http://www.prudenpolitics.com/index.php/pruden/full_column/demons_devils_and_an_unholy_campaign
Maybe everybody should follow Michelle Obama’s example and take a vacation from politics. She’s off to Aspen to get in a little snow, seeking relief from surfing in Hawaii and the clatter and bang-bang of Campaign ‘12. The rest of us can at least fantasize a fun weekend in Detroit.
The Republican debates, so called, have left everyone shell-shocked, suffering under the constant cannonading of stinkbombs, heavy artillery and watching the mortar barrage between Channel 3 and Channel 5. Mitt Romney continues his run for cover, Rick Santorum throws mangled Scripture, and Newt Gingrich, fortified by new transfusions of fools’ millions, tells the frontrunner it’s time for him to think about quitting. This could have been Harold Stassen’s opportunity to indulge an urge to surge—but, alas, he’s still dead.
Barack Obama is finally getting a little good news from the polls, even if it’s likely to be temporary good news. A couple of pollsters say his positives now weigh as much as his negatives, and for the moment he doesn’t have to mess with Mr. In-Between. Besides, he’s got other worries, familiar to every father with a daughter in junior high school. As usual, it’s enough to make liberals talk like conservatives.
http://spectator.org/archives/2012/02/20/still-in-denial-on-iran
Is it rational to view its regime as rational?
U.S. national security adviser Tom Donilon is now in Israel for talks with top officials. The Telegraph reports that while Washington claims the visit is routine, “Israel’s option of launching a strike on Iranian nuclear facilities was expected to be the urgent topic of discussion.”
Israel has indeed been getting some further unfriendly messages from Iran lately. Last week Iran attacked or attempted to attack Israeli diplomats in Azerbaijan, India, and Thailand, with Israeli sources warning of further attempts. Currently two Iranian warships have docked at Syria’s port of Tartus.
Yet the message from Washington continues to be — don’t do anything, the situation’s under control. It was further amplified over the weekend by Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey, who told CNN:
It’s not prudent at this point to decide to attack Iran. A strike at this time would be destabilizing and wouldn’t achieve their [Israel’s] long-term objectives…. We are of the opinion that Iran is a rational actor. We also know, or we believe we know, that the Iranian regime has not decided to make a nuclear weapon.
http://www.rightsidenews.com/2012022015654/editorial/world-opinion-and-editorial/why-diplomacy-will-really-work-this-time-and-do-you-want-to-buy-a-bridge.html
The latest in the Obama administration’s campaign to convince an already skeptical public that Iran should not be attacked – by either the US or Israel, is none other than the Hon. Dennis B. Ross. In his February 6th
appearance at The Aspen Institute he expressed confidence that “the emergence of crippling sanctions” were forcing “Iran to make a cost-benefit calculation,” that “Iran was being isolated in the region,” and so the “Iranians are increasingly aware the price they are paying.” Therefore opines Mr. Ross, Iran will hopefully drop its nuclear ambitions and make an impending Israeli attack unnecessary.
Mr. Ross, a former State Department advisor, NSC official and a special assistant to President Obama, repeated this argument in his February 15th op-ed in The New York Times entitled: “Iran is Ready to Talk.”
His opening line sets the tone, if not the accuracy: “Speculation about an Israeli strike against Iranian nuclear facilities is rife, but there is little discussion about whether diplomacy can still succeed, precluding the need for military action.” Since he is only one more in a long line of Obamites discussing this line in recent months, it is incredulous he can suggest “there is little discussion.”
The Obama administration is in full court press mode suggesting diplomacy is the way, the only way. On February 1st, Radio Free Europe reported: “US Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said on January 31st that a combination of Western sanctions and diplomacy could still persuade Iran to abandon nuclear work which could be diverted toward an atomic weapon.” William H. Luers and Thomas R. Pickering in a February 2nd New York Times op-ed entitled “Envisioning a Deal With Iran” wrote: “As the dangers mount in the confrontation between the United States and Iran, both sides will have to raise the doors high for diplomacy to work, and to avoid conflict.” And David Ignatius wrote in his February 2nd Washington Post column that “US officials see two possible ways to dissuade the Israelis from such an attack: Tehran could finally open serious negotiations for a formula to verifiably guarantee that its nuclear program will remain a civilian one…” These are only three examples of endless discussion which Mr. Ross must have missed by not reading, listening or viewing any American media vehicle in the last several months.
Cleverly, Mr. Ross admits from the start that “Many experts doubt that Tehran would ever accept a deal that uses intrusive inspections and denies or limits uranium enrichment to halt any advances toward a nuclear weapons capability, while still permitting the development of civilian nuclear power.” But having said that, a basic truth to which there really is no reliably safe answer, he still claims: “But before we assume that diplomacy can’t work, it is worth considering that Iranians are now facing crippling pressure and that their leaders have in the past altered their behavior in response to such pressure.” When Iran has comparably “altered their behavior” in the past he doesn’t say. But no matter, declares Mr. Ross: “Notwithstanding all their bluster, there are signs that Tehran is now looking for a way out.” Again, the reader is left to guess the signs, since Mr. Ross doesn’t think it important to say what they are.
http://spectator.org/archives/2012/02/20/tar-and-feathers-for-ray-mabus A Navy secretary only an Obama would like. “Ray Mabus has done more than any predecessor to divert the Navy from its primary missions of keeping the oceans free, projecting American power, and maintaining one leg of our nuclear triad. He’s a political hack, no better than Eric Holder or Katherine Sebelius, and in […]
THIS IS NOT A REPEAT…ALTHOUGH THE URL TITLE DOES NOT MATCH…IT IS PART THREE AND THE DISCUSSION CONTINUES…..RSK
Debating the Bush Legacy — on The Glazov Gang
by Jamie Glazov
Ben Shapiro, Eric Allen Bell and Doris Montrose battle it out on the Bush record.
http://frontpagemag.com/2012/02/22/to-build-or-not-to-build-a-mosque-in-america-on-the-glazov-gang-1-1/
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204909104577233191850812630.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
The Not-So-Vast Conspiracy Stolen documents show the tiny budget of global warming skeptics.
When did it become received media wisdom that global warming skepticism was all the work of shadowy right-wing groups lavishly funded by oil companies? As best we can tell, it started with a 1995 Harper’s magazine article claiming to expose this “high-powered engine of disinformation.” Today anyone who raises a doubt about the causes of global warming is accused of fronting for, say, Exxon, whatever the facts.
Now comes a rare glimpse inside the allegedly antiscience behemoth, with the online publication last week of documents purloined from the conservative Heartland Institute. The files appear to contain detailed financial, donor and personnel information and outline the think-tank’s projects. Chicago-based Heartland says one of the documents is fake and warns that others may have been altered.
Given the coverage the story has generated, you’d think some vast conspiracy had been uncovered. Heartland is, according to the Associated Press, “one of the loudest voices denying human-caused global warming, hosting the largest international scientific conference of skeptics on climate change.” The Vancouver Sun reports that it is “heavily funded by right-wing industrialist Charles Koch,” while the Virginian-Pilot dubs it “the ideological center of the denial movement.”
So how flush is Heartland? The documents show the group is expecting revenues of $7.7 million this year, mostly from private donations and grants. Mr. Koch’s “heavy” funding came to $25,000 in 2011, though the Heartland “Fundraising Plan” has it hoping for an increase in 2012. To put those numbers in not-for-profit perspective, last year the Natural Resources Defense Council reported $95.4 million in operating revenues, while the World Wildlife Fund took in $238.5 million.
Press coverage has focused in particular on Heartland’s plans to produce and distribute “educational material suitable for K-12 students on global warming that isn’t alarmist or overtly political.” Heartland is budgeting $200,000 this year for the effort, which in the past has “had only limited success,” per one of the documents. Little wonder if teachers aren’t returning Heartland’s calls: Last year the World Wildlife Fund spent $68.5 million on “public education” alone.
http://www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org/p18933.xml
Last week, President Obama feted Communist China’s Xi Jinping, the man who hopes to lead his country as it emerges as the world’s next superpower. Mr. Xi must have been delighted to see press reports that his host is poised to end America’s claim to such status – at least with respect to the traditional means of measuring it: nuclear weaponry.
According to a story first reported by the Associated Press, Mr. Obama has directed the Defense Department to come up with plans for reducing the U.S. nuclear arsenal by as much as eighty percent. Evidently, he is prepared to take such a step unilaterally in order to encourage by our example other nations to join in his longstanding ambition to “rid the world of nuclear weapons.”
It is unclear whether the topic came up during the various meetings the PRC’s vice president had with his White House and other interlocutors. Even if it did, Xi presumably would not have disclosed a closely held Chinese secret: How many missiles and warheads have been squirreled away in 3,000 miles of hardened tunnels that make up what has been called the “Underground Great Wall of China.”
http://www.romirowsky.com/11208/terrorists-diplomats
Israelis all over the world were recently warned to be on the alert for potential terror attacks, given Iran’s constant attempt to sponsor assaults on its own and through its proxies like Hezbollah on Israeli/Jewish targets worldwide. Prior to the recent attack on the Israeli diplomatic car in New Delhi, Israeli intelligence warned India of an imminent threat to Israeli establishments and individuals, providing them a detailed list of about 50 individuals— all Iranian nationals—believed to be involved in such actions (although Indian officials are working with Israel, the Indian authorities have yet to confirm this).
Consequently, Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast, of course, denied these charges, stating that, “The Zionist regime has a high record of criminal actions against humanity and it is the first suspect of any terrorist operation in the world …Tehran condemns terrorism in strongest terms as Iran has been a victim of terrorism.”
http://letthemfight.blogspot.com/2012/02/another-american-prostrates-himself-and.html
In a world where every aberrant act, every self-inflicted malady and every vice is considered an epidemic, we most certainly need to add to the list the act of prostrating oneself and by extension, his country for every single assumed infraction of societal and ideological moray in every minor culture in the world!
As an American, watching senior Officers and Elected Officials continually apologizing for one piece of inanity or another has passed from bothersome to an active insult to the American people! And even if an unhealthy percentage of this population is not insulted by this most despicable of trends; many of us are! These Officers and our elected officials fail to understand they do not represent the many foreign cultures of the world and they certainly are not properly representing us by continuing to prostrate themselves and by extension, us for every little suggestion of insensitivity toward the delicate mental state of the ideologically unhinged.
This latest example was provoked by a gaggle of angry Afghan protestors who were reacting to a story that the Koran or even several copies of the Koran had been disposed of – unceremoniously. If anyone had read the actual account, they would have learned that the copies that were discarded and burned belonged to EPW’s (Enemy Prisoners of War) being held on Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan. They were confiscated when it was determined that the EPW’s were using the Koran as an illicit messaging system to communicate with one another.
To Be Or Not To Be Is Israel’s Dilemma February 21, 2012 By Nurit Greenger The world is currently busy with speculation, postulation and guessing game as to when Iran will own its atomic bomb and will Israel attack Iran, to prevent the Mullahs’ region from acquiring the nuclear weapons, destined for the destruction of […]
