Month: April 2009

Arabs Defend Israel Against American Administration

Miracles continue to happen in the Holy Land. Of course, when it comes to survival, Arabs know who to look to for protection.

Caroline Glick, writing in the Jerusalem Post, says:

It is a strange situation when Egypt and Jordan feel it necessary to defend Israel against American criticism. But this is the situation in which we find ourselves today.

Last Friday, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told the House of Representatives Appropriations Committee that Arab support for Israel’s bid to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons is contingent on its agreeing to support the rapid establishment of a Palestinian state. In her words, “For Israel to get the kind of strong support it’s looking for vis-a-vis Iran, it can’t stay on the sidelines with respect to the Palestinians and the peace efforts.” As far as Clinton is concerned, the two, “go hand-in-hand.”

But just around the time that Clinton was making this statement, Jordan’s King Abdullah II was telling The Washington Post that he is satisfied with the Netanyahu government’s position on the Palestinians. In his words, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has “sent a message that he’s committed to peace with the Arabs. All the words I heard were the right words.”

As for Egypt, in spite of the media’s hysteria that Egypt won’t deal with the Netanyahu government and the Obama administration’s warning that Israel can only expect Egypt to support its position that Iran must be denied nuclear weapons if it gives Jerusalem to the PLO, last week’s visit by Egypt’s intelligence chief Omar Suleiman clearly demonstrated that Egypt wishes to work with the government on a whole host of issues. Coming as it did on the heels of Egypt’s revelation that Iranian-controlled Hizbullah agents were arrested for planning strategic attacks against it, Suleiman’s visit was a clear sign that Egypt is as keen as Israel to neutralize Iranian power in the region by preventing it from acquiring nuclear weapons.

And Egypt and Jordan are not alone in supporting Israel’s commitment to preventing Iran from becoming a nuclear power. American and other Western sources who have visited the Persian Gulf in recent months report that leaders of the Gulf states from Bahrain – which Iran refers to as its 14th province – to Saudi Arabia to Kuwait and, of course, to Iraq – are praying for Israel to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities and only complain that it has waited so long to attack them.

As one American who recently met with Persian Gulf leaders explained last week, “As far as the Gulf leaders are concerned, Israel cannot attack Iran fast enough. They understand what the stakes are.”

UNFORTUNATELY, THE nature of those stakes has clearly eluded the Obama administration. As the Arabs line up behind Israel, the Obama administration is operating under the delusion that the Iranians will be convinced to give up their nuclear program if Israel destroys its communities in Judea and Samaria.

According to reports published last week in Yediot Aharonot and Haaretz, President Barack Obama’s in-house post-Zionist, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel, told an American Jewish leader that for Israel to receive the administration’s support for preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, it must not only say that it supports establishing a Palestinian state in Judea, Samaria, Jerusalem and Gaza, it must begin expelling its citizens from their homes and communities in Judea and Samaria to prove its good faith.

Many of us warned American Jews prior to the election that an Obama administration would create danger for Israel. American Jews were so enthralled with electing an African-American President so they could assuage their guilt and could show that they were not racist, that they wouldn’t believe that an Obama Administration might not be good for Israel.

More from Glick:

With just months separating Iran from either joining the nuclear club or from being barred entry to the clubhouse, the Obama administration’s apparent obsession with Judea and Samaria tells us that unlike Israel and the Arab world, its Middle East policies are based on a willful denial of reality.

The cold hard facts are that the Middle East will be a very different place if Iran becomes a nuclear power. Today American policy-makers and other opponents of using military force to prevent Iran from building nuclear weapons compare the current situation to what the region could look like in the aftermath of an Israeli campaign against Iran’s nuclear installations. They warn that Hizbullah and Hamas may launch massive retaliatory missile attacks against Israel, Egypt, Jordan and other states, and that US military personnel and installations in the region will likely be similarly attacked by Iranian and Syrian proxies.

Indeed, proponents and opponents of an Israeli strike against Iran’s nuclear installations alike warn that Iran’s deployment of terror proxies from Beirut to Bolivia, from Managua to Marseilles, and from Gaza to Giza means that things could get very ugly worldwide in the aftermath of an Israeli attack.

But all of that ugliness, all of that instability and death will look like a walk in the park compared to how the region – and indeed how the world – will look if Iran becomes a nuclear power. This is something that the Arabs understand. And this is why they support and pray for an Israeli strike against Iran’s nuclear installations.

IF IRAN acquires nuclear weapons, the Obama administration can throw its hopes for Middle East peace out the window. Today, even without nuclear weapons, Iran is the major force behind the continued Palestinian war against Israel. Iran exerts complete control over Hamas and Islamic Jihad and partial control over Fatah.

In and of itself, Iran’s current control over Palestinian terror groups suffices to expose the Obama administration’s plan to force Israel to destroy its communities in Judea and Samaria as misguided in the extreme. With Iran calling the shots for the Palestinians, it is clear that any land Israel vacates will fall under Iranian control. That is, every concession the US forces Israel to make will redound directly to Iran’s benefit. This is why Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s claim that it will be impossible to resolve the conflict with the Palestinians without first neutralizing Iran rings so true.

The Obama Administration is totally clueless about the mentality of the Middle East. Their naivete, ignorance and inexperience will cause the deaths of many people in the region, most of whom will likely be Israelis.

Glick concludes by describing what will happen to the world if Iran acquires nuclear weapons. You can read the whole article for that information, but here is what she says about America.

Finally, there is America. With Israel either barely surviving or destroyed, with the Arab world and Europe bowing before the mullahs, with much of Central and South America fully integrated into the Iranian axis, America would arguably find itself at greater risk of economic destruction and catastrophic attack than at any time in its history since the War of 1812. An EMP attack that could potentially send the US back to the pre-industrial age would become a real possibility. An Iranian controlled oil economy, financed by euros, would threaten to displace the dollar and the US economy as the backbone of the global economy. The US’s military options – particularly given Obama’s stated intention to all but end US missile defense programs and scrap much of its already aging nuclear arsenal – would be more apparent than real.

Yet what Clinton’s statements before Congress, Emmanuel’s statements to that American Jewish leader and Obama’s unremitting pandering to Teheran and its Syrian and Turkish allies all make clear is that none of these reasonable scenarios has made a dent in the administration’s thinking. As far as the Obama White House is concerned, Iran will be talked out of its plans for regional and global domination the minute that Israel agrees to give its land to the Palestinians. The fact that no evidence exists that could possibly support this assertion is irrelevant.

On Sunday, Washington Post columnist Jim Hoagland claimed that Obama will not publish his administration’s policy on Iran until after he meets with Netanyahu at the White House on May 18. It will be during that meeting, Hoagland wrote, that Obama will seek to convince Netanyahu that there is no reason to attack Iran.

The fact that Obama could even raise such an argument, when by Israel’s calculations Iran will either become a nuclear power or be denied nuclear weapons within the next 180 days, shows that his arguments are based on a denial of the danger a nuclear Iran poses to Israel and to global security as a whole.

It is true that you can’t help but get a funny feeling when you see the Arabs defending Israel from American criticism. But with the Obama administration’s Middle East policy firmly grounded in La La Land, what choice do they have? They understand that today all that stands between them and enslavement to the mullahs is the Israel Air Force and Binyamin Netanyahu’s courage.

One wonders at what point American Jews will realize that they made a catastrophic mistake in electing Barak Obama to the Presidency.

Previous Related posts:
Obama: No Ally to Israel
Obama: No Friend of Israel
American Jews are in Denial
Can Jews Afford To “Roll the Dice” on Obama?
Morris: American Jews Misguided
Jackson Confirms Jewish Community Concerns About Obama
Foreign Policy is Reason to Vote McCain
The Jewish Case Against Barack Obama
Obama, McCain and Israel’s National Security
The Obama Voter – Not This Jew

A Scary Rightwing Extremist


Here is one of those scary rightwing extremists that the Department of Homeland Security is warning us about here.

(Photo courtesy of Gateway Pundit

Limited Government and the Tenth Amendment

The 10th Amendment to the Constitution, consisting of just 28 words, reads:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

This is one of the most important amendments to the Constitution. Our Founders were concerned that a Federal Government that did not have limitations would become too powerful, which would lead to an oppressive national goverment and weaken the rights of the States and the people. That is exactly what has happened.

The 10th Amendment, called the Enumerated Powers Amendment, states that only those powers specifically delegated to the Federal Government in the Constitution are the powers it has, and all others are reserved either to the States or to the people.

For 70 years the Federal Government has expanded its powers far beyond those enumerated in the Constitution. One example: The Department of Education. The Federal Government has no Constitutional authority for regulating education. Not only is it not a power enumerated in the Constitution, but education is clearly an area best administered by the States, or the people (parents).

There are many such examples of the unconstitutional overreach of the Federal Government.

H.R. 450, introduced by Republican John Shadegg (R. AZ) and 15 others requires any Act of Congress to contain an explanation of which enumerated power in the Constitution gives the authority for that act. Excerpt:

‘Each Act of Congress shall contain a concise and definite statement of the constitutional authority relied upon for the enactment of each portion of that Act. The failure to comply with this section shall give rise to a point of order in either House of Congress. The availability of this point of order does not affect any other available relief.’

Write to all members of the House of Representatives, especially your own, and urge them to vote for H.R. 450. It is a major deterrent to the unprecedented expansion of the Federal Government.

Urge Congressmen to vote YES on H.R. 450.

Legislative Alert: SB 773 and SB 778

Obama to Control the Internet?

Senate bills No. 773 and 778, introduced by Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.V., are both part of what’s being called the Cybersecurity Act of 2009, which would create a new Office of the National Cybersecurity Advisor, reportable directly to the president and charged with defending the country from cyber attack.

I have a copy of a working draft of the legislation. It spells out plans to grant the Secretary of Commerce access to all privately owned information networks deemed to be critical to the nation’s infrastructure “without regard to any provision of law, regulation, rule or policy restricting such access.”

There are three areas where we need to be very concerned, and where it seems to me there might be violations of the Constitution:

* First, the White House, through the national cybersecurity advisor, shall have the authority to disconnect “critical infrastructure” networks from the Internet – including private citizens’ banks and health records, if Rockefeller’s examples are accurate – if they are found to be at risk of cyber attack. The working copy of the bill, however, does not define what constitutes a cybersecurity emergency, and apparently leaves the question to the discretion of the president.
* Second, the bill establishes the Department of Commerce as “the clearinghouse of cybersecurity threat and vulnerability information,” including the monitoring of private information networks deemed a part of the “critical infrastructure.”
* Third, the legislation proposes implementation of a professional licensing program for certifying who can serve as a cybersecurity professional.

In layman’s terms, what this means is that the White House will have the power to shut down the internet if there is a “cybersecurity emergency.” A cybersecurity emergency isn’t defined and is left to the discretion of the President. Which means that whenever there is information coming across the internet that is unfavorable to the President, he would have the power to declare a “cybersecurity emergency.”

This is a very dangerous power to give to the President and the Administration. Having the power to control the internet is a way for the Party in power to control free speech, under the guise of declaring a cybersecurity emergency.

The internet is the only way that we can freely disseminate information. We can’t do it through the mainstream media. If we give control of the internet to the government, free speech, and our ability to communicate our message can be totally stifled in this country.

Urge your Senators, and others, to vote NO on S.B. 773 and S.B. 778.

Obama Appeals to Moderate Pirate Community

Exurban League has the info.

Excerpt:

For too long, America has been too dismissive of the proud culture and invaluable contributions of the Pirate Community. Whether it is their pioneering work with prosthetics, husbandry of tropical birds or fanciful fashion sense, America owes a deep debt to Pirates.

The Global Financial Meltdown Did Not Start in the U.S.

Alan Reynolds in an article on the Cato Institute site concludes that President Obama, and other G-20 leaders, have it wrong.

At the recent meeting of G-20 nations in London, officials from many nations agreed on one thing — that the United States is to blame for the world recession. President Obama agreed, speaking in Strasbourg of “the reckless speculation of bankers that has now fueled a global economic downturn.”

The article shows that the recession did not start in the U.S., and that the speculation of bankers was not the cause of the recession or the financial meltdown.

Instead, he lays the blame for the global meltdown at the feet of the oil cartel, and the price of petroleum.

What really triggered this recession should be obvious, since the same thing happened before every other postwar US recession save one (1960).

In 1983, economist James Hamilton of the University of California at San Diego showed that “all but one of the US recessions since World War Two have been preceded, typically with a lag of around three-fourths of a year, by a dramatic increase in the price of crude petroleum.” The years 1946 to 2007 saw 10 dramatic spikes in the price of oil — each of which was soon followed by recession.

In The Financial Times on Jan. 3, 2008, I therefore suggested, “The US economy is likely to slip into recession because of higher energy costs alone, regardless of what the Fed does.”

In a new paper at cato.org, “Financial Crisis and Public Policy,” Jagadeesh Gokhale notes that the prolonged decline in exurban housing construction that began in early 2006 was a logical response to rising prices of oil and gasoline at that time. So was the equally prolonged decline in sales of gas-guzzling vehicles. And the US/UK financial crises in the fall of 2008 were likewise as much a consequence of recession as the cause: Recessions turn good loans into bad.

The recession began in late 2007 or early 2008 in many countries, with the United States one of the least affected. Countries with the deepest recessions have no believable connection to US housing or banking problems.

The truth is much simpler: There is no way the oil-importing economies could have kept humming along with oil prices of $100 a barrel, much less $145. Like nearly every other recession of the postwar period, this one was triggered by a literally unbearable increase in the price of oil.

Read the complete article.