PDT and 11PM in IsraelListen live to the Lisa Benson Radio Show for National Security on KKNT 960The Patriot or use SMARTPHONE iHEART App: 960 the Patriot.  Lisa Benson and New English Review Senior Editor Jerry Gordon will co-host this show.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in the New English Review.

Islamic State claims Chris Harper Mercer mass slaughter

There is no indication that Chris Harper Mercer, who murdered thirteen people at Umpqua College, was acting on behalf of the Islamic State, or was even a Muslim at all. But that hasn’t stopped the Islamic State from claiming credit for his murders. After all, they want to “strike terror into the hearts of the enemies of Allah” (Qur’an 8:60), and one way they can do that is by appearing to be stronger than they are. And they must have loved the bit about how he singled out Christians, as they do.

“‘ISIS’ Claims Chris Mercer Harper [sic] Umpqua College Shooting,” by Sam Prince, Heavy

Chris Harper Mercer. The tweet was sent out by @K_H_O00, but the account has since been suspended by Twitter for terrorist propaganda. A screen cap can be seen below:

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The tweet screen cap lacks a time stamp but the phone screen cap states “4:07 p.m.” The tweet reads:

Again #Oregon #USA #WashingtonDC #IslamicState #ISIS #USA

A meme that states “Slay Americans” in front of a man being beheaded is also visible….

RELATED ARTICLES:

Umpqua Gunman Chris Harper Mercer Hated Religion Online

“Non-religious” Oregon gunman targeted Christians, had Muslim friend who praised “the brave Mujahideen heroes”

Israel: Muslims murder Jewish couple in front of their children

Raymond Ibrahim: Muslim History vs Western Fantasy: The ‘Refugee Crisis’ in Context

EDITORS NOTE: According to reliable sources Chris Harper Mercer went to Umpqua College to slaughter Christians. Mercer asked students if they were a Christian, if the student answered yes, Mercer shot them in the head. The Islamic State’s primary opponents are People of the Cross, Christians. This appears to be a case of the enemy of my enemy is my friend.

Oregon massacre: Singling out Christians for murder is standard practice among Muslims

Yesterday, an Oregon gunman curiously singled out Christians during rampage:

A woman who claimed to have a grandmother inside a writing class in Snyder Hall, where a portion the massacre unfolded, described the scene in a tweet.

“The shooter was lining people up and asking if they were Christian,” she wrote. “If they said yes, then they were shot in the head. If they said no, or didn’t answer, they were shot in the legs. My grandma just got to my house, and she was in the room. She wasn’t shot, but she is very upset.

For the record, there is a precedent here:  Whenever Islamic terrorists raid large centers where Muslims and Christians are intermingled, they routinely separate Muslims from Christians, before massacring the latter.

For example, last April in Kenya, gunmen from the Somali Islamic group, Al Shabaab—“the youth”—stormed Garissa University, singled out Christian students, and murdered them, some beheaded.  Read here for more examples.

RELATED ARTICLE: “Non-religious” Oregon gunman targeted Christians, had Muslim friend who praised “the brave Mujahideen heroes”

Obama Administration Slashes Military Retirement, Pay and Benefits

According to the Military Officers Association of America (MOAA):

House and Senate conferees finally agreed to move forward with an annual defense bill, one with a lower than expected pay raise and significant changes to military pay and benefits.

Military Pay

The defense bill capped the active duty pay raise at 1.3 percent. This marks a third consecutive year of pay caps, and continues to undo a decade of work by Congress to eliminate a 13.5 percent wage gap between military and private sector pay.

Pay caps add up. An active duty O-3 with 10 years of service has now lost over $1,800 since pay caps started.

Military Retirement

The bill also includes major changes to military retirement. Beginning in 2018, the new system will cut military retirement by 20 percent, and decrease the disability retirement calculation in order to provide a five percent government match to federal Thrift Savings Plan (TSP) accounts held by military members.

The intent of the plan is to provide a portable retirement benefit to troops exiting service prior to serving a full career. However, servicemembers are already eligible to use TSP, albeit without a government contribution.

MOAA has supported government matching of personal Thrift Savings Plan accounts, but it should not come at the expense of cutting military retirement, or cutting the payments to medically retired service men and women.

The new retirement plan provides an automatic one percent government contribution to TSP accounts, with an additional match of up to four percent of a servicemember’s contribution. Earlier proposals stopped government contributions after 20 years of service. Lawmakers compromised and agreed to extend government matching up to 26 years of service.

MOAA will continue to advocate for government matching for a full career.

The new plan also allows for a lump sum distribution of a portion of retired pay.

Current servicemembers and retirees will be grandfathered into the current retirement system. Servicemembers with less than 12 years of service will have the option to opt-in to the new program.

Slashing military retirement by 20 percent and providing a ‘401k-style’ benefit will erode career retention and provide a greater incentive for members to leave service early. Because the policy funds the new vesting provisions by imposing major cutbacks in benefits for those staying for a career, MOAA has great concerns about the impact on long-term readiness and retention.

Congress also repealed the final section of a complicated COLA-reducing law for future military retirees. Future retirees were originally subject to a one-percentage point reduction in annual retirement COLA until age 62. At age 62, military retired pay would be recalculated and receive full COLA increases.

MOAA was instrumental in repealing the COLA change, with members sending 300,000 messages to Capitol Hill in just a few months.

TRICARE

MOAA is grateful Congress rejected proposals to means-test annual TRICARE fees and implement new enrollment fees for TRICARE For Life beneficiaries, at least for now.

Congress also rejected proposals to consolidate TRICARE Prime and Standard. Under those proposals, beneficiaries would have been subject to the enrollment fees of TRICARE Standard without the guaranteed access of TRICARE Prime. In essence, beneficiaries would be paying more for less.

Although lawmakers rejected major changes to TRICARE this year, they made no bones about the fact that now that they’ve overhauled military retirement, their next focus will be on health care. In report language, lawmakers warned, “… that comprehensive reform of the military health care system is essential” and “all elements of the current system must be re-evaluated, and that increases to fees and copays will be a necessary part of such a comprehensive reform effort.”

Prescription Copays

One of the most contentious issues in the defense bill was the future of prescription copays. The administration’s original budget called for 10 years of TRICARE pharmacy increases.

Senate lawmakers agreed, and proposed increases of 25 to 125 percent.

Proposals to increase prescription copays fail to take into account that TRICARE beneficiaries now pay 145 percent more since 2011, and that pharmacy copays are already indexed to annual COLAs.

Fortunately, House conferees prevailed over the Senate, but had to concede to a one-year increase in prescription drug prices.

2016 TRICARE Rx Proposals

Survivor Benefits

The defense bill also included language to correct an inequity for military survivors. The bill authorizes Survivor Benefit Plan coverage for a spouse in the event a former spouse predeceases the servicemember.

Commissaries

Original budget proposals called for both a consolidation of the commissary and exchange systems and a dramatic cut in commissary funding.

Those plans were thwarted thanks largely to the work of Sens. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) and James Inhofe (R-Okla.). They delayed any privatization efforts until further cost saving studies on the proposal are conducted. Sen. Mikulski also led the effort to restore over $300 million in commissary funding.

The commissary budget only decreased slightly because of Mikulski’s efforts.  Patrons would have seen a reduction in the number of days open and operating hours.

The defense bill fell short on major MOAA-supported issues. The bill did not include provisions to:

  • End the “widow’s tax” for military survivors
  • Expand concurrent receipt for disabled retirees
  • Establish that career reservists with no active duty service are deemed veterans of the armed forces

“We are disappointed in the final defense bill and its adverse effect on military families,” says MOAA President Vice Adm. Norbert R. Ryan Jr., USN (Ret). “We must reverse this trend of eroding pay and benefits because we’re sending the wrong signal to the troops at the wrong time.”

With the political horizon looking the way it is, MOAA’s membership will be even more important next year to protect hard-earned benefits in service to the nation.

EDITORS NOTE: This report originally appeared on MOAA.org.

We’re on the verge of a major international conflict

I know most of us are still reeling from the Umpqua Community College shooting in Roseburg, Oregon. Prayers for the souls of those who lost their lives, their families, and those wounded and perhaps scarred for life. But we must never forget the carnage and death that occurs regularly in our inner cities, our urban areas, such as President Obama’s hometown of Chicago, that goes unmentioned from the nation’s biggest bully pulpit.

obama_angry_2012_8_63

But that is not want I want to focus on right now.

Today we got the September jobs report and it is still disturbing. Our economy is not growing at the necessary rate. The report put the unemployment rate at 5.1 percent, which is unfathomable when you consider the U.S. workforce participation rate remains at a historic low near 62.7 percent. In the entire month of September, the American economy added 142,000 jobs, 30,000 below what was estimated. These numbers are anemic, and do not represent a flourishing free market economy but one that is struggling — under crippling tax and regulatory policies implemented over the past seven years.

This cannot be the new normal and accepted as “positive” gains, especially considering annual GDP growth is below 2.5 percent. These are the reasons why the Obama administration has turned to Janet Yellin and the Federal Reserve to prop up the economy with artificial measures called “quantitative easing” — incessantly low interest rates and printing. It’s creating another bubble that will certainly burst. And it’s not about raising taxes on high wage earners; it’s about sound fiscal policy that restores our economy.

That is the major domestic economic concern for today, but there is a greater international concern. Due to the weakness of the Obama administration — or perhaps the intentional decimation of our global influence and military capacity — we could be on the verge of a major conflict.

A declared state terrorist organization, Iran’s Quds Force, led by General Qassem Suleimani, is now openly operating on the ground in Syria. Yes, Iran has “boots on the ground” in Syria using Russian air assets to attack the Syrian rebel forces supposedly supported by the Obama administration. I think it is fair and honest to say, another “red line” has been crossed in Syria. Sadly, President Obama took to the stage yesterday, showing his unrighteous indignation over having new gun safety laws – but said nothing about the Russian-Iranian-Syrian-Hezbollah alliance.

Perhaps President Obama should take to the world’s largest bully pulpit today and announce that the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the Iranian nuclear deal, is cancelled. It is beyond belief that President Obama and his cohort of 42 Democrat Senators, who blocked the Resolution of Disapproval from even reaching the Senate floor for a vote, could still support this foolish agreement.

I’d like Obama, any Democrat, any liberal progressive supporter or their media accomplices to explain to me why ….

Continue here


How can President Obama actually look at himself in the mirror, look at the American people and tell us Bashar Assad must go — when he has created the conditions for him to stay? ~ Allen West


Minnesota leads the U.S. in Muslims who have tried to join the Islamic State

“Minnesota leads the nation in would-be ISIL terrorists from U.S., report finds,” by Paul McEnroe and Allison Sherry, Star Tribune, September 29, 2015:

Minnesota leads the nation in the number of people who have left or sought to leave the country to fight with terrorists aligned with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant in Syria, according to a scathing congressional report that says the U.S. and western countries have failed to disrupt the flow of combatants to the Middle East.

Released Tuesday by the U.S. House Committee on Homeland Security, the report specifically cites two Somali-American Minnesotans who joined or tried to join ISIL, highlighting its online recruiting success through peer-to-peer recruiting that relies on social media and sophisticated online messaging techniques.

Young fighters from at least 19 states have tried to join terrorists in Syria since the start of that country’s civil war in 2011. Minnesota recruits made up 26 percent of the sample of 58 cases reviewed by the committee’s bipartisan task force. California and New York had the second most recruits, with each state making up 12 percent, according to findings.

“This report is alarming and it’s really very worrisome,” said Sadik Warfa, deputy director of the Global Somali Diaspora based in Minneapolis.

Sadik-Warfa

Sadik Warfa

And how is it alarming and worrisome to Sadik Warfa? Because he is opposed to jihad terror and ashamed of the role his community has had in it? Nope. Guess again:

“I worry about the stigma and the prospect of our community being marginalized.

Ah, yes. You’re not surprised, are you? Warfa, like virtually every other Muslim leader in the U.S. and Europe when confronted with the reality of jihad activity in his community, is playing the victim. The problem, as far as he is concerned, is not Muslims from Minnesota joining the Islamic State; it’s the “backlash” that is looming, but never quite arrives, against the Muslim community. This is, as always, an attempt to deflect attention away from the jihad activity and, by portraying Muslims as victims, make them the recipients of solicitude, rather than scrutiny, from government and law enforcement.

But in the end, it’s up to us as Somali-Americans to really change our image. And as Minnesotans, we need to be asking what can we do to put these kinds of people into our mainstream here instead of over there.”

Yes, that’s what we need: a large number of Islamic State-aligned jihadis in the American mainstream instead of in the Islamic State. What could possibly go wrong?

More than 250 Americans have attempted or succeeded in reaching Syria and Iraq to fight with terrorist groups, intelligence officials estimate. “We have largely failed to stop Americans from traveling overseas to join jihadists,” the task force declared. “A handful of suspects were stopped in other countries, but it appears the majority — 85 percent — still managed to evade American law enforcement on its way to the conflict zone.”

The task force said it could identify only 28 cases in which federal authorities stopped suspects before they left for the Middle East. Eight of those involved Minnesotans who conspired since March 2014 to leave the U.S. for Syria but who were stopped by FBI agents. Those men, all Somali-Americans, are in custody. Three have pleaded guilty in recent weeks to conspiring to join ISIL….

At least four men with Minnesota roots have been killed fighting for ISIL. Intelligence officials say that overall, more than 20 Americans who joined the group have died.

RELATED ARTICLES:

UK: 14-year-old Muslim told teacher, “You are on my beheading list”

Cameron to “Barack”: “Every religion has its extremists, but…biggest problem…is the Islamist extremist violence”

EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is of Muslim Student Association President and architecture senior Amer Sassila prays in a secluded area in Rapson Hall University of Minnesota on Tuesday. Photo by Chelsea Gortmaker/Minnesota Daily.