Displaying posts published in

October 2019

ISRAEL, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Ruthie Blum A cautionary cannabis tale for globe-trotting Israelis

By on October 16th, 2019

https://www.jns.org/opinion/a-cautionary-cannabis-tale-for-globe-trotting-israelis/

As well-traveled as they are, Israeli millennials are so conditioned by the freedoms they enjoy at home—and so enamored of cultures other than their own—that they frequently miscalculate the consequences of their actions abroad.

After spending six months in jail on the outskirts of Moscow, a young Israeli woman named Naama Issachar was sentenced on Oct. 11 to seven-and-a-half years of imprisonment in Russia.

Both the extreme sentence and trumped-up charges of drug-smuggling not only have traumatized the 26-year-old from Rehovot—and inflicted great anguish on her family and friends—but also has spurred the entire Israeli legal and political system into action.

Israeli President Reuven Rivlin sent a letter to Russian President Vladimir Putin, pleading with him to pardon Issachar. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who recently discussed the matter with Putin in person when the pair met in Sochi in September, made another plea on Tuesday.

Issachar was detained in April while boarding a connecting return flight to Israel from India, where she had been trekking around with a friend for a few months. As she was about to get on the plane, she was stopped by Russian airport security on the grounds that 9.5 grams of cannabis had been found in her suitcase as it was being transferred from the belly of one plane to another.

Issachar’s plight so grips the nation that it now occupies the top news slot, overtaking the massive reportage of the Turkish incursion against the Kurds in northeastern Syria. It also is garnering serious social-media attention and legal-fee crowdfunding.

Continue reading →
FOREIGN POLICY, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

The Origins of New US-Turkish Relations By George Friedman

By on October 16th, 2019

https://geopoliticalfutures.com/the-origins-of-new-us-turkish-relations/

For several years, there has been a significant shift underway in U.S. strategy toward the Middle East, where Washington has consistently sought to avoid combat. The United States is now compelled to seek accommodation with Turkey, a regional power in its own right, based on terms that are geopolitically necessary for both. Their relationship has been turbulent, and while it may continue to be so for a while, it will decline. Their accommodation has nothing to do with mutual affection but rather with mutual necessity. The Turkish incursion into Syria and the U.S. response are part of this adjustment, one that has global origins and regional consequences.

Similarly, the U.S. decision to step aside as Turkey undertook an incursion in northeastern Syria has a geopolitical and strategic origin. The strategic origin is a clash between elements of the Defense Department and the president. The defense community has been shaped by a war that has been underway since 2001. During what is called the Long War, the U.S. has created an alliance structure of various national and subnational groups. Yet the region is still on uneven footing. The Iranians have extended a sphere of influence westward. Iraq is in chaos. The Yemeni civil war still rages, and the original Syrian war has ended, in a very Middle Eastern fashion, indecisively.

A generation of military and defense thinkers have matured fighting wars in the Middle East. The Long War has been their career. Several generations spent their careers expecting Soviet tanks to surge into the Fulda Gap. Cold Warriors believed a world without the Cold War was unthinkable. The same can be said for those shaped by Middle Eastern wars. For the Cold War generation, the NATO alliance was the foundation of their thinking. So too for the Sandbox generation, those whose careers were spent rotating into Iraq or Afghanistan or some other place, the alliances formed and the enemies fought seemed eternal. The idea that the world had moved on, and that Fulda and NATO were less important, was emotionally inconceivable. Any shift in focus and alliance structure was seen as a betrayal.

Continue reading →
FOREIGN POLICY, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

History Before and After America Shoshana Bryen

By on October 16th, 2019

To All: 
I am deeply sympathetic to Kurdish people and their aspirations. At the same time, US foreign policy has to take account of regional history that has never included us. How we do that remains to be seen. Our efforts in Iraq, Libya and Egypt were not successful – to say the least. S.B.

Kurdish forces, facing a well-armed and aggressive Turkey, appear to have turned to the Syrian government — meaning its sponsors in Iran and Russia — for rescue. It makes sense in historical terms, although it is likely to be bloody in current ones. Historical, in this case, means before the U.S. military presence in the northern part of the country.

The Syrian government is a minority Alawite (heterodox Shiite) one that had maintained control by allying with other minority groups in the country — such as Kurds and Christians — and with the Shiite rulers of Iran in order to keep a boot on the neck of the majority Sunni population. The war criminal Bashar al-Assad was simply following in his war criminal father’s footsteps —  in 1982, Hafez al-Assad massacred tens of thousands of Sunnis in the town of Hama, ensuring general quiet until 2011. Young Bashar, being a less efficient criminal, has killed more than half a million people (the U.N. stopped counting in 2016) and creating what the U.N. estimated in 2018 to be more than 13 million displaced people — more than six million internally plus more than three million in Turkey and one million more in Lebanon.

Most of them are Sunni. Deliberately.

Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, declared two goals in the current operation: To remove what he considers a threat from a terrorist organization, the PKK (set this aside for a moment), and to open the way to resettle more than one million Syrian refugees back in Syria. The refugees have become a political and economic liability for Turkey’s government.

Continue reading →
WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

How Erdogan Planned This Ethnic Cleansing All Along by Malcolm Lowe

By on October 16th, 2019

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15036/erdogan-plan-annihilation-kurds

As the Voice of America itself reported on January 23, Erdogan’s plan was to resettle three million or more refugees from other parts of Syria in this “security zone” extending twenty miles deep into Syria. Twenty miles may not sound much, but – the VOA omitted to mention – almost all the Kurdish towns of northeastern Syria lie within that area. So Erdogan’s intention to annihilate the Kurdish presence in that area and replace it with others has been manifest ever since the beginning of 2019.

A whole series of Trump’s Republican supporters in the Senate expressed outrage over his decision, starting with Lindsey Graham (“Pray for our Kurdish allies who have been shamelessly abandoned by the Trump Administration”) and continuing with Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, who remarked: “As we learned the hard way during the Obama Administration, American interests are best served by American leadership, not by retreat or withdrawal.”

It is now clear that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan intended the annihilation of the Syrian Kurds already two years ago. Moreover, his plans became evident to the US military by the beginning of 2019 and were conveyed to President Trump at that time.

In order to disguise his plans, Erdogan revealed them stage by stage, by making first lesser and then greater demands on the US military, to which Trump agreed — sometimes in the course of telephone conversations with Erdogan. So Erdogan was able to hoodwink the US military up to January 2019 and to hoodwink Trump up to the current invasion: Trump resolutely defied contrary advice from the military (and from everyone else).

At first, Erdogan demanded the removal of Kurdish militias only west of the Euphrates river. This was the proclaimed aim of his so-called Operations Euphrates Shield and Olive Branch (the expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Kurds from the Afrin area). With that accomplished, he began demanding a Turkish-controlled “security zone” east of the river, to be 32 kilometers deep. The US responded by agreeing to joint US-Turkish patrols in the area. Erdogan demanded that the Kurdish towns in the area should dismantle the fortifications that they had raised to defend themselves from the Islamic State (ISIS). The Kurds agreed, reassured by the US military that this step would remove any excuse for a Turkish invasion.

Finally, in October 2019, Erdogan asked Trump in a further telephone call to remove US troops from the patrols and Trump agreed, believing that by threatening Turkey on Twitter, he could deter a Turkish invasion. The invasion started forthwith. It has been stalled, maybe, now that the Kurds have invited the army of the Assad regime to deploy throughout northeastern Syria up to the Iraqi frontier. If so, the beneficiaries will include Iran, America’s arch enemy, which can now see its yearned-for highway all the way from Tehran to Quneitra on Israel’s border.

Continue reading →
WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Turkey, Russia, Iran: Filling the Vacuum by Erick Stakelbeck

By on October 16th, 2019

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15034/syria-kurds-turkey-russia-iran

The U.S. Congress is looking to push back against Erdogan’s brazen foray into northeastern Syria. For months, there has been a bi-partisan effort on Capitol Hill to convince the Trump administration to implement sanctions on Turkey in the wake of its purchase of the Russian S-400 missile system. The events of this past week will likely only escalate pressure by Congress against the Erdogan regime.

“We defeated ISIS,” a Peshmerga general said, “only to see Iran and its Shia militias become stronger. They are filling the vacuum.”

Islamist-led Turkey has now joined those same Iranian-led forces in filling that vacuum — with the full acquiescence of the United States.

On the Iran-Iraq border a few weeks ago, I found myself just a few hundred meters from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), standard bearers of a regime that has practically copyrighted the phrases, “Death to America” and “Death to Israel.”

At the Kurdish Peshmerga military base stood a series of small, white structures spread out across the mountaintops on the Iranian side of the border.

“IRGC observation posts,” said one of my Kurdish hosts, eying the mountains warily.

The Pershmerga generals interviewed in Iraqi Kurdistan seemed eager to talk about the threat posed by the IRGC and the Iranian regime—not only to the Kurds, Israel and the broader Middle East, but also to the United States.

Continue reading →
MY SAY: Comments turned off

MY SAY: ON THE DEBATES

By on October 16th, 2019

Tulsi Gabbard is the winner on her biography, substance, delivery and independence in a liberal circular firing squad.

However, the winner is President Donald Trump. As Peter Smith, an Australian journalist puts it:

“Republican presidents are always demonized by the Left but this time, with this president, it is different. The hate is palpable, extreme and unremitting, the depths unfathomable to which his enemies will descend in order to stitch him up with this bogus conspiracy or that one. Yet, with an aplomb not seen outside a superhero comic, he pummels them left and right. “

Peter Smith

Continue reading →
EDUCATION Comments turned off

Elite Universities Have Failed to Produce Elites The nation is in desperate need of a true aristocracy of merit. Zachary D. Rogers

By on October 16th, 2019

https://amgreatness.com/2019/10/15/elite-universities-have-failed-to-produce-elites/

The higher education system composed of “elite” institutions has failed to produce a truly educated elite to serve the nation. They have instead produced bureaucrats, financiers, and the engineers of Silicon Valley. Highly ranked and regarded institutions such as Harvard, Yale, and Princeton or “public ivies” like the University of Virginia, University of Michigan, and UC Berkeley have failed to produce men and women who are statesmen, creators, and leaders.

Students, parents, and high school administrators spend hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars to get themselves and their students into these institutions. Why? Not because of the promise they will receive an education (one cannot call four years almost entirely devoid of facts and disconnected from reality an education) but because it is expected that the time and money spent will launch them towards financial and professional success. This is a tragedy for the nation and a disaster for these institutions. It is something that cries out for reform and action from conservatives.

The nation is in desperate need of a true aristocracy of merit. Throughout history, the elites of the regime, whether Roman, English, or American have shaped the virtues, goals, and laws through their influence and example. The current system is failing to produce them. Instead, it has given us students who work aggressively to be admitted into highly ranked institutions and, once admitted, are rarely kicked out. Immense resources are devoted to assisting these students, and if they are struggling there is a program, tutor, or relaxed deadline to ensure they graduate.

We have created a ruling class where admission into the elite, powerful, and wealthy circles of the nation is secured by one’s college acceptance. It is well known and expected that these students will go on to become doctors, politicians, scientists, businessmen, and bankers. They are not taught to think or to understand how man has answered the perennial questions of existence. Neither are they equipped with a firm grasp of history, literature, or reality. Instead, they are trained to mouth the pieties of our “thought leaders.” Praise of diversity and tolerance is demanded of them. Likewise, they are to refrain from controversial behavior (such as support for the Second Amendment, opposition to homosexuality or abortion). This reflects a failure in understanding what a liberal arts education is and its importance for a free society.

One can only hope that out of the sheep at Harvard and Yale there might arise a statesman. Yet we cannot count on this.

Continue reading →
POLITICS Comments turned off

Tulsi Gabbard Lambastes CNN, NY Times for Suggesting She’s a Russian Asset, Slams Dem Foreign Policy Consensus By Mairead McArdle

By on October 16th, 2019

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/tulsi-gabbard-slams-cnn-ny-times-for-suggesting-shes-a-russian-asset-slams-dem-foreign-policy-consensus/

Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D., Hawaii) slammed CNN and the New York Times during Tuesday evening’s debate, which the two outlets co-hosted, accusing both of smearing her by attributing her call for an end to the “regime-change war” in Syria to a nefarious allegiance to Russia.

“The New York Times and CNN have also smeared veterans like myself for calling to an end to this regime-change war,” Gabbard told the crowd in Ohio.

“Just two days ago, the New York Times put out an article saying I am a Russian asset and an Assad apologist and all these different smears,” the Hawaii Democrat continued. “This morning a CNN commentator said on national television that I’m an asset of Russia. Completely despicable.”

A Times article published October 12 accused Gabbard of “defending the brutal Syrian dictator, Bashar al-Assad.” Hours before the debate, a CNN analyst called the senator a “puppet for the Russian government.”

Gabbard also blamed President Trump for ordering the withdrawal of U.S. troops from northern Syria, a move that has garnered bipartisan criticism.

“The slaughter of the Kurds being done by Turkey is yet another negative consequence of the regime-change war that we’ve been waging in Syria,” Gabbard said. “Donald Trump has the blood of the Kurds on his hand — but so do many of the politicians in our country from both parties who have supported this ongoing regime-change war in Syria that started in 2011, along with many in the mainstream media, who have been championing and cheerleading this regime-change war.”

Gabbard added that she would end “regime-change” wars in the region by ceasing “draconian sanctions,” which she called a “modern-day siege.”

Continue reading →
FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

Kurdish, Syrian, and Turkish Ironies By Victor Davis Hanson *****

By on October 16th, 2019

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/10/kurdish-syrian-turkish-ironies/

Critics now upset about abandoning our Kurdish friends demanded abject withdrawals — and the abandonment of friends — in Afghanistan and Iraq.

O utrage met Donald Trump’s supposedly rash decision to pull back U.S. troops from possible confrontational zones between our Kurdish friends in Syria and Recep Erdogan’s expeditionary forces.

Turkey claims that it will punish the Syrian Kurds for a variety of supposed provocations, including aiding and abetting Kurdish terrorist separatists inside Turkey. But what they say they can so easily do and what they really can do inside Syria are, of course, two different things.

A Noble People
Most Americans in general favor the Kurds and oppose the Turks. Aside from Israel, Kurds are about the only American allies in the Middle East who predictably fight alongside our troops against Islamists, theocrats, and Baathists. They admire Americans, and for the most part they do not indulge in the normal anti-American histrionics. They despise ISIS as much we do and are on the front lines combatting ISIS atrocities.

Skeptics might suggest that they do so mostly for self-interested reasons. But all people do that. And what is unusual about the Kurds of Iraq and Syria is the number of times they have risked their lives in battle alongside our own soldiers. For that alone, they deserve special American dispensations and should not be left to the vagaries of Turkish or Russian air power or any combined Turkish, Syrian, Islamist, or Iranian cynical alliance.

Like the Poles, the Armenians, the Greeks, and the Israelis, the Kurds are an honorable, ancient, and brave people who drew history’s unfortunate lot of living in a dangerous geography between much larger and aggressive nations. And, to be frank, all these endangered peoples at some point in their histories, ancient and modern or both, seem to have fought against Turkish forces, been targeted by them, or threatened by Ankara.

Continue reading →
HOMELAND SECURITY, IMMIGRATION Comments turned off

The Senate Voted to End Emergency on the Border But Hezbollah, ISIS, gangs and drug cartels didn’t get the memo. Michael Cutler

By on October 16th, 2019

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2019/10/senate-voted-end-emergency-border-michael-cutler/

On September 25, 2019 the Wall Street Journal’s MarketWatch posted a disturbing report, “Senate votes to end border emergency under which Trump redirected military funds to wall construction” that began with the following paragraph:

The Senate again approved a resolution to end President Trump’s national emergency at the southern border, with Republicans joining Democrats in a bid to prevent the president from redirecting military funds toward a border wall, though Trump was expected to veto it again.

The report went on to note that the Republicans control the Senate and ended with this sentence:

The vote was an unusual display of Republican rebellion against the president’s quest for his signature policy initiative, which led to the longest government shutdown in U.S. history that ended earlier this year.

The Democrats refused to accept that there was a crisis on the southern border in the first place, and now the Republican-controlled Senate has voted, yet again, to “end the crisis”!

What has not been determined, or reported upon, is how our politicians from either political party have come to the insane conclusion that the emergency on the treacherous southern border has ended.

Certainly the “all clear” has not sounded.

While President Trump has been successful in reducing the number of illegal aliens who are being apprehended by the Border Patrol along the southern border–though a number of tactics including getting Mexico to deploy their forces along the border and with other diplomatic initiatives–tens of thousands of illegal aliens continue to be apprehended by the U.S. Border Patrol each month and narcotics continue to be seized along that troubled border.

Continue reading →