In this episode of the world’s challenging counter-jihad chatfest, the fearless, peerless host interviews the nonpareil Daniel Greenfield, discussing what these peaceful screams of “Allahu akbar” that we keep hearing from misunderstander of Islam as they commit acts that have nothing to do with Islam are all about.
RELATED COLUMNS:
Saudis restore envoy to Sweden after Swedes apologize for insulting Islam
Ted Cruz and I were both featured speakers at the Young America’s Foundation’s New England Freedom Conference in Nashua, New Hampshire this weekend, and the Leftists and Islamic supremacists were in an uproar: the Hamas-linked terror organization the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) demanded that Cruz withdraw from the event, and Mother Jones and Media Matters both published lengthy guilt-by-association pieces, wildly misstating and misrepresenting my views and trying to tar Cruz with positions that neither he nor I hold.
Cruz didn’t cave in to this pressure; both he and I spoke at the YAF event, and the media is still reeling from his refusal to submit to their dictates.The Hill said yesterday:
The speech was not without controversy — the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) asked him not to attend due to Robert Spencer’s appearance at the same event. Spencer is an author who has courted controversy over his criticism of Islam.
“Courted controversy.” Heh. Yeah, we’re going steady. And the Washington Post:
Cruz spoke at the Young America’s Foundation New England Freedom Dinner in Nashua. The Council on Islamic Relations asked Cruz not to appear because Robert Spencer, who co-founded an anti-Muslim group, was also appearing at the conference.
“Anti-Muslim group” — evidently the WaPo thinks it “anti-Muslim” to oppose jihad terror and the Sharia oppression of women, non-Muslims, gays, etc. That’s more revealing about them than about me.
This incident was yet another example of how the Hamas-linked Islamic supremacists of CAIR and their Useful Idiots in the Leftist media try, again and again and again, to bully and intimidate into silence not only anyone who speaks the truth about the jihad threat, but anyone remotely associated with them. With the Democrats already firmly in their camp, they’re trying now to secure the submission of the Republican Party.
It’s also an insight into the Left’s methodology: they smear, demonize and marginalize a target, and then use their own handiwork to do the same thing to someone else via guilt by association. Cruz deserves congratulations for standing firm.
Back in October 2005, Hillary Clinton and I spoke at the same event, and Hamas-linked CAIR was likewise furious. If these two wind up as the nominees, watch for this story to reappear regarding Cruz, but no one in the mainstream media will remember the Hillary one.
RELATED COLUMNS:
Saudis restore envoy to Sweden after Swedes apologize for insulting Islam
This weekend, less than 72 hours before the deadline for P5+1 political framework for Iran’s nuclear program, President Obama’s “offshore balancing” act in the Middle East collapsed. In a January 27, 2014 New Yorker interview with editor David Remnick President Obama revealed:
It would be profoundly in the interest of citizens throughout the region if Sunnis and Shiites weren’t intending to kill each other … And although it would not solve the entire problem, if we were able to get Iran to operate in a responsible fashion – not funding terrorist organizations, not trying to stir up sectarian discontent in other countries, and not developing a nuclear weapon – you could see an equilibrium developing between Sunni, or predominantly Sunni, Gulf states and Iran in which there is competition, perhaps suspicion, but not an active or proxy warfare.
His naive paradigm of a geo-political equilibrium between Shia Iran and Sunni Arabs led by Saudi Arabia floundered with the dramatic intervention by the Saudi Air Force on Wednesday, March 25, 2015 attacking Houthi rebels in northern Yemen , the capital, Sana’a and targets near Aden. Operation “determination storm” has begun. The Saudis gave less than 1 hour notice to the Pentagon and the White House of the launch of the air campaign. The Administration wasn’t consulted. That effrontery to the leader of the free world was in evidence at the 26th Summit of the Arab League in the Egyptian resort of Sharm El-Shaik. Abed-Rabbo Mansour Hadi, The ousted U.S. backed President of Yemen, who had fled from Aden to Saudi Arabia, accused the Houthi of being “stooges” for Iran. He refused any offer of a cease fire while the Saudis and Emirati air units continue attacking Houthi forces. Iran warned the Saudi and Emirate allies of “bloodshed,” if attacks continue. The Saudi have mobilized 150,000 ground forces for possible action. The U.S. may provide aerial refueling, bombs and air search and rescue for downed pilots as they did for two Saudi pilots on Thursday.
In a statement released today, Secretary General of the Arab League Nabil Al-Araby said the Arab states would, “join ranks and look into taking preemptive and defensive arrangements to maintain the Arab national security.” The Declaration went on to point out:
The “conflict between the concept of a modern state and destructive projects that detract the idea of a national state and employ the ethnic, religious and sectarian variation in bloody conflicts, sponsored by external parties.” It cited recent developments in Yemen and the slide the country almost fell into as a flagrant example of these challenges and stressed the dire need for “necessary measures to counter them.”
The Washington Post reported Arab leaders had effectively announced a “joint military force to intervene in neighboring states grappling with armed insurgencies.”
David P. Goldman in an Asia Times column, “The Middle Eastern Metternichs of Riyadh, noted the stunning assertion of the Saudi leadership in the confrontation with Iran over the US policy collapse in the Middle East and failures in Yemen:
A premise of the “realist” view that American policy in the region should shift towards Iran was that the Saudi monarchy would collapse and Sunni power along with it. All of us underestimated the Saudis.
Now the Saudis have emerged at the top of a Sunni coalition against Iran–limited for the moment to the Houthi insurgency in Yemen, to be sure, but nonetheless the most impressive piece of diplomacy in the Sunni world since Nasser, and perhaps in modern times. That attributes a lot of importance to a coalition assembled for a minor matter in a small country, but it may be the start of something important: the self-assertion of the Sunni world in response to the collapse of American regional power, the threat of Sunni jihadist insurgencies, and the Shi’ite bid for regional hegemony.
There was more drama in Lausanne, Switzerland, when an Iranian journalist Amir Hossein Motaghi, a former election aide to Islamic Republic President Rouhani defected. The UK Telegraph reported Motaghi saying: “The U.S. negotiating team is mainly there to speak on Iran’s behalf with other members of the 5+1 countries and convince them of a deal.” Meanwhile Secretary of State Kerry and the U.S. team are endeavoring to have the P5+1 approve a verbal outline of a political framework with the intransigent Iranians, who demand immediate lifting of financial sanctions while denying compliance with IAEA requests for background information on past military application developments.
These developments gave rise to further criticism by Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu who warned at a Sunday cabinet meeting that:
Iran is trying to “conquer the entire Middle East” as the West appears close to signing a pending nuclear deal with Israel’s arch-enemy.
“This deal, as it appears to be emerging, bears out all of our fears, and even more than that,” Netanyahu told his cabinet in Jerusalem, according to Reuters.
Doubtless, Netanyahu will have more to say to U.S. House Speaker John Boehner who travels to Jerusalem this week for a previously arranged meeting with the Israeli Prime Minister in the midst of cobbling together a ruling majority following his victory in the March 17th, Knesset elections.
The failure of a U.S. supported state in Yemen adds to the growing shadow of Iranian Hegemony over four Arab capitals in the Levant; Beirut, Damascus, Baghdad and now Sana’a. Should the Saudi and Gulf emirates air attacks not succeed in halting the Iran-backed Houthi conquest of the remaining stronghold of Aden, then Iran may control a major international geo-resource choke hold on the Red Sea with significant economic repercussions. The prospect of a Shia Sunni sectarian war in the Middle East fuels the apocalyptic end time’s vision of chaos of the Iranian Shia Mahdists are seeking to arouse the moribund Twelfth Imam from his slumber at the bottom of the holy well in the holy city of Qum hard by the underground uranium enrichment cascade hall of Fordow.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, elected by the Assembly of Experts to fulfill that bizarre Islamic obligation, is on the verge of achieving the ultimate symbol of chaos – becoming a nuclear threshold state courtesy of the looming P5+1 political framework that may be announced on March 31st. With Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, ISIS cells, the vanquishing of U.S. counterterrorism in the region, Iran has achieved its goal of fomenting chaos to bring about end times. As night follows day, Sectarian war between Sunni Arab states and Shia Mahdmen in Tehran could erupt. All while the Administration in Washington abandons Israel surrounded by Iranian proxies, Hezbollah, Hamas and Sunni Salafist Islamic State seeking its destruction. Is this the legacy that President Obama wants to leave behind when he leaves the White House in January 2017? If it is, then his pursuit of an accommodation with an Iran equipped with a stockpile of nuclear weapons and nuclear warhead tipped Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles amounts to colossal appeasement and “faithless execution” of his oath of office as Commander in Chief to protect America from all enemies, foreign and domestic.
This weekend the President was in Florida playing golf in Palm City, Florida with a Halliburton Director and the Houston Astros owner while his global equilibrium went up in flames. So much for his feeling the pain of the middle class.
Stay tuned for further developments.
RELATED ARTICLES:
Iranian journalist defector says Obama admin arguing on the SIDE of IRAN in nuke negotiations
How Will Middle East Chaos Impact the Iran Nuclear Talks?
EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in the New English Review. The featured image is of Yemen President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, left, meeting with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi at Sharm El-Shaik Summit, March 27, 2015. Source: AP/MENA.
THIS IS AMERICA! This was the mantra of generations after the establishment of the United States of America. Our history shows that this nation was built with grit, toughness, a do it yourself and a get it done attitude. Sure, like any other great or not so great society in history, our nation made mistakes. We were not and are not perfect.
However, there is no argument that this nation, the one that history will forever remember, was made great simply because people were proud to be human. Proud to be children of God. Proud to be Americans.
When the nation was threatened, the people rose up to the challenge and shouted, This Is America! And they would not give up or give in to anything but complete and total victory.
This attitude was instilled in their children. The children instilled this attitude within their children. Those whom we called legal immigrants instilled this attitude into their children and indeed they often admonished their children for not acting, being more American.
They were proud and grateful to the new country they now called home. They, too, stood up and shouted, This Is America when they were challenged by outside threat. They, too, picked up arms and joined the army and navy and fought along with natural born citizens. They fought to insure their posterity had a better life, more opportunity than they did. They did not give up nor did they give in.
It was an attitude that spurred fear into our enemies and emboldened all those who wished to live as Americans lived. America inspired others to rise up against tyranny within their own nations. When they could not fight, America gave them grit and purpose to make the often dangerous and deadly journey to this land of freedom and opportunity.
People of far off lands created and shared legends about America. “In America, the streets are paved with gold.” Although our streets were not literally paved in gold, they were not wrong in stating such. Indeed, our streets were paved with the gold that is opportunity and freedom. It is a priceless treasure.
I long to hear the shouts and cries in the streets, This Is America. I fight and work tirelessly to get a chorus of voices shouting, This Is America. I impatiently wait for the flag of our nation to be flown high and proud on every home, every business. To be worn with pride on every shirt. No apologies. No wimpery. No weakness. No retreat.
This Is America! And Americans need to be reminded to act like it.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Sayyed Ali-Khamenei.
What Americans have a hard time understanding is that, for all the Iranian negotiators, the outcome of the nuclear arms deal that the United States is leading all comes down to just one man, Sayyed Ali-Khamenei, otherwise known as the Supreme Leader of Iran.
In the 21st century, it is hard to comprehend that a nation could be ruled by a man whose powers supersede that nation’s president, its civil government, its judiciary and its military. Iran has had only one other Supreme Leader since its founding in 1979, Ruhollah Khomeini who held the position until his death in 1989. The 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran overthrew the Shah in order to secure greater freedom, but the Iranians ended up more servile than before.
This is who Obama and P5+1 team (France, Great Britain, Russia, China, plus Germany) is negotiating with as they move toward the March 31 deadline for the talks. Khamenei has already said that the only thing he wants is the immediately lifting of the economic sanctions that are credited with bringing the Iranians to the negotiation table.
The negotiations have to be seen in the context of Iran’s daily cries of “Death to America” and “Death to Israel.” They have to be seen in the context of a history of Iranian aggression against America and Israel that has included the bombing of our Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983, attacks on U.S. embassies and countless other examples of their bad intentions, not the least of which has been its sponsorship of two anti-Israel groups, Hezbollah in Lebanon and, to a lessor extent, Hamas in Gaza.
Any nuclear deal that permits Iran to continue to enrich enough uranium to make its own nuclear weapons is a very bad deal. Netanyahu came to the U.S. at the invitation of Congress to make that point as the leader of the nation the Supreme Leader intends to destroy. We would be next.
All this is just slightly insane when one considers that President Obama has been obsessed with reaching an agreement with Iran before and since he took office in 2009. He has done everything possible to demonstrate his desire to remove the obstacles to conferring approval on Iran. In the process, he has made us look and be weak.
It is hopeful news, therefore, as reported in The Hill that “Congress is growing hostile to the emerging nuclear deal with Iran, leaving President Obama with little political cover as he approaches a critical deadline in the talks. Should a deal be reached, it would transform U.S. and Iranian relations and potentially give Obama the most important foreign policy achievement of his second term.”
His most significant foreign policy failure, however, has been his betrayal of Israel, the only ally in the Mideast that the U.S. truly has had. Declassifying information about Israel’s nuclear arms was pure treachery. That said, it was no secret and no doubt has protected Israel against apocalyptic destruction.
Consider the Middle Eastern foreign policy failures Obama has had to date. The Saudis and other Gulf States have abandoned hope that Obama would resist the Iranian proxies taking over Yemen. They are pursuing their own military operation there. Egypt which replaced the Muslim Brotherhood with a U.S.-friendly president has not seen any renewal of the former friendly relations that existed. Iraq is in turmoil thanks to Obama’s removal of U.S. troops in 2011 and even has Iranian military units fighting ISIS. Syria has been in a civil war that has killed thousands. It’s a long list but it comes down to Obama’s ending of the U.S. role in the Mideast.
Just as the Iranians are controlled by their Supreme Leader, we have a President who sees himself and his role in a similar way. He has demonstrated his dissatisfaction with the Constitution and the limits it puts on the Executive branch. He has ignored Congress and has been experiencing reversals of policy by the judicial branch. In the case of the Iran negotiations Congress has been kept in the dark along with the rest of the American people.
The Secretary of State, John Kerry, has declared that any outcome of the negotiations would legally non-binding. If so, why are they being pursued? Such negotiations at the treaty level have always required the consent of the Senate, but the Obama regime is seeking to by-pass that mandatory factor.
On the other side of the table, it has been reported that the main stumbling block to agreement has been Iran’s failure to cooperate with a United Nations probe into whether it tried to build atomic weapons in the past. If United Nations inspectors, in the future as in the past, are unable to verify that Iran is not continuing its nuclear weapons program, there is no way an agreement of any kind could be achieved.
On March 26, the Washington Examiner reported “The Obama administration is giving in to Iranian demands about the scope of its nuclear program as negotiators work to finalize a framework agreement in the coming days, according to sources familiar with the administration’s position in the negotiations.”
You can be very sure that the Supreme Leader is watching this closely. If he can continue to get the kind of negotiations—an accord—that will result in Iran becoming a sanctions-free, nuclear-armed nation, he will permit the deal to proceed.
The Iranians, as always, will cheat on any deal to achieve this goal. Sadly, everyone at the table knows that, but Russia and China have strong economic reasons to pretend otherwise.
If the Supreme Leader gets what he wants the prospect for war in the Middle East would increase immeasurably. The threat level to the U.S. and Israel would be off the charts.
© Alan Caruba, 2015
What happens to turn a former Marine into someone who wants to murder top generals? Why, conversion to Islam. We have seen this phenomenon many times with converts: they believe that their new religion requires them to turn traitor. No one, however, in this politically correct age seems interested in recognizing or studying this phenomenon.
“NY gang boss resurfaced at Florida mosque, sending radicalized jihadists overseas, say feds,” by Malia Zimmerman, Fox News, March 28, 2015:
Marcus Dwayne Robertson, 46, a former U.S. Marine known to his supporters at his Orlando-based Fundamental Islamic Knowledge Seminary as “Abu Taubah,” is suspected of sending young proteges abroad for terror training.
A Muslim extremist who once led a murderous New York gang dubbed “Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves” and then resurfaced decades later as a radical imam at a Florida mosque is begging for help funding his legal defense against charges he committed tax fraud to, according to authorities, finance terror training for his followers.
Marcus Dwayne Robertson, 46, a former U.S. Marine known to his supporters at his Orlando-based Fundamental Islamic Knowledge Seminary as “Abu Taubah,” is currently being held in a local jail on a gun conviction. He faces sentencing on April 30 on a 2014 conviction of tax fraud, but more serious charges could be coming, given that prosecutors say he used the money to send his radicalized followers to Africa to learn how to kill Americans.
“The United States believes that the defendant is still an extremist, just as he was in the early 1990s,” prosecutors said in recent court filings. “The only differences are that the defendant is now focused on training others to commit violent acts as opposed to committing them himself and the violent acts are to occur overseas instead of inside the United States.”
Robertson, according to recent Facebook posts, will continue to proclaim his innocence to all remaining allegations against him.
“The Prosecution is attempting to characterize me as a ‘Teacher of Terrorists.’ … They are attempting to twist my statements to fit into a terrorist plot. …. In reality, they know I am not a terrorist teacher,” Robertson wrote on his web site.
In his younger life as the leader of the “Forty Thieves” gang, Robertson “murdered several individuals; participated in assassination attempts; used pipe bombs, C-4, grenades, other explosives, and automatic weapons; participated in a robbery resulting in a hostage situation; and attempted the murder of police officers,” according to federal prosecutors.
Court records and wiretap transcripts from 2011 to 2015 provide a gripping tale of Robertson’s life, and that of one student, Jonathan Paul Jimenez, who Robertson allegedly instructed to file false tax returns to obtain a tax refund to pay for travel to Mauritania, Northwest Africa, for study and violent jihadist training.
The tax fraud case led to the prosecution of Jimenez, who reportedly knew Robertson for 11 years and, by his own admission, trained with the imam for a year in preparation for his travel to Mauritania, where he would study and learn to kill U.S. military personnel.
Robertson denies sending Jimenez overseas “to commit violent jihad,” but prosecutors produced several wiretapped conversations from 2011 that they say prove Robertson trained Jimenez “in killing, suicide bombing, and identifying and murdering United States military personnel.”
According to court records:
• Jimenez stated he and Robertson discussed suicide bombings. Robertson told Jimenez if one could “go to a place where there’s seven top generals, it would be permissible to use a suicide bomb to kill them.”
• Jimenez said Robertson wanted him to “fight to kill” and taught him it is obligatory to kill military officers, specifically generals, because they “can lead an army.” He said Robertson had instructed him on how to kill people “in a good manner” and how to “do it with kindness.”
• Jimenez said he was “getting ready for that grave, baby,” and Robertson was preparing to make him a “killer” after he completed the religious aspects of his training.
FBI investigators said Robertson’s computers held documents from the U.S. Military Academy’s Combating Terrorism Center, such as “How to think like a terrorist” and the “Militant Ideology Atlas,” American military reports on interrogation, polygraphs, psychological operations; survival kits issued to Army aviators and a diagram of names connected to Global jihad.
Jimenez pleaded guilty August 28, 2012, to making a false statement to a federal agency in a matter involving international terrorism and conspiring to defraud the IRS, and was sentenced April 18, 2013, to 10 years in federal prison….
RELATED ARTICLES:
Islamic State in Illinois planned another Fort Hood
Somalia: Islamic jihadists storm Mogadishu hotel, murder at least nine people
UN human rights top dog: Islamic State more “diverse” than some UN member
FEMA Director Craig Fugate said hurricanes cyclical, not linked to AGW! Should FEMA Withhold Funds From FEMA?!
FEMA Director Dr. Craig Fugate
Flashback 2012: Obama Appointed FEMA Dir.: Frequency of Hurricanes Cyclical: Since 1850s ‘a cycle, & its over decades increased activity & decreased activity’ — Won’t Say If he Believes Global Warming Involved – Federal Emergency Mgt. Agency Dir. Craig Fugate: ‘If you look back for the amount information we have going back to about 1850s, you’ll see a cycle, and it’s over decades of increased activity and decreased activity. And so that cycle has been there. As far anything driving that, I’d really defer to climate scientists. But the reality is the history says we’ve had this period of activity, we’ve had a period of quiet’
2015: FEMA targets climate change skeptic governors, could withhold funding
2015: FEMA to withhold disaster-preparedness funds from states that don’t plan for climate change
2015: GOP Louisiana Gov. Jindal: WH Shouldn’t Use FEMA To Push Climate Change Ideology
Fugate’s 2012 comments – Excerpt: Bill Press asked, “Mr. Director, it seems there’s a lot more tornado activity in a lot more places. Do you see increased activity — looking historically — to hurricanes today? And do you attribute any of that to global warming?”
Fugate in 2012: “Well, I’m not a meteorologist. I’m not a climate scientist, and hurricanes are cyclic,” Fugate responded. “I do know history, and if you look at history and you look at hurricane activity, there are periods of increased and decreased activity that occurs over decades,” Fugate said. “Throughout the ‘60s, ‘70s, early ‘80s, up until about ’95, the Atlantic was actually in a period of below-average activity, even though you had significant storms like Andrew, Frederic, and David.”…
“But the reality is the history says we’ve had this period of activity, we’ve had a period of quiet,” Fugate said. “We’ve had a period of activity; we’ve had a period of quiet. And so what we’ve seen is not what we — we’ve seen this in history before.”
Climate Depot’s Marc Morano statement:
Morano: ‘Louisiana gets the most FEMA funds due to Hurricanes and the current director Fugate in 2012 was not impressed that hurricanes were influenced by global warming. Louisiana Gov. Jindal can now cite Fugate’s own words as evidence that the FEMA director agrees with the so-called GOP ‘deniers’ on hurricanes not being caused by ‘global warming.’
Unless FEMA director Fugate retracts his comments, the questions looms: Will FEMA withhold funds from FEMA?!
The larger issue is that the states should always prepare for extreme weather regardless of any potential human influence on climate. The whole FEMA issue of withholding funds based on man-made ‘climate change’ acceptance is pure politics, not science.’
Morano additional points:
Morano note: ‘If current extreme weather trends continue, will FEMA have to reduce funds?!
Extreme weather at or near historic lows:
New paper unable to link 2013 extreme weather of droughts, heavy rain & storms to AGW
Tornadoes: U.S. Tornado Count Plummeting to Record Low Levels Three Consecutive Years
Droughts: New Research Confirms Human CO2 Not Causing A Global Drought Increase – ‘Droughts in the U.S. are more frequent and more intense during COLDER periods’
Floods: Prof. Roger Pielke Jr. : ‘Are US Floods Increasing? The Answer is Still No’ — ‘A new paper out today shows flooding has not increased in U.S. over records of 85 to 127 years’ — Quick Flood Facts: ‘The world’s ten deadliest floods all occurred before 1976. The historical flood record is horrific. Here is a small sampling of news stories’
U.S. Heatwaves: ‘The frequency of 90 degree days in the US has plummeted. with three of the five mildest summers occurring since 2004′
Wildfires: 2014 – Quietest Fire Season Of The Decade according to data from the National Interagency Fire Center data — US Forest Fires Near Historic Lows: ‘Burn acreage is much less than half of normal’ according to data from the National Interagency Fire Center
By: Marc Morano – Climate Depot
Climate Depot Round Up: ”Despite the fact that climate activists have changed renamed ‘global warming’ into ‘climate change’ and then to climate ‘disruption’ and ‘global weirding’, the weather and climate is failing to cooperate. Below is a round up of the latest on extreme weather data and studies.”
Extreme Weather:
Fine print in Obama’s climate report breaks from warmist narrative — Admits no trends in droughts, storms, tornadoes and hail! – After cranking up the fear of increasing droughts, floods, hurricanes and tornadoes, the report offers some little disclaimers admitting to unsettled science: But the fine print that few will ever read acknowledges the real uncertainties of something as complex as the planet’s atmosphere. – “There has been no universal trend in the overall extent of drought across the continental U.S. since 1900,” the authors observe. We also learn that “trends in severe storms, including the intensity and frequency of tornadoes, hail, and damaging thunderstorm winds, are uncertain and are being studied intensively.”
New paper unable to link 2013 extreme weather of droughts, heavy rain & storms to AGW
Dr. Roger Pielke Jr. ‘the bottom line on this new NOAA special report: If you are attributing any extreme other than heat waves to Anthropogenic Climate Change, you are on weak (or worse) scientific ground.”
Hurricanes:
3,264 Days Without a Major (Cat 3 +) Hurricane Strike – ‘Nearly 9 years…the last being Wilma in October, 2005′ – Climatologist Dr. Roy Spencer: As of today (October 1) it’s been nearly 9 years since a major hurricane (Cat 3 or greater) has struck the U.S., the last being Wilma in October, 2005. Remember the 2005 hurricane season? Landfalling hurricanes right and left. Katrina! This was going to be the new normal in a Global Warming world. Then the bottom dropped out of tropical activity.
Tornadoes:
U.S. Tornado Count Plummeting to Record Low Levels Three Consecutive Years
Possible record low number of tornadoes in Oklahoma
Wildfires:
U.S. Networks Blame Wildfires, Droughts on Climate Change, Despite Fact They’ve Declined
Droughts:
New Research Confirms Human CO2 Not Causing A Global Drought Increase
Texas droughts – ‘The drought years of the 1950’s were both longer lasting , and more severe than the recent drought, as NOAA’s drought index shows.’
Floods:
Pielke Jr.: What did UN IPCC AR5 conclude on trends in flooding? 5..4..3..: ‘There continues to be a lack of evidence & thus low confidence regarding the sign of trend in the magnitude &/or frequency of floods on a global scale.’ -Pielke Jr.: But doesn’t more extreme precipitation mean more floods? Again the SREX authors in 5..4..3: ‘Despite the diagnosed extreme-precipitation-based signal, and its possible link to changes in flood patterns, no gauge-based evidence has been found for a climate-driven, globally widespread change in the magnitude and frequency of floods during the last decades.’Pielke Jr. : ‘How about IPCC SREX authors on floods? 5..4..3..: ‘A direct statistical link between anthropogenic climate change and trends in the magnitude/frequency of floods has not been established”Prof. Pielke Jr. : ‘Are US Floods Increasing? The Answer is Still No’ — ‘A new paper out today shows flooding has not increased in U.S. over records of 85 to 127 years’ — ‘This adds to a pile of research that shows similar results around the world’
Federal study finds no evidence that climate change caused more severe flooding during last century!– Inconvenient Reality: U.S. Geological Survey finds in some regions ‘floods become LESS SEVERE as greenhouse gas emissions have increased’ — USGS scientist Robert Hirsch: ‘Currently we do not see a clear pattern that enables us to understand how climate change will alter flood conditions in the future’ — But, USGS pleads they need more study (and money!): ‘Noted more research is necessary to better understand the relationship between climate change and flooding’
All Of The World’s Deadliest Floods Occurred With CO2 Well Below 350 PPM — ‘We know that hurricanes have declined, tornadoes have declined, floods have declined, and droughts have declined. That is why history has been redefined to start in the 1970s’
100/500 Year Floods : Every Few Weeks? Reality Check: ‘One of the big lies of 2011 is the claim that ‘the new normal is 100 year floods every year’ — ‘A search of news archives finds out that 100 year floods have been reported constantly, ever since someone thought the term up’
New peer-reviewed paper on the 2010 Pakistan floods – nothing to do with ‘climate change’
1974: Climatologists Blamed US/Pakistan Flooding On Global Cooling
Is Flood Magnitude in the USA Correlated with Global CO2 Levels? Answer: No — ‘The results of 21 peer-reviewed studies on flooding & climate variability in N. America: ‘If anything, N. American flooding tends to become both less frequent and less severe when the planet warms…on average, we would expect that any further warming of the globe would tend to further reduce both the frequency and severity of flooding in N. America, which, of course, is just the opposite of what the world’s climate alarmists continue to claim would occur’
Which of the below worst floods on record were caused by carbon dioxide?
| Date | Location | Dead |
| 1887, September-October | Hwang Ho (Yellow) River, China | Over 900,000 |
| 1939 | North China | 500000 |
| 1642 | Kaifeng, Honan Province, China | Over 300,000 |
| 1099 | England and the Netherlands | 100000 |
| 1287, December 14 | The Netherlands | 50000 |
| 1824 | Russia | 10000 |
| 1421, November 18 | The Netherlands | 10000 |
| 1964, November-December | Mekong Delta, South Vietnam | 5000 |
| 1951, August 6-7 | Manchuria | 4800 |
| 1948, June | Foochow, China | 350 |
Why is Obama so avid to have this deal that he will make disastrous concessions to the Iranians and throw U.S. allies under the bus to get it? Does he really, really want Iran to have nuclear weapons? Is this really all about enabling Iran to destroy Israel?
“Obama Admin Threatens U.S. Allies for Disagreeing with Iran Nuke Deal,” by Adam Kredo, Washington Free Beacon, March 27, 2015:
LAUSANNE, Switzerland—Efforts by the Obama administration to stem criticism of its diplomacy with Iran have included threats to nations involved in the talks, including U.S. allies, according to Western sources familiar with White House efforts to quell fears it will permit Iran to retain aspects of its nuclear weapons program.
A series of conversations between top American and French officials, including between President Obama and French President Francois Hollande, have seen Americans engage in behavior described as bullying by sources who spoke to theWashington Free Beacon.
The disagreement over France’s cautious position in regard to Iran threatens to erode U.S. relations with Paris, sources said.
Tension between Washington and Paris comes amid frustration by other U.S. allies, such as Saudi Arabia and Israel. The White House responded to this criticism by engaging in public campaigns analysts worry will endanger American interests.
Western policy analysts who spoke to the Free Beacon, including some with close ties to the French political establishment, were dismayed over what they saw as the White House’s willingness to sacrifice its relationship with Paris as talks with Iran reach their final stages.
A recent phone call between Obama and Hollande was reported as tense as the leaders disagreed over the White House’s accommodation of Iranian red lines.
Amid these tensions, U.S. Ambassador to France Jane Hartley met with her French counterpart, Gerard Araud, Monday to discuss a range of issues.
Benjamin Haddad, who has advised senior French political figures on foreign policy issues, said leaders in Paris have not been shy about highlighting disagreements they have with the White House.
“Fance [sic], like other European countries, has negotiated for more than 10 years and endured most of the sanctions’ burden,” said Haddad, a research fellow at the Hudson Institute.
“The French want a deal, but they see no rush and repeat that Iranians need a deal more than we do, and that we shouldn’t fix artificial deadlines that put more pressure on us than Iran.”
One source in Europe close to the ongoing diplomacy said the United States has begun to adopt a “harsh” stance toward its allies in Paris.
“There have been very harsh expressions of displeasure by the Americans toward French officials for raising substantive concerns about key elements of what the White House and State Department negotiators are willing to concede to Iran,” said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “That is because the clarifications expose just how weak the Americans’ deal is shaping up to be.”
“The meeting between the French ambassador in Washington and the president’s envoy to Paris—not a diplomat but a big fundraiser for his campaigns—comes amid these very harsh words that were spoken privately about the ambassador’s recent comments on the seeming American desperation for a deal, and the tough words that President Obama had for President Hollande in their phone call.”
Strategic differences remain between the United States and its allies over how a final deal should look, the source said. The French remain opposed to a recent range of concessions made by the Obama administration.
“We may agree that denying Iran a nuclear weapon ability is the goal, but apparently the view of what one can leave Iran and assure that is very different,” the source said.
“Clearly these are the differences that must be discussed. I don’t see France suddenly deciding that America is right and French objections to weakness are wrong, nor that silence is preferable to transparency.”
Haddad said the French are hesitant to rush into an agreement.
“The French want a robust deal with clear guarantees on issues like [research and development] and inspections to ensure that Iranians won’t be able to reduce breakout time during the duration of the agreement (also an issue of discussion), or just after thanks to research conducted during the period,” he said. “That is also why they disagreed on lifting sanctions.”
He also said the French “don’t trust Iran and believe an ambiguous deal would lead to regional proliferation.”
Another Western source familiar with the talks said the White House is sacrificing longstanding alliances to cement a contentious deal with Iran before Obama’s term in office ends.
“The President could be hammering out the best deal in the history of diplomacy, and it still wouldn’t be worth sacrificing our alliances with France, Israel, and Saudi Arabia—key partners in Europe, the eastern Mediterranean, and the Gulf,” the source said. “But he’s blowing up our alliances to secure a deal that paves Iran’s way to a bomb.”…
RELATED ARTICLES:
Obama’s hypocritical attack on Netanyahu
Middle East Quarterly: Robert Spencer reviews Kecia Ali’s “The Lives of Muhammad”
Obama’s revenge: US declassifies report on Israel’s nuclear program
Gold Star parents Billy and Karen Vaughn host and bring on Military families who sound off on ISIS threat and criminal U.S. Rules of Engagement.
U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) took to the Senate floor to discuss U.S.-Israel relations and recent reports that White House Chief of Staff Dennis McDonough called the Israel presence in the West Bank an occupation.
RELATED ARTICLES:
Obama’s hypocritical attack on Netanyahu
Why is Obama so Obsessed with Israel?
Administration Releases Document Detailing Israel’s Nuke Program
Would you vote for a man who openly says he would repeal ObamaCare?
Would you vote for a man who openly says he favors a fair tax and wants to abolish the Internal Revenue Service?
Would you vote for a man who opposes Obama’s efforts to offer illegal aliens amnesty and promises to secure the borders?
Would you vote for a man who decries a federal government “that wages an assault on our religious liberty”?
Would you vote for a man who wants a federal government that “works to defend the sanctity of human life” and would “uphold the sacrament of marriage”?
Would you vote for a man who defends our Second Amendment rights and condemns the effort ban ammunition?
Would you vote for a man who condemns a federal government that seeks to dictate school curriculums and wants to repeal “every word of Common Core”?
Would you vote for a man who would stand “unapologetically with the nation of Israel”?
Would you vote for a man who has pledged that he would do everything he could to ensure that Iran does not acquire a nuclear weapon?
Would you vote for a man who openly says he would do everything he could to defeat radical Islamic terrorism?
I said I would on May 6, 2013 when he was beginning to get attention. Columnist George Will said he was “as good as it gets” when it comes to being a true conservative in Congress.
I am of course speaking of Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) who has announced his candidacy to be the presidential candidate of the Republican Party.
I suspect that his announcement probably terrifies the Republican “Establishment” who have managed to serve up some good men, but poor candidates, to be President. When Republican voters stayed home, we got Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012.
Now they want to get the Party faithful to vote for Jeb Bush, but from my vantage point, the real base is ready to vote for anybody else, Sen. Cruz, Wisconsin Gov. Walker, and Sen. Rubio come to mind.
First of all, there is no Tea Party in the sense of a political party with its own candidates. What there is are Republicans who believe in the U.S. Constitution, small government, fiscal prudence, strong national security, and all those other values outlined in Ted Cruz’s speech at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia.
As Cruz said in an email about his announcement “Washington, D.C. has become completely disconnected from the values of real Americans. That’s why we are now more than $18 trillion in debt, why wages have stagnated, and why our foreign policy is an absolute mess.” That pretty much sums up what Obama has delivered.
Does it surprise anyone that Cruz’s candidacy was instantly attacked, not just by Democrats, but by a number of leading Republicans? Rep. Peter King, appearing on CNN’s “Situation Room” with host Wolf Blitzer, said, he’d “jump off that bridge” when he got to it if Cruz becomes the GOP candidate. He also accused Cruz and Rand Paul of being “counterfeit conservatives.” Nonsense!
The March 24 Wall Street Journal had a lengthy editorial devoted to “The Cruz Candidacy” noting that on most issues with the exception of immigration they found themselves in agreement with him and offered an upbeat view that “The good news for GOP voters is that their field of candidates in 2016 is going to be deep, offering many varieties of conservative leadership” but ending with reservations about “his polarizing style” which was another way of saying he is not a wishy-washy centrist.
We will hear more such accusations and criticisms and, as often as not, they will come from the GOP Establishment.
The GOP Establishment regards real conservatives as unable to secure election, preferring RINOs, Republicans in Name Only, and candidates who move as close to the center politically as possible. It seems to have escaped their notice that the Republicans elected in the last two midterm elections were sent to Washington, D.C. by Tea Party and other serious conservative voters.
It has been a long time since a real conservative Republican, Ronald Reagan, was elected President, but it can happen again as serious voters, particularly those who are independents, join with those who find Sen. Cruz a refreshing voice, Will he get the nomination? We are a very long way from the 2016 election, but at least we know it won’t be a boring one!
© Alan Caruba, 2015
The nuclear agreement is a ‘placebo’ for the American people but doesn’t treat the disease. Kerry recently asked is there a better way? Yes there is.
To put things in perspective, as far as Iran is concerned the nuclear agreement will have little effect on their nuclear development program; but it is a necessary inconvenience to remove sanctions.
The nuclear talks is a ‘charade’ because they won’t stop Iran’s path to nuclear weapons. Iran won’t allow nuclear investigators into sensitive military sites and in any event Iran is quite able to hide its nuclear activities. It is reported in the WSJ today that the U.S. isn’t even able to keep track of Iranian oil tankers that are evading our sanctions. How do they expect to keep track of Iran’s nuclear operations?
(Quote):
“American negotiators and their cohorts are trying to close a deal that would let Iran keep its nuclear program, subject to intricate conditions of monitoring and enforcement. Yet how is a deal like that supposed to be verified? The Obama administration can’t even keep up with the Iran-linked oil tankers on the U.S. blacklist.
Currently, there are at least 55 of these tankers the Treasury Department says are under U.S. sanctions. These are large ships, major links in the oil chain that sustains the Tehran regime, many of them calling at ports from Turkey to China. They are easier to spot and track than, say, smuggled nuclear parts (which, in a pinch, they could potentially squeeze on board).
But Iran has engaged for years in what Treasury called “deceptive practices” to dodge sanctions. These include trying to mask the identities, and sometimes the smuggling activities, of its blacklisted ships by renaming them, reflagging them to other countries, veiling their ownership behind front companies, presenting false documents, and engaging in illicit ship-to-ship oil transfers.” (end quote)
The nuclear agreement is a way for Obama to avoid reality. The only thing that will stop Iran’s path to nuclear weapons is to destroy these facilities. The talks and soon agreement is a placebo for the American people but it doesn’t treat the disease.
Knowing that the proposed agreement will allow Iran to develop nuclear weapons, Kerry recently asked do you have a better idea? No one can dispute that Iran has been waging a back door war against the U.S., Israel and now in Yemen against our allies. The reality is we are at war. The better idea is to destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities before they have nuclear weapons. The same issue confronted the Allies as Nazi Germany was rearming and we are making the same mistake now.
The below article appeared in the NY Times which is no war monger. Finally even this liberal paper is waking up to the threat of a Nuclear Iran and the nuclear arms race it will spawn. Read the Ambassador’s well reasoned assessment:
“FOR years, experts worried that the Middle East would face an uncontrollable nuclear-arms race if Iran ever acquired weapons capability. Given the region’s political, religious and ethnic conflicts, the logic is straightforward.
As in other nuclear proliferation cases like India, Pakistan and North Korea, America and the West were guilty of inattention when they should have been vigilant. But failing to act in the past is no excuse for making the same mistakes now. All presidents enter office facing the cumulative effects of their predecessors’ decisions. But each is responsible for what happens on his watch. President Obama’s approach on Iran has brought a bad situation to the brink of catastrophe.
In theory, comprehensive international sanctions, rigorously enforced and universally adhered to, might have broken the back of Iran’s nuclear program. But the sanctions imposed have not met those criteria. Naturally, Tehran wants to be free of them, but the president’s own director of National Intelligence testified in 2014 that they had not stopped Iran’s progressing its nuclear program. There is now widespread acknowledgment that the rosy 2007 National Intelligence Estimate, which judged that Iran’s weapons program was halted in 2003, was an embarrassment, little more than wishful thinking.
Even absent palpable proof, like a nuclear test, Iran’s steady progress toward nuclear weapons has long been evident. Now the arms race has begun: Neighboring countries are moving forward, driven by fears that Mr. Obama’s diplomacy is fostering a nuclear Iran. Saudi Arabia, keystone of the oil-producing monarchies, has long been expected to move first. No way would the Sunni Saudis allow the Shiite Persians to outpace them in the quest for dominance within Islam and Middle Eastern geopolitical hegemony. Because of reports of early Saudi funding, analysts have long believed that Saudi Arabia has an option to obtain nuclear weapons from Pakistan, allowing it to become a nuclear-weapons state overnight. Egypt and Turkey, both with imperial legacies and modern aspirations, and similarly distrustful of Tehran, would be right behind.
Ironically perhaps, Israel’s nuclear weapons have not triggered an arms race. Other states in the region understood — even if they couldn’t admit it publicly — that Israel’s nukes were intended as a deterrent, not as an offensive measure.
Iran is a different story. Extensive progress in uranium enrichment and plutonium reprocessing reveal its ambitions. Saudi, Egyptian and Turkish interests are complex and conflicting, but faced with Iran’s threat, all have concluded that nuclear weapons are essential.
The former Saudi intelligence chief, Prince Turki al-Faisal, said recently, “whatever comes out of these talks, we will want the same.” He added, “if Iran has the ability to enrich uranium to whatever level, it’s not just Saudi Arabia that’s going to ask for that.” Obviously, the Saudis, Turkey and Egypt will not be issuing news releases trumpeting their intentions. But the evidence is accumulating that they have quickened their pace toward developing weapons.
Saudi Arabia has signed nuclear cooperation agreements with South Korea, China, France and Argentina, aiming to build a total of 16 reactors by 2030. The Saudis also just hosted meetings with the leaders of Pakistan, Egypt and Turkey; nuclear matters were almost certainly on the agenda. Pakistan could quickly supply nuclear weapons or technology to Egypt, Turkey and others. Or, for the right price, North Korea might sell behind the backs of its Iranian friends.
The Obama administration’s increasingly frantic efforts to reach agreement with Iran have spurred demands for ever-greater concessions from Washington. Successive administrations, Democratic and Republican, worked hard, with varying success, to forestall or terminate efforts to acquire nuclear weapons by states as diverse as South Korea, Taiwan, Argentina, Brazil and South Africa. Even where civilian nuclear reactors were tolerated, access to the rest of the nuclear fuel cycle was typically avoided. Everyone involved understood why.
This gold standard is now everywhere in jeopardy because the president’s policy is empowering Iran. Whether diplomacy and sanctions would ever have worked against the hard-liners running Iran is unlikely. But abandoning the red line on weapons-grade fuel drawn originally by the Europeans in 2003, and by the United Nations Security Council in several resolutions, has alarmed the Middle East and effectively handed a permit to Iran’s nuclear weapons establishment.
The inescapable conclusion is that Iran will not negotiate away its nuclear program. Nor will sanctions block its building a broad and deep weapons infrastructure. The inconvenient truth is that only military action like Israel’s 1981 attack on Saddam Hussein’s Osirak reactor in Iraq or its 2007 destruction of a Syrian reactor, designed and built by North Korea, can accomplish what is required. Time is terribly short, but a strike can still succeed.
Rendering inoperable the Natanz and Fordow uranium-enrichment installations and the Arak heavy-water production facility and reactor would be priorities. So, too, would be the little-noticed but critical uranium-conversion facility at Isfahan. An attack need not destroy all of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, but by breaking key links in the nuclear-fuel cycle, it could set back its program by three to five years. The United States could do a thorough job of destruction, but Israel alone can do what’s necessary. Such action should be combined with vigorous American support for Iran’s opposition, aimed at regime change in Tehran.
Mr. Obama’s fascination with an Iranian nuclear deal always had an air of unreality. But by ignoring the strategic implications of such diplomacy, these talks have triggered a potential wave of nuclear programs. The president’s biggest legacy could be a thoroughly nuclear-weaponized Middle East”.
John R. Bolton, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, was the United States ambassador to the United Nations from August 2005 to December 2006.
RELATED ARTICLES:
Travel Schedules Suggest Iran Deal to be Staged Sunday
Group That Inspired Charlie Hebdo, Fort Hood Attacks Stands to Benefit From Yemen Turmoil
EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is by Doug Chayka.
President Obama and his staff are using the prop of the J Street Conference in Washington, D.C. this week to unleash an unparalleled attack on Israel in revenge, many believe, for Netanyahu’s electoral victory. It is reflected in the President’s press conference, yesterday, in which he blamed Israel for the impasse effectively ending negotiations for a Palestinian state, suggesting to some possible moves to achieve that goal at the UN Security Council. The same venue the President hopes to obtain a UN resolution for approval of the political framework for an Iran nuclear deal, effectively sidelining Congress.
White House Chief of Staff McDonough and President Obama. Source: Pat Dollard.
Earlier this week, White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough ‘rock star’ appearance at the J Street Conference aligning the Administration with Palestinian and Hamas rhetoric to end the occupation of the disputed territories, Judea and Samaria saying “50 years of occupation must end”. This follows Israeli President giving the nod to Netanyahu to form a ruling a coalition with a majority of the elected Knesset, 67 seats. Obama’s anger at Netanyahu stems from the latter’s address at a joint meeting of Congress on March 3rd at the invitation of U.S. House Speaker Boehner followed by the letter of Senator Tom Cotton (R-AK) signed by 46 colleagues sent to the leaders of the Islamic Republic. More recently, there are allegations that Israel may have spied on US Iran negotiations and then briefed members of Congress. Moreover, it appears that Israel’s calls to combat what PM Netanyahu has called a “very bad deal” has led to consultations with France’s Foreign Minister Fabius who has stiffened resistance to any deal with Iran unless it is demonstrably “fool proof.”
The Wall Street Journal published a lead editorial in today’s edition, “Obama’s Israel Tantrum”, suggesting that “the leader of the free world tales revenge on an ally”:
Even if you believe the main challenge in the region is getting Israel to cede more territory to the Palestinians, that day won’t happen until Israelis feel secure. But Israelis can be forgiven for feeling the opposite with a raging civil war in Syria, Islamic State and an offshoot of al Qaeda operating near the Golan Heights, Iranian General Qassem Soleimani leading Shiite militias in Iraq, and a U.S. Administration sounding and acting as if Iran can be a more constructive partner for peace than Israel.
The main threat to Middle Eastern peace today—even beyond Islamic State—is the rise of an imperial Iran using its own troops or proxies effectively to colonize Arab capitals. The prospect of an imperial Iran on the cusp of becoming a nuclear power has all of America’s traditional Arab friends in the region now closer to Mr. Netanyahu’s position on the Middle East than to Mr. Obama’s.
“We cannot simply pretend that those comments were never made.” These were the words Mr. McDonough used in his speech about Mr. Netanyahu’s election comments.
But Mr. McDonough’s words might be easily turned around. In a day when the President’s chief of staff invokes the lexicon of Palestinian terrorists to describe Israel’s democracy, Americans and the world are left to wonder whose side the leader of the free world is on. (Read More)
President Obama has unleashed revenge on Israel and PM Netanyahu outraged that the Jewish nation would assert its sovereign right to defend its people against the existential and conventional threats of Iran whose rising nuclear hegemony threatens the Middle East and the US. Israel’s Netanyahu is thwarting Obama’s rapprochement with Mahdist Iran over cooperation in the war against ISIS and concluding a political agreement enabling Iran to achieve nuclear breakout. Witness the air intelligence CENTCOM is providing Iranian Quds Force Gen. Suleymani orchestrating the battle to retake Tikrit in Iraq. The vicious attack on Israel blaming it for not concluding a peace deal with the implacable enemies the PA and partner Hamas may reflect the President’s frustration at not succeeding to work behind the scenes to topple Netanyahu in the 2015 Knesset elections. That backfired when Israelis went to the polls and returning Netanyahu to a fourth non-consecutive term. But we knew this was coming. Just prior to the Israeli elections, the President appointed long term enemy of Israel, Robert Malley to be overall head of Middle East Policy, whose goal is imposing a draconian peace deal on Israel. As Israelis and US supporters of the Jewish nation, like South Carolina US Senator Lindsey Graham, know, unilateral withdrawal from Gaza in 2005 resulted in Iranian and home grown rockets raining all over Israel triggering three wars. Save for the Iron Dome system, enormous casualties would have resulted. White House Chief of Staff’s Denis McDonough’s call at the Soros-backed J Street Conference to end 50 years of occupation is straight out of the propaganda mills of the PA, Hamas, Iran and its proxy, Hezbollah. Shame on American Jews like Peter Beinert and members of the J Street Rabbinic cabinet for urging American Jewish youths to become martyrs in a summer campaign in Judea and Samaria.
Listen to this Voice of Israel Josh Hasten commentary with voice clips from McDonough’s speech at the J Street Conference and Sen. Lindsey Graham’s rebuttal.
Noted theologian, post-holocaust scholar and author of Jihad and Genocide, Dr. Richard L. Rubenstein’s prescient 2010 NER interview with this writer says it all: “Obama is the most radical U.S. President ever”
RELATED ARTICLES:
Obama’s hypocritical attack on Netanyahu
Obama Administration Declassifies Secret Report on Israeli Nuclear Program
Ithaca Newspaper response to Project Veritas Cornell ISIS Video
Durie: Challenging Islam’s Warrant to Kill
Sgt. Bergdhal Charged with Desertion
EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in the New English Review.
British MPs and Peers may now have abandoned Parliament to campaign in our impending elections, but in doing so, they left one rather gaping hole in terms of public policy on counter-extremism.
The Parliamentary session was supposed to have broken with a new counter-extremism strategy having been published. It was to be put in place in order to ensure that the new government and Parliament will have a template on how to deal with one of the key issues of our time.
However, there have been a series of frustrating delays, and the full strategy is yet to be launched. This week, a key part was finally revealed. A cursory examination of this shows it encompasses many of those things which a counter-terrorism strategy really has to cover. But it crucially also included the proposal of something potentially more contentious: launching an investigation into the activities of sharia courts in the UK.
Hitherto the UK government has focused primarily on the violence problem. Yet now, a significant shift has occurred so that officials must also consider the extent to that there is also a non-violent problem. Women in the UK in the 21st century being subjected to sharia law is now to be appraised as part of the problem. People being taught to live segregated lives is now a criteria to consider as part of the problem. It has taken a long time to acknowledge this.
For years the presumption has been that stopping bombs is the role of counter extremism but that stopping the emergence of a divided and parallel society within our society is not. But violent extremists do not come from nowhere. They come from a place which encourages their us-and-them mindset, a mindset which portions of society have not only tolerated but even encouraged.
There are many fights left to win and many problems which remain to be addressed. Fortunately we now have one fewer to contend with.
When faced with death we need to look at our politics.
Extinction of our civilization is a death so we need to look at the politics of extinction. In a war you don’t need friends, you need allies.
This distinction is important, because you have to like a friend, but you don’t need to like an ally. Under the threat of annihilation we need to see that we that all Kafirs are in the same boat. All of those threatened with extinction are Kafirs.
Politics makes strange bedfellows, so atheist, Protestant, Buddhist and every other flavor of Kafir must work together to survive.
RELATED ARTICLE: Obama’s hypocritical attack on Netanyahu