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June 2016

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A Pax Sinica in the Middle East, Redux :David Goldman

By on June 21st, 2016

A “Russian-Chinese axis” will dominate the Middle East with Israel as its Western anchor: That scenario was floated June 15 in Russia Insider, a louche propaganda site that often runs the work of fringe conspiracy theorists and the occasional anti-Semite. But the author in this case was the venerable Giancarlo Elia Valori, president of Huawei Technologies’ Italian division, a veteran of past intelligence wars with a resume that reads like a Robert Ludlum novel.

Writes Prof. Valori:

A Russian/Israeli axis could redesign the Middle East. Currently the main powers have neither father nor mother, and the replacement of the great powers by Iran and Saudi Arabia will not last long because they are too small to be able to create far-reaching strategic correlations. Hence the time has come for the Middle East to be anchored to a global power, the Russian-Chinese axis, with Israel acting as a regional counterweight.

I would be tempted to dismiss Valori’s thesis as pulp fiction, except that I also raised the prospect of a “Pax Sinica” in the Middle East, three years ago in this publication.

Israeli-Russian relations, to be sure, are quite good. Deft military cooperation avoided problems between Russian forces in Syria and the Israeli army. Israel tolerated the occasional Russian overflight in its territory and Russia tolerated the occasional Israeli raid on Russia’s local allies, Iran and Iran’s cat’s paw Hezbollah. There even has been some speculation by Israeli officials that Russia might use itsUnited Nations Security Council veto against the French-led proposal to impose a Palestinian State.

Tactical cooperation between Russia and Israel, though, is beside the point: Where do Russian (and Chinese) long-range interests coincide with Israeli interests? Prof. Valori writes of a redesign of the Middle East, and that is not as far-fetched as it sounds.

The century-old design of the Middle East, namely the Sykes-Picot agreement, is broken; America broke it by imposing majority (that is, Shia) rule in Iraq in 2007. The Middle East requires a new design. Sykes-Picot, as I explained in this space, set minorities to govern majorities: A Sunni minority in Shia-majority Iraq and a Shia (Alawite) minority in Sunni-majority Syria. That created a natural balance of power: Syrian Christians supported the Alawites and Iraqi Christians supported Saddam Hussein. The oppressed majority knew however nasty the minority regime might be, it could not undertake to kill them all.

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MAX BOOT: AFTER ORLANDO….A LONG WAR

By on June 21st, 2016

To stop future terrorist attacks, we need solutions from all sides: better security and surveillance at home, a vigorous fight abroad and the support of Muslim moderates everywhere

The massacre at a gay nightclub in Orlando—the worst act of terrorism on American soil since the attacks of 9/11—had barely ended when the debate over its significance began. As usual, the political class divided into competing camps, with liberals predictably claiming that the real issue is gun control and conservatives just as predictably claiming that the real issue is radical Islam. There wasn’t even agreement over whether this was a hate crime or an act of terrorism. (Why couldn’t it be both?)

Faced with the cacophony of competing sound bites, it is tempting to throw one’s hands up in despair and simply bemoan the debased state of political discourse. But we don’t have that luxury, because terrorism remains a real and growing danger. So how should we combat it? By adopting the best ideas from the left and the right on how to improve security at home and by going after terrorists abroad. In dealing with such a complex threat, no part of the political spectrum has a monopoly on the truth.

Start with domestic security. The state of our homeland defenses has improved since 9/11, thanks to greater awareness of the terrorist threat, greater resources devoted to stopping it and greater cooperation among law enforcement and intelligence agencies. But it is hard to stop a violent fanatic from walking into a nightclub and opening fire—and always will be.

The fact that there are more than 300 million firearms in private hands in the U.S. compounds the danger, because it means that anyone with a grudge can acquire the means to commit mass murder. Terrorists are aware of this vulnerability and seek to exploit it. As the American-born al Qaeda spokesman Adam Gadahn said in a 2011 video, “America is absolutely awash with easily obtainable firearms. You can go down to a gun show at the local convention center and come away with a fully automatic assault rifle without a background check and most likely without having to show an identification card. So what are you waiting for?” (You can’t buy a fully automatic weapon, but otherwise he was correct.)

Omar Mateen did not wait. Possibly inspired by a recent message from Islamic State urging its followers to turn Ramadan into “a month of suffering,” he marched into the Pulse nightclub and opened fire. The fact that he was able to work as a licensed security guard and to legally purchase firearms, despite having been investigated twice by the FBI for potential terrorist ties, suggests a fundamental breakdown in our safeguards.

There is no reason why the American public should be able to purchase military-style semiautomatic weapons such as the AR-15, which has become a favorite of mass shooters. As retired Gen. Stanley McChrystal, one of the leaders of a new veterans’ group for gun control, notes, the purpose of the AR-15 is to kill a great many people as quickly as possible. It is also important to ban high-capacity magazines, which allow a killer to keep killing without reloading. Mateen used a Sig Sauer MCX semiautomatic rifle (similar to the AR-15) with a 30-round magazine.

Even if bans on assault weapons and high capacity magazines aren’t politically possible, Congress should, at a minimum, prevent suspects on terrorism watch lists from purchasing firearms legally—something that they were able to do 223 times in 2015, according to the Government Accountability Office. (Only one transaction in 10 was denied.)CONTINUE AT SITE

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MY SAY: THE PLEASURE OF FELLOW TRAVELERS

By on June 20th, 2016

Last Friday I took a really long train trip to the South. I had a seat next to a nurse from Baltimore who was bound for Chicago. We chatted about many things including politics. She told me that she had goose bumps at the election and presidency of Obama and goose bumps at the potential election of a woman- namely, Hillary Clinton. She asked what I thought. I told her that my answer might anger her – I do not admire President Obama, and I will be voting for Donald Trump.

Her response was immediate….verbatim: “Honey….Why would I be angry? This is not Russia and you are entitled to your opinion.” It sounded like music after the political rancor among my friends in the Northeast.
And in magnificent Albemarle county in Virginia, we came upon:

TRUMP VINEYARDS

Planted in 1999 and nestled in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, Trump Winery is situated on a 1,300-acre estate just a few miles from Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello, the birthplace of American viticulture, and James Monroe’s Ash Lawn-Highland in Charlottesville, VA. Planted with nearly 200 acres of French vinifera varieties, Trump Winery is Virginia’s largest vineyard and the largest vinifera vineyard on the East Coast.

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HIS SAY: GERALD WALPIN ON IMMIGRATION AND POTENTIAL TERRORISM

By on June 20th, 2016

Is there any doubt that ISIS is or can be placing terrorists among the Syrian refugees entering this country, and that the entry into this country of such terrorists “would be detrimental to the interests of the United States”? And further, that our government has no means of vetting all such refugees to eliminate those who are terrorists.

Section 212(e) of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 (still the law):

“Whenever the President finds that the entry of any aliens or of any class of aliens into the United States would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, he may by proclamation, and for such period as he shall deem necessary, suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or non immigrants, or impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions he may deem to be appropriate. ”
Mr. Walpin is the author of ” The Supreme Court vs. The Constitution- You Don’t Have to be a Lawyer To Understand How Supreme Court Justices Have Substituted Their Own Elitist Views for Constitutional Guarantees That Protect the Average American’s Security and Values”

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Brexit and British Exceptionalism The country that invented the modern democratic state is in danger of being swallowed up. By Joseph Loconte

By on June 20th, 2016

The desire of many British citizens to leave the European Union is being assailed by American cultural elites as hysteria: a cancerous growth from the blighted soil of nativism, nationalism, and Islamophobia. New York Times columnist Roger Cohen, for example, finds it “unimaginable” that most Britons would vote “yes” in the June 23 referendum, known as Brexit: “I believe that reason will prevail over derangement.”

Only a degraded form of liberalism, however, fails to see why Great Britain might view the European Union with dismay. Whatever its noble intentions, the EU has come to embody a set of values fundamentally at odds with Britain’s historical ideals and institutions. Put simply, British exceptionalism will never make its peace with the secular and leftist assumptions of the European project.

Liberals on both sides of the Atlantic have conveniently forgotten the decisive role played by Great Britain in setting the foundation for the modern democratic state. Like no other country in Europe, Britain developed a tradition of natural rights, the rule of law, trial by jury — all informed by its Christian culture and institutions. Even Montesquieu, the French theorist most associated with the separation of powers, looked to the English example. “He was an ardent admirer of the English constitution,” says Russell Kirk in The Roots of American Order. “He finds the best government of his age in the constitutional monarchy of England, where the subject enjoyed personal and civic freedom.”

Britain’s political and social institutions, nourished by these ideas, stretch back centuries. “Where French kings relied on authority and force, the English sought consent and co-operation at every level, from Parliament to parish,” writes John Miller, professor of history at the University of London. “Louis XIV’s success owed much to the fact that the ruling elite and the king’s officials generally accepted the principles of absolutism. There was no such acceptance in England.”

That’s right — long before Madison, Jefferson, and Rousseau, English revolutionaries were rejecting political absolutism. They proclaimed man’s natural and inalienable rights and reimagined the purposes of government in light of these rights.

At the heart of their argument was the doctrine of consent: the God-given freedom of the individual to choose his political and religious commitments. As John Locke put it in his Second Treatise of Government (1690), political authority remains legitimate only if it retains the consent of the governed. “Men being, as has been said, by nature all free, equal, and independent, no one can be put out of this estate and subjected to the political power of another without his own consent.”

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Blaming Trump Obama insinuates that “Islamophobic speech” causes terrorism. Deborah Weiss

By on June 20th, 2016

Shortly after the Orlando attack, which left 49 dead and 53 others wounded, I predicted on my Facebook page that “despite the fact that the shooter pledged his allegiance to ISIS before launching fire, the FBI will spend weeks searching in vain for a motive. Experts will hypothesize that the shooter was disaffected, bored, insane or unemployed. It will be anything except Islamic terrorism. The whole thing will be a big mystery.” I further added,

In no time at all, the President, the government agencies and the media will be lumping in ‘homophobia’ with “Islamophobia”, and “hate”, “extremism”, “terrorism” and “violence” like they are all the same thing. Shortly thereafter (or perhaps simultaneously) the emphasis will be the hate, not Islamist ideology, and because right wingers are so hateful, the focus will be on right wing extremists who “hate” and are “Islamophobic.” And of course, Trump will be thrown in there somewhere.

It didn’t take long to prove my prediction true.

During his speech following the Orlando jihadist attack, President Obama intimated that Islamophobic speech used by Donald Trump and other Republicans is the cause of terrorist attacks. Pointing his finger at “politicians who tweet” and are “loose and sloppy” with their language, the president asserted that “this kind of mindset is dangerous. Look where it gets us.” Criticizing those who criticize him for refusing to use the phrase “Radical Islam,” President Obama insisted that “there’s no magic to the phrase Radical Islam. It’s a political talking point. It’s not a strategy.” He went on to say that “arguing about labels has all just been partisan rhetoric in the fight against extremist groups.”

Democratic presidential hopeful, Hilary Clinton, mirrored the President’s language almost verbatim, prompting a CNN reporter to ask Josh Ernest, White House spinmeister. whether the talking points were coordinated. Though he denied it, the similarity is hard to deny. Clinton proclaimed that Donald Trump thinks there are “magic words, once uttered [which] will stop terrorist from coming after us. Trump, as usual, is obsessed with name-calling….. It matters what we do more than what we say.”

ISIS is on the rise, Islamic terrorist groups have been gaining ground worldwide, Islamist ideology is spreading in the West, and ISIS-inspired attacks have arrived on the shores in the Free World including America. Ignoring these facts, the president insisted that America is safer than it was eight years ago. Yet, just days later, CIA Director John Brennan testified to the contrary, asserting that America is facing the biggest threat to national security that we have seen in years.

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Obama vs. Sun Tzu The deadly price of not making a threat assessment. Jamie Glazov

By on June 20th, 2016

President Obama is very upset at his critics, who are taking him and his administration to task for refusing to use the term “radical Islam” to describe our enemy in the terror war.

During his speech on Tuesday, in referring to the term “radical Islam,” the president stated angrily:

What exactly would using this label accomplish? What exactly would it change? Would it make ISIL less committed to try to kill Americans? Would it bring in more allies? Is there a military strategy that is served by this? The answer is none of the above. Calling a threat by a different name does not make it go away. This is a political distraction.

It is interesting to note that our enemy has quite a preoccupation with this very same “political distraction.”

Indeed, back in 2011, Muslim Brotherhood front groups approached the Obama administration and demanded to look at the training materials for the FBI and law enforcement agencies to see what words they were using. It’s curious that instead of telling the Brotherhood to go away with the explanation that labels didn’t “accomplish” or “change” anything, the administration docilely obliged. More curious still, when the Brotherhood returned and demanded that all mention of words connected to Islam, such as “jihad,” “Sharia” and “radical Islam,” be purged from the manuals, the administration again docilely obliged.

So we have an intriguing situation: when people who want to protect America implore Obama to use the term “radical Islam” to describe the force waging war on us, he refuses and angrily responds that “different” names don’t make things go away. But when a totalitarian ideology that seeks to destroy our civilization (and boasts that it will do so by our own hands) tells us not to use the label “radical Islam” when we were doing that, Obama follows the orders.

And so, as author Stephen Coughlin has documented in his work Catastrophic Failure, the Obama administration rooted out all references to jihad and Islam from U.S. intelligence agency manuals. And this action and attitude has affected every realm of government. That’s why in the State Department, for example, an official is not even allowed to ask an immigrant about his views on jihad or Sharia law before approving his visa application. In fact, a “counterterrorism” government guide counsels that keeping Muslims out of the country for supporting Sharia law violates the First Amendment.

Such is the devious mentality behind Obama’s “defense strategy” in the terror war, which demands that American officials and investigators are to consider only violent or criminal conduct when trying to keep America safe. Radical ideology is to be ignored, particularly if it has the veneer of “religious expression.”

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“Selling a House to a Jew is a Betrayal of Allah” by Khaled Abu Toameh

By on June 20th, 2016

The renewed campaign against Palestinians suspected of selling real estate to Jews is also part of the belief that the entire land is Muslim-owned, and no Muslim is entitled to give up even one inch of it to a non-Muslim. In other words, it is forbidden for a Muslim to sell his home or land to a Jew or Christian. This would be the nail in the coffin of any Palestinian leader who attempts to make any territorial compromise as part of a peace agreement with Israel.

This campaign has raised fears that Palestinians may resume extrajudicial executions of suspected land dealers.

“The land dealers should know that they would not be able to avoid earthly and life punishment. Not only will they not be buried in Islamic cemeteries, but their entire families will also be punished and it would be forbidden to marry or to deal in any way with their family members.” — Palestinian National Work Commission in Jerusalem,

This campaign undermines Palestinians’ long-standing claim that Jews “illegally seize” Arab-owned houses and land in Jerusalem. It seems that rather than illegal seizure, Jews have been paying willing Arabs cold hard cash for the properties.

A Palestinian Muslim who commits the “crime” of selling property to Jews should not expect to be buried in an Islamic cemetery. Marriage to local Palestinians will no longer be an option for this criminal’s family members, and any weddings the family makes will have no guests attending.

Both the living and the dead, then, will pay the price for such “treason.”

This is only a sampling of the punitive measures that will now be faced by Palestinian residents of Jerusalem who are involved in real estate transactions with Jews.

The latest measures were recently announced by a group of Palestinian activists in east Jerusalem, as part of a renewed campaign against Palestinians who are found guilty of selling a home or plot of land to a Jewish individual or organization.

The campaign, which has received the blessing of senior Palestinian Authority (PA) and Hamas officials, comes in the context of Palestinian efforts to thwart Israeli efforts to “Judaize” Jerusalem. It is also part of the belief that the entire land is Muslim-owned and no Muslim is entitled to give up even one inch of it to a non-Muslim. In other words, it is forbidden for a Muslim to sell his home or land to a Jew or Christian.

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Strategic Outlook for Saudi Arabia and Iran by Shmuel Bar

By on June 20th, 2016

In Saudi Arabia, Mohammad bin Salman’s “Vision 2030” it is totally identified with his leadership. If it succeeds, he will harvest the praise; on the other hand, many in the Saudi elite will latch on to any sign of failure of his policies in order to block his ambitions.

Mohammad bin Salman’s social-political agenda to broaden the power base of the regime to include the young and educated — and to a great extent relatively secular or moderate — will certainly be seen by the Wahhabi clerics and the tribal social conservatives as geared towards reducing their control over the populace and hence their weight in the elite.

Another serious risk is that the economic plan entails reducing the Saudi welfare state. The economic and social fallout of weaning the Saudis away from entitlements will be exploited by domestic opposition elements and by Iran.

In Iran, the electoral process within the Assembly showed what was not evident during the parliamentary elections held in February, namely that even a formal preeminence of moderates does not and cannot influence the decision making of the Iranian regime and that Khamenei succeeds to pull the strings despite seemingly democratic procedures.

After having won the chairmanship of the Assembly, Jannati delivered a speech demanding total loyalty to Khamenei, which can be considered as targeting the moderates.

Following the announcement of Saudi Arabia’s “Vision 2030” Economic Plan by Deputy Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman on April 25, King Salman announced a reshuffling of the government. The reshuffling was clearly orchestrated by the Deputy Crown Prince and reflects his agenda. This shuffle probably is not the last word even in the near term; the changes in the government strengthen the political position of Mohammad bin Salman, because the new ministers owe him their posts, and through them he will strengthen his hold on the levers of government, especially in the economic sphere. His next step may be to move to neutralize Prince Mitab bin Abdullah, the minister in charge of the Saudi Arabian National Guard (SANG) and a close ally of Crown Prince Mohammad bin Nayef. He could do this by absorbing SANG into the Ministry of Defense.

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The Totalitarianism of Modern Airports by Edward Cline

By on June 20th, 2016

I hate flying, and have hated it for years ever since 9/11, and have sworn never to fly again. It’s for my blood pressure. I hate it not only because of the airlines’ treatment of passengers or customers as faceless widgets to be squeezed together as much as possible in an airport, but also on the planes, forcing one to come in physical contact with other passengers, many of whom one would not otherwise wish to touch. I hate it also because of the role of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA).

The typical large airport is a microcosm of a regulated, controlled society, an experiment in Progressivism. The miasma of the environment is repellent if not dulling to the senses. Modern, post-9/11 airports are intended to be soul-destroying because the only way to exercise the government’s power is to hold one’s business and purposes hostage and extort soul-destroying submission to the state’s will. “You have to go there?” says the TSA. “Well, you have to get past me first. Drop your drawers.”

All American airports have been turned into microcosms of totalitarianism. It’s not a hard concept to grasp, once one has passed through – or rather endured – being molested, fondled, spindled, stamped, x-rayed, bar-coded, ordered from here to there, stripped bare to reveal one’s secrets or shames, approved or disapproved, and made to conform to the government’s measure of good and acceptable behavior. The milieu demands total submission to the state’s will and ends. There is certainly no ambience left to an airport, except one of nonstop dread and mental numbness.

Everything seems to be designed and planned to distract one from observing that once one is in the clutches of the government, and also of the airlines, one has been reduced to the status of of an assembly line cog to be processed and dispatched as speedily as possible – speedily in terms of bureaucracy.

I remember the time when flying was somewhat romantic, something to look forward to with some excitement. I remember being greeted by a throng of friends when I stepped off a plane. Today, anyone not flying isn’t even allowed in most of the spaces and byways of an airport. One’s friends, family, and well-wishers have been banned from having any business inside an airport. One’s greeters are confined to an area outside of the processing center.

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