Tag Archive for: John Kerry

Two Hundred Retired U.S. Generals and Admirals sign letter opposing Iran Nuke Deal

Retired Admirals and Generals are still usually subject to the UCMJ and do not speak their opinions on political matters without some risk. Speaking out against the Commander in Chief could be a big no no. So when you have 200 opposing the C in C, that is significant.

NOTE: Many of the signatories served in the White House, under Democratic administrations as well as Republican. The only thing they appear to have in common is that they consider the Iran nuclear deal a threat to U.S. interests in the region and its own national security.

As Reported By Times of Israel:

Letter signed by former officers and navy admirals says nuclear agreement will enable Tehran to become ‘far more dangerous’

Nearly 200 retired US generals, admirals and former political officials have come out strongly against the Iran nuclear accord, and have called upon Congress to sink the aon the grounds that it will “enable Iran to become far more dangerous.”

Among the signatories are top former career officers from every branch of the US military, as well as officials who have served in the White House, under both Democratic and Republican administrations, The Washington Post reported Wednesday.

“The agreement will enable Iran to become far more dangerous, render the Mideast still more unstable and introduce new threats to American interests as well as our allies,” the letter, which was addressed to Republican and Democratic senators and congressmen, stated.

“What I don’t like about this is the number one leading radical Islamic group in the world is the Iranians,” McInerney

CONTINUE READING:

200 retired US generals lobby Congress to reject Iran deal | The Times of Israel

RELATED ARTICLE: Traitor Senators Took Money from Iran Lobby, Back Iran Nukes

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared on AllenWestRepublic.com.

Iran ‘not satisfied’ with nuke deal, wants more concessions

Obama and Kerry will no doubt jump to give him what he wants, but if they do, the opposition to the deal will grow even stronger than it already is.

“Iranian hardliner: The supreme leader opposes the nuclear deal,” by Ali Akbar Dareini, Associated Press, August 15, 2015:

TEHRAN, Iran — Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is opposed to a landmark nuclear deal reached with world powers, a prominent hard-liner claimed Saturday.

Hossein Shariatmadari, editor of the daily newspaper Kayhan and a representative of Khamenei, made the comments in an editorial Saturday.

It marked the first time someone publicly has claimed where Khamenei, who has final say on all state matters, stands on the deal.

Khamenei has not publicly approved or disapproved the deal. However, he repeatedly has offered words of support for his country’s nuclear negotiators. Moderates also believe the deal would have never been reached without Khamenei’s private approval.

Iran’s parliament and the Supreme National Security Council will consider the agreement in the coming days. The deal calls for limiting Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for lifting economic sanctions.

Shariatmadari said in the editorial that many parts of the deal threaten Iran’s independence, security and “the sacred system of the Islamic republic of Iran” and that it would be “disastrous” if Tehran implements the accord. He did not specify which parts of the deal he thought were problematic.

He also referred to a speech by Khamenei last month during which the ayatollah said, “Whether this text is approved or disapproved, no one will be allowed to harm the main principles of the (ruling) Islamic system.”

The editorial noted: “Using the phrase ‘whether this text is approved or disapproved’ shows his lack of trust in the text of the deal. If His Excellency had a positive view, he would have not insisted on the need for the text to be scrutinized through legal channels … It leaves no doubt that His Excellency is not satisfied with the text.”…

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Pat Buchanan Sides with Obama against Israel

Pat Buchanan has for years been such a virulent opponent of Israel that he has frequently been accused of anti-Semitism, and this column condemning Benjamin Netanyahu for supposedly interfering in America’s internal affairs by opposing the Iran deal is not going to erase that impression. The paleocon Right hates Israel with such abiding passion that it is increasingly self-contradictory: for a small government advocate like Buchanan defending Barack Obama and tacitly supporting a deal that threatens not just Israel, but the U.S. as well, manifests a moral myopia of catastrophic immensity.

But it’s no surprise. I’ve noted before how the paleocons over at Buchanan’s American Conservative have embraced the hard Left’s invention of “Islamophobia” and even come out in favor of submitting to violent intimidation and kowtowing to the foes of the freedom of speech. If they’re the opposite end of the political spectrum from the hard Left, the ends are meeting.

And now Pat Buchanan pretends that Barack Obama, who has shown himself again and again to have the attitude and assumptions and sensibilities of a Marxist internationalist, is an old-school President like Truman or Ike who only makes deals with other nations with America’s best interests at heart. That’s some serious hatred of Israel, to make Pat Buchanan pick up the pom-poms for a far-Left statist. But lines are being redrawn all over the place these days.

“How to Seal the Iran Deal,” by Patrick J. Buchanan, The American Conservative, August 7, 2015:

In his desperation to sink the Iran nuclear deal, Bibi Netanyahu is taking a hellish gamble.

Israel depends upon the United States for $3 billion a year in military aid and diplomatic cover in forums where she is often treated like a pariah state. Israel has also been the beneficiary of almost all the U.S. vetoes in the Security Council. America is indispensable to Israel. The reverse is not true.

Yet, without telling the White House, Bibi had his U.S. ambassador arrange for him to address a joint session of Congress in March—to rip up the president’s Iran nuclear deal before it was even completed.

The day the deal was signed, using what the Washington Post calls “stark apocalyptic language,” Bibi accused John Kerry of giving the mullahs a “sure path to a nuclear weapon” and a “cash bonanza of hundreds of billions of dollars … to pursue its aggression and terror.”

Bibi has since inspired and led the campaign to get Congress to kill the deal, the altarpiece of the Obama presidency. Israel Ambassador Ron Dermer, a former Republican operative now cast in the role of “Citizen Genet,” has intensively lobbied the Hill to get Congress to pass a resolution of rejection.

If that resolution passes, as it appears it will, Obama will veto it. Then Israel, the Israeli lobby AIPAC, and all its allies and auxiliaries in the think tanks and on op-ed pages will conduct a full-court press to have Congress override the Obama veto and kill his nuclear deal.

Has Bibi, have the Israelis, considered what would happen should they succeed? Certainly, there would be rejoicing in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, and Bibi would be crowned King of Capitol Hill. But they will have humiliated an American president by crushing him by two-to-one in his own legislature. Such a defeat could break the Obama presidency and force the resignation of John Kerry, who would have become a laughing stock in international forums.

The message would go out to the world. In any clash between the United States and Israel over U.S. policy in the Middle East, bet on Bibi. Bet on Israel. America is Israel’s poodle now.

With the Gulf nations having joined Britain, France, Germany, China and Russia in backing the deal, Israel is isolated in its opposition. And, two weeks ago, Kerry warned that if Congress rejects the deal, “Israel could end up being more isolated and more blamed.”

Hardly an outrageous remark. Yet, Israel’s ex-ambassador to the U.S. Michael Oren fairly dripped condescension and contempt in his retort: “The threat of the secretary of state who, in the past, warned that Israel was in danger of being an apartheid state, cannot deter us from fulfilling our national duty to oppose this dangerous deal.”

But this is not Israel’s deal. It is our deal, and our decision. And Israel is massively interfering in our internal affairs to scuttle a deal the president believes is in the vital interests of the United States. When the U.S. and Israel disagree over U.S. policy in the Mideast, who decides for America? Them or us?

Why does Barack Obama take this? Why does John Kerry take this?…

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HAVE YOU HAD ENOUGH OF THIS IRAN-KERRY INSANITY YET?

Either Kerry is the biggest buffoon who just had an Iranian “information operation” spun on his head or he is so partial to Iran that he wants them to exert regional dominance in the Middle East, thus clearly threatening Israel.

What will it take for Americans to realize that we MUST dump this Iran nuke deal, get the Iranians back to the negotiating table and require complete dismantling of their key nuke facilities.

Washington, D.C. At today’s Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing regarding the Obama Administration’s nuclear deal with Iran, U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) highlighted the importance of U.S. sanctions as a viable alternative to President Obama’s deal and outlined how, if the deal is implemented, Iran will be in a much stronger position when the deal expires.

“When people vote on this deal in a few weeks, you’re going to live with this for the rest of your life,” Rubio said during the hearing. “In 10 years, in 12 years, when Iran has a nuclear weapon and we can’t target them, people are going to remember this vote that’s coming up and this deal as what laid the groundwork for it, and I keep hearing this notion that there is no other alternative and no other way forward, but I disagree.

“I believe U.S. sanctions are the most important part of all the sanctions,” Rubio continued. “I believe that these banks in Europe, German banks, whatever banks may be, if they were forced to choose between having access to the American economy and access to the Iranian economy, that’s not going to be a hard choice for them.”

A video of Rubio’s remarks and the full exchanges is available here.

Transcript of Senator Rubio’s.

Senator Marco Rubio: “The choice right before us was two things.

“On the one hand was to continue with what we thought was the strategy which is international sanctions that had an impact on Iran’s economy. They continued to make progress in their enrichment capabilities and so forth, but it was a combination of international sanctions and the threat of credible military force, which no one wants to talk about, but that was on the table, and the President has said that, in fact, if it came down to it, the U.S. would do that, if it were necessary.

“Versus what we have now, which is a deal that basically argues, well what this will do is that if they comply with it, it will slow them down, and in 10 years if they want to break out, it buys us 10 years of time, and it avoids, assuming everybody complies with everything.

“Here’s my problem with that analysis. My problem with it is that in 8 to 10 years, which sounds like a long time to all of us here, it’s nothing. Ten years goes very quickly, and that’s if we’re optimistic. In 10 years, Iran will be in a much stronger position. In fact, I think in 10 years they’ll be immune from international pressure compared to where they are today, and here’s why.

“First of all, they are going to use this sanctions relief and the billions of dollars that it frees up, and I know everyone wants to believe they’re going to invest it in hospitals and roads and social services in order to win their next election. I promise you, they’re going to win they’re next election. I don’t think they’re worried about that as much as they are about their need for example, to get to modernize their enrichment capability into a 21st century industrial system.

“It actually falls right in line with the mandate that the Supreme Leader, I believe, gave to the negotiators, which is, ‘Don’t agree to anything that’s irreversible. Go as far as you need to go to get the sanctions removed, but don’t agree to anything that’s irreversible.’

“So they’ll have less centrifuges, but they’ll be better ones and they’ll be modernized, and they’ll retain that infrastructure, which is the hardest part of any nuclear program, is the infrastructure, the hardware that it takes to do this.

“But here’s what else they’re going to do, they’re going to continue to build their conventional capabilities. We don’t think about that enough, but Iran in 10 years will have conventional capabilities, maybe less, that could potentially drive us out of the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz because the price of being there will be too high, I mean they can buy Chinese asymmetrical capabilities that allow them to kill ships, add to these fast swift boats things that they’ve been able to come up with that can threaten an aircraft carrier. They’re going to continue to build long range rockets. Why are you building a long range rocket, an ICBM? Are you going to put a man on the moon? No. They’re building it for purposes of targeting the continental United States. And they look at North Korea and say, ‘Yeah the North Koreans have a long range rocket.’ We don’t know where it is going to hit yet because they aren’t very good yet at guidance, but it will hit somewhere, like the West Coast of the United States. That alone has made North Korea immune.

“And they’re going to continue to build up their surrogates in the region, which I would argue already, even now before the sanctions relief has given Iran tremendous leverage over U.S. policy. As an example: Iran has laid out some pretty clear red lines. They are going to hold back Shi’ite militias in Iraq from attacking American troops or going after Americans. They’ll agree to hold them back if, we don’t cross certain red lines they have made very clear.

“What are their red lines? For starters they don’t want to see any U.S. combat troops in Iraq, and if we make any move toward any sort of permanent presence in Iraq in the future, we are going to get attacked by Shi’ite militias at their orders. They don’t want to see us take any concrete steps to remove Assad from power. If they see us moving toward getting Assad out of power, we’re going to get hit by surrogate groups in the region, including Hezbollah and their Shi’ite militia. If we take steps to help put in place an Iraqi government that actually unifies that country and isn’t a puppet of Iran, not to mention one that might actually be hostile toward Iran’s ambitions in the region, they’re going to attack us.

“So they already have leverage over our policy. Now extrapolate that 8 to 10 years from now, when their conventional forces are higher, when these groups are better armed, when Hizballah in a couple of years doesn’t just have rockets, they have guided rockets, guided missiles that don’t just hit somewhere in Israel, they hit exactly what they want to hit.

“So imagine a world in 10 years, where Iran decides, or 8 years, or 12 years, where they just decide, ‘You know what, we’re building a nuclear weapon because we believe Israel has one or because we think someone else is going to threaten us.’

“What can the world do then? Well then reimposing sanctions really won’t be an option at that point because all these companies that are deeply invested in that economy just won’t let their nations or their governments do anything about it. We’ve already seen that in the case of the Europeans.

“But what will the price be of actually going after their systems? It’ll be worse than the price of going after North Korea now. Do we have a credible military option today to target the North Koreans’ program? We do not. We do not because we know that the price of going after the North Korean program through a credible military option, the price of that is Tokyo, the price of that is Seoul, the price of that is Hawaii, they’ll hit us back.

“Well imagine Iran where the price of going after the Iranian program in 10 years if they decide to break out will be Washington, D.C. or New York City, not to mention Tel Aviv and Jerusalem and any number of places in the region that are our allies.

“So my argument is that, in fact, what I think we’ve done here is walk right into the situation they wanted to lay out, they didn’t want a nuclear weapon next week anyway. But we have created a system where in 8 to 10 years they will be, they will have the capability to quickly become, walk into the nuclear weapons club, not sneak in, walk in to the nuclear weapons club with a world class industrial enrichment capability, a much more powerful conventional weapons force capable of actually asymmetrically driving our navy from the region or further out and quite frankly immune from any sort of credible military action because if we attack them the price is going to be a nuclear devastating strike, potentially even on the continental United States.

“So my point is that when people vote on this deal in a few weeks, you’re going to live with this for the rest of your life. In 10 years, in 12 years, when Iran has a nuclear weapon and we can’t target them, people are going to remember this vote that’s coming up and this deal as what laid the groundwork for it, and I keep hearing this notion that there is no other alternative and no other way forward, but I disagree.

“I believe U.S. sanctions are the most important part of all the sanctions. I believe that these banks in Europe, German banks, whatever banks may be, if they were forced to choose between having access to the American economy and access to the Iranian economy, that’s not going to be a hard choice for them.”

Kerry: Iran vow to defy U.S. “very disturbing”

It begins to dawn even upon the Secretary of State that he may not quite have achieved peace in our time. But he has already given away the store.

“Kerry says Iran vow to defy U.S. is ‘very disturbing,’Reuters, July 21, 2015:

DUBAI (Reuters) – U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said a speech by Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on Saturday vowing to defy American policies in the region despite a deal with world powers over Tehran’s nuclear program was “very disturbing”.

“I don’t know how to interpret it at this point in time, except to take it at face value, that that’s his policy,” he said in the interview with Saudi-owned Al Arabiya television, parts of which the network quoted on Tuesday.

“But I do know that often comments are made publicly and things can evolve that are different. If it is the policy, it’s very disturbing, it’s very troubling,” he added.

Ayatollah Khamenei told supporters on Saturday that U.S. policies in the region were “180 degrees” opposed to Iran’s, at a speech in a Tehran mosque punctuated by chants of “Death to America” and “Death to Israel”.

“Even after this deal our policy toward the arrogant U.S. will not change,” Khamenei said….

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Barack Obama and John Kerry: Traitors!

President Barack Obama and John Kerry are traitors to this nation and must be brought to justice!

The Ideological Gutting of American Foreign Policy

It was clear on the morning of September 11, 2001, that the United States was at war with Islamic radicals, and while there may have been differences of opinion regarding strategy, there was no denying the need to defeat doctrinal terrorism.  But as the U.S. became mired in foreign wars, critics questioned whether its actions were achieving the goal, and ultimately whether the goal was even justified.  Voices on the left falsely claimed that Arab-Muslim extremism was an understandable response to western chauvinism, and instead of condemning terrorists for their actions, they started blaming the victims for allegedly insulting Islam.

We saw it with the Charlie Hebdo massacre, when progressive pundits blamed free expression for inciting violence instead of the ideology that sanctified the killing of “infidels,” “heretics” and “blasphemers.”  Such attitudes arise from a perverse political correctness that elevates radical sensitivities over western cultural values.  But how can secular apologists defer to a doctrine that repudiates liberal democratic traditions?  How can they dignify claims of blasphemy against those who criticize beliefs they don’t consider sacred?

These questions were discussed at a program in Massachusetts entitled, “Freedom Isn’t Free: From the Greatest Generation to the Challenges of Today,” featuring former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Frank Gaffney, former CIA Operations Officer Clare Lopez and retired Admiral James A. “Ace” Lyons, Jr., who provided insight into how such issues affect government policy.

Progressives who reflexively condemn religion in politics or any perceived trespass of faith into the affairs of state are strangely silent when the religion is Islam.  Incongruously, they often discourage free speech to avoid insulting radical beliefs.

The panel agreed that such muddled thinking influences the Obama administration’s views regarding national security and foreign policy.  Despite the global threat represented by ISIS, al-Qaeda, Boko Haram, Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood, and regardless of the nuclear danger posed by the Islamic Republic of Iran, the White House has taken the dangerous road of appeasing the unappeasable.  Since his first days in office, President Obama has turned American foreign policy away from its traditional allies and towards an axis of regimes committed to doctrinal totalitarianism.

He seems driven by the progressive compulsion to validate claims of Arab-Muslim victimhood while denying the extremism and anti-Semitism so common in Islamic society.  Secular liberals often misrepresent Islamist aspirations by claiming that jihad means “introspection” or “inner striving,” and by denying the history of Islamic conquest in the Mideast, Asia, North Africa and Europe.  They also ignore the theological motivations for persecuting non-Arabic and non-Muslim indigenous peoples, such as Copts, Yazidis and Maronites.

Lenin described western leftists as “useful idiots” for supporting communism over their own national interests; the term applies to progressives today who defend or justify Islamism.  Frank Gaffney described the left-wing’s relationship with radical Islam as a “red-green alliance.”

According to Gaffney, the term “jihad” has only one meaning under Sharia, and that meaning is holy war.  He said it motivated the 9/11 attacks, the 1983 bombing of the marine barracks in Beirut, the Fort Hood massacre in 2009, and the attacks on Charlie Hebdo and the Jewish market in Paris earlier this year.  While not all Muslims support jihad –indeed many come to the West specifically to escape doctrinal extremism – there is no definition of the concept that preaches respect for “infidels” or their beliefs.

Those unable to engage in violent jihad, says Gaffney, are exhorted to engage in “civilizational jihad” by transforming western society from within.  The process includes disseminating propaganda in public schools, promoting sharia courts over civil courts, pursuing sharia-compliant financing requirements, and using societal institutions to assist in spreading the faith.  Gaffney said the existence of the “Civilizational-Jihadist Process” was confirmed in a Muslim Brotherhood documententitled, “An Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal for the Group in North America,” which sets forth mission and strategy.

The success of this program in the West, said Gaffney, is reflected by the Organization of Islamic Cooperation’s pervasive influence in the United Nations and the establishment of Sharia compliant zones throughout Europe.  This strategy is pursued in the U.S. through initiatives seeking civil recognition of sharia court jurisdiction, the circulation of educational materials produced by Islamist front organizations, legal and illegal immigration, and efforts to gain access to the White House and the security, defense and intelligence establishments.

Islamist intrusion in government (with the complicity of the left) affects national security through the adoption of policies contrary to American strategic interests, said former CIA officer Clare Lopez.  Progressive-Islamist cooperation, she said, was instrumental in purging the FBI’s clandestine library of materials deemed offensive to Islam – though these materials were essential for teaching how to identify Islamist terrorists – and in depriving the military of the means to spot Islamist sympathizers within the ranks.

According to Lopez, the shielding of Islamists from scrutiny is not simply a case of political correctness run amok, but of government policy to empower the Muslim Brotherhood and support its ascendancy in the Mideast.  She said this was the crux of Presidential Study Directive 11 (“PSD 11”), which reportedly called for backing the Brotherhood to force political change in the Mideast and North Africa.  Leaks from this classifieddocument suggest the administration supported the Brotherhood and related groups when they toppled governments in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya, she explained.

This policy produced disastrous consequences across the region, said Lopez, observing that “the outcomes [were] chaotic … shortsighted and ignorant.”  These would have been egregious if only caused by negligence.  However, the uprisings misleadingly dubbed the democratic “Arab Spring” were ignited by a strategy that in itself “wasn’t error [but] policy,” she said.  These policy failures were especially glaring after the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi on September 11, 2012.

Lopez and the panel believe the Benghazi attack resulted from the administration’s support of militias linked to the Muslim Brotherhood and al-Qaeda in their quest to overthrow Muammar Qaddafi (and also the governments in Egypt and Tunisia).  Although Qaddafi had renounced terrorism, relinquished weapons of mass destruction, submitted to nuclear inspections, and jailed terrorists released from Gitmo, Islamist opposition militias in Libya were supported with arms funneled by the U.S. through Benghazi.  After he was overthrown, she said, weapons from Benghazi were redirected to anti-government militias in Syria.

During this time the Ansar al-Sharia moved near the consulate and called for attacks on Americans.  Lopez explained that when Ambassador Chris Stephens requested increased security, he was denied by Hillary Clinton’s State Department because of optics; with the 2012 election approaching, the administration wanted to continue claiming it had defeated al-Qaeda and won the war on terror.  Thus, despite multiple warnings of impending attack, no reinforcements were provided, the consulate was overrun and four Americans were killed.  According to Admiral Lyons, there were military assets in the region that could have been deployed, but which inexplicably were not.

The White House and State Department thereafter claimed the attack was a spontaneous reaction to a video critical of Islam – although information immediately available showed it was preplanned and unrelated to the video.  The ruse continued for weeks and included Mr. Obama’s statement during a “60 Minutes” interview the next day that it was “too early to know exactly how it came about” and Susan Rice’s repetition of the false video narrative during multiple television appearances.

As the administration supported Sunni militias aligned with the Brotherhood and al-Qaeda in Syria and North Africa, it pandered to Iranian Shiites around the Persian Gulf.  According to Lopez, Obama’s policy was to recognize Iran as the hegemonic power in the Mideast.  He thus snubbed Sunni allies like Saudi Arabia and embraced a Shiite regime that threatens those allies, condemns America as the “Great Satan,” seeks Israel’s destruction, and exports international terrorism.

The courting of extremist Sunnis on one side of the Mideast and apocalyptic Shiites on the other might seem incongruous, but Admiral Lyons sees it as consistent with the goal of fundamentally changing America.  “Never in my lifetime did I think I’d ever see America taken down by our own administration,” he said, observing that challenging U.S. influence is considered a progressive virtue.  Admiral Lyons believes that President Obama always intended to restructure national policy according to progressive ideals that disparage America, Israel and the West, and instead validate Islamist, Iranian and anti-western interests.

He cites as evidence the President’s use of sequestration to cut defense spending and disarm unilaterally at a time when China and Russia are growing in influence, militant Islam is on the rise, and military reductions are viewed as weakness.  “We’re headed for the smallest army since [before] World War II,” he said, noting that military experts are no longer certain the U.S. could prevail in a conventional regional conflict.  The question is how such fundamental changes could have occurred without significant opposition.

The answer, said the panel, lies in the pervasive acquiescence to anti-American priorities and sensibilities.  Nowhere is this more apparent than in the liberal affinity for anti-blasphemy laws that contravene free speech.  The U.N. periodically entertains resolutions seeking to criminalize “slander” of Islam, and these are supported by progressive governments and NGOs.  Moreover, a number of European nations have enacted laws banning criticism of Islam as hate speech.

Though such laws would violate the First Amendment, many American progressives favor them as a way of curtailing “hate-speech” and encouraging diversity.  Even without such laws on the books, liberals often discourage free discourse by accusing those who criticize radical Islam of Islamophobia.  This attitude seems to pervade Obama’s denial of the religious basis of Islamist terrorism, and much of his Mideast policy.

The panel concluded that Obama’s policies have compromised America’s ability to defend itself and lead the worldHe has spurned Israel, appeased Islamists, reduced the military, enabled Iran’s nuclear ambitions, and refused to acknowledge the existential threat of ISIS.  These acts and omissions are not hallmarks of effective leadership, but of submission to a feckless worldview that has damaged U.S. power and influence to a degree that may not be easily reparable.

EDITORS NOTE: This op-ed column originally appeared in Arutz Sheva – IsraelNationalNews.com.

Iran: Deal or No Deal!

Ha…chalk another win up for the Iranians who are making John Kerry and his negotiating team look like novice riders in the Camel Triple Crown! This fiasco is so serious that all Americans should be up in arms and walk away from any deal with this evil, lying nation.

U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, commented on the extension of nuclear negotiations with Iran:

Once again, the Obama Administration has given into Iran’s obfuscation and stalling tactics. In April, the President announced to the world that the United States had reached ‘a historic understanding with Iran.’ Now, as the Iranian leadership attempts to walk back the key provisions of that deal, we’re told a few more days are required to negotiate a deal that was supposedly concluded months ago. The events of recent weeks have shown that it is clearer than ever that Iran is not serious about resolving longstanding concerns regarding its illicit nuclear program. Another week of negotiations at this point is just another week for further U.S. concessions. Tehran knows this. Our allies and partners in the Middle East see this because they’ve experienced it before.

“The major points of this agreement are already clear, though there may in the coming days be additional American concessions. We already know that this deal is not in the interests of the United States. It will not keep Americans safer. It will only embolden the world’s foremost sponsor of terrorism as it expands its influence and sows instability across the Middle East. It will provide billions of dollars to a regime that brutalizes its citizens and acts like a criminal gang by kidnapping American citizens and effectively holding them for ransom. If the President were serious about negotiating a deal that advances our security and protects our allies, such as Israel, he would walk away from the table and impose new sanctions on Iran until the regime comes to the table ready to negotiate seriously. If he instead chooses to conclude a deal that ensures that Iran will be a nuclear threshold state, I am confident that a majority of both houses of Congress will join me in opposing it, which will lay the foundation for our next President to undo this disaster.

On today’s show The United West team explains that there is one thing missing from the American negotiating side.

Tune in to find out what, or who is missing and how the States of New Jersey or New York play a role in successful U.S. negotiations.

Is John Kerry a Moron?

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John Kerry testifying before Congress on Vietnam War.

I can recall John Kerry, Obama’s Secretary of State, from the days he testified to a congressional committee and slandered his fellow soldiers as the spokesman for Veterans Against the Vietnam War in 1971. I was appalled then and my opinion of the man has not changed since those days. I opposed the war, too, but I did not blame it on the men who were conscripted to fight it, nor did I believe the charges he leveled against some of them.

These days Kerry is engaged in securing an agreement with the Iranians, if not to stop their program to make their own nuclear weapons than to slow it to a later date. Never mind that the Iranian government is listed by our own government as a leading sponsor of terrorism worldwide or that they have signed such agreements in the past and then tossed out the inspectors.

Kerry is convinced that the Obama administration can get an agreement that is, in his own words, “not legally binding”, nor is it a treaty that the U.S. Senate would have to vote for or against. In point of fact, President Obama can make the deal—sign the agreement—just as Presidents have done for over two hundred years. It can then be abrogated by whoever the next President will be.

Why Obama and Kerry are doing this defies my understanding. It gives the Iranians more time to reach nuclear capability. It is opposed by every nation in the Middle East. It puts every nation within reach of Iran’s missiles at risk and it virtually guarantees the destruction of Israel, a goal of Iran’s Islamic Revolution from the day it was born. Kerry is negotiating with people who took our diplomats hostage in 1979 and have played a role in the deaths of many Americans since then.

Is John Kerry a moron? I think so.

I asked myself this question in regard to another area of U.S. policy which the Secretary of State is also championing even if millions around the world have concluded otherwise.

On March 2nd, Kerry addressed the Atlantic Council in Washington, D.C, telling them what he has been saying in many forums. Let us understand that “climate change” is the name being used to replace “global warming”, because the Earth has been in a cooling cycle for the past 18 years or so. And let us understand that “climate change” has been happening for 4.5 billion years.

Kerry said, “So when science tells us that our climate is changing and human beings are largely causing that change, by what right do people stand up and just say, ‘Well, I dispute that’ or ‘I deny that elementary truth’?”

The problem with this is that human beings are not causing the planet’s climate change. Forces far greater than humans are involved, not the least of which is the Sun.

As for science, its most fundamental methodology is to constantly challenge the various ‘truths’ put forward as theories until they can be proved to be true by being independently reproduced. Nothing about the “global warming” theories has been true. All of the computer models on which it was based have been proven inaccurate. In some cases, they were deliberately rigged.

On television meteorologists remind us that every day, indeed, from morning to night, the temperatures of the area about which they are reporting are in a constant state of change. They show us satellite photography and mapping that demonstrates how dynamic the weather is on any spot on Earth. The climate, however, is measured in decades and centuries. Every one of the doomsday predictions of the global warming “scientists” and propagandists have been wrong.

The enemies of the use of energy to enhance and improve the lives of the residents of Earth began to claim in the 1970s and 80s that carbon dioxide (CO2) was threatening the climate.

At best, CO2 is a very minor element of the Earth’s atmosphere, about 0.04%, which gets it rated as “a trace gas.” As such, it plays no role with regard to the climate.

Kerry asserted that climate change is “one of the biggest threats facing our planet today” and should be ranked with terrorism, epidemics, poverty and nuclear proliferation…” Oh, wait! Isn’t this the same Secretary of State negotiating with Iran to allow it to become a nuclear power?

And what “solution” does he offer to reduce the “threat” of climate change? Kerry urged that the U.S. transition away from “dirty sources of energy” such as coal, oil and natural gas.

Writing in a recent issue of The Wall Street Journal, Matt Ridley noted that “In 2015, about 87% of the energy that the world consumed came from fossil fuels, a figure that—remarkably—was unchanged from 10 years before. This roughly divides into three categories of fuel and three categories of use: oil used mainly for transport, gas used mainly for heating, and coal used mainly for electricity.”

Fossil fuels have made the difference between modern life and burning cow dung to cook dinner. A billion people on Earth still do not have electricity.

Less obvious, but significantly more threatening is the White House effort to get the U.S. signed up for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and its International Climate Justice tribunal. This is a follow-up to the 1977 Kyoto Protocol that was unanimously rejected by the U.S. Senate. Why? Because such treaties threaten the sovereignty of the U.S. and, just as importantly, because the entire United Nation’s climate program is a huge fraud.

This is what John Kerry wants the U.S. to agree to, just like the Iran deal, and just to be sure the U.S. Senate, as mandated by the U.S. Constitution, doesn’t have a say in it, he and the President are calling these deals anything other than a treaty.

Is John Kerry a moron? Maybe not as dumb as he seems to be, but surely cynical and devious.

Unfortunately, he is the Secretary of State.

© Alan Caruba, 2015

RELATED ARTICLE: California Dem Warns of Global Warming-Induced Prostitution

FL Governor Rick Scott, Secretary of State John Kerry Both Lose Spat over Climate

The people can only laugh and shake their heads to see the antics of both Secretary of State Kerry and Florida Governor Rick Scott as they throw darts at each other’s party and their knowledge, or lack thereof, on the subject of climate change.

The latest spat is driven by comments from the ever incredulous Secretary of State John Kerry when he indirectly condemned Governor Scott’s apparent silent policy of prohibiting state employees using terms like “climate change,” and “global warming.”

Kerry’s counter to Scott’s unwritten policy came via a diatribe at the Atlantic Council this week. Kerry said “…by what right do people stand up and just say ‘I dispute that’ or ‘I deny that’ …when science tells us that our climate is changing and human beings are largely causing that change.”

It was a media sop that would have carried even more weight if he were right about the “science” of climate change. Sadly, he was not.

Kerry’s implication is that we should all blindly follow the United Nations and U.S. government climate reports and their science that say mankind’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are the primary cause of climate variation. What Secretary Kerry failed to mention is that the United Nations and their U.S. government counterpart climate reports have been excoriated by a large body of opposing scientists. Further, he should have mentioned that the government’s green house gas based climate models are in error in predicting climate by a wide margin (as much as 300%). He also failed to pass on that a large number of the “leading scientists” who wrote the UN climate reports were exposed in the “climategate” email scandal as having falsified the data, hid opposing data, and came to predetermined conclusions to fit a political agenda.

In other words, the reports were unreliable at best, too flawed for policy making in any case, and quite possibly fraudulent.

What Secretary Kerry also did not say at the Atlantic Council this week were the ‘cold’ facts of the Earth’s climate status:

  1. There is no global warming nor has there been for over 18 long years.
  2. The Earth’s major climate parameters indicate a cooling of the planet is underway according to the most reliable climate change theories and climate models.
  3. Winters are getting longer and more brutal with record cold and snowfalls, despite some climate researchers at the UN saying snow would be a thing of the past by 2003!
  4. We now have more total global sea ice on the planet than ever before recorded since the satellite era began in 1979. This is true even though Al Gore and NOAA scientists said Arctic sea ice should have disappeared completely years ago.
  5. According to a growing body of solar-climate researchers, the Sun is the primary cause of climate variation and that mankind plays an almost insignificant role in global warming or any other kind of climate change.

The Republicans, however, with their weak stance, regularly play right into the Obama-Gore-United Nations climate hand. The Republicans have routinely permitted the Democrats to claim the scientific high ground, even as they make preposterous climate claims with impunity. The policy of ignorance, side-stepping, and ineptness by the Republican Party including in the Governor’s office in Florida, deserves the ridicule it receives.

Now that the planet is heading into what may be the most dangerous cold climate in 200 years, a feud over terminology is the last thing we need from our leaders, in either party.

Yes, we have some fearless Republicans like Senator James Inhofe and Senator Ted Cruz who are unafraid of labeling climate change (manmade global warming) the “hoax” that it is. They have no problem calling out the Democrats for what I have long said is, “the greatest international scientific fraud in history.”

It’s time for Governor Scott and all other Republican leaders to join those good Senators and the legions of scientists like me who are out there, and make a firm unmistakable call for an end to this climate charade and the climate deception of Secretary Kerry, President Obama and the United Nations.

RELATED ARTICLE: Kerry speaks out on Florida’s ‘climate change’ ban

Film a death blow to vicious lies about the Vietnam War — ‘Believe it or not, we were the good guys’

ride the thunder book coverMany of the greatest lies of my time are those told about the Vietnam War. As a Vietnam veteran who served with the 101st Airborne Division during Tet of 1968, I recommend the book ‘Ride the Thunder: A Vietnam War Story of Honor and Triumph‘ by Richard Botkin. I also recommend every American see the film, based upon Botkin’s book, which tells the truth about those American and Vietnamese soldiers who fought and died.

Those with whom I served, men like Captain Ken Crabtree, Lieutenant Mike Watson, Lieutenant Jim Ritter and Captain Cleo Hogan, are still brothers-in-arms in an ‘honorable and just cause.’ There are two refrains you will often hear from Vietnam veterans. The first is “when I left Vietnam we were winning” and second is “welcome home brother” when one Vietnam veteran meets another. Both are telling as both are the truth and the unfortunate result of the many lies told about those who served in Vietnam. The greatest sadness, that stays with me even to this day, is that America, the greatest nation on this earth, abandoned our Vietnamese brothers and sisters in their greatest time of need.

I know that we won the hearts and minds of the Vietnamese people and won the ground war in South Vietnam. I also sadly understand that we lost the hearts and minds of the American people, because of anti-war activists such as John Kerry, Jane Fonda and Bill Ayers. We lost the war in the halls of Congress when our elected officials voted to break their promise of support to the people of South Vietnam and abandoned men like Lieutenant Colonel Le Ba Bihn in 1972.

That stark history lesson is playing out even today in the Middle East in Iraq and Afghanistan. Today America faces enemies who are as or more vicious than the Communists of North Vietnam. During the Vietnam War the threat doctrine of our greatest enemies was Communism. The threat doctrine of our greatest enemies today is Islam.

ltc le ba binh

Lt. Col. Le Ba Binh stands in Quang Tri prior to being wounded for the 9th time, 1972.

In his book, “Ride the Thunder: A Vietnam War Story of Honor and Triumph,” author Richard Botkin tells the amazing true story of the remarkable collaboration between U.S. Marine Capt. John Ripley and South Vietnamese Marine Maj. Le Ba Binh. In the process, he vigorously dispels the notion that the military situation in Vietnam was lost, even as American war correspondents and policy makers were surrendering to the winds of political and economic pressure.

“For men like Ripley and Binh, who fought long and hard only to have victory pulled from their grasps, ‘Ride the Thunder’ celebrates their heroism, their humanity, their story,” says Botkin.

Using his keen Marine insight and years of in-depth research, Botkin takes the reader back in time, deep into the heart of the jungle and into the midst of the American-Vietnamese struggle for liberty.

In the prime of their youth, the two noted warriors were inspired by their fathers to fight for their country’s freedom – one American, Capt. John Ripley, and the other South Vietnamese, Maj. Le Ba Binh. Their destinies would collide in Vietnam.

Watch the official trailer of ‘Ride the Thunder: A Vietnam War Story of Honor and Triumph‘:

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Kerry: Islamic State not due to Islam, but due to Israel and climate change

Hostility to Israel, dark warnings about the perils of global warming, and an anxiousness to absolve Islam of any responsibility for the evils done in its name — this single address by John Kerry sums up the Obama Administration’s foreign policy in a nutshell.

“Kerry: Extremism Not Linked to Islam; Factors Include Deprivation, Climate Change,” by Patrick Goodenough, CNS News, October 17, 2014:

(CNSNews.com) – Secretary of State John Kerry on Thursday night rejected any link between Islam and extremism practiced by the likes of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS/ISIL/Daesh), pointing instead to factors such as poverty among youthful Mideast populations, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict – and climate change.

Addressing a reception at the State Department in honor of the recent Islamic holiday of Eid al-Adha, Kerry told an audience of Muslim community representatives, diplomats and others that the world was facing “a very complex time, and there are many currents that are loose out there that have brought us to this moment.”

“The extremism that we see, the radical exploitation of religion which is translated into violence, has no basis in any of the real religions,” he said. “There’s nothing Islamic about what ISIL/Daesh stands for, or is doing to people.”

The situation was “complicated, and for other reasons,” Kerry said. “We’re living at a point in time where there are just more young people demanding what they see the rest of the world having than at any time in modern history.”

He said with large youthful populations in some countries in the Middle East, South-Central Asia and the Horn of Africa, “you are going to have a governance problem unless your governance is really addressing the demands and needs of that part of the population.”

Kerry said extremist violence was just a symptom of underlying causes that needed to be addressed. He spoke in that context of a need for a partnership – to pursue peace, shared prosperity and the ability to get an education and a job, as well as “sustainability of the planet itself.”

“And that brings us to something like climate change, which is profoundly having an impact in various parts of the world, where droughts are occurring not at a 100-year level but at a 500-year level in places that they haven’t occurred, floods of massive proportions, diminishment of water for crops and agriculture at a time where we need to be talking about sustainable food.”

“In many places we see the desert increasingly creeping into East Africa,” he said. “We’re seeing herders and farmers pushed into deadly conflict as a result. We’re seeing the Himalayan glaciers receding, which will affect the water that is critical to rice and to other agriculture on both sides of the Himalayas. These are our challenges.”

‘Humiliation and denial’

Kerry also linked the threat of ISIS-type extremism to the Israeli-Palestinian situation.

“As I went around and met with people in the course of our discussions about the ISIL coalition, the truth is we – there wasn’t a leader I met with in the region who didn’t raise with me spontaneously the need to try to get peace between Israel and the Palestinians,” he said, “because it was a cause of recruitment and of street anger and agitation that they felt – and I see a lot of heads nodding – they had to respond to.”

“And people need to understand the connection of that,” Kerry added. “It has something to do with humiliation and denial and absence of dignity …”…

The 56-page latest edition of its publication, Dabiq, does not refer once to the plight of the Palestinians, although there are numerous hostile references to Jews, “Crusaders” and others.

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Homosexual group demands that U.S. State Department hire special “gay” czar to push LGBT agenda

On Sept. 4, the homosexual-transgender group “Human Rights Campaign” sent out a blast email demanding that US Secretary of State John Kerry appoint a special “gay czar” in the State Department to coordinate the pressure against countries that have refused to buckle under to the LGBT agenda. The email rants about the “infamous anti-LGBT extremist Scott Lively” who is helping other countries fight back!

Here’s the email they sent to their thousands of supporters:

For a larger view click on the image.

It looks like we’re being pretty effective in thwarting their agenda around the world!

Idiotic comments from State Dept: Foley beheading not about the U.S. [VIDEO]

Just a warning. Before you watch this video, make sure you don’t have anything in your mouth.

I’m thinking that when Obama referred to the “JV team” back in January he was talking about his own collection of knuckleheads. I’m amazed you don’t hear more laughing from the press corps when his spokespeople get in front of the cameras. Where did he find this group of cub scouts?

And now the latest from Marie Harf — who infamously claimed that Bergdahl’s platoon mates were lying and had no idea what they were talking about. Take a gander her at comments regarding the beheading of James Foley.

As reported by CNS News, “Deputy State Department spokesperson Marie Harf on Wednesday condemned the beheading of American journalist James Foley by Islamic terrorists, but she also stated that the ISIS threat “is not about the United States and what we do.” Harf spoke after President Obama told the nation that “governments and peoples across the Middle East” should come together in a “common effort to extract this cancer, so that it does not spread.” He then went golfing.”

Ms. Harf, if beheading an American is not about America, then what is it about? Maybe ISIS is upset Germany won the World Cup? Or perhaps ISIS is angry about global warming and how the world community isn’t tackling the situation? No, you’re right, when an American gets beheaded, it has nothing to do with America – even though the beheader himself said it was because of what America has done.

Look, I’m not making this up. Watch the video! But I’m warning you – make sure you don’t have anything in your mouth.

“I think ISIL wants to make this about the United States and our actions. And I think what the President was trying to say was that this is not about the United States and what we do. This is about countries in the region coming together to fight a shared threat, and this is not about us.”

Who the heck is this about when an American is beheaded Ms. Harf? When someone tells you they’re going to kill you, have you choke on your own blood, and blood will flow in your streets, i.e. American streets, it is about YOU, and you can’t dismiss this because you won’t confront the threat. You can’t just wait and “hope” that you can convince others to join you. It is the responsibility of the president of the United States to protect the citizens of the United States and not lead from his own behind.

Regardless of what the enemy expresses, the pursuit of political correctness remains a central theme to the Obama administration. “ISIL does not operate in the name of any religion. The president has been very clear about that, and the more we can underscore that, the better,” Harf said.

Excuse me young lady, these monsters are doing exactly what is commanded to them by Mohammad. Perhaps you should read about the breaking of the Treaty of Hudabiyya, the Battle of the Trenches, or read his letter to Byzantine Emperor Heraclius.

Trust me, if I were ISIS watching American news and these comments by Harf, I’d be totally inspired to swell the ranks of my jihadist fighters and continue to march towards my goals and objectives, because clearly there’s nothing to stop me.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is the voice of foreign policy and national security in your federal government – your tax dollars Harf at work. If we can’t do better than this, we are indeed screwed. Folks, in plain southern lexicon, this sucks!

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared on AllenBWest.com.

Holocaust Memorial Day and the Pathetic Palestinians

AA - Palestinians

Children waving PLO banner.

“The demands, conditions, stipulations, and decisions pouring out of Mahmoud Abbas’s office in the last month or so have persuaded everyone concerned that the Palestinian’s mind is in a total muddle,” opined an April 24 Israeli-based news-wire Debka File. It reported that Israel’s Prime Minister, Binjamin Netanyahu, had broken off peace talks with the Palestinian Authority (PA), also known as Fatah, after Abbas, its leader, had announced Fatah would unite with Hamas, another Palestinian group with which it had been at odds since 2007.

Confusing? You’re not alone. As Debka File put it, “No one in Jerusalem or Washington can figure out what he wants. And even his closest aides believe that he doesn’t know his own mind and are afraid of what he may dream up next.”

As Israel commemorates Holocaust Remembrance Day which began at sundown on Sunday, Abbas grabbed international headlines by declaring that the Holocaust was the “most heinous” modern crime, but seemed to equate what happened to Europe’s Jews during World War II with Palestinians today who, he said, “suffer from injustice, oppression, and are denied freedom and peace…” The fact that they and the Arab League have refused for over six decades to accept Israel’s right to exist went unmentioned. Now that’s chutzpah!

“In Gaza City, meanwhile,” reported Debka File, “his Fatah and the rival Hamas celebrated their umpteenth unity pack in nine years, although not a single clause of any of the foregoing documents was ever implemented.”

If the Palestinians as a whole and the two organizations that self-identify as representing them seem unable to function in a rational fashion, that is a fair conclusion.

This is what the Israelis have been dealing with before and ever since Yasser Arafat created the Palestinian Authority in 1959 directing it until his death in 2004. Its original purpose was the destruction of Israel, but Arafat modified that on occasion to give the impression of legitimacy and to seek ways to return Israel to its original borders in 1948 and later 1964. In 1987 he launched a prolonged Palestinian uprising known as the Intifada, killing many Israelis. And you wonder why Israel has built high walls and fences in some areas?

Hamas is closer to Arafat’s original goal, having been openly dedicated to the destruction of Israel since its formation in 1987 during the Intifada. It is an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood and has controlled Gaza since June 2007, having forcibly driven out Fatah representatives. It has been deemed a terrorist organization by the U.S. since 1997, as does the European Union, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Egypt, but not by Iran, Turkey, and China. In 2005 Israel turned over the Gaza strip to the Palestinians as a gesture of peace which has been rewarded by constant rocketing launched from there ever since.

Sarah Stern, the founder and president of the Endowment for Middle East Truth (EMET) said on April 25 that “Since September 13, 1993, the Palestinian Authority has been playing a double, duplicitous and highly dangerous game of ‘good cop/bad cop.’ While the Palestinian Authority ended their diplomatic isolation in the community of nations by signings Oslo, Wye, the Roadmap for Middle East Peace, and all subsequent agreements, they have used their enhanced diplomatic status to wage a nonphysical war against Israel through systematic campaigns of distortion and dehumanization of Israel and the Jew in the international court of public opinion.”

EMET condemned the Palestinian Authority for supporting terrorism against Israel “regularly applauding suicide bombers and calling on children to become martyrs…it is time to stop giving American’s taxpayer dollars, to the tune of more than $600 million a year, to the PA.”

One has to ask why Secretary of State John Kerry has wasted months trying to secure peace between the Palestinian Authority and Israel when the former has never demonstrated any real effort to engage in peace beyond the formalities of treaties it has routinely ignored. The announcement that it would join with Hamas is testimony to its dedication to destroying Israel in its quest to declare control of the disputed area. Since 1948, Israel has been a sovereign state. All previous efforts by the U.S. have ended in failure.

Lately, the PA, designated a United Nations “observer”, has been applying for membership to 15 UN bodies. The UN has demonstrated its support for the PA for years, even annually celebrating a day devoted to the Palestinian “refugees”, the oldest such “refugee” group in history, due in large part by the refusal of Arab nations to extend citizenship to them. The UN has maintained UNRWA, its Relief and Works Agency, since 1948 when Israel was attacked and defeated its neighbors. In subsequent wars it expanded its borders to include the Golan Heights and the West Bank.

If the Fatah-Hamas unity effort is successful, it will further isolate the Palestinians who have few, if any, friends left in the Middle East and it renders the United Nations, presumably devoted to peace, as pathetic as the Palestinians.

The restraint that the Israelis have demonstrated over the past 66 years has been quite extraordinary. They are not, however, going to accept several generations of Palestinians to “return” into their nation where many have never lived since 1948.

The Palestinians have not given Israel any reason to have any confidence in what they say publicly for world consumption and the latest “unity” announcement at least confirms their bad intentions. In addition to Hamas, the Iranian pawn, Hezbollah, composed largely of Palestinians, gives Israel even less reason to regard them as anything than enemies.

And while this goes on, the Israelis must make plans to respond to the failure of the U.S. effort to get Iran to stop enriching uranium to make their own nuclear weapons. When it is declared dead, they will have no other option than to attack Iranian facilities.

© Alan Caruba, 2014