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December 2018

U.S. holiday shopping season best in six years: report Aishwarya Venugopal

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-holidayshopping/u-s-holiday-shopping-season-best-in-six-years-report-idUSKCN1OP0U3

– Sales in the 2018 U.S. holiday shopping season rose 5.1 percent to over $850 billion, the strongest in six years, according to a Mastercard report on Wednesday, as shoppers were encouraged by a robust economy and early discounts.

The data follows Amazon.com Inc’s announcement of a “record-breaking” selling season, with the online retail giant shipping a billion items for free through its Prime membership in the United States.

Amazon’s shares jumped as much as 5 percent, while those of Kohl’s Corp rose 4.2 percent. Macy’s Inc gained 3.6 percent, Nordstrom Inc 3 percent, and Target Corp and Walmart Inc rising over 1 percent.

The strong sales numbers indicated that rising market volatility due to concerns over slowing global growth and political deadlock in Washington has not impacted consumer confidence so far.

“I don’t see that (volatility in the markets and Government shutdown) as having any impact … but I am cautiously optimistic for the consumer going into 2019,” said Steve Sadove, senior adviser for Mastercard.

Trump’s Syria Withdrawal Hinges on Turkey By Angelo Codevilla

https://amgreatness.com/2018/12/25/trumps-syria-

Whether pulling the remaining U.S. troops from Syria turns out to be a bold and beneficial move or a stupid, harmful one depends on what Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdoğan will do. That, in turn, depends in no small part on what constraints he senses from President Trump—as well as from Russia’s Vladimir Putin.

Here, to the best of my understanding, are the circumstances and the possible consequences of the president’s decision to withdraw from Syria.

Erdoğan had been menacing a military attack on the Kurds in Northeast Syria who, working with U.S. troops, are finishing the dirty work of killing off ISIS. The U.S military has been warning the Turks not to do that, at ever higher levels. But when Trump called Erdoğan to talk him out of attacking our troops’ partners, it seems that Erdogan simply talked him into removing our troops.

Departing Secretary of Defense James Mattis’s anger is understandable. The boss undercut him after, following orders, Mattis had given orders down the line, as well as his word to fellow fighters. National security advisor John Bolton, too, would have been dismayed: he and Trump had agreed that we owe the Kurds a lot, and that the Kurds south of Turkey’s border provide a natural barrier to a variety of enemies of America, not least Erdoğan. Bolton might well have resigned along with Mattis if Trump had merely bowed to Erdoğan. Whether Trump bowed or not depends on whether or not there is more to the story.

Erdoğan is America’ s enemy. As far back as 2003, he forbade use of Turkish ground and airspace for U.S. operations in Iraq, including the U.S. Air Force base at Incirlik. A member of the Muslim Brotherhood, he has turned Turkey from a NATO ally into an Islamist dictatorship.

Neither wise nor competent, he aims to resurrect something like the Caliphate, with Ottoman Turkey its seat and himself as the Sultan in all but name. To this end, he supported the Brotherhood’s attempted takeover of Egypt, supports Hamas in Gaza, and a host of Sunni terrorist groups, in Syria as well. Only with Turkey’s active help was ISIS able to market the oil it got from Iraqi and Syrian fields, buy arms, receive recruits from abroad, etc. ISIS became more than a minor nuisance only because Erdogan provided it with a hinterland.

Erdoğan meant to use ISIS as the head of the Sunni spear to overthrow Syria’s Alawite (a version of Shia) regime. However, Erdoğan also opposes Sunni Saudi Arabia, mainly because he is financed largely by Qatar, which is in a very bitter quarrel with Saudi Arabia. In part because of Qatar, he believes he has some kind of understanding with Iran, though it is on the opposite side of the great Sunni-Shia war. He welcomed Russia’s intervention in Syria, though it brought Iranian influence to his southern as well as to his eastern border. Passionately anti-American and in disregard of Turkey’s secular geopolitical adversary relationship with Russia, he seems to be satisfied with Vladimir Putin’s de facto overlordship of the Middle East.

Palestinians: The Real “Crimes” by Bassam Tawil

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13472/palestinians-crimes

As far as Abbas and other Palestinians are concerned, Israel’s security measures in response to terrorist attacks are also a “crime.” In other words, they are saying that Israel does not have the right to conduct hot pursuit after terrorists hiding in Palestinian cities or refugee camps.

When it comes to the actions of the Palestinian leaders themselves, however, they see utter innocence. For them, the daily incitement against Israel and Jews is not a “crime.” For them, the glorification of terrorists and paying salaries to their families is not a “crime.” For them, the shooting of a pregnant woman at a bus stop is not a “crime.”

Such messages are driving Palestinians into the open arms of Hamas. If you are telling your people that Israel and the Jews are criminals, and that anyone who does business with them or visits them is guilty of a “crime,” you are telling them that Hamas has got it right: Palestinians should be seeking the destruction of Israel, not peace with it.

The Palestinian Authority (PA) leadership’s favorite — and probably most used — word in recent weeks is “crime.” This is the word that PA President Mahmoud Abbas and his senior officials in Ramallah have endorsed as part of their anti-Israel campaign of incitement. Almost every statement that is issued by the Palestinian leadership concerning Israel includes the word “crime.”

For Abbas and his officials, almost everything Israel does or says is a “crime.”

ّIn their world, building housing units for Jews in the West Bank or Jerusalem is a “crime.”

According to the logic of Abbas and his Palestinian officials, the killing of a Palestinian terrorist who murdered two of his Jewish co-workers and Israel’s subsequent demolition of his house is a “crime.”

US Pullout from Syria: Who Will Fill the Vacuum? by Burak Bekdil

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13475/us-pullout-syria-vacuum

“What Turkey is going to do is unleash holy hell on the Kurds. In the eyes of Turkey, they’re more of a threat than ISIS. So this decision is a disaster.” — U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham.
The U.S. move also could turn out to be a death-blow on Washington’s efforts to keep Tehran from further establishing itself in Syria and threatening the security not only of Israel, but of the entire Mediterranean region.
Potential Turkish-Kurdish conflicts would further destabilize Syria and strengthen Russia. This point cannot be ignored. Turkey’s and Iran’s dependency on Russia in Syria will increase, as the trio further teams up to have a larger role in shaping Syria’s future.
It is understandable that abstaining from the role of the world’s policeman may look consistent with Trump’s pre-election pledge to “Make America Great Again.” Nevertheless, caution is needed here: Leaving the “policing” job in the world’s most volatile and turbulent parts to un-free regimes such as Russia, China, Iran and Turkey could also damage the quest of America and others in the free world to become great again — and to remain free. The free world simply does not have the luxury — even in remote geographical areas — of allowing security to be policed by un-free state and non-state actors.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s unexpected decision to pull U.S. troops from Syria (and Afghanistan) was music to Turkish ears. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan called it “the clearest and most encouraging statement” from Washington.

Foreign Minister Mevlüt Cavuşoğlu welcomed Trump’s abrupt decision to withdraw all 2,000 U.S. troops from northern Syria. Defense Minister Hulusi Akar vowed that that Syrian Kurdish fighters whom Turkey considers as top regional security threat, would soon be “buried in the trenches that they dig.”

A League of Democracies: Dusting Off an Old Idea by Lawrence A. Franklin

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13474/league-of-democracies

“Ours are not western values. They are the universal values of the human spirit. Anywhere and anytime, ordinary people when given the choice, the choice is the same: freedom not tyranny, democracy, not dictatorship, the rule of law, not the rule of the secret police.” — Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, 2003.

A League of Democracies might also serve as a vehicle to increase the numbers of democracies in the world: it could have as its overriding objective the expansion of democracy throughout the planet.

During a recent interview, Ambassador Ron Dermer, Israel’s Ambassador to the United States, suggested that a “League of Democracies” would help freedom-loving states survive the challenge to democratic values presented by authoritarian states and extremist ideologies.

According to Dermer, the league could be made up of a consortium of “Free World” nations unlimited by territorial region, race or culture. The alliance could be global in scope, not confined, as is NATO to a North Atlantic community of nation-states. Nor would the league be exclusively military in nature. Dermer proffered that it could include India, the world’s most populous democracy; Israel, the Middle East’s only democracy, and Japan, an Asian democracy.

Such a league might also serve as a vehicle to increase the numbers of democracies in the world: a League of Democracies could have as its overriding objective the expansion of democracy throughout the planet. This goal was previously suggested by Dermer and the former Soviet dissident Natan Sharansky in their book, The Case for Democracy: The Power of Freedom to Overcome Tyranny and Terror. In it, the authors underscore this sentiment by quoting from former British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s address to a Joint Session of the United States Congress in 2003:

“Ours are not western values. They are the universal values of the human spirit. Anywhere and anytime, ordinary people when given the choice, the choice is the same: freedom not tyranny, democracy, not dictatorship, the rule of law, not the rule of the secret police.”

Syria: Allah’s Armageddon Let’s not make it our own. Jules Gomes

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/272335/syria-allahs-armageddon-jules-gomes

“But if the cause be not good, the King himself hath a heavy reckoning to make,” says soldier Williams in Shakespeare’s Henry V, before the Battle of Agincourt. In the face of opposition from Republicans and Democrats and international allies, President Donald Trump has ruled that the Syrian cause is not a good one.

“Does the USA want to be the Policeman of the Middle East, getting NOTHING but spending precious lives and trillions of dollars protecting others who, in almost all cases, do not appreciate what we are doing?” tweets the Commander-in-Chief of the United States.

It’s worse than the US getting nothing. Syria is a holy war. Westerners who refuse to concede how central religion is to the Eastern worldview simply cannot see the futility of getting sucked into a jihad that is not ours to fight.

Trump, the ever-astute businessman, doesn’t suffer from the grand delusion of his predecessors. They considered it an evangelical mission to usher in the silver age of democracy to an Islamic world that longs for the golden age of a Caliphate. Trump, the real-estate realist, isn’t infected with the virus of wishful thinking which leads Western leaders to believe that our secular interventions will solve the centuries-old religious problems of the Islamic world.

The jihadists know they can sucker the West into a war with a few video clips and an amateur production of Lawrence of Arabia. They know how to lure naïve infidels like us who sanitise religion from the public square and are supremely unaware of the Islamic theology of the end times. Would General Matthis and his defenders accept the reality that the crisis in Syria is fuelled by the expectation of an apocalyptic countdown to Allah’s Armageddon?

“Muslim apocalyptic has its centre in Syria,” writes David Cook in his monograph Studies in Muslim Apocalyptic. During the first two centuries of Islam, the Muslim armies faced the most protracted fighting on the Syrian front, since it was here that Islam faced its most formidable enemy, the Byzantine Empire. Syria, hence, became the key area for apocalyptic speculation. In fact Syria is the theatre of operations for much of apocalyptic activity.

Muhammad himself insisted that the final wars with the Byzantines would be the one major occurrence preceding “the hour” (Ibn Masud). Although Byzantium is Islam’s main enemy, “our apocalyptic material leaves us in no doubt that the struggle over Syria would be an all-out one with the whole Christian world,” writes Islamic scholar Suliman Bashear.

The Phony ‘Crises’ of Progressives Manufacturing a crisis to expand power. Bruce Thornton

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/272360/phony-crises-progressives-bruce-thornton

In November 2008, President-elect Obama’s chief-of-staff Rahm Emanuel signaled the new administration’s progressive sensibility when he said, “You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that it’s an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before.” For an ideology impatient with the rules of political change and democratic persuasion, the urgency of alleged crises creates powerful opportunities for politicians to suspend those rules and bypass the process of deliberation in which citizens exercise their autonomy and sovereignty.

Emanuel’s progressive intent becomes clearer if we see its relationship to progressive psychologist William James’ famous metaphor, “the moral equivalent of war.” There are serious social-political battles to fight, the implication goes, and it’s the moral duty of everyone to fight for the right side. In the case of progressives, the right side is the “arc of history” progressively bending toward greater “social justice” and equality, but impeded by the superstitious, the greedy, the unenlightened, and the evil.

Delve deeper into James’ metaphor and you see its sinister dimensions. Heraclitus said, “War is the father and king of all: some he has made gods, and some men; some slaves and some free.” War is the original creative destruction, in which fortune can turn in mere minutes. As such war often demands that the machinery of consensual government be compromised. The demands of war––the need for rapid mobilization, provision of matériel, and decisions and actions whose success relies on decisiveness and speed–– has led even constitutional states to provide for an office or executive that can be temporarily allowed expanded power.

The powers of the ancient Roman office of dictator, or the extra-constitutional scope given to our commanders-in-chief during wartime, speaks to the unique circumstances that war creates. But the example of Julius Caesar illustrates as well the dangers of giving one man too much power. Appointed dictator for a year, Caesar had his term eventually extended to life. During his tenure Caesar encroached on and abused the constitutional powers of other Republican institutions. And at the time of his assassination, he was rumored to be planning on becoming a king.

The American Founders were obsessed with excessive power creating a tyrant. Caesar was their model of what to avoid, and his assassins like Cato and Brutus, the models to emulate. They designated the president the “commander-in-chief” in recognition of the necessity of concentrating power in times of conflict. But they gave the power of declaring war to the Senate. And fearing a successful, charismatic general like Caesar, who commanded the military means to achieve his ambitions, they subordinated military power to civilian authority.

YITZHAK RABIN’S LEGACY: THE OSLO ACCORDS MOSHE DANN

https://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Yitzhak-Rabins-legacy-The-Oslo-Accords-575349

Serving in the IDF is considered an honor and members of the CIS fought in combat units; some are considered heroes – which is why most Israelis don’t understand the danger they pose.

Why do former and retired senior IDF officers and security heads, such as Commanders for Israel’s Security (CIS), who know what the PLO, Fatah, Hamas and other terrorist organizations have done and are capable of doing nevertheless advocate Israel’s withdrawal from Judea and Samaria (the “West Bank”), destroying Jewish communities, and establishing a sovereign Palestinian state – the “two-state solution (TSS)?”

Although considered “security experts,” they seem to have learned nothing during the last 30 years of appeasement and surrender. Because of the high esteem in which Israelis regard the IDF, however, it is often protected from criticism. Serving in the IDF is considered an honor and members of the CIS fought in combat units; some are considered heroes – which is why most Israelis don’t understand the danger they pose.

They are not stupid; they have access to the best security information available. They know that Palestinian groups are working with ISIS, and Iranian-backed Hezbollah and Hamas to destroy Israel and carry out hit-and-run terrorist attacks. They understand that Arabs and Palestinians have no intention of accepting Israel. They know the dangers that a Palestinian state presents to Israel, Jordan and Egypt. Why do they support it?

The CIS group is not alone. It is supported by left-wing organizations in Israel, such as the INSS, a think-tank composed of former IDF officers and security heads connected to Tel Aviv University and the Peres Center for Peace. They are part of the military/political establishment that promoted the Oslo Accords – which rehabilitated and legitimized Palestinian nationalism and gave Fatah and the PLO control of most of Judea and Samaria under the Palestinian Authority, and implemented the 2005 “Disengagement” – unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip which empowered Hamas and other Jihadist Islamist terrorist groups.

SUSPICIOUS IRANIAN CARGO PLANE LEFT DAMASCUS MINUTES BEFORE AIRSTRIKE SETH FRANTZMAN

https://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/Suspicious-Iranian-cargo-plane-left-Damascus-minutes-before-airstrike-575441
According to the site Flightradar24.com, the Boeing 747-281F left Damascus and flew due east towards Tehran, climbing to 30,000 feet and then crossing into Iraq after ten in the evening.

Two suspicious Iranian planes left Damascus on Tuesday night just prior to reports of airstrikes.

Details from flight monitoring sites show that a Fars Air Qeshm 747 cargo plane left Damascus International Airport at 9:28 in the evening, just half an hour before reports emerged of air strikes in Syria on Tuesday night.
According to the site Flightradar24.com, the Boeing 747-281F left Damascus and flew due east towards Tehran, climbing to 30,000 feet and then crossing into Iraq after ten in the evening.
By midnight it had entered Iranian airspace and began a beeline for Tehran. A second Tehran bound flight, Maham Air took off at 10:04 in the evening and flew precisely the same route. The Far Air Qeshm flight has been in the news in the past in relation to alleged smuggling of arms to Syria and also to Damascus. Al-Arabiya claimed that it transferred weapons to Hezbollah in early December. In October, FoxNews carried a similar report.

Similarly Mahan Air has been targeted by the US Treasury Department for links to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, making its departure right after the Fars Air Qeshm suspicions. Although the Fars Air Qeshm flight appears to have left before the airstrikes began, the Mahan Air flight seems to have left around the same time.

In the past reports have indicated that airstrikes targeted Damascus after suspicious flights landed and allegedly disembarked cargo for arms smuggling to Hezbollah factions.

Suspected Israeli Airstrike Rocks Damascus Airport, Hits Hezbollah Leaders

http://www.israeltoday.co.il/NewsItem/tabid/178/nid/35558/Default.aspx

A series of explosions rocked Damascus on Tuesday night as Israel allegedly targeted Hezbollah and Iranian targets.

A US Defense Department official told American media that top Israeli military brass had told him that a number of senior Hezbollah leaders were targeted as they boarded a plane for Iran.

Also reportedly targeted were strategic Iranian supplies to Hezbollah, including advanced GPS components for use in the many, many missiles that the Lebanese terror group has aimed at Israel.

Syrian media reported that its air defenses had opened fire on enemy targets launching a strike from Lebanese airspace. The Syrians said they had downed a number of targets, but there were no reports of any Israeli planes being hit.

One Syrian air defense missile entered Israeli airspace, triggering Israel’s air defenses. The IDF reported that the threat had been neutralized, but did not provide any specifics. It was also unclear if the Syrian missile merely went astray, or was purposely fired toward Israel as a warning.

If Israel was indeed behind the airstrike, it was a clear message to Syria, Iran and Russia that the Jewish state would continue to take decisive action against threats to its northern border despite the recent installation of advanced Russian anti-aircraft systems in the war-torn country.