Showing posts with label World. Show all posts
Showing posts with label World. Show all posts

Monday, February 09, 2015

"We know Bowe Bergdahl deserted because we were there when he did it"

By Evan Buetow and Cody Full

On June 30, 2009, in Mest Malak, Afghanistan, Bowe Bergdahl left his unit and deserted the U.S. Army. We know he deserted because we were there when he did it.

We are confident that the overdue report from political and military leaders on Bergdahl’s actions, sitting on a general’s desk since October, comes to the same conclusion. It has to because the facts are clear.

Whatever the reason is for the late report and confused reporting about whether Bergdahl is set to be charged with desertion, justice is being denied to those of us who were abandoned by a fellow soldier.

The White House ceremony in May to announce the exchange of five senior Taliban detainees from the Guantanamo Bay prison for our former platoon member sparked a national debate on a variety of controversial issues: executive power, mental health care, the War on Terror, prisoners of war, due process and legal justice. It is troubling to us that President Obama and his political team are silencing this needed public debate by not making the release of this report a priority.

In light of the new information that some of the Taliban prisoners swapped for our former platoonmate made moves to re-enter the war, we believe that this debate must begin in earnest by issuing a report on the facts.

Like most people, we have opinions about how Bowe’s release affects these issues. Unlike others though, we were his team leaders, friends and brothers in arms. We have firsthand knowledge of the case and were interviewed as part of the investigation.

For five years, Bowe was held captive and likely tortured, suffering a fate that haunted us daily. We might never understand what happened inside the Taliban prisons that held him, nor will we know what was said in the political backrooms in Washington, D.C., that led to his release. Even so, the facts of his desertion need to be known in order to understand what the consequences and precedent will be if his acts go unpunished.

Here is what we know:

Obama should personally award Purple Hearts and apologize to the victims of Ft. Hood -- but he won't

By Investor's Business Daily

Political Correctness: The Army has announced that as a result of Congress' making victims of attacks by foreign terrorist acts eligible, the Fort Hood victims will get Purple Hearts, and civilians will get Defense of Freedom medals.

That language broadened the definition of an attack on eligible victims to include an assault by "a foreign terrorist organization." The definition includes attacks by a perpetrator or perpetrators in contact with a foreign terrorist organization or "inspired or motivated by a foreign terrorist organization" prior to the attack.

The Nov. 5, 2009, attack on Fort Hood by Maj. Nidal Hasan, in which he killed 13 and wounded 32 while shouting "Allahu Akbar!," fits the new eligibility requirements. Hasan was known to have been in contact before the attack with American cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, a senior leader in al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), and left a paper trail of support for and inspiration by Awlaki and AQAP.

President Obama, of course, is not going to personally present the long-delayed medals made possible by language included in the 2015 National Defense Authorization Act. That would require him to agree that Hasan was linked to, and motivated by, AQAP, a terrorist organization. That would make Fort Hood a terrorist attack and Hasan an Islamic terrorist.

Sunday, February 08, 2015

ISIS and Saudi Arabia Have the Exact Same Goal: World Domination

By Michael Snyder

When ISIS released a video which showed Jordanian pilot Moaz al-Kasasbeh being burned alive, it shocked the entire planet. The evil that it takes to do such a thing is on a level that is almost unspeakable. In the western world, we have a very hard time understanding what would motivate anyone to take a life in such a manner. But in the Middle East, this brand of tyranny has been percolating for a very, very long time. The brand of Islam that ISIS seeks to impose on the areas of Iraq and Syria that it has conquered has been practiced in Saudi Arabia for centuries. Just like ISIS, Saudi Arabia also publicly flogs those that “insult Islam”. Just like ISIS, Saudi Arabia also beheads those that commit serious violations of sharia law. And it is no secret that the Saudis have been pouring billions upon billions of dollars into organizations that promote jihad all over the globe. But because they have a quarter of the world’s oil reserves and they pretend to be our friends, we don’t say anything. They may be more subtle than ISIS, but ultimately they have the same goal as ISIS. When it is all said and done, the Saudis and ISIS both agree that Islam will ultimately rule the world one day. The only disagreement is about how to get there.

Approximately one out of every seven people in the world is Muslim. And the heart of the Muslim world can be found in Saudi Arabia. When ISIS militants publicly flog and behead people for not submitting to sharia law, they are just copying what Saudi Arabia has been doing for centuries. For example, a Saudi blogger was just recently sentenced to 1,000 lashes for “insulting Islam“. And on average there is a beheading in Saudi Arabia every four days.

So where is the outrage?

Is it only wrong when ISIS does it?

Saturday, February 07, 2015

Iran Rising

By Caroline Glick

Israel’s reported strike January 18 on a joint Iranian-Hezbollah convoy driving on the Syrian Golan Heights was one of the most strategically significant events to have occurred in Israel’s neighborhood in recent months. Its significance lies both in what it accomplished operationally and what it exposed.

From what been published to date about the identities of those killed in the strike, it is clear that in one fell swoop the air force decapitated the Iranian and Hezbollah operational command in Syria.

The head of Hezbollah’s operations in Syria, the head of its liaison with Iran, and Jihad Mughniyeh, the son of Hezbollah’s longtime operational commander Imad Mughniyeh who was killed by Israel in Damascus in 2008, were killed. The younger Mughniyeh reportedly served as commander of Hezbollah forces along the Syrian-Israeli border.

According to a report by Brig.-Gen. (res.) Shimon Shapira, a Hezbollah expert from the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, the Iranian losses included three generals. Brig.- Gen. Mohammed Alladadi was the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps liaison officer to Hezbollah and to Syrian intelligence. He was also in charge of weapons shipments from Iran to Hezbollah. Gen. Ali Tabatabai was the IRGC commander in the Golan Heights and, according to Shapira, an additional general, known only as Assadi, “was, in all likelihood, the commander of Iranian expeditionary forces in Lebanon.”

The fact that the men were willing to risk exposure by traveling together along the border with Israel indicates how critical the front is for the regime in Tehran. It also indicates that in all likelihood, they were planning an imminent attack against Israel.

Friday, February 06, 2015

Sheriffs Push Back Against Homeland Security’s ‘Not-So Veiled Threat’

By Melissa Quinn

Hundreds of miles from the nation’s capital, local sheriffs are feeling reverberations from Congress’ fight over Department of Homeland Security funding.

This week, Secretary Jeh Johnson delivered what one sheriff views as a “not-so veiled threat” on what could happen if an agreement isn’t reached. Johnson’s statement, released Tuesday, explains why Congress needs to pass a bill funding the federal agency before Feb. 27.

But a sheriff in Colorado is pushing back against Johnson’s message.

In the statement, Johnson called for a Homeland Security funding bill “unburdened by politically charged amendments that attempt to defund our executive actions on immigration reform.” He reiterates President Obama’s threat to veto any legislation the attempts to block his immigration policies.

“It’s a not-so-veiled threat that if [lawmakers] don’t do what the president wants, law enforcement agencies are going to get the short end of the stick,” said Sheriff Justin Smith of Larimer County, Colo.

Thursday, February 05, 2015

Senate Democrats: Amnesty for Illegal Aliens is more Important than Homeland Security. #DontShutDownOurSecurity

By Daniel Horowitz

In his farewell address, President George Washington warned about the danger of political parties.  Today we are witnessing Washington’s premonition play out in spectacular fashion. 

So strong is the desire of rank-and-file Democrats to rally behind their party leader, they will even support the president’s patently unlawful acts– simply because he is their man.

Just how unconstitutional is Obama’s unilateral action to create an entire immigration program for 5 million illegal aliens? 

Even Obama himself, a president who has a zealous penchant for ruling by administrative fiat, said explicitly on 22 occasions that it is unlawful.  He even compared his unilateral action to the acts of a king or emperor.  Yet, he insidiously waited until after the last election of his presidency to issue an executive amnesty.

Obama’s amnesty action is nothing short of nullification of our most bedrock laws – those governing our borders and sovereignty.  Article I Section 8 of the Constitution grants Congress the plenary power over immigration.  Even the Supreme Court has held that the formation of any immigration policy “is entrusted exclusive to Congress,”[1] and “[t]he plenary authority of Congress over aliens . . . is not open to question.”[2]

No president has the authority to blackmail Congress into passing his immigration priorities.

This president is engaging in a one-man nullification process of foundational laws passed by multiple Congresses – all out in the open.

Rev. Jeremiah Obama Compares Christians of 1291 to Today's ISIS

By Sara Noble

Barack Obama, speaking at a prayer breakfast Thursday morning, equated ISIS with Christians of 1000 years ago.

Sounding like an impassioned Black Liberationist preacher, Barack Obama made it clear today that he feels the same way about Christians as he does about Jews and America itself.

No one needs to be told normal Muslims cannot be blamed for the maniacs destroying the Middle East, Far East, Asia and Africa. What he doesn’t understand is these maniacs are not radical Christians or radical Jews or radical Hindus. They are radical Islamists and it’s the year 2015 not 1291.

There is no use delving into the obvious. Listen to his obnoxious rant for yourself. It’s very revealing of who he is and what he believes:

Wednesday, February 04, 2015

CONGRATULATIONS, TEXAS: Valerie Jarrett Working Behind the Scenes to Cede Your State to Mexico

President Jarrett is reportedly the driving force behind a campaign designed to turn Texas blue through illegal immigration, thereby ensuring that all presidential elections end up with a Democrat victor.

According to Capitol Hill sources, de facto president Valerie Jarrett wants Texas and its 38 electoral votes... badly. More troubling is she has apparently been working very hard to make the state turn blue in the very near future, a result that would finalize far left control of the United States in every national election to follow. Jarrett is doing so with a combination of hundreds of thousands of recent immigrants flooding the state, combined with billions of dollars in federal giveaways like Obamacare that will unofficially pledge those new votes to the increasingly far left/progressive/globalist Democratic Party...



... “She is invading Texas with the clear intent to take it over. Look at the public campaign w/La Casa Blanca. That’s her campaign. That is the more immediate primary purpose of his executive amnesty. They’ll have Texas and that means they’ll never lose another national election. Ever.”

...The above tweet originated from the La Casa Blanca office, and was then re-tweeted from Jarrett’s own account as well. Within hours of the La Casa Blanca tweet, Jarrett was sharing her views on how wonderful Obamacare is for all Americans – including immigrants.


Here's the other version of the postcard Jarrett didn't show Americans. Texico, here we come!

Jarrett is hinting at 743,000 “more people” immediately coming into Texas via the president’s executive amnesty. Logic dictates that within just a few more years this number would easily surpass the one million mark (and likely already has) – a coordinated invasion via the federal government into the only state that gives voters a choice between Republican and Democrat in national elections. The only state that makes such a choice have any semblance of being competitive.

One million votes represents the difference between Texas giving a Republican its 38 electoral votes in a national election or those votes going Democrat. It is the difference between Texas being a blue state, or remaining a red state. Valerie Jarrett has been working very hard to permanently alter the Texas electoral landscape to ensure it forever after favors far left Democrats in future elections.

Barack Obama will fade into political obscurity after 2016, but Valerie Jarrett’s manipulations will continue to impact the country for many more years to follow, and taking Texas is a top priority in that long range plan...

You've been warned, Texas. Are you going to sit there and take this from the radical left? Or are you going to do something about it?


Hat tip: BadBlue News.

PREDICTABLE INANITY: Obama threatens veto of Keystone pipeline, forcing oil shipments over "antiquated infrastructure"

By Investor's Business Daily

Stimulus: Obama says jobs from the Keystone project aren't permanent and it's just one pipeline that will move foreign oil to foreign markets. But fixing the bridge he once used as a prop didn't create permanent jobs either.

'Let's set our sights above a single pipeline," the leader of the party of infrastructure told Congress in the State of the Union. But this Congress has 80 more Republicans than when he took office, and on Thursday the Senate rejected his admonition by a 62-36 vote.

Eight Democrats crossed the aisle after a series of amendment votes, a process that had vanished under former Majority Leader Harry Reid. While not approved with a veto-proof majority, the Keystone bill, after House approval, will head to Obama's desk, where stopping the pipeline will finally put the onus on him and him alone.

The president wants a bill that fixes the nation's bridges and roads — legislation he touted when he spoke last July with the Interstate 495 bridge over the Christina River near Wilmington, Del., as a backdrop. The bridge had been closed for emergency repairs after the discovery of four tilting support columns. Yet Obama didn't make the argument it was just one bridge or that the jobs fixing it wouldn't be permanent.

Yes, Keystone is just one pipeline. But its 1,700 miles would join the more than 50,000 miles of existing pipelines crisscrossing the U.S., including one already carrying crude from Canada. When those building the pipeline finish it, they'll just move on to other pipelines and projects, like people who finish a bridge or road move on to other bridges and roads.

Keystone XL would bring up to 830,000 barrels of oil per day and directly create 20,000 truly shovel-ready jobs. And it would carry not only Canadian oil, but also oil from the Bakken shale formation of North Dakota.

Even if it carried only Canadian oil to foreign markets, it and the Gulf Coast refineries that would process the oil would be operated not by robots but by American workers. Would President Obama rather live in a world dependent on oil from North America or on oil from the Middle East and OPEC?

Most of the Bakken crude is now carried to market via far more dangerous shipments by BNSF Railway Co., which has more than 1,000 miles of tracks in the region. BNSF was bought by Obama's favorite one-percenter, Warren Buffett, in 2010.

The Keystone XL bill should arrive on the president's desk just as the State Department receives final comments on the proposed Canada-to-Texas project. Agencies are required to send their recommendations to the State Department by Feb. 2, another step in the seemingly endless six-year review of the project. We have fought and won wars in less time.

Will Democrats Formally Announce an Alliance With Hamas and Boycott the Israeli Prime Minister's Speech to Congress?

Just how far off the reservation has the Democrat Party wandered in 2015?

Are they poised to join arms with President Obama and announce formal alliances with Hamas, Hezbollah, the Muslim Brotherhood and Iran? We will soon see, America:

Democrats might skip Benjamin Netanyahu speech

Joe Biden is among those not committed to attending the Israeli prime minister’s address to Congress.

Vice President Joe Biden won’t commit to attending Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to a joint meeting of Congress next month.

He’s not the only one.

Dozens of House Democrats are privately threatening to skip the March 3 address, according to lawmakers and aides, in what’s become the lowest point of a relationship between the Israeli prime minister and President Barack Obama that’s never been good.

Democrats have had to balance publicly supporting Israel with backing Obama, who’s trying to close a deal with Iran to curb its nuclear programs over vehement opposition from Netanyahu, who has expressed concerns that the U.S. president is being naive. Negotiations are facing a deadline at the end of March for a political framework...

...Netanyahu’s already been denied an Oval Office meeting with Obama. Secretary of State John Kerry has no plans to meet with him while he’s in town, a State Department official told POLITICO on Tuesday.

This sort of thing must pose quite the head-scratching conundrum for many in the American Jewish community. If they support their far left ideology, they also must support the Nazi-backed, Islamofascist movement and all it entails.

1. Obama is entertaining Muslim Brotherhood leaders in the White House and at the State Department
2. Obama is doing his level best to ensure Iran continues its work on nuclear weapons
3. Obama is doing his level best to ostracize Israel and ridicule its self-preservation instinct
4. Obama continues to legitimize the tactics of Hamas
5. Obama refuses to call the Islamic state "Islamic"

And Democrats, instead of speaking out, are in lockstep with him.

The chasm between civilization and barbarism is widening and many are now caught straddling the fissure.

Meanwhile, President Obama has time to meet with a woman who eats cereal out of a bathtub, but not the leader of one of America's closest allies, which faces an ever-increasing existential threat in a nuclear Iran.


Hat tip: Dan from New York.

Tuesday, February 03, 2015

The Other Source of Terrorism

By Alan Caruba

I never fail to be astonished by the amount of corruption there is in the world. It is a very human trait whether it was royalty asserting that they ruled by God’s choice until their subjects rose up against them or modern day despots encountering the same fate.

Sarah Chayes has authored “Thieves of State: Why Corruption Threatens Global Security” ($26.95, W.W. Norton) and it is quite timely when you consider that corruption ignited the “Arab Spring”, first in Tunisia when a peddler grew so tired of the police asking for bribes that he set himself afire in protest. Its dictator’s wife openly displayed the nation’s stolen wealth for which they were driven from power. In Egypt there was a similar response when the public tired of the looting of the state treasury by Mubarak’s son. Revolts from Libya to Syria have been generated by the same cause.

Corruption in the Middle East has a long history, but it is worldwide and, depending on the nation, is either tolerated as part of the way the culture does business or resisted by governments who understand that it undermines their legitimacy. Throw a dart at the map of the world and you are likely to hit a nation where corruption is influencing current events. As Chayes notes, “Time and again U.S. officials are blindsided by major developments in countries where they work. Too often they are insensible to the perspectives and aspirations of population.”

A classic example is Afghanistan where both the Soviet Union and the U.S. ran into such ingrained corruption that it undermined their objectives, the former to turn it into a satellite and the latter to turn it into a modern, democratic government. Chayes cites Afghanistan as a classic example of why the Taliban emerged as a jihadist movement. Corruption in the form of bribes, kick-backs, cronyism, is so deeply engrained in Afghanistan that it generated a movement to replace it with sharia law by Islamists.

“If the very Afghan officials by whose sides they planned to combat extremists were generating those extremists themselves—by having men shake down travelers and taking a cut, or leaving bills unpaid, or by providing judiciously selected ‘intelligence’ to engineer a night-raid against a rival trafficking network—it was too big a paradox to take in. NATO officers,” said Chayes, “did not want to know.”

“The corruption networks” in Afghanistan, writes Chayes, “were just too vertically integrated: any move against any official, no matter how lowly, would reverberate all the way up the chain to Karzai.”

Monday, February 02, 2015

IT'S ALL ABOUT BOWE BERGDAHL: The Real Reason the White House Won't Call the Taliban "Terrorists"

By Investor's Business Daily

Semantics: If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck ... well, you get the idea. But not this White House, which called the Fort Hood massacre by a self-proclaimed jihadi yelling "Allahu Akhbar" "workplace violence."

Despite Army denials, desertion charges appear likely and imminent in the case of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, who walked away from his combat post in Afghanistan.

The White House line that we traded five Taliban generals for him because "we leave no man behind" is wearing thin. We do and should leave deserters behind, and if we ever get our hands on them, their fate is usually not a happy one. Neither should Bergdahl's be.

The administration believes that its trade for the five Taliban leaders — who are eligible to return to the battlefield in three months, and one of whom has already phoned his old terrorist pals — could still possibly be explained away as a well-intentioned mistake.

At the time, Bergdahl was said to be in bad health, and he hadn't been officially charged with anything. And besides, the Taliban is not a terrorist group.

That's now the official line by an administration that let Marine Andrew Tahmooressi rot in a Mexican jail because he took the wrong exit but that sees nothing wrong in rescuing a deserter in time of war while strengthening an enemy that has cost America much in lives and treasure.

We can't be trading terrorists for a turncoat if the Taliban is not a terrorist organization. They're an "armed insurgency," as White House deputy press secretary Eric Schultz explained.

IS is a terrorist group but the Taliban is not, making it lawful to deal with them.

Never mind that this administration does not consider the Islamic State either Islamic or a state.

Sunday, February 01, 2015

Muslim Brotherhood Nazis Call for "Long, Uncompromising Jihad" After Meeting with Obama State Department

By Terresa Monroe-Hamilton

It couldn’t be more obvious to me that Obama and his Administration are in bed with the Muslim Brotherhood. This past week, they held a confab at the State Department concerning their ongoing efforts to oppose the current government of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi of Egypt, who rose to power following the overthrow of Mohamed Morsi, an ally of the Brotherhood, in 2013. And that just pissed Obama off to no end. Not hard to tell where his allegiances lie and they certainly aren’t with Israel.

Waleed Sharaby, who is a secretary-general of the Egyptian Revolutionary Council and a spokesman for Judges for Egypt, a group reported to have close ties to the Brotherhood, posed for a selfie in front of the State Department emblem while showcasing the Muslim Brotherhood Rabia four-finger sign. The caption under the pic says, “Now in the U.S. State Department. Your steadfastness impresses everyone.” The sign is named after Rabia Square in Cairo, where a large anti-coup sit-in was held for about forty days before it was dispersed. The sign is meant to express solidarity with the thousands wounded, killed and burnt by the Egyptian army during the dispersal and persistence of the anti-coup movement, whereas pro-coup activists, figures and media consider the sign to be a terrorist sign. Or should that be called an ‘armed insurgent’ sign since we are not allowed to call the Muslim Brotherhood, the Taliban or CAIR the scum bag terrorists they are? Confusing, huh? Only certain terrorists are actually terrorists according to Obama. Only the ones he doesn’t snuggle with. Actually, doing away with the word ‘terrorist’ altogether is straight out of CAIR’s playbook. Radical Islamists of a feather and all that.

The delegation not only included Sharaby, it also had on board Gamal Heshmat, a leading member of the Brotherhood and Abdel Mawgoud al-Dardery, a Brotherhood member who served as a parliamentarian from Luxor as part of its makeup. Maha Azzam, who was also part of the delegation, proclaimed that the talks were ‘fruitful.’ Yeah, I bet they were. Azzam was speaking at the Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy (CSID). This is yet another group accused of having close ties to the Brotherhood. Azzam also declared that the State Department expressed openness to engagement. Quoi? Engage in what precisely? So, does this mean that the Brotherhood is now just another arm of our State Department? It’s sure beginning to look that way.

Saturday, January 31, 2015

The Politics of Deceit and Delusion

By Caren Besner


In the heady early days of WWII, fear of an enemy air attack on both East and West coasts was overwhelming. The U.S. government's response was to mobilize tens of thousands of civilian volunteers into an early warning system capable of discerning the number, type, and direction of any enemy aircraft formation over U.S. soil. The volunteers were given silhouettes of both enemy and American aircraft to study and commit to memory. In this way, individuals who could not tell the difference between a Mitsubishi and a Messerschmitt, were taught how to discern the differences between the two. The government also printed and distributed handbooks on both German and Japanese military forces, which detailed not only the uniforms and insignia of the enemy, but their motivation and psychology as well. This was very important, for as any first year cadet at West Point will tell you; enemy recognition is a vital component in the ability to wage war.

Fast forward almost 75 years. In his 2015 State of the Union address, President Obama acknowledged that one of his primary functions was to protect the American homeland and its people from attack. This was the correct thing to say, yet his administration seems to be going about it in a very ambivalent manner; using political correct terminology to re-define the war on terror.

Instead of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, it is now an "overseas contingency operation."

Major Hassan's rampage at Fort Hood is now classified as "workplace violence," and Islamic Jihadists are not terrorists at all, but "violent extremists." This latter interpretation places ALL acts of Islamic terrorism in the same category as Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh; completely ignoring present day realities as they actually exist.

The Official White House Terrorist Identification Chart

I have no idea how he does it, but Michael Ramirez -- the finest political cartoonist of his generation -- keeps getting better each and every day.


I truly believe that Ramirez will go down in history as one of the most influential artists of his era.

Which complements his frequent subject, who will go down in history as one of the most destructive men in American history.


Hat tip: BadBlue News.

Friday, January 30, 2015

SEN. TOM COTTON: Obama's Ally Iran Has Been Killing Americans for Three Decades

By TheTower

Sen. Tom Cotton (R – Ark.) presented an overview of Iran’s record in targeting the United States and its citizens in an op-ed published today in The Wall Street Journal (Google link). After writing that “Iran has been killing Americans for more than three decades,” Cotton offered some examples.

In 1983 Iran helped finance and direct the bombing of the U.S. Embassy and Marine barracks in Beirut, killing hundreds of American military, diplomatic and intelligence personnel. Iran has also been implicated in the 1996 Khobar Tower bombings, which killed 19 American troops stationed in Saudi Arabia.

More recently and personally for me, Iran has been responsible for the killing and maiming of thousands of American troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. During my tour in Baghdad leading an infantry platoon, Iran supplied the most advanced, most lethal roadside bombs used against coalition forces. My soldiers and I knew that Iranian-supplied bombs were the one thing our armored vehicles couldn’t withstand. All we could do was hope it wasn’t our day to hit one. My platoon was lucky; too many others were not.

Cotton also referenced Iran’s support for terror, noting that the State Department described it as the “the worst state sponsor of terrorism.”

Cotton made similar remarks yesterday (embedded below) at the Senate Banking Committee hearing on the Nuclear Free Iran Act of 2015.

Thursday, January 29, 2015

BEHOLD: The Loch Ness Monster of Politics

By Bill Whittle

Ah, Progressives! You really have to – well, not admire them exactly – but if not admire them then at least grant them a grudging respect for the tenacity of their beliefs.

Unfortunately for them, the Socialist utopia is a Cryptid, which, according to Wikipedia’s serviceable definition, is “a creature whose existence has been suggested but has not been discovered or documented by the scientific community.” Here’s another example of a cryptid: it’s called the Loch Ness Monster. Like the socialist utopia, the Loch Ness Monster requires a lot of magical thinking.

Magical thinking is not wishful thinking. “It sure would be cool if there was a Loch Ness Monster!” That’s wishful thinking.

Magical thinking is the belief that belief can make things actually manifest themselves in the real world. Magical thinking not only dulls reason – it kills reason. Magical thinking is actually form of anti-thinking: belief in something not because of evidence, but in spite of evidence.

For example, people who believe in the existence of the Loch Ness Monster will almost universally claim that it is the last of the Plesiosaurs – giant marine dinosaurs that definitely did exist millions of years ago. Like all dinosaurs, Plesiosaurs are air breathers. So in order to believe in the Loch Ness Monster, you have to believe that an air-breathing creature the size of a city bus lives under the surface of Loch Ness.

OBAMA PENTAGON: Say, By the Way, Red China is Rapidly Approaching Military Superiority Over U.S.

By Investor's Business Daily

Arms Buildup: A senior weapons developer tells Congress that Beijing's massive defense buildup, emphasizing precision-guided and other advanced weapons, has placed the U.S. and its shrinking military at serious risk.

'I am very concerned about the increasing risk of loss of U.S. military technological superiority," Frank Kendall, deputy undersecretary for acquisition, said Wednesday. "We're at risk, and the situation is getting worse." He was testifying before the House Armed Services Committee at a hearing on the subject of defense and technological change.

The Chinese were paying attention to U.S. military dominance in the early 1990s after we won the arms race and the Cold War, he said. And they watched and analyzed our ability to project overwhelming power in Desert Storm after Iraq invaded Kuwait. "No one observed more carefully the dominance we demonstrated in 1991 than the Chinese," Kendall observed.

China quickly went to work on its own power projection capabilities and what is called asymmetrical warfare, the ability to disrupt an enemy's war plans without necessarily matching them tank for tank or ship for ship. Kendall says he became "alarmed as soon as I started seeing technical intelligence reports on China's modernization programs.

"What I'm seeing," he went on, "is foreign modernization, again particularly China's, in a suite of capabilities that are intended, clearly to me at least, to defeat the American way of doing power projection, (the) American way of warfare when we fight in an expeditionary manner far from the United States."

Among China's advanced weapons systems are:

Wednesday, January 28, 2015

DEE-LIGHTFUL: Iran and Hezbollah Grabbing M-1 Tanks Abandoned in Iraq by Obama

The question isn't: what could possibly go wrong electing a Marxist community organizer with no experience in the real world to the most powerful office in the world?

No. The question is: what could possibly go right?

A video uploaded to YouTube appears to show a large Hezbollah Brigades convoy transporting weapons, troops, and armored vehicles to the front to fight the Islamic State.

Several American-made military vehicles, including an M1 Abrams tank, M113 armored personnel carriers, Humvees, and Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles (MRAP), as well as Iranian-made Safir 4x4s and technicals (armed pickup trucks) are in the convoy.

The Hezbollah Brigades is US-designated foreign terrorist organization that has been involved in killing American soldiers in Iraq.

At one point in the video, a transport truck is shown carrying an M1 Abrams tank. The Hezbollah Brigades' flag is flying over the tank and other US-made vehicles. The M1, which is the main battle tank of the US Army, has been sold to and utilized by the Iraqi Army.

The screen shot above marks the first evidence of Iranian-backed militias having M1 tanks at their disposal. It is unclear if the Hezbollah Brigades seized the M1 from an Iraqi Army unit that dissolved in the face of the Islamic State's onslaught, or if the Iraqi military gave the militia the tank. Several Iraqi M1s have been photographed after being destroyed by the Islamic State.

The Hezbollah Brigades, or Kata'ib Hezbollah, receives funding, training, logistics, guidance, and material support from the Qods Force, the external operations wing of the Revolutionary Guard Corps. The radical militia has joined the fight against the Islamic State in Iraq. In addition, other Iranian-supported Shia militias, such as Asaib al Haq, Badr Organization, and Muqtada al Sadr's Promised Day Brigades have played a prominent role on the battlefield. these militias have played key rolls in securing Amerli, Baiji, and Jurf al Sakhar, and are on the forefront of the fighting in Diyala province.


Bill Roggio has the complete story.

It can be perfectly summarized by this administration's choice of slogans for its foreign policy initiatives. You know, Leading From Behind. Smart Power. And, lest we forget, Reset!.

These leftist dolts are going to get one hell of a lot of people killed when it's all said and done.


Hat tip: BadBlue News.

Tuesday, January 27, 2015

LEADING FROM BEHIND UPDATE: Iranian General Brags That Iran's Borders Now Reach Yemen

Wasn't it just a few months ago that Generalissimo Obama stated that Yemen was a strong, stable ally against terrorism?

Why, yes. Yes, it was.

So it was utterly predictable that this would happen:

Following the gains of the Iran-backed Shiite Houthi rebels in Yemen, an official in the Iranian Army says that Iran’s borders reach today the capital of Yemen, Sanaa.

Brigadier General Baqir Zada said in a press conference (Arabic link):

“Iran’s Borders don’t reach only the Shalamja region – the border area between Al-Ahwaz and Iraq – but to the Yemeni capital Sanaa.”

“The Houthis victory in Yemen was not an easy victory. This is not a normal routine event in the region, but this is a historic victory for the Iranian Islamic revolution.”

Zada also took the opportunity to attack the Gulf states and other Arab countries:

“The options of the Gulf states against Iran’s plan were reduced. There is no longer Saddam in Iraq or Bin Laden in Afghanistan. Iran can reach places which Arab leaders never dreamed of them, through the effect it has on the Islamic peoples rebelling against oppression in the Islamic world.”


As Ted Cruz so eloquently put it in The Washington Times, "Yemen’s collapse demonstrates Obama’s foreign policy failures."


Hat tip: BadBlue News.