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May 2013

JIM GERAGHTY: THE STINGERS OF BENGHAZI

http://www.nationalreview.com/node/349231/print

Earlier this week, Roger L. Simon of Pajamas Media broke a story with shocking revelations, contending that slain U.S. ambassador Chris Stevens was in Benghazi on September 11 to buy back Stinger missiles from al-Qaeda groups that had been originally provided to them by the U.S. State Department.

Simon cited two former U.S. diplomats:

Stevens’ mission in Benghazi, they will say, was to buy back Stinger missiles from al-Qaeda groups issued to them by the State Department, not by the CIA. Such a mission would usually be a CIA effort, but the intelligence agency had opposed the idea because of the high risk involved in arming “insurgents” with powerful weapons that endanger civilian aircraft.

Hillary Clinton still wanted to proceed because, in part, as one of the diplomats said, she wanted “to overthrow [Qaddafi] on the cheap.”

This left Stevens in the position of having to clean up the scandalous enterprise when it became clear that the “insurgents” actually were al-Qaeda — indeed, in the view of one of the diplomats, the same group that attacked the consulate and ended up killing Stevens.

A careful review of reports from Libya over the past few years corroborates some parts of that account, but contradicts others:

Some Libyan rebel leaders, including at least one who had spent time in a training camp in Afghanistan and who was in that country in September 2001, specifically asked Western countries to send Stinger missiles.

Qaddafi’s intelligence services believed that the rebels were having the missiles smuggled in over the country’s southern border — but they believed the French were supplying the missiles.

There is no evidence that the U.S. supplied the weapons, but it appears they gave their blessing to a secret Qatari effort to ship arms across Libya’s southern border in violation of a United Nations arms embargo.

Anti-Qaddafi forces also obtained a significant number of anti-aircraft missiles from the regime’s bunkers early in the conflict.

Enough Stinger missiles disappeared from regime stockpiles during the civil war to become a high priority and serious worry for the administration.

(Note that in much of the coverage of Libya, “Stinger” has turned into a catch-all term for any shoulder-mounted anti-aircraft missile.)

To save Eric Holder and the Department of Justice the trouble of reading my e-mail or collecting my phone records, all of the information in this report is gathered from public and open sources, both in the U.S. and overseas, and none of it can be considered classified or sensitive.

PETER HEGSETH: ISRAEL’S SENSE OF PURPOSE

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/349192/israel%E2%80%99s-sense-purpose-pete-hegseth

In Israel, a sense of historical importance is palpable, and the U.S. can learn from it.

Jerusalem — The first question from our group of U.S. war veterans, in typical American fashion, was whether the war-hardened Israeli officer we were meeting with had ever visited the United States for military training or for schooling. He had not; but with a sly grin on his face, he told us that he did visit SeaWorld in California during a family vacation a few years ago. Not exactly what you expect to be talking about with a high-ranking Israel Defense Forces officer.

He told us he was struck by what he experienced at SeaWorld. Before the Shamu whale show, the names of all the Americans killed in action that week in Iraq and Afghanistan were read over the loudspeaker (San Diego is a Marine Corps town, after all), followed by the singing of the national anthem. He was taken aback: “I felt like I was in Israel.” He was heartened to visit a country where patriotism and reverence for freedom’s sacrifices were still demonstrated.
That is in sharp contrast with his feelings about Europe, which he describes as a “giant museum,” slowly fading into irrelevance. This officer had spent a year studying in London, and while he had good things to say about the people he met and plenty of appreciation for the contributions Europe had historically made to the West, he bemoaned the lack of patriotism and the general apathy that pervade Europe, and especially its intelligentsia, today.

Two days into my first trip to Israel, I find this officer’s comments give a helpful insight into what makes Israel such a dynamic and special place. The officer, the men he commands, and the society they defend cannot afford the detachment and distractions experienced by much of the world — especially much of the modern West. This is not to say that Israelis live in fear or under siege; that is certainly not what I’ve observed thus far. But there is an ever-present understanding that the fragile peace they enjoy and their nation itself are preserved only through intentional, purposeful, and courageous action.

This is not to say that the country is without divisions. The hawks and the doves see opportunities and threats quite differently. There is also significant tension between the Orthodox Jewish communities and more secular Jews, especially regarding compulsory military service and the importance of (or problem posed by) Israeli settlements, especially in the West Bank. And, most directly, there remains a deep, fundamental distrust between Jewish and Arab Israeli citizens, as a slow-motion demographic race plays out.

THE PRESIDENT’S STRATEGY….LINK ALL TERROR TO AL QAEDA: BRIDGET JOHNSON

http://pjmedia.com/blog/obama-still-running-on-al-qaeda-is-on-the-run-message-as-he-talks-new-strategy/ Obama Still Running on ‘al-Qaeda Is on the Run’ Message as He Talks New Strategy President eager to link Islamic terrorism solely to al-Qaeda, distance al-Qaeda from known active affiliates, then distance al-Qaeda from all recent attacks: “They did not direct the attacks in Benghazi or Boston.” With two current scandals [1] pointing to […]

WHY IS “LA RAZA” PARTNERING WITH FEDS TO HIR GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES? J. CHRISTIAN ADAMS

http://pjmedia.com/jchristianadams/2013/05/23/la-raza-the-race-partners-with-feds-to-hire-200000-government-employees/?print=1 La Raza (The Race) Partners with Feds to Hire Government Employees The National Council of La Raza (translation: The Race) has partnered with the Office of Personnel Management to encourage Hispanic activists and members to burrow into the federal government. A workshop sponsored by La Raza/The Race will take place in New Orleans on July […]

DIANA WEST: FROM THE BROOKLYN BRIDGE TO LONDON

http://www.wnd.com/2013/05/from-the-brooklyn-bridge-to-london/

Diana West harkens back to ’94 murder of Jewish teen in wake of solider’s slaughter
Nearly 20 years after a Hasidic Jewish boy riding across the Brooklyn Bridge was killed by a Muslim fighting jihad, a British soldier was hacked to death and reportedly beheaded on the streets of London by Muslims fighting jihad.

Thanks to the happenstance of a passer-by with a video recorder, the world heard almost immediately from one of the two London suspects, Michael Adebolajo. His hands red with blood, Adebolajo confessed to the murder he had just committed in Quranically correct terms of revenge, presumably for Britain’s efforts against jihad in Iraq and Afghanistan. We also know that cries of “Allahu Akbar” (“Allah is great”) punctuated the knifing and meat-cleavering of the victim.
But if “Allahu Akbar” is the historic cry of Muslims engaged in jihad, it is also the contemporary trigger for Western denial that jihad exists. “We will defeat violent extremism by standing together,” British Prime Minister David Cameron stated, gravely opaque. How? “Above all by challenging the poisonous narrative of extremism on which this violence feeds,” he said, definitely not referring to the verses of the Quran that inspire jihad.

Islam, the prime minister was saying, has nothing to do with this murder in the streets. Furthermore, global jihad is not under way, and no caliphate in which Jews and Christians will defer to Islamic law as “dhimmi” is on the horizon.

Flash back almost two decades to March 1994, one year after the first attack on the World Trade Center and shortly after an Israeli doctor, Baruch Goldstein, massacred 29 Muslims in a mosque in Hebron. Goldstein’s act was uniformly denounced by Israeli and Jewish authorities, but it nonetheless engendered calls for jihad from Islamic authorities around the world. It was at this point in New York City that 16-year-old Ari Halberstam was shot and killed on the Brooklyn Bridge by Rashid Baz, a “Middle East” man or “Arab” – the vernacular of the day for Muslim.

Nonetheless, in an earlier iteration of jihad-denial, discussion of the Brooklyn Bridge case actually focused on “road rage.” What we were looking at, of course, was an act of jihad – among the first of many thousands leading up to the recent London attack.

From Ambivalence to Betrayal: The Left, the Jews, and Israel by Robert S. Wistrich Reviewed by Edward Alexander ****

http://israelcfr.com/about-icfr.php?inp=1  “We Shall Build Ramallah in England’s Green and Pleasant Land” From Ambivalence to Betrayal: The Left, the Jews, and Israel, by Robert Wistrich (Lincoln, Nebraska and London: University of Nebraska Press, 2012), 625 pages. Robert Wistrich, professor of Modern European and Jewish History at the Hebrew University and Head of its Vidal Sassoon Center […]

JED BABBIN: WHY PUTIN’S ANTI-AMERICAN GAMBITS ALWAYS SUCCEED

http://washingtonexaminer.com/jed-babbin-why-putins-anti-american-gambits-succeed/article/2530384

Thanks to an assortment of White House spokesmen, we know that President Obama wasn’t talking with then-Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta or then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on the night of the Benghazi terrorist attack.

It doesn’t matter where he was, we are told, because he was talking to other people on his national security staff. We can only wonder who he’s talking to about how Russian strongman Vladimir Putin is thwarting his diplomacy.

Presumably, he’d be talking to the current secretary of state, John Kerry. But Putin’s sense of irony and cynicism are probably as lost on Kerry as they were on his predecessor.

Neither the president nor his successive foreign policy chiefs have been able to cope with Putin, who has effectively made a habit of stymying American diplomacy.
Putin’s record of thwarting Obama is built on substantive success. For example, in the 2010 arms agreement with Russia (signed by Obama and Dmitri Medvedev, Putin’s temporary alter ego), he achieved a success that had eluded every Russian leader since Ronald Reagan first proposed a missile defense for America.

Putin got the U.S. to agree that missile defenses should not “undermine the viability and effectiveness of the strategic offensive arms” of the two nations. In short, that means we are supposed to give the Russians the means of defeating our missile defenses.

Maryland Blessed With $100 Million Turkish Mega-Mosque….note by Janet Levy

http://lastresistance.com/2144/maryland-blessed-with-100-million-turkish-mega-mosque/
Maryland Blessed With $100 Million Turkish Mega-Mosque

Last week, Maryland Governor, Martin O’Malley, invited guests from several Muslim Brotherhood affiliates, including ISNA and ICNA, to a Islamist celebration ceremony. Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan attended and placed a ceremonial stone at the construction site of a 15-acre Neo-Ottoman empire-inspired complex with five buildings, including a mega-mosque, financed by the Turkish government, due to be completed next year in Lanham, Maryland.The $100 million complex is slated to be “the largest and most striking examples of Islamic architecture in the western hemisphere.

In 2007 on Turkish television, Erdogan admonished Westerners’ use of the term “moderate Islam,” by declaring, “These descriptions are very ugly, it is offensive and an insult to our religion. There is no moderate or immoderate Islam. Islam is Islam and that’s it.”
That should have set off alarms in the West and extinguished any fantasies of Turkey’s role as a pillar of “moderate” Islam. Erdogan had made earlier alarming statements, similarly ignored as in 1994, while mayor of Istanbul, when he avowed, “Thank G-d Almighty, I am a servant of the Shariah.” Further confirming his strategy in 1996 after he was dismissed as mayor, the future Prime Minister stated, “Democracy is like a streetcar. You ride it until you arrive at your destination and then you step off.” (In other words, fake democracy until you no longer have to – pure TAQIYYA!) Since 2002, the Turkish government has been pursuing a version of Islam closely aligned with the Wahhabi extremist Islam of the Saudis.
The building of Christian churches has been denied in Turkey.
Janet Levy, Director
Women Against Shariah
Los Angeles
http://lastresistance.com/2144/maryland-blessed-with-100-million-turkish-mega-mosque/http://lastresistance.com/2144/maryland-blessed-with-100-million-turkish-mega-mosque/http://lastresistance.com/2144/maryland-blessed-with-100-million-turkish-mega-mosque/

On May 15, 2013, the Turkish Prime Minister, Erdogan, an anti-Semite, attended a ceremony a stone’s throw from our nation’s capital celebrating what he claims “will likely become the largest and most striking example of Islamic architecture in the Western Hemisphere.” Next year, when completed, the Turkish American Culture and Civilization Center, in Lanham, Maryland “US of A,” a project of the Islamist Turkish government, will be the grandest Islamic site in the Western Hemisphere. Allah Akbar!

The 15-acre neo-Ottoman empire inspired complex will have five buildings and a mosque capable of serving over 750 faithful Muslim worshipers. I have to give President Obama and his State Department some credit. The White House was correct in proclaiming that they had Islamists on the run. I just did not think they were beginning to run America.

Last week’s Islamist celebration ceremony was attended by Maryland Governor, Martin O’Malley who welcomed guests representing the “Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA),” the “Islamic Society of North America” and several other U.S. Muslim Brotherhood affiliates. Rumor has it that Governor O’Malley is considering a Presidential run in 2016.

AMIL IMANI: OMINOUS SIGNS FOR EUROPE

http://amilimani.com/europe-shall-bleed-once-again-3

Europe Shall Bleed, Once AgainAmil Imani.com

Me and my brother against my cousin; me, my brother, and my cousin against the other. This is an old Muslim saying and Muslims live by this motto. To be sure the people of the “religion of peace” find the world full of “other,” to oppress and kill, both within as well as without the Islamic Ummah.

Civilized peoples’ idea of the “other” is the exact opposite of that of
Muslims. All over Europe, for one, people have been singing the praises
of multiculturalism; the idea that everybody should bend over backwards
to accommodate the different in society. However, the different in this
case are the hordes of invasive Muslims, with their rigid medieval
ideas about every aspect of private and public life.

To Muslims, anyone who doesn’t toe the line of Islam, as each sect defines it, is the “other” and fair game as kafir (blasphemous; unbeliever in Allah). The “other” covers a broad spectrum: the six billion or so people of the world who are not Muslims, including the Jews and Christians who are considered Dhimmis. Every one of the numerous sects and sub-sects of Islam consider every other sect and sub-sect as “other” to be punished and even eliminated.

Centuries old Sunni-Shiite bloodletting is only one glaring example of the Islamic unceasing animosity for the “other.” Yet, these devotees of Allah never lose sight of the most important objective: destruction of everything non-Islamic and imposition of Islam on everyone and every land. Just recall what the Taliban did to the statues of Buddha, among other things; what the Wahabis are doing throughout the world; and, what the bomb-seeking Shiite mullahs of Iran are doing to the Baha’is in Iran in relentless race to dominate the region, destroy Israel, and later rule the world.

HENRY KISSINGER: INFLUENTIAL AND CONTROVERSIAL BY GIL TROY….SEE NOTE PLEASE

http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/132819/happy-birthday-mr-kissinger?all=1

BETRAYING TAIWAN, SCOLDING AND HARASSING ISRAEL AFTER 1973 WAR WITH CRUDE THREATS OF “REASSESSMENT”, PUSHING “DETENTE” WITH A FAILING SOVIET UNION, AND NEVER RECOGNIZING THE GROWING THREAT OF RADICAL ISLAM….IS NOT EVIDENCE OF GREAT POLITICAL SAVVY OR MANAGEMENT…..RSK

Henry Kissinger, who turns 90 this Monday, May 27, is one of the most influential Jews in American history—and one of the most controversial. In the 1970s, if Woody Allen was all about using Jewish smarts to manage the world’s insults and sorrows, Henry Kissinger was all about using Jewish smarts to manage the world.

This brilliant refugee from Nazi Germany with the gravelly voice, Teutonic accent, and thick Poindexter glasses, embodied the pinnacle of a certain type of Jewish aspiration and achievement in 20th-century America, becoming a Harvard professor in 1954, Richard Nixon’s foreign-policy mastermind in 1969, and the first Jewish secretary of state in 1973, as well as the era’s most surprising sex symbol. For the past four decades, he has remained the dean of America’s foreign-policy establishment, advising presidents and foreign governments alike. Just this month, at the Atlantic Council, Hillary Clinton wished him an early happy birthday. “Everywhere I go,” she said, “people talk to me about Henry.” Yet at the same time he remains a profoundly polarizing figure. In the last few years alone bloggers have called him a kapo who should have been gassed, and the late Christopher Hitchens pronounced him a “vile creature.”

Jews have similarly ambivalent feelings about the man. The Richard Nixon tapes released in 2010, in which one can hear Kissinger advising the president that “if they put Jews into gas chambers in the Soviet Union, it is not an American concern,” triggered a new round of denunciations. Indeed, just as Kissinger has long struggled with his Jewish identity, Jews have long struggled with him.